RidgewayGirl and the Museums of Munich -- Part One

I really like the museums here in my temporary home. I like them a lot. So I thought I'd combine them with my 2015 Challenge this year. I've also decided that my only real goal for this year is to increase the proportion of books written by women from 50% to 60%. As I've done for a while, I'm doing ten categories with a goal of ten books in each.



Currently Reading



Recently Read



Recently Acquired

Category One.

Books By Women

The Lenbachhaus is the home of The Blue Rider, an expressionist art movement that began in Munich and included Kandinsky, Klee, Marc, Macke and Münter. Gabriele Münter was Wassily Kandinsky's partner and a fellow artist. She remained in Germany and even after he returned to Russia and married, she saved his paintings and many others in the house they'd purchased in Murnau. Their work was considered "degenerate art" by the Nazis, and much was destroyed. Münter saved hundreds of works and donated them to the Lenbachhause in Munich. Recently, the museum was renovated and expanded, giving the works of The Blue Rider room to shine. Since a woman saved art, this is my category for books by women. Also, Gabriele Münter was friends with Marianne von Werefkin, and the warmth of their friendship is apparent in the paintings they did of each other.

Here is a painting Münter did of Werefkin next to Werefkin's self-portrait.



1. Lovely, Dark, Deep by Joyce Carol Oates
2. Dept. of Speculation by Jenny Offill
3. Everything I Never Told You by Celeste Ng

Category Two.

Books set in Cities

The Munich City Museum (Münchner Stadtmuseum) is located in the middle of the old city, within the long gone city walls in an old arsenal and stables. The exhibits I've seen so far include photographs of Greenland by a local artist/actor and a collection of silver pieces made by a local Jewish business that was forced to close when Hitler came to power.



1. The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs (Newark, NJ)
2. After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman (Baltimore, MD)

Category Three.

Books I Brought with Me to Munich

The State Museum of Egyptian Art (Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst) is full of amazing things carefully taken/looted from Egyptian tombs and brought to Munich. Europe is full of Egyptian things, although there are fewer mummies than there should be due to the idea that pulverized mummies were good for you. I brought a fair number of books with me to Germany and would like to read them.



1. In Matto's Realm by Friedrich Glauser

Category Four.

New Books I Have Brought Home

The Haus der Kunst was built by the Nazis to celebrate the kind of art they liked. They burnt the stuff they didn't, called it degenerate and many artists either fled Germany, committed suicide or stopped painting altogether. The Haus der Kunst is a cold, haughty building. It was also one of the very few buildings in Munich to escape bomb damage, due to it being cleverly camouflaged and located at the end of the large Englischer Garten. After the war, it was first used as the recreation and mess hall for American officers (The lines painted on the marble floors to make basketball courts are still visible (although I haven't seen them). There was a debate as to what to do with the building, with many feeling that the best solution was to tear it down. Instead, it's been turned into a venue for visiting exhibitions of cutting edge art, the very stuff Hitler hated.





1. Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
2. Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes
3. So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

Category Five.

Borrowed and Library Books

The Hypo Kunsthalle holds temporary art exhibits that range from artifacts from Pompeii to Jean Paul Gautier. The museum is on Munich's most expensive shopping street, which joins Odeonsplatz to the Marienplatz.



1. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
2. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
3. Adam by Ariel Schrag
4. Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood

Category Six.

Books that Catch My Eye

The Brandhorst Museum not only houses the kind of art that people want to see (Richard Avedon, Cy Twombly, Andy Warhol, etc...), but the building is gorgeous. The exterior is covered in ceramic rods in 23 different colors. It's a lot of fun to look at, especially on grey, rainy days, when the historic buildings around it look grim.



1. Being Mortal by Atul Gawande
2. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith
3. The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

Category Seven.

Books Published Within the Last Five Years

The Pinakothek der Moderne has become the museum that I've visited the most since arriving in Munich. It houses art from 1900 to the present, along with excellent temporary exhibits. The two exhibits that I've liked the most were a retrospective of Canadian Jeff Walls' photography and a close look at Ernst Ludwig Kirschner's paintings.



1. The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith (published in 2014)
2. All the Birds, Singing by Evie Wyld (published in 2013)
3. Us by David Nicholls (published in 2014)

Category Eight.

Books That Have Been Nominated for an Award

The Alte Pinakothek is an enormous building that was once the largest museum in the world and holds the great masterpieces of Holbein, Dürer, Rembrandt, Raphael and many, many others. Despite its size, only a portion of the collection can be shown as there is a lot of it.





1. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson (National Book Award Winner)

Category Nine.

CATs

The Neue Pinakothek houses art of the 18th and 19th century. The CATs are themed side challenges with a new topic each month. The CATs for this year are the HistoryCAT, the SFFFCAT and the RandomCAT. There is no connection between the Neue Pinakothek and the CATs.



1. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller (January HistoryCAT - Myths and Legends)

Category Ten.

Books Set in the Past

Villa Stuck is a museum dedicated to the works of Franz Stuck, and also a mansion decorated in the art deco style.





1. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
2. A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
3. Longbourn by Jo Baker
4. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

4. The Prestige by Christopher Priest
7. Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel
9. In Matto's Realm by Friedrich Glauser
12. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller
14. The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe by Alexander McCall Smith
17. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
19. Longbourn by Jo Baker
20. A Thread of Grace by Mary Doria Russell
22. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer
23. Adam by Ariel Schrag

What a great theme! It's easy to forget that art museums tend to be art in and of themselves.

I love the tour of the museums in Munich via your category challenge. What a great theme idea!

Love the museum theme! Great categories. The building with all the ceramics is really fascinating to look at. Wish I could see it in real life.

Happy to see you've finally made it here, Kay. My husband and I never made it to Munich when we were in Germany some years ago, but next time for sure. All those museums look interesting. I look forward to your reading and the BBs that are sure to follow.

Stopping by to drop a star...looking forward to seeing what you read this year!

Love the categories, especially Villa Stuck! It's beautiful. Happy new reading year.

Thank you, all. Museums are my solitary pleasure -- the rest of the family has a much lower tolerance and I like to go at my own pace. But there's no reason not to celebrate them here.

Museums are best visited alone! And often.

I agree, Katie!

What a wonderful introduction to the Museums of Munich! Looking forward to following your reading once again.

Checking in and dropping my star. I'm actually going to the art museum in Raleigh Friday so that should be fun.

Thanks for the wonderful tour of Munich's museums! You must have so much fun visiting them! Have a great year!

Happy new year! I'll be following along, especially your choices of books written by women.

Wonderful pictures to go with your topics.

Once again, yours is one of my favorite threads. Love the museum focus, the categories, and the pictures and blurbs you've included! Can't wait to see what you read this year! :)

Thanks, again, all. It's fun setting up a new thread and thinking about what I'll read this year.

Shannon, I was surprised at how few women authors I read last year. I'm determined to add at least 10%, but it'll require paying attention. If I keep my other categories even, the women authors category should address that.

Happy New Year! I love your theme, and I love museums. I usually prefer visiting museums on my own. I feel like I have to rush when I'm with other people and I don't enjoy the experience as much.

Carrie, and you have to keep track of them. And children are the worst, because unless you intend to make sure they hate museums forever, you have to tailor the trip to what is interesting for them and leave long before you want to. Or at least that's the case with mine.

The museums in Munich are inexpensive and the annual passes are very reasonable. So I have passes to the Pinakotheken, the Haus der Kunst (the pass also lets me attend openings, which I have not yet done) and the Lenbachhaus, so that I can drop by for an hour when there's time, without feeling like I've wasted money.

That seems like a good way to do it, Kay.

Hi Kay, thanks for that round trip through the museums!

Thanks, Betty and Brigit.



Miss Flora Poste would be perfectly at home in a P.G. Wodehouse novel. In temperament, she's more Jeeves than Wooster, but she's a woman who likes to go to dinner and out dancing with interesting companions, and she's aware of the importance of dressing for the occasion. At the beginning of Stella Gibbons' excellent novel, Flora discovers that she possesses every art and grace save that of earning her own living. She determines that her best option is to go and live with relatives and so she ends up arriving at Cold Comfort Farm, in deepest Sussex, aware of nothing but that they feel that they owe her a debt due to some wrong done to her father decades earlier.

Cold Comfort Farm is a damp and depressing place, where emotions run higher than Charlotte Bronte would be entirely at ease with.

Judith's breath came in long shudders. She thrust her arms deeper into her shawl. The porridge gave an ominous, leering heave; it might almost have been endowed with life, so uncannily did its movements keep pace with the human passions that throbbed above it.

"Cur," said Judith, levelly, at last. "Coward! Liar! Libertine! Who were you with last night? Moll at the mill or Violet at the vicarage? Or Ivy, perhaps, at the ironmongery? Seth -- my son..." Her deep, dry voice quivered, but she whipped it back, and her next words flew out at him like a lash.

"Do you want to break my heart?"

"Yes," said Seth, with an elemental simplicity.

The porridge boiled over.

And into this seething cauldron of family passions and unsanitary conditions, marches Flora, who quickly sees that she has her work cut out for her, to bring light and happiness and order to the denizens of Cold Comfort Farm, Howling, Sussex.

A parody of the long forgotten genre of the rural melodrama, Cold Comfort Farm remains as approachable and humorous as it was when it was first published. Really, this was just a great deal of fun to read. Flora is a protagonist worth cheering for and her relentless good will and determination to set things to right have the reader hoping for happy solutions for every dour character.

