What Are You Reading the Week of 22 February 2014?

Ishmael Reed (born 22 February1938) is an American poet, essayist, songwriter, playwright, and novelist, as well as being an editor and publisher. Reed is known for his satirical works challenging American political culture, and highlighting political and cultural oppression.

Reed's work has often sought to represent neglected African and African-American perspectives; his energy and advocacy have centered more broadly on neglected peoples and perspectives, irrespective of their cultural origins.

Reed was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, but grew up in Buffalo, New York, where he attended the University of Buffalo, a private university that became part of the state public university system after he left. The university awarded him an honorary doctorate in 1995.

In 1998, Reed spoke about his influences in an interview: "I've probably been more influenced by poets than by novelists — the Harlem Renaissance poets, the Beat poets, the American surrealist Ted Joans. Poets have to be more attuned to originality, coming up with lines and associations the ordinary prose writer wouldn't think of."

He moved to New York City in 1962 and co-founded with Walter Bowart the East Village Other, a well-known underground publication. He was also a member of the Umbra Writers Workshop, an organization among whose members were some that helped establish the Black Arts Movement and promoted a Black Aesthetic, although Ishmael Reed was never a participant in that movement.

In 2005, Reed retired from teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where he taught for thirty-five years. He currently lives in Oakland, California, with his wife of more than 40 years, Carla Blank, the acclaimed author, choreographer, and director. His archives are located in Special Collections at the University of Delaware in Newark.

Two of his books have been nominated for National Book Awards, and a book of poetry, Conjure, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. His New and Collected Poems, 1964–2007, received the Commonwealth Club of California's Gold Medal. A poem written in Seattle in 1969 -- " beware : do not read this poem" -- has been cited by Gale Research Company as one of the approximately 20 poems that teachers and librarians have identified as the most frequently studied in literature courses. Reed’s novels, poetry and essays have been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, German, Japanese, Hebrew, Hungarian, Dutch, Korean, Chinese and Czech, among other languages.

Since 2012, Ishmael Reed has maintained the honor of being the first SF Jazz Poet Laureate from SF JAZZ, the leading nonprofit jazz organization on the West Coast. LitQuake, the annual San Francisco Literary Festival, honored him with their 2011 Barbary Coast Award. Among Reed's other honors are writing fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and National Endowment for the Arts. In 1995, he received the Langston Hughes Medal, awarded by City College of New York; in 1997, the Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Award, establishing a three-year collaboration with the Oakland-based Second Start Literacy Project in 1998.

In 1998, he also received a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship award. In 1999, he received a Fred Cody Award from the Bay Area Book Reviewers Association, and was inducted into Chicago State University’s National Literary Hall of Fame of Writers of African Descent. Other awards include a Rene Castillo OTTO Award for Political Theatre (2002); a Phillis Wheatley Award from the Harlem Book Fair (2003); and in 2004, a Robert Kirsch Award, a Los Angeles Times Book Prize, besides the D.C. Area Writing Project’s 2nd Annual Exemplary Writer’s Award and the Martin Millennial Writers, Inc. Contribution to Southern Arts Award, in Memphis, Tennessee. A 1972 manifesto inspired a major visual art exhibit, NeoHooDoo: Art for a Forgotten Faith, curated by Franklin Sirmans for The Menil Collection in Houston, where it opened on June 27, 2008, and subsequently traveled to P.S. 1 Contemporary Art Center in New York City, and the Miami Art Museum through 2009.

Since the early 1970s, Ishmael Reed has championed the work of other contemporary writers, founding and serving as editor and publisher of various small presses and journals. His current publishing imprint is Ishmael Reed Publishing Company, and his online literary magazine, Konch, features poetry, essays and fiction. Reed is one of the producers of The Domestic Crusaders, a two-act play about Muslim Pakistani Americans written by his former student, Wajahat Ali. Its first act was performed at the Kennedy Center's Millennium Hall in Washington, D.C., on 14 November 2010, and remains archived on their website.

