What Are You Reading the Week of 10 January 2015

The below is from Wikipedia in its entirety, prefaced with "The neutrality of this article is disputed." Well, yes. All the other on-line biographies were fawning, though and glossed over a little too much.

"Stephen Edward Ambrose (January 10, 1936 – October 13, 2002) was an American historian and biographer of U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. He was a longtime professor of history at the University of New Orleans and the author of many best selling volumes of American popular history.

Beginning late in his life and continuing after his death, however, evidence and reports have continued to surface documenting longtime patterns of plagiarism and inaccuracies in many of his published writings and other work. In response to one of the early reports, Ambrose said he was not "out there stealing other people's writings." In the wake of his death, a reviewer for the New York Times did not absolve him completely, but opined that "he certainly deserved better from some of his envious peers" and credited the historian with reaching "an important lay audience without endorsing its every prejudice or sacrificing the profession's standards of scholarship."

Early life
Ambrose was born in Lovington, Illinois to Rosepha Trippe Ambrose and Stephen Hedges Ambrose. His father was a physician who served in the U.S. Navy during World War II. Ambrose was raised in Whitewater, Wisconsin, where he graduated from Whitewater High School. His family also owned a farm in Lovington, Illinois and vacation property in Marinette County, Wisconsin. He attended college at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where he was a member of Chi Psi Fraternity and played on the University of Wisconsin football team for three years.

Ambrose originally wanted to major in pre-medicine, but changed his major to history after hearing the first lecture in a U.S. history class entitled "Representative Americans" in his sophomore year. The course was taught by William B. Hesseltine, whom Ambrose credits with fundamentally shaping his writing and igniting his interest in history. While at Wisconsin, Ambrose was a member of the Navy and Army ROTC. He graduated with a B.A. in 1957. Ambrose received a master's degree in history from Louisiana State University in 1958, studying under T. Harry Williams. Ambrose then went on to earn a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1963, under William B. Hesseltine.

Career
Academic positions
Ambrose was a history professor from 1960 until his retirement in 1995, having spent the bulk of his time at the University of New Orleans, where he was named the Boyd Professor of History in 1989, an honor given only to faculty who attain "national or international distinction for outstanding teaching, research, or other creative achievement". During the academic year 1969-70, he was Ernest J. King Professor of Maritime History at the Naval War College. In 1970, while teaching at Kansas State University, Ambrose participated in heckling of Richard Nixon during a speech the president gave on the KSU campus. Given pressure from the KSU administration and having job offers elsewhere, upon finishing out the year Ambrose offered to leave and the offer was accepted. His opposition to the Vietnam War stood in contrast to his research on "presidents and the military at a time when such topics were increasingly regarded by his colleagues as old fashioned and conservative." Ambrose also taught at Louisiana State University, Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University, U.C. Berkeley, and a number of European schools, including University College Dublin, where he taught as the Mary Ball Washington Professor of American History.

He founded the Eisenhower Center at the University of New Orleans in 1989 serving as its director until 1994. "The mission of the Eisenhower Center is the study of the causes, conduct, and consequences of American national security policy and the use of force as an instrument of policy in the twentieth century." The Center's first efforts, which Ambrose initiated, involved the collection of oral histories from World War II veterans about their experiences, particularly any participation in D-Day. By the time of publication of Ambrose's D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, in 1994, the Center had collected more than 1,200 oral histories. Ambrose donated $150,000 to the Center in 1998 to foster additional efforts to collect oral histories from World War II veterans.

Writings
Ambrose's earliest works concerned the Civil War. He wrote biographies of the generals Emory Upton and Henry Halleck, the first of which was based on his dissertation.

Early in his career, Ambrose was mentored by World War II historian Forrest Pogue. In 1964, Ambrose took a position at Johns Hopkins as the Associate Editor of the Eisenhower Papers, a project aimed at organizing, cataloging and publishing Eisenhower's principal papers. From this work and discussions with Eisenhower emerged an article critical of Cornelius Ryan’s The Last Battle, which had depicted Eisenhower as politically naîve, when at the end of World War II he allowed Soviet forces to take Berlin, thus shaping the Cold War that followed. Ambrose expanded this into a book, Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe (1967). Ambrose was aided in the book's writing by comments and notes provided by Eisenhower, who read a draft of the book.

In 1964 Ambrose was commissioned to write the official biography of the former president and five-star general Dwight D. Eisenhower. This resulted in a book on Eisenhower's war years, The Supreme Commader(1970) and a two-volume full biography (published 1983 and 1984), which are considered "the standard" on the subject. Regarding the first volume, Gordon Harrison, writing for the New York Times, proclaimed, "It is Mr. Ambrose's special triumph that he has been able to fight through the memoranda, the directive, plans, reports, and official self-serving pieties of the World War II establishment to uncover the idiosyncratic people at its center. Ambrose also wrote a three-volume biography of Richard Nixon. Although Ambrose was a strong critic of Nixon, the biography is considered fair and just regarding Nixon's presidency.

A visit to a reunion of Easy Company veterans in 1988 prompted Ambrose to collect their stories, turning them into Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest. (1992) D-Day (1994), built upon additional oral histories, presented the battle from the view points of individual soldiers and became his first best seller. A reviewer for the Journal of Military History commended D-Day as the "most comprehensive discussion" of the sea, air, and land operations that coalesced on that day. Christopher Lehmann-Haupt, writing for the New York Times, proclaimed that "Reading this history, you can understand why for so many of its participants, despite all the death surrounding them, life revealed itself in that moment at that place." Ambrose's Citizen Soldiers, which describes battles fought in northwest Europe from D-Day through the end of the war, utilized, again, extensive oral histories. Citizen Soldiers became a best seller, appearing on the New York Times' best sellers lists for both hardcover and paperback editions in the same week. During the same week, in September 1998, D-Day and Undaunted Courage, Ambrose's 1996 book on Meriwether Lewis and the Corps of Discovery, appeared on the best seller list, also. He also wrote The Victors(1998), a distillation of material from other books detailing Eisenhower's wartime experiences and connections to the common soldier, and The Wild Blue, that looks at World War II aviation largely through the experiences of George McGovern, who commanded a B-24 crew that flew numerous missions over Germany. His other major works include Undaunted Courage about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and Nothing Like It in the World about the construction of the Pacific Railroad. His final book, This Vast Land, a historical novel about the Lewis & Clark expedition written for young readers, was published posthumously in 2003.