Cold Comfort Farm is an old favourite of mine. Have you seen the movie version with Kate Beckinsale, Ian McKellan and Joanna Lumley from about 20 years ago? It is perfection.

>34 randomfakename: No, I haven't. iTunes has it, so I'll have to watch it some afternoon when the weather's bad. Thanks.

I love the movie as well as the book. In glad you enjoyed it. Sounds like the year is off to a good start.

Kay, you have almost tempted me to be here this year. More thought is needed.

Loved Cold Comfort Farm! Flora reminded me strongly of Emma Woodhouse, but the Wodehouse comparison is apt also. :)

Victoria, you already know what I think.

Christina, the Emma comparisons are strong, aren't they? Except that Flora never really missteps. And she never needs a comeuppance.

Kay - the hubby and I are off for a month to visit his relatives in Alabama tomorrow and trying to choose which books to take made me think about you choosing books for 2 years in Germany. I'm not sure how you managed to decide. I'm probably taking way to many since I also have my ebooks and there's the library downloads I could do, but still.

I've had Cold Comfort Farm in my TBR for a while now. I may need to move it up.

Betty, I had decided, initially, that I would bring 200 books with me and was having trouble narrowing it down (my TBR is quite large). Then the guy in charge of our move said that I could bring all the books, no problem (the people actually packing did not share his views) so I brought 500 books with me. That's a lot of books! Not much deciding was necessary!

Ok - that makes sense!

Great to see you all set up for 2015, Kay. Now I just need to settle into a corner and wait for the book bullets to start striking. Thankfully I've already read Cold Comfort Farm so that was a miss.

I'm glad to see you here, Judy.

And I was ignoring this, but the sheer quantity of other people participating has worn me down.

2015 Meme - Answers Based On Book I Read in 2014

Describe yourself: The Unwitting

Describe how you feel: We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves

Describe where you currently live: In the Garden of Beasts

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: Back to the Coast

Your favorite form of transportation: Vintage Ford

Your best friend is: Not My Father's Son

You and your friends are: Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives

What’s the weather like: History of the Rain

You fear: Falling Off the Map

What is the best advice you have to give: Stay Awake

Thought for the day: Never Go Back

How I would like to die: Vampires in the Lemon Grove

My soul’s present condition: Hyperbole and a Half

And those are some excellent answers! :)

Great answers and even better, I can us Troubled Daughters, Twisted Wives next year. BTW, I am loving these stories!

Thanks, RP. It was surprisingly fun to figure out what books would fit where.

Judy, they are good and I'm glad you're enjoying them, but not surprised. That book has added new authors to the ones I want to read.

The Handsome Man's Deluxe Cafe is Alexander McCall Smith's fifteenth installment in the Number One Ladies' Detective Agency, and Smith does not deviate from his usual formula. This time, the almost incidental mystery is the identity of a woman who has been taken in by a kind family when she appears claiming amnesia. In the absence of any identification, she'll be deported unless Mma Ramotswe can discover who she is. Mma Makutsi is opening a restaurant and is discovering that she may not be up for the task and Mr JLB Maketoni realizes that he has to fire the feckless, careless Charlie, despite Mma Ramotswe disagreeing with him.

If you like the series, you'll like this one exactly as much as you've liked the previous books.

>48 RidgewayGirl: I've read all the books in that series that I had on my shelves. I'm going to try the audio version of the next one now that they're available from my public library. I've heard that the reader is very good.

They're very soothing entertainment, Carrie. I haven't tried any on audiobook.

Nice looking thread. I like your answers to the meme, especially Falling off the map, seems appropriate.

Thanks, Roro8.

I've brought 6&7 with me for our trip to Alabama. I need to catch up on a number of series this year.

Jeff and I went to the North Carolina Museum of Art last weekend in Raleigh. It was the last weekend for the "Small Treasures" exhibit featuring works by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and other mostly Dutch painters. Even though the portraits were often small, the detail was often amazing. He had already seen the exhibit once, but he was amazingly patient with me as I examined the works intently.

Ah, Cold Comfort Farm is such a great one. Seconding the recommendation of the movie version as well - so well cast it's ridiculous!

Betty, one thing about that series is that Smith is willing to stick to a proven pattern. You know what you'll get.

Lori, a guy who is willing to be patient in museums is a guy worth knowing! Those Dutch masters are worth a long look, aren't they? They have a largish section of the Alte Pinakothek near the beginning and they are working hard to make sure I don't make it to the upstairs rooms at all. And the Dürer is up there!

Eva, I've received several recommendations to see the film. Now to carve out a few hours to do so! I've even downloaded the thing from iTunes.

I didn't expect to like The Song of Achilles as much as I did. I didn't expect to like it much at all, it being a well-regarded book about a mythological warrior, whose story was already familiar to me in broad strokes, if not in the details. Not only would there be a lot of battle scenes, but I knew how the story ended. But Madeline Miller tells the familiar story in a fresh way and her love of Greek mythology shows through.

While Achilles himself remains a bit of a cipher, his companion, Patroclus, is vividly real, and it's from his point of view that the story is told. The world Miller writes about is very different from our own, with centaurs and sea-nymphs, myth-makers and men who prefer to die young and violently, but leaving behind a glittering reputation, than to die old and have lived a life of obscure prosperity. But the fears and emotions, Miller tells the reader, were the same, with people struggling to survive and to know what the right thing to do is.

What results is a compelling, unputdownable story. We know the end before we begin, but so does Achilles himself, lending added weight to the decisions he makes. And Patroclus is a worthy narrator, as he changes from an uncertain, tentative boy into a man willing to take risks and make hard decisions.

>57 RidgewayGirl:, excellent review. I may just find myself reading that book soon.....

Roro8, it also conveniently fits both the theme and time period for the HistoryCAT.

Have you read the Vickie Bliss series by Elizabeth Peters? The heroine works for a museum in Munich and the action returns to Munich quite often. I love the series, particularly the art thief, Sir John. :) The series begins with Borrower of the Night which is fun but Sir John shows up for the first time in Street of the Five Moons one of my favorite books.

I read those back when I was a teenager, majkia, and I loved them so much. I should reread. I wonder if I still have any of them.

>57 RidgewayGirl: Great review! It was one of my favourite read in 2013.

>56 RidgewayGirl: Absolutely worth knowing!

Love the theme! I'm fond of museums, too.

Happy 2015!

We've seen the movie version of Cold Comfort Farm several times and always enjoy it.

Brown Girl Dreaming is the story of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood. It's structured as a series of vignettes told in free, unrhymed verse that lends an immediacy to each memory. Woodson was born in Ohio, but grew up in Greenville, SC and Brooklyn, NY in the 1960s and 1970s. There's a great deal about the Civil Rights Act and how it affected her family, as well as about her learning difficulties and how she nonetheless dreamed of being an author.

All of which makes it sound like a very worthy kind of book, which it is, having won the National Book Award. But it's also enjoyable to read. Woodson's memories rely on smells and tastes and sounds as much as any other sense; the feel of the red dust of South Carolina against bare feet, the joy of eating a lemon chiffon ice cream cone on a hot summer's day, the security of having a best friend. This is an immediate and accessible book and Woodson is an excellent companion through both the trials and tribulations of childhood in general and the experience of growing up as an African American during a very specific time in American history.

>66 RidgewayGirl:
That sounds lovely, right up my alley.

I picked up The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace by Jeff Hobbs because I kept running into it and it seemed like it might broaden the perspective I picked up in The New Jim Crow. The book tells the story of Robert Peace, who was born to a single mother in a particularly bleak part of NJ. He may have been born into poverty, but he was also born to a father who loved him and even after he was arrested and given a life sentence for murder, would call and help his son with his homework. His mother was determined to give him every advantage she could, working long hours in order to send him to a private Catholic school, where the teachers were dedicated to helping each student succeed. But what Robert Peace really had going for him was a fierce intelligence and a strong work ethic. It got him into Yale, where he met the author of this book, who was his roommate for all four years.

The author was a friend of Robert Peace, although it was only after Peace's death, as he researched the book, that he really got to know him. Previously, it seems as though Hobbs, who was white and from a privileged background, was more an admirer of Peace, who sailed through Yale with an insouciance that allowed him to both deal and consume marijuana while working in a chemistry lab and majoring in one of the most demanding science majors Yale had to offer. It seemed that Peace would succeed at anything he set his mind to.

But Peace was living for the first time in an almost entirely white environment, one in which his peers were generally wealthy and entitled, only to return to another world when school was not in session. He was adept at "facing"; presenting a different personality to each world he encountered, but it took a toll. He would end up being primarily known at Yale as the Black guy from Newark, while in an increasingly dangerous suburb of Newark, he was careful to hide his Ivy League education.

The Short and Tragic Life of Robert Peace is a fascinating book about a complex and interesting person. Hobbs liked Peace a great deal, and the book reflects that friendship, while not glossing over Peace's faults and miscalculations. While I wish that the outcome had been better and don't think that Peace couldn't have made better decisions, there's no question that he was a remarkable individual and his fate is one worth reading about.

Love your review of Brown Girl Dreaming. I'm going to have to pick that one up.

Andrea and Shannon, Brown Girl Dreaming is beautifully written.

