Leslie's 2016 Challenge: Let's Go to the Movies

My theme for 2016 is movies, particularly classic films. Here is what I've got so far; I may tweak it some before January arrives...

1. Stage Door -- Read 18 plays
✓2. Dead Poets Society -- Read at least 6 books or collections of poetry
3. Brief Encounter -- Read at least 6 books or collections of short stories.
✓4. Foreign Correspondent -- Read at least 12 books in translation
5. Anatomy of a Murder -- Mysteries
6. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – Science Fiction & Fantasy
✓7. The Way We Were -- Historical fiction
8. Bringing Up Baby -- Children’s & Young Adult books
9. The Official Story -- Read at least 3 nonfiction books
10. The Postman Always Rings Twice -- Rereads
11. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof -- books that fit CATs
12. Rules of the Game -- BingoDOG/Book Bingo or some other group challenge
13. The Crowd -- Group reads
✓14. And Then There Were None -- ROOTs: Kindle Catch up: Goal=15+
15. Schindler’s List -- Read at least 25 new-to-me books from the Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Should Read list.
16. Odd Man Out -- Overflow

Books can be used for multiple categories (and hopefully will be!). I don't think I am going to set a goal for the total number this time, although I might change my mind.

tickers & rating info




My attempt to define my rating system:
I rate by gut reaction & sometimes I will go back and change a book’s rating after some time has passed, based on how it has (or has not) stuck with me. Thus books that I enjoyed at the time may end up lower down on the scale if they are forgettable while books that I didn’t care for very much may rise up in the ratings if they strike me as significant in some way (even if I didn’t like them).

0.5 ★: Utter waste of paper and ink; should never have been written.
1.0 ★: Couldn't finish reading or a very poor read.
1.5 ★: Major disappointment.
2.0 ★: It was OK but either the writing or the plot was lacking.
2.5 ★: Flawed in some way but still enjoyable
3.0 ★: Good, a solid read that I finished but can't promise to remember
3.5 ★: Above Average, there's room for improvement but I liked this well enough to pick up another book by this author.
4.0 ★: A very good read; a book that I think will last
4.5 ★: An excellent read, a book I will remember, recommend and probably reread
5.0 ★: A powerful book, either because it was the right book at the right time for me or because it will stay with me for a long time to come

Some symbols & abbreviations:
·Books with an asterisk (*) are from The Guardian's List of 1000 Novels Everyone Should Read
·Authors with a capital N (ℕ) are Nobel Laureates in Literature
·books sourced as MOB are from my own bookcases; those from BPL are from the Boston Public Library (as opposed to my local library); SYNC refers to audiobooks acquired (for free) through the annual summer program hosted by http://www.audiobooksync.com/

1. Stage Door -- Read 18 plays

1. Don Juan in Hell by G.B. Shaw (ℕ) (1/9)
2. Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel (1/23)
3. Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge (1/28)
4. Translations by Brian Friel (2/3)
5. Jump At the Sun by Kathleen McGhee-Anderson (2/8)
6. Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde {reread via audiobook} (2/13)
7. John Ball's In the Heat of the Night adapted by Matt Pelfrey (2/15)
8. The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge (2/28)
9. Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting by Ed Schmidt (3/1)
10. She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith (3/10)
11. Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey (3/18)
12. The Devil's Disciple by G.B. Shaw (ℕ) (3/30)

✓ 2. Dead Poets Society -- Read at least 6 books or collections of poetry Done!

·The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda (ℕ) (1/3)
·Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral by Gabriela Mistral (ℕ) (1/7)
·And Still I Rise: A Selection of Poems Read by the Author {audiobook} (1/18)
·Sonnets to Orpheus (2/2)
·Archaic Smile (3/2)
·Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (3/8)
·Selected Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert by Jaroslav Seifert (ℕ) (3/18)

3. Brief Encounter -- Read at least 6 books or collections of short stories.

1. Ficciones (1/15)
2. Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions (1/23)
3. miscellaneous short stories (individual stories not part of a collection)
     ·"The Beauty King" by Margery Allingham (2/15)
     ·"Caesar's Wife's Elephant" by Margery Allingham (3/11)
4. The Legend of Drizzt: The Collected Stories {audiobook}

✓ 4. Foreign Correspondent -- Read at least 12 books in translation Done!

I hope to coordinate this with the GeoCAT as much as possible.

Make yours @ BigHugeLabs.com
I am also hoping to have an AwardKit focus. To help me in that focus, I plan to refer to this list of Nobel Laureates in Literature.

January: GeoCAT=South America
1. The Heights of Macchu Picchu (setting Peru; author from Chile) (ℕ) (1/3)
2. *Madame Bovary (France) (abandoned) (1/4)
3. Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (Chile) (ℕ) (1/7)
4. *Dom Casmurro (Brazil) (1/8)
5. Ficciones (Argentina) (1/15)
6. The Discreet Hero (Peru) (ℕ) (1/19)
7. *Solaris (setting N/A; author from Poland) {translated from French} (1/22)
8. Daughter of Fortune (Chile) (1/28)
9. The Patience of the Spider (Italy) (1/31)

February: GeoCAT=Central Asia
10. Of Love and Other Demons (Colombia) (ℕ) (2/1)
11. Sonnets to Orpheus (Germany) (2/2)
12. Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp (possibly Kyrgyzstan) {translated from Arabic} (2/3)
13. *Hunger (Norway) (ℕ) (2/12)

March: GeoCAT=Eastern Europe & Russia
14. Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke (Germany) (3/8)
15. Cop Killer (Sweden) (3/16)
16. Selected Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert by Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslovakia) (ℕ) (3/18)
17. And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (Russia) (ℕ) (3/21)

books not in translation so don't count for this challenge but show up on the map as a country "visited"
·Death at Wentwater Court (England) (1/4)
·Dancing at Lughnasa (Ireland) (1/23)
·Rogue Island (U.S.A.) (1/10)
·The Nature of the Beast (Canada) (2/13)
·The Quiet American (Viet Nam) (3/7)

5. Anatomy of a Murder -- Mysteries
Two major parts to this category - my mystery ROOTs and foreign mysteries


a) Sleuth -- Continue to read through my mystery ROOTs: goal=18+ paperback or hardcover mysteries I already own, with particular emphasis on Ross MacDonald and Michael Dibdin
1) The Art Forger (1/28)
2) The Patience of the Spider (1/31)
3) John Ball's In the Heat of the Night {audiobook} (2/15)
4) *Blacklist (2/22)
5) Black Plumes (3/13)
6) Last Seen Wearing... (3/26)


b) The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo -- Mysteries Around the World: finish the Read the USA challenge from the Cozy Mysteries group & continue with foreign mystery series (especially Montalbano {Italy}, Martin Beck {Sweden}, Dept. Q {Denmark}, Maigret {France}, Fandorin {Russia})
 Read the USA mysteries:
   ·Rogue Island {RI} (1/10)
   ·Murders on Elderberry Road {KA} (2/6)

   ·The Nature of the Beast (Canada) (2/13)

 Translated mysteries:
   ·The Patience of the Spider (Italy) (1/31)
   ·Cop Killer (Sweden) (3/16)


c) The Killers -- all the other mysteries I read which don't fit in either of the above categories!
  ·Death at Wentwater Court (1/4) {audiobook}
  ·Fer-de-Lance (1/16) {audiobook}
  ·The Cornish Coast Murder (1/24)
  ·The Unfinished Clue (1/30) {reread}
  ·Deadly Proof (2/4)
  ·A Blunt Instrument (2/5) {reread}
  ·Death in the Stocks (2/7) {reread}
  ·Black As He's Painted (2/21) {audiobook}
  ·Bloody Lessons (2/27)
 ·*Rogue Male (3/4)
 ·Maisie Dobbs (3/9) {audiobook}

6. E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial – Science Fiction & Fantasy
a) Continue with Discworld series: Goal: 5+
·Equal Rites {book #3, Witches #1} (2/18)
·Mort {book #4, Death #1} (3/11)

b) More Charles de Lint: Goal 5+ (abandoning this as of 2/18/2016)

c) Misc. sci fi/fantasy (esp. ROOTs)
·*Solaris by Stanislaw Lem (1/22)
·Shards of Honor {reread via audiobook} (1/29)
·Beautiful Creatures (2/14)
·Barrayar {reread via audiobook} (2/15)
·Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2/16)
·The Elfstones of Shannara {reread} (3/6)

✔7. The Way We Were -- Historical fiction
Goal = 5+ with emphasis on my ROOTs such as Wolf Hall and The Crusades
 ·Death At Wentwater Court (set in 1923 England)
 ·Daughter of Fortune (set in 1840-50s Chile & California)
 ·Translations (set in 1833 Ireland)
 ·Deadly Proof (set in 1880 San Francisco)
 ·Bloody Lessons (set in 1879 San Francisco)
 ·Maisie Dobbs (set in 1929 England with flashbacks to ~1910-1919)
 ·And Quiet Flows the Don (ℕ) (set in ~1912-1918 Russia)
 ·The Devil's Disciple (ℕ) (set in 1777 New Hampshire)

8. Bringing Up Baby -- Children’s & Young Adult books
with emphasis on my audiobook ROOTs from SYNC
·Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp
·Beautiful Creatures {audiobook}
*Penrod
*Just William
·Eight Cousins
·The Living {audiobook}

9. The Official Story -- Read at least 3 nonfiction books

·Schott's Original Miscellany (1/19)

10. The Postman Always Rings Twice -- Rereads

*Tess of the d'Urbervilles {audiobook} (1/11)
And Still I Rise: A Selection of Poems Read by the Author {audiobook} (1/18)
Shards of Honor {audiobook} (1/29)
The Unfinished Clue (1/30)
Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp {audiobook} (2/3)
A Blunt Instrument (2/5)
Death in the Stocks (2/7)
Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde {audiobook} (2/13)
Barrayar {audiobook} (2/15)
*Lord of the Flies {audiobook} (3/5)
The Elfstones of Shannara (3/6)
The Quiet American {audiobook} (3/7)
She Stoops to Conquer (3/10)

11. Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - read books for one or more of the CATS

January
GeoCAT South America
 ·The Heights of Macchu Picchu (ℕ)
 ·Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (ℕ)
 ·*Dom Casmurro
 ·Ficciones
 ·The Discreet Hero (ℕ)
 ·Of Love and Other Demons (ℕ)
DeweyCAT 000-099
 ·Schott's Original Miscellany Dewey 031 (1/19)
 ·The Art Forger (1/28)
RandomCAT Uniqueness
 ·Don Juan in Hell (ℕ) (audiobook edition)

February
GeoCAT Central Asia
 ·Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp
DeweyCAT 100-199
 · *Hunger (ℕ) (2/12)
RandomCAT Pairs
 ·Beautiful Creatures {audiobook} (2/14)
 ·Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2/16)

March
GeoCAT Eastern Europe & Russia
 ·The Selected Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert (ℕ)
 ·And Quiet Flows the Don (ℕ)
DeweyCAT 200-299
 ·A Prayer for Owen Meany (3/10)
RandomCAT Celebration
 ·

12. Rules of the Game -- BingoDOG/BingoPUP

BingoDOG card and the BingoPUP card:
  

BingoDOG:
1. The Heights of Macchu Picchu
2. The Sense of an Ending
3. Hunger
5. Jump at the Sun
8. Over to Candleford
9. Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp
10. Ficciones
12. Blott on the Landscape
13. Don Juan in Hell (Jan. RandomCAT) or The Discreet Hero (Jan. GeoCAT)
17. *Dom Casmurro
18. Jill the Reckless
19. Rogue Island
20. *Madame Bovary
21. The Art Forger
22. *Go Tell It on the Mountain

BingoPUP:
3. The Nature of the Beast
4. Tish
5. Blacklist female private detective
6. Death in the Stocks
7. And Still I Rise (and other poems)
9. A Blunt Instrument Georgette Heyer mystery
10. Barrayar Hugo Award, Best Novel 1992
11. *Diary of a Provincial Lady
12. Shards of Honor
13. Deadly Proof
14. Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
15. Daughter of Fortune
17. Beautiful Creatures
20. *Lark Rise Flora Thompson was 63 when this was first published in 1939
21. The Unfinished Clue (first published in 1933)
23. Miss Buncle's Book
24. Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral

13. The Crowd -- Group reads
Goal = 8+

Group reads here at LT:
 ·Shards of Honor {reread via audiobook} (1/29) (Vorkosigan series group read)
 ·Barrayar {reread via audiobook} (2/15) (Vorkosigan series group read)
 ·Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2/16) (Vorkosigan series group read)

Reads for groups elsewhere:
 *Tess of the d'Urbervilles {GoodReads} (1/11)
  Dancing at Lughnasa {GoodReads} (1/23)
  A Blunt Instrument {GoodReads} (2/5)
  Death in the Stocks {GoodReads} (2/7)
 *Hunger {GoodReads} (ℕ) (2/12)
 *Castle Rackrent {GoodReads} (3/1)
  

✔14. And Then There Were None -- ROOTs: Kindle Catch up: Goal=15+
None left being the ultimate (but unreachable!) goal for my ROOTs, I will try to read at least 15 of the many Kindle books owned prior to 2016!