Ambrose's most popular single work was Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West (1996), which stayed on the New York Times best seller list for a combined, hardcover and paperback, 126 weeks. Ambrose consolidated research on the Corps of Discovery's expedition conducted in the previous thirty years and "synthesized it skillfully to enrich our understanding and appreciation of this grand epic," according to Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., who reviewed the book for the New York Times.31 Ken Burns, who produced and directed a PBS documentary on Lewis & Clark declared that Ambrose "takes one of the great, but also one of the most superficially considered, stories in American history and breathes fresh life into it."

In addition to twenty-seven self-authored books, Ambrose co-authored, edited, and contributed to many more and was a frequent contributor to magazines such as American Heritage. He, also, reviewed the works of other historians in the Journal of Southern History, Military Affairs, American Historical Review, Journal of American History, and Foreign Affairs. He served as a contributing editor to MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History, also.

Television, film, and other activities
Ambrose appeared as a historian in the 1974 ITV television series, The World at War, which detailed the history of World War II.

He served as the historical consultant for the movie Saving Private Ryan. Tom Hanks, who starred in the movie, said he "pored over D-Day" and Band of Brothers in researching his role. Hanks also credited Ambrose's books with providing extensive detail, particularly regarding D-Day landings.

The HBO mini-series, Band of Brothers (2001), for which he was an executive producer, helped sustain the fresh interest in World War II that had been stimulated by the 50th anniversary of D-Day in 1994 and the 60th anniversary in 2004. Ambrose served as executive producer for Price for Peace, a documentary concerning the war in the Pacific theater during World War II, and for Moments of Truth, a TV documentary containing interviews with World War II veterans.

In addition, Ambrose served as a commentator for Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery, a documentary by Ken Burns. He provided commentary in twenty made-for TV documentaries, covering diverse topics, such as World War II, Lewis & Clark, and America's prominence in the 20th century. He also appeared as a guest on numerous TV programs or stations, including The Charlie Rose Show, C-Span programming, CNN programming, NBC's Today Show, CNBC's Hardball, and various programming on The History Channel and the National Geographic Channel. Ambrose's association with National Geographic stemmed, in part, from his designation as an Explorer-in-Residence by the Society.

In addition to his academic work and publishing, Ambrose operated a historical tour business, acting as a tour guide to European locales of World War II.18 Also, he served on the board of directors for American Rivers and was a member of the Lewis and Clerk Bicentennial Council.

National World War II Museum
Ambrose's work for the Eisenhower Center, specifically his work with D-Day veterans, inspired him to found the National D-Day Museum in New Orleans. Ambrose initiated fundraising by donating $500,000.41 "He dreamt of a museum that reflected his deep regard for our nation's citizen soldiers, the workers on the Home Front and the sacrifices and hardships they endured to achieve victory. He secured large contributions from the federal government, state of Louisiana, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, and many smaller donations from former students, who answered a plea made by Ambrose in the New Orleans Times-Picayune. In 2003, Congress designated the museum as "America's National World War II Museum," acknowledging an expanded scope and mission for the museum. "The Stephen E. Ambrose Memorial Fund continues to support the development of the museum's Center for Study of the American Spirit, its educational programs and oral history and publication initiatives."

Awards
In 1998, he received the National Humanities Medal. In 2000, Ambrose received the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service, the highest honorary award the Department of Defense offers to civilians. In 2001, he was awarded the Theodore Roosevelt Medal for Distinguished Service from the Theodore Roosevelt Association. Ambrose won an Emmy as one of the producers for the mini-series Band of Brothers. Ambrose also received the George Marshall Award, the Abraham Lincoln Literary Award, the Bob Hope Award from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and the Will Rogers Memorial Award.

Upon Ambrose's death, U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana offered a resolution in the Senate, which received unanimous consent, saluting the "excellence of Stephen Ambrose at capturing the greatness of the American spirit in words."

Personal life, final years, and death
He married his first wife, Judith Dorlester, in 1957, and they had two children, Stephenie and Barry. Judith died in 1965, when Ambrose was 29. Ambrose married his second wife, Moira Buckley (1939–2009), in 1967 and adopted her three children, Andrew, Grace, and Hugh. Moira was an active assistant in his writing and academic projects. After retiring, he maintained homes in Helena, Montana, and Bay St. Louis, Mississippi. A longtime smoker, he was diagnosed with lung cancer in April 2002. His health deteriorated rapidly, and seven months after the diagnosis he died, at the age of 66. George McGovern, the primary focus of Ambrose’s Wild Blue said, “He probably reached more readers than any other historian in our national history.”

Legacyedit
Ambrose donated $500,000, half the amount needed, to the University of Wisconsin, to endow a chair in the name of William B. Hesseltine, Ambrose's mentor. The chair's position would focus on the teaching of American military history. When the chairs became fully endowed, after Ambrose's death, it was renamed the Ambrose-Hesseltine Chair.

The Ambrose Professor of History was established at the University of New Orleans after his death. The position is reserved for a military historian.

Each year the Rutgers University Living History Society awards the Stephen E. Ambrose Oral History Award to "an author or artist who has made significant use of oral history." Past winners include Tom Brokaw, Steven Spielberg, Studs Terkel, Michael Beschloss, and Ken Burns.