Reed's published novels

The Freelance Pallbearers (1967)
Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969)
Mumbo Jumbo (1972)
The Last Days of Louisiana Red (1974)
Flight to Canada (1976)
The Terrible Twos (1982)
Reckless Eyeballing (1986)
The Terrible Threes (1989)
Japanese by Spring (1993)
Juice! (2011)

Selected Non-Fiction

Shrovetide in Old New Orleans (1978)
God Made Alaska for the Indians: Selected Essays (1982)
Writing is Fighting: Thirty-Seven Years of Boxing on Paper (1988)
Airing Dirty Laundry (1993)
MultiAmerica, Essays on Cultural Wars and Cultural Peace (1997)
The Reed Reader (2000)
Blues City: A Walk in Oakland (2003)
Another Day at the Front, Dispatches from the Race War (2003)
Mixing It Up: Taking on the Media Bullies and Other Reflections (2008)
Barack Obama and the Jim Crow Media: The Return of the “Nigger Breakers” (2010)
Going Too Far: Essays About America's Nervous Breakdown (2012)

I am reading The Garden of Burning Sand and just finished listening to the fabulous audio production of The Whip

All ereader formats, $1.99:

American Son: My Story is the memoir of Oscar de la Hoya, whose public humiliating meltdown was so poignant from a major international boxing figure

To Have and to Kill is the first of Mary Jane Clark's Piper Donovan mysteries, very cozy and very quick reads

aaaaaannnnnnnnnnnd Carlos Ruiz Zafon's novel The Prisoner of Heaven!

I adore sales.

You made me look, Richard, you made me buy one. When I was looking at The Prisoner of Heaven on Amazon, I noticed that The Rose of Fire, a 36-page book that tells of the library in the trilogy, is free. For those interested in the trilogy, you might want to grab that one, too.

Nice biography today, too, Richard -- thank you.

Thanks, Richard, for the bio and ereader tips. I've read a little bit of Ishmael Reed, but not much.

I finished Ancillary Justice, which I found good but not great, and I've got Stone Cold underway and The Martian on my Kindle.

I happened to hit Kansas City right at rush hour so I decided to stop at Starbucks and get coffee, do a little LT and wait a half hour. I have half of Days of Blood and Starlight listened to and I love this series. It is inventive and full of twists and turns. It is a good thing that I won't have long to wait for the last book in the trilogy to come out.

I also finished reading Heartless by Gail Carriger. This is book 4 in the Parasol Protectorate series. They are fun and light hearted but I won't read any more of this series.

I am reading Cutting For Stone by Abraham Verghese and I like this book as well. Totally, not a Fantasy February title. It is for my real life book discussion group. I also hope to get Alif the Unseen by G. Willow Wilson started this week. That is a fantasy February book and recommended by Nancy Pearl.

I hope you like The Martian. I sure did and so did my OH, much to his surprise :)

Reading Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed American Forever by Bill O'Reilly. 1/3 into the book and it's a recap of the Civil War, which is ok. I'm more interested in the plots!

I'm up to my ears into the exquisite tale of Outlander. I can't say enough how much I love this book. It's one of those books you wish you could rediscover just for the joy of reading it for the first time again. Does anyone know if it has been made into a movie? Because it really should. Also, are the sequels as good?

Thanks for the bio. I'm still reading Cell by Robin Cook.

Another interesting bio - thanks.

I'm almost finished Robert's Rules of Writing, making my way through Thud! and Hawkeye My Life As A Weapon and I've just started The Kite Runner, having earlier today finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Thanks so much for another fascinating bio! Reed is an author I feel I should know, but I haven't heard of before. You are so great at filling in the embarrassing gaps of my knowledge!

As for what I am now reading, I am into True Grit by Charles Portis, and I am really enjoying it. I first read it when I was about 12, and haven't re-read it since, so it's quite interesting to see how the passage of time has shaped my reading and thoughts.

Yesterday I started reading I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban by Malala Yousafzai for my book club. It's an incredible story and I'm learning a lot about the history of Pakistan. I can see why she was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Just finished Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade Soaking in Great Books by Nick Hornby, a hilarious compilation of Hornby's columns for The Believer magazine about books bought and read. I showed great restraint in not marking down ALL of the books Nick loved but I couldn't resist when he wittily waxed on about The Family Fang, Ali Smith's The Accidental, a bio of Lucille Ball, Ball of Fire and more. Nick buys far more than he will ever read and many LTers (although not this one) will identify with his inability to pass by anywhere that sells books.

Also, he mentions that he's in the process of turning Colm Toibin's Brooklyn into a screenplay, a book that I loved.

One of my all-time favorite books about literature is on sale in electronic editions!

The Discarded Image by C.S. Lewis is only $3.99 and worth full price ($12.99) any old day. It's a deeply scholarly work, yes, but it's more than that, it's a meditation on storytelling as a means of building a map for the material world. It's beautiful and essential. Do read it.

I recently finished two wonderful books - The Hand That First Held Mine by Maggie O'Farrell and Still Life with Bread Crumbs by Anna Quindlen.

Today I'm starting the latest in Ann Cleeves' Shetland series, Dead Water, and continuing with John Green's Paper Town and the audio of Morality for Beautiful Girls.

>9 Vonini: Vonini, Starz is filming Outlander. It will be a short series, if I remember correctly.

