Group Reading Log: February 2009

I'm kicking this month off with The Eyeless, a just-published Doctor Who novel set after the recently-aired Christmas Special.

{EDIT} :( touchstone worked when I entered it but didn't show up in post, so I faked it with HTML as best I could :({/EDIT}

Nice one, freelunch - I couldn't fake html to save my life!

I read Kafka's The Metamorphosis today for tutoring - and loved it! It is utterly insane. I also read a gorgeous little lecture in which the lecturer posited that the three bearded lodgers in the Samsa household were Nietzsche, Freud and Marx and interpreted the goings-on from those three perspectives. Brilliant idea!

I only wish it was on the 1001 list - that would've knocked over another one nicely.

Sunday night - time to prep some lessons!

The Eyeless was excellent - strictly for fans of the new series of Doctor Who of course, but if that's you and you're inclined to check out a book featuring the current Doctor then it would be a fine choice.

(fingers crossed for the touchstone...)

next up for me: My Hero

Well, I have finally settled on my next read. It's a book my Mother sent me: The Odessa File by Frederick Forsyth. Seems OK so far.

It's not a book, but I'm still reading an old copy of Fortean Times I got from the library. Has anyone else read this magazine?

I've never actually held a hard copy of The Fortean Times in my hands, but I know it well. I believe it was online somewhere at some stage (which is how I know it, also because of various X-Philes references when it was my Must Watch Show Of The Week).

Still reading Pere Goriot on public transport, and will pick up The Memory Room tonight (freelunch, I am sorry it's gathered dust at my place for so long! hopefully I can get it - and another bookring I keep on forgetting - to fleebo this bookdrinks!).

Next "Set It Yourself" reading challenge might be "read all the bloody bookrings/rays in the house" for me...

ETA: Downstairs sofa reading is currently Obscure Destinies, short stories by Willa Cather. (Nope, I'd never heard of her either, but she's big in the States. Won the Pulitzer back in the 20s, even.)

I put off starting The Memory Room for ages when I bought it ("literature" makes me nervous) then when I finally picked it up I enjoyed it much more than I expected to - hopefully you will too wookiebender :)

wookiebender >>> I haven't gotten around to looking at the website yet. Something else always seems to get in the way. I'll get there eventually, though :-)

I have already finished The Odessa File. It was an easy read, but very interesting. I was quite surprised by a passage with a quite detailed description of the making of a car bomb. I'm sure that would not be published these days. Anyway, the ending was a bit dead, but if you stop with the end of the story, skipping all the 'this is what happened to this person and that character went on to that' bits, it is quite a good read.

Next up for me is The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling.

freelunch, I do like literature, I just seem to be greedy when it comes to bookrings/rays and they end up gathering dust for far too long (especially all these Booker/Miles Franklin award winners; you should see the SIZE of A Fraction of a Whole! That's a hand-to-hand fightin' book!). I have been a bad bookcrosser in this respect this summer!

I'm not signing up for ANY more rings/rays, and I'm going to start saying no more often when they knock on my door (I've avoided several lately because I knew they'd hang around for too long, and the AU-only rings will be in the country for me to jump on later if possible). And I'm going to get some of them out the door and onto their next readers as soon as possible...

I did start The Memory Room, although I practically had to prop my eyelids open with toothpicks by this stage (sadly, I was just up late watching the frock fest that is "The Devil Wears Prada"; hardly anything intellectual, but I like it). But I wasn't going to put it off again! A very intriguing beginning, I like the way Koch's language hints at the future, and I'm very curious about the past of our characters. It's going to be nose-to-the-grindstone for getting it finished by Tuesday night, but it should be done. And then Fleebo can wail and gnash her teeth about all the bookrings gathering dust at her house. ;)

LibraryThing has just introduced a Member Giveaway feature, through which any LT member can offer a book which other members can express interest in, then at the end of a preset time a "winner" is randomly chosen by the website, the winner is notified and the offer-er is sent the winners address...