1. *Dom Casmurro by Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1/8)
2. *The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield (1/12)
3. *Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad (1/17)
4. *Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith (1/26)
5. *The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington (1/30)
6. Alaeddin and the Enchanted Lamp (2/3)
7. Jill the Reckless by P.G. Wodehouse (2/6)
8. *Hunger by Knut Hamsun (ℕ) (2/12)
9. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen (2/16)
10. *Penrod (2/22)
11. Miss Buncle's Book (2/23)
12. *Just William (2/26)
13. *Castle Rackrent (3/1)
14. *Lark Rise (3/19)
15. *Over to Candleford (3/30)
16. The Devil's Disciple by G.B. Shaw (ℕ) (3/30)

15. Schindler’s List -- Read at least 25 new-to-me books from the Guardian’s 1000 Novels Everyone Should Read list.

Here are some of the ones I already own, either in print, audiobook or on my Kindle, matched to the AlphaKIT 2016:

January: D and U       ✓Under Western Eyes, Underworld,✓ Diary of a Nobody, ✓Diary of a Provincial Lady
February: J and B       The Beach, ✓Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
March: L and Q            ✓Lark Rise to Candleford, The African Queen
April: V and H              Herland, ✓Hunger, Victory, Villette, Vendetta
May: O and P               Palace Walk, The Old Wive’s Tale
June: F and R              Ratking, The Road, A Fine Balance
July: K and A              Atonement, Kidnapped
August: G and S          The Shrimp and the Anemone, The Group, Geminal
September: C and M   Cat’s Eye, Cider with Rosie, The Moviegoer
October: I and W         I Capture the Castle, Wapshot Chronicles, Waverley
November: N and Y      Nostromo
December: T and E      Tropic of Cancer, The Expedition of Humphrey Clinker
As with previous years, X and Z are year long

1. Madame Bovary (abandoned) (1/4)
2. Dom Casmurro (1/8)
3. The Diary of a Provincial Lady (1/12)
4. Under Western Eyes (1/17)
5. Go Tell It on the Mountain {audiobook} (1/21)
6. Solaris (1/22)
7. Diary of a Nobody (1/26)
8. The Magnificent Ambersons (1/30)
9. Hunger (ℕ) (2/12)
10. Blott on the Landscape (2/18)
11. Blacklist (2/22)
12. Penrod (2/22)
13. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (2/24)
14. Just William (2/26)
15. Castle Rackrent (3/1)
16. Rogue Male (3/4)
17. A Prayer for Owen Meany (3/10)
18. Lark Rise (3/19), Over to Candleford (3/30), Candleford Green (4/3)

16. Odd Man Out -- Overflow
Books that don't fit into any of the other catagories...
·Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite (3/20)
·A Toast to Tomorrow (3/31)

Great setup! I especially like your ROOTS goal title ;)

Also, I love the poster for Anatomy of a Murder.

Hepburn and Grant is one of my favorite movie couples! I love both of them!

Bringing Up Baby is one of my favorite movies! Good luck!

A movie theme! I love movie themes. You have some great movies as your categories, including a couple that I have never heard of before. Nice to know I can visit your thread for potential book bullets and movie ideas for those dark days of winter when I just want to curl up in front of the TV. ;-)

Great theme, and some fantastic movies. And I can already sense BBs flying.

>19 rabbitprincess: That title was the first one to come to mind when I was thinking about this as a possible theme. After that, how could I turn back?! I'm glad you like that poster for Anatomy of a Murder -- I was torn between that one and one that showed Jimmy Stewart...

>20 mamzel: I love almost all of Katherine Hepburn's movies but the ones she did with Cary Grant rank right up on top! He's so dreamy....

>21 LittleTaiko: I don't know how many times I have seen it but it never fails to make me laugh. I started to remark on a favorite scene and realized that there were too many to choose from :D

>22 lkernagh: I have watched all the movies listed so feel free to ask about any unfamiliar to you :) I love movies, especially older films and foreign films (but only with subtitles -- I hate dubbed films!).

The only category-movie combo I am unsure about at the moment is historical fiction -- the title of The Way We Were works but the film itself doesn't (which is why that category has a different film poster).

>23 MissWatson: Thanks. It was fun working on this theme; I can't wait to see what everyone else comes up with!

Love movie themes and I am with you on dubbed foreign films, awful!!!

>25 mysterymax: Dubbing is the pits but it is sometimes frustrating when a person talks for 5 minutes and the subtitle has one or two sentences :P

I think the Oriental martial arts movies are the best where the character's mouth is going a mile a minute and the dubber just grunts, "Uh, huh."

Very nice! I still laugh like crazy when I watch Bringing Up Baby. :)

>27 mamzel: lol! Yes, that is the kind of thing I meant.

>28 majkia: Hepburn is at her ditziest in that film and it always surprises me how well she does it. Like the scene where she is taking Grant's car from the golf course...

I also love Hepburn/Grant movies! "Bringing Up Baby" is great, and I also really love "The Philadelphia Story" and "Holiday." Great theme! :)

>30 christina_reads: Philadelphia Story is a classic but I am glad you mentioned Holiday as not many people I know have seen that one. I love Edward Everett-Horton as Cary Grant's friend (I forget who played the wife but she was very good too).

>31 leslie.98: "Holiday" is so good! I don't know the actors who played Cary Grant's friends, but they were both terrific! I also loved the guy who played Katharine Hepburn's brother.

The brother was played by Lew Ayres -- he is good in that type of role. I have been a fan of Edward Everett-Horton since the days of listening to him narrate the "Fractured Fairytales" on Rocky and Bullwinkle; he and Eric Blore had a lot of funny parts in Fred Astaire-Ginger Rogers musicals too!

Great theme - I like the movie picks!

>34 -Eva-: Thanks! It was fun going through my movie lists while I was trying to pick them :)

Great theme!

Thanks >36 thornton37814:! I am now thinking about my 11th category (the one "under construction")... Maybe Cat on a Hot Tin Roof for books that fit CATs?

Great categories! And, I like "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof"!

Thanks >38 LoisB:! The idea of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof is growing on me.

>37 leslie.98: Perfect!

You've used some great movies to define your categories, I am looking forward to seeing what books you read in 2016.

Thanks Judy! Looking for the movie posters was a lot of fun

Possible thoughts about reading for the GeoCAT:
geographical areas not quite set yet but this looks like it will be the winner

possible focus: Nobel Laureates for Literature (country & year won given after author's name)

* North America (Including Mexico) – short stories by Alice Munro (Canada, 2013); poetry by Octavio Paz (Mexico, 1990)
✓* South America : -- poetry by Gabriela Mistral (Chile, 1945) and/or Pablo Neruda (Chile, 1971); novel by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru, 2010)
* Central America and Caribbean – poetry by Juan Ramón Jiménez (Puerto Rico, 1956) and/or Derek Walcott (Santa Lucia, 1992); novel by Miguel Ángel Asturias (Guatemala, 1967)
* Western Europe – lots of choices here! Perhaps plays by Maurice Maeterlinck (Belgium, 1911) and/or Elfriede Jelinek (Austria, 2004); poetry by Giorgios Seferis (Greece, 1963) and/or Odysseas Elytis (Greece, 1979); short stories by Halldór Laxness (Iceland, 1955)
✓* Eastern Europe and Russia – poetry by Jaroslav Seifert (Czechoslovakia, 1984); And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (Russia, 1965); short stories by Ivo Andrić (Yugoslavia, 1961)
* Eastern Asia (China, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Taiwan?) – Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1968) and maybe Beauty and Sadness ✓ also; short stories by Mo Yan (China, 2012)
* Southern Asia (Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, India, Maldives, Sri Lanka?) – something by Rabindranath Tagore (India, 1913)
* Central Asia (Tibet, Mongolia & the “stans”?) --
* Australia & New Zealand – Voss by Patrick White (Australia, 1973) ✓
* Northern Africa and the Middle East (includes Turkey; former Ottoman empire?)– Palace Walk by Naguib Mahfouz (Egypt, 1988) ✓; short stories by Shmuel Yosef Agnon (Israel, 1966); something by Orham Pamuk (Turkey, 2006)
* Southern Africa – Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (South Africa, 2003) ✓ and/or maybe something by Nadine Gordimer (South Africa, 1991)?; poetry or plays by Wole Soyinka (Nigeria, 1986)
* Polar regions, Islands, Bodies of Water – A Bend in the River by V.S. Naipaul (UK/Trinidad & Tobago, 2001) ✓ and/or J.M.G. Le Clézio (France/Mauritius, 2008)? or maybe the Caribbean poetry from above… {Hong Kong, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, etc could all go here}

>44 LoisB: You are reading a lot of poetry! Happy reading. We both have Disgrace down for South Africa.

Yes, I noticed that a lot of the Nobel Laureates were poets. Luckily I have a poetry category so I hope to hit two goals (or more) with one book for many of these.

Hi Leslie, how would March suit for the reading of Rogue Male? If both you and RP are ok with that, I may also post it on the Group Read thread in case anyone else wants to join in.

>46 DeltaQueen50: As far as I know March should be fine. Looking forward to it :)

Love the movie theme!

Thanks Chèli! I'm hoping to incorporate a fair number of ROOTs in my challenges next year too ;)

Very creative and exciiting categories!

Thanks >50 Tess_W:!

Great movie choices to fit your categories! And I hope you like A Fine Balance as much as I did, when you get to it.

Love your categories - following your progress!

That is a lot of potential books for a year. For me, it would be a challenge to read one book in each of the categories. :-)

>52 Chrischi_HH: I am looking forward to it!

Thanks >53 JMC400m: :)

>54 brodiew2:, I "let" books count in more than category so it isn't as much as it might appear. But I don't think I will be doing 17 categories next year!! I've been looking at what alternatives people are using this year... maybe I'd do a 2+0+1+7, that is a nice round 10 categories.

1. The Heights of Macchu Picchu by Pablo Neruda (ℕ)
format/source = paperback/library; 47 pages; 2★

Categories: Dead Poets Society, Foreign Correspondent and Rules of the Game   
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Peru/Chile with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 1971
BingoDOG: Square 1, Book under 200 pages

Review: I found myself confused by many of the stanzas to this poem. I am sure that the problem is with me not the poem but I much prefer Neruda's odes. Being disappointed with this poem, I went looking at some of the poetry websites to rediscover my liking for Neruda. Here is one I found at the Poetry Foundation's site which is just as melancholy as The Heights of Macchu Picchu but in a way that is easy to relate to:

A Dog Has Died BY PABLO NERUDA (TRANSLATED BY ALFRED YANKAUER)

My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.

Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.

Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.

No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.

Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.

Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.

There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.

So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.

Source: Poetry (February 1999).

2. Death at Wentwater Court by Carola Dunn
format/source = audiobook/Hoopla streaming; 252 pages; 3★
Categories: Anatomy of a Murder, Rules of the Game, The Way We Were  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: AlphaKIT January: D & U
BingoPUP: Square 14, Book by a female author new-to-me
Country: England (1923)

Review: Mostly enjoyable first book in a cozy mystery series set in England during the 1920s. I did find myself questioning some of the slang used (such as a maid in a country house saying "wizard" to mean 'cool', 'neat', 'exciting' -- I know that this term originated in the early 1920s but it seems out of place for this character).

I also had some problems with the ending. While I sympathized with the desire of the family to avoid a scandal, I am opposed to the idea of letting the guilty go free. This was in fact manslaughter rather than murder and the possibility of working out a deal seems high. Because of this, I am unsure whether I will continue with this series...

>56 leslie.98: - What a beautiful poem. Now, let me go wipe my tears away. Thank you for sharing.

>58 LittleTaiko: Glad it touched you. Though I am now a "cat person", I grew up with a dog. That second stanza captures my feelings about her so well:

"... I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship."

3. *Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
format/source = paperback/MOB (plus I tried both the Librivox audiobook & the Juliet Stevenson narration); read 157 of 256 pages; 1★

Categories: Schindler’s List, Foreign Correspondent, Rules of the Game  
Country: France
BingoDOG: Square 20, book in translation

Review: I read about half of this but every page was a struggle so I am giving up. Maybe someday I will return to this but for now, I am considering this as "read"!

It is difficult for me to pinpoint why I struggled so much with this -- Flaubert is clearly a good writer, the descriptions are vivid, and I have some sympathy for (some) characters. But the book in print sends me to sleep; the audiobook causes my mind to wander and even the movie version bored me. Perhaps it is the pace...

