Prop2gether's 2009 List

All reading until December 31 is posted on my thread in the 2008 group. For 2009, I've set up a 999 Challenge to diversify my reading, but reviews and comments will be in this thread.

FEBRUARY 2009--So, since I seem to have grossly underestimated my 2009 reading potential, I'll include a list by month in this box for anyone trying to figure out my book tally and which list I'm using for that book. Enjoy!










April

No Longer at Ease
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen LT
The King's Gold 999
Coraline
The Helmut of Horror
The Sun Also Rises 1001
Lost in a Good Book
From the Earth to the Moon
Bonjour Tristesse 1001
Darwin's Blade
The Book About Blanche and Marie 1001
The Child in Time 1001
The Detective and Mr. Dickens
Arrow of God 1001
Foe 1001
The Stettheimer Dollhouse ER
Black Betty
ENIAC 999
Saving Juliet 999
Fifteen Animals!
The Golden Compass 999
The Subtle Knife 999
The Amber Spyglass

March

A Red Death
The Cleft LT
The Fall of Troy LT
Written on the Body 1001
Whales on Stilts LT
My Teacher Flunked the Planet LT
The Black Echo
The Black Ice 999
Franklin Pierce Presidents
The Rabbi's Cat LT
The Clothes They Stood Up In LT
The Diary of a Nobody 1001
Earth 999
Zombie LT
The Brief History of the Dead
Children of the Night
Murder in Perspective
Kipling's Choice LT
The Book of Illusions 1001, 999
Shakespeare's Trollop
Junky 1001
Lighthouse at the End of the World
The New York Trilogy 1001
The Penelopiad
Real Murders
White Butterfly
Murder on the Caronia 999
The Winter Queen LT
Rashomon 1001
The Silver Metal Lover LT
Shakespeare's Counselor
James Madison President
One for the Money
A Hero of Our Time 1001
The Leopard 1001
The Haunted Bookshop LT
General Winston's Daughter 999, LT
My letter to the world LT
Arcanum 17/Apertures 1001
Up at the Villa LT

February

The Rough Riders
Hard Freeze
Ramona (By Helen Hunt Jackson) 999
Devil in a Blue Dress 999
The Passion 1001
The Eyre Affair 999
The Traveler
My First Year in the Sierra
Shakespeare's Champion
Twilight 999
City of Glass
Cider With Rosie 1001
No Country for Old Men 999
James Buchanan Presidents
Heart of Darkness 1001
Dusklands 1001
Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?
The Maracot Deep
Parnassus on Wheels
What I Saw and How I Lied 999
Five Weeks in a Balloon 999
The Old Gringo SABC
The Dark River
Hard as Nails
Pale Horse, Pale Rider 999
Mona in the Promised Land SABC
Dearest Friend 999 / Presidents Wives
Ella Minnow Pea
The War Poems
The Fifth Woman 999
Tarka the Otter 1001
Miracle at Speedy Motors
Live and Let Die
Shakespeare's Christmas
The Presidency of George Bush

JANUARY

Not Quite What I Was Planning 999
Pinocchio ER
W or the Memory of Childhood 1001
Nightwood 1001
Jacob the Liar 1001
Troll: A Love Story
The Maltese Falcon 1001
The Trick is to Keep Breathing 1001
The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum 1001
Zachary Taylor Presidents
Regeneration 1001
Rendevous in Black
Get Shorty 1001
No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row 999
Duma Key 999
The Abbess of Crewe
The Gospel According to Judas
Three Tales of Horror (The Dunwich Horror for 999)
Neverwhere 999
Mr. Paradise SABC
Double Indemnity
Woodrow Wilson Presidents
Shakespeare's Landlord
Dragon's Teeth
Antsy Does Time 999
Northanger Abbey 1001
A Room of One's Own
Benjamin Harrison Presidents
Suck It Up 999
The Train Was on Time
One Writer's Beginnings
The Two Deaths of Quincas Wateryell
My Mortal Enemy
The Trusting and the Maimed 1001
Messengers of God 999
Kitchen 1001
Our Lady of the Assassins 1001
Johnny Got His Gun
Hardcase

And before I go too much further, this slot is reserved by me for all those excellent references by LT 75ers to my TBR list!!!!!

And the list continues from 2008 onward!

torontoc: Troll: A Love Story (1/2009)
torontoc: One Writer's Beginnings (1/2009)
alcottacre: My Wars are Laid Away in Books
blackdogbooks: all the rest of Stephen King
Duma Key (1/2009)
TadAD: Random Harvest
TheTortoise: Who Moved My Blackberry?
mamachunk: Triangle
alcottacre: The Climb
ThePam: Now the Drum of War
torontoc: Famous Last Words
TheTortoise: Heavy Weather
porch_reader: The Invention of Hugo Cabret
dfreeman2809: Click.....
missylc: Book of Lost Things
aethercowboy: The Mac is Not a Typewriter
Severn: Dancing in a Distant Place
LisaLynne: The Spanish Bow
VioletBramble: Parnassus on Wheels (2/2009)
Cait86: Hitler's Willing Executioners
75 Group: Ella Minnow Pea (2/2009)
fannyprice: The Anglo Files
TadAD: Three Day Road
nancywhite: The Elegance of the Hedgehog
kiwidoc: The Grass Arena
kiwidoc: The Fall of Troy (3/2009)
kiwidoc: Kate's Klassics
mlake: Never Heave Your Bosum in a Front Hook Bra
sten: Who Killed Roger Ackroyd (2/2009)
sten: Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong
ronicats: Speed of Dark
paghababian: The Lost Painting
stephen.andrew.brown: Oscar Wilde and a Death of No Importance
KarenMarie: What Time Devours
StormRaven: My Teacher Flunked the Planet (3/2009)
nancyewhite: Lullabies for Criminals
TadAd via drneutron: Holmes on the Range
rebeccanyc: The Book of Chameleons
porch_reader: A Thread of Grace
alaskabookworm: The Giant's House
alcottacre: Whales on Stilts (3/2009)
alcottacre: Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen (4/2009)
sten via TadAD: The Winter Queen (3/2009)
torontoc: The Clothes on Their Backs
TheTortoise: Oliva Joules and the Overactive Imagination
drneutron: Ending an Ending
drneutron: The Gun Seller
drneutron: Zombie (3/2009)
alcottacre: The Last Million Seconds
TheTortoise via kiwidoc: Oscar's Books
TheTortoise via kiwidoc: The Clothes They Stood Up In (3/2009)
carmenere: Kipling's Choice (3/2009)
fannyprice: The Rabbi's Cat (3/2009)
fannyprice: The Female Malady
haturner: Princess of the Midnight Ball
Kat32: The Good Ghouls Guide to Getting Even
Awilkins: Brighton Rock
Awilkins: Whale Talk
fantasia655: A Girl of the Lumberlost
fantasia655: Detective and Mr. Dickens (4/2009)
kiwidoc via kidzdoc: A Journey Round My Skull
kiwidoc: Up at the Villa (3/2009)
selkiegirl: The Hunger Games
LT Group: Skellig
severn: The Silver Metal Lover (3/2009)
whisper1: My Letter to the world (3/2009)
rachbxl: When I Forgot
rachbxl: Woman at Point Zero
kiwidoc: The Blinding Absence of Light
LisaLynne: Down to a Sunless Sea
lindsacl: The Road Home
whisper1: The Higher Power of Lucky
Kat32: Real Vampires Have Curves
Kat32: High Stakes
gregtmills: The Ayatollah Begs to Differ
Cait86: Mister Pip
sanddancer: The Boy Who Kicked Pigs
rebeccanyc: Freedom From Fear
blackdogbooks: You Learn by Living
kethonna: Luna
enheduanna: Thus Was Adonis Murdered
kidzdoc: The Illusion of Return
kidzdoc: Mishima's Sword
LisaCurio: Time Stops for No Mouse
Pummzie: The Mischief
cjji955: The House on the Strand
alaskabookworm: Till We Have Faces
LT 75: The Book Thief
VioletBramble: The Summer Sherman Loved Me
MusicMom: Letter to Alice....
shewhowearsred: City of Ember
shewhowearsred: Predictably Irrational
mckait: Society of S
mckait: The Tricking of Freya
mckait: Skeletons at the Feast
drneutron: Let the Right One In
drneutron: The Various Haunts of Men
LT 75: Looking for Alaska
gregtmills: Catapult: Harry and I ....
WillowRaven: Romeo's Ex
tokyoadam: The Forever War
seasonsof love: Dying by the Sword
Deedledee: Every Man Dies Alone
TheTortoise: I'll Cry Tomorrow

April 2009--Note that I'm reading threads and listing books, but I don't always leave a post. Thanks for all the referrals.

As I find the rest of my Post-It notes, this list will magically increase!! And more and more and it's barely mid-December 2008!!!

And in the new year, there's more!!!!

And more and more and more and we're only in February!

ooh, that's a good idea - i may have to start a LT 75er TBR list myself - I always forget the books that have caught my fancy!

Would you like me to arrange "all the rest of Stephen King" for you? Certainly something else I read or recommended besides Mr. King got onto your TBR?!?!!?

Would you like me to arrange "all the rest of Stephen King" for you? Certainly something else I read or recommended besides Mr. King got onto your TBR?!?!!?

> 4 & 5 :So good he said it twice!

Oh yes, more than King--I'd like to finish the "Odd" series, having started it long ago, but I do have at least 4 King novels on my shelves that I haven't read. But I did sign up for the 999 Challenge just to make sure I read more than Mr. King next year!

Hey Prop(and anyone else), come over to the King's Dear Constant Reader's Group.
http://www.librarything.com/groups/kingsdearconstantrea

We are reading all of King's books in order as group reads. We have read Carrie and 'Salem's Lot and December's book is The Shining.

Just a note to remind me to check my 999 list before the new year!

Hey Prop, don't forget to check your 999 list. :)

Prop, have you checked your 999 list yet!

- TT

All together now--one more time! Thanks!

Better yet--I've checked your 999 list--it looks terrific!

>13 MusicMom41:: I'm off to check Prop's 999 list!

- TT

I have this string around my forefinger and an aching feeling that I've forgotten something. Does anyone know what I forgot?

>15 blackdogbooks: BDB: You've just got to check Prop's fantastic 999 list - then you can remove the string! It really is a corker!

- TT

On no! The 999 list, I forgot!

Just remember that "The best laid plans of mice and men gang aft astray" and I'm setting goals--not guaranteeing the score!

That's what makes games interesting! No guarantee of the outcome but fun to watch the play. We're rooting for you!

So I've got three books with me for tomorrow's trek back from Missouri to California, plus another three in progress at the moment. Hope to have all six completed between now and this weekend, especially since none is a 1000-page tome. The names will come as I finish them.

Have a great new year, everyone!

Okay, so numbers 1 and 2:

Not Quite What I Planned To Say (edited by Smith Magazine)
Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi (ER new translation by Geoffrey Block)

Biographical Epithets: Entertaining, Sad, Heartwarming, Readable.

Following the magazine's instructions, people sent in 6 word biographies based on Hemingway's response to a challenge to tell a story in six words or less: "For sale: baby shoes, never worn." It's an entertaining little book with all kinds of people answering the challenge.

Pinocchio is the wooden puppet who becomes a boy. Umberto Eco has written an introduction (which was a loose sheet of paper in the book) telling how, as an Italian, he had loved the book and was shocked at the Disney transformation. However, he has reconciled himself to the fact that Disney probably introduced this story of a smart-aleck, slightly subversive youngster to many people. This is a new translation, and I found it as entertaining as the one I read as a child. I didn't recall the "whale" or "big fish" being a shark--but it is in this version. Otherwise, a commendable children's book with a happy ending.

Not Quite What I Was Planning.. is on my wishlist! Glad to see you enjoyed it. What a unique concept!

Mine too. Our bookshop had a little pile of them next to the till and I'm astounded I got through Christmas without one sneaking into my pile as I was paying.

Well, I originally found on the ALA site for Young Adult reading, but figured it just sounded like fun. It's all six-word sentences (except for one that's shorter!) and cover the gamut of emotions and thoughts. I was happily surprised with this book.

I really like the sound of that book, Not Quite What I Planned To Say, but I can't find it anywhere on the internet, whether through google or on either amazon.com or amazon.co.uk. Does anyone know somewhere I could get it online? I'm in the UK.

I can't find it easily online either, but you might try starting with the editor: Smith Magazine and see if you can link.

AbeBooks has plenty of copies here

I had the title wrong - I edited my message (#22) above so that the touchstone for the book would work!

Well, the touchstone wouldn't work for me when I listed it in my 999 Challenge, so....

Numbers 3 and 4 for this year:

W or the Memory of Childhood by Georges Perec
Nightwood by Djuna Barnes

Having read two other novels of Perec, I thought I was ready for this one--not so. It is an autobiography mixed chapter by chapter with a novel about the mysterious island "W" where sports are worshipped. Alternating the chapters may seem confusing, but, in fact, it clarified the story Perec was telling about his childhood during WWII. This novella was easy to read and hard to forget.

Nightwood is a novella of distinction. The edition I read had a preface by Jeanette Winterson and two introductions by T.S. Eliot. Both writers were entranced with the book, but both emphasized that it is one that requires rereading for full enjoyment. I enjoyed the book, but have to say that rereading it will be a goal this year for that reason. I found one character extremely annoying at the beginning and very necessary by the end. I want to savor her language--Eliot compares it to poetry and I believe he is correct in this assessment--and reassess the characters based on what I now know is their story.

Incidentally (for BDB), both are on the 1001 Must Read list.

Nightwood sounds like quite the read - it goes on my list :)

Do you recommend W or the Memory of Childhood? I just ordered it as the second book of Perec's I would read. I was blown away by Life: A User's Manual, which is definitely a book I will reread.

Yes, I do recommend it. I read Things: A Story of the Sixties and was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the book because it did not start off well for me. This book, however, is part biography and part fiction mixed with allegory, and it is quite a trip. Unlike Henning Mankell's I Die But My Memory Lives On (which uses a similar technique), this book should be read in chapter order, one with the biography and the next with the fable.

Great start! I'm still working on book #1 for this year. :)

Wow, W or the Memory of Childhood is definitely going on my list. Thanks!

My connections page showed that you added Troll: A Love Story to your library. I'm going to be interested to see what you think. I've looked at it two or three times on Amazon and can't decide if I would like it or hate it.

TadAD--for numbers 5 and 6:

Jacob the Liar by Jurek Becker
Troll: A Love Story by Johanna Sinisalo

Becker's novel has been made into two movie versions, the latest featuring Robin Williams as Jacob. A WWII story, set in a ghetto, is told by a third party narrator about a man who accidentally overhears a news broadcast about troop movement. When he cannot get his friend to believe the story, he lies and says he has a hidden radio. The rest of the story is how the fictitious radio begins to runs Jacob's life--and change the inhabitants of the ghetto. I was not expecting the ending as written. There are actually two endings: one the perfect one the narrator thinks the story should end with, and one the "real" ending. The dual endings force reassessment of Jacob, his radio, and what happens to the characters to that point. Recommended (and also on the 1001 Must Read list).