Criticismedit
Plagiarism controversyedit
In 2002, Ambrose was accused of plagiarizing several passages in his book, The Wild Blue. Fred Barnes reported in The Weekly Standard that Ambrose had taken passages from Wings of Morning: The Story of the Last American Bomber Shot Down over Germany in World War II, by Thomas Childers, a history professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Ambrose had footnoted sources, but had not enclosed in quotation marks, numerous passages from Childers' book.

Ambrose asserted that only a few sentences in all his numerous books were the work of other authors. He offered this defense:

I tell stories. I don't discuss my documents. I discuss the story. It almost gets to the point where, how much is the reader going to take? I am not writing a Ph.D. dissertation.

I wish I had put the quotation marks in, but I didn't. I am not out there stealing other people's writings. If I am writing up a passage and it is a story I went to tell and this story fits and a part of it is from other people's writing, I just type it up that way and put it in a footnote. I just want to know where the hell it came from.
A Forbes investigation of his work found cases of plagiarism involving passages in at least six books, with a similar pattern going all the way back to his doctoral dissertation.54 The History News Network lists seven of Ambrose's more than 40 works—The Wild Blue, Undaunted Courage, Nothing Like It In the World, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, Citizen Soldiers, The Supreme Commander, and Crazy Horse and Custer—contained content from twelve authors without appropriate attribution from Ambrose.
Factual errors and disputed characterizations
Pacific Railroad
A front page article published in The Sacramento Bee on January 1, 2001, entitled "Area Historians Rail Against Inaccuracies in Book", listed more than sixty instances identified as "significant errors, misstatements, and made-up quotes" in Nothing Like It in the World: The Men Who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863–1869, Ambrose's non-academic popular history about the construction of the Pacific Railroad between Council Bluffs, Iowa/Omaha, Nebraska and the San Francisco Bay at Alameda/Oakland via Sacramento, California, which was published in August, 2000. The discrepancies were documented in a detailed "fact-checking" paper compiled in December, 2000 by three Western US railroad historians who are also experienced researchers, consultants, and collectors specializing in the Pacific Railroad and related topics.

On January 11, 2001, Washington Post columnist Lloyd Grove reported in his column, The Reliable Source, that a co-worker had found a "serious historical error" in the same book that "a chastened Ambrose" promised to correct in future editions. A number of journal reviews also sharply criticized the research and fact checking in the book. Reviewer Walter Nugent observed that it contained "annoying slips" such as mislabeled maps, inaccurate dates, geographical errors, and misidentified word origins, while Don L. Hofsommer agreed that the book "confuses facts" and that "The research might best be characterized as 'once over lightly'."

The Eisenhower controversy
In the introduction to Ambrose's biography of Eisenhower, he claims that the former president approached him after having read his previous biography of Henry Halleck, but Tim Rives, Deputy Director of the Eisenhower Presidential Center, says it was Ambrose who contacted Eisenhower and suggested the project, as shown by a letter from Ambrose found in the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum. In his response, Eisenhower stated that "the confidence I have derived from your work by reading your two books—especially the one on Halleck—give reasons why I should be ready to help out so far as I can."The Halleck biography "still sits on a shelf" at the Eisenhower National Historic site in Gettysburg.

After Eisenhower's death in 1969, Ambrose made repeated claims to have had a unique and extraordinarily close relationship with him over the final five years of the former President's life. In an extensive 1998 interview, before a group of high school students, Ambrose stated that he spent "a lot of time with Ike, really a lot, hundreds and hundreds of hours." Ambrose claimed he interviewed Eisenhower on a wide range of subjects, and that he had been with him "on a daily basis for a couple years" before his death "doing interviews and talking about his life." The former president's diary and telephone records show that the pair met only three times, for a total of less than five hours. Rives has stated that interview dates Ambrose cites in his 1970 book, The Supreme Commander, cannot be reconciled with Eisenhower's personal schedule, but Rives discovered, upon further investigation, a "hidden" relationship between the two men. Eisenhower enlisted Ambrose in his efforts to preserve his legacy and counteract criticisms of his presidency, particularly those charging that Eisenhower's actions at the end of World War II produced the Cold War. Ambrose wrote a review and book supporting the former general, with Eisenhower providing direction and comments during the process. Rives could not square the questionable interview dates cited by Ambrose in later works, but uncovered a relationship with Eisenhower that was "too complicated" to be described by Ambrose's critics.