>60 leslie.98:
That's my all-time least favorite book - Emma grates on me so much with all her complaining.

>61 -Eva-: It seems to be one of those books people love or hate. For myself, I think I have read enough to choose a camp! Flaubert is just not the writer for me. But I am glad to check this book off all those "best of" lists :)

4. Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral by Gabriela Mistral (ℕ) (translated by Langston Hughes)
format/source = paperback/library; 119 pages; 4★
Categories: Dead Poets Society, Foreign Correspondent, Rules of the Game  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Chile with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 1945
BingoPUP: Square 24, Play or Poetry

Review: While I am not a mother (and don't have much maternal feeling), I still found these poems moving. Mistral's poems in this collection focused mostly on the pregnancy & infant stages of motherhood, such as this one (Eternal Grief):

"If he suffers within me I grow pale; grief overtakes me
at his hidden pressure, and I could die from a single
motion of this one I can not see.

But do not think that only while I carry him, will he be
entangled within me. When he shall roam free on the
highways, even though he is far away from me, the wind that
lashes him will tear at my flesh, and his cry will be in my
throat, too. My grief and my smile begin in your face, my
son."

5. *Dom Casmurro by Machado de Assis
format/source = Kindle/Sensational Books website (see below); 263 pages; 3★
Categories: Schindler's List, Foreign Correspondent, The Rules of the Game, And Then There Were None  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Brazil
AlphaKIT January: D & U
BingoDOG: Square 17, Book published before you were born (1899)

Review: I took 1/2 star off my rating for this Kindle edition due to formatting problems (such as it not keeping words intact - for example, the word not might have the no at the end of a line and the t at the beginning of the next line!) & there were some strange translation choices as well. I was glad to be able to get this Brazilian classic (in English) for free from www.ebook.visitbrasil.com but had to chuckle at times to the blatant tourism propaganda in some of the notes included. For example,

"Butterflies
Butterflies are one of the most enchanting parts of Brazilian wildlife. In Brazil, there is an impressive variety of 3,500 species, the majority of which are found in the Amazon.
Some zoos (for example, the Brasília Zoo) spread throughout Brazil have butterfly gardens that show some of the species' diversity.
At the butterfly garden in Campos de Jordão, São Paulo, you can learn about the butterflies and walk among them as well. You get the chance to see their delicate flight, the designs on their wings and even their mating rituals."

Despite the sometimes strange translations (Caputa's eyes were describes as "obliquos" and José Dias is repeatedly referred to as an "aggregate" -- perhaps they meant factor?), Machado de Assis' writing still contained some wonderful images and phrases. One I particularly liked was when Bentinho is describing when he and Caputa first realized that they were in love:

"Do not criticize us, unfortunate captain, hearts aren't sailed like the other seas in this world."

I liked the story (which is quite sad towards the end) & found this an interesting contrast to my beloved English Victorian classics which are from the same time. The basic plot could have been written by Hardy or Gaskell but the flavor would have been completely different.

>57 leslie.98: I read Death at Wentwater Court a few years ago but haven't continued with the series yet. It didn't make enough of an impression on me to send the series to the top of my TBR/wishlist.

>65 cbl_tn: Sounds like my reaction -- not bad but not great...

>65 cbl_tn: >66 leslie.98: Oh dear, I have the first two books in Daisy Dalrymple series on my shelves. I won't rush to pull them down.

>67 DeltaQueen50: I have heard that the series gets better. So if you want to read them in order, it might be worth it to read them even so. Personally, I don't need to read mystery series in order (not like I do with sci fi/fantasy) so I might jump ahead...

6. Don Juan in Hell by George Bernard Shaw (ℕ)
format/source = audiobook/LibriVox; 64 pages; 3★
Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1502622877  

Categories: Rules of the Game, Stage Door
Country: Ireland with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 1925
BingoDOG: Square 13, Read a CAT
AlphaKIT January: D & U
RandomCAT January: Celebrate your uniqueness

>64 leslie.98:
Well, that one goes on my potentials-list for Brazil.

Glad to expand your TBR >70 -Eva-:!

7. Rogue Island by Bruce DeSilva
format/source = hardcover/library; 302 pages; 3½★
Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1486854584  
Challenges: Mysteries (Read the USA), Bingo
Country: U.S.A. {Rhode Island}
BingoDOG: Square 19, Debut book
AlphaKIT January: D & U

8. *Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
format/source = audiobook/Tantor Media; 526 pages; 4★
Categories: The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Crowd  

Country: England
Group Read for GoodReads Group

Review: Simon Vance does another excellent narration in this Victorian classic. His voices for the lower class rural people deserve a special mention as I often struggle with the written form of this sort of dialect -- I don't know the original dialect so I can't comment on how accurate it is but it sounded accurate but still was understandable.

As for the book itself, this reread (via audiobook) was my first since college. Since then I have read more Hardy and although I can understand why this one is considered one of his best, I personally prefer The Mayor of Casterbridge. Hardy's writing here is at its peak & I found the prose easier to read than in Far From the Madding Crowd but his style will never be a favorite of mine. And the story is so very bleak.

you are really knocking them out this month! I've only read 2.

Hardy? Bleak? You jest! Yes, beautiful writing but I would be chronically depressed if I read too much of his writing. Thanks for the link to the Brazillian ebooks!

>74 LoisB: Thanks but some of these are pretty darn short! I generally start the month off with reading a bunch simultaneously (one poetry book, one short story collection, one audiobook, and at least one print book). This month's poetry went faster than usual :)

>75 cammykitty: lol! makes the Stella Gibbons parody in Cold Comfort Farm all the more humorous if you have read Hardy & D.H. Lawrence :)

Regarding the Brazilian ebooks - there are many to select from (or you could do what I did and download them all!). This just happened to be the first one I have gotten to (partly because it fit this month's AlphaKIT)...

9. *The Diary of a Provincial Lady by E.M. Delafield
format/source = Kindle/Feedbooks; 125 pages; 4½★
Categories: Schindler's List, And Then There Were None, The Rules of the Game  
Country: England
BingoPUP: Square 11, Autobiography, memoir or correspondence
AlphaKIT January: D & U

Review: I loved this -- in part because I like almost all the English satires of the period between the 2 World Wars. But this thinly disguised memoir wouldn't be the classic it is if it didn't contain commentary & queries about situations women face in other times & places. While problems with servants, lack of money (relatively speaking!), and the Women's Institute are not universal, who hasn't had the experience of someone saying something unpleasant, then "Think of several rather tart and witty rejoinders to this, but unfortunately not until Lady B.'s Bentley has taken her away."

One question which occurred frequently was about why societal conventions & common politeness require adults to lie so often: "Lady Boxe calls. I say, untruthfully, how nice to see her..."; in reply to an old school friend asking to stay for a few nights: "Reply that we shall be delighted to see her, and what a lot we shall have to talk about, after all these years! (This, I find on reflection, is not true, but cannot re-write letter on that account)."; The Vicar's wife has had a picture postcard from her (which she produces from bag), with small cross marking bedroom window of hotel. She says, It's rather interesting, isn't it? to which I reply Yes, it is, which is not in the least true."

This juxtaposition of the conventional polite behavior and the true thoughts of the author is the source of much of the humor.

Nice set-up and categories. I look forward to seeing what poetry you'll read this year. Wow- you've completed so many books already this year. I'm still only half way through my first two books.
Happy Reading!

Thanks >78 VioletBramble:! Winter tends to be a big reading time for me - between the cold weather and the short days I tend to just curl up with a hot drink and read.

I like how different seasons = more reading time for different readers. For some reason, summertime is consistently my best reading months. I find in the darker days of winter I tend to go to bed earlier and sleep more, losing reading time. ;-)

I can understand that hibernation tendency >80 lkernagh:!

10. Ficciones by Jorges Luis Borges
format/source = hardcover/library; 174 pages; 3★
Categories: Brief Encounter, Foreign Correspondent  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Argentina
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG: Square 10, One Word Title

Review: There is something about South American writing I just don't seem to get. I found these stories strange & while not disagreeable, I couldn't really understand the purpose of many of them. Borges often uses the device of a labyrinth or maze & many of the stories revolve around a discussion of another (imaginary) book, which also struck me as a kind of maze (a story in a story in a story). Are these layers representing personality or reality or religion or something like that? I suppose so... I will have to think it over some more.

I've Diary of a Provincial Lady waiting; I'll have to move it up the list.

11. Fer-de-Lance by Rex Stout
format/source = audiobook/BPL; 285 pages, 3★
Categories: The Killers  
Country: U.S.A. {New York}

Review: Wolfe was more talkative than I remember from the other books! But the main thing I noticed was that this first book in the series reads as if it is from the middle of the series, in the sense that Wolfe & all his cohorts are presented as having been together for a while and this is just one more case. I guess I was expecting something like A Study in Scarlet, explaining how the "gang" got together. Glad I read/listened to it but it isn't as good as some of the other books in the series...

This audiobook is a reissue of the old Books on Tape audio cassette recording. I am disappointed in Penguin/Random House in releasing this digital edition without editing out the "this is the end of side one, turn the tape over to listen to side two" bits!

>11 leslie.98: I think have read all of the Nero Wolfe stories, and I seem to remember hearing the details of how they got together. I have an image in my mind of Archie interviewing for the position, but that could be pure conjecture. It's also possible that the details were covered in Nero Wolfe of West 35th Street.

>85 LoisB: I think that we get the backstore in bits and pieces throughout the series. Archie does mention his interview with Wolfe in this but just in passing.

>86 leslie.98: that could be. It's been a while since I read them.

12. *Under Western Eyes by Joseph Conrad
format/source = Kindle/Amazon & audio/Librivox; 327 pages; 4★
Categories: And Then There Were None; Schindler's List    
Country: Russia & Switzerland
AlphaKIT January: D & U

Review: Very much in the style of Dostoevsky (not my favorite Russian author) but intriguing look at a young man caught between revolutionaries and self-interest. The double meanings of much of the text are marvelously done. This Conrad novel, from 1911, is quite different from his most famous "Heart of Darkness".

13. And Still I Rise: A Selection of Poems Read by the Author by Maya Angelou
format/source = audiobook/Audible freebie; 54 pages; 4★
Categories: Dead Poets Society; The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Rules of the Game  
Country: U.S.A.
BingoPUP: Square 7, African-American author

Review: I picked up this audio short (22 minutes; print edition is 54 pages) as a freebie from Audible last December -- Maya Angelou reading a selection of her poems. I had read these poems in print before but it was a treat to hear her recite them. I listened to these today in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day; I try to honor his memory every year by reading or listening to something about the Civil Rights Movement. For the past few years, I have listened to one or more of MLK Jr.'s own writings but this year I thought that something different was in order.

>13 leslie.98: I've heard her read her own poetry and she is wonderful. That was a great way to celebrate MLK Day!

14. Schott's Original Miscellany by Ben Schott
format/source = hardcover/MOB; 159 pages; 4½★
Categories: The Official Story  
Country: N/A
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: DeweyCAT 000-099 {031.02}

Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1495501316
I received this hardcover book as a gift years ago (perhaps over 10 years ago!). While more a book to dip into rather than read straight through, I found myself enjoying this more than I had expected to. There were a considerable number of entries that made me laugh aloud, such as Hamlet's famous speech rendered into pig Latin! And I did find some useful bits of information (as the previously unknown to me weather proverb "Halo round the sun or moon/Rain or snow is coming soon").

>90 mamzel: I agree she is wonderful -- I am always a bit uneasy about audio narrated by the author as sometimes they are quite poor at reading so it was a relief to find that was not the case here!

15. The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa (ℕ)
format/source = hardcover/library; 326 pages; 4★
Categories: Foreign Correspondent  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Peru with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 2010
AlphaKIT January: D & U

Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1508748069

>89 leslie.98: What a great idea! And I have a boxed set of 4 books of hers that I got for a few bucks at a library sale. Inspired by you, I think I'll read them during Feb. for Black history month.

>93 leslie.98: Is there a formal AwardKIT focus group. I'm doing it on my own, although my first attempt (Love in the time of Cholera) is probably going to get Perl-rued!

>94 kac522: Good idea for Black History month :) I have some plays set aside for that but I may add in some poetry too...

>95 LoisB: I don't know if there is any formal AwardKIT. I saw others talk about it during the planning stage (maybe you!) and decided I wanted to do it but haven't seen any threads (or wikis) for it. Right now, I am just doing it on my own too but maybe we should band together!

>96 leslie.98: OK Let's do it together. Maybe we can attract others, too.

16. *Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
format/source = audiobook/Audible; 256 pages; 3½★
Categories: Schindler's List  
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 22, Coming of Age story

Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1514640699

>97 LoisB: Great. I am relatively inexperienced in LT etiquette - how should we go about it? Set up a thread where we can share our choices & make suggestions?