Troll: A Love Story was on torontoc's 2008 list and looked interesting. As it was also by a Finnish writer and had won some awards, I went for it. It's a very fast read but it has some fascinating twists to the story. Basically, Mikhael/Angel rescues a young troll in the city. The cub is very ill, and Angel spends a lot of time and energy researching trolls (there's a long history of trolls in Finland alone!) and their habits so he can save the cub's life. The story is told in short snippets from various characters's points of view, so it is always "catching up" with itself. I enjoyed the story and writing, but that's possibly because I do read a lot of speculative fiction and this was a well-done piece in that genre.

36: Both of those books sound really interesting. I've added them to my growing wishlist, although I think Jacob the Liar must be out of print in the UK as there are only expensive second hand copies of it to buy.

ah...Prop2gether...here I go again, just like 2008, I'm adding lots of your books to my tbr pile...The two latest sound like excellent reads.

Thanks...(I think)...I'm smiling of course.

Troll is on my bookshelf and is getting moved nearer to the top. I've always enjoyed good books set in Scandinavia, particularly where the sense of place is a prominent element of the book.

On the downside, I'm moving a great number of books to the top of the pile!

The troll book sounds very good, onto the tbr/wishlist it goes!! Thanks for the review :)

#36: Prop, you are such a good woman for vetting the 1001 list for me, so I am adding Jacob the Liar to Continent TBR. I think Troll: A Love Story is already on there from last year's list. Thanks again for the great reviews.

>36 Prop2gether: Prop, Jacob the Liar sounds interesting, but I think I will pass on the Trolley thing.

- TT

The Trolley thing--we'll just have send one over to you, TT!

And for numbers 7 and 8, both from the 1001 Must Read list (which, incidentally, lots of people are reading from but not mentioning in their threads--just a note!):

The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett
The Trick is to Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway

What amazed me about Sam Spade is how much the movie is a transliteration of the book. It's fun, witty, and, of course, there is that black bird.

The Trick is to Keep Breathing was a surprise. It's a stream of consciousness type of interior monologue of a woman who has experienced the death of her lover and is extremely depressed. It sounds awful, right? Not so--I was caught up with her within 10 pages because this character is trying to figure out her life: not only what has happened, but the hows and whys, and whether it's worth trying to go on. She's sad, she's funny, she's wry, she's ridiculous--and I recommend the book.

How bizarre. I read a book with a title I was immediately reminded of in msg 43 which struck me much as you described for The Trick is to Keep Breathing. Feel free not to see the similarities in the titles-- my mind creates its own pathways: Unbreathed Memories.

Edited to attempt clarity.

Susan, I think they have depression in common, but I was impressed with Galloway's writing. What do you think about Unbreathed Memories?

>45 Prop2gether: Went back to check what I wrote. Highly unilluminating (eta: that last was written with heavy sarcasm!): "11/6 Unbreathed Memories by Talley (Bk 8) -- Absolutely wonderful. Not my usual style & I'm so glad it came in that shipment!" It isn't a heavy book and is a mystery of sorts. I think what I liked most about it was how real the family was -- at least I could really identify with them. I laughed, cried, was embarrassed with and for the characters, had folks I wanted to recommend it to, etc. Everything else I could say is a spoiler, so let me know if you want more :)

Hi Prop - Janice Galloway published a sort-of memoir in the UK last year - This Is Not About Me. I haven't read it yet myself but I heard her read from the book at the London Review Bookshop (the event is on the website linked from http://www.lrbshop.co.uk/listen) and it sounded so interesting I bought my nan a copy for Christmas! I've definitely made a mental note to try to read some of her fiction in future. The memoir(ish) did really well so Vintage have been reprinting a lot of her backlist.

#43 The Trick Is to Keep Breathing

This one sounds great! I'm so glad you mentioned it because i never would have found it on my own. Now I just have to find it and find time to read it!

Okay, posting 9 through 12, a mix of 1001 Must Read, a Presidential biography for that challenge. and a classy noir mystery:

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum by Heinrich Boll
Zachary Taylor by John S. D. Eisenhower
Regeneration by Pat Barker
Rendezvous in Black by Cornell Woolrich

Will have to review at another point, although all are recommended.

>49 Prop2gether: was Eisenhower related to the Pres? That would be a bit remarkable :)

Actually, Susan, he is Ike's son. Was a military man and has written a number of books on military history. (says the person who grew up in Ike's home town and even spent a summer a a tour guide at the boyhood home)

The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum has a long subtitle "Or How Violence Develops and Where It Can Lead" which does pretty much explain the story plan--Boll is out to show how easy it is go from a relatively simple act to a truly violent act. However, what first caught me was the opening disclaimer:

"The characters and action in this story are purely fictitious. Should the description of certain journalistic practices result in a resemblance to the practices of the Bild Zeitung, such resemblance is neither intentional nor fortuitous, but unavoidable."

That's about as blatant as a disclaimer can be without saying, "it's the truth here!"

The story opens with Katharina walking into a police officer's office and announcing that earlier that day she shot a journalist to death in her home. Could they please come and take the body away. And that the beginning....

Eisenhower's Zachary Taylor biography was interesting as a review by a general's son whose father was also a general become president as Taylor had been. I do recommend it, but note that it is heavy on battle tactics--appropriate since most of Taylor's life was as a citizen-solider, but more sparing on the 16 months Taylor was in office. Eisenhower's conclusion: we might not have had the Civil War, or at least in the dimensions we did, if Taylor had lived through his term and been re-elected.

Now there's a subject for the alternative hist writers. I don't think that one's been tried. Nice reviews Prop

Regeneration was another surprise for me. Another WWI story of treating "battle fatigue," this one has a great twist: the main characters and the issue are real. S. Sassoon (S for Siegfried--his mother was an opera fan) wrote a letter during his military service which stated essentially that the war was accomplishing nothing but killing young men, and that peace should be sought. Rather than be imprisoned, his friend, Robert Graves (the poet, yes) got him "boarded" to a mental hospital under the care of Dr. Rivers. The purpose of the care was to rehabilitate any soldier to return to the front lines, or at least duty.

I found much of what was happening very similar to Captain Newman, M.D. by Leo Roston (and, incidentally, one of my favorite films with Gregory Peck and Bobby Darin), also set in a war-time psych ward. Rivers and Newman are two of a kind, if this novelized version of Rivers is to be believed. I did enjoy this book very much.

Cornell Woolrich--there really is no other quite like him at twisting a mystery into its basic, noir components, and still leaving you wanting just a bit more. The plot line of Rendezvous in Black is somewhat similar to The Bride Wore Black, but the consequences are more severe. Lots of fun!

Numbers 13 and 14 are another 1001 Must Read plus a 999 Challenge book:

Get Shorty by Elmore Leonard
No Choirboy: Murder, Violence, and Teenagers on Death Row by Susan Kuklin

Elmore Leonard is a hoot in this novel--as evidenced by the film which is almost lifted straight off the page. It's a send-up of the movie business, the mob, and just about everything in between. I loved it.

No Choirboy was a listing I found when looking for YA books on the ALA website. So it's a true crime book written for the young adult audience. As such, it is pretty powerful stuff--interviews with three prisoners, all of whom were involved in killings, and all of whom ended up on Death Row. There is also an interview with the family of a young man executed seven years after he was convicted, and with the family of a young man who was killed by another teen. It's pretty powerful stuff and poses the question: "Are you the sum total of your worst acts?" I've read a lot of true crime books, and this is one of the better ones, if only because it uses real "voices" of people in the system because of violent acts.

#55: No Choirboy sounds like one I would like the girls to read. Thanks for both the review and the recommendation, Prop!

I will try the Elmore Leonard book for myself.

#54 I also enjoyed Regeneration very much. I'm not as much of a poetry reader as I would like to be, but there is some deeply sad WWI poetry that even I can't help but be affected by - not least from Siegfried Sassoon and Wilfred Owen, which just made the book even more moving for me.

There are actually a couple of sequels The Eye in the Door and The Ghost Road. Unfortunately, they are neither of them, as good as Regeneration, particularly the last...

I'd recommend, if you haven't already read it, to read Captain Newman, M.D., which is a totally fictional story with similar themes a war later. It's a good book in the genre.

I shall add it to the list!

Wow! Spounds like 4 great books. Regeneration I can work into my poetry category so I'm going to look for that one. I think I already planned to read The Bride Wore Black and I can add Zachary Taylor into my overloaded biography section and count it in the presidents challenge. The Lost Honor of Katharina Blum also sounds like something that would be interesting. Haven't we all been tempted to shoot journalists? :-)

(That really was supposed to be a joke--if it is offensive, let me know and I'll edit it out.

MusicMom, I'm not sure how Regeneration works into poetry, except that the language is poetic and it is about several poets. It was, however, a beautiful read. And LOL, shooting journalists is seriously considered in several books I've read!

Prop2gether

The category is actually Poets and Poetry. It was to include books of poetry and non-poetry books by or about poets. Since I didn't specify the books about poets had to nonfiction and that's a "real" poet in Regeneration I figure I can sneak it past the 999 police (I know, no problem) and my conscience (that may be a problem!). I have memoir type book by Donald Hall and a book someone recommended in 2008 about Byron and Shelley that I will be getting--my son ordered it for me for Christmas but it had to be back-ordered. I also have some prose by Mary Oliver i plan to read--that's why I expanded the category. but fiction about poets? still cogitating....

Go for it! I have to get back to Duma Key to finish the last 200 pages today--it's a fabulous read!

Hey Prop, just saying hi and Happy New Year! I see your off and running already. Regeneration sounds really interesting.

#54 I loved Regeneration too - so beautifully written and a really engrossing story. Flissp, I didn't enjoy the next two anywhere near as much. I think I gave up on The Ghost Road when it got into all the anthropological stuff.

Memoirs of an Infantry Officer by Siegfried Sassoon was excellent and fitted well with Regeneration.

Oh my, another recommendation for my TBR, come from my own reading!

Number 15 through 17:

Duma Key by Stephen King
The Abbess of Crewe by Muriel Spark
The Gospel According to Judas by Jeffrey Archer (audio reading by Archbishop Desmond Tutu)

Kudos to Blackdogbooks for repeatedly recommending Duma Key. It is fabulous--vestige King form with a story so grounded in reality that the impossible seems merely improbable. The story is basic: a man barely recovers from a very serious accident, which leaves him without his right arm and various head trauma problems. He relocates to a rental house in Florida on the advice of his doctor, and begins to draw--an old skill brought back. And things start to happen, most of which can be explained. The story is told by the man, so we have his perspective throughout, from the accident through his divorce through his dealing with his daughters. I was quite taken early with this thought:

When it comes to your kids, you find yourself making some weird calls from time to time and just hoping they turn out all rights--calls and kids. Parenting is the greatest of hum-a-few-bars-and-I'll-fake-it skills.

I wish before I read it that I had realized that The Abbess of Crewe was a Watergate take-off. On the other hand, I'm surprised I didn't pick it up. This was fun Muriel Spark, but it was definitely on the the lighter-weighted side, concerned with the election of an abbess and the fact that the abbey is wired. It was fun, but not the best initial book by Spark to read.

The Gospel According to Judas by Benjamin Iscariot by Archer is an attempt to retell the Gospel stories by the man who betrayed Jesus as an act to save the man. The actual story teller is Judas's son, and the narrator of the version I heard was Desmond Tutu. There is really very little "new" in this story except for the direct acts leading to Gethsemene, but it was well-read by the Archbishop, and it is not very long.

WOOHOOO, a satisfied customer. I am so glad that you enjoyed Duma Key as much as I did.

Funny that you have to poke me in the eye now with your little 1001 list comments. You'll note that my early reading is primarily classics from my 100 best list. I am giving it a go to finish at least on of my lists up this year or come close. But, you won't be happy until you've seen me completely swallowed up in the 1001 list, huh.

Oh absolutely, BDB, because a lot of your classics on any 100 best list are on the 1001 list in any event.

So here are my next 18-22, which include 2 from my 999 list, one for my office book club, a classic noir, and a history for the President's challenge:

Three Tales of Horror by H. P. Lovecraft
Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Mr. Paradise by Elmore Leonard
Double Indemnity by James M. Cain
Woodrow Wilson by Louis Auchincloss

Have to review a little later. Running out of time at the library computer.

Message 55

Hello Prop2gether. I'm behind in reading the posts and trying to catch up today.
Can you please tell me what the ALA website is? I am very interested in learning more about YA books.

It looks like many on our challenge group are reading books about war and I'm finding the discussions interesting.

The breadth of your choices floors me. One impressive lady!

Whisper, the ALA (American Library Association) http://www.ala.org/ is where I went to look for information about various lists, including the Young Adult reading. My children are past their teens, and my favorites are all on "classics" lists, so I went there to find the current stuff.

Thanks Susan--I just love to read.

Reviews of #68 entries:

Lovecraft's threesome included "The Dunwich Horror" which I listed on my 999 Challenge. He's such a master of the double-trick ending, it's hard to imagine anyone being better. Just one line, and the story reinvents itself for you. I don't know what took me so long to read Lovecraft (last year was the first time), but I will be looking for more.

Neverwhere was a fantasy treat. Richard, a rather non-descript young man helps a young woman collapsed on the streets of London and is brought into a whole new London--under and over the city. The story was fast-paced but easy to follow. There's a tube map included, but it's basically useless unless you want to see where you are in the story. I enjoyed this book much more than I did Stardust, and it has urged me to think of reading more Gaiman, which Stardust did not (although I love the film). A little more young adult-oriented than some fantasy I've read, but it was fun throughout.

Mr. Paradise is a read for my book club, one of two this month, and it was a very fast read. Similar in tone and style to Get Shorty, it sure does have some of the dumbest crooks in the business. Recommended, especially for fans.

Double Indemnity may have been a re-read, or I may just have remembered the movie (oh, so good! with Fred MacMurray in the narrator's chair and Barbara Stanwyck). Incidental fun trivia: the screenplay was completed by Raymond Chandler and Billy Wilder who "improved" the story according to Cain. Brilliant classic noir mystery.

Woodrow Wilson by Louis Auchincloss was dry and read like the author didn't really like his topic for this biographical series. It's a decent enough primer for a background of Woodrow Wilson with all the facts. Just not enough spark for me. I could have been hampered by remembering Alexander Knox as Wilson in Wilson.

#72: I have Neverwhere home from the library to read, Prop, so it will be interesting to see how I feel about it in comparison to your thoughts on it.

I read Double Indemnity last year and really like it. Completely agree - it is classic.

Thanks once again for the great reviews!

What great reviews!! Several choice bits for me to keep an eye out for -- many thx.

Okay, for numbers 24 and 25:

Dragon's Teeth by Lee Killough
Antsy Does Time by Neal Shusterman

The first is the second science fiction mystery by this writer, who I believe Ronincats recommended to me last year. I enjoyed this story a bit more--didn't guess the villain and the lead characters, two detectives, were a fun pair. Of course, being set in the future, there were some procedural changes which were intriguing, but the basic "solve a mystery" story was not bad. (Just a personal note: I get really annoyed with sloppy proofreading and there were several points where I nearly pitched the book, but that's nothing to do with the story.)

Antsy Does Time is for my 999 Challenge, and another book I found at the ALA website. I loved this charmer! Teen angst, yes! Teen drama, yes! Foul language? No. Unrealistic storyline? No. Antsy (Anthony) tells the story of what happened after his friend Gunnar announced he was dying. Despite that opening, the book is very funny, very touching, and all about family, Antsy's and others. There is a very intriguing report on The Grapes of Wrath, which in some respects reminded me of the class reports in The Human Comedy by Saroyan (another favorite). I highly recommend it to others. I wish it had been around in my son's teen years for reading for school. He'd have loved doing a report on this one.