Friedrich Glauser is a German writer who spent much of his life in psychiatric hospitals before dying at the age of 42. Glauser is also a classic crime novelist and Germany's crime fiction award is called the Glauser Prize.

In Matto's Realm is part of a series involving Detective Studer, this installment taking place in a Swiss psychiatric hospital. The director and a patient have gone missing and Studer, who has been demoted and disgraced, has been sent there to discretely make inquiries. The acting director has requested him personally. What Studer walks into is a complicated web of close, but not always friendly, relationships, with each person hiding something, none more than the enigmatic acting director, a psychiatrist who alternates between seemingly sincere friendship and a smiling mask.

First published in 1936, In Matto's Realm shows the living and working conditions in a supposedly modern institution. Glauser also says quite a lot about the difficulty the ordinary working man had in just making ends meet, and how that was often an insurmountable task. He has great sympathy for ordinary men broken by circumstance. In this, the book is interesting and an important memory of the past. On the other hand, the mystery itself was convoluted and required a lengthy explanation at the end of the book, which is where most of the action occurs.

This is a worthwhile book if you're interested in Europe during the interwar years or in the history of the German mystery novel. Nonetheless, as a crime novel it falls short, although there are a few intriguing characters and Glauser writes with real empathy for the people at the bottom of society.

Joyce Carol Oates's short stories are unsettling and often have a creepy feel to them. Her newest collection, Lovely, Dark, Deep, is unsettling, but less creepy than usual. Here, she takes ordinary people and shows them undergoing ordinary ordeals; a retired couple are annoyed by the loud neighbors behind them, a wife discovers that her husband has gotten rid of his bicycle, a young woman goes with her cousin to get a small tattoo. It's in Oates' hands, that these events become menacing and portentous, with the characters unable to change the patterns of a lifetime.

The opening story, Sex with Camel, was my favorite and was the kindest of the stories. In it, a seventeen year old boy accompanies his grandmother to the hospital where she is to undergo some testing. The boy is a typical teenager, with his smart phone and his sly attempts to be a little shocking. His grandmother is also typical, over-dressed for a medical procedure and determined to be casual about their reason for being there. But what shines through is the real affection they hold for one another, despite the years between them.

There are a few stories that return to Oates's favorite themes of women with Daddy-issues and of women living in the shadow of a famous male relative, but here she is allowing her protagonists a bit of rebellion and independence, even if the men haven't altered their expectations. I'm not sure what I think of the title story, however, as it took as its target a real person. I've enjoyed stories that have done that (for example, Lydia Millet's Love in Infant Monkeys), but this story felt mean-spirited, despite footnotes indicating that the story was closely based on a real encounter. The final and longest story, Patricide, was the strongest in a strong collection.

I've become a big fan of Oates's short stories and this collection is an excellent example of what a master at the top of her game can do.

I haven't read anything by Joyce Carol Oates yet, I don't think. But creepy and unsettling stories are just my thing. I'll have to try out some of her stories.

Well, if you like creepy and off-center, Andrea, I think you'd like JCO. The short story collection Black Dahlia & White Rose is very noir and unsettling.

In Matto's Realm sounds really intriguing. & a locked ward sounds like a better hangout for an amateur detective than say a convent or a monastery. I can actual believe frequent abuses needed to be investigated in a ward. I think I got grazed by the book bullet, but its not a direct hit yet. ;)

I should probably give JCO another try. I read her when I was much younger and she didn't appeal, but my tastes have changed over the years and perhaps she and I would be a better fit now. Perhaps I will start with a short story collection like the above-mentioned Black Dahlia & White Rose.

I really should try Joyce Carol Oates. Your review makes the stories sound very appealing, and I have a short stories category again in this year's challenge.

I love visiting museums; your photos have made me decide that Munich must be a future travel destination for me!

Katie, Glauser is an important German author, if obscure over here.

Judy, Black Dahlia & White Rose is very noir and unsettling, Lovely, Dark, Deep is still JCO, but a kinder version. Still creepy in places, though.

Come visit, Paulina! I'll give you a tour of the place.

>78 RidgewayGirl: Thanks! I may take you up on our offer one day. :)

Good Morning Kay: Thank you for the early morning BB, I love that I read posts and download library books at 5 in the morning lol! I was debating about what to read next, because I was in the mood for short stories, and it is one of my categories, perfect!

I have only read one novel by Joyce Carol Oates, which was Them, but I have run across several of her short stories in other collections.

I read the title story before I left for work.....

I can't wait to find out what you think of her short stories, Lisa.

Well, this was a surprise. I hadn't expected much from Station Eleven since I'm not a big fan of dystopian novels and I'd already read another book by Emily St. John Mandel and had thought that, while it was written well enough, it was not particularly good. I didn't expect to ever read another book by the author as there really are a lot of books out there. But it was listed for The Morning News Tournament of Books and a few people here liked it a lot, so I started the first chapter and I was hooked.

Hooked in the housework-undone, bills-unpaid, personal hygiene-ignored kind of way.

Station Eleven centers itself around Arthur Leander, an aging actor who has a heart attack on stage while playing King Lear. His collapse coincides with the arrival of a terrible pandemic that leaves very few people alive and those who survive are largely those who managed to isolate themselves while the virus speeds through the world. Afterwards, after those first few chaotic years, the area in which the book is set calms down, although the small communities that form are wary of strangers. The Symphony is a traveling group of actors and musicians who perform classical music and Shakespeare to a world that is gradually forgetting things like the internet and air conditioning.

What makes Station Eleven so compelling is that Mandel is less concerned with the details how people survived physically than with what that survival, coupled with their memories of how the world used to be, had done to them psychologically. What they now value is more interesting to her than the logistics of day-to-day survival (although there is some of that as well). I'm unwilling to give anything away about this book, but I did find it utterly compelling.

Okay, Station Eleven is definitely now a BB. You had me with "hooked in the housework-undone, bills-unpaid, personal hygiene-ignored kind of way" - love it.

>82 RidgewayGirl: What a great review! Station Eleven is already on the TBR list, but now I'm even more excited about it…I'm very much in favor of any book that makes me forget to shower! ;)

>82 RidgewayGirl: Thumbed! I've seen enough glowing reviews from readers with diverse tastes that this one is already on the TBR list.

Station Eleven is certainly making the rounds - looks great.

Station Eleven is excellent. I hope you all like it as much as I did.

I'm almost done with Station Eleven and also enjoying it. Your review hits on many reasons why. It really stands out as a different take on the post apocalyptic genre and while it rings true, its not nearly as bleak as many of them. It's a nice detail that people settled in places like truck stops and airports -- more practical than taking over the houses of the dead.

Shannon, Yes, that people wanted to be close together in this new, depopulated world makes sense. But also that after so long avoiding the dead, being quarantined in some way or another, it makes sense that you'd want to be in a community.

I'm curious now as to what happened in the cities. And what happened in that first year. But that's both a different book and a different kind of book.

Annihilation is the first of a series of novels by Jeff Vandermeer called The Southern Reach Trilogy. It's an excellent and imaginative beginning. Four women, a psychologist, a surveyor, a biologist and an anthropologist, are sent out as the twelfth expedition into Area X, which was abandoned and cordoned off decades earlier due to reasons that are never quite clear. Narrated by the biologist, who has personal reasons for undertaking this dangerous task (the first expedition reported that all was fine, the second shot each other, the third killed themselves...), Annihilation follows the women as they settle into the base camp and set off to survey the surrounding area.

Annihilation is a frightening and thought-provoking book. The biologist is an isolated and stand-offish personality, which is reflected in how the story is told. The other characters remain cyphers and the biologist herself is difficult to understand, as the environment influences the way the four women interact and behave. There is a sense of foreboding to this story, which the flashbacks to the biologist's earlier life enhance.

To me, Annihilation read less like a stand-alone novel than as the first section of a larger book. It's short and there are so many questions left unanswered and issues left introduced but unexplored that I'm left dissatisfied. The rest of the story was also published in 2014, which leads me to think that there was some sort of marketing decision that publishing three short novels would be better than one large book.

They recently had this trilogy in Kindle deals so I have the three books waiting for me. I'm glad to hear that you found it interesting AND that I got all of them. Sounds like they split one book up into three, sort of how they split The Hobbit into three movies.

Just like The Hobbit movie, mamzel, and probably for the same reason!

I read How to Build a Girl because of your review and adored it. Thank you for writing and posting reviews.

>90 RidgewayGirl: That one has been on my radar, but I hate committing to trilogies. I guess I'll wait for another Kindle deal.

Thanks, Nancy. We also both loved Station Eleven, so maybe we're book twins.

Shannon, I was so mad when Annihilation ended, that I was determined to never read the rest of The Southern Reach Trilogy, except I've been thinking about the book, and want answers and so may back down and read the rest in the spirit of push-overs worldwide.

BB! Annihilation sound fantastic. Just my cup of tea.

When I finished The Prestige, I wanted to flip back to the beginning of the book and start the whole thing again. You'll understand if you've read Christopher Priest's intricate historical novel about dueling magicians.

Borden and Angier both set out to make careers in the magic business in England at the end of the nineteenth century. They should have been friends, but both circumstance and their personalities turned them into enemies, each seeking to both outdo and to ruin the other. Then Borden comes up with an illusion called The New Transported Man and Angier is desperate to find out how he did it and to exceed it, which he goes to some length to do.