>16 Copperskye: Appears it will be very pretty to look at!

>17 richardderus: Starz wants to be better known so they aren't going to be cutting corners on this Original. They went all out. Nice trailer! I was thinking it was starting in the fall but I see it's this summer. I'll make me wish I had Starz...

#9
The sequels are all as good as the original. I don't know anybody who has ever disliked these books. And everybody falls in love with Jamie.

Speaking of sequels - I just finished Days of Blood and Starlight by Liani Taylor and this sequel is better than the first book in this series Daughter of Smoke and Bone. I listened to the recorded version of this novel and listened to it in the car. It was so thrilling that I ended up reading the book far into the night after I got into the house and finished it. What a thriller! The author keeps the story moving beautifully and fills it with unexpected plot twists and turns. I may have to break down and preorder the last in this trilogy because I simply HAVE to know what happens.

Didn't Starz do Pillars of the Earth and White Queen?

>20 benitastrnad: And Black Sails too! And the entire Spartacus franchise. They do very good work.

Ooohhhh, I'll be sure to keep an eye out for the movie! Looks very promising.

#19 benitastrnad
Funny you should say that, I posted reading Outlander and loving it on the weekly Librarything Facebook post and I got a remark from someone wondering what the fuss was about, remarking 'it must be a woman thing'. Apparently not for everyone after all. But yes, I have developed a huge crush on Jamie. Don't tell my husband ;-)

Omigosh, omigosh, omigosh! I just returned from the big, quartely library booksale with lots of treasures, many I'd never even heard of! I came home with a total of 14 books.

Of course, this changes my reading agenda, LOL! Its' so hard to settle on just one, but I think I'll be starting with When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson.

I'm also eyeing several others, though, including Down to the Sea: A Merchant Mariner's Story by Arthur Webster. (Touchstones aren't working for that one.)

I even got a nice, big, juicy biography to read for when my reading mojo is in full force - No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt and the Home Front in World War II by Doris Kearns Goodwin, and my annual book for Halloween already - The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. I got many more books, besides; some obscure, and some from the last five years bestsellers lists.

Squee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Still reading The Great Influenza but will finish by the end of the week. Finished but haven’t yet reviewed A Natural History of Dragons. Finished and reviewed Pigs in Heaven. Chipping away at magazines. Have more books lined up for March than I can realistically get to.

>17 richardderus: Doggone it, now it looks like I have to read Outlander fast, before the series starts in the summer. Maybe next month.
I've just finished The Finkler Question about a confused, obnoxious, unmarried gentile man who longs to be both jewish and a widower as he says, "Trying to force his way into another's tragedy and grandeur because he had none." He so "loves" the jews (whom he calls Finklers, his own private inside joke) yet the word jewessss makes him hot - no matter how many women shrink from it. Actually he loves shrunken women and wants to rescue damsels in distress even when they obviously are doing just fine, thank you. I've seldom liked a book so much that has such a noisome main character.
So now I get to begin listening to My Story by Elizabeth Smart - a mormon woman who disdains abstinence only sex education and sees it for the woman shaming thing it is.
I'm also about to start Muriel Sparks' The Bachelors.
On paper I'm still reading and being impressed by Women and Other Animals. I think Bonnie Jo Campbell is a new favorite author, though I can't help wishing some of these stories would be made into novels. But what happens to Gwen and Reg?
And on Nook I'm going to check out The Rose of Fire, thank you TooBusy. I truly don't like the misogyny of Zafon, but maybe he'll be able to talk about the library without resorting to romantic stereotypes.

I finished Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea. I liked it slightly better than I thought I would, but it's hard to enjoy a book about slaughtering animals. I kept thinking: "This is why I don't eat fish." I'd rather admire them swimming around. I wish the fish had broken the line.

I started another short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald: "The Rich Boy." So far, it's quite good and I'm having fun wondering where it's going.

Also just started re-reading Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach.

After seeing that Lonesome Dove had so many 5 star ratings I thought I should read it. Then lucky me, I found a copy at a local library sale and it sat on my shelf for awhile. Finally said to myself -"Im going to read that." Westerns aren't normally my genre, but I started the large tome (it's hardback) and am loving it. I know it was made into a movie but don't think I'll watch it. I can see why it got so many 5 star reviews. I love the characters and after 400 + pages haven't felt like I was just slogging through to the end. I really want to know what happens!

I'm reading One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich - finally a Russian novel I can get through! Listening to The Man Who Ate His Boots, about the search for the Northwest Passage. Also reading The Hound of the Baskervilles (touchstone is stupid, but you all know what I mean anyway) and have just started book 2 of Remembrance of Things Past/In Search of Lost Time, In a Budding Grove.