75: You are once again adding to the size of Continent TBR, Prop :)

I'm on a mission to read a lot of YA books this year and thus I've added Antsy Does Time to the tbr 2009 pile.
Thanks for your great review.

Whisper, incidentally, it appears Antsy Does Time is a sequel, but it is highly entertaining on its own.

And numbers 26 through 29:

A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf
Benjamin Harrison by Charles W. Calhoun
Suck It Up! by Brian Meehl
The Train Was On Time by Heinrich Boll

Woolf's book is out on book racks in stores right now and was a fascinating discussion of why there are/were no women writers in earlier European times (the crux of the argument is that you need a room of your own to write). She also discusses the great women writers who broke the mold in English writing, and I enjoyed the both the story and the moral.

Another presidential biography, and this one was very interesting. Harrison, besides being the grandson of a president, and an officer in the Civil War, was an outstanding lawyer and orater of his time. It surprised me to realize how much legislation which still affects us occurred during his one term in office (Sherman Anti-Trust-in its original form); how much other "history" is his, and that he successfully enjoyed his life after his presidency. The book was well-written and I recommend it.

Suck It Up was a YA book from the ALA lists, and it's all about a vegan vampire (he was another's vampire's mistake) named Morning McCobb is chosen to "out" himself to Lifers (the rest of us) to show that most vampires can be just like anyone else. Morning drinks no bloods, he prefers a soy-based drink called Blood-Lite. He's seventeen and dreamed of being a New York fireman before he was transformed. He's assigned to a PR flak named Penny Dredful, and her daughter, Portia, hangs around to make her own film documentary. The story was cute, but not great, predictable but still some fun. It's a quick read and I'd recommend it for fans of the genre--just to see what the YA caption is offering in that field.

The Train Was on Time was the second Boll novel I've read--and it was amazing. Andreas, a German solider, is on his way to Poland by train, meets up with two other soldiers, shares stories, time, and a wild night with them. All because Andreas is sure that he will not make it his destination and will die before he reaches it. Heart-wrenching in parts, it was well worth the read.

#79: I am adding The Train Was on Time to my ever-increasing Continent TBR. Thanks once again for your insightful reviews.

Prop2

You read such interesting books! Thanks for the reviews. I, also, love VW's A Room of One's Own. I just read it this year although I've owned it for a long time. It will be a definite reread for me! I'm putting Benjamin Harrison on my "to buy" list. Are you dong the 4 year Presidential Challenge? I'm planning on it. Although I won't get 10 of them done this year because of my 999 challenge, I want to get started. My husband also likes biographies and when he retires this summer I hope to convince him to read the president books, also.

Hi
I'm adding The Train Was on Time to my ever growing tbr pile...yikes. I'm having a hard time keeping up with all the posts. I see that we have more members again today....

Thanks for the notes, ladies. Yes, I am in the Presidential Challenge, mostly because now I have a reason to actually read about those obscure men who held the office. And, incidentally, in a truer history of the office, Benjamin Harrison would be ranked much higher according to what he accomplished. He missed the boat on the Wounded Knee massacre, but he was on spot with his legislative purpose.

The Train Was on Time is a very short novel, but it packs a punch. Another WWII novel from the German perspective (and the losing end of the war), it was quite a read.

There are actually two additional books to my list (that I forgot to include before) for numbers 30 and 31:

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
One Writer's Beginnings by Eudora Welty

Have to elaborate later--my computer's getting cranky again.

I will be anxious to see your thoughts on Welty. I read One Writer's Beginnings several years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Alcottacre, I read One Writer's Beginnings on an LT reference (before I dutifully noted them), so I'm betting it was you. And, yes, I really did enjoy Welty's story of "becoming" a writer, especially since it was grounded in reading, writing, and observing. Her parents would be remarkable in any age, but were especially so in their encouragement of the family. Thanks for a great read.

Northanger Abbey is one of those books, and there are three by Austen, that I avoided for years, partly because I so love Pride and Prejudice and Persuasion, and partly because the descriptions always lingered over the fact that Austen was mocking the gothic novel so popular in her time. As it happens, I read it nearly concurrently with Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's One and I thoroughly enjoyed the romp. Mind you, I find Catherine Morland to be an absolute ninny (much more so than Emma), but she is a typical period heroine--naive, easily misled, and in love at first sight. It was her brother's escapades with friends that I found upsetting--and probably the most realistic portions of the novel. Their attempts to deliberately make a fool of Catherine are despicable (although her brother does redeem himself, as all good brothers should). Not the best of Austen, maybe, but certainly worth the read.

I must be on some whirlwind because I've been reading up a storm this month (like the allusions here), but somehow this month I've just been reading nearly non-stop in my spare time. Numbers 32 through 35 include both a 999 Challenge book and one from the 1001 Must Read, but two were just "pulled from the shelves":

The Two Deaths of Quicas Waterfall by Jorge Amado
My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather
The Trusting and the Maimed by James Plunkett
Messengers of God by Elie Weisel

Amado's book is a short fable about a man who walked out on his family years before and reinvented himself with the poor on the street. When he dies, his family claims the body (it is the right thing to do after all), but during the vigil night, four of his friends become convinced he's just joking. So, they redress him in his "regular" clothes and go out with him to celebrate. At the end of the evening, he has the death he talked about but--it's just a bit more. Short, funny, sad, and recommended.

My Mortal Enemy is one of Cather's books told by a young woman and it is a bit of a coming of age story about love. Myra ran away to true love and renounced any claim to a fortune. Her story is the bedrock of love come true stories in her home town, but our narrator comes across instances of slight cracks in the facade. Then, years later as an adult, she runs into the couple again, in greatly reduced circumstances. The question of love and great love and money and its lure are all entwined in a short novella very neatly by Cather.

The Trusting and the Maimed by Plunkett is a 1001 Must Read, and it is a collection of Irish short stories--very, very Irish. I really liked Plunkett's story telling method in several of the stories. He told you all that you need to know to see exactly what has to happen--and then lets your imagination finish the picture/story. There are some very tragic themes in most of the stories, and I recommend the collection. Some stories were stronger and more interesting to me--but you may choose others than I did.

Messengers of God by Elie Weisel is a series of essays and "parables/stories" about men who were God's messengers in the scriptures: Adam, Cain, Abel, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, and Job. Weisel's writing is superb, but the re-envisioning of each of these men, complete with Midrash and other teachings was very interesting. Weisel, of course, is also interpreting these stories a bit as a Holocaust survivor, but his purpose is to discuss why these men did what they did--and how they dealt with God as they understood the deity. Not for everyone, it may be a bit dry to some, but I enjoyed it. It's also one more on my 999 Challenge list.

>86 Prop2gether: Thanks for your review of Messengers of God -- I think this is something I'd really enjoy owning as well as reading.

you've been reading some very interesting books there, Prop. definitely titles to watch out for...

Numbers 36 through 40:

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto
Our Lady of the Assassins by Fernando Vallejo
Johnny Got His Gun by Dalton Trumbo
Hardcase by Dan Simmons
The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt

Two 1001 Must Reads, a war/anti-war classic, a fast-paced thriller, and a fascinating history of the author's own fighting unit.

More details when my 'puter decides to behave!

Edited to correct my book count

Johnny Got His Gun is heart wrenching!

What did you think of Our Lady of the Assassins? It sounds interesting.

All I have to say about my latest week in reading is that is a mix of lots of genres, styles, and messages.

Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto is a 1001 Must Read of two short novellas which both deal with grief and recovery from it. It was a nicely done set of stories, and I do recommend the book.

Our Lady of the Assassins was an in-your-face remembrance of an older man who returns after thirty years to his hometown of Medallin. It's a first person narrative about everything that is wrong with the country, the city, the youth, his opinions on all that and more, and some very brutal killings spoken of as adjuncts to a walk in the park (and once, literally). Again, a 1001 Must Read, it was absorbing, irritating, sometimes funny, but never dull narrative.

Johnny Got His Gun--oh my, how did I miss this one years ago. I've heard of it for ages, but never read it. A young man goes to war (WWI), is terribly injured, and most of the story is his attempt to first figure out where and who he is, and then, how to communicate. Very, very intense, and very worth the time to read.

Hardcase is a thriller/mystery by Dan Simmons who writes in several other genres (I've read The Terror, the series with the Shrike and the Iliad characters, Song of Kali, and several others). What was fun about this--absolutely no great plot, no need to deeply reason, or know more than Joe Kurtz may know at the moment--a lovely runaway from heavy reading!

The Rough Riders by Theodore Roosevelt (with additional material by Richard Bak) was a fascinating read. I've read FDR, and the presidents since, but with very rare instances, ever had an opportunity to read an earlier president's work. Bak's preface is a short complete biography of the man, but the main piece is Roosevelt's history of his own unit. Great!

Wow! Some great recent reading, Prop. Glad your computer decided to cooperate with you so that you could post the reviews.

I'm adding Rough Riders to my TBR. I have so much to read this year that I have to be careful about adding much more, but this one I can't resist. I'm fascinated by T. R. and plan to read Mornings on Horseback by McCullough later this year. Rough Riders sound like it will fit nicely with that.

Oh shoot, MM! I did not know McCullough had written about T.R. Another one for the TBR. McCullough is my favorite author when it comes to American history/biography.

Trivia.......T.R and Owen Wister (author of The Virginian) were friends. I belive Wister wrote a book about T.R. also.

Yep, that's what Bak says. So I guess that means the copy I picked up of The Virginian needs to move up on my TBR! LOL!

What an interesting list of books!

Thank you! It's a mix of LT referrals, my 999 Challenge and the 1001 Must Read list. Mostly whatever I found available at the time! Currently into The Fifth Woman, Devil in a Blue Dress, Darkness at Noon, and Siegfried Sassoon's War Poems--totally dependent on where I am and the mood I'm into. Actually, I expect to finish Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson today, which is more than I expected it to be.

And numbers 41 and 42:

Hard Freeze by Dan Simmons
Ramona by Helen Hunt Jackson

This is the second book by Simmons about Joe Kurtz, and aside from additional background about him, this was another slam-bang ride through a race for him to figure out how to stay alive with three different death notices out on him. Just fun.

Ramona is the first stop on one of my 999 Challenge categories (National Reading-Down Route 66). I grew up hearing about the Ramona Festival from my grandmother, who loved this book. I understand why--it's a heartbreaking story of a girl born of an Indian mother and Irish father, raised in a California Mexican household, at the moment in history when the U.S. suddenly acquired California. It's a story of two generations of misplaced and nearly lost loves, centering on Ramona in the second generation. She has been raised by an aunt who tolerates her (but who adores her son, Felipe, who, in turn, loves Ramona). Ramona falls deeply in love with a Temecula Indian named Alessandro and he shares her passion. The edition I read had an introduction by Indian writer Michael Dorris, which gave a nicely detailed history of Helen Hunt Jackson's personal life and mission in her two best known works: A Century of Dishonor and the "sugar coated version" of the same story, Ramona. Ramona and Alessandro are nearly ideal--but that was what Jackson needed to make her point about the abuse and destruction heaped on the Indians by American settlers. Jackson' style may be too florid for some, but her descriptions of the California she had seen, from Santa Barbara to San Diego are breathtaking. And her story lives on in the official California Outdoor Play version of her book which is presented every year.

Took out the touchstone because Beverly Cleary's "Pest" has clearly beaten out Jackson!

#100

re Ramona (there is no touchstone for this book! The touchstone takes you to the children's book by Beverly Cleary)

What a wonderful review! When I was a child we lived in Southern California for a few years and we went twice to see the outdoor play. It made a huge impression on me which I remember to this day--it was beautifully done and I fell in love with it. That's why we went twice. Now I will need to find the book, or perhaps try to find A Century of Dishonor to get the "real story".

MM, there is a link, but I lost it when I edited my grammar. I'll go back and correct it again. A Century of Dishonor is not considered a well-researched, but a well-written, book about the history. Jackson, in fact, had copies of the books delivered to all members of Congress at her own expense. However, it was one of the first positive books about Indians, outside of the "noble savage" syndrome, and she was a popular writer who influenced the start of some reforms through the books. They are worth that part of our history alone.

I would love to see the pageant now, but have to figure on a friend with a car who wants to take the trek!

I'd go but getting to CA is the trick :) There's something about open air productions that can be magical. I saw Texas in the Palo Duro Canyon as a teen and still remember how impressive it was. Then too there are memories of the concerts in the parks in St Louis, but the excellent St Louis Symphony's presence might have had something to do with that ;->. And then there was The Grove, an open air cinema during the summers at Texas A&M University where I grew up. Hepburn's Wait Until Dark stands out among those memories :)

Numbers 44 through 46 include two 999 Challenge books and one 1001 Must Read:

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley
The Passion by Jeanette Winterson
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

More comments later. Have to finish My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir because (a) it's due and I can't renew it; and (b) it's caught me up!

Several years ago, my book group read an Easy Rollins mystery, and I enjoyed the book, but was dismayed to find it was something like the ninth or tenth in the series. So one of my challenges this year was to start this series fresh. Devil in a Blue Dress (and note! this is one film I have not seen) was a really good mystery with an oh-so-Los Angeles aura. I'm going to complete this series, if the tweeners (books between my reads) hold up. This story is the basis for Ezekial (Easy) Rollins to decide to become a detective for hire. It's not long after WWII and he was a soldier in Europe. He's just been fired from his job, has a mortgage to maintain, some bad past acquaintances, and a friend introduces him to a man who is looking for a girl. All he has to do to earn a fee large enough to pay several months' mortgage is find the girl. Ah--but why is the girl missing and why do any of the several people Easy runs into want to find her? And why are his leads literally dying off? Recommended!

The Passion by Jeanette Winterson is the most straightforward of her works I have read so far (on the 1001 Must Read) and it was positively entrancing. The book weaves two narrators' stories: Henri, the young man who cooks for Napoleon, and Villanelle, a web-footed Venetian boatman's daughter who cross-dresses and earns her living as she can. They tell their stories, then admonish the reader, to remember that it's "all a story." Henri and Villanelle meet, and then it does become a story--or does it? I loved the language in the book, the views of passion (metaphysical, physical, linguistic, you name it), and I highly recommend the book.

The Eyre Affair has been on so many LT threads that I decided to add it to my 999 Challenge to make sure I read it. It was a cute story about a literary detective chasing her nemesis who has stolen the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and extracted a character--thus, changing every extant copy of the book! Time is not staid or solid, it is moveable and variable, so characters in our story float between the "real" and "literary" world. So why Eyre, if two-thirds of the book concerns the Dickens manuscript? Edward Rochester appears briefly in two early sections of the story, and it becomes apparent to our villain that Jane is one of the most beloved of literary characters--and harm to her would mean his complete satisfaction. I enjoyed the book as a fast read and a romp through some of English literature (there's a great ongoing discussion about who actually wrote the Shakespearean works), but not as a great piece of fantasy. It was fun and I recommend it for fans, but I was not overwhelmed by the story.

Wonderful reviews Prop. You made me want to read The Passion :)

The movie version of Devil in a Blue Dress is great. Denzel Washington.

Thanks for the very thoughtful reviews - I am adding on The Passion to my TBRs.

Well, I do have the next Easy Rollins on my shelf now and I intend to watch the Devil in a Blue Dress, but it's way down my Netflix queue at the moment.