...and I'm the first user to offer a book :oD

Check It Out!

Oh, I saw the "Member Giveaway" and I wasn't sure what it was, I was getting confused with the Early Reviewers. (You know, I got chosen for an ER book, and when it didn't arrive in the mail, went and checked my address on LT. Apparently I was living in the US. How *total* embarrassment. I've fixed it up, apologised to Abby, and have not put up my hand for a single ER copy since.)

Yay for your early adoption of new stuff! What with bookcrossing, bookmooch, and now LT Member Giveaway, books are whizzing all over the place, aren't they!

Hi, I'm checking in, thanks to Freelunch's post. I haven't been to LibraryThing for a while.
I've been wanting to read (The Memory Room), but it disappeared off the Oz VBB very quickly. No surprises there.
I've just finished The Falling Man, which is the first Dellilo book that I really liked.
I'm now reading Burned Alive by Soab, which is not very jolly fare – more tales of the horrors endured by Muslim women.

Hi livrecache!

If you have time for a bookring, then I'm sure freelunch would be happy to add you to his bookring for The Memory Room. :) http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/6205411

I've got Falling Man on my shelves, and have come *this* close to starting it a number of times. Bookrings keep on getting in the way. (No more!) I really disliked his The Body Artist (thought it was a monumental wank, frankly), found Underworld fascinating (but far too "blokey" for me to truly enjoy), and White Noise was an interesting read as well. But they were all fairly intellectual, not emotional, reads and I like to get suckered in on an emotional level in my books. I wonder what it would be like to read a *likeable* DeLillo novel!!

Oh, freelunch, I sent Fleebo a PM about passing on The Memory Room and her initial reaction was "not *another* book!!". I seem to have forgotten to tell her she's next in line for The White Tiger too... If she does decide to take it, I should be able to pass it on this Tuesday (no postage that way, because it's a very large hardback!).

Finished The Tales of Beedle the Bard. Very good book. I especially liked The Wizard and the Hopping Pot. Very cute :-)

I am now reading The Sittaford Mystery by Agatha Christie. This is my first ever Agatha Christie novel. It will be interesting to see how it goes.

Now finished The Big Sleep. Messy plot, wonderful spare 'tough' prose, and an interesting main character. Couldn't quite hack those ditzy dames though - not a sensible one among them!!

Next up is Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture which is for the local Book Club.

ETA: wookiebender, I have The Body Artist coming up to the top of the pile soon as it's been chosen from the 1001+ VBB. After your comment above I'm not sure that I'll be rushing towards it!!

My Hero was fun, though it dragged a little toward the end. its concept is similar to Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next novels, with a motley crew of characters (fictional and "real") being pursued through several classic works of fiction. My favourite scene in the book was a shootout in Sense And Sensibility, in Miss Bennett's parlour, throughout which Miss B tried to serve tea to all and sundry and wondered aloud which of the the gunmen would make the best prospective husband, and why she couldn't see the pheasant they were obviously "hunting" in her parlour...

next up for me: Marley and Me

crimson-tide, some people really like The Body Artist. There's been some positive comments about it over in the reading logs for the 1001 books group. The bookring I was on (http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/1410497) had less enthusiastic members.

freelunch, My Hero sounds like a hoot! I did love Thursday Next. Fellow Sydney Bookcrossers have been downloading a British TV show called "Lost in Austen" where our modern hero ends up in Pride and Prejudice and Lizzie takes her place in the real world. I haven't caught it yet, but I love the concept.