Bookwoman247, I read When Elephants Weep a few years ago, but I still remember how touching it was.

Citizenjoyce, I hadn't read of The Finkler Question before your post, but it certainly sounds odd and intriguing - I may have to give it a try.

I didn't know that Elizabeth Smart disdains "abstinence only" sex education, but more power to her!

You know he abstinence only folk use metaphors for "ruined" girls such as "imagine a piece of candy that has been unwrapped and lying in a purse or pocket gathering dust and debris. Now which you rather have, a nice fresh, clean wrapped piece of candy or that dirty unwrapped one?" Smart, who was raped nearly daily during her kidnapping ordeal is strong enough not to see herself as a dirty piece of candy and rejects the analogy. So, good for her.

I have always admired Valerie Martin's books and her new one, The Ghost of the Mary Celeste, is a wonderful example of why I feel that way. One of the reviewers called the author "sly" and that's a good word for how she takes you into the death-obsessed Victorian Era where you meet the Spiritualists and Arthur Conan Doyle (weary of being asked if Sherlock Holmes will return from the dead) and the mystery of the Mary Celeste, and where you encounter a female journalist eager to separate fact from fancy. Martin explores the shadowy world of historical fiction itself (even as she adds to the genre with this fascinating book) -- what is real, what is imagined, how can we ever know the truth?

I'm now reading Geoffrey Wolff's A Day at the Beach: Recollections.

I'm going to be starting Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay today

>30 Citizenjoyce: No wonder they believe in abstinence only if they're reducing women's worth to a piece of candy. It demeans women to the level of (worthless) property. I can deal with that in medieval literature, but haven't we learned anything in 800 years?

>30 Citizenjoyce:, 33

That someone would ever make those analogies is deeply disturbing. That young girls believe them and and are made to feel they are lesser persons if they fail to live to those abstinence standards is very sad.

The Kindle version of Wally Lamb's I Know This Much is True is only $1.99 right now. It has been several years since I read that novel, but I loved it.

That candy analogy is a horrifying example of sex-negative thinking. Since the entire culture, it seems, defines women as sex objects and only sex objects, being sex-negative sends one message only: Your one important personal quality is disgusting and dirty.

The wonder to me is that more women DON'T have self-image problems.

>30 Citizenjoyce:, 33, 36: There is some mention of this awful gender-bias or sex-negative thinking in the book I am reading When Elephants Weep: The Emotoinal Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff and Susan McCarthy. They point out that women are seen as objects for man's use and pleasure, just as animals are, that some philosophers or scientists in the past have even claimed (in so many words), that animals that are hunted are "asking for it", and that women are seen as being on a lower rung than men, and too emotional to interpret animal behavior scientifically, among other claims. And I'm not even quite to page 50, yet!

Bookwoman, you sold me. Now I have to read the book.

>37 bookwoman247: I was *AP*PAL*LED* until I re-read what you wrote and saw "in the past". Yee-ikes I'm glad I live now. I am no fan of Woman, based on family history, but I can NOT abide abuse, belittlement, and denigration of any human being. The idea that someone thinks she (yes, this happens a lot) or he is better than others based on gender is revolting.

>39 richardderus:: The idea that someone thinks she (yes, this happens a lot) or he is better than others based on gender is revolting.

I could not agree more. He also talks about child abuse and race.

After a fun and flu filled hiatus.....I finished reading the amazing Epitaph of a Small Winner by Machado de Assis and also finished listening to the lovely Americanah. Sigh of satisfaction!

Next up, I am going to finally return to reading The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso, and begin listening to My Song: A Memoir by Harry Belafonte. I continue to listen to Doctor Sleep in the car, the ever so creepy and marvelous sequel to The Shining!!!

Just finished Outlander and I'm sure it will stay with me for quite some time. I have no idea what to follow it up with. Maybe something mediocre that will not impress me after this book anyway? Seems a waste to do that to a perfectly good book.

I've been in Las Vegas visiting family over the weekend. During the trip, I was able to finish John Sanford's The Fool's Run, the first in Sanford's "Kidd" series, which I enjoyed. My short review is on the book's work page and on my own 50-Book Challenge thread: https://www.librarything.com/topic/166514. Basically, it is a fun thriller about computer crime set in the relatively early days of private sector computer networks.

I'm now about a third of the way through Manuel Puig's Eternal Curse on the Reader of These Pages, which is enjoyable so far and also has one of the great titles of all time. The book is written entirely in dialog and it is interesting to see how the relationship between the two characters develops and watch as the facts about the two men are gradually revealed.