However, numbers 46 through 48 for me were an odd group of books:

The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
My First Summer in the Sierra by John Muir (corrected title get touchstone to work)
Shakespeare's Champion by Charlaine Harris

My book pal at work, Picnicgal, is a huge fan of John Twelve Hawks, and I finally picked the book off the library shelves. I really enjoyed this dystopian novel about Travelers and the Harlequins who protect them. In a world where we hear daily about the intrusions into our private lives that are possible, and where John Connor has been living "off the grid" for his Terminator lifetime, this was an interesting take on the theme. It was fast-paced, easy to read, and I enjoyed it.

John Muir's My First Summer in the Sierra is a revision of the diary that Muir kept when he first saw that glorious landscape. A friend offered to let Muir roam on his own if he would assist in herding sheep through the season. I never thought I would be really, and seriously enjoying, a book that is chock full of botanical descriptions, but I did. Muir's ability to describe what he saw and felt is astonishing--very clear and to the point. His "takes" on sheep are increasingly funny; his chance meeting with a University of Wisconsin professor of his in the Yosemite Valley is eye-opening. And all that flora and fauna? Well, it was astonishing how interesting the subject can be in the hands of a gifted writer. No wonder Muir, and his Sierra Club, were able to convince others of the need to preserve our land.

Shakespeare's Champion is the second in the Lily Bard series of mysteries set in a small Arkansas town. It's better written and plotted than the first, but still just a cozy read for me because there's no great stretches here. Just a fun sit down and follow a friend.

I'm so glad you enjoyed The Traveler! The second book The Dark River in the series is equally wonderful; however, you may want to wait until he writes the final book of the series, because the second book really leaves you hanging! By the time the third one comes out, I'll have to re-read the first two!

Prop, I am probably one of the few who prefers the Shakespeare series to Harris' other series. As the series moves along, I thought the development of the character of Lily was very well done.

I just finished saying on LisaCurcio's thread that The Traveler made my favorites from last year and I really enjoyed The Dark River also.

Alcottacre, I agree that Lily is developing nicely as a character and will try the next in series later this year. BDB, now I have two of you on The Traveler reminder list! *sighs*

Three more books completed for numbers 49 through 51: a 999 Reading Nationally (coming through Arizona) young adult; one-third of a 1001 Must Read (which can be read in component parts); and another 1001 Must Read:

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
City of Glass by Paul Auster
Cider With Rosie by Laurie Lee

Twilight is fast-paced, somewhat overwritten young adult vampire fantasy. Octavia Butler's Fledgling is a better story about a "family" of vampires, but she was a well-established writer by its printing. For Meyer's first effort, Bella and Edward's romance is fine. I can certainly understand the appeal to teens for this story. I do want to read the next in order, so I was satisfied with the story--although I think Meyer's claim to have dreamt the story before she wrote it explains a lot of the angst. Presumably, the later books are tighter in plot and character development.

City of Glass is the first of Auster's The New York Trilogy of stories which are part of the 1001 Must Read list. Last year I read the graphic novel version of this story, and, frankly, I think it got me through an early chapter with a totally incoherent character so I could finish the book. I've like Auster's work so far, and the most intriguing part of this one is that it's a detective story (?) where Paul Auster is the writer, Paul Auster is a character, another character assumes the mantle of Paul Auster, and Paul Auster talks about Paul Auster.

Cider with Rosie by Laurie Lee is a very charming and cozy group of remembrances of growing up poor but happy (not always healthy!) in a Cotswald village between the early 1900's and Lee's young adulthood. It's very leisurely paced, but full of wonderful images and words of that era--"charabancs," anyone?

Don't complain to me of lists!!!!

Okay, but I'm only officially tagging my way this year through two lists. **tee hee**

I am adding to more books to my ever-expanding Continent from your list again, Laurie. I am seriously beginning to think I should just skip your thread . . .

LOL! and again LOL! I haven't caught up with your thread yet! And I've had to slow my reading down because I need new glasses set for the proper tri-focal reading height!

I haven't caught up with your thread yet!

Which one? At the rate it is going, I am going to have a new thread for every month of the year this year!

Good luck with the glasses. I know what a pain they can be.

Message #75
Prop2gether. I'm stopping by to thank you again for recommedning Antsy Does Time. I started this book today and I love it!

So glad Antsy Does Time is good for you too, Whisper! I loved reading it.

And the first thread is almost done, Alcottacre!

And I have books 52 through 54:

No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
James Buchanan by Jean Baker
Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

I really enjoyed McCarthy's The Road, got a bit bogged in another, but read No Country for Old Men for my 999 Challenge list. WOW! What a ride this novel is--starting out simply and keeping it simple, McCarthy takes you from beginning to end and you are riding a bronc the entire way. Venal characters, sympathetic characters, bad things happening to people who deserve it and to those who don't. Now I'll watch the film, although much of this novel read like a screenplay.

James Buchanan was our fifteenth president. He wanted the job for most of his adult life, and, he was possibly the closest to a traitor in office we have had. Baker makes her argument very persuasively that Buchanan misused the office in a manner which we today hear as "executive" or "presidential" privilege in order to try to gain his idea of the union. The fact that his work precipitated the beginning of the secession of Southern states cannot reasonably be argued in any other light. Short, concise, and very interesting.

Heart of Darkness is one of those classics (yes! on the 1001 Must Read list) that I've avoided for years. I found trying to read Lord Jim painful, and, I am one of the few who will state that I disliked Apocolyse Now intensely. When I read that it was based on Heart of Darkness, well--there was no appeal. However, I missed a strong story told with great style. The narrator, Marlow, and the station man, Kurtz, are parts of several pictures in this one short novella: colonization of Africa, the dangers of the trek down the river (and, really, isn't the Thames also a river in this story?), the wild versus the civilized, the truth versus the myth.

>120 Prop2gether:: Interesting that you should hate Lord Jim then. Same writing style, same narrator and some themes that aren't totally dissimilar.

May have been my age. May have been the picture of Peter O'Toole in the role. I will be going back, especially after this read, and seeing what I missed.

Prop2gether

I'm so glad you liked Heart of Darkness--a favorite read of mine. I hope it was your age when you read it, because I plan to read Lord Jim soon for my Classics category. As much as I have loved H of D for many years, I've never read another Joseph Conrad.

James Buchanan goes on my TBR for this year. It will work for the Presidential challenge and sounds like one I should read as background for my Civil War exploration.

Prop2gether.
I confess that I know so very little about US Presidents. I've added James Buchanan to my tbr pile. I'm ignorant about him. I think the only two things I remember was that he was a) the only President from Pennsylvania and b) the only bachelor President. Is my memory correct about these two things?

#120: Yes, I am once again adding books from your reading: No Country for Old Men, which I have been putting off adding to the Continent, but am finally resigning myself to the necessity, and James Buchanan, a President whom I have pretty much ignored until now. I have already read Heart of Darkness several times, so I do not have to add that one to the Continent *whew, feverishly wiping brow*

Glad to hear that you are almost caught up on thread #1. Unfortunately, there are about 200 or so messages on thread #2 as well . . .

#124--Yes, you're correct about Buchanan's coming from Pennsylvania and being a bachelor. Apparently, excluding his own autobiography, Buchanan is either praised mightily or decried in other biographies. However, one interesting note by the author mentioned a play by John Updike (a fellow Pennsylvanian), which I am looking up.

#125--Yes! I finished your first thread! I'm taking one long thread a day to try to get current with the threads I regularly cruise. You'll find No Country for Old Men a remarkably fast read--but the devil really is in the details you get.

Numbers 55 and 56:

Dusklands by J. M. Coetzee
Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? by Pierre Bayard

This is the fourth Coetzee I've read, his first published, and it falls on the side of his books that I would recommend or read again. It's actually two novellas, one about a mythographic writer for "The Vietnam Project" who slowly slips out of reality, and the report he is preparing, into his myth. The second "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee" is about the expedition of an eighteenth century Boer frontiersman. In both stories, there are characters named Coetzee, but in the reading I simply accepted it as a writer's perogative, because it did not appear that Coetzee was trying to inject himself into the narrative. Both novellas have strong aspects of delusion or delusionary behavior. Retribution is also a strong motive for both protagonists. I do recommend with the caution that both stories are very graphic.

Who Killed Roger Ackroyd? was a listing I found on Sten's thread, and, since I read the Christie mystery last year (my first Poirot!), I thought it sounded like fun. Bayard expounds on standard detective and mystery fiction and how Christie often "cheats" on the rules--the first time in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. Bayard spends a great many pages also analyzing various Christie mysteries (so--spoilers abound) and the three detective investigative works which most influenced Freud: Oedpius Rex, Hamlet, and Poe's "The Purloined Letter" in discussions of delusions. Frankly, I guessed Bayard's "obvious" suspect before he announced it, but it was fun to follow his deductive reasoning. Thanks Sten for the referral.

>126 Prop2gether:: I read Bayard's Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong—which was a re-examination of "The Hound of the Baskervilles"—in last year's group. I found the beginning interesting, the middle (a discussion of his general theories about the "realness" of fiction) unbelievably tedious, and the final portion fun. You could figure out who he was going to finger for the murder, but he carried it off well and his logic was much better than Holmes'.

Tad, I agree about the mid-section in this one--same principle. However, I did find the Freud influences fun to read and the book finished pretty well.

Numbers 57 through 59:

The Maracot Deep by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Parnassus on Wheels by Christopher Morley
What I Saw and How I Lied by Christopher Morley

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on the science fiction shelf? Yes, maybe, but I was surprised to find this little gem of a story. Professor Maracot, Cyrus Headley (zoologist and Rhodes Scholar), and Bill Scanlan (mechanic) set out to explore the deep sea off the coast of the Canary Islands in a diving bell. The bell is disconnected from its tether--and the three men find themselves in an undersea world. Fraught with danger and history, it appears to be Atlantis (with a few additions) and the men must adjust to this world. It was quite fun, not very long, and for most of the book, I chuckled about what actually inspired James Cameron for "The Abyss."

Parnassus on Wheels was mentioned by VioletBramble on her thread--and what a delight! Helen McGill, the homekeeping sister of a successful writer, decides to buy the Parnassus (a traveling book store) from the Professor rather than let her brother buy it and take off on another of his adventures. So she gets her own adventure! Lots of laughs, plenty of chuckles, told by Helen, I was entranced by this story of books and lovers. Quick quote from the Professor's notebook:

There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning, and yearning. A man should be learning as he goes; and he should be earning bread for himself and others; and he should be yearning, too: yearning to know the unknowable.

Just a delightful read.

What I Saw and How I Lied is a YA (for more mature readers) by a writer who "(u)nder a pen name, ... has written many New York Times best-selling novels." This novel is a coming of age set in 1947, with Evie Spooner discovering that life involves choices, some of which are very hard to make. Her stepfather has returned from WWII and is a successful businessman, her mother is gorgeous, her best friend is obnoxious, and the family travels to Palm Beach in the off-season for no reason Evie can figure out. There she meets the Graysons and Peter Coleridge. Peter is hugely attractive to Evie and had served with her stepfather. The consequences of the stay in Palm Beach are the meat of the story--Evie must figure out if one or two "bad" deeds make a person unworthy. This is an ALA book I pulled for my 999 Challenge, and I recommend it for more mature teens as well as for adults.

#128: Laurie, I read Parnassus on Wheels last year and enjoyed it, too. Are you planning on reading the sequel The Haunted Bookshop as well? I have it home from the library but have not yet read it.

I thought Parnassus on Wheels was delightful. It's sequel, The Haunted Bookshop is almost as good.

Prop2gether.
Reading your review of What I Saw and How I Lied confirms why I'm glad Fam introduced me to this genre. Increasingly, I'm finding that YA books deal with very serious subjects. I'm adding this one to my tbr pile.
Thanks!

What I Saw and How I Lied sounds great! I'll be adding it to my TBR list....wow...it's starting to get pretty long!

jasmyn9

If you continue to check Prop2gether's thread, I warn you, it will get longer, and longer and longer. She reads incredibly good books!

Thanks for the compliments to all of you. I read a lot from other threads, you know, as well as that set of shelves with more books at home!

Numbers 60 and 61:

Five Weeks in a Balloon by Jules Verne
The Old Gringo by Carlos Fuentes

This is my third Jules Verne in about six months--and I'm having so much fun reading his stuff. This adventure is three men in a balloon over Africa, for the purpose of trying to figure out the source of the Nile and to see (from above) how various land-based treks connected. There's a fair amount of current (for Verne) history and science, but it was not boring. This is also one of my 999 Challenge books. And just for fun--an early pitch for slowing down and enjoying the flowers...

"Besides," said Kennedy, "the time when industry gets a grip of everything and uses it to its own advantage may not be particularly amusing. If men go on inventing machinery they'll end up by being swallowed up by their own machines. I've always thought that the last day will be brought about by some colossal boiler heated to three thousand atmospheres blowing up the world."

"And I bet the Yankees will have had a hand in it," said Joe.

The Old Gringo is a re-read from several years ago because it is my book club's February selection. The story of the old man, the American spinster, and the Mexican general is very evocative because of the Fuentes's ability to spin the language. It's a story of cultures meeting and clashing just as much as it is the story of the participants. It's a book to be savored in the reading, slow-paced, narrative intercut with remembrances, and strong emotions.

It's great to have a fresh source on books to read. My friends around here and I have read pretty much all the same things, so it's great to have a surge of new books on the list.

I agree wholeheartedly about a fresh source--I'm keeping my LT list of recommended books in #2 on my thread, and I add any new listings about twice a month. Some terrific ideas there from others.

Prop2: I actually have my LT recommends as a TBR spreadsheet...I'm up to 151 just since Jan 1st. Then as I buy/borrow/read them, I put them into the library. Once this 'collections' things gets running and I see how it works, I may enter them all in. I enter the author/title/who recommended, and the number of pages. That way if I'm looking for a quick read, I'll know to avoid those 700+page clunkers we're all so fond of. In the meantime, I don't have to worry about losing those 1000's of stickies, or trying to log onto LT when our satellite is down in a snowstorm.

Your list is amazing - and we only have 4 overlaps. Amazing how many books we can all come up with.

#137-LOL! Another spreadsheet is just too much work for me. So I keep a written list and this one. Plus, of course, there are the remaining books on my 999 Challenge, the ones I just picked up yesterday at the book store, the two that were loaned by friends recently and need to be returned--well, you know the drill! When I check out the local library listing, I do look at the number of pages, but until then, I don't worry too much about that statistic. Which reminds me, I have my 30 checked out plus 24 on the wait list--this weekend is a reading one....

I have a different Carlos Fuentes for one of my lists but have picked up Old Gringo about a hundred times in the bookstores and never pulled the trigger. I always came back to the movie and figured I was picking it up because of the title's familiarity. But I may get it now after your recommendation.

I have only been reading things off the 100best list so I was sad to see that I am only responsible for "all of the rest of Stephen King" so far. :(( But my next couple of TBR stacks are more devoted to newer stuff, so maybe I can increase my presence on your list. Good idea how you're keeping it there. I have been using index cards - easy to organize and carry to the bookstore. And when I get the book, I plan to put the card in the book so I can always have a record of who recommended it to me!

>134 Prop2gether: I can't believe I've never even heard of Five Weeks in a Balloon. I'm adding it to the TBR pile, which I need to read faster before it falls over on me.