There's a familiar pattern to The Prestige; the historical tale framed by a modern discovery and of a story that only becomes clear as all the various threads come together. But the expected structure helps to give firm footing to an unbelievable series of events, that Priest guides the reader through in such a way as to make the most fantastic of events seem reasonable.

The Prestige is a fun read that insists that the reader keep their mind fully engaged as a moment's inattention will leave you floundering.

So glad you enjoyed it and relieved too! It's not easy recommending books to you.

>97 RidgewayGirl: I loved the movie and have often thought about reading the book. Just need to get a copy.

I know, Victoria. It's hit or miss for both of us. But when we agree, we really agree.

Shannon, I saw the movie so long ago that I've forgotten most of it. I'll watch it again in the next few days.

I think I may have taken a hit for a BB with The Prestige. The Southern Reach trilogy is already on my radar but as I'm still making my way through the Ambergris books then it will be a while before I pick them up.

I watched the movie version of The Prestige. I'd seen it before, back when it was first released, but didn't remember the details. It deviated in some substantial ways from the book, while keeping to the heart of it. I'll admit that in the movie version, I disliked one of the two magicians intensely while in the book I was interested in both of them, while slightly preferring the other. Maybe this was because he was played by Christian Bale, who skeeves me out, for reasons unknown to me.

In any case, it was fun to watch the movie and try to figure out how/if they were going to incorporate various plot points.

Thought I'd drop by and say "hi" as I'm catching up on threads.

Nice review of Station Eleven! I loved your comment: "Hooked in the housework-undone, bills-unpaid, personal hygiene-ignored kind of way." I used to describe this condition, when I was engrossed in a good book, as the "forget-to-feed-the-kids kind of state". Fortunately, they can feed themselves now. :)

I just finished Annihilation and agree with your assessment. I loved the writing but ended up feeling a bit peeved that I paid for what seemed to be one-third of a novel rather than the first volume of a true trilogy.

Hi, Lori!

Paulina, I read an article in The Atlantic where Jeff VanderMeer talked about the books. He said that when the publisher wanted to put out all three books in a single year, that gave him the freedom to remove information and clues from Annihilation, presuming that readers would read all three at once.

Atul Gawande's newest book, Being Mortal, is about those topics that we'd really rather not discuss until we are forced by circumstance to do so, at which point we are no longer in the best place to make the right decisions. How we'd like to die, how we'd prefer to be cared for when we are old enough to need help with our daily lives, and what standard of living do we need in order to make living worthwhile, are all questions Gawande raises and then looks to various institutions, doctors, medical personnel and the people and the families most affected for answers.

There's a lot of information in this book. As the child of aging parents, what I took out of it is different from what my father did, or that any other person would, depending on where they are in their life's journey. My main take-aways were learning which questions are important to ask, primarily in determining what my parents want at each point along the way. It's not really important what I see as the best thing to do; and when parents age and aren't perhaps as sharp as they once were, it's easy to take over decision making. Doctors are also prone to pushing medical procedures that may prolong life, but at the cost of the person being able to enjoy the time they have left. Gawande looks at whether people prefer to live longer, or whether they prefer to live for a shorter time, when that extra time is spent in a bed, unable to do the things that once brought their lives meaning. We all have a story, he says, and we need to be able to shape that story to its end. He looks at how our desire for safety has made the elderly less independent, and our desire for our parents to receive the best possible care takes away our parents' privacy.

Gawande takes us through the experiences of various people, and how the decisions they made, or that were made for them, made them happier or reduced their independence. He also looked at some new ideas in how to care for the aging and what has had an impact in making people content with where they are.

This is an important book, especially for anyone with aging parents, or who are aging themselves. We may not need the lessons learned in Being Mortal yet, but the more we discuss and plan for the future now, the easier it will be.

>105 RidgewayGirl: If he wrote the books with the expectation that readers would read all three at once, then I do wish the publisher would have just published it as one book ... but I guess that would mean a decrease in revenues. I expect that, later on, the books will probably be published as a single volume.

Being Mortal sounds like a very worthwhile read. I myself have aging parents who are trying to keep their independence. I do often find myself conflicted, wanting them to live their lives as they wish but also worrying about their health and safety.

Ouch. That's a book bullet.

Paulina, I highly recommend Being Mortal. Gawande is thoughtful and curious about the issue of aging and it's a surprisingly readable book.

As for the Annihilation thing, there's been some discussion lately about how unfair and unpleasant long books are. In the discussion thread for the Tournament of Books last year, when it appeared that the judge had not read all of The Luminaries, many in the comments section agreed that a long book is too much of an imposition. I wonder if the publishing world isn't working to accommodate that group of people, and looking to make a few extra bucks at the same time, since sequels are good money.

My own views on this issue are somewhat ranty, and so I'll keep them to myself, except to say, in a mild tone of voice, that I like long books. If the author requires 800 pages to tell the story, they should take 800 pages, and if they need 200, then that is fine, too. But don't artificially break a longer story apart in order to make the books look more approachable. This may be the wrong thing to say in a challenge forum like this, but I'm not convinced that reading for the numbers is a good idea. I've done it, and it's caused me to choose books I wasn't that excited by over ones that did appeal, because I needed to read a certain number of books. On the other hand, I read a lot of books that year. But not a lot of great ones. Which is not to say that short books can't be great ones, but that choosing one over another because one is shorter is not, for me, a good thing.

>109 RidgewayGirl: I actually really like long books too, even though I was just ranting about them in my own thread! I like becoming immersed in a world. Lonesome Dove, The Stand, The Passage were all great pleasures to read. But I have noticed a trend lately in overwriting. I don't think a book should be long for the sake of being long, and if I am noticing where the book can be edited, surely a professional editor must have done so. Immersion is really the key. If you're immersed, you don't notice how long the book is--in fact, you don't want it to end. I think this is a special skill that not so many writers can pull off, but a lot of them think they can. I am thinking of doing a special challenge next year to focus on long books, because I notice I too have been avoiding them in order to keep my reading numbers up.

Speaking of books being too long and being broken up artificially, although I did enjoy Blackout and All Clear by Connie Willis, I really think they could have been edited and become one very good book instead of two okay books that absolutely had to be read back-to-back. Fortunately, I got them from the library, so I didn't feel gypped, but I probably would have if I had to shell out money for them. Your comments on Annihilation reminded me of those books.

I thought of Black Out/All Clear when I was thinking about this, Shannon. I could tell it was too long, but I was enjoying the books so much I didn't care. And without editing, it was much too much for just one book, which is what it really was.

I have Station Eleven on my TBR list, it looks like a great read, and your review helped push it up the list. I read the Prestige a few years ago, I liked it, but in a rare occurrence, I enjoyed the movie more.

Julie, the movie was really well done. And I think that the visual medium was more effective in getting across the magic tricks entailed. It was fun to have experienced both, especially since there were significant differences between the two.

>106 RidgewayGirl: I've been through end of life care with both parents and a grandmother, and it was different with each one. After my mother's death, my father came to live with me. The first thing he did was to draw up a document giving me power of attorney and have it registered at the courthouse. He also told me that if he ever needed nursing home care that my brother and I should do what we needed to do. It would be OK. He made sure that he had advanced medical directives and my brother and I were with him when he filled out the paperwork. He did all of this when he was healthy and active. When these finally came into play, it was still difficult, but I wasn't weighed down with guilt. My father had already given me his blessing. I think that's one of the best gifts he ever gave me.

>110 sturlington: I have noticed the same thing about a lot of long books. They are long not of necessity, but because of insufficient editing. I notice it particularly in historical fiction. Some authors seem compelled to fit every detail from their research into a book.

I'm not averse to long books. I love Trollope and I happily read his 800+ page novels. I'll be reading The Eustace Diamonds next month. I plan to tackle Lonesome Dove this summer.

>114 cbl_tn: Lonesome Dove is so worth it. It would be a great summer read!

Carrie, your father sounds like he knew what he was doing. My father just read Being Mortal and my parents have redone their wills as a result. There is one story in the book of a woman who has to make a decision while her father is in surgery and because they'd had a conversation about what he wanted beforehand, she was able to make a big decision secure that she was doing what he would have done if he'd been able to make that decision. It meant that she was at peace with everything happening and her father was able to enjoy his last months as he wished them to be.

Long books are certainly a topic of discussion! I have both Lonesome Dove and Trollope on my lists of books to read soon. I've found that a few of the books I've read lately have been too short -- just when I get deeply drawn into them, they end. Some very short books are perfect that way, but some would benefit from a bit more time spent on character development and exploring the themes of the book. Maybe we should dream of a world in which every book was exactly as long as it needs to be.

Kay - Looks like I'll be taking a BB on Being Mortal. Although my husband and I have stuff in place, I'd like to get more organized about it and make sure our families know what we have in place and what we want.

I like long books too. Something I can sink into. I scheduled myself for a year-long read of Les Miserables for this year, and am already behind where I wanted to be.

Long books are one area that I am hoping to work on this year. I have a tendency to bypass the bigger books and they are stacking up on the shelves. This year I plan on pulling a few of those chunksters down off the shelf every month. I got through a few big ones last month and hope to get at least another one read this month.

>97 RidgewayGirl:
I had The Prestige on audiobook and tried to get through it so many times, but I had to give up - the style is, as you say, very intricate and it got too intricate for audio for me. The paper version is on the wishlist.

Eva, I have a terrible time listening to fiction audiobooks. Any sort of complexity is lost the minute I'm distracted. I can see The Prestige being very difficult to follow.