I'm about 80 pages into Waiting for Sunrise, my second by William Boyd. I don't know. I'm not averse to sex in fiction, but I'm not too interested in seeing it as the constant main focus of thought and attention. I don't really want to know every time the main character's penis stirs.

I finished an LTER, The Thing with Feathers. It is an excellent, fascinating collection of essays and commentaries about surprising bird qualities or behaviors. Besides describing the birds, the authors speculates as to what these facts might reveal about humans. All of this is done with humor and at a level comfortable for novice or more serious birders.

Finished Hawkeye My Life as a Weapon, Robert's Rules of Writing and The Kite Runner over the last two days. So now I'm reading The Boy In The Striped Pyjamas and Ghost Hunter. I'm also going to listen to Angels and Demons by Dan Brown. This is more a case of having some Dan Brown books on Mount TBR and feeling like I should give them another go before giving up on them completely. At least by having borrowed the audio book, I can be getting on with something else at the same time if I don't enjoy it.

45: I got it as an ER too, expect to read it in March. SqueakyChu said good things about it too.

Finished The Bone Collector which exceeded my expectations. Very fast, well-plotted, good characters, and SMART. Currently reading Snowblind by Christopher Golden, which is a delightfully creepy novel that creates a ghost story out of a snowstorm. It reminds me of John Carpenter's movie, The Fog, but better. Also currently reading Just Listen by Sarah Dessen. I started it this afternoon and I'm already halfway through...I'll probably have it finished by tomorrow.

#42
I recommend you read the sequel to Outlander. I think it is called Dragonfly in Amber. It is just as exciting as the first one. So far there are six books in this series and they are all wonderful.

I am currently involved in Cutting for Stone in book and listening to Liesl and Po in the car. I have to admit that I am coming down from a high in reading and listening to The Daughter of Smoke and Bone series so even though I like both of these new books it is going to be hard to match that with any book.

I've finished Blood of Requiemy Daniel Arenson. Did not like it. Started Garan the Eternal by Andre Norton.

I'm reading The House Of Mirth, by Edith Wharton, and I'm about to start Gogol's Diary Of A Madman and Other Stories. I loved Wharton's The Age Of Innocence, and love societal novels of manners, so I'm really enjoying The House Of Mirth so far.

I reviewed the terrific, 5 star The Goldfinch here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/170663#4564891

Back from vacation and I haven't read anything in a month! Bellman & Black has been holding me back so I am quitting it. What a shame; I've waited all these years for Diane Setterfield's next novel and it was such a letdown.

I will begin my ER read Boy, Snow, Bird tonight.

I always lose this thread during the change on the weekend. Anyway I'm reading Penelope Lively's How It All Began after giving up on a book I had been looking forward to for a long time: Patrick Leigh Fermor's A Time of Gifts, a travel memoir about his trek across Europe in 1933-34. It has an average LT rating of 4.25 so I know it was just not the right time for me to be reading it. So after 90 pages I reluctantly put it back on the shelf but I will certainly get back to it at some point.

I finished The Wednesday Sisters and immediately started The sequel The Wednesday Daughters

Finishing up Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever by Bill O'Reilly I'm not an O'Reilly fan, BUT...this is one of the best books I have read in a long, long time!

Last night I finished The Bachelors and watched the season finale of Downton Abbey, so all night the characters from both intermingled in my dreams, not very satisfactorily I might add. I thought Bachelors was going to be humorous, but it's kind of a spiritualist - legal drama that had me worried for a good part of the time. That Spark could come up with some mighty interesting villainless seeming villains.
I also finished Beth Ditto's wonderful memoir Coal to Diamonds. Being an old fogey, I'd never heard of Ditto. Her early life is reminiscent of Dorothy Allison's Bastard out of Carolina, but it seems from the book that she has become a remarkably well integrated adult.
Now, Benita, due to your gushings I've started an audio of Daughter of Smoke and Bone. Still waiting for the wonderfulness to kick in.

#57
The first book in the series Daughter of Smoke and Bone started out slow. I thought I had made a mistake but I stayed with it and it eventually kicked in and started kicking butt. However, it is the second book in the series that really picks up steam. It is a rare thing that the second book in a series is better than the first but that is the case with this series.

I listened to it too, and thought that the reader did a good job, except for the silly Czech accent. I did find that annoying - and that doesn't get any better in the second novel.

Ok, since #44, I've gone on, and the book does assume a wider scope. And there's a dramatic purpose to all the stirrings, it turns out. Not that I thought there wouldn't be...but it seemed a long time coming.