I loved the corny, classic movie with Red Buttons and Barbara Eden and Peter Lorre, back when I was a kid. Although I know it was only "loosely" based on the Jules Verne book.

>109 Prop2gether: Thx -- Muir's book looks to be the perfect gift for family and friends. Enjoyed catching up on your thread :)

Thanks for the notes! I can't use index cards, BDB, because I lose them. I stand a better chance with Post-Its, but they're too expensive for this deal. I am reading posts, though, and picking up ideas along the way--you know like Stuart Redman is told to "Keep picking up strays along the way." Besides, I still have Moll Flanders to finish (she's been in Virginia for months now), and I want to finish it based on your recommendation.

I've seen the movie, and, yes, it is very loosely based--to start, there are no women in Verne's story, except for the natives. But it is a fun adventure read.

And Muir was a very pleasant surprise--just as I have been by Teddy Roosevelt's writing. Very readable works, despite being over a century old and non-fiction at that.

I have numbers 62 through 65, with two sequels, one set of three stories also on my 999 Challenge, and one book from last month's book club which I stalled in reading in January:

The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks
Hard as Nails by Dan Simmons
Pale Horse, Pale Rider by Katherine Anne Porter
Mona in the Promised Land by Gish Jen.

More details in a bit.

So I read the Twelve Hawks sequel and find myself in a Matrix middle section--crying out for the resolution of the story because he left it hanging. I have enjoyed both books, but, really, now I want the third book in hand.

Hard as Nails is the third Joe Kurtz thriller/mystery by Dan Simmons, and while far more explosive (in literal terms), it's just as hard-edged as its hero (or anti-hero). I like the series, mostly because there's absolutely no thought necessary to roll with the story.

Pale Horse, Pale Rider was the next stop on my 999 Challenge for reading nationally. There are three short novels (or three long stories, whichever you prefer) in this edition, and of the three, the story I least enjoyed is the third and title story. I preferred both "Hard Mortality" and "Noon Wine" and I think it is because they were "harder" than "Pale Horse, Pale Rider." They are definitely Porter stories, hard-edged, not particularly happy, but beautifully written.

Mona in the Promised Land was a book club selection for our January meeting, and I had gotten stalled in the story in January. I've finished it, and, frankly, think the book should have ended where I initially stopped reading. Mona is a sixties Chinese-American teen living in a suburb (read Scarsdale) as the only Oriental until a younger Japanese boy comes to town. Because they are both Oriental, it is assumed they have common interests, foods, and language, which leads to some incidents in the story. Also, Mona, who is the second and favored daughter, has decided she wants to become a Jew. Again, some fun incidents and some interesting discussions on why people convert. However, the story then segues into a more specific sixties culture clash of black and white with a series of incidents that seem out of place with the prior storyline. Finally, there is an epilogue which seems wildly out of place set several years in the future. There were fun moments but overall, not a recommendation for casual reading.

Looking forward to your comments on the Jen book (read The Love Wife and enjoyed it a bunch) and the Hawks book.

LOL!! See #144 for my comments, BDB.

Yeah, first they weren't there and then they were. You are sneaking around on your own thread.

Too bad you didn't enjoy the Jen book. I really enjoyed The Love Wife a great deal!!!!

With you on the Hawks book.......growing impatient.

*smiles at the thought me sneaking while tripping over my feet*

BDB, I enjoyed the first half or so of the Jen book, but felt it lost its focus. I certainly am open to reading another of her books and will check out your recommendation.

And numbers 66 through 68:

Dearest Friend by Lynne Withey
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
The War Poems by Siegfried Sassoon

So--one on my 999 Challenge list, one from reading 75er threads, and one because I was hugely curious about the real life poetry of the man who Pat Barker turned into a character in several of her novels on the 1001 Must Read list. Quite a mix!

Dearest Friend is a biography of Abigail Adams, using a good deal of her own writings to tell the story. It was a good introduction to the lady, although some sections were a bit slow. I have groused elsewhere about the publishing house's careless proofing of the manuscript, but the story of our second First Lady is one that should be known. Principled, determined, largely self-educated, intensely family-oriented, and hugely nationalistic, Abigail is very much a woman of her time, but also a mass of contradictions.

Ella Minnow Pea was fun to read--and disturbing as well. The ease with which the Nollopian Council takes over the language and island is frightening--although that may be my background in reading a lot of dystopian novels kicking in here. As a grammarian, I was tickled by the use of language, especially as it becomes more and more restricted. Others have reviewed the book in greater detail, and I thank you all for the recommendation.

The War Poems by Sassoon was a book I chose because I had read Regeneration by Pat Barker, a fictionalized account of Sassoon's involuntary hospitalization in WWI. His poems are a great adjunct to the story because they are very raw, very "in the moment" thoughts of a soldier in the trenches. Recommended with the note that these poems are very visceral.

Gosh, Laurie,

You are so far ahead of me, you are almost finished the challenge!
Hope you signed on to the 100 book challenge!

148: I am putting Dearest Friend on the Continent. Thanks for the recommendation, Laurie.

LOL! I figure I have enough challenges with this one (still trying to catch up on threads), the 999 Challenge, 1001 Must Read, and the Presidents Challenge. I'm somewhat stunned about how many I've read--but my reading did slow down in February! Because this is the equivalent of my book log, with short notes to describe each one, I'm also pleased to find I'm remembering titles and authors better as well. The things you learn as you get older....

Following on from Regeneration and Sassoon, just wondering if you've ever read any of Wilfred Owen's war poetry also? Definitely worth a read if you haven't...

68 books thus far in 2009! This is incredible. Congratulations.

Thanks! I had a great weekend--dishes, laundry, and reading:

Nos. 69 through 77:

The Fifth Woman by Henning Mankell
Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson
The Miracle at Speedy Motors by Alexander McCall Smith
Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming
Shakespeare's Christmas by Charlaine Harris
The Presidency of George Bush by John Robert Greene
A Red Death by Walter Mosley
The Cleft by Doris Lessing
The Fall of Troy by Peter Ackroyd

Congratulations on reaching the mark after only two months......

I am stunned, frankly. I've found myself literally putting one book down and picking up the next in one move. But I am slowing down, in incremental steps--fewer books in February, and probably fewer again in March, so maybe it was all tied up with New Year fever.

not another one to make it past 75 this early in the year!! congratulations!

Congrats!

Thanks very much--plus, you know I got to create these counters! That was an incentive as well.

What did you think of The Cleft? It sounded intriguing to me, but got such bad reviews I passed on it. Do you recommend it?

abw..Thanks for asking this question. I am curious about Cleft as well. Lessing seems to write dark and haunting books.

Woo Hoo! Another member of the 75-book club! Congratulations, Laurie.

Way to go Laurie :)

Wow! Astounding, Prop2gether. Setting the tone for an excellent reading year :)

Congratulations! Now if you'll just slow down, you'll be doing my TBR list a gigantic favor!

Congrats, Laurie! I knew you'd make it easily.
What's next for you, 100?

At the rate she is going, she will read 100 before the end of the month! Looks like a "400 for the year" pace to me.

You go, girl! We sit in awe--Congratulations.

I’m trying this a second time because my first mini-reviews wafted away into LT limbo!

The Fifth Woman is the latest in series of the Kurt Wallender mysteries. I love this series—the characters, the writing, the nitty-gritty feeling of following the detective around. As with many detective serials, however, it is best to read them in order to follow the character development.

Tarka the Otter was like reading, instead of watching, a Disney True-Life Adventure (and does that show my age or what?) of the life and death (no surprise, it’s the tagline of the title) of an otter on the west coast of England during the early 1900s. Although I’m not sure why this book landed on the 1001 Must Read list, it was quite an adventure to read.

The Miracle at Speedy Motors was my next in series for the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency, and, happily enough, this book reminds me of why I enjoyed the first book—it’s a basic story of Mma Ramotswe and her circle, without some of the extraneous subplots of the interim books. I liked this one.

Live and Let Die is my next in series with James Bond. The Fleming story is somewhat dated, but the story itself is fascinating enough to keep you wanting more.

Shakespeare’s Christmas is my next in series with Lily Bard, housecleaner and amateur sleuth. The title is something of a misnomer, however, because all the story except for the opening and the closing does not take place in Shakespeare, Arkansas. Lily has gone home to participate in her sister’s wedding and find herself embroiled in resolving a kidnapping and several murders. Her personal live picks up as well, which was nice.

The Presidency of George Bush was a somewhat pedestrial introduction to the president. There’s a very brief background of the man before we are taken through his term, stage by stage. At times, there is more discussion of Reagan and Reaganomics than of his vice-president and successor, but, as an introductory book, this is as non-partisan as I’ve seen.

A Red Death is my next in series for the Easy Rollins mysteries, and I’m enjoying the ride. It’s several years since Ezekial buried money in his backyard. He’s now a property owner and finds himself squeezed by both the IRS and the FBI. The IRS wants taxes on his properties and the FBI wants to find out the “Red” communists who are agitating the Watts community.

The Cleft was a fascinating premise: the origins of human civilization being female, not male. The story is told by an old Roman citizen in a style very similar to what Robert Graves used in his Claudius books. There are Clefts (women without names) who live in caves near a cleft rock and who become periodically pregnant in moon cycles. Usually the baby is another Cleft, but occasionally a Monster is born. Initially, the Clefts left the Monsters with their tubes and bags out on the rocks for the Eagles to feed to their young. However, the Eagles start leaving the babies, now usually called Squirts (for obvious reasons) in a small valley over the hill from the Clefts. From this separation of the genders is the evolution of the story, interspersed with the Roman’s own story at various junctures. Parts of the story are very repetitious, but, as it is a short novel, I found it readable. I much prefer The Fifth Child which I read earlier (and many people found disturbing), but this is a different type of story-telling.

The Fall of Troy was on kiwidoc’s list as one he was not sure he particularly liked—an intriguing thought as his concerns were those I had when I read Hawksmoor by Ackroyd. I rather enjoyed this fictional retelling of the discovery of Troy, with the gods an unknown factor in the story.

NOTE: Touchstones are touchy today.

Okay, and numbers 78 through 80:

Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Whales on Stilts by M.T. Anderson
My Teacher Flunked the Planet by Bruce Coville

Written on the Body is another of Winterson's novels on the 1001 Must Read list. I had some issues getting past the first 30 pages or so of this story, but once there--well, it blew me away. Winterson wrotes so movingly of love and what it is and how it can totally encompass our lives, that is hard to put the book down for the last two-thirds.

Whales on Stilts came from alcottacre's thread, and it was an amusing story of three pre-teens saving the world from a nefarious threat involving--whales on stilts. Tongue very firmly pressed in cheek, it is full of puns and silliness enough to entice the younger reader into the plotting.

My Teacher Flunked the Planet came from StormRaven's thread. The title is absolutely fabulous, but I found the story heavy-handed in its "save the planet" lessons. The story is part of a series about aliens on earth, and in this one, the quest is to discover why the aliens shouldn't just wipe humans out. The ending is a bit deus ex machina over the plot, but the story is certainly fun for a young teen reader, even with the lessons on war, hate, nature issues and various atrocities which need to be addressed on the planet.

Thanks for the recommendations--I love finding new books and authors.

hallo prop2gether!

Ok, several questions/comments:

1) Kurt Wallender - there's been a recent (bbc/c4? uk) tv adaptation of this with Kenneth Branagh (and, I don't care what anyone else says, particularly for Shakespeare, he's a great actor), that is clearly attempting to whet the UK's appetite for Wallender. In general, I'm not much for crime fiction, but this appealed to me because it didn't fit the obvious stereotypes. Having read the originals, and as a fan, what appeals to you most?

2) A Red Death, easy Rollins mysteries.
I've never heard of these, but my instant thought connection is to the 'Rollins reliable baking company' that publishes Anne (of Green Gables/Avonlea's short story). Am i alone here?!? Does Rollins actually exist?!?

3) I suspect I may have a major problem, scientifically, with The Cleft, but can you tell me who wrote it? I think I should probably read it... it definitely sounds intriguing.

#169: Glad you enjoyed Whales on Stilts, Laurie. I hope you give The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen a try, too.

#168 - Ahem - Kiwidoc is of the female persuasion! *laughing*

#172-My apologies, kiwidoc! You should see what I get with my given name-neuter is probably the nicest! In any event, I've noted several of your books on my list, so you'll be seeing your name again.

#170 What do I like about the Kurt Wallender series? It's has a dedicated detective in a small town, with good plots twists and police procedure. Wallender is prone to acting on his own instincts, but that's true of most of the best popular detective series. Wallender is also essentially human and humane. The stories are generally set in Sweden, and, as an US reader, I have been astounded at how similar the problems of life are--somehow, life in a foreign country always sounds better. There are apparently a series of movies made for the Swedish audience about the books, but the Branagh movie is an attempt to introduce new audiences to this character.

Easy Rollins is a character by Walter Mosley--an American black man who served in WWII and returned to Los Angeles, California after the war. He grew up in Texas, lived in New Orleans, and he's a man trying to make his way. In the first novel, Devil in a Blue Dress, he becomes embroiled in a mystery involving murder and police corruption, acting as an amateur detective. This novel is the second in a series of novels following Easy as he starts working more avidly as a private detective.

The Cleft is by Doris Lessing, and you can't read the story as scientifically correct--it's a fable of sorts.

Just finished The Black Echo by Michael Connelly, the first of the Harry Bosch mysteries, on the plane to St. Louis. Tomorrow my ex and I drive to Ripon, Wisconsin to watch our son in the college production of The Imaginary Invalid. It's going to be cold!!!!!!

Prop2gether

I'm spending some time trying to figure out where many of my books are "hiding" and trying to organize at least a little and tonight i stumbled across Devil in a Blue Dress! I guess I'd better put that in my 999 mystery category--I've never read anything by Walter Mosely.

I've got The Black Echo on my library TBR list. Did you like it? This is also a new author for me.

Back from Wisconsin--with a head cold and sinus infection. Gotta love those 7-hour connecting flights!

Here are numbers 81 through 85:

The Black Echo by Michael Connelly
The Black Ice by Michael Connelly
Franklin Pierce by John DiConsiglio
The Rabbi's Cat by Joann Sfar
The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett

Connelly's books are the first and second in his Harry Bosch series. I had read a much later Harry Bosch novel at some point, and decided I wanted to read the series in order. So I made book 2 a 999 Challenge read which meant I had to read book 1. I am a fan of this Los Angeles detective who runs a lot on instinct. He's also operating out of Hollywood division (at least officially) which is home turf for me, so I love the details. I am ready for the next in series.

Franklin Pierce is part of the Presidential Challenge (although I will read another book) on his life or term. This particular biography is for an elementary/middle school reader to introduce the presidents. It was very basic, but it did have some great photos and prints in it to illustrate the history. Some of the sidebars were very basic, but age appropriate.

The Rabbi's Cat was on fannyprice's thread and sounded like fun. It's a graphic novel of an Algerian rabbi, his daughter, and the rabbi's cat. Actually three stories linked together, this was a delightful book as told by the cat. It's chockful of religious discussions (the cat wants to be bar mitzvahed and study Kaballah); family (the rabbi and his daughter); love (she finds her true love); prejudice and faith. I thoroughly enjoyed this little gem.