Judy, it's funny, I usually really enjoy the longer books I read, but I still don't automatically grab the larger book. I especially like Victorian novels, but still only manage to read a few each year.

So, in Long, Drawn-Out Encounters with Hideous Corporations...

I've had a problem with amazon in which one of their vendors fraudulently charged me. My bank caught it and I thought it was all sorted until I tried to log into my amazonPrime account. It was blocked. I called, and explained and customer service heartily agreed to reopen my account. Then I got a form email from their accounts department telling me to pay or else. I called amazon and the customer service representative and her supervisor told me my account would be reopened within 24 hours. Then I got a form email from their accounts department telling me to pay or else. This cycle continued until I gave up. This was in 2012.

Meanwhile, before they were owned by amazon, or at least did not advertise their connection, I subscribed to audible.com. This was great for years, until last summer I was unable to log into my account. They quickly fixed that and all was well. Then, last month, I was again unable to log into my account. I called and was told my account was on hold although they could not see why. I was still being charged each month and the customer service person told me that account services would get back to me within 24 hours. Crickets.

I called back. Audible could not access any information on my account, so they'd transfer me to amazon, which promised a call back within 24 hours. The next time, they were a little annoyed that I doubted that account services would call me back within 24 hours. The next time, I spoke to a supervisor who wanted to transfer me back to audible. Audible couldn't access my account and helpfully transferred me to amazon. A different supervisor has, once again, taken down all my information and promised me an email or a call within 24 hours. Meanwhile, I am charged for another credit I can't use. Neither company's customer service is able to cancel the subscription. But account services totes can, and will happily call me back within 24 hours.

Would anyone like to bet on them contacting me?

>121 RidgewayGirl: I had a similar ordeal a few years ago when I was double billed for my computer security software. Two parts of a large corporation couldn't communicate with each other. My credit card company ended up sorting it out for me. You might try that if you're not having any luck with Amazon or Audible. If Audible gets to be too much of a hassle you might take a look at Downpour.

I read Being Mortal last year and thought it was a terrific book. My parents aren't very old just yet so I didn't read it from that perspective. I chose it because I am a nurse and I treat a lot of people with cancer , some of which are palliative. I thought it would give me better understanding of why my patients are going through at that point of their lives. I too, highly recommend the book to anybody considering reading it. The author's writing style is excellent.

Weighing in on the long books topic, I love them. This is one of the reasons I changed my category focus this year from being book total oriented to page total oriented. Now I will red as many long books as I like. In fact, I am more put off by short books than long ones. I do tend to agree with >110 sturlington:'s comments.

I feel your pain in trying to deal with Amazon/Audible. These things are always great - - when they work. When things go wrong they can so quickly descend into a nightmare. I will keep my fingers crossed that you not only hear from them but also that things finally get worked out and resolved.

Thanks for replying to my rant, guys. It's been years, but I just got another form email from the accounts department, but this time just telling me that the hold has been dropped and they'll ship my order immediately. I haven't ordered anything, but at least the hold has been dropped. Now to get audible to let me in now that amazon has responded. Hey, it only took three years!

Ro, I like knowing that medical personnel also find Being Mortal helpful. I read it because kidzdoc thought highly of it.

And audible is open to me, as well. As I told my SO, stubbornness works every time. (Also, relentless politeness.)

I'm working my way through some of the books that will be in The Morning News Tournament of Books, of which All the Birds, Singing by Australian author Evie Wyld is one. Telling the story of Jake, a prickly, anti-social Australian woman, the book moves back and forth between her present, where she owns a small farm on an isolated British island on which she raises sheep, to the near past, where she works as a shearer on a northern Australian sheep station, and the far past, when she became the woman that she is. All the Birds, Singing is a relatively short book, with each chapter taking place in a different time and place, with the chapters set in the past not necessarily following in chronological order. This could be confusing, but Wyld's writing, as well as the vast differences between each segment of her life, means that I was able to orient myself within a few sentences.

There is, it seems, a terrible secret in Jake's past, a secret that she's on the run from and while the book seems to be heading in the direction of that secret being both sordid and expected, Wyld refuses to do the predictable thing. There's also a looming danger in the woods on the outskirts of her island farm, with her sheep being killed, although it's only a few each month. Jake has ideas about what is lurking, but it's never entirely certain what is happening and what is imagined.

All the Birds, Singing is an inventive, well-written and compelling novel. It's not one that releases its answers easily and Wyld is telling only the story that needs to be told; there are no unnecessary scenes and some things are left ambiguous. I suspect I'll be thinking over this book for some time to come.

>127 RidgewayGirl: Sounds like a good read!

>121 RidgewayGirl:
Wow, that's some bullshit right there.

>127 RidgewayGirl:
Sounds like a great read. The cover is pretty cool, too.

Ha, yes, Andrea, it is.

And the cover for All the Birds, Singing is very good. The Australian edition, however, is terrible.



I don't know who the woman on the cover is, but it's not Jake.

I hadn't planned to read All the Birds, Singing before the Tournament of Books, but I may reconsider, given your positive review. That Australian cover looks very Hitchcockian.

Sorry to hear about your troubles with Amazon. I had a recent problem with an order from Indigo that resulted in three lengthy phone calls before it could be resolved. I opted to order from them because the independent bookstore I usually shop at didn't have one of the books I wanted in stock and I was impatient. Well, I've learned my lesson ....

I'm also enjoying the discussion about long books. I don't try to avoid long books, but I do mind when books seem to include too much filler. Blackout/All Clear seemed overly long to me. However, I just finished The Children's Book and loved every word of it.

There is no way that The Children's Book could be called too long!

Glad that Amazon finally made the effort to get things straightened out for you.

I was also going to comment on the cover of All the Birds Singing it's a real eye-catcher. Your review has now placed that book on my wishlist. (I am loving that some are reading the books of the Tournament as I am growing my wishlist.) ;)

Judy, are you trying to grow your wishlist?

>134 RidgewayGirl: As you can probably tell, it seems to grow all by itself. I'm not actively trying to grow it, but I am not discouraged by it's size either - I like having choices!

I suspect my wishlist (both physical and mental) is on growth hormones.

Yeah, mine is constantly growing, but that does mean I don't get stuck, unable to find a book at a bookstore.

>137 RidgewayGirl: That's the right way of thinking. My wishlist is also growing and growing (BBs being only a small part of it), but that makes it so enjoyable to choose a new book. The downside is: the list is growing much faster than the number of books I read, so sometimes I'm wondering how on earth I can read all those books in my life?

>138 Chrischi_HH: It does cause me to both fantasize about being snowed in for a few weeks and to not fear the zombie apocalypse. There will be plenty of reading time when we are stockaded in the upper floors of our homes.

>139 RidgewayGirl: So we have a great future ahead, no matter what happens out there! I think I'll go right away and buy the next book from my wishlist. Just in case. ;)

Laura Lippman writes mainstream crime novels, a genre I usually avoid as predictable and usually featuring the protagonist putting themselves in needless peril so as to provide a good climax for the story. Lippman's stand-alone novels don't fall into those traps, although the writing can be workmanlike. The qualities that make her novels worth reading are an ability to create three dimensional characters and to make the reader care about them, even the not very likable ones, and that Baltimore is a character in the best of her books. Lippman clearly cares about this city and knows its history and geography with the kind of detail that only someone who loves it could.

In 1976, Felix, facing a few years in prison on a federal racketeering conviction, disappears instead. He leaves behind his wife and three young daughters, his friends and a serious girlfriend, who is the one who helps him flee the country. Ten years later, the girlfriend's body is found in Leakin Park, that infamous dumping ground. Nearly three decades later, a retired police working cold cases chooses that murder to look into. Going back and forth in time, and alternating point-of-views between the various characters, After I'm Gone tells the story of what happened to the girlfriend, the wife and the daughters of the fugitive.

This was a fun book to read, with the history of Baltimore's neighborhoods changing through the decades was interesting. While not serious literature, or even serious fiction, After I'm Gone was an entertaining way to spend a few snowy evenings.

I read her too because I like the Baltimore setting, although I'm way behind in the series.

I never got into the series, Betty, despite having read the first one. I may have to start it up again if Lippman doesn't write her stand-alones more quickly! I do remember liking Crow.

When Italy surrendered to the Allied Forces, it's soldiers retreated from the portion of France it had occupied, followed by Jewish refugees who had relied on Italy's disinterest in persecuting them. German troops in Italy became occupiers and began to enforce their own racial purity policies.

Mary Doria Russell sets her novel in a fictional valley that leads into the Alps during these final years of the Second World War. A Thread of Grace follows a few families that, after having been unwelcome refugees in France, cross the Alps in street shoes and carrying the last bits of their former lives in battered suitcases, with the help of Italian soldiers who see these families as people desperately needing their help. And in a small city at the other end of the valley, a Rabbi and his family who have been instrumental in caring for the Jewish refugees from eastern Europe, face the decision of whether to go into hiding themselves or to stay in order to continue to help the Jews in Porto Sant'Andrea.