Odd point: the jacket blurb is loaded with spoilers. That is, it gives away so many plot points that on page 259 I'm still meeting events that ought to have come as surprises or revelations, but that they're listed in the jacket synopsis. What's wrong with a blurb writer who would outline the whole story up to 100 pages from the end? This is not the first time I've seen this, but it's the most egregious.

That's why I don't read reviews or blurbs until after the book. I'll read a line or 2 to get a slight idea what the book is about, but I'm usually afraid to read more.

My latest is Instructions For A Heatwave by Maggie O'Farrell, so far just loving it, I hope that it continues.

60: Reviews, yes, I avoid them too--especially reviews by amateurs who may not even realize or care that they're giving too much away. But a jacket blurb provided by the publisher, written by a pro, is supposed to be a teaser, enough information to let you decide if you'll enjoy the book and make you want to read it--not a whole plot outline. This just seems very inept to me, and surprising coming from a first-rate traditional publisher.

It's like the movie previews that do the same thing. I'm not sure what the purpose is unless to get the attention of all those people (and I know some) who want to know how a story ends before they commit any time to it.

I rarely read more than a couple of lines of the blurbs and book jackets, too. I want to have a very vague idea of what the book is about, but anything beyond that is a spoiler for me, and too many book jackets reveal surprises trying to hook me into buying the book. It doesn't work.

I just finished Fosse and am now switching gears entirely by starting Vanity Fair. I found a very nice paperback copy of it at a yard sale recently and decided it was time to read it. I can't believe I never have.

I decided to go for some non-fiction to cleanse my palate and picked up Hoe word ik een echte vrek (How to become a real cheapskate). It's a really thin little book full of funny tips on how to save money. It was okay and I breezed through it in no time, but I still haven't got Outlander off my mind, so maybe I'll pick up some science-fiction short stories now.

I gave a generous 3* to THE UNLIKELY PILGIMAGE OF HAROLD FRY over at my blog as well as on the book page. I was so kind mostly because there are a few very good lines.

Nice review, Richard. It's sounds pleasant and bland.

Bland, certainly. Pleasant...? Mmm...welllll...I *did* finish it. I suppose that argues for its pleasance. Kind of literary blancmange-ish pleasance, though.

You mention its pleasance a couple of times in the review. Sounds eminently putdownable.

But there are some really good lines! I mention those, too! One simply has to wade through the miserably mawkish muck to get to them.

Oh dear...this isn't one of my more persuasive days, is it.

I finished When Elephants Weep: The Emotional Lives of Animals by Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson and Susan McCarthy. I had a bit of a hardc time with it at the very beginning, but it wasn't long before I was drawn in. It was fascinating, but at the, seemed to speak to truths of which I was already aware. Some of it was so obvious. Still, there are times that it is good to be reminded of the obvious. I've never been closer to becomoing a vegetarian!

Now I am on to extra-light fare: Pass the Butterworms: Remote Journeys Oddly Rendered by Tim Cahill. I do enjoy adventure travelogues, especially humorous ones! I like that I'm already learning from this one, as well. I had no idea that the Huns were Mongolia centuries prior to Ghengis or Kublai. I'm already gleaning new info, and I've barely started this one!

Currently reading a land more kind than home by Wiley Cash. Picked it up from the "free book" bin at the library. :)

OK, Benita, I give, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is getting mighty interesting.
As for Harold Fry, I loved it. He just kept plodding along in a completely unreasonable way and figuring out life. Then again, I guess I'm not averse to being mawkish, depending on the mawk.
Those damn Bachelors were back in my dreams last night, this time mixing it up with the characters from The Finkler Question. Some people just don't know when to leave.

Just finished 'Visionquest' by Laura Tolomei

www.devinedestinies.com

I finished and REVIEWED Penelope Lively's most recent novel How It All Began. Absolutely delightful.

Now I'm reading my ER book A Burnable Book by Bruce Holsinger.

I loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, but my mother, who often likes the same books I do, did not like it at all. Sometimes my appreciation of a book depends on my mood at the time I read it, but I think I would have liked this one no matter when I read it.

Started Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French and Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman (my first attempt at reading anything by him) today. Not getting on terribly well with The Humans by Matt Haig in audio. It seemed promising at first but I'm just not feeling invested in listening to it. Will try again tomorrow and hope for the best.

My goodness. So many wonderful books - many that I need to add to my TBR list.

>51 cajozwik:, cajozwik, I loved both those Wharton books too. Keep meaning to get back to more of her work. The Custom of the Country is wonderful too.

My current reading includes:

1) The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk - my first Pamuk, and it's a bit odd being in the mind of this Humbert-like narrator. But, I'm enjoying the language and feeling like I'm in Istanbul.