>99 leslie.98: Yes, we can set up a thread under 2016 Category Challenges. Make sure we put AwardKIT in the title. Explain the requirements for participation, and invite others to join us. We also need to set up a wiki for people to record their participation. I will see if I can find the instructions on how to do that.

17. *Solaris by Stanislaw Lem
format/source = paperback/library; 204 pages; 3½★
Categories: Schindler's List, E.T., Foreign Correspondent  
Country: setting is N/A (offworld) but author is from Poland {book is translated from French}

Review: I found this science fiction novel more interesting in concept than in execution. It is a very science-oriented sci fi and having a science background myself, I found some passages amusing and/or insightful but I never connected to the characters. The relationship between Kris Kelvin and Rheya (or the Rheya-like creature) at the heart of the book didn't arouse more than mild interest in me...

On the other hand, Lem's idea that humanity's hubris is so great that we don't truly expect to meet alien life that is significantly different from our own is so shatteringly true! And as he poses the question in this novel, if we do meet such a life-form (and recognize it as such, which isn't certain) would communication ever be possible? These concepts I find fascinating & it may be that I will end up increasing my rating after some time has passed.

One of the more amusing insights into the way scientists work:
·"During the following ten years, Solaris became the center of attention for all observatories concerned with the study of this region of space, for the planet had in the meantime shown the astonishing faculty of maintaining an orbit which ought, without any shadow of doubt, to have been unstable. The problem almost developed into a scandal: since the results of the observations could only be inaccurate, attempts were made (in the interests of science) to denounce and discredit various scientists or else the computers they used."

Typing this out just now, I realize that while I think it is true of scientists, Lem was writing behind the Iron Curtain in the late 1950s (the book was first published in 1961) so it could also be read as a critique of the USSR's management style!! I will have to think more about this aspect of the book.

18. Tish: The Chronicle of Her Escapades and Excursions by Mary Roberts Rinehart
format/source = Kindle/Project Gutenberg; 371 pages; 3★:
Categories: Brief Encounter  
Country: U.S.A.
Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 4, short stories

Review: These stories from the 1910s are amusing for the most part although they do display some of the racist attitudes of the times (regarding all people of color) which I found particularly bothersome in the second story "Like a Wolf in the Fold".

The 3 main characters - Tish Carberry, Aggie Pilkington, and the narrator Lizzie (I don't recall her last name) - are women "of a certain age" who, while being members of good standing in their church, still manage to defy convention and get into all sorts of adventures. In one of the best stories in the collection, "The Simple Life", the 3 live off the land in the Maine woods! Surprisingly (or not, if you are familiar with Tish) that is the easy part - they manage to get mixed up with bootleggers and assist in a romance as well.

19. Dancing at Lughnasa by Brian Friel
format/source = paperback/library; 71 pages; 4★
Categories: Stage Door  
Country: Ireland
AlphaKIT January: D & U

Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1522192349

20. The Cornish Coast Murder by John Bude
format/source = paperback/library; 286 pages; 3½★
Categories: The Killers  
Country: Cornwall/U.K.

Review: enjoyable Golden Age mystery (but not one that the reader can solve ahead of the detective)...

>104 leslie.98: That was a good one! I also liked that the Reverend had a friend referred to as "the Doctor" -- made me think of Doctor Who helping to solve the mystery ;)

>105 rabbitprincess: Yes I was struck by the capitalization of both 'the Doctor' and 'the Vicar' -- very Germanic! Must say that these British Library Classic Crime reprints have gorgeous covers :)

21. *Diary of a Nobody by George & Weedon Grossmith
format/source = Kindle/Amazon; 140 pages; 4★
Categories: And Then There Were None, Schindler's List  
Country: England
AlphaKIT January: D & U

Review: Mr. Pooter decides to keep a diary in the hopes of one day becoming the Pepys of the late Victorian era. He is a clerk of a somewhat stuffy and pompous nature but with a love of bad puns and jokes (luckily for him his wife shares his sense of humor!).

I found him a little reminiscent of "The Irish R.M." in his never-ending series of domestic mishaps - both of these books amuse yet puzzle me. As a person who has never even seen a domestic servant much less employed one, the battle of control between master & servant baffles me to some extent. It clearly baffles Mr. Pooter as well! He persists in thinking that he is the master and so deserving of respect despite the fact that he rarely gets that respect even from his own son.

Grossmith's satire has captured the beginning of the end for the middle-class Victorian way of life with Pooter and his son. Pooter's worries about his son Lupin's future could be seen as a reflection of a greater concern about security and expectations for the middle-class workers and their families if the rigidity of the old-fashioned methods gives way, while Lupin's attitudes point up the impatience of the rising generation with the adherence to outmoded ideas and practices.

22. Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
format/source = audio CDs/library; 432 pages; 3½★
Categories: The Way We Were, Foreign Correspondent  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Chile & California, U.S. (1840-50s)
AlphaKIT January: D & U
Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 15 - set in Asia or Latin America

Review: I really wanted to love this book. I have heard great things about Allende's writing and just recently seen this getting 5 star ratings... so what happened? I think I am out of tune with the current writing style -- I know that the saying is "show don't tell" but I found myself several times while listening to this audiobook wishing Allende wouldn't show but just tell me! For example, at one point Eliza bets her last few coins on a contest between a bear and a bull. She loses but the fight between the two animals is described in great detail -- too much detail in my opinion. I understand that these were brutal times and that this is a brutal sport - I don't need to hear about how the bear ripped the snout off the bull. That is just padding & disgusting padding at that.

The book also suffered for me because I didn't find Eliza very believable. Nor her 'mother' Rose for that matter. I was taken aback near the beginning of the story by Rose taking Eliza as a young child to the orphanage & threatening to dump her there if she didn't stop complaining and do her piano lessons!! And there is no governess or tutor -- how is Eliza supposed to be learning anything other than what she learns from the Chilean housekeeper? So a big section of the plot didn't work for me later on when Rose is supposed to be so heartbroken that Eliza has run away. And then neither she nor Jeremy knew the housekeeper's last name after 18 years! Even before that, when Rose is trying to find her a husband, it didn't seem reasonable that she didn't talk to Eliza about it at all.

The idea of telling a tale of the California gold rush from the perspective of the underclasses (women and non-white immigrants) is a good one. But I was disappointed to see the trite stereotype of the prostitute with the heart of gold as one of the main secondary female characters. Granted she is described as a "man trapped in a woman's body" and over 6 feet tall but still... The best parts for me were those involving Tao Chi'en.

23. Riders to the Sea by J.M. Synge
format/source = hardcover (read as part of "Five Great Modern Irish Plays")/MOB & audio/LibriVox; 16 pages; 3½★
Categories: Stage Door    
Country: Ireland

Review: Really 3½ stars for the play and 4 stars for the full cast LibriVox recording (the last play in a collection of one act plays found here).

I read this extremely short one act play while listening to the LibriVox recording. The Irish voices of the cast helped bring the play to life for me. The play itself is very sad, about a woman who loses her last remaining son to an accidental drowning just the day after another son's body has been identified.…

This play stands up well to reading (as opposed to seeing a performance).

24. The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
format/source = paperback/MOB; 355 pages; 3½★
Categories: Sleuth  
Country: U.S.A. {MA}
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 21, Book focused on Art
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: DeweyCAT January: a book about museums

Review: I thought that this was a) historical fiction and b) a mystery. Both those things turned out to be true in part but essentially this was a contemporary literary fiction novel. I think my rating may reflect in part my sense of disappointment about that misconception.

However, being from the Boston area, I enjoyed all the local color and I found the information about art very interesting. In particular, seeing the "art scene" in terms of a business, a way of making a living, was fascinating. I found the historical fiction parts about Isabella Stewart Gardner fun but not completely believable. I also thought that Aiden Markel's "big reveal" predictable and it bothered me all along that Claire wasn't more cautious/suspicious.

25. Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
format/source = audiobook/BPL (& paperback/MOB); 313 pages; 4★
Categories: The Postman Always Rings Twice, E.T. the Extra-Terrestial  
Country: N/A
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 12: Women in Combat
The Crowd: Vorkosigan 2016 Group Read

Review: I am so glad that I decided to revisit this first book in the Vorkosigan series. I had forgotten how much of Miles' 'backstory' is explained in this one (perhaps because I foolishly let 5-6 years go by after reading "Cordelia's Honor" before picking the series back up). Grover Gardner continues to be an excellent narrator for this series.

But coming to it after having read the rest of the series meant that it did lose some of its tension. And I must add that I hate this cover! Neither Cordelia nor Aral look like I had imagined :(

26. The Unfinished Clue by Georgette Heyer
format/source = paperback/MOB; 306 pages; 4★
Categories: The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Killers  
Country: England
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 21, 1920-30s Detective Fiction
AlphaKIT January: D & U

Review: One of the best benefits of a bad memory is the ability to reread mysteries! I didn't remember this at all when I started rereading it -- I know I have read it as I own it and I love Heyer but nothing about the blurb seemed familiar. About halfway through I suddenly did recall a big part of the solution (though as it turned out, not the guilty person!) but by that time I was caught up in the book & could enjoy it even knowing (as I thought) whodunit. So it was a fun surprise to find out I didn't know who did it after all at the end!

This is a wonderful Golden Age mystery (first published in 1933) and it has the features which have become stereotypical for a country house murder mystery. What lifts this one to above average is Heyer's characters such as Lola, the Mexican cabaret dancer whom the son of the household has brought home as his fiancée. Being a Heyer, it is no surprise that there was a romantic subplot but it was unusually low key.

I have shuffled things around a bit with my BingoPUP card -- this is a much better fit for Square 21 than Death at Wentwater Court as it was actually written in the Golden Age rather than just being set then. I have moved the Carola Dunn book into Square 14, book by an author new to you.

27. *The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington
format/source = Kindle/Amazon & audiobook/LibriVox; 282 pages; 4★
Categories: And Then There Were None, Schindler's List  
Country: U.S.A. with AwardKIT: Pulitzer Prize (1918)

Review: Maybe even 4.5* While I knew most of the plot from watching the excellent film adaptation (1942 directed by Orson Wells and starring Joseph Cotten), it was worthwhile reading the original novel. Tarkington is one of a small handful of authors who have won the Pulitzer Prize more than once and reading this novel, I could understand why.

Wells focused on the family drama in the film (and ended a few chapters short of the book!) but the book shows that Tarkington is more interested in the wider social commentary. Even with this wider focus, his portrayal of a pompous narcissist bully in Georgie Minafer is excellent and the book is worth reading for that alone. Georgie is not a caricature and I liked the fact that Tarkington showed him as human which allowed me to sympathize with him even when he was at his most annoying. Being a sentimentalist at heart, I liked the fact that the book allowed Georgie (now George) to be reprieved and possibly (hopefully) get back together with Lucy Morgan.

>27 mamzel: Leslie, I've had The Magnificent Ambersons on my shelf for years! I love the 1942 film that was made of this book, but I really need to pull it down and read it!

>114 DeltaQueen50: Do! I don't think you will be disappointed.

January summary: (doesn't include books in progress)

6,455 pgs read in 28 books (7 mysteries, 1 sci fi)
# books from the Guardian's list = 8 (7 new to me)
# books by Nobel Laureates = 4
# books in translation = 9
# ROOTs = 5 print, 13 total
# books from the library = 11
# books acquired = 19 (this total includes short stories being counted individually)

Book I enjoyed most was Diary of a Provincial Lady, with The Magnificent Ambersons and Shards of Honor running a close second.

Good job! Are you going to keep reading at this pace for the whole year?

>117 LoisB: I wish! But probably not. This turned out to be a great reading month for me -- the combination of GeoCAT and AlphaKIT worked very well for me. But I can already tell that won't be the case with Feb. as I still have no inspiration for Central Asia.

28. The Patience of the Spider by Andrea Camilleri
format/source = paperback/MOB & streaming audio/Hoopla; 244 pages; 4★
Categories: Anatomy of a Murder, Foreign Correspondent    
Country: Italy

Review: 4* for the audiobook, 3½* for the book itself. Grover Gardner is in typical form - i.e. wonderful - in this entry in the Inspector Montalbano series. His voice for Catarella is worth noting - he manages to convey the crazy accent but still be understood, quite a feat!

As for the book, while I enjoyed every minute of it, I did find some of the plot predictable this time. And poor Montalbano, recuperating and having Livia cooking for him didn't get as many wonderful meals in this one! Still a solid mystery with above average writing.

I couldn't quite decide where to put this in my mystery subcategories -- in Sleuth for mysteries I own in print or in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for foreign mysteries so I just gave the overall category!

What a great month of reading! Nice start to the year. Lots being added to my wishlist.