Works
•Halleck: Lincoln's Chief of Staff, Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University Press (1962)
•Upton and the Army, Louisiana State University Press (1964)
•Duty, Honor, Country: A History of West Point, Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press (1966)
•Eisenhower and Berlin, 1945: The Decision to Halt at the Elbe. New York:: W.W. Norton. 1967. OCLC 203781.
•The Supreme Commander: the War Years of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, New York: Doubleday (1970)
•Crazy Horse and Custer: The Parallel Lives of Two American Warriors, New York: Doubleday (1975) ISBN 0-385-09666-6
•Ike's Spies: Eisenhower and the Espionage Establishment, New York: Doubleday (1981) ISBN 0-385-14493-8
•Eisenhower Volume 1: Soldier, General of the Army, President-Elect, 1890-1952, New York: Simon & Schuster (1983) ISBN 0-671-44069-1
•Eisenhower Volume 2: The President, New York: Simon & Schuster (1984) ISBN 0-671-49901-7
•Pegasus Bridge: June 6, 1944, New York: Simon & Schuster (1985) ISBN 0-671-52374-0
•Nixon: The Education of a Politician, 1913-1962, New York: Simon & Schuster (1987) ISBN 0-671-52836-X
•Eisenhower: Soldier and President, New York: Simon & Schuster (1990) ISBN 0-671-70107-X
•Nixon: The Triumph of a Politician, 1962-1972, New York: Simon & Schuster (1990) ISBN 0-671-52837-8
•Nixon: Ruin and recovery, 1973-1990, New York: Simon & Schuster (1991) ISBN 0-671-69188-0
•Band of Brothers, E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne: From Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest (1992) ISBN 0-671-76922-7
•D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II, New York, Simon & Schuster (1994) ISBN 0-671-88403-4
•Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson, and the Opening of the American West, New York: Simon & Schuster (1996) ISBN 0-684-81107-3
•Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany, June 7, 1944 - May 7, 1945, New York: Simon & Schuster (1997) ISBN 0-684-81525-7
•Americans at War, Jackson: University Press of Mississippi (1997) ISBN 1-57806-026-5
•The Victors: Eisenhower and his Boys - The Men of World War II, New York: Simon & Schuster (1998) ISBN 0-684-85628-X
•Comrades: Brothers, Fathers, Heroes, Sons, Pals, New York: Simon & Schuster (1999) ISBN 0-684-86718-4
•Nothing Like it in the World: The Men who Built the Transcontinental Railroad, 1863-1869, New York: Simon & Schuster (2000) ISBN 0-684-84609-8
•The Wild Blue: The Men and Boys who Flew the B-24s over Germany, New York: Simon & Schuster (2001) ISBN 0-7432-0339-9
•To America: Personal Reflections of an Historian, New York: Simon & Schuster (2002) ISBN 0-7432-0275-9
•This Vast Land, New York: Simon & Schuster, (2003) ISBN 0-689-86448-5"

What are you reading this week?

Thanks for putting this together, MDG. I liked his Undaunted Courage: Meriweather Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West a lot.

Rose Gold, the latest Easy Rawlins mystery, was one of the best in the series for me. I'm now reading Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro.

Thanks to the horrible weather I'm staying bundled up and reading!

I'm making progress in the Iliad, I'm up to Book 9. The Argives are about to ask Achilles to give up his snit and help them out.

I read a few more chapters in Bosie the biography of Lord Alfred Douglas. It's a really good biography but Bosie's poetry isn't to my taste. Give me Mary Oliver, any day!

I've got Plantagenets by Dan Jones going and it's a wonderful read. I think it is the enthusiasm and energy that Dan Jones brings to the subject. I heard him on a radio program and he is as good at describing it as he is at writing about it. Truthfully, I didn't really need to read another book about the Plantagenets but I couldn't resist.

I'm also half-heartedly reading The Boat House by Stephen Gallagher. I felt like I needed a mystery to balance all this non-fiction but it's poky pace is not really working for me. I read The Bedlam Detective, by the same author, last week and am still thinking about it. Unfortunately The Boat House isn't quite catching me but I'll hang in there. The Bedlam Detective was just so good!

I'm still working my way through What Maisie Knew by Henry James. Talk about someone who loves pronouns! I've decided it matters less who the "he" or "she" is referring to and to just enjoy the rare clarity of the plot.

(edited, with my cat's help, to list What Maisie Knew)

I'm just past the halfway mark of my annual Conrad read to start the new year. This year's book is Under Western Eyes.

The Midnight Queen by Sylvia Izzo Hunter

The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering…
by Marie Kondo

Really. I have to get organized. I mean my New Year's resolutions are snickering at me.

I have just this minute finished reading The Castle of Otranto, am still plodding through Agent 6, listening to The Black Country by Alex Grecian and also Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke.

The Castle of Otranto was a bit disappointing, Agent 6 is still proving to be a struggle although I can't figure out why it's just not grabbing me and both audios are a struggle. I'll be glad when I'm done (although I've already got The Devil's Workshop which is the sequel to The Black Country).

I can't say that I'm keen on the characterisation in The Black Country and the author's writing of children doesn't gel for me, but I am only two discs in so I'll give it at least one more before I abandon it.

Inkdeath... sigh . . . I had sort of expected this problem before I even started it and have probably mentioned it before. I've listened to all three parts in audio - the first was read by Lynn Redgrave, the second by Brandon Fraser and the third by Alan Corduner and therein lies the problem - each narrator has given a very different type of performance, to the extent at which it doesn't feel like one set of characters passed forward through the books, but each time I feel like I'm meeting a completely new set of people. I think this has been particularly obvious because I've only just finished making my way through the Harry Potter series, all read by Stephen Fry and the consistency of his performance and presentation throughout all seven books is in stark contrast to having three such different people perform the Ink- series. It isn't that the narrators are bad, they are just all really different to each other in their interpretation and this has detracted from the experience for me, but at the same time, the books are now too familiar for me to consider sitting down and trying to read them. Maybe I will though one day down the line a year or two.

>1 MDGentleReader: MDGentleReader Thank you for the Ambrose piece. I've read several of his books and always found him very approachable. If I want to know more about the subject I read other sources, but find that he's given me a very firm foundation and done it while making me turn pages at an amazing rate for something that's history. Few other historians make me read as fast. The fact that he didn't use quotation marks is not unique to him. In fact, it is commonly done by several historians.

Reading Sycamore Row which is much more complex and fun than I expected it to be, In the Land of Invisible Women, which has much more information on how she reacquainted herself with the Muslim religion than I'm interested it or expected to find, and The Death of Vishnu, which was going well until I set it aside for Grisham. I'll get back to it soon.

>6 nrmay: I just bought that, too, but I haven't looked at it yet. Is it helping?

Still making my way through Nathaniel Philbrick's In the Heart of The Sea, which has been very good. I read somewhere that they will be releasing the movie next year and since it's been sitting on my shelf for a long, long time I thought I'd read it now.

The trailers for it are out now.