2) Reading Lolita in Tehran by Azar Nafisi - not sure why I picked up a book about another Middle Eastern country but I've been compiling a list of all the bibliomemoirs I've been meaning to read and this one jumped out from my shelves. (if interested in the bibliomemoirs series, see here).

Picked up Pohlstars by Frederik Pohl, an anthology of his best short stories. Last time I was reading it, I ended somewhere in the middle, but that's the good thing with a collection: you can pick up where you left anytime you want, no problem.

Rise of a Merchant Prince by Raymond E. Feist This is the second in a quartet, and I enjoyed the first one, so hopefully I'll enjoy the second too

I'm reading American Gods by Neil Gaiman

Book porn! Too perfect not to share widely. Photo by Laura Trosh.

All platforms, each $1.99:

Fifth Avenue, 5 A.M. is the story of Breakfast at Tiffany's, the film, as told by the makers, the movers, and the shakers involved in it. I'm a hopeless Hepburnian, and this book brought me a lot of pleasure.

Collected Stories of Carol Shields...well, you like her already or you don't, but if you've never dipped in the waters this is the time and the way to do it. Two bucks! Who *cares* if you hate it!

Knocked Up: The Shooting Script is what it says. I read screenplays and shooting scripts like I take painful shots. They're teaching tools. And this movie didn't even raise a smile off of me. But it made a zillion bucks at the box office, so it pays to pay attention to the how....

I am starting If You Could See What I See :) If all reviews are true I am settling in to enjoy. :)

#77 I, too, really enjoyed The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, but one definitely needs to be a lover of character-driven fiction to enjoy it.

I'm currently reading Tamarack County which I'm enjoying, BUT. . . . It's far better written and far more tightly written than I expected when I'd read the first few pages. However, clearly the author thinks that it's necessary that a member of his family has to be in peril in order to enhance the plot. REALLY? If I were a member of this guy's family I'd head for the hills to save myself.

Also reading Purple Hibiscus, which is already wonderful after about 4 pages, and Mary Todd Lincoln, which I've barely dipped a toe into but am already engaged with it.

Having finished Waiting for Sunrise too quickly, I'm a little bit adrift right now. My next library requests aren't in yet, it's too soon to resort to my ready reserve of Cadfaels and Pendergasts, and within a few pages the "obnoxious kid" warnings about the second Amelia Peabody are proving true, triggering a gag reflex. I may have to resort to...(gasp)...something on my shelves.

The Martian was good sci-fi fun. Now I've started Necessity's Child as my last book for Fantasy February.

I finished Zlata's Diary which provides a view of life in a war zone. The grinding deprivation and fear are partially compensated by the community of neighbors, friends, and family who band together to help each other out. Since it's a child's diary, any sense of the why's are not there (but then that may be more realistic. Maybe no one knows).

Downloaded The Asylum By John Harwood and only a few pages in, I am hooked. Just what I needed after a month of not reading anything interesting. I also started Boy, Snow, Bird, an ER win, but that's slow-going so far.

At long last finished the surreal The Obscene Bird of Night. I think Salvador Dali would be a good pick as illustrator! Great literary experience!

Next up to read is The Sense of an Endingby Julian Barnes.

Finished Just Listen by Sarah Dessen, which was a fabulously fresh issue-centered YA novel, without the sappy romance or annoying dialogue. Also finished Snowblind, which was an excellent read for anyone looking for genuinely spooky horror without blood/guts/sex.

Currently reading The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker and The Returned by Jason Mott. Both are delightfully, beautifully written so far, although I think I might be enjoying The Returned a little bit more.

I reviewed The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope, which is the opposite of that Harold Fry thing. Four stars!

>83 richardderus:: Gorgeous pic, Richard! Thanks for sharing! I reminds me just a little of my own, but much better, of course!

I am just starting Me: Stories of My Life by Katharine Hepburn. I've just barely started it, but, already, I am loving the strong (dare I say stubborn), independent-mindedness that her mother seemed to display as a young woman, who, at 16, stood up to her guardian, and was able to get an education at Bryn Mawr for herself, and her younger sisters. I consider it a great feat for a 16-yr-old in a time when an education was considered, at best, a waste of time and money, and at worst, as something unnatural and almost evil. So, even in these first few pages, I am being drawn in.

I hope I continue to feel so settled with this book! I am on the first very few pages, after all.

Last night I started Isabel Allende's Ripper, but so far I'm not impressed. Stereotypical characters - the tough ex-Navy SEAL, the New Age-ish but kindhearted California woman, that sort of thing. Writing that occasionally seems clunky. Will have to hope I like it better as it goes on.

For that subset of visitors who are Kindle owners and follow Deborah Crombie's Duncan-and-Gemma mystery series, The Sound of Broken Glass is only $1.99 today, 26 February.