Russell knows how to tell a story. A Thread of Grace weaves together several narratives, with a large cast of characters, but she always manages to make each character real and memorable, from Claudette Blum, a teenager coming of age missing her mother and younger brothers and forced to endlessly adjust to her changing circumstances, to Meisinger, an equally young German soldier who driver to the Grüppenfuhrer in the last days of the German occupation. This is a difficult book to put down. There's a great deal of derring-do, from the priest hiding money under his cassock to give to those households hiding Jews, acting against orders from Rome, to the Calabrian soldier who remains in the Alps in order to help the refugees and avoid conscription by the German Army, to a Grandmother who undertakes a dangerous task because sitting safely at home is too boring for her, there is always something going on, usually several things at once. And Russell never lets the reader forget that this isn't an adventure story and that the ending for far too many of the people involved isn't a celebration at the end of the war.

>144 RidgewayGirl: I knew that I had that book on a TBR list. As I looked, I noticed that it is one that I actually own. I guess it is time to dig it out to be read this year. It might be a few months before I get to it, but I will try to get to it.

I fell in love with this author when I read Doc but I really need to go back and read some of her earlier stuff. Thread of Grace is pretty high on that list.

Lori and Judy - I'd only read Doc previously, but I'd loved it so much I was pretty sure I'd like A Thread of Grace. It is different in that it follows a large number of people, instead of just one man, but I loved it as much a Doc. While I'm tempted to race through her books, I do want to spread them out as much as possible as she writes slowly.

What did you do today, you'd say when you got home from work, and I'd try my best to craft an anecdote for you out of nothing.

In Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill leaves plot behind in favor of brief, beautifully written vignettes in a woman's life. The unnamed protagonist begins the book as a young woman, ambitious and determined to be an "art monster," living entirely for her writing. Along the way, she gets married and has a child, entanglements that complicate and enrich her life. And that's the book, really. Her thoughts and experiences as she lives her life; not the milestones, but what it feels like to stand behind an elderly woman at the drug store, to care for a cranky infant who will not sleep, to work, resentfully, toward forgiveness.

How has she become one of those people who wears yoga pants all day? She used to make fun of those people. With their happiness maps and gratitude journals and their bags made out of recycled tire treads. But now it seems possible that the truth about getting older is that there are fewer and fewer things to make fun of until finally there is nothing you are sure you will never be.

Dept. of Speculation is a short novel, almost a novella, but it feels like a much larger book. The woman is prickly and often irritated and I like characters like that. The writing is wonderful; vivid without being ornate; there isn't a superfluous word in the thing.

Nice review. This was a deceptively layered book. I may have to read it again soon.

It was, Shannon. Reading as many of the Tournament of Books books as I can get my hands on has been a fantastic experience, since I wouldn't have picked up most of them without knowing a great deal more about them. It's fun coming to them with no expectations at all.

Oh, cool. I love vignette novels. It's like interconnected poetry, where a lot needs to be fit into a small space. Great review.

>151 andreablythe: Dept. of Speculation read like poetry to me, rather than a novel.

>148 RidgewayGirl: And Dept. of Speculation goes on the wishlist!

Now that I've read five of the Tournament of Books books, and being halfway through a sixth, I am dying for the thing to get started. Just two more weeks...

The Silkworm was exactly what I wanted it to be; another well-plotted detective novel similar to the first in the series. Here, Cormoran Strike and his assistant Robin investigate the disappearance of a near forgotten writer. His wife doesn't want to go to the police as he has made a habit of these dramatic disappearances. She just wants Strike to find him and to tell him to come home. He's just written a new novel, one whose characters are thinly veiled caricatures of actual people in the publishing world, so when his disappearance turns into a murder investigation, there are no shortage of suspects.

J.K. Rowling, (writing as Robert Galbraith, is good as creating off-beat characters and putting together a tightly plotted book. It was a very satisfying and entertaining read. She's less than kind in her characterizations of certain of her characters, saving the worst for the wives and children of Strike's friends, but her mean spiritedness is entertaining and kept under control. Rowling clearly has fun poking at the publishing industry, from the author who self-publishes her fantasy erotica to the head of a major publishing house.

There's no new ground broken, but Rowling respects the genre and plays brilliantly within its strictures. I look forward to the next one.

Adam is seventeen, lives in an affluent suburb of Berkeley, California and attends a private high school. He's also directionless, insecure and hanging onto inclusion in the popular group through the skin of his teeth. He's looking to escape all of that when he convinces his parents to let him stay for the summer with his college-age sister and her roommates in Brooklyn. His sister, Casey, is a lesbian and through her Adam meets a variety of lesbians and trans men. Adam is preoccupied with sex (he is seventeen, after all), but also dreams of romantic love, which he finds with a pretty red-haired girl.

Adam is a young adult novel, and Ariel Schrag is writing for older teenagers. I'm no longer the audience for this book, and had to set aside my irritation with the simplicity and repetition of the genre. In many ways, this reads like a Very Special Episode, but airing on late night HBO. Which is not to downplay the importance of a book about lesbian and transgender issues that is aimed at heterosexual teenagers. Schrag treats her characters like real people, so that just because a character is a trans man doesn't mean he can't also be an oblivious jerk. Adam, himself, is a complex guy, with his insecurities and concern that he look and behave in exactly the right way as well as the real affection he has for the girl he likes and his relationship with the sister he admires and worries about.

On the other hand, there were a few serious flaws in this novel. There's a secret Adam is keeping from his girlfriend, a secret which forms the central conflict in the book. Yet, at the last minute, Schrag pulls her punch here and makes that secret not a big deal, and that secret is revealed in a scene in which there is a question of consent that should have been treated as more than not a big deal, especially considering the personalities of the characters before that point. There were two fairly significant issues dropped into the novel towards the end that were there as far as I could see only to provide a bit of interest as the novel wrapped up, and a lot of lessons about gender issues that felt like they'd been copied directly from the author's research notes.

Adam is not a novel without merit, but it's too flawed to be able to recommend it whole-heartedly. It will be interesting to see what Ariel Schrag writes next, as she shows potential and a willingness to dive into difficult issues.

This is another book that I read solely because it's slated to compete in The Morning News Tournament of Books. I'm enjoying how much this shortlist is stretching my usual reading, even if I don't love all of the books I've read for it.

>155 RidgewayGirl: I've shied away from the Galbraith books but you've tempted me to give them a try. I'm partial to a bit of crime fiction now and again so I shall try The Cuckoo's Calling and see whether I like it.

Celeste Ng's novel, Everything I Never Told You, is a simple story about a quietly unhappy family that is clearly and straightforwardly told. It's also a nuanced, beautiful, understated and heart-wrenching read. At the center of the story and the center of the Lee family is Lydia, middle child but oldest daughter, who becomes the repository for both of her parents dreams, from her father's desire for her to fit in and have the social life he was denied as the only non-white child at a private school in early sixties, to her mother's thwarted dream of becoming a doctor. Lydia sees the fragility in her family and makes it her job to keep everyone happy. Lydia's brother, Nath, bears the sins of both not being the daughter his mother wants and in reminding his father too much of his own childhood. And Hannah, much younger than her siblings, is simply forgotten.

It took me a lot longer to read this book than normal, because everyone loves each other and everyone is making each other unhappy. There's so much sadness that I had to push myself to keep reading. But Ng isn't writing a book about misery, but about family, and as the book wraps up, there are moments of grace that redeem the earlier chapters. Ng is sometimes heavy-handed with the symbolism, but the novel is nevertheless well worth reading.

>158 RidgewayGirl: Glad that the novel redeemed itself.

I really appreciate your ToB reviews, as I've read 4 from the list and I'm trying to decide which other ones I should read in the limited time we have left. I finally made it to the top of the library waitlist for The Bone Clocks, so that's next in line.

Lori, there was a stretch where everyone was so unhappy that I was sure the ending would be the same. But everyone in the family loves each other, so they are stronger than they feel. Also, the youngest daughter is a wonderful character.

Paulina, The Bone Clocks really is a mash up of genres, isn't it? It makes it hard to pigeon-hole, or even to know what will happen next. I am having trouble patiently waiting until March 9th, although I still hope to read a few more books.

Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes is set in a decaying, crime-ridden Detroit, a city of urban ruin, but is also where artists are finding freedom to work and to come up with interesting ways to display their work. Broken Monsters follows Detective Gabi Versado, divorced mother raising her teenage daughter alone and a woman working in a field dominated by men who are not all pleased to work with a woman. She gets the call out to where a rookie patrol officer has found a gruesomely mutilated corpse and ends up leading a politically charged and difficult hunt for the murderer, a case subject to frenzied media attention as they speculate on whether or not they are looking for a serial killer. Added to this is Layla, Gabi's teenage daughter, who is struggling to find her way in a world where she doesn't fit in, although she does have one dubious friend; TK, who works for a homeless shelter and is known as someone who will always help, and Jonno, a journalist from New York who is trying to put his life back together and reignite his career with a series of YouTube videos.

Most of Broken Monsters is a solidly plotted crime novel, with interesting, well-developed characters and an atmospheric setting. While the identity of the murderer is made clear early in the book, it doesn't lessen the tension as the police struggle to figure out what exactly they are dealing with. Toward the climax of the book, supernatural aspects turn up, which were not entirely needed or as successfully integrated as Beukes did in The Shining Girls. It feels a little tacked on, as does the eventual explanation. Supernatural themes aside, the book would have been an outstanding read for me had not the protagonist behaved both stupidly and out of character in order to force the climactic scenes. I really hate the overused trope of having the protagonist put themselves into unnecessary danger in order to make the story more exciting. But with that glaring exception, Broken Monsters was a fun book to read.