I’m still plodding along with Mendel in the Kitchen (which I should finish this weekend) and Alan Turing: The Enigma (which will be awhile). I’ve also started March, because at, say, 11pm my brain isn’t quite up to science and math.

I am reading a book of short stories which isn't my favorite. I prefer novels. The book of short stories is called How to Breathe Underwater. I can't concentrate on just short stories so I am also just getting into Dark Places.

I am reading, mainly, Henning Mankell's The Man from Beijing, which is a thriller set in northern Sweden. It's good so far.

Still reading a little bit every day of Les Miserables. I haven't been reading it daily like I planned, and I'm only about 24 pages in, but I'll get there.

Also reading Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China by Jung Chang, but piecemeal. It's such a harsh reality, and so violent, that I have to put it down and read fictionalized violence/crime, which is far easier to handle.

Still working on Dead Man's Ransom and Leviathan Wakes. I am so enjoying Leviathan Wakes. It's been a really long time since I've read any good old fashioned SF.

I'm about half-way through Orfeo, Richard Power's latest novel. He is a writer who demands a lot from the reader, but the book has been well worth the effort so far.

I have just finished the YA book Between Shades of Gray. It is an incredible story but I found the writing to be very simplistic. It felt like it was written for a child with short choppy sentences and very simple concepts that lacked any depth. The writing bored me to death. This weekend I am starting Road Ends and listening to Nineteen Eighty Four on audio.

>9 Meredy:

I like to read ‘how to get organized’ books every once in a while. I’m ever hopeful that I’ll be orderly and sufficiently down-sized one day. The book editor of our newspaper loved The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up so I started reading it in all seriousness and ending up laughing so much that I’m going to finish it just for the pure entertainment.
The author definitely has an obsessive/compulsive issue with tidying, (sort of like me with my books.) Who knew that drastic reorganization could lead to career change, divorce, new and improved personal relationships, increased sales and weight loss?
In her chapters on books she says to get rid of all unread books. She suggests that ordinary people have 3 to more than 40 unread books at a time. (I am, therefore, extraordinary with 800+ TBR.) The author herself owns about 30 books at a time. Papers? Her rule of thumb – discard everything. Clothes? Pile them all on the floor and hold each one to see if it brings ‘a spark of joy.’ When storing clothes, don’t bury them – let in some light and air. “Open the drawer and run your hands over the contents. Let them know you care and look forward to wearing them . . . This kind of ‘communication’ helps your clothes stay vibrant and keeps your relationship with them alive longer.” I probably need to work on my empathy for my clothes . . .
Maybe I’ll get a few helpful hints from this book but I’m afraid I’m on track toward carefree, joyful hoarding!

>18 nrmay: 40 unread books at a time? Is that per shelf? per bookcase? per room?

I'm reading Doctor Sleep by Stephen King. I'm glad I reread The Shining first because it is extra spooky.

Halfway through The Rosie Effect and enjoying it.

Got a bunch of books on my kindle waiting: Sapphire Blue, The Messenger by Lois Lowry and Don't Give up, Don't Give In by Louis Zamperini (of which I've read half).

Just starting The Rosie Project and liking it very much.

Loved The Rosie Project and am looking forward to The Rosie Effect. Let's see how long it takes my library to cough it up!

>18 nrmay: Yiii. Well, I bought it because David Lebovitz told me to (and his is the one and only blog I subscribe to) and because there's hardly anything I need more help with than tidying up. Maybe now I'll dare to look at it, more in a spirit of curiosity than penitence.

Thanks for your comments.

>16 browner56: Definitely a book bullet for me. I thought The Gold Bug Variations was marvelous.

I'm about half way through the new Rizzoli and Isles mystery Die Again by Tess Gerritsen. I'm enjoying it, but I think the cover may have given away who the killer is. We'll see.

I've also started a reread of The Diary of Samuel Pepys 1660. I've made it up to September of 1660. Charles II has returned to England and a new Parliament has been elected. Pepys is close to the center of things so he has a fascinating perspective on everything. But he is a bit of a cad and a bounder.

>16 browner56: and >24 Meredy: If you like Orfeo and The Gold Bug Variations, then you should read Plowing the Dark and The Echo Maker. I've read all of his books. They're often tough, but Richard Powers has such a beautiful way with words. There's a sentence in The Time of Our Singing that I've always loved. "My brother's smile is a school of fishes."

Finished The Remedy for Love. Now reading All My Puny Sorrows.

Touch Not the Cat and the Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet

>28 MDGentleReader: The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet
I was quite a fan of the series as a kid. Read it again a few years ago out of curiosity.

>14 ahef1963: I think Les Miserables is one book that should be read abridged if there were someone who would edit out only all the street references. This street used to be that one that turned in to this one and there's another one over there that used to be that one. As I remember, that stuff went on and on. The rest of the novel is great, and you wouldn't need to force yourself to read just a few pages a day without the silly street distraction.
>1 MDGentleReader: Thank you again for a great beginning. A complex relationship with General Eisenhower, huh.
I finished Nora Webster which was on a couple of best of 2014 lists and have to say, it didn't seem like the best of anything to me; but it was a pleasant story about growth revolving around an Irish widow and her four children. At least it wasn't the usual Irish horror poverty story.
Now I've started, on audio, Good Kings, Bad Kings which is a great story about a sort of nursing home for disabled children. Susan Nussbaum has been described as a disability advocate, and she's doing this one up great.
Almost finished with My Year of Meats which kind of put me off for the first half or so because all the men were so reprehensible, but Ozeki turned into her wonderful self and is pulling out a great story that includes good men and bad acting men who are able to change. Far from being the cringworthy anti=vegetarian story I was fearing, this is turning out to be a lovely expose of factory farmed meat, amongst other situations.
I'm also listening to Frankenstein for my book club on Wednesday and reading The End of Wasp Season for book club on Friday.