>120 VivienneR: Thanks :)

29. Of Love and Other Demons by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (ℕ) (translated by Edith Grossman)
format/source = paperback/library; 147 pages; 2½★
Categories: Foreign Correspondent  
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Colombia with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 1982

Review: My rating may change as this short novel dealt with themes that I don't gravitate towards (religion & faith) but contain much matter to mull over.

This story is about a girl of ~12 years old who may be suffering from rabies or might be possessed by the devil or might just be poorly socialized, depending on whose point of view you take. Marquez set this sometime during the 1700s in some coastal city (presumably Cartagena). I found the lack of specific setting and time irritating as it distracted me -- I was constantly looking for some clue to anchor the story in time and space. I hoped to use the arrival of the new viceroy Don Rodrigo de Buen Lozano to set the time but unfortunately this is not a true historical figure. Therefore, all I could tell was it was after 1717 when Colombia as part of New Granada got its own viceroy based in Bogota and before 1810 when Colombia gained its independence from Spain.

Love your categories. Seeing the history category reminded me of the 1937 film, History is Made at Night which I have been wanting to see for ages.

>123 pamelad: Ooh, I don't know that movie! I will have to look out for it.

30. Sonnets to Orpheus by Rainer Maria Rilke {translated by M.D. Herter Norton}
format/source = paperback/library; 160 pages; 3★
Categories: Dead Poets' Society, Foreign Correspondent  
Country: Germany

Review: While I found some of these sonnets thought-provoking, they were mostly too obscure & difficult to understand for me. I appreciated the translator's notes and made extensive use of them but Rilke's philosophy about death was enigmatic. And the allusions to Orpheus and Eurydice were veiled to say the least!

31. The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes
format/source = paperback/MOB; 163 pages; 3½★
Categories:  
Country: England with Award focus: Man Booker Prize (2011)
Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 2, Senior citizen as protagonist
AlphaKIT February: B & J

Review: Beautifully written but not really my thing, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it wasn't a good fit for me at the moment.

Barnes explores the idea of memory - how reliable is it? - by the main character Tony Webster examining his memories & feelings about his past (specifically a couple of people from his school & college days) when he receives an unexpected legacy. I found the idea of wanting or needing corroboration for one's memories as one gets older rang true (I increasingly want to double-check memories of childhood with my brother). However, the people in this novel never really came alive for me -- it was very cold & analytical and that set me at a distance from what was happening.

32. Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp by Anonymous (translated by John Payne)
format/source = audiobook/Audible & Kindle/Amazon; 131 pages; 1½★ for the book
Categories: Foreign Correspondent, Bringing Up Baby, And Then There Were None  
 
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: uncertain but perhaps Kyrgyzstan (see below)
AlphaKIT February: J & B
Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 9 - Adventure

Review: 1½ stars for the book, 2½ stars for the audiobook
The narrator Bernard Cetaro Clark did a good job but this was a disappointing translation. Plus, why does the book start with another (unrelated) story from The Arabian Nights?? The first 30 minutes or so are not the Aladdin story which was confusing.

To read more about the translation, see my review on Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1534099004

I found to my surprise when I was looking to find out more about the origins of this story that prior to its introduction to Europe by Galland in 1709 the origins of this fairy tale is unknown. No Middle Eastern source has been found and the setting is confused. While it is clearly stated (more than once) that Aladdin lives in China (!), the ruler is a Sultan and the people are Muslims. This has led to speculation that it is set in Central Asia, part of the Silk Road territory, which means it works for this month's GeoCAT!! Here is the most relevant section of the Wikipedia article:

"The opening sentences of the story, in both the Galland and the Burton versions, set it in China: and imply, at least, that Aladdin is Chinese.5 On the other hand - there is nothing in the rest of the story that is inconsistent with a Persian or Arabian setting. For instance, most of the people in the story are Muslims, and their conversation is larded with devout Muslim platitudes. A Jewish merchant buys Aladdin's wares (and incidentally cheats him), but there is no mention of Buddhists or Confucians (or other distinctively Chinese people). The Sultan is referred to as such rather being called the "Emperor", as in some re-tellings. In spite of this rather tenuous link, some commentators have suggested that the story might be set in Turkestan (encompassing Central Asia and the modern Chinese province of Xinjiang),6 but this speculation depends on a knowledge of China that the teller of a folk tale (as opposed to a geographic expert) might well not possess.7"

33. Translations by Brian Friel
format/source = paperback/library; 70 pages; 5★
Categories: Stage Door, The Way We Were  
Country: Ireland
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: A real treat! I liked the way that the play works on different levels. The surface story, the historical, the social commentary about colonialism and the arrogance of renaming all of a country's landmarks, the idea of words as signposts, the way characters do & don't communicate even without words.

I have also listened to the BBC Radio adaptation which was marvelous. Perhaps I wouldn't have loved the written play as much if I didn't have those voices in my mind...

34. Deadly Proof by M. Louisa Locke
format/source = Kindle/Amazon Prime lending library; 319 pages; 3★
Categories: The Way We Were, The Killers  
Country: U.S.A. (1880 San Francisco)
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 13, by or about a woman -- BINGO!!

Review: Good mystery but I should have read #3 in the series before this one. Oh well, I will read Bloody Lessons this month. I liked the printing industry setting and the information about female typesetters at this time (1880 'Frisco). Too bad I didn't get to it in time for the January AlphaKIT...

>128 leslie.98: Translations was a good play. I think having a radio adaptation to listen to would be even better!

35. A Blunt Instrument by Georgette Heyer
format/source = paperback/MOB; 293 pages; 4★
Categories: The Postman Always Rings Twice, The Killers  
Country: England
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 9, a different genre for the same author
The Crowd: Group read in GoodReads
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: Maybe this is really only 3½ stars but I did so enjoy Neville Fletcher & Sally Drew and of course Constable Glass! Unimportant but annoying is the fact that the picture on the cover of this 2006 Arrow edition not only had nothing to do with the murder but doesn't even represent the people in this book!!

I recalled the solution to this one from the beginning of my reread and while this mystery does violate the "rules," I could admire how skillfully Heyer gave the reader clues pointing to the guilty person.

For those unfamiliar with Georgette Heyer, this mystery is "a different genre for the same author" because she was primarily the author of historical fiction romances.

>104 leslie.98: You liked that one a little better than I did.

36. Jill the Reckless by P.G. Wodehouse
format/source = Kindle/Amazon & audio/Hoopla; 342 pages; 3½★
Categories: And Then There Were None    
Country: England & U.S.A. {NY}
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 18, a book that features a theater
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: While the book was 3½ stars, the audiobook, by Blackstone Audio, was only 2 stars. I liked the plot, which was a fun romp but not as hilarious as some of Wodehouse's books. But I really should have abandoned the audiobook. Not only did I have some issues with the narrator David Ian Davies but there were also some technical problems.

I listened to this through Hoopla's streaming audio so I don't know if the technical flaws were due to my stream or intrinsic to the recording but I did encounter them in more than one device. The issue was that small snippets of the text would be repeated. An example:
"Here, a composer who had not got an interpolated number in the show ... had not got an interpolated number in the show ... was explaining to another composer ..."

Narrator David Ian Davies was a disappointment. First of all, his narration was too slow (pace sounded normal to me at 1.5x speed, but as often happens with Hoopla, the narration has a tinny echo-y sound when not at 1.0x). In addition to being too slow, Davies paused frequently at odd places in the middle of a sentence. For example:
"And yet, as she leaned ... back in her seat, her heart was dancing ... in time to the dance-music ... of Mrs. Peagrim's hired orchestra."

But worst was the use of a pronounced Irish accent for Derek for no reason. Not only is this character not Irish, but his mother is voiced with an English accent so it isn't even consistent.

37. Murders on Elderberry Road by Sally Goldenbaum
format/source = hardcover (large type edition)/library; 236 pages; 2★
Categories: The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  
Country: U.S.A. {KA}

Review: While I liked the setting and the women of the quilting circle, I found the plot disappointing. I was able to figure out who the culprit is fairly early (and I am not generally good at that!) but a bigger problem for me was the unrealistically naive (or incompetent) police force! Come on, the spouse is ALWAYS a suspect! And the police didn't even check on the will? Seriously?! Isn't that standard procedure when someone is murdered?

But at least I can check Kansas off on my quest to Read-the-USA with mysteries! Only 3 more to go (if you include Washington D.C.) :)


visited 48 states (96%)
Create your own visited map of The United States or Brazil travel guide for Android

38. Death in the Stocks by Georgette Heyer
format/source = paperback/MOB; 262 pages; 3½★
Categories: The Killers, The Postman Always Rings Twice  
Country: England
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 6: Book published before 2000 (1935)

Review: The first of the Hannayside/Hemingway books -- it doesn't have enough of Sergeant Hemingway for my tastes :(

As for the plot, Heyer gives the reader pointers to who is the guilty party but she holds back the final proofs (a bit 'unfair' to my mind). I did enjoy the Vereker siblings' squabbles!

39. Jump At the Sun by Kathleen McGhee-Anderson
format/source = audiobook/Audible; ~75 pages (estimated based on length of audiobook); 4★
Categories: Stage Door  
Country: U.S.A.
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 5: A book about a writer -- Bingo!
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: Moving play based on the life of Zora Neale Hurston. It has made me want to read some more of Hurston's writings, maybe some of her short stories... I also found the part about Harlem in the 1920s fascinating.

I am not sure how fictional this play is -- do I list it under The Official Story (nonfiction) as a biography or under The Way We Were as historical fiction?? I am willing to believe that the main events are true but that the dialogue is fictional - so I guess that makes it historical fiction... I am willing to take advice on this point!

6,455 pgs read in 28 books

Great job with your January reading!

>119 leslie.98: - I love that Grover Gardner has been the 'voice' for all of the Inspector Montalbano books. I am so attuned to his voice I think I would go into shock if a different reader cropped up for one of the books.

Thanks >137 lkernagh:. And I feel that way about Gardner's narration for the Vorkosigan books! Even though I own all but one of them in print, I found myself waiting for the various audiobooks to become available at the library once I started listening!

40. *Hunger by Knut Hamsun (ℕ)
format/source = Kindle/Amazon; 172 pages; 3½★
Categories: Schindler's List, And Then There Were None, Foreign Correspondent  
Country: Norway with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate (1920)
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: DeweyCAT 100-199, book about ethics
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 3, a survival story

Review: I really don't know what I think about this Norwegian classic by Nobel Laureate Knut Hamsun. Even my rating is a bit of a guess!

I found this very easy to read and the effects of extreme poverty on the main character were fascinating to behold. But I found this unnamed character very odd in places. I could understand to some extent his pride leading him to doing some things that could be seen as foolish but some of his pranks were bizarre.

41. Lady Windermere's Fan by Oscar Wilde
format/source = audio/LibriVox & paperback/MOB; 82 pages; 4½★
Categories: Stage Door, The Postman Always Rings Twice    
Country: England

Review: Rereading this play has caused me to alter my rating from 4* to 4.5* -- I had forgotten how many wonderful lines there were in the dialogue of this play. The witty dialogue raises up my rating but I still don't think it is as good as my favorite, The Importance of Being Earnest so I can't give it a full 5*.

While my opinion of the play itself has been increased by this reread, I found some of the cast of narrators in the audiobook were not great. Nobody was dreadful but Mr. Hopper in particular was poor and I found Lord Windermere spoke too slowly and deliberately. Mrs. Erlynne (voiced by Elizabeth Klett) was excellent and both Lady Windermere & the Duchess of Berwick were very good. So I am giving the audiobook edition 4*.

42. The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny
format/source =hardcover/library; 376 pages; 3½★
Categories: Anatomy of a Murder  
Country: Canada
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 3: Book less than 10 years old

Review: I found this latest book in the Gamache series good though not as compelling as some of the earlier books. The scariest part was the author's afterword, which informed me that Gerald Bull and Big Babylon were true! Now that is scary!

43. Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl
format/source = audiobook/SYNC; 563 pages; 3½★
Categories: E.T., Bringing Up Baby  
Country: U.S.A. {South Carolina}
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 17, book made into a movie
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: RandomCAT February Pairs
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: 3½ stars for the book, 3 stars for this audiobook edition.

This is basically a retelling of Romeo and Juliet with a young adult paranormal twist. The South Carolina setting was well done and reminded me of my years living in the South; the "mortal" teenage world of school & cliques rings true. The tradition of southern literature includes eccentric characters & these people allowed the possibility of the paranormal existing in the community unnoticed to be more understandable.

As all teens do, Ethan and Lena struggle with questions of identity but in their case there is an added urgency. Lena is a "Caster" whose fate as either good or evil will be decided on her 16th birthday. Ethan is a mortal -- will their love be strong enough to bridge the gap between their two worlds? In keeping with the Romeo & Juliet story, not only do the two sides disapprove of the relationship but there is even a tragic death near the end. However, this is where the twist comes in -- as this is a young adult paranormal story, it doesn't have Shakespeare's tragic ending of both lovers dying. In this case, Lena casts a spell to revive Ethan so they can have the happy-ever-after ending. And, of course, a sequel...