Finished Pere Goriot last night! Quite a dramatic end, I couldn't put it down and really rushed through those last pages. I've never read Balzac before, and I hope this one won't be my last. He's got a wonderfully cheeky writing style, all the characters are fascinating (although none of them are loveable, even our "hero" was a git), and it was a scathing insight into Parisian society of the 19th century. Goriot's daughters have got to be THE most spoilt characters I've ever come across, they'd even put Dudley Dursley to shame. I would have liked to have seen more characters get their comeuppance, however, but I wasn't disappointed in the ending. It was just afterwards I thought "hang on, that wasn't fair". Not that life was meant to be fair. :)

And I said "NO!" to a bookring this morning (jubby, it was your Margaret Drabble, The Radiant Way). Baby steps, tqd, baby steps...

Funny you should talk, wookiebender - your Ethan Frome has just lobbed into my place (thanks, freepages!). I must say, I'm very much relieved that he's so slim - he won't be overstaying his welcome, I don't think.

As a fellow Fforde fan, My Hero sounds great! I treated my Year 12s last year to the shootout in Wuthering Heights in The Well of Lost Plots. They loved it & not a few of the boys wished Heights was a bit more like that :) The girls were amused by Heathcliff's side-line as "Buck Stallion", if I remember correctly.

And tonight, not having any other book right to hand, I picked up Their Eyes Were Watching God, a 1001-book and a bookring that was next on the list. (Not that it's been around the longest, but I owe davemurray101 another book, so it made sense to read this and post the two together next week.)

The dialect (southern states, African-American) is a bit hard at times, but it's a good plot so far. Unfortunately, this copy has highlighting and comments throughout it (a personal hate of mine), but I seem to be able to ignore them 90% of the time, so the book must be grabbing me. :)

Eck!
I am sitting here in my pajamas and should be getting ready for work (baby still in bed - that's why it is so quiet!), but I thought I would quickly drop by.

I read the Body artist a couple of years ago, but while travelling. I thought I might have rushed it and not paid full attention, so that was why I didn't enjoy it as much. Very weird. I thought White noise was brilliant though. I've joined Livrecache's bookring for Falling man.

Yes, I joined another bookring - but no more. I completely understand TQD. I think I am sitting on 5 bookrings at present.

But, I've recently been able to complete a few books:
- Candide by Voltaire
- The van by Roddy Doyle
- Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Now trying to finish The zookeeper's war by Steven Conte for the online reading group ANZLITLOVERs and Northern Clemency .

I have a horrible feeling that I promised The Radiant Way to someone in the UK a couple of years ago. I must check. I thought it was dreary stuff, but I may be wiser now.

I didn't understand White Noise but then I didn't get very far with it. I studied Death in Venice as well as a whole heap of other Thomas Mann books when I was doing German Literature at uni. Remember none of it!

I think Fleebo may have The White Tiger. She gave me the gentlest push about it, and said that she was ready to donate her copy (subtext: because I'd been so slack). Um, WB, if you're talking about the book I sent you, it was a PB.

I've just finished The Reader. Great. I read it as part of a ring before some MEL BCers went to the film on 22 Feb. Turns out that's my mother's birthday, so I have to put that consideration first. Sigh.

Another scorcher is hitting this fair city. Gotta go.

livrecache, today was my Mum's birthday. (Must be the season. ;) She popped by for lunch today, and afterwards we went to the new bookshop near work and I mentally jotted down about a dozen glossy art books for her (we'll celebrate next weekend, too many commitments this weekend already, so I can sneak back and buy one of them for her next week... the pop-up Leonardo da Vinci Inventions is definitely winning my vote, but there was a fabulous glossy on Paris, and another on The Eiffel Tower, and then one on bricks, and the handmade books one, and...).

It doesn't count if I buy a book for someone else. ;)

And I do have your copy of The White Tiger. It'll be started next (yay!) after I finish either The Memory Room (which isn't a long book, but is a large - and beautiful - hardback edition) or Their Eyes Were Watching God, whichever comes first.