The Clothes They Stood Up In was found on TheTortoise/kiwidoc's thread, and it was a very charming fable with two plot twists, one major and one minor: a couple comes home from a night at the opera (Mozart, because that's all the husband listens to) to find their home literally stripped out--down to the blue toilet paper. He's a solicitor, she's a homebody--and their reactions and solutions are the heart of this story. I did enjoy it--thanks for the recommendation.

I love Harry Bosch!

#176 Me too! Also Kurt Wallender, for very similar reasons. And Captain Alatriste, but I'm waiting for the release of the next in order in an English translation.

Oh, Captain Alatriste is on my waiting list at the library! Have to read more to return books to pick up this one!

And numbers 87 through 91 are:

The Diary of a Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith
Earth by David Brin
Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates
The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier
Children of the Night by Dan Simmons
Murder in Perspective by Keith Miles (aka Edward Marston)

One 1001 Must Read, another from my 999 Challenge list, and one from another LT recommendation, plus two that caught my eye.

Have to come back for quick reviews. Time is flying....

#178

touchstone corrections :-)

Children of the Night by Dan Simmons.

Murder in Perspective by Keith Miles.

I'm interested in what you think of Earth. I read it many years ago, and was considering a reread. I was wondering whether some of the horrors it described are now or soon to be upon us, or whether it seemed terribly dated.

MM--the touchstones usually look good when I exit, but unless there's only ONE book with that exact title and author, sometimes it's hit or miss on the touchy touchstone. *sigh*

The Diary of a Nobody is on the 1001 Must Read list, but I think I picked it up because it's on someone's list in this group. In any event, it was a delightful diary of a middleclass man named Charles Pooter, who spends his time trying to keep up with the current styles and fashions, etc. His son, Lupin, is lazy and obnoxious; his best friends and named Cummings and Gowing (and they are constantly); his wife Carrie is his love and his exasperation; and he is truly irritated to be told that his diary may be just too dull to read. In fact, for us, it is a great reference for the middle class of the day (1890s) and illustrated by Weedon with great panache.

Earth is one of David Brin's books that I have started at least five or six times in the past, only to get bogged when he went "physics" in the text. This time I persevered past that point, and found myself increasingly involved in the storyline. Part science fact, part global warming warning, part internet warning, part privacy warning--all those topics David loves to lecture on at events, this book is also a love letter to the Earth itself. It's long, but I did enjoy the ride.

Zombie by Joyce Carol Oates was the story of Quentin P., as told by himself. Somewhat similar in style to Thompson's The Killer Inside Me, this was a short novel about a young man, loved by his mother, who frustrates his father and his sister, and who is trying to create his own personal slaves or zombies. It was horrific in parts, funny in parts (as Oates often can be), and a very fast read. It's not for everyone, but it is another of Oates' shorter novels that I would recommend to others.

The Brief History of the Dead by Kevin Brockmeier is two intermeshed stories told in alternating chapters. In the odd-numbered chapers, the undead (those who have died, but there is still someone living who remembers them) live out lives. They often do those things which they never did in "real life," including finding love or new occupations. The even-numbered chapters deal with Laura Byrd, a member of a Coca-Cola Antarctic expedition, who suddenly finds herself alone and sets out to be rescued. The stories slowly begin having common threads, and I found the ending most satisfying as a story--if not in possibility.

Children of the Night by Dan Simmons is a vampire book. I like most of Simmons' writing, and this one was certainly in the "B" level of his writing. I thought the premise interesting--that the Family actually suffers from a blood disorder which can be managed with modern medicine, but the ending of the story was so predictable that there was no surprise, even with the epilogue. However, for fans--recommended.

Murder in Perspective is the latest series of historical mysteries by Keith Miles aka Edward Marston. I thoroughly enjoy the Domesday series and the Elizabethan theatre series; I enjoy at a lesser level the ocean liner mysteries; and this was somewhere between. A young Welsh architect leaves the family firm to go to Arizona (eventually) to meet his idol, Frank Lloyd Wright. There is the murder of a young lady who befriended our hero, and he, as a suspect, must help find the murderer. Along the way, there are several questions about the hotel being built (who is really the architect); who is the mysterious Indian on the site; why is no one allowed in the brick factory; and so forth. As a cozy mystery, it worked.

The Diary of a Nobody and Murder in Perspective both sound good to me, so I will give them a try. Thanks for the recommendations!

Prop2gether.
You are zooming along with your reading! You are reading some very fascinating books. I read Zombie last year. I couldn't help but wonder how Joyce Carol Oates was able to portray the wicked creepy mind of the character so very well....

Thanks for the notes, again. Alcottacre, I hope you enjoy the books, but happy reading in any event. And Whisper, I'm usually intrigued by Oates' ability to make the story work. I don't generally care for her longer works, but her shorter novels are fascinating in this regard.

Now here are numbers 92 through 95:

Kipling's Choice by Geert Spillebeen
The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster
Shakespeare's Trollop by Charlaine Harris
Junky by Williams S. Burroughs

A quick thanks to carmenere for Kipling's Choice, found on her thread. The Lily Bard was next in order in a cozy mystery series. Both the Auster and Burroughs books are from the 1001 Must Read.

I'll be back with reviews.

#184: The Book of Illusions and Kipling's Choice have both been on the Continent for a while now to read, Laurie, so I cannot wait to see what you thought of them!

And, as noted above,

Kipling’s Choice was an amazing novelization of the death of Rudyard Kipling’s only son, John, on the battlefields of WWI shortly after John’s eighteenth birthday. Spillebeen uses interior monologues to tell the life of John, his relationship with his father, and his military experience. After reading the novel, I read several reviews denouncing Rudyard for “pushing” John to serve his country, but I believe that both men believed, as many do even now, that the best way to promote your country is to serve in the military. Rudyard was able to pull the strings for John that he had not been able to pull for himself years earlier. The horror is that John died as a result of what we call today “friendly fire” and that his body was never recovered for his parents to bury. This novelization is listed as YA, which frankly shocked me. It’s very intense and, like Johnny Got His Gun and All Quiet on the Western Front (both about WWI) and The Red Badge of Courage (the American Civil War), Spillebeen does not try to hide the grim consequences of young men fighting. Highly recommended. Thanks to carmenere, on whose thread I originally found this book—it was fabulous.

The Book of Illusions is the latest of Paul Auster’s novels that I've read, on the 1001 Must Read list, and I loved it. David Zimmer, a college professor in Vermont, has lost his wife and sons in an airline accident. Depressed and deliberately alone, he is sinking into drink and possibly suicide when he watches a special on silent film comedians. He finds himself laughing at the antics of Hector Mann, a comic who made only 12 films and disappeared entirely from Hollywood. Zimmer finds the films, originally thought lost, are scattered at centers throughout the world, and he sets out to watch them and ends up writing a book about them. The book elicits an invitation from Hector’s wife to visit them at their New Mexico home. Suspicious of the invitation (after all, the man has been presumed dead for nearly fifty years), Zimmer must decide what to do—accept or reject the invitation. The story links the lives of the two men, and there is a resolution which may or may not be illusory—the reader must decide. What I most enjoyed are the descriptions by Zimmer of the films he watches—you feel you are in the screening room with him watching each frame of each film, so carefully and lovingly are they presented to the reader. No wonder Mann issued an invitation to him! Recommended.

Shakespeare’s Trollop is the next in series of Charlaine Harris’s Lily Bard series, set in the small town of Shakespeare, Arkansas. This novel has a better mystery than several of the preceding books, but I have been enjoying watching Lily fill out as a character. Cozy mystery for fans (but read in order!).

Junky by William S. Burroughs is another 1001 Must Read novel, Burroughs’ first publication under a pseudonym by the new publishing company, Ace Publishing. The story of a junkie was written at about the same time as The Man With The Golden Arm, but Burroughs had significant problems first getting his book published, and then, getting it published as it was written or amended by him. The publishing history of the novel is nearly as interesting as following the narrator of Junky through his story. As one reviewer notes, this is not a story to have addicts read to break their habits—the narrator is far too direct about his habit, and the difficulties of breaking it. Very short, the edition I read (the “definitive”) includes both the original preface demanded by the publishers (to insure the public understood the “purpose” of the story), introductions to two later editions by Allen Ginsburg (who promoted the book to publishers) and Carl Solomon (the publisher), as well as a protest by Burroughs about the bowdlerization of the original copy. The street language is dated, but the story still rings true. Recommended.

I read Kipling's Choice in January of this year. It is one of my top reads thus far. I agree with you, I too was surprised to find this book in the YA section.

Wow! Numbers 96 though 100:

Lighthouse at the End of the World by Jules Verne
The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Real Murders by Charlaine Harris
White Butterfly by Walter Mosley

Another adventure, one more 1001 Must Read, a retelling of myth, and two mysteries (one cozy and one next in order with a favorite sleuth).

Lighthouse at the End of the World was made into a horrific film called “Light at the Edge of the World” starring Kirk Douglas, Yul Brynner, and Samantha Egger (as a female victim in a story where no women appear!). The effects are terrible (using the same shot for rising and setting suns, for example), the acting over the top, and, I’ve only seen this film once in many years! However, the book was much more action and fun. It’s not the romp that Around the World in Eighty Days or Journey to the Bottom of the Sea is, but a straightforward adventure yarn with lighthouse keepers versus pirates on an island at the tip of South America. Published posthumously and with lots of changes made by Verne’s son, this edition boasts it is the first English translation straight from Verne’s original manuscript. I skipped reading the annotations about the changes which Michel Verne had made, and just read the story—it sustained itself nicely and I recommend this version. There are notes about Verne and his life, the publishing history of the novel, and the annotations mentioned earlier, which made for an interesting read.

The New York Trilogy is three short novels which have a series of characters and situations which eventually overlap. I’ve read the first (City of Glass in two versions earlier, printed and graphic), but worked through Ghosts and Locked Room. I’ve enjoyed other Auster novels more, but followed the alienation of self them for a New Yorker through these works. Of the three novels, I was most comfortable with Locked Room, which seemed more grounded than the first two novels in the series. I suspect it’s a book which should be reread after a time in order to “get” some of Auster’s implications, but there are other books to read at the moment. I may come back in a year or so to resample this work, now that I have an idea of who is who and what appears to be happening in the stories.

The Penelopiad is one a series of books in a rewritten myth series, and Margaret Atwood did an outstanding job telling Penelope’s story of life with (and without Odysseus). She uses inner monologues from Penelope augmented by choral presentations by her twelve maids (who were slain by Odysseus and Telemachus)—I really enjoyed the work as written and look forward to others in this series.

Real Murders is the first Aurora Teagarden mystery. Having read most of the Lily Bard series by Charlaine Harris, I figured I would try another of Harris’s series to see if my interest in her work carried over to other characters. Roe is a librarian (Lily is a housecleaner) in another small town, but the initial premise of having murders based on real murders and implicating the members of a club which studies real murders was a good base. I did enjoy the book, so I’ll try another.

White Butterfly is the next in series of Walter Mosley’s books about Easy Rollins. Now Easy’s married with both his adopted son and a new baby daughter, and living his life. However, once again, he is hauled into undercover private investigative work by police authorities who cannot work where he does in the Watts neighborhood. A series of murdered black street girls is the prompt, but only steps up when a white co-ed is murdered in the same fashion and his friend Mouse is arrested. Will Easy find the killer? Will his marriage survive the upheaval? Will he return to the investigative work he enjoys, but which is dangerous?

Currently reading several books trying to get my library loans down to a manageable size and get a few off my home TBR lists!

Glad to see the good review of The Penelopiad as I bought this one recently on Whisper's recommendation. I am hoping to get to it in the next couple of weeks.

As always, great job on this week's reviews! I completely understand trying to get the library loans down to a manageable size :)

#189 alcottacre, I also very much enjoyed The Penelopiad - it's cleverly done.

#188 Prop2gether, that's interesting, I had a very similar reaction to The New York trilogy when I read it last year (and also read City of Glass in graphic format prior to reading the trilogy!). Definitely one to re-read, but not just yet...

congratulations on not only meeting, but surpassing the 75 challenge goal. Ditto what flissp said about The Penelopiad.

Need to list these before I lose the note on my desk, with reviews to follow:

Murder on the Caronia by Conrad Allen (aka Edward Marston)
The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
Rashomon by Ryunosuke Akutagary
The Silver Metal Lover by Tanith Lee

This group includes one from my 999 List, one from an 75er thread, and one from the 1001 Must Read list.

I'll be interested to see your reviews of this batch.

I have Marston's The Railway Detective on my TBR pile.

I really enjoyed The Winter Queen.

I've seen the film "Rashomon" but never read the book and will be interested to see if it was worth picking up.

I wasn't wild about The Silver Metal Lover...it's the only Lee I've read and I found myself wondering why everyone seems to rave about her. I guess I'm just deficient in taste. :-)

Murder on the Caronia is the next in series for me of the stories involving the man/woman detective team on the Cunard line in the twenties (or so). This edition was cleaner in plot, better character development, and I didn’t guess all the villains before they were revealed—I do enjoy Conrad (aka Keith Miles aka Edward Marston) in the various series I’ve read. This book also completes a 999 Challenge read for me (Mysteries: Next in Series by Author). And TadAD, I really like the train series, so enjoy!

The Winter Queen I found on Sten’s thread (thanking TadAD) and I, too, enjoyed this first in series Russian mystery featuring a truly wet-behind the ears Erast Fandoris as a beginning detective in Tsarist Russia. There were some plot devices which were “convenient,” but for the most part, they were not interruptive and I am looking forward to another mystery with Fandoris. Thanks guys!

Rashomon is a collection of short stories by Japanese writer Ryunosuke Akutagawa. One of the stories is “In the Grove,” movie watchers are probably familiar with either the Japanese adapations, or the American film starring Paul Newman as a Mexican bandit and Lawrence Harvey and Claire Bloom as a newlywed couple. The bandit meets the couple on the road, and the husband ends up dead. What happened? The story is told by the various participants, but who is telling the truth is the major question. This edition had five or six other stories, all of which were interesting—some poignant, some provocative—recommended (also on the 1001 Must Read list).

The Silver Metal Lover: While I found this on Severn’s thread and was interested, I was seriously disappointed in this book and Tanith Lee. Had I read it when published, I would not be reading her works today. The story is banal--rich (emphasized often!) teenaged girl under mother's thumb with small circle of friends, some of whom are not friendly, sees a sophisticated robot and falls in love. When robot is threatened with destruction, she wheedles true friend into buying it, and robot and girl run away to become street musicians. They are found out and girl must go on, knowing she had her true love. The heroine weeps copiously, at every opportunity (it's her main character flaw in the story). She also whines incessantly, which, while typical of a 16YO, is also very annoying. The robot is handsome, true, faithful, has a great sense of humor, and is doomed. True friends are true friends. This is a book for fans.

Thanks! :-)

of those mentioned, I think The Winter Queen is the one I would most like and thus will add to my list.

A new series, ooh, ooh! Thanks Laurie, It sounds wonderful!

I have read a couple of the Fandorin books by Akunin and liked them both. I hope you get to enjoy more of the series!

>188 Prop2gether:: the Myths series is interesting, but I think the quality is patchy... I haven't read all of them yet, but of those I have, there were one or two I didn't think worked (The Fire Gospel was a huge disappointment to me, for example). But the good ones are really, really good.