>30 Citizenjoyce: Years ago I did read an abridged version that belonged to my mother. She said Hugo couldn't mention a scene in the landscape without stopping to tell you about the battles that once took place there. The edition she had left all that excess out or abbreviated it. I enjoyed the book and didn't feel as if I'd missed anything.

>31 Meredy: Blasphemy, I've been told, but maybe one should try the abridged first, then move to the other full of all the extraneous information. There's so much to it, I hate to think that people skip the novel because of minutiae that don't interest them.

Started The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert. Heaving other books out of the way for now.

Started Pinstripe Empire by Marty Appel and still working on The Rosie Effect, I am the Messenger and the Andy Cohen Diaries

>24 Meredy: and >26 fredbacon: Thanks for your insights on Richard Powers. I also have read all his other books and I'm finding Orfeo to be his most accessible--and perhaps his most personal--so far. I've enjoyed all of his work, but I agree that The Gold Bug Variations and The Time of Our Singing are real stand-outs.

I'm mainly reading Damned which I am thoroughly enjoying. Love the way he connects with Judy Blume's Are you there God? It's me, Margaret by starting each chapter with "Are you there, Satan? It's me, Madison." Very irreverant, but funny. You find yourself hoping that the characters find something better even though they are in hell (Can hell get better). Definitely worth the read.

I'm reading John Steinbeck's Tortilla Flat, and really enjoying it!

I finished Nathaniel Philbrick's wonderful narrative non-fiction, In the Heart of the Sea. The Ron Howard-directed movie comes out in March.

Now I'm reading Elizabeth is Missing by Emma Healey which just won the Costa Prize for First Novel.

>38 brenzi: Elizabeth Is Missing looks great, and my library system even has it.

Off to a great start this year: just finished the outstanding Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry which I rated at 4.5 Stars (I'm stingy with my 5 Stars). It fulfilled the Pulitzer Prize winning book of the fun 2015 Reading Challenge I'm doing: http://www.popsugar.com/love/Reading-Challenge-2015-36071458

Next up is Legends of Vancouver by Pauline Johnson which satisfies "book from my hometown" category. Am really looking forward to this compilation of First Nations myths and legends.

I just finished Mary Oliver's A Thousand Mornings, a good collection of her poetry, and I'm near the end of Never Let Me Go.

I vote for the unabridged Les Miserables. Skimming allowed, but I think it is a book to be savored in its original form.

I am reading Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively for the British Author Challenge and I like it. I can understand how this one won a Booker prize. After reading Consequences first, I was facing this one with some trepidation, but it is a good read. I am also working slowly on Empress of Fashion and like it as well. However, my reading is going to slow down as I will have to start reading for a college classes again. Those tomes are so much work. My current reads are like mind candy compared to them.

I finished All My Puny Sorrows by Miriam Toews. I love this book, a story of two sisters: Elf, who wants to die, and Yolandi, who wants to save her. The book is very funny and very true -- the kind of book where your laughter often dissolves in sobs. I need to read more of this author's books -- several years ago I read The Flying Troutmans) which I also admired. I recommend this one. At times it seems almost plotless, but then you realize that there is so much going on. I hate saying goodbye to these characters, though one of them would remind me that saying hello and goodbye is very important.

I'm beginning a project to explore all the shelves and stacks and boxes and drawers of books in my home. I need to figure which books to discard (library book sale) and which to keep -- and I'll try to read as many TBRs as I can along the way. I'm beginning among a box of R books: Kay Ryan's poems. Witold Rybczynski's books about architecture, and a clutch of Mary Doria Russell's books that I bought impulsively in my enthusiasm for Doc. There are others as well -- alas, more TBRs than books I've read.

I shall begin with Kay Ryan's Elephant Rocks, Rybczynski's The Most Beautiful House in the World, and a book that sounds intriguing but looks daunting, which is probably why I've never read it: The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach.

>2 jnwelch: I am pretty sure that I have read Undaunted Courage, but that was before LT, so I'd have to see it to be sure.

>45 MDGentleReader: Here you go.

I put The Mists of Avalon on hold to read Station Eleven, which I had been waiting to come off a hold from the library. I finished it in two days, couldn't put it down, so now I'm back to The Mists of Avalon.

I'm listening to The Circle by Dave Eggers, and re-reading Shadow of the Wind for book club.

Finished Village Books by Craig McLay and started The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers.

I just finished Friendswood. It took me a bit to get into it but then I was engrossed. A former refinery site spewing forth lethal chemicals and a teenage party and rape provide the backdrop for the exploration of a community of characters as they each find their own way to deal with their tragedies. It is very descriptively written.

Finished Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey. Really liked the book. Good old fashioned space opera. Started The Dragon's Path by Daniel Abraham.

48> Hey! That's the name of my store!

51-- What a coincidence. Its a light, humorous read. I read it on my Kindle and I hope you have less colorful characters working for you.

>46 jnwelch:, Could you open it up so I can read the first few sentences? Guess I could go on Amazon and do that myself. Thanks!

>30 Citizenjoyce: and >31 Meredy: and >42 hemlokgang:: I want to read Les Mis unabridged, despite Hugo's ramblings, or I won't feel that I've read it properly. I'm afraid I tend to be a purist in that way. I haven't arrived at street names, but I did feel some frustration having to read quite a lot of detail about the precise condition of each of the bishop's chairs, and exactly how they managed to find seats for various sizes of dinner-parties. Still, I'll stick with it.

I've just finished reading Henning Mankell's The Man from Beijing. Without qualification, it was excellent, and it went far, far beyond the normal reaches of bleak Scandinavian crime writing.