I found the main narrator, Kevin T. Collins, very good & his accent was perfect. However, I did not care for the added sound effects, especially the music which sometimes overwhelmed the lyrics so much that I could barely hear them.

44. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
format/source = audiobook/BPL (& paperback/MOB); 389 pages; 5★
Categories: E.T., The Postman Always Rings Twice  
Country: N/A
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 10: An award-winner Hugo Award, Best Novel 1992
The Crowd: Vorkosigan 2016 group read
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: Wonderful audiobook of a great story. I ended up spending all day Sunday listening - just couldn't stop!

While I had remembered the basic plot, I found that many of the details had escaped me. In particular, I had forgotten how big a role Koudelka played. Unlike with Shards of Honor, this time I liked it even better than before, even though I knew the outcome.

45. John Ball's In the Heat of the Night adapted by Matt Pelfrey
format/source = audiobook/SYNC; 102 pages; 4★
Categories: Stage Door, Sleuth  
Country: U.S.A. {Alabama}
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: This is another audiobook from SYNC last summer, a recording of a live performance of a play adapted from John Ball's novel In the Heat of the Night. I have seen the film of this several times as I have a bit of a crush on Sidney Poitier so it was interesting to hear different voices for the characters. I also noticed some small changes in the plot -- I don't know which is more faithful to the book but the changes were very minor.

This story is an excellent example of a mystery being used to highlight wider social issues. Sadly here in the U.S. these issues from the early 1960s are again of relevance. Many young people are perhaps unfamiliar with Ball's book or the film but they will understand immediately the relevance to current events of a story in which a small town cop jumps to the conclusion that a young black man must be the culprit of the crime without any evidence or even any real thought. Racial tensions involving the police are slightly different now from those portrayed in this play but are still a problem in our society.

46. "The Beauty King" by Margery Allingham (can't find a Touchstones for this)
format/source = Kindle/The Margery Allingham Literary Estate; 12 pages; 2½★
Categories: Brief Encounter  
Country: England

Review: I got this short story (along with another) by Margery Allingham from her literary estate as part of their ongoing effort to make her works available as ebooks. "The Beauty King" has previously been published only in a periodical and then in the print collection The Return of Mr. Campion whose cover I have shown above; actually, due to a somewhat strange note at the end of the Kindle book, I am not sure that what I read is what is in that collection. Apparently there are 2 versions of this short story -- the first one was very short (12 pages) and a later one which is longer (30 pages). The longer version was the one first published in 1969 in the periodical The Daily Sketch. It was unclear in this note whether I was reading the first or the second but it felt very short so I decided it must be that first short version. Note: the Kindle book didn't have page numbering.

I like Allingham but I was disappointed in this story as it wasn't a mystery or detective story. It was also, as I said above, very short. The writing was very good, especially the way the 2nd generation Italian-English people spoke. If I had gone into the story knowing it wasn't a mystery maybe I would have liked it more...

>134 leslie.98: I read two or three in her Seaside Knitters series. It held promise, but they never fully resonated with me. It sounds like the quilting series isn't much better.

>146 thornton37814: A shame really. But I don't need more mystery series to add to my TBR so perhaps I should be grateful!

47. Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen by Lois McMaster Bujold
format/source = Kindle/Baen Books; 352 pages; 3½★
Categories: E.T., And Then There Were None  
Country: N/A
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: RandomCAT February: Pairs
SFFFKit February: Book published in the last 10 years
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: It was nice to see many of my favorite characters from the Vorkosigan series again. While I found the idea of using the uterine replicators to allow older people to have children an intriguing thought, I missed the adventure space opera aspect which all of the other books of the series had. This latest book in the series is much quieter, perhaps fittingly so as all the family has aged.

I also had some internal struggle with the ages of the lovers -- both Aral & Oliver and then Cordelia & Oliver. Aral would have been in his 60s when Oliver was in his 20s at the time that their affair began. And in this book, when Oliver is turning 50, Cordelia is in her mid-70s.

48. *Blott on the Landscape by Tom Sharpe
format/source = audiobook/Audible; 256 pages; 4½★
Categories: Schindler's List  
Country: England
The Rules of the Game: BingoDOG Square 12: Title has a play on words
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: 4 stars for the book & 4½ stars for this audiobook edition. David Suchet was brilliant as the narrator; his different voices for the characters were so varied that at times it was hard to believe that they were all being done by the same person!

I found the humor in this often vulgar and yet never offensive. It was sort of a mish-mash of Benny Hill & P.G. Wodehouse -- the zany plot was very Wodehousian but the sex and the language was more Benny Hill. While that description sounds like something I would not enjoy very much, I often found myself laughing aloud during this.

49. Equal Rites by Terry Pratchett
format/source = Kindle/library; 240 pages; 3½★
Categories: E.T.  
Country: N/A

Review: Perhaps I should have rounded up -- after all, it did manage to keep me interested enough to finish it in a single day! I liked Granny Weatherwax & Esk but I didn't find this one as amusing as the City Watch or Luggage ones. And surprisingly, I missed the footnotes!

>149 leslie.98: David Suchet is a great narrator! I enjoyed his rendition of Murder on the Orient Express.

>151 rabbitprincess: I have heard him narrate some Christie before but I guess I just took his excellence for granted there -- after all, I knew his voice would be correct for Poirot! Hearing him do something completely different made his skill strike home for me.

Oh dear, now I have Monty Python stuck in my head -- "And now for something completely different... the larch"

50. Black As He's Painted by Ngaio Marsh
format/source = streaming audio/Hoopla; 223 pages; 3½★
Categories: The Killers  
Country: England
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: Wanda McCaddon does a great narration & her voice for Inspector Alleyn's school friend Boomer was particularly excellent.

As for the book itself, I was surprised to find that this is a Marsh that I had not previously read. I have seen in some of the other reviews that some people had problems with this book's treatment of race. Certainly some of the characters were racist but just as clearly others were not. If you are sensitive about this issue, then it might be better to skip this one.

I thought that the mystery was well done but one big section of the solution was clear to me soon after the initial murder so I reduced my rating by ½ star.

51. *Blacklist by Sara Paretsky
format/source = paperback/MOB; 458 pages; 4★
Categories: Schindler's List, Sleuth  
Country: U.S.A. {Illinois}
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 5: nontraditional role (private detective)
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: Great blend of mystery & social commentary about the U.S. in the period after 9/11 (especially some of the scary aspects of the Patriot Act).

52. *Penrod by Booth Tarkington
format/source = Kindle/Amazon & audio/LibriVox; 204 pages; 4★
Categories: Bringing Up Baby, Schindler's List  
Country: U.S.A. {Indiana?}
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: A fun set of anecdotes about 11-year-old Penrod Schofield, growing up and getting into mischief in early 20th century Midwestern America. Reminded me a bit of Tom Sawyer but in a more suburban setting. I loved his birthday visit to Aunt Sarah:

"...Boys are just people, really. ... they haven't learned to cover themselves all over with little pretences. When Penrod grows up he'll be just the same as he is now, except that whenever he does what he wants to do he'll tell himself and other people a little story about it to make his reason for doing it seem nice and pretty and noble."

53. Miss Buncle's Book by D.E. Stevenson
format/source = ebook/MOB; 298 pages; 4½★
Categories: And Then There Were None  
Country: England
AlphaKIT February: J & B
The Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 23, book from my TBR

Review: A gently satirical look at English village life in the 1930s. Somewhat of a cross between early Angela Thirkell and Peyton Place, I loved Miss Buncle, Silverstream and all the characters in this charming book.

I love Miss Buncle's Book!

Leslie, are you still interested in reading Rogue Male in March? Do you have a time in mind?

ETA: RP has the book for the next three weeks on Overdrive so it looks like the beginning of the month will be best.

>158 DeltaQueen50:. I am still interested but can't find my copy. I will have to get it from the library. Starting early next week should be fine.

>159 leslie.98: Great, looks all three of us will be picking it up around the same time. :)

54. *Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke
format/source = hardcover/MOB; 782 pages; 3★
Categories: Schindler's List  
Country: England (mostly)
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: An interesting premise but far too long! While I didn't find it boring exactly, it was the sort of book that I was constantly seeing how far I had to go (and one that I didn't find myself anxious to get back to once I put it down).

The second half of the book was much better than the first (which was almost as dull as Mr. Norrell's own writing is supposed to be) but the plot was fairly predictable. I figured out that Stephen Black was going to displace the man with the thistle-down hair about 500 pages before it happened!.

55. *Just William by Richmal Crompton
format/source = Kindle/Amazon & audio/LibriVox; 131 pages; 3½★
Categories: Bringing Up Baby, And Then There Were None, Schindler's List    
Country: England
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: While I enjoyed this children's book, I think it suffered in comparison to Penrod which I recently finished. Both are about 11-year-old boys and their escapades are surprisingly similar given the different times & locations, but I felt that the Tarkington book was just a bit funnier and more interesting to an adult reader. However, perhaps a Brit would feel the reverse to be true.

I also found it a bit odd that the final chapter was about William first finding the dog Jumble when Jumble had played a significant role in the previous chapter and had been present in several of the earlier chapters as well.

Kara Shallenberg did an excellent job narrating this book in the LibriVox recording, version 2. In particular, I liked the pace of her narration.

56. Bloody Lessons by M. Louisa Locke
format/source = Kindle/Amazon Prime lending library; 319 pages; 2½★
Categories: The Killers, The Way We Were  
Country: U.S.A. {1879 California}
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: OK mystery though the solution seemed clear to me fairly early. I like the 1870s San Francisco setting but Nate's sister Laura was irritating.

57. The Playboy of the Western World by J.M. Synge {contained in "Five Great Modern Irish Plays"}
format/source = hardcover/MOB & audio/Hoopla streaming; 82 pages; 4★
Categories: Stagedoor    
Country: Ireland
AlphaKIT February: J & B

Review: I am glad that I both listened and read this play. This full cast recording by L.A. Theatre Works was excellent, but didn't include stage directions or descriptions. It is a radio play rather than an audiobook in that regard. I loved hearing the Irish accented voices but I would have missed a little of the experience if I hadn't had a print copy.

>161 leslie.98:, I agree, JS and Mr N was a VERY long book. I amazed myself that I actually finished it. The TV version was reasonably true to the book and OK to watch. Have you seen it?

>165 Roro8: I didn't even know that there had been a dramatization! Do you know what network it was on?

58. *Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
format/source = Kindle/MOB; 275 pages; 3★
Categories: And Then There Were None, Schindler's List  
Country: Ireland

Review: I skipped the lengthy introduction (~25% of this Kindle book!).

I wonder whether Susanna Clarke (author of "Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell") was a fan of this classic because Edgeworth's glossary and Clarke's footnotes were similar in style!

I found many of the anecdotes amusing but the final story about Sir Condy struck me as rather sad.

59. Mr. Rickey Calls a Meeting by Ed Schmidt
format/source = audiobook/Audible; 92 pages; 3½★
Categories: Stagedoor  
Country: U.S.A. {New York}

Review: Sound recording of a live performance of the play. I wish that I had been able to see the performance!
On a spring day in 1947, Mr. Rickey, the powerful General Manager of the Brooklyn Dodgers, summons heavyweight champion Joe Louis, tap star Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and actor Paul Robeson to his hotel room in Manhattan. Rickey wants their support when he taps Jackie Robinson to be the Major League's first black ballplayer. But a power struggle ensues when the eloquent Robeson raises questions about Rickey's motivations to integrate white baseball.

You've read so many books in just two months!

>169 pamelad: Thanks! I am a fast reader but I also have read a lot of short things (especially a lot of plays) so far this year.

February summary: (doesn't include books in progress)

7,238 pgs read in 28 books (9 mysteries, 4 sci fi)
# books from the Guardian's list = 6 (6 new to me)
# books by Nobel Laureates = 2
# books in translation = 4
# books owned prior to 2016 previously unread = 4 print, 14 total
# books from the library = 9
# books & short stories acquired = 8

Book I enjoyed most was the play Translations and the audiobook reread of Barrayar.

Plans for March:

Finish up my reread of The Elfstones of Shannara which will be my book for the SFFKit.