Getting off to a fine start this month due to sick husband in hospital and travelling to the dead centre of Oz with work have already racked up a few books:
A guide to the birds of east africa
undead and uneasy
Bedtime for Bonsai
Full House
Demons are a ghoul's best friend
The Hot Flash Club
Tunnel in the Sky and last but not least Death of a Hussy by M C Beaton

Finally checking in here after seeing freelunch's message on the BCAUS forum a little while back. Haven't been to LibraryThing in ages, but should start using it again. I guess I'll need to pay for full membership eventually if I want to start adding books.

Currently reading The Far Pavilions by M.M. Kaye. Really enjoying it, but I'm currently in a long and protracted reading slump. I'm reading, but not quickly. If The Far Pavilions gets finished this month, then I have a Kathy Reichs book to read which I've promised to another bookcrosser in a trade.

Finally finished The Name of the Rose! It was a bit of a relief to have the mystery solved - I was losing track of all the monks, and the untranslated Latin was getting to me.

With all good intentions I had picked up Ethan Frome, wookiebender (and anyone else left to go on the bookray) but I just couldn't read it in this heat! Resumed Enduring Love instead, which I'm findin a disturbing read - at times it seems frankly incredible & at others so un-put-downably real. All in all, a very quick read, and Ethan Frome is very short so I should be done with it soon too.

wookiebender - totally agree with you that gifts don't count as "books bought" :) Picked up a gift while at the Sydney Theatre the other night for War of the Roses... Rereadings - perfect for any number of English teacher friends!

I finally got time to sit down and finish Marley and Me tonight (or should that be this morning?) - an easy read but I've been able to grab precious little reading time this weekend. Despite not being a pet person I rather enjoyed it.

next up for me: The Book With No Name

Yes, freelunch, your JE is datestamped 3:30am in my inbox!! Glad you liked Marley and Me!

Miss-Owl, I would have thought that Ethan Frome would have been perfect in this summer heat. All that SNOW. :)

The weekend was hot, I came down with a nasty cough (in the middle of summer???), I got not nearly enough reading done (going to be pushing it to finish The Memory Room to pass on tomorrow night!), and I'm feeling all sulky and grumpy. On the plus side, I'm not in Victoria. I hope everyone's friends and family are all alright. Once this cough is gone, I'll go and donate some blood at the Red Cross to help out (they won't take it if you're sick).

Yes, they won't take my blood, either. Not enough iron apparently. But I'll be going through the house seeing if I have any usable goods I can donate.

I have finished The Sittaford Mystery. I have to say, I quite enjoyed it. I don't want to put any spoilers here, but I had a suspicion who it might be then as I read, I transferred my suspicions to someone else, only to have it turn out that my original pick was correct lol. This book definitely lived up to Agatha Christie's reputation, and I will surely be reading more of her work.

Up next for me is This is the Way the World Ends by James Morrow.

I'm in the same boat as fairy-whispers, my blood gets rejected too. Seems I need to eat about a steak a day if I want to keep my iron levels high enough :(

I'm done with Enduring Love! So the cooldown has arrived just in time for Ethan Frome. For some reason, wookiebender, I like matching the temperatures of my books to the temperature of the season - which is why I've decided to save up Anna K until March. Get well soon!

Hi fairy-whispers,

I read The Sittaford Mystery last year and really enjoyed it. I am a big Agatha Christie fan to begin with, and I'd recommend And Then There Were None. It's my favourite. My first Agatha was The ABC Murders, and although I don't remember much about it all these years later, it must have been good because it got me hooked!

Last time I gave blood (pre-children, so more than seven (!!!) years ago now), I had *great* iron levels every time I went in. Now, I'm not so sure. I can't remember the last time I got around to eating a decent meal that involved red meat. I should make sure I get a few steaks under the belt first! What a shame. ;)

I read a lot of Agatha Christie as a young teenager, and enjoyed them then. And then re-read The Murder of Roger Ackroyd last summer (didn't realise it was a re-read for quite a while!) and loved it. I've been meaning to read a few more of her books since then...