#199, Flossie, I think that's true of any rewriting--some of the Fairy Tales Series are meh, others are fabulous. Same thing with collections. I have the Pelevin rewrite of the Hercules story, and it's a bear--I need to just sit and read it.

ooh, Rashomon sounds right up my street - onto the list it goes!

I'm *quite certain* that I have Rashomon sitting on a shelf somewhere...
I hope to get to it soon enough. I've heard so many things about the movie that I wanted to see it really badly but of course how can I see the movie without having read the book first? (blasphemy!) So I went ahead and bought the book. But it lays forgotten there for months now *sigh*

Thanks for the review!

Posting books through the end of March, with reviews to follow:

Nos. 105 though 114:

Shakespeare's Counselor by Charlaine Harris
James Madison by Garry Wills
One for the Money by Janet Evanovich
A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov
The Leopard by Guiseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa
The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley
My letter to the world by Emily Dickinson
Arcanum 17 by Andre Breton
Up at the Villa

Gotta run-work stuff to do....

Wow, you are moving right along with your reading. 114!!! Good job! Whoo hoo!!!

I am envious. 114 books! I'll be watching for your review of The Haunted Bookshop. I obtained this one via Amazon but haven't read it yet.

Still lurking about :)

So here are my comments on part of the list:

Shakespeare’s Counselor is the last in the series of Lily Bard’s mystery adventures in Shakespeare, Arkansas. *sigh* The series was getting stronger, but it looks like other characters and storylines have Charlaine Harris’s attention. If she writes another, however, I will read it.

James Madison by Gary Wills was for the President Challenge. While a fairly complete short biography, I found Wills’ style (trying to be folksy?) annoying. I will be watching for another biography to read to balance the story, especially as I am reading Roosevelt’s The Naval War of 1812, which, since it is one of the leading naval histories and concerns the war we fought under Madison, and it’s not very complimentary to the Madison administration.

My RL book club is having a special meeting in July on sleuths, so I’m reading a few I’ve never read before. Thus, One for the Money with Stepanie Plum being introduced for the first time. The book was fun, but I found Stephanie derivative, especially compared to Laura DiPalma, Kinsey Millhone, and V.I. Warshawsky—all of whom appeared long before Stephanie did. Still—another series to read that appears to have a nice sense of humor, plus Granny Mazur.

A Hero of Our Time by Mikhail Lermontov is on the 1001 Must Read, and is the story of a young officer who dies in a duel. Sounds simple, but the story is constructed through testimony of two men who knew him, plus extracts from his personal diaries—and the story is not told in a linear time fashion. There are love affairs, kidnapping, war, and family, all wrapped up in a book where the title is not as straightforward as it appears. I did enjoy this novel and recommend it, and to read it in the author’s order (out of sequence) for best effect.

The Leopard by Giuseppi Tomasi Di Lampedusa (also on the 1001 Must Read) was an interesting compare and contrast with Lermontov’s work. Each author wrote one published novel which was very personal, and one died young shortly after the second edition was published, and the other died as an old man who had been told his book was unpublishable. This story is about a family in Sicily during the period of Garibaldi and the unification of Italy. The changes wrought in his family, the society around him, specifically because of the outside politics, are the heart of the story. Recommended.

So, on to the rest....

Granny Mazur is a hoot. There are some of the Stephanie Plum books that make my side hurt from laughing so hard.

YoYou are reading such interesting books. I'm particularly interested in The Leopard.

The Haunted Bookshop by Christopher Morley is a not quite as clever or fun sequel to Parnassus on Wheels. However, both books are pure ecstasy for book lovers—

It saddens me to think that I shall have to die with thousands of books unread that would have given me noble and unblemished happiness. I will tell you a secret. I have never read King Lear, and have purposely refrained from doing so. If I were ever very ill, I would only need to say to myself “You can’t die yet, you haven’t read Lear.” That would bring me round, I know it would.

*sigh* says it all, doesn’t it?

General Winston’s Daughter by Sharon Shinn is one from my 999 Challenge, from a list of books proposed last year by Ronincats. Thank you! It was a delightful read (marked YA in my local library) of a young lady who follows her father and fiancé to a war zone (other dependents are also in the city). She’s introduced to a totally new culture and finds herself reassessing her preconceptions because one soldier escort talks about his heritage in a similarly occupied country. Highly readable, full of teen angst (but in a good way), and a couple of neat twists add to a recommendation from here.

My Letter to the World is a very slim volume I saw mentioned on Whisper’s thread—and it is a visual delight. Seven of Emily Dickinson’s poems are illustrated by Isabell Arsenault. I loved the presentation and only wished the volume had more pages.

I’ll have to follow up on Arcanum 17 and Up at the Villa later.

One quarter of the year gone already!!

#207: The only reason I continue to read the Stephanie Plum series is because of Grandma Mazur. I am going to be her when I grow up!

I agree with you about Harris' Shakespeare series. I am sorry her other series took over because Lily Bard was growing over time and I miss that.

#209 I agree that The Haunted Bookshop does not have the same charm as Parnassus on Wheels, but they are both delightful.

I will be looking forward to seeing your comments on Roosevelt's book. I am wondering if he was a good writer. Having recently finished Mornings on Horseback in which McCullough extolls Roosevelt for his research and detail, I was considering at least trying it.

Here are my thoughts on the last two books listed earlier:

Arcanum 17 (published with Apertures) by Andre Breton was one of the strangest reading experiences I’ve had. Very short (around 120 pages), but very dense, it was like reading Alice’s diary of visiting Wonderland if she (and not the Caterpillar) had been smoking that pipe! Breton is a surrealist and I felt every bit of his theories and prose about war and women and the future and myths. And then, just when I was feeling like this was an exercise in futility, some story or prose would grab me:

Humanity’s aspirations for liberty must always be given the power to recreate themselves endlessly; that’s why it must be thought of not as a state but as a living force bringing about continual progress. Besides, that is the only way in which it can continue to oppose constraint and servitude, which themselves are continually recreated in the most ingenious fashion.

Or

As for me, I remain faithful to the conviction that action, even in the rigorous and unquestioned form it takes today for those who fight in the name of liberty, will only be valuable so long as our interpretation of the world, at the same time, will not have the brakes slammed on it, that is to say that one continues to seek to know, without absurd illusions, what this liberty might consist of.

I'll probably come back to this at some point, but it was exhausting reading!

Up at the Villa by W. Somerset Maugham was pushed to the top of my TBR after reading about it on kiwidoc’s thread. What a delight this novel was to read. A questionable death provides the road to true love-isn’t that a delicious thought?

And numbers 115 through 119:

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Acebe
The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson
The King’s Gold by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Coraline by Neil Gaiman
The Helmut of Horror by Victor Pelevin

No Longer at Ease is the middle book by Chinua Acebe of the two on the 1001 Must Read Things Fall Apart and Arrow of God. As with many sequels or middle books, it is not as strong a story as the first, but I am glad I read it. As part of a trilogy, there are emotional and character tie-ins which build as you read. This is a very sad story of circumstances not working for a man of principle.

The Clue of the Linoleum Lederhosen by M. T. Anderson was the second in series after Whales on Stilts featuring the threesome of Katie, Lily, and Jaspar to solve the kidnapping of the Quints (nicknamed Do, Re, Mi, Fa, and Sol), with the assistance (or interruptions) of the Manley Boys, Cutesy Dell Twins, and Eddie Wax. As much fun as it sounds, I listened to an audio presentation by Marc Cashman, and my only complaint is I really wish he had properly pronounded “lederhosen.”

The King’s Gold by Arturo Perez-Reverte is the next in order of Captain Alatriste’s adventures which have been published in English. I love this series, but it must be read in order because the narrator is also growing up through the stories. Written about a period of decline in Spanish history, with duels and intrigue and piracy—about a man of honor in dishonorable times.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman was a choice because I wanted to read the book before seeing the movie. Lavishly illustrated, it is a relatively simple story of a young girl who finds a parallel world behind a door that is full of horrible possibilities. Listed as YA, I had no issue with the topics involved for middle school level, but it might be a bit intense for younger children.

The Helmut of Horror by Victor Pelevin is a retelling of the Theseus/Minotaur story, a part of the series which includes The Penelopiad by Atwood which I recently read. Pelevin opted to tell the story as a chatroom where various characters try to figure out where they are , why they are apparently caught in a maze, where Theseus (and the Minotaur) are, and how to get back into the real world. Initially, the story and characters reminded me quite a bit of characters in a film of several years back called “The Cube,” where characters are trying to find their way out of a maze. I truly disliked the film when I saw it, and thus, the book was not going well. At some point, I did get involved with the characters, but I felt the resolution of the story was a cop-out. It read like Pelevin simply just decided to end the discussions. According to the blurbs, this book is typical of Pelevin’s writing, so if you are a fan, you will probably enjoy it far more than I did.

Now I’m off to finish a batch of library books including The Sun Also Rises, Lost in a Good Book (on CD and a delight!), From the Earth to the Moon, and Cryptonomicon.

mmmmmmmmmm Hemingway!!! Reading For Whom the Bell Tolls Now now! Hope you're enjoying him.

Sounds like you had a great reading week! I've heard a lot of people say that Coraline might be a bit too scary for kids, but I (respectfully) disagree with that. It's the kind of book that might scare them yes, but it will also stay with them. The kind of book that you can imagine being read by someone around a campfire in the middle of the night - and the children are scaring one another but having the time of their lives.
That, at least, is the image I have in my head. :)

#215, yes, for the first time in a very long time, I am enjoying Hemingway. In school, I was not interested enough to stay with the books we had on our lists. Maybe I just got old enough to appreciate the works again.

#216-I think Coraline might be a bit much for younger children (the idea of having buttons sewn in your face to replace your eyes, or the recurring nightmares), but my children would have enjoyed it immensely at fifth or sixth grade level (or at about 10 YO or so), partly because there are dimensions to the story. And yes, partly because it's a great campfire type of story.

And numbers 120 through 122:

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
Lost in a Good Book (audio) by Jasper Fforde
From the Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne

Another 1001 Must Read in Hemingway, but the first novel I've read of his in many years. At some point, I got tired of all the superlatives about Hemingway's style and I just couldn't get into the books. This was a great reintroduction and the between WW story of disillusioned expatriots Jake Barnes and Lady Ashley and their companions was well worth the wait. Highly recommended.

The audio version of Lost in a Good Book was performed by Elizabeth Sastre as Thursday Next, and I was highly entertained by the performance. It redeemed the slickness of the first novel and made Thursday more interesting. This time around Thursday's main companion is Miss Havesham from Great Expectations, who is a regular demon in any vehicle on the road. What a hoot! I enjoyed this book much more than the first and I give most of the credit to Ms. Sastre's performance.

From the Earth to the Moon is the latest Jules Verne I've read, and while the logistics of getting to the moon have certainly changed from the 1800's writing of this novel, it was still interesting to note how much is still accurate, and how the characters responded to incidents strikingly similar to those of Apollo 13.

Currently listening to Joe Morton reading Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and it is a fabulous performance; reading Cryptonomicon, The Child in Time, and Bonjour Tristesse. Also trying VERY hard to stay from the $1 book store!

Cryptonomicon is on my must-read list this year, so I will be anxious to see your input on that one. Currently I am reading the first book in Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Quicksilver, in anticipation of reading Cryptonomicon.

I read The Child in Time last year and thought it was very good. Hope you enjoy it!

Well, I went to the $1 book store twice in two days--argh!!! Plus one trip buying and one not to my local book store. I'm stacking again....

In any event, numbers 123 through 126 are:

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan
Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons
The Book About Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist
The Child in Time by Ian McEwan

I'll have to review at a later date, but I wanted to get the titles in before I left for Ripon, Wisconsin again for a week. *sigh* One more trip after this--for graduation ceremonies!

Laurie

Safe travels!

Thanks! And I made it back--whew! Started out yesterday with snow and 34 degrees in Appleton and arrived in LA to 92 degrees at 5pm, slightly higher in the San Fernando Valley!

And--saw the last of the film version of Bonjour Tristesse quite by accident this weekend as well. Starring Jean Seberg, David Niven, and Deborah Kerr, and directed by Otto Preminger, it appears to be pretty true to the book.

Which comes to my last listings and included a thriller for fun and three 1001 Must Read books found on threads in this group:

Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan is a novella told by a teenager about a teenager's attempt to insure that her father's lifestyle doesn't change. Released from a convent school, Cecile is taught to dress by a friend of her mother's (Anne), and then is quite happily involved in her father's somewhat dissolute life. When Dad, his current amorata, Elsa, and Cecile go on vacation to the Riviera, Cecile is astounded to discover Anne is coming to visit. Anne, who is decorum personified, becomes engaged to Cecile's father, and Elsa is ousted. Cecile spends her time being romanced by a local med student and plotting how to get rid of Anne, replace her with Elsa, and get Daddy back on track. A relatively simple story, well told, which I recommend.

Darwin's Blade by Dan Simmons--a thriller featuring an accident reconstructionist who finds himself involved in all sorts of intrigue. I like Simmons' work generally, and I enjoyed this story. This is a thriller with guns and action and accidents and all the stuff that goes into those stories.

The Book About Blanche and Marie by Per Olov Enquist is a fictionalized account of the relationship between Blanche Wittman and Marie Curie, as told through Blanche's diaries. It has two foci: Blanche and her relationships with various doctors who treated her; and Marie with her husbands (especially Pierre) and her short-term lover. It is the discovery of the love affair which sparks much of what happens. Blanche is essentially attempting to define love and its permutations, and not finding it easy. This is on the 1001 Must Read list, and while I didn't love the book, I found it intriguing.

The Child in Time by Ian McEwan is the first book by this author that I've finished reading--and I enjoyed it. (I cannot seem to get through Atonement, although I've started it several times). In this story, also on the 1001 Must Read list, parents have lost a child--literally--the toddler disappeared in the market when she and her dad were shopping one day. The story is focused on the father, but his parents and the mother, are strong parts of the story. It is a story of healing, forgiving oneself, and moving forward (sometimes through going back in time). This one I recommend.

And numbers 127 through 130 are:

The Detective and Mr. Dickens by William J. Palmer
Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe
Foe by J. M. Coetzee
The Stettheimer Dollhouse edited by Sheila W. Clark (An Early Reviewer)

Reviews to come later....

Glad you enjoyed Bonjour Tristesse! I think Francoise Sagan is someone that many people just can't get on with, but I've always enjoyed her...

The Child in Time sounds like something I should read (I have an insecure relationship with Ian McEwan...)

...Coraline's also going on my re-read list for this week - I'm going to an early 3D screening of it with Neil Gaiman and Henry Selick at the British Film Institute on the South Bank in London soon and I'm very excited about it!

I'll be interested in your thoughts on Foe (which I read last year) and Cryptonomicon (which I can't seem to get into, despite liking his other stuff)...

Of the recent books listed, I'm most drawn to The Child in Time. Thanks for your excellent reviews of all!

Laurie, I read A Child in Time last year on Cariola's recommendation, and agree with you - it is very good. I have not read Atonement and have no desire to, but I did read McEwan's Saturday and thought it very good as well, so you might want to give that one a try.

Stasia--May I ask why you are so determined not to read Atonement? I have read 5 or 6 or McEwan's novels, including A Child in Time and Saturday, and Atonement was the one I liked best.

#226: The story line is one that does not appeal, Deborah. Nothing more or less than that.