This Steinbeck letter, released or publicized for his birthday today, is his take on falling in love. It is *marvelous* and a quick read.

AND!! AND!! For all ereader platforms, there is a $1.99 sale today on a book I loved immoderately when it was first released: Further Adventures by Jon Stephen Fink. It came before the (distinctly inferior, IMO) Adventures of Kavalier and Klay, telling much the same sort of story...well, with an admixture of Redshirts, the Scalzi novel.

As this was long Before LT, I've never reviewed or rated it, but will soon because I enjoyed it so much in 2000.

I've put up my Faulkner February review of Mosquitoes over in my Homeless Reviews thread, post #250.

It's not the least impressive Faulkner I've read, but it ain't good.

Finished the subtle and superb The Sense of an Ending.

Next up, The Canvas by Benjamin Stein.

I just wrapped up the ambitious and interesting The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. I really enjoyed the education on manic depression (interesting factoid: lithium was the main ingredient in 7-UP up until the 1950s!), various religious theories and some rather different, and surprising, views on what love is. Not at all a predictable plot/story. It is not a perfect book and kind of weird in some spots, slow in others. But it's a whopper and it kept me engaged, even with still-healing post-PRK eyes. So grateful to have had something to sink into.

I'm now reading The Progress of Love, stories from the 1980s by Alice Munro (which I'm finding nerve-wrecking in the way like I go, geez, do all people truly hate when they say they love, kinda thing?) and will intersperse my ER book The Thing With Feathers (which I see a few other of you guys have received).

I've been meaning to read The Marriage Plot for quite some time, and never seem to get around to it. I loved Eugenides Middlesex, but didn't like The Virgin Suicides nearly as much.

Rereading A Dangerous Inheritance by Alison Weir
I bought the softback edition

>99 hemlokgang: @hemlokgang - The Sense of an Ending has been on my shelves for since last Christmas. I must get to it next. Having scanned a few pages, it does sound very interesting.

>100 CarolynSchroeder: @CarolynSchroeder - I didn't enjoy The Marriage Plot as much as Middlesex for some reason. Maybe because I've read too many novels set in academia - went through a phase. Though I hear that the former has been optioned for a movie or TV series. So, clearly, there's something appealing there.

(Sorry, I don't know why the names are showing up twice like that in post 104 or why the touchstones aren't working even though I followed the usual protocol.)

>105 jennybhatt: Double names are because of this; I'm guessing you added the profile link after the number?

-104/Jennybhatt - I did not like it as much as Middlesex either and I agree, there are far, far, far too many "witty" novels set in academia. I tend to take long periods of time in between them, and kind of roll my eyes when I find myself back there again (even in short story land). I did like The Marriage Plot though, mostly for its wanderings about manic depression (especially the manic streaks, those were incredibly well portrayed) and religion. I also kind of liked that it did not portray a love relationship with a professor and was more focused on that uneasy time right at and after graduation (when life sure does change). So that was a bit surprising. I did like Mitchell, but both Madeleine and Bankhead were kind of hard to like.

>106 qebo: yes, I did add the profile name after the number. Didn't realize that causes duplication. Thanks.

>107 CarolynSchroeder: Oh, yes, don't get me wrong - the book is well-written and Eugenides can tell a good story. And, yes, I liked the parts that focused on the uncertain time at/after graduation too. I once read somewhere that all writers who've spent any amount of time in academia try to get at least one novel/story set in that world out of their system. :) I can see why. It is a sort of world in itself.

>108 jennybhatt: Only as of the new feature a few days ago.

So, I've been having a little trouble with my Internet connection this weekend - although it seems that my ISP has been fixing a rash of outages around my area as well. Anyway, I've been reading a little bit slower than usual, but still managed to finish two books last week.

On Wednesday, February 19th, I picked up Love Kills: The Stalking of Diane Newton King by Andy Hoffman. This was the second of Andy Hoffman's books that I read, and I finished reading it on Friday, February 21st.

On Monday, February 24th, I started reading Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller by Margaret Forster. It was really quite good. Margaret Forster's writing style stopped just short of being too detailed, but I still learned much about Daphne du Maurier's life that I never knew. I finished reading this book on Thursday, February 27th! :)

On Thursday afternoon, February 27th, I started reading Put Yer Rosary Beads Away Ma: A Salty Tale of a Young Man's Musical Dreams and Struggles in 1970's Ireland by Cahal Dunne. Cahal Dunne is an Irish singer/songwriter, whose music I play regularly on my radio show. Well, I'll say this, it is extremely salty, but also intensely funny. :)