For various CATs, KITs & buddy reads:
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving DeweyCAT
✓Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household Group/buddy read
Don Quixote by Cervantes buddy read elsewhere; AlphaKIT
And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (ℕ) GeoCAT & AwardKIT focus; AlphaKIT
The Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert (ℕ) GeoCAT & AwardKIT focus
Lark Rise by Flora Thompson (and perhaps the rest of the trilogy as well) AlphaKIT
Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh AlphaKIT
One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn (ℕ) GeoCAT & AwardKIT focus

for personal challenges/goals:
Mort by Terry Pratchett SFFKit
✓Castle Rackrent by Maria Edgeworth
Black Plumes by Margery Allingham
Juno and the Paycock by Sean O'Casey

If time and interest allows:
Purge by Sofi Oksanen GeoCAT
The Cider House Rules (audiobook)
Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
The Talisman Ring by Georgette Heyer {reread so only if I have time}

60. Archaic Smile by A.E. Stallings
format/source = hardcover/borrowed; 69 pages; 4½★
Categories: Dead Poet's Society  
Country: Greece & U.S.

Review: I have always had a fondness for things Greek, especially the ancient myths and gods. Many of these poems combine people and ideas from these with a modern-day style. Most of the poems deal with death and the afterlife (generally not my favorite topic); of these, I loved "Persephone Writes a Letter to Her Mother", "Cardinal Numbers", "Elegy for a Loggerhead Turtle Washed up on a South Carolina Beach" & "The Machines Mourn the Passing of People"

Hi Leslie. Just wanted to let you know that I have finished Rogue Male and will be posting my review on my thread this morning. Don't want to say to much on RP's or your thread until everyone has read it.

>173 DeltaQueen50: Good timing -- I finished it this morning! I will go read your review & see how our reactions compare :)

Aaaa! I'm so behind! Only just starting it today :P

>166 leslie.98:, I think it was made by BBC, but I'm sure sure as I borrowed the DVD set from my library.

>176 Roro8:
Yes, it was a BBC production. Really good!

>176 Roro8:, >177 -Eva-: Thanks, I might see if my library has the DVDs. I just requested the movie Man Hunt to follow up on my reading of Rogue Male… I tend to forget that the library has video!

>175 rabbitprincess:. No worries! I found it a fast read.

61. *Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household
format/source = hardcover/library; 280 pages; 4★
Categories: Schindler's List, The Killers  
Country: mostly England

Review: http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1566230653

62. *Lord of the Flies by William Golding (ℕ)
format/source = audiobook/SYNC; 192 pages; 4½★
Categories: The Postman Always Rings Twice  
Country: N/A
AwardKIT: Nobel Laureate (1983)
AlphaKIT March: L & Q

Review: While it had been ~40 years since I last read this, I had retained a clear memory of the overall story. What I had forgotten was how intense it is. I can't say "I love it" because it is too disturbing for love but it probably does deserve the full 5 stars.

I found the character of Roger, whom I had not remembered, the creepiest; I think he bothered me more now as an adult & a fan of mystery/thrillers than before! He is so clearly a budding psychopath.

One reason I find this book so unsettling is the fact that I would like to believe that human nature is less bestial but everything in the book is completely believable. Scary!

This audiobook is narrated by the author. Golding does a great job with the narration but what I liked best was the short segments before and after the book in which he discusses it. In the first segment, he talks about how he got the idea for the book and why it is about boys (as opposed to girls or both girls & boys). In the second one, he talks about how what the book means depends upon the reader. I especially like how he tells the listener that it isn't about what their teacher thinks it is or their parents think or even what Golding himself thinks; that each person can decide for themselves what it means.

Good review of Rogue Male. I also think the book is so much better than the movie, which really come across now as a propaganda piece filmed as it was during the WW II.

Lord of the Flies is another book that I have vivid memories of and I think it's a brilliant book!

>181 DeltaQueen50: I will get a chance to find out as I have requested the DVD of the film "Man Hunt" from my library!

Rogue Male and Lord of the Flies made an interesting pairing as they both dealt with the idea that civilization is a thin veneer over a more animal nature. Very different circumstances though!

63. The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks
format/source = paperback/MOB; 469 pages; 4★
Categories: E.T., The Postman Always Rings Twice  

Review: Perhaps this fantasy epic is a bit derivative and predictable, as others have pointed out in their reviews. However, it remains a good exciting story. In this style of adventure/quest fantasy, I don't mind knowing what the end will be; how else could I have reread "The Lord of the Rings" so many times! It is the journey towards the end that I enjoy.

It has been many years since I read this and I didn't recall much about it, so this reread was almost like reading it for the first time. And I have discovered that there are some new additions to the series since I last read any -- I may just have to continue rereading and reading this series :)

>183 leslie.98: I really liked the first few books in the Shannara series and would always recommend Brooks along with Feist as good starting points to get into fantasy. Unfortunately, I felt that the later books were becoming not just derivative of the genre but also of themselves. Seemed very much the same story but with just different character names so I stopped picking up the new ones. Have you been watching the recent TV series adaptation?

>172 leslie.98: Sad that the poem had to be an elegy for that loggerhead turtle. I read several books that include the efforts to save them in their narrative.

>180 leslie.98: Thank you for your thoughts on Lord of the Flies. I had forgotten the name Roger, but remember his character well. definitely scary.

The intensity of this story, in my opinion, has a lot to do with its endurance. To see school age children take playground bullying and ostracizing to the level of murder in such a short time is indeed chilling.

>184 AHS-Wolfy: No, I haven't seen the TV series as I don't have MTV. Some day I may look at them if my local library or Hoopla gets them (or Amazon Prime). But seeing it advertised was partially responsible for me deciding to reread at this time. I have read 12-13 books in the series but I guess that it now has over 30 books! I doubt that I will read all of them but I am willing to try some of the newer additions to the series.

>185 thornton37814: I have a soft spot in my heart for sea turtles so perhaps I was a bit biased in selecting that particular poem. But on the other hand, a good poem is one that touches us in some way and it certainly did that! That poem isn't available online but here is a link to the "Persephone Writes a Letter to Her Mother" in case you would like to try a bit of Stallings' poetry without committing to a whole book:

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/browse/169/4#!/40733994

The poem is two 'pages' long so you have to click on the small right-facing arrow at the top of the 'page' to see the second half. (Don't worry, the pages are short! They are facsimiles of the Poetry Magazine)

>186 brodiew2: I agree with you that the intensity of the story is what elevates it to a classic -- the "background" scenario is already dated (kids being flown off due to a nuclear war either imminent or in progress; as if there would be some "safe" location in a nuclear war! Golding is clearly drawing a 'futuristic' version of the evacuation of children that happened in WW2 England). But that is irrelevant to the story itself and is quickly forgotten.

>187 leslie.98: I think I have a soft spot for them too. I'd love to be there when they do some of those "rescues" to get the babies back out to sea.

>188 thornton37814: I should have made an effort to be involved in that when I lived in Georgia as South Carolina & Georgia coast is a place where many of those rescues/protection efforts take place.

>189 leslie.98: I'm not sure if you read some of the beach read women's fiction or not, but Mary Alice Monroe's Beach House and its sequel Beach House Memories feature the loggerhead rescues in South Carolina.

>190 thornton37814: No, I am unfamiliar with those. Thanks!

64. The Quiet American by Graham Greene
format/source = audiobook/Hoopla streaming & paperback/MOB; 189 pages; 4½★
Categories: The Postman Always Rings Twice    
Country: Vietnam
AlphaKIT March: L & Q

Review: 3.5 stars for this audiobook edition, 4.5 stars for the book itself.

First the audiobook edition: I didn't much care for Joseph Porter's narration. He mispronounced a few words (or perhaps it was just the British rather than American pronunciation) -- for example, at one point Pyle discusses the Boston family of the Cabots. Here in Boston, we pronounce that as CABot but Porter pronounced it caBOT. But more annoying that these occasional words was the accent used for Pyle -- I don't know if it was supposed to sound Bostonian but it sounded muddle to this native Massachusetts listener. It sounded as if it was perhaps a nasal Saint Louis type of southern accent? His accent for Fowler was better but even that could have stood some improvement -- there was no sense of emotion in the voice.

Now for the book itself: After rereading this for the first time in over 30 years, I was struck by how much of the book is about love. When I read this back in my college days, I focused on the political and social commentary about colonialism and war; ever since, that is how I have thought of this book. But although the political struggle of the Vietminh against the French & Pyle's political ideals play an important part in the book, they are really just the background to the struggle between Fowler & Pyle over Phuong.

I suppose that this struggle between the two men could be interpreted as a metaphor for the struggle between the Old and New World colonial powers over possession of Vietnam/Asia as I thought years ago. But Fowler's desire to have someone who will be with him when he is aging so he won't die alone comes through as a truth hiding the deeper truth that he loves Phuong. Given Greene's other writings & personal background, one interpretation of this situation could be that Fowler wants the comfort of God's presence but isn't willing to commit to the demands of religion. The different women in Fowler's life could be representing different religions. Fowler's musings about how it is ultimately impossible to truly "know" another person no matter how close you are to them fit in with this interpretation.

Of course, these different views on the book reflect more about me - my interests and concerns have changed over the years. The fact that I can take away a very different message from the one I previously got is just one more sign that Graham Greene is an excellent writer!

>183 leslie.98: Elfstones is my favorite Brooks book, not that I have read that many of them. I have seen some of the episodes of the MTV series. It's like a train wreck, I cannot stop watching it even though I want to. It is hardly recognizable.

>193 VictoriaPL: lol! That was my feeling about HBO's Game of Thrones...

65. Poems by Rainer Maria Rilke
format/source =Kindle/Amazon; ~75 pages; 3★
Categories: Dead Poets Society, Foreign Correspondent  
Country: Germany (though really n/a)

66. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
format/source = audiobook/Hoopla; 309 pages; 2½★
Categories: The Way We Were,  
Country: England (1929 with flashbacks to ~1910-1919)

Review: 2.5 stars for the book; 3 stars for this audiobook edition
This really wasn't a mystery although an investigation was involved. That would have been okay but over half the book is an extended flashback to Maisie's background -- it does loosely tie in but wasn't really necessary (except to turn a short story/novella into a full book). I liked the way the situation at the veteran's Retreat was resolved. Although it was obvious that the guy running it was responsible for the death of Vincent & others, I had thought that the guy doing it to scam the money.

Things that bugged me:
-Maisie's reliance on her intuition/paranormal ESP
-her ability to be able to completely understand the emotional state of others by mimicking their body language
-the fact that her father is constantly referred to by his full name (was Winspear afraid we would forget who he was? It was always "Frankie Dobbs came to the door," never "Her father came to the door" or "Frankie came to the door.")

Things I liked:
-the historical fiction (both the "present" of 1929 and the WW1 parts)
-Maisie's caretaker & former patient Billy Beale
-Rita Barrington's narration, especially when she sang!

I would say it is a good historical fiction story but not a good mystery. Hopefully, now that all this background has been covered, the other books in the series will be more mystery-oriented.

67. She Stoops to Conquer by Oliver Goldsmith
format/source = audiobook/SYNC; 124 pages; 5★
Categories: Stage Door, The Postman Always Rings Twice  
Country: England

Review: I still think that this play needs to be seen to fully appreciate it but I liked this audiobook recording of a live performance. It was easier to listen to this time (I have had more practice!) and thus I found it even funnier than when I first listened to it a few years ago.

This play is one of the first plays I read "for fun" as a teenager & was such a joy after being force-fed Shakespeare in school. It converted me into a life-long Goldsmith fan :)

68. *A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
format/source = paperback/MOB; 617 pages; 4★
Categories: Schindler's List  
Country: U.S.A. {New Hampshire} and Canada
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: DeweyCAT March: 200-299 Religion

Review: I don't know what to say about this book... I enjoyed reading it more than The Hotel New Hampshire though I suspect that a lot of the dry wit about small town congregations went over my head. I did end up weeping so the claim on blurb on the back of my edition that "Owen Meany is Mr. Irving's most heartbreaking character" has some validity.

I loved the commentary about the Vietnam War & its attendant anti-war movement! But even more did I enjoy the sarcastic commentary about Reagan's Iran-Contra scheme as that is part of my personal history (I am just a bit too young to remember Vietnam).

But I am puzzled by certain aspects of the story. For example, why is John still a virgin at age 45-50? John's lack of sexuality throughout the story is strange and while it comes up repeatedly, it isn't really addressed.

>197 leslie.98: I love that book, but I dont remember enough about it to answer to your comment in your spoiler.

>198 Tara1Reads: Thanks anyway! I will be happy if someone does explain it to me but it was more of a rhetorical question.

69. Mort by Terry Pratchett {Discworld #4, Death #1}
format/source = Kindle/library; 324 pages; 4★
Categories: E.T.  
Country: N/A
SFFKit March: Alternate worlds

Review: I really enjoyed this one! And I kept chuckling to myself about the name Mort (short for Mortimer but also French for death).