>162 RidgewayGirl: Glad to hear Broken Monsters is another good one from the author. I've enjoyed all her previous books so this was always going on my wishlist anyway but it's good to get confirmation first.

Dave, Beukes can put together an intelligent and exciting story, that's for sure. I'm thinking I need to go and read her first two novels.

The weather is horrible today. Why is it that several degrees below freezing feels much more pleasant than a few degrees above? It's also doing that thing where stuff is coming from the sky that is neither snow nor rain. Even the cat is inside today.

Which, of course, means that I'm planning to spend the day reading. The kids have plans of their own - Max to watch all of the Marvel superhero movies in a row (he does not have time to watch all of them, but he's going to try) and Charlotte will watch with him for awhile and then wander off to find some sort of craft project on YouTube. I've started The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, which is very readable. I also have The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters and Longbourn by Jo Baker, for the sake of variety.

Couple of other people here on vacation a have read The Girl on the Train and recommended it. I'll be waiting to see what you think.

I will also be watching for your thoughts about The Girl on the Train. It's on my wishlist.

Ew, that snow-rain-both-or-neither mix is gross. Hate it when that happens; the weather should make up its mind! I am glad though that you have lots of reading material on hand, as it sounds like a perfect day for reading!

My mum wants to read The Girl on the Train so I will be interested in your thoughts.

Us is the story of a family. Douglas, the father, is of that repressed and careful character that is a staple stereotype of English men. He loves his wife and son, he really does, but he shows it in reprimands and awkwardness. He's also a biochemist who is frustrated and confused by his seventeen year old son's love of photography and sloth. He doesn't mean to be unsupportive, but he does think that Albie should really look for a field of study that he is more likely to be successful in than photography. His wife, Connie, had seen him at the beginning of their relationship as reassuring, like the Shipping Forecast, but now seems to regard him more as just dull. She has suggested that they separate when their son leaves for university, but not earlier. Leaving them to face one last family vacation; a Grand Tour of Europe.

David Nicholls, like Nick Hornsby and Helen Fielding, writes entertaining books that aren't quite literary fiction, but also aren't easy to dismiss as trifling. Nicholls has an easy style of writing, which allows him room to explore difficult themes and ideas lightly. Here it's the end of a marriage, the inability of people who love each other to communicate, even when they truly want to. This should be dire, but it's enjoyably readable. There's also a great deal about art, from the point of view of someone who has a hard time seeing more than what is concretely on the canvas, who has the misfortune to travel with two people who have made visual arts their primary interest. There's a fair bit of slapstick comedy here, but it doesn't overshadow the heart at the centre of this story.

The Girl on the Train is Rachel, an unemployed, newly divorced woman with a serious drinking problem. Traveling to London every day on the train, she passes the back of her old house, now filled with her ex-husband's new wife and baby. But what fascinates her are the inhabitants a few doors down, a young couple who are clearly so in love and happy.

Paula Hawkins has written the first big bestseller of 2015. It's been compared, over and over, to Gone Girl, which is mainly due, as far as I can tell, to being an entertaining, page-turning psychological thriller that the publishers hope will sell just as well. It is those things. Otherwise, there's no connection to Gillian Flynn's novel.

The Girl on the Train is narrated by three women; Rachel, herself, desperately unhappy and hanging together by the thinnest thread, she's still the linchpin of the novel as she tries to put the pieces back together into some sort of coherent narrative. Then there's Megan, the woman she watches so closely and whose disappearance is the central mystery of the novel. She's not as happy as she appears to be. And, finally, there's Anna, the new wife, who feels menaced by Rachel's constant appearance on their quiet street. She's got a family she loves and she won't let Rachel hurt it.

Overall, I enjoyed this suspenseful novel. While Megan and Rachel's voices and the way they experience the world are so similar, it's hard to tell them apart, each chapter is clearly marked with who is speaking and when that chapter takes place, so that the reader can follow the story as it jumps from narrator to narrator and through time. The Girl on the Train has the feel of a debut novel and there are missteps along the way, but it's a fun book with an ending that doesn't feel like a cheat. I look forward to seeing what Hawkins writes next as this novel showed promise.

That book has been the talk of the beach here. (We're in Mexico on vacation.) There are a group of us that met here from various places and we all seem to come the same week every year and who's read what over the past year is one of the main topics of conversation. I take a lot of BBs from them too! Both the ebook and the physical book have huge numbers of people waiting at the library, so I may break down and buy it when I get home. When I heard it compared to Gone Girl I wasn't sure about it as I wasn't a fan of that book, so I was waiting to hear what your opinion was since I saw you were reading it.

I've been on the fence about training The Girl on the Train, it's all the rave right now, but sometimes I find I'm just not as interested or like the book as much as it's been raved.

It does sound interesting, and your review has piqued that interest, but still on the fence.

Betty, I'm glad someone is sitting on a beach and sinking their toes into warm sand!

Julie, I read Gone Girl as soon as it came out because I'd really liked Gillian Flynn's other two books, especially Sharp Objects, so I got to read it without the baggage. I tend to do the same thing - if a book is too popular, I have this contrarian impulse to purposefully not read it. For The Girl on the Train, I was all set to just ignore it, but then I heard a small bit about it on the NYT Book Review podcast just when my library got an ecopy, so I put it on hold just because and it came up just when I was in the mood for a crime novel. I'd say that it's a good, entertaining read, but not something that we'll be still reading in twenty years.

I'm still interested in The Girl on the Train because I'm intrigued by the train aspect. I loved riding trains and the underground in London (and buses, for that matter), and it's one of the things I miss about living there. It sounds like a good vacation book.

It's an excellent vacation read, Carrie, or for when you're stuck somewhere and need something diverting but not too challenging.

>170 RidgewayGirl: We haven't been able to keep The Girl on the Train on the shelf here. It's very popular and has a waiting list (which is unusual in an academic library).

I haven't read anything by Gillian Flynn yet, I have tree of her books Dark Places, Gone Girl and Sharp Objects I'm trying to figure out which one to start with.

Interesting about Girl on the Train - perhaps that one will be a Library Book Read - that way I find I don't like it, I won't feel I need to finish it.

Lori, it's certainly the book of the moment.

Julie, start with Sharp Objects. It's her first and arguably her best novel. And The Girl on the Train is a perfect library book - it's fun, but not one you'll want to keep and reread later.

Longbourn is the family home in Pride and Prejudice as well as the title of Jo Baker's novel. It's set in the Bennet home, during and after the events described in Pride and Prejudice, but it's about the lives of the servants, with the Bennet family in the background. Sarah came to Longbourn when she was six, the only surviving member of her family. Taken in by the kind-hearted housekeeper and cook, Mrs. Hill, she grows up in the house. The same age as Lizzie Bennet, she is leading a different life that her mistress, rising early and going to bed after the family does, as she performs the many tasks that allow the Bennets the lifestyle they take for granted.

Looking from the servants' perspective gives the reader a different way to see the Bennets, but this is not a book about them. Darcy is barely noticed by the servants, but Mr. Collins, to whom Longbourn is entailed, is very important to their futures and his visit is treated accordingly. This isn't Austen's genteel society; here pigs must be slaughtered, chamber pots emptied and if the weather won't allow the Bennet girls to go to Meryton to buy new roses to decorate their dancing slippers, a proxy must be sent. This isn't about the officers in their fine red coats, but about the grittier life of the enlisted man.

I enjoyed this book enormously. I've felt compelled, over the years, to read many books based on Pride and Prejudice and, for the most part, they are not good. This, on the other hand, is a fantastically rich and interesting book, and not a dull copy hoping to hang on those famous shirttails. Sure, Baker's version shows the characters differently than I imagine them (Wickham, especially) but that's part of the fun. The downside of this novel is that I will certainly read more terrible books based on Jane Austen's novels in the hope of finding another Longbourn.

Longbourn looks great. I love to be able to see novels from new perspectives. I'm thinking of doing a P&P themed category next year in order to reread Pride and Prejudice, followed by Longbourn, Death Comes to Pemberley, and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (even though I have a feeling that last one will tick me off).

>170 RidgewayGirl: I've had my eyes on this one for a while now - we have had so many people check this out with rave reviews. Looks like I'm adding it as a BB!

Andrea, Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is great fun. The best part is the discussion questions at the back of the book.

Hi, Sarah! Achilles is lovely. And The Girl on the Train is fun.

>179 RidgewayGirl: When the reviews for Longbourn began to be published I was surprised that a book based on P&P could get such great reviews. I had sworn that I wouldn't read any of the "based ons" because I couldn't see how they could be good. The reviews caused me to cave in on Longbourn and it was one of the best books I read last year. So glad I didn't miss it!

I have every intention of reading, or perhaps listening, to Longbourn. Enough readers I trust (you included) have read and liked it.

I have a friend's copy of Pride and Prejudice and Kitties that I need to read and return. I don't think it will take long since there are lots of photos. I expect the photos to be more entertaining than the text, although I may be surprised. Kitties appeal to me more than zombies do.

I'm currently reading Edmund Bertram's Diary. I think this one can safely be avoided by everyone else. It's not unreadably dreadful, but it's only mildly entertaining and it doesn't have the right feel for Austen.

As you know, I loved Longbourn as well, and I think the author was very brave to tackle that particular book. She was able to really make the "downstairs" come alive and keep the original story well in the background because, as you say, this was the story of the servants not the masters.