And I left work early today because I was vaguing out, but after assorted kerfuffles (some days, I think "bugger the carbon footprint and the budget, I want a second car!!!") I only got about 30 minutes of reading time before I had to head off and get the kids from care. Yeesh, so much for having sick leave! But I did make a dent in The Memory Room, so I might be back on track for finishing it for Fleebo by tomorrow night. (If she doesn't mind me dropping it off late, as it's Meet The Teacher at Max's school first and I haven't met his teacher yet, three weeks into school!)

Well, I can't lay claim to have gotten much reading done in the last few days, but I did some book related telly watching last night though, while ironing...someone has to do it...

I saw the first episode of Cranford (which is meant to be based on a book by Elizabeth Gaskell). It was a nice bit of distracting fluff after all the horrible news coming out of Victoria.

But, as I had a lot of ironing, I was still at it when 'The Agatha Christie code' came on. I saw the beginning, and it looked a bit naff, but made me realise that I know so little about the writer. If I didn't have work today I would have stayed up to watch this too.

I thought this might have interested the Christie fans. But, reading the comments about the show on www.imdb.com, 'The Agatha Christie code', it appears that it's only fans who were able to watch the show all the way through to the end!

Enduring Love is one of the books my daughter has to read for Year 12 English Lit this year. So now we have two copies in the house, neither of which I've read - yet. She also has to read Silas Marner, which I think is one of the worst George Eliot novels, but what do I know? (I loved Middlemarch). She's also had to read Emma, which I seem to know backwards. She thinks Austen prattles on too much, which I sort of understand, and she'd worked out what was going to happen when. (They did Pride and Prejudice last year so it's not too surprising.) One book that she loved was Romulus, My Father which I believe I sent to wookiebender last year. I'm so glad we have another copy in the house!

I recently registered a whole heap of Agatha Christie novels – most of which I read when I was a teenager. I loved them, but I really cannot understand why. It's like when I had this real thing for gruesome crime novels (not that AC is gruesome). I don't understand that either. I read a nasty Michael Connelly over the weekend, but I was totally gripped by it. He is an intelligent writer though. But there's too much nasty stuff happening in the world for me to really want to read about individual horrible crimes. Why then, do I get hooked?

I need to remind myself to ask freelunch to add me to his The Memory Room ring.

(Living in Victoria during this time of being ravaged by fires is very disturbing. The support that is coming from people is wonderful. But then there are floods in Queensland. There is nothing fair about this.)

Enough!

livrecache, I've put you back on my The Memory Room ring...

..and I have your Romulus, My Father now (via wookiebender), it is currently sittiing on my wife's TBR stack - I'd like her to read the book to make up for the clueless film adaptation.

didn't get much time to read today. Rumour has it The Book With No Name was written by a well-known children's author, which the first couple of chapters seem to support. It isn't grabbing me yet...

How funny Freelunch. When I first read your mention of this book, I just assumed that it Novel without a name by Duong Thu Huong. Then, when you said that it was written by a well-known children's writer, this had me scratching my head and heading over to the bookcase to check... my mistake.

Lovely to see you here too Livercache.

Thanks tantan and wookiebender for the Agatha Christie recommendations. I will definitely be reading more of her work.

I tend to lose track of where everyone is residing...you are in Victoria livrecache? I'm glad you are OK, and I very much hope the same can be said about your family and friends. It's upsetting enough watching it on tele...I can't imagine what it must be like to live through. {{{HUGS}}}

As for reading...I have finished This is the Way the World Ends (yes, already lol) and it is worth the read. A bit surreal in places, and certainly odd, but one of the better post-apocalyptic novels in my opinion.

I have finally given up on The World Without Us by Alan Weisman. This book started out entertaining and unique, making the first half difficult to put down. Unfortunately, it quickly became very repetitive and boring, and I was unable to get much past halfway. I tried leaving it for a few months and coming back to it, but no go. There are some interesting facts in here that are not well publicised and need to be said, but this book could have been halved without deleting any of the relevant content.