I began Iain Banks' The Crow Road today. I've tried to read it before, unsuccessfully, but it such a lauded work that I thought I'd try it again. I'm 70 pages in, and I just don't care. I have no attachment to the story, the characters, nothing. This one will be taken to the local used bookstore for credit, and I'll decide tomorrow what to read next.

>53 MDGentleReader: Amazon won't let me copy it, MDG, but the first sentence is, From the west-facing window of the room in which Meriwether Lewis was born on August 18, 1774, one could look out at Rockfish Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains, an opening to the West that invited exploration. What a different time it was. Sometimes when we're driving along a highway, my wife and I think about what the area would have looked like back in that time.

Finished Dead Man's Ransom and started The Pilgrim of Hate.

I read the unabridged Les Miserables many years ago and just found it wonderful. I wonder how I would find it now, twenty years later!

I am reading Ultimate Healing: The Power of Compassion by Lama Zopa Rinpoche and wow, it is really quite enlightening about how meditation and mind can heal a body. Some fascinating true stories of folks overcoming cancer and AIDS.

I am also leisurely and lovingly reading Mary Oliver New and Selected Poems Volume One and just adore her poems (ever since Blue Horses, recommended here). And I'm really not much a poetry reader!

>54 ahef1963:, >57 CarolynSchroeder: And if I were to reread it now (and not at the age of about 15) I would undoubtedly go for the full-length version, preferring to trust the author than someone who's been given a page limit and a hatchet.

This despite my own profession and my opinion that a number of well-read contemporary works could have been cut by as much as 20% without significant loss.

But there's so much ahead that I want to read that I scarcely ever return to something I've read once.

I am listening to mystic river by dennis lehane, and have mockingjay by Suzanne Collins waiting in the wings! I didn't think I'd like the series but grabbed the audiobook off the library shelves and loved it, immediately requested catching fire, here's hoping the series finishes well.

I am reading The Paying Guests. I feel like I am far enough into it that I should be enjoying it a little more. I will give it a bit more time. Thank you for the mentions of Undaunted Courage. I have had the book in my TBR pile for quite a while - long enough to forget about it. It just moved closer to the top of the list.

I finished The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert and Thriller 2: Stories You Just Can't Put Down Ed. by Clive Cussler.

Returned to Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories by Luci Tapahonso and Strawberry Fields: A Novel by Marina Lewycka. It's been a bit harder to re-engage with these than I expected. I might add something &/or pick up the other temporarily shunted aside book. It was more than worth it to read The Sixth Extinction, however rushed, rather than return it unread.

>57 CarolynSchroeder:

So happy to see that you have gone on to read more Mary Oliver!

I received a copy of Before I Go from Simon and Schuster yesterday yay!!! Started it last night. One to share, I already can tell. :)

Never Let Me Go was a good, solid read, and my review is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/186365#5005439

Now I've started A Narrow Road to the Deep North and Lexicon.

>55 jnwelch: Very kind of you, I also looked on Amazon and I am still not completely certain. If I read it, it must have been soon after it came out. I am 95% certain that is the one by him that I have read. It's kind of bugging me. I do know that I have a sense of Meriwether Lewis as a person and since I haen't reaad the journals or any novels about him I cannot imagine where else I woulld have gotten detailed informaton about him before, during and after the famous Lewis and Clark expedition. But 1996 was longer ago than I care to think about....

I was actually teasing. Sometimes I wish we could just hand each other books. Better to be able to virtually interact with all the fine folks than have no interaction at all, but sometimes the distances are daunting.

Finished up the delightful book of Coast Indian tales Legends of Vancouver by Pauline Johnson. It was published in 1911 by her friends as she tragically was suffering from cancer and living in poverty.

Now on to Kerry Greenwood's first Phryne Fisher mystery, Cocaine Blues which I hear is very good. Haven't seen the TV series yet, but I almost always prefer the book anyways.

I finished Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult. Should't I know by now not to read anything else by her? After Handle With Care I vowed that was it, then I stupidly went on to Sing You Home so that I could again be disappointed, but this time I thought since it was about elephants maybe she'd get it right. And she did, partially. All the stuff about elephants was great, information I'd never known, ethnology at its entertainingly best. Then she had to get all hokey and ruin it. In fact, she really should do us all a favor and change her name to Hokey Jodi, then we wouldn't be tempted, no matter what the purported subject of the novel, not to give it a try.
Next up is The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher, short stories by Hilary Mantel, another of the best books of 2014 (as was, inexplicably the Picoult book).

How could I forget, earlier today I also finished reading The End Of Wasp Season for my book club on Friday, What a great book. I don't even like police procedurals, but Denise Mina manages to examine class and gender from so many sides and in so many honest ways that she is an absolute treasure. I could do without the bloody corpses, but I just have to forgive her for her genre and enjoy the way she writes.

>67 Citizenjoyce: If you have any trouble remembering after this, read The Tenth Circle and you'll never forget again.

>69 Meredy: Now see, date rape and a graphic novel - I might have been sucked in. Thank you for the warning. Now let it sit in the front of my brain so I don't forget.

Meredy and Citizenjoyce ~ Ha, funny re: Jodi Picoult. I am an attorney, so the one that put me over the edge (should have been labeled as a new genre "crime/court fantasy") was My Sister's Keeper. And I give pretty wide berth for unrealistic in court dramas because well, it has to be engaging, I realize. But I have just accepted, there is HUGE HUGE market for "ripped from drama-infused media/headlines" stuff made into speculative fiction, e.g., Room, and Jodi Picoult is certainly the reigning queen of that kind of writing. Hence, I avoid her like the plague. But live and let live. Anything that keeps fiction, print, novels alive has its place ... But it is so funny to me how much drama does NOT go on in the average courtroom/case. It's really rather academic and on a short evidentiary leash, with spurts of funny/fun/interesting.