I do hope you continue to read P & P spin-offs, then I can sit back and wait for you to recommend the good ones! ;)

I almost picked up Longbourn this past weekend. Glad to see your favorable review.

Margaret Atwood's newest collection of short stories, Stone Mattress: Nine Tales, is every bit as good as one would expect. My only disappointment is that there were only nine stories.

The collection starts off with three loosely connected stories, one involving a popular and eccentric fantasy novelist, one about a former lover who is a minor poet and the final story follows an ex-wife of the poet. There's a story, originally written for The Walrus, that continues the story of Charis, Roz and Tony from The Robber Bride, which is wonderful. I got the feeling that Atwood loves those three women as much as I do, and her story, in which Billy returns, is very well done. Many of the stories are about people approaching the end of their lives and several of them are writers of one sort or another, but despite the common themes, each story is different from the others.

clue, it is good. I'm glad you liked it, too.

Carrie, the idea of Pride and Prejudice and Kitties is probably all I need to know about it! As for a book written from Edmund's perspective, I'm not sure what to think about that. Glad you read it so I won't be tempted.

Ha, ha, Judy. They are usually not good. I read the modern chick-lit ones that are based on Austen's novels, having liked Bridget Jones's Diary and laboring under the mistaken impression that lightening can strike twice.

Victoria, other people liked Longbourn, too. I hope this is one that we agree on!

>187 RidgewayGirl:
I haven't read any of her short stories. Only her novels. This would be a good one to give a try.

Andrea, it would be. Moral Disorder and Other Stories is another collection of her stories I really loved.

>188 RidgewayGirl: Edmund Bertram's Diary did get better, but its biggest problem is not enough Fanny and way too much Mary Crawford. There's a reason Jane Austen didn't write the Mansfield Park from Edmund's perspective. Probably more than one.

> 187 Hi Kay: That is so funny, I'm reading Stone Mattress right now! I read Moral Disorder, loved it
and have been on the lookout for Stone Mattress since then. I'm on the 3rd story.

Carrie, I'm enjoying rereading Mansfield Park so much right now. I'm trying to slow down and go at the pace of the tutored read, but I'm not being entirely successful.

Lisa, we're book twins. I'm looking forward to finding out what you think of it. I loved how Constance was dismissed by Gavin and then ended up so much more successful.

Stone Mattress was an excellent collection. I haven't read many of Atwood's short story collections, but that one was my favourite.

I've been trying to finish Mansfield Park for years now. I keep starting it, but haven't finished it. I'm hoping to finally finish it this year. It's been my least favourite Austen book, I just don't see the appeal to it.

Julie, Mansfield Park is certainly different in tone from all of Austen's other books. Once I'd given up on the idea of Fanny being a romantic heroine and just enjoyed the different characters, I ended up racing through it.

Mansfield Park tells the story of Fanny Price, a poor relation of the Bertram family, who was brought to live with them when she was ten as an act of charity. Fanny is an odd heroine for a novel by Jane Austen. She lacks spark. Which is no wonder given that she was removed from her home while young, dumped into a strange environment and largely ignored. Her Aunt Norris is one of the worst characters ever put down on paper; all of the evil stepmothers of fairy tale fame would do well to take lessons from her. She makes certain that shy, insecure Fanny will only become more withdrawn and hesitant as she grows up and that the Bertram family will not forget to treat her as an unwelcome charity case.

And that is the strength of this novel. Along with the amazing aunt Norris, Austen has created a whole host of wonderful characters and breathed life into them. From the dull idiot Mr. Rushworth, who is so taken by being given a role in the play the young people decide to put on that involves him learning forty-two speeches (which he is then unable to learn), to Lady Bertram, who approaches a sedentary lifestyle with the dedication of an Olympic hopeful; each character is so interesting in their own right that I wanted several times in this book for Austen to have written other novels following each of them.

Fanny is such an interesting character. She's been systematically berated and ignored until by the age of eighteen she is anxious in any situation where attention might be paid to her, but also resentful when it isn't. She's been ordered to be grateful for substandard treatment so often that she rarely speaks and when she does it's often in an Eeyore-ish passive aggressive way, not that it does her any good. Unless her cousin Edmund happens to be listening, her wishes are entirely disregarded. And so she sits, largely silent, with years of pent-up judgements and opinions inside of her. She's not an easy character to like, although Austen makes clear that while she is silently thinking the worst of the people around her, the face she shows is so quiet and unassuming, that people attribute great kindness to her. It helps that being so shy makes her a very good listener to all the narcissists that surround her, and that she is very pretty. Her improved looks are noticed first by her uncle who, after having spent some months away in Antigua, at the sugar plantation that provides the Bertram family their wealth, begins to talk about her and to her quite a bit, she now being worthy of his notice. It's all a little skeevy, and Fanny, quite rightly, remains terrified of him.

This being Austen, there is a question of the central characters, here Fanny Price and her cousin Edmund, finding spouses. Edmund, a solemn man, plans to enter the clergy and live a rural life, is simultaneously entranced and repulsed by Mary Crawford, who is light, quick-witted and bubbly. She tends to say any witty thing that pops into her head and she often shocks and insults Edmund inadvertently. Of course they can't leave each other alone, and they are each constantly reassessing whether they could be happy together. Then there's her brother Henry, who begins the novel as a flirt who is always looking for new ways to entertain himself and others. He determines to pay court to Fanny as a way of passing the time after all the other eligible young ladies have left the neighborhood, making a contest to himself of winning her affection. Instead, he falls in love while Fanny remains hostile to his advances. His admiration for her causes him to renounce his rakehell ways. Unfortunately, Fanny bore witness to his worst behavior and is disinclined to give his reformation any credit. She attempts to get rid of him several times, but between her inability to speak clearly enough for him to understand and his own determination to win her no matter how long it takes, they are often in each other's company.

We all know how things should turn out -- with a double wedding at the local chapel in the best Austen style, but she throws a curve ball in Mansfield Park, refusing, in the end, to satisfy the reader. And this is where I ran into a problem with this book; I wanted a different ending. I knew what would happen. I'd read the book before. But until the final chapters, I was hoping for it.

I just ordered MP for my Kindle so I have it handy when I can get to it.

Great review of Mansfield Park! I think I'll try to fit in a reread of this novel for April.

I'm happy to see your positive review of Stone Mattress. This is one I definitely plan to read. A few months ago, I attended one of Atwood's talks and found her comments about why Canada has so many well-known short story writers interesting. She attributes that to the many Canadian literary magazines that published poetry and short fiction when she and others like Alice Munro and Leonard Cohen were in the early stages of their careers.

Love your review of Mansfield Park. I enjoyed it when I read it.

"With my group," Starlee told me, "the first man said that his secret was that he hadn't paid taxes in ten years. Everyone nodded and looked disappointed that his secret wasn't so sensational. Then the next man said that his secret was he had once murdered a man. He was in a truck with a man and he punched him in his head and threw him out the guy was dead and another car ran him over. And he didn't go to jail and he never told anyone."

"What did Brad Blanton say?" I asked her.

"He said, 'Next. Great.' So then it got to the next woman. She said, 'Oh! My secrets are so boring! I suppose I can talk about how I have sex with my cat.' Then the murderer raised his hand and said, 'Excuse me. I'd like to add that I also have sex with my cat.'"

Jon Ronson is an expert in getting people to talk to him. In So You've Been Publicly Shamed, he takes on people whose lives have been ruined through a single tasteless joke, or an act of plagiarism that the internet refuses to let them move on from. Ronson is interested in how people recover from their public shaming, but also in the shamers - what triggers the internet to attack someone? How are ordinary people complicit in this? Along the way, he looks at the way shame affects us, how people fight shame and why some people are able to move on from a public scandal, while others remain targets.

Ronson's inspiration for this book was his reaction when his name and photo were used by a twitterbot. He found himself feeling powerless and angry. He got the guys, university lecturers, to agree to an interview and Ronson was gratified by the responses he got when he posted the interview on YouTube and felt victorious when the twitterbot was taken down.

I can see why people who are otherwise reluctant to talk to anyone, let alone a journalist, would speak with Ronson. He really is the least threatening person on earth. This is emphasized when you listen to him, which I have and while reading this book, I heard it narrated in his voice. Here, he talks to a writer whose plagiarism was revealed, and the journalist who unmasked him. He talks to two women who made tasteless jokes, one on twitter and one on Facebook. And he talks to Max Moseley, a wealthy, prominent Brit who was unmasked as a frequenter of a sex club with a Nazi theme. Moseley survived his scandal, and was able to continue on with his life and Ronson wants to find out why he managed to reinvent himself, when so many people whose transgressions were much smaller were still trapped in their houses, unable to move on.

mamzel, have you read Mansfield Park before?

Paulina, I'd love to attend a talk by Margaret Atwood.

It is a fun book, isn't it, Andrea?

>196 RidgewayGirl: Very interesting review of Mansfield Park! My own feelings about the novel are quite conflicted...I want to like Fanny, but I can never quite manage it! I anticipate a great discussion of MP with the Austen group read. :)

Christina, have you read the Bitch in a Bonnet posts about Fanny? He hates her so much. That helped me figure out why I like her as I was having imaginary arguments with Robert Rodi all the time. I think the discussion will be fun - everyone likes Pride and Prejudice but that discussion was still lively and interesting, so it should be extra fun for a less revered book.