If I had to give this fourth entry in the Discworld series a catch-phrase to remember it by it would be 'the Discworld version of Death Takes a Holiday'

>196 leslie.98: - Our local Shakespeare in the Park group will be performing that on this summer. I know it's not Shakespeare but lately they've been branching out and doing one Shakespeare and one non. My book club and I will most likely attend She Stoops to Conquer instead of Richard III. Can't wait to see it!

>201 LittleTaiko: Lucky you!! Though Richard III is pretty darn good too.

70. Black Plumes by Margery Allingham
format/source = paperback/MOB; 197 pages; 3★
Categories: Anatomy of a Murder/Sleuth  
Country: England

Review: I am tempted to give this a higher rating because I did get a considerable amount of enjoyment from reading it. However, I did figure out both the who and the how; Allingham managed to keep me second-guessing my choice but I thought that the guilty person was pretty obvious.

46-b. "Caesar's Wife's Elephant" by Margery Allingham
format/source = Kindle/The Margery Allingham Literary Estate; ~15 pages; 3½★
Categories: Brief Encounter  
Country: England

Review: I got this short story (along with "The Beauty King" discussed in message 146) by Margery Allingham from her literary estate as part of their ongoing effort to make her works available as ebooks. This one was a Campion story and was much more what I had expected when I got this pair of short stories.

71. Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott
format/source = audiobook/LibriVox & Kindle/girlebooks.com; 299 pages; 3★
Categories: Bringing Up Baby    
Country: U.S.A. {Massachusetts}

Review: Very similar in style to Alcott's Little Women but lacking much of the substance (perhaps because Rose doesn't reach adulthood in this book). I enjoyed listening to the free LibriVox audiobook narrated by Maria Therese (version 2) as light relief from my somewhat serious books at the moment but I don't think that it would be a satisfying adult book otherwise. The stories about little Rose & her 7 boy cousins were sweet but Alcott's moralizing tone at times is a bit hard to take.

>205 leslie.98: I read Eight Cousins a few years ago and thought it was dated but still quite charming, I then went on the the next book Rose in Bloom but the moralizing in that book almost caused me to throw it across the room! Little Women was one of my favorite books when I was young and I was thinking of a reread, but Rose in Bloom scared me off!

72. Cop Killer by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö {translated by Thomas Teal}
format/source = paperback/library; 296 pages; 4★
Categories: Foreign Correspondent, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo  
Country: Sweden

Review: I was a bit taken aback when the book seemed to leave the main mystery about two-thirds of the way through to tackle the case of the 'cop killer' but the two cases do connect up in the end. The name is a bit misleading as the 'cop killer' case is clearly the secondary mystery; however, it does illustrate the authors' point about the police & government bureaucracy perfectly.

This 1973 Swedish book and what the authors are trying to say about relations between police & citizens struck me as strikingly relevant to 2016 U.S. In the police, in this book (and I assume in today's forces), the individual policemen vary from the lazy & incompetent to the honest & hard-working, from the bullies who revel in the power that the badge gives them to the naive foolhardiness of some rookies to the tired experienced men. What is scary to Kollberg and Beck (and to me!) is the organizational mindset of a bureaucracy which views aggressive confrontation as the natural and best response to any situation, with bigger and more weapons as an improvement. And encouraging this mindset is the journalism which is uninterested in waiting for "the truth" as long as a good headline can be found.

Into this scenario enters the 'cop killer' -- a teenaged boy who was present when another boy shoots at a couple of patrolmen after one of them begins to threaten him. The cop who dies does so as a result of a bee sting he gets when he is hiding from all the commotion in a ditch! But that doesn't factor into the police chief's decision to start a country-wide man hunt for the "Cop Killer" complete with attack dogs, tear gas and assault weapons... This sort of over-reaction is part of what leads to dead black kids in America.

>205 leslie.98: >206 DeltaQueen50: And see, I love Rose in Bloom (although to be fair, I'm biased because it's a childhood favorite)! It's true, there's a lot of moralizing in it, but that's just Alcott's style, at least for her children's books. I enjoyed it more than Eight Cousins because the characters are all grown up and actually facing significant problems like what career to pursue and whom to marry. Plus, there's romance, which is always a plus with me. :)

>208 christina_reads: I think it does help to have first read Alcott's books as a child. The moralizing may be "just her style" but that doesn't mean it is a style that I want to read! I went through a point in my 30s where I hated Little Women (perhaps in direct relation to how much I had loved it as a 8-year-old!) but in my 50s, I have swung back to liking it again. So I will probably try Rose in Bloom at some point... I am at a point now where I can mentally 'filter out' much of the moralizing style and just focus on the story.

To be fair to Alcott, I think the moralizing tone was the style for most children's books in the past. I would imagine the thinking was that these books were an excellent way to pass on life lessons, manners and morals.

>209 leslie.98: Haha, fair point about the style. It's definitely not for everyone!

>210 DeltaQueen50: You are probably right that this was "standard issue". I think that there was a term for it: "improving literature" -- books that were supposed to 'improve' the reader.

73. Juno and the Paycock by Seán O'Casey
format/source = hardcover/MOB; 88 pages; 4★
Categories: Stage Door  
Country: Ireland

Review: Read in my hardcover of Five Great Modern Irish Plays & listened to a full cast audio production on YouTube (introduced by the author).

This play is set in 1922 Dublin during the tail end of the Irish War of Independence and is about the Boyle family. While 'Captain' Jack Boyle, the father, is something of a buffoon, this is by no means a comedy. Juno Boyle, the mother, is struggling to keep the family going while her husband, unemployed, drinks with his 'butty' Joxer; the son Johnny, who lost an arm in the Easter Rising of 1916, is on the verge of a nervous breakdown; and the daughter Mary has thrown over her young man Jerry Devine. In case you were wondering, 'paycock' is the word "peacock" pronounced with an Irish accent.

I found this play to be tragic in a Shakespearean sense -- while it looks like things might improve for the family early on, in the end everything is much much worse. I wonder if O'Casey was trying to say that independent Ireland ended up worse off than they had been before....

74. The Selected Poetry of Jaroslav Seifert by Jaroslav Seifert (ℕ)
format/source = hardcover/library; 184 pages; 3½★
Categories: Dead Poet's Society, Foreign Correspondent  
Country: Czechoslovakia
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Czechoslovakia with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 1984

Review: For me, the poetry ranged from ones that I didn't like or understand to ones that I liked very much. What tipped the scale from 3 to 3½* was the selection of reminiscences at the end (entitled "All the Beauties of the World" & translated by George Gibian).

75. *Lark Rise by Flora Thompson
format/source = Kindle/manybooks.net; 256 pages; 3★
Categories: Schindler's List, And Then There Were None  
Country: England
Rules of the Game: BingoPUP Square 20: author over 60 Flora Thompson was 63 when this was first published
AlphaKIT March: L & Q

Review: These memoirs or anecdotes of English village life in the 1880s were enjoyable but lacked a cohesiveness that I had expected from the TV adaptation of "Lark Rise to Candleford". Perhaps that structure or plot is more evident in the other two books of the trilogy...

76. Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite by Anthony Trollope
format/source = Kindle/Amazon; 256 pages; 3½★
Categories: Odd Man Out  
Country: England

Review: Satire about the (unsuccessful) attempt of a wealthy girl to reform her black sheep of a cousin so she could marry him.

Not Trollope's best but enjoyable enough. The character that I ended up sympathizing with most was the title character, Sir Harry.

77. The Living by Matt de la Pena
format/source = audiobook/SYNC; 336 pages; 2½★
Categories: Bringing Up Baby  
Country: U.S.A. {California}
AlphaKIT March: L & Q

Review: Henry Leyva did a good job with the narration. However, only the adolescent audience at which this thriller was aimed might find the big reveal to be a surprise; I found the plot to be predictable on all points. Not bad but not good enough to tempt me to read further books...

78. And Quiet Flows the Don by Mikhail Sholokhov (ℕ)
format/source = paperback/MOB; 512 pages; 3½★
Categories: Foreign Corresponent, The Way We Were  
Country: Russia
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof: GeoCAT Country: Russia with AwardKIT focus: Nobel Laureate 1965
AlphaKIT March: L & Q

Review: I liked the first 2 of the 4 sections very much but unfortunately, I struggled with the last 2 parts. These final parts, "Revolution" and "Civil War", left the characters from the first sections aside for the majority of the text and the descriptions of fighting were of much less interest to me.

I did find the information about the Cossacks fascinating -- their position pre-World War 1 was not that of the aristocracy yet they were landowners (mostly small farmers). They worked hard at physical labor but viewed themselves as better than the peasants and the workers. This situation led to additional conflict during the Civil War that followed the Russian Revolution as they had sympathies & interests in common with both sides.

79. Last Seen Wearing... by Hillary Waugh
format/source = paperback/MOB; 246 pages; 4★
Categories: Sleuth  
Country: U.S.A. {Massachusetts}
AlphaKIT March: L & Q

Review: A very well done police procedural about the search for a college freshman who goes missing. Coincidentally it is set during March in a fictional town in Massachusetts (which I suspect is Holyoke) so that added a bit to my enjoyment.

I really liked the diary-like way this was written -- it helped build the tension as time passed with Lowell Mitchell still missing.

>219 leslie.98: This one's on my shelf! Added to the on-deck pile based on your review. :)

80. *Over to Candleford by Flora Thompson
format/source = Kindle/manybooks.net; 215 pages; 3½★
Categories: Schindler's List, And Then There Were None  
Country: England
The Rules of the Game BingoDOG Square 8: Memoir

Review: This second book in the trilogy is clearly actually the second volume of a single work as even the chapter numbering is continued from Lark Rise! I found this volume much more interesting as it focused more on Laura Timmins and her family. Laura and her brother Edmund get a chance to visit the market town of Candleford (~8 miles distant from their home in Lark Rise) and meet various relatives and family friends. While it still contained plenty of vignettes, it had more of a plot and therefore I found it more engaging.

For anyone reading this review who, like me, has been introduced to these books through the BBC/PBS TV adaptation "Lark Rise to Candleford" I will just mention that so far we haven't gotten to the beginning of that show! At the very end of this volume, Laura has just been offered the position with Dorcas Lane in the Candleford Green post office. She is 14 and is one of the oldest children still in school as most of her classmates have already left in order to work.

81. The Devil's Disciple by George Bernard Shaw (ℕ)
format/source = Kindle/Amazon & audio/Hoopla; 84 pages; 5★
Categories: Stage Door, The Way We Were    
Country: U.S.A. (1777 New Hampshire) with AwardKit focus: Nobel Laureate (1925)

Review: While I have seen the Burt Lancaster movie version, this is my first time reading this. While I liked the full cast audiobook, it didn't include the substantial descriptions of settings and characters that the written (in my case, Kindle) version has. Most of these would be covered in a performance but are not all clear in an audio-only version so I am glad that I combined reading this in my Kindle omnibus of Shaw's plays with the audio recording.

As for the play itself, I think it is one of Shaw's finest. It has his dry sense of humor coupled with a sense of social conscience but by being in a historical setting, some of Shaw's edge is mellowed yet deepened. I have found some of his work too strident but that is not the case here. In addition, the few pages of notes at the end of the play in my edition about the history of General Burgoyne & relating it to the then current Boer War was fascinating!

82. A Toast to Tomorrow by Manning Coles
format/source = paperback/borrowed; 224 pages; 4½★
Categories: Odd Man Out  

Review: Not your typical WW2 spy thriller! Though there are some suspenseful moments (especially towards the end), this absorbing espionage novel (written in 1940) doesn't have gadgets or seduction scenes or even very many adventures so if that is what you are looking for, keep on searching. What it does have is a man living in Germany sending intelligence to Britain.

Some of the attitudes he espouses (particularly about Jews and blacks) may bother some readers but despite making me cringe, I think that they make him a more believable, fully rounded character. He is not a knight in shining armor but a real person with some great strengths but also some terrible flaws. This is my first Manning Coles book as I mistakenly thought it was the first in the series -- it won't be my last!

Come join me in my new thread:

https://www.librarything.com/topic/220673

>195 leslie.98: Just wanted to say I agree 100% with your assessment of Maisie Dobbs, except that I read the book, I didn't listen to it.

Besides "Frankie Dobbs", she also uses the full name "Maisie Dobbs" a lot, too, so that the "Frankie/Maisie" constantly repeated got really irritating. Why couldn't he have been just "Frank", to make the number of syllables different?? And what's the point of reading a mystery if the detective always has these intuitive moments? It's like why bother trying to figure it out--she'll always have the unspoken "hunch" and there's no way anyone else will be able to even guess at the solution. Even Sherlock always had a practical reason/clue for every hunch.

Like you, I did enjoy the historical fiction part, and (if I were to read the rest of the series, which I'm not) I think Maisie's background is critical to understanding who she is, where she came from, and why she can relate to people from Billy Beale to Lady Whatever. But Maisie can go on having her ESP moments without me, thank you very much.