Alphaorder ~ Yes re: Mary Oliver! Thank you again!

I finished reading Moon Tiger and loved it. After finding the first book I read by Penelope Lively to be a stinker this one was the total opposite. It is one that I will be recommending to all my friends for some time. The author put me right there in the story and kept me there following the life of a person who was not likeable at all. Great writing. I have started Photograph by the same author trying to see if her writing is all that good and the one I didn't like was an anomaly. Moon Tiger reminded me of the Bartle Bull books Cafe on the Nile and Devil's Oasis as well as Derek Robinson's Good Clean Fight. I simply have to read some of the Cairo Trilogy as the sights and sounds of Cairo are still with me hours after I finished reading.

>72 benitastrnad: Oh, oh. I'm about to start Dancing Fish and Ammonites. I hope that wasn't the stinker.

#73
The stinker was Consequences.

>68 Citizenjoyce: I have never heard of Denise Mina or of End of Wasp Season, but crime fiction is my favourite genre, and I will look for that one.

>69 Meredy: Sing You Home was about the fifth Jodi Picoult novel I read, and it was that one that stopped me reading her any further. I couldn't see any point to the story, and decided to move on to fresh writers. To be fair to her, I really enjoyed about three of her books.

Am once again having trouble concentrating on books due to the severity of the depression I am in. It is one of the hardest things about this particular mental illness, is that it chews at my concentration quite dramatically, affecting both my work and my leisure. Sorry to gripe.

At work, in slow periods, I'm reading The Journals of Captain Cook by Captain James Cook. Actually, I haven't even gotten to the journals yet. I'm reading the introduction/biography on Project Gutenberg, which is very long, but extremely interesting.

I'm also reading Revival by Stephen King at the rate of about 30 pages a day. Then I go back to playing Mahjongg on my phone, which is what I'm doing to mark time these days as I wait for the clouds in my brain to blow past.

I'm very much enjoying the quirky, charming, and curmudgeonly A Man Called Ove by Fredrik Backman

#76 coppers - I also really liked A Man Called Ove. I have recommended it to so many people. It is very charming but I always tell people not to mistake charming for fluffy because this book is quite profound.

>75 ahef1963: I hope the clouds pass soon. It's fortunate that there are some books than can interest you for a while.

>75 ahef1963: I often suffer from the same affliction. I think you are doing very well to be reading as much as you do. Playing Mahjongg helps give your brain a rest, especially if you also listen to music while you play.

I am reading Personal by Lee Child and I am enjoying it. I have just finished The Spirit Gate for LT ER and will soon write the review.

Ahef1963: Just a big hug. I too have suffered from depression in the past and it is hard. I hope it passes soon and you rediscover your joy in reading. When I had my last hard time, audio books really helped (and oddly, I haven't liked them before or after). Just being read to was lovely; and there are also many spiritual books that even chat about depression, happiness and all points in between. I liked Pema Chodron a lot. Her voice is lovely and she is beyond wise (and really funny - she is a grandma too ;) I've heard Tara Brach is wonderful to listen to as well, from what my friends tell me.

>Ahef1963 I feel your pain. I send a big hug as well. Don't forget Solitaire can also be a good friend at these times.

I've been really busy with "stuff" this week and haven't been reading as much as I'd like. I managed to finish a quick and quite funny novel, Dear Committee Members told in a series of recommendation letter from an English professor. I liked it much more than I thought I would!

I picked up What Maisie Knew last night and read more. Either I'm getting used to James's dense prose or I've gotten to an easier part because it really flew along. I'll tell you, though, I hate the parents in this novel. I think James does too because he never shows them in an even remotely sympathetic light.

Without a Summer by Mary Robinette Kowal
The 3rd installment in the "Glamourist Histories"

I finished Strawberry Fields: A Novel by Marina Lewycka, Blue Horses Rush In: Poems and Stories by Luci Tapahonso, and a little while ago, listening to Waging Heavy Peace: A Hippie Dream by Neil Young.

I wanted something funny when I got Strawberry Fields, and some of it is funny. The hilarious uproar that causes the break-up of the multinational crew of strawberry pickers leads to some horrible scenes. Blue Horses Rush In has some lovely moments. Much of it recounts the laughter and stories from childhood to the present. Waging Heavy Peace rushes every which way in time. He does recount some of what went into his creative process, with much credit given to others. As of this memoir (2012), he had not written a song since he quit drinking and getting high and this was problematic for him. It's probably a book for dedicated fans. Long May You Run, Neil.

Started The Confabulist: A Novel by Steven Galloway and Why We Run: A Natural History by Bernd Heinrich. The Heinrich was because it was on the bus with me. As always, I want to read him, but this time I also want to return to something else. So tonight, The Confabulist will probably lull me to sleep.

Once again, I'm way, way behind with charting my reading; but I do hope to get caught up someday...maybe. :) lol!
Anyway, after starting Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult on Tuesday afternoon, January 6th, I finished reading this book a week later on Tuesday, January 13th! :) In my opinion, it was very well-written, and while I found the discussion of the hierarchies within wolf packs to be incredibly detailed; I appreciated how accurately such discussions described the dynamics within the Warren family.

Up next for me was, The Friends by Rosa Guy; which I started reading on Tuesday evening, January 13th! This was a quick read for me, I finished it in one day - on Wednesday morning, January 14th! :) I found this to be an intriguing book, with a poignant, well-written, thought-provoking story told from a different perspective. This was an engaging an enjoyable story with a moral.

I started reading Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane on Thursday, January 15th and finished the book a day later on Friday, January 16th! ;) Although I absolutely loved reading Mystic River by this author, I wasn't all that interested in this book. It was certainly very well-written, fast-paced and extremely dramatic; but personally, I just can't get into books featuring any nationality of the Mob - gangsters just aren't all that interesting to me.