Looking forward to your thoughts on Arrow of God

The Detective and Mr. Dickens by William J. Palmer was found on Fantasia655's thread, and, while I enjoyed the story with the characters (basically the Detective, Charles Dickens, and Wilkie Collins as the narrator) solving a murder mystery and setting up how Dickens found his late-life love, Ellen Ternan, I found the blurbs and subtitle talk about the Macbeth murdersto be totally irrelevant to the story. I did find Palmer's written dialect off-putting at times, but he is a scholar of the era, so he's probably correct. It was just irritating at points. However, I was engaged by the mystery and characters. Some reviews have commented on the sexual overtness of part of the story line, but this is, after all, a murder mystery, and I found that part of the story no worse than several writers dealing with the current era. It was kind of a romp for me, since I enjoy both Dickens and Collins.

Arrow of God is third part of Chinua Achebe's African Trilogy of works, two of which (this is one) are on the 1001 Must Read list. I was not as engaged with this story as much as I was with the second in the series (No Longer at Ease), but it was certainly worth the read. Achebe captures the heartache of colonial attitudes on both sides of the issue very ably.

Foe is something of a puzzle for me. I'm not sure I enjoyed the read, and lots of it irritated me. Much of the structure of the story reminded me of Muriel Spark's Robinson in that the female narrator is stranded on an island with two men for a time and she is the focus of the story. In Foe, she meets a man named Cruso who refused to keep any sort of diary and is planning to raise corn just as soon as seeds come to the island. This Friday is mute and she has dreams about who mutilated him and why. When Cruso dies on the rescue ship, she and Friday are forced to fend for themselves in London, where she tries first to sell the story to a writer (deeply in debt) named Foe, then starts writing it herself. The story after the rescue is really more about the process of developing and writing a story than the story itself which we started reading. Another 1001 Must Read, but I'm not sure if this one belongs on the list. Coetzee's works have been hit or miss with me, and I loved Waiting for the Barbarians and really disliked Disgrace, so this is more like Slow Man--somewhere in between.

One more thought about Foe--the title itself is something of a play on words, leaving you, as the reader, to decide who is the "foe" or enemy which must be subdued for the story.

Finally, The Stettheimer Dollhouse from Pomegranite Press is a beautiful picture book of a lovingly handmade dollhouse, worked on between around 1919 and 1940. It has some gorgeous original artwork, and was created to show typical living styles of the "rich and famous" of the era. The book itself is a re-edit of the original guide to the dollhouse and the text is somewhat dry, but the pictures are stunning. The dollhouse is on display at the Museum of the City of New York and, when next in that burg, I hope to see it. Having seen Queen Mary's dollhouse at Windsor, and having worked on my daughter's dollhouse a bit, I in awe of the craftsmanship involved in making teensy tiny things for these houses.

#184 - Yeah I'm behind a bit. Thanks for the props but I need to bestow those props onto Whisper who recommended the book on her thread.
Kipling's Choice was quite a read, wasn't it? It is one I'll remember for a long time.

#209 I simply adored The Haunted Bookshop. What a wonderful shop to have owned. My secret dream! Anyway, I guess I should add Parnassus onto my TBR's. The title has been scaring me off. It sounds too, I don't know, too ambiguous. That's it, what's a parnassus anyway?

Great thread by the way Prop2

I purchased The Haunted Bookshop a year ago and it sits on my bookshelf.

I need to stop visiting the library and start reading books that I've purchased....

Oh, if only I had al life unencumbered by a job and other demands...one wherein I could read library books and those on the shelf..

#227 O.K one more before I hit the sack. I'm with Stasia on this one. Atonement was my least favorite McEwan's novel. But I do think it deserves a reread. Perhaps I wasn't in the mood? But I just don't care for the premise being based on a misunderstanding. It's like all the Three's Company episodes, remember that show? I think that they are all based on a misunderstanding and it's frustrating.

#232

Parnassus: "(Greek mythology) a mountain in central Greece where (according to Greek mythology) the Muses lived; known as the mythological home of music and poetry; "Liakoura is the modern name of Mount Parnassus"

I read both The Haunted Bookshop and Parnassus on Wheels and loved them both, but Parnassus was the better of the two. I encourage you to give it a try. I think you'll like it!

#232 Ahh, Thanks for clearing that up for me lorie. I have heard Parnassus is the better of the two from 3 or 4 people...............so it's definately on my list.

#233 Whisper, I say that to myself all the time. I have great books at home to read but I can't stay away from the library and its booksales. Which has one coming up in about a week..........I'm already getting tingly inside.

#236: I agree with Lorie - Parnassus on Wheels is the better of the two, although I think The Haunted Bookshop is still not a bad read.

Parnassus on Wheels is also the beginning of the story, which is more dynamic than the story of The Haunted Bookshop. But anything about people who love books--*sigh*--gotta love 'em!

So, since I keep running into the BBC list in this group, here's my account:

* If read
# If started and put down

*1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
*2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien Note: 3 Novels in series
*3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
*4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling Note: 7 Novels in series
*5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
*6 The Bible
*7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
*8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
*9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman Note: 3 Novels in series
*10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
*11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
#12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
*13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
*14 Complete Works of Shakespeare Note: 37-39 Plays plus Sonnets
*15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
*16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
*17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
*18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
*21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
*22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
*24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
*27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
*28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
*29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
*30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
*32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
*33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis Note: 6 Novels in series
*34 Emma - Jane Austen
*35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
*36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe Note: Part of #33
*37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
*39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
*40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne Note: 2 Novels; 2 Poetry Volumes
*41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
*42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
#43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
#44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
*48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
*49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
#50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
*51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
*52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
*54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
*56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
*57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
*58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
*59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
#60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
*61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
*62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
*64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
#67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
#68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
*71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
*72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
*73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
*76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
*81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
*83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
*86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
*87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
*88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
*89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
*91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
*92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
*94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
*95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
*96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
*98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
*99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
#100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

For a grand total (if my math is correct) of 62 off the list (although it's really more when you count complete series listing), plus another 8 or so started but not finished. However, several are on my 999 Challenge this year, so that will prove interesting.

Just for fun, I'm also working through the BBC's list of 1000 Films--that's an eclectic bunch of celluloid!

LOL! It's really 1000 films the BBC lists, not a measly 100 films.

So numbers 131 through 137 are:

Black Betty by Walter Mosley (next in order for Easy Rollins)
ENIAC by Scott McCarthy – 999
Saving Juliet by Suzanne Selfors – 999
Fifteen Animals! by Sandra Boynton
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman - 999
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman - 999
The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman – 999

Black Betty was a more traditional PI story involving Easy Rollins, and, because Mosley spaces his stories years apart, there’s built-in interest as to what has been happening to Easy and his family and friends. I enjoy the series and I enjoyed this book.

ENIAC is the story of the two men who conceived and built both ENIAC and UNIVAC, generally considered the first modern computers. While probably too dry for some, I was fascinated by the story of how and where and why the projects originated and the somewhat sad outcomes for these men of vision. And yet—without them, we would be a penpal club instead of a website group. Recommended.

Saving Juliet is a fun take on the Shakespearean play, which I found on the ALA Young Adult recommended reading lists. The story was more interesting than some of the characters--magic travel from a theatre performing as Juliet to a world where Romeo and Juliet are live characters, speaking modern American English. True love (and better career choice) prevails, after much travail, and a fair amount of plot manipulation, but for its young adult audience bored with Shakespeare, this might be a cute side story.

Fifteen Animals! by Sandra Boynton. I love Sandra Boynton’s wit and books, and have always considered her board books (this is one) pure classics. Based on a similar device as But Not the Hippopotamus!, this book is a counting book of animals where all the animals are named “Bob.” Well, almost all the animals are named Bob. Just a fun read.

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass were a mini-marathon for me. I got started on one, went right to the second, and finished the third—all within a three-day period. Obviously the pace and story caught my imagination and, while I know there’s lots of arguments about the theological aspects of the books, at basic levels, it’s simply an action thriller where smart girl uses friends and family to save the world. By book 2, she’s in league with smart boy and they are the objects of desire for evildoers for the rest of the story. I really enjoyed this series and recommend it.

Prop - With all of the great books that you read, I'm a little embarassed that I'm clicking "post a message" to comment on . . . Fifteen Animals!. I agree with you - I love Boynton. My favorite is Barnyard Dance. I must have read it hundreds of times to my kids when they were little. (And, by the way, I've added tons of your other reads to my TBR too!)

#240 what a wonderful selection of books you've read/or not read. Some I have read too and some that you started and put aside I've read and enjoyed. Did you put them down because you did not like them? For example, Les Miserables is one of my favorites, Jude the Obscure, I too started but have never finished, I found it depressing. Atonement I read but disliked. And a couple of your selections I'm not familliar with but will look into them, thanks for sharing them.

In referring to the His Dark Materials series... that's what I say: ignore the dissidents, read the books as FICTION. More than anything, I thought Pullman did an excellent job at writing a compelling tale that didn't hold back, and I appreciated that. I think the second book got weak in a few places, but I still enjoyed the series as a whole. And on top of that, it sparked my interest in 'dark matter' and quantum string theory! Not that I can understand any of it beyond a very elementary conversation (and I do mean elementary), but I had some excellent discussions with other people about theoretical science, which is something I'd not done before. And it was thanks to these books!

#242 porch_reader, never be embarrassed by Sandra Boynton! (Or Dr. Seuss or Baum or Milne for that matter.) My favorite "adult" Boynton is Chocolate: The Consuming Passion, but I love The Going to Bed Book; Moo, Baa, La La La; Blue Hat, Green Hat; Opposites; and, of course, But Not the Hippopotamus. They are fun, they are smart, children love them, and adults can stand reading them over and over and over again.

#243 Carmenere, of the books I've started but not finished on the list shown at #240, there are usually two main reasons. One is that I found the writing boring or the story just didn't catch me. Sometimes with a translated book, that is simply that the translation was too literal and made the work seem tedious. The other is that I was not in the right frame of mind or mood to read that author or that book. I have tried to read at least three Hardy novels, after seeing good productions of the works, and simply couldn't get into the stories on the page. And I just can't seem to get into Atonement at all. I keep reading sections out of order, so I've probably actually read the entire novel--just not as the author wrote it.

#244 dk_phoenix--that was my modus operandi here. Of course, that was what I did with the Narnia books years ago--just read the stories and enjoy. I, too, found the Pullman books compelling as a read. The second book was more disjointed than the first and third, but altogether--a nice job.

Thanks to you three as well for recommendations sitting on my TBR lists.

>209 Prop2gether: I love that quote about King Lear. It would have to be something other title for me, but it's something worth considering ;->

LOL Saw these two titles together in a post, Lost in a Good Book & From the Earth to the Moon, and wanted to find something to read by Pearl S. Buck -- funny how the mind does those associations.

And re Pullman, I enjoyed his YA mystery The Ruby in the Smoke but have read that others did not have the same reaction.

Enjoyed your thread -- but that's no surprise.

Susan, I read the first two of Pullman's Victorian mysteries, and like you, I enjoyed them. My only complaint was that he did something in the second book that made me so upset that I never bothered to read the next two. They sit forlorn on my shelf... but that was well over a year ago now, and I think I'm sufficiently recovered to get back to them!

>244 dk_phoenix: I thought it all went a bit mental in Amber Spyglass. Of the three, I still think I liked Northern Lights the best.

Okay, here's my responses, such as they are, to the questions running around the group:

1) What author do you own the most books by? Shakespeare, because I have individual copies of all the plays, plus anthologies, plus commentary versions. Otherwise, there are three mystery series writers (Hillerman, Jonathan Kellerman, and Sue Grafton), and two science fiction writers (Asimov and Frank Herbert).

2) What book do you own the most copies of? I have multiple dictionaries and thesauruses, a couple of Bibles, and, for some obscure reason, three copies of Moby Dick.

3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions? Nope. And I’m an editor/teacher/grammarian outside of my regular job. I get more upset with misspelled possessives.

4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with? Oh please, Fitzwilliam Darcy on the printed page; Indiana Jones onscreen.

5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)? Dune, Gone With the Wind, The Stand –each more than five times.

6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old? Anything by Albert Payson Terhune or Margarite Henry.

7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year? I’ve been blasted by the author for honestly commenting on this one before, so I’m not telling.

8) What is the best book you've read in the past year? Kipling’s Choice and Antsy Does Time. Both YA, curiously enough, but lots of others I’ve greatly enjoyed and which I recommend.

9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be? I did “force” three of my siblings and two children to read Dune, but one my favorite recommendations for a single read is The Human Comedy by William Saroyan.

10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature? Not for me to decide, only to say the Committee selected well or it did a poor job. Much more fun to be a critic than a selector.

11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie? I’m a movie fan in any event, so no particular work comes to mind.

12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie? Ditto answer to #11.

13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character. None comes to mind.

14) What is the most "lowbrow" book you've read as an adult? Lots of options here, but I don’t regret having read anything “lowbrow” nearly as much as I have regretted some “highbrow” reads.

15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read? In the last year, it was Grimus, but in a general way, it’s Thomas Hardy. I like the film and television adaptations, but I get bogged in the writing.

16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen? Timon of Athens or Cymbeline—seen them all on stage, on the BBC presentations, and several films. These two rank right at the obscure level for most people, including me. Unless, of course, you are including Two Noble Kinsmen in the “official” list, in which case, it’s really obscure.

17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians? Russians. You can pretty much depend on a story and style, even through the modern writers.

18) Roth or Updike? Don’t like either, so it’s a tie.

19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers? Like Sedaris, haven’t read Eggers.

20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer? Shakespeare, but you can probably tell that by now.

21) Austen or Eliot? Austen, but I like Eliot as well.

22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading? Anything I should have read in English or World Lit classes and didn't.

23) What is your favorite novel? It’s a toss-up between three: The Human Comedy; The Stand; and Dune.

24) Play? Harvey by Mary Chase. It’s got humor, pathos, family, and a 6-foot 2-inch pookah to boot.

25) Poem? My very two favorites since I was very little are “Vespers” by A. A. Milne and “The Swing” by Robert Louis Stevenson. I like Emily Dickenson, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Robert Browning.

26) Essay? Currently, it’s Why I Write by George Orwell.

27) Short story? The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry—still can’t be beat.

28) Work of nonfiction? Isaac’s Storm by Eric Larson—a fabulous history of the 1902 hurricane that hit Galveston and helped create the National Weather Service.

29) Who is your favorite writer? Hmm, so many to choose from. . . .

30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today? Bret Easton Ellis.

31) What is your desert island book? The collected works of William Shakespeare.

32) And... what are you reading right now? Cryptonomicon, Beyond the Horizon, Two for the Dough, and The Blinding Absence of Light.

#249/4: What? You didn't fall in love with the screen version of Darcy on PBS' Masterpiece? I don't know that I'm in love with the print Darcy, but I wanted to crawl through the TV during the show!

>250 tloeffler: Oh, me too, Terri! And we got Catey to watch it a week or so ago, so now she's in love too!

Prop, isn't it time for a thread sequel?

Absolutely that's why I fell in love again with Darcy (first time was seeing Lawrence Olivier) and then reread the novel. I can only see Colin Firth when I read the novel. *sigh*

Same thing happened with the Horatio Hornblower novels--saw Ioan Gruffudd and was lost forever--had to read the novels and he's so perfect as the man!

new address:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/63830#1243471

Or Prop2gether 2009, Act 2