I am now moving on to The Sense of Being Stared At by Rupert Sheldrake.

...and The Book With No Name fails the fifty page test (I gave it a few extra pages and still it failed to engage me)

next up The Tales of Beedle the Bard, not a book I'm terribly excited about but after reading the Harry Potter series I need to at least take a look...

Finished Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture after having a reading free few days in Perth over the weekend. It was passable but I wouldn't rush to recommend it, although it is possibly the sort of book I'll rate higher once I've thought about it for a bit. The ending, while understandable from a plot perspective, disturbed me somewhat.

Next up is Persuasion. My Jane Austen credentials are sadly lacking. I think I've only actually read one of hers (if you don't count watching film and TV adaptations) so thought I'd better do something about that!

And fairy-whispers, I'll second wookiebender's recommendation of AC's The Murder of Roger Ackroyd.

crimson-tide, Persuasion is my favourite Austen! It's different from her usual young silly women, in that Anne is older and missed the boat on marriage. Absolutely delightful stuff, I tend to stand on the sofa and cheer her on whenever I watch the great BBC adaptation from a few years back. But I'm sad that way. ;)

livrecache, I know, I read some really disturbing stuff at times, and then think "why?". But it can be quite gripping. Gritty crime novels I like, because there is always some justice and the baddie never gets away with it. And I like my crime bloody, I'm not really into the Alexander McCall Smith style so much, gimme Dr Kay Scarpetta discussing maggots any day.

Having yesterday off in bed, I finished off The Memory Room (an excellent read, with a few provisos, but definitely a good interesting page turner); Their Eyes Were Watching God (another great read, always good to have a positive book about Afro-Americans, and this one wasn't wallowing in anything dire, even though some of the plots were fairly ghastly it bounced along quite cheerfully, sho nuff); and Touch Me, I'm Sick which had some great moments (him tearing apart K-Fed, Fergie, and all sorts of other self-obsessed celebrities), but was a bit too detailed (in a boring way) about musical stuff and it was a slightly lame topic. Discussion at Bookdrinks last night (when I dropped it back into the pool) was that the author's first book (I Hate Myself And Want to Die) was much more fun.

Have now started The White Tiger, which will be going on to goodthinkingmax next (fleebo does have a backlog of Booker/Miles Franklin books at the moment). Great read so far.

Freelunch >>> The Tales of Beedle the Bard was quite good, I thought. Some interesting stories. I especially like the first one about the 'hopping pot'.

crimson-tide, which Jane Austen have you read? And did you like it? I've only read Emma and Northanger Abbey myself, so I'm not really an authority. But I did love Northanger Abbey, although I understand many Austen fans aren't really taken by it.

Hi tantan - it was Northanger Abbey, but even that one was a very long time ago.
I remember that I did enjoy it though.

edited 'cos I don't know anyone called 'tanan'! *lol*

Northanger Abbey gets pooh-poohed a bit, because it's more of a spoof of gothic novels than a classic Jane Austen romance. But it *is* awfully good fun.

Mansfield Park is the only one I haven't read.

I've started plum spooky and Anne of the island very different books - but 'Anne' is my bedtime read :)

the fairy-tales of The Tales Of Beedle The Bard were cute, and I particularly enjoyed Albus Dumbledore's observations following each story.

I've also read several essays from Finding Serenity today (I started it last month) - they're mostly interesting (to me as a fan at least), but all were written before "Serenity" (the movie) opened, and it has rendered moot much of the speculation they contain.

next up for me: Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang

Can any of you recommend a "light and fluffy" western? For a challange I have to read outside my comfort zone. The only genre I haven't tried is westerns. Not a big fan of westerns on TV so have never been tempted to read one.

Someone told me an author called Zane Grey has women in his stories - not so much romances but not as violent as a lot of westerns.

I've not read it myself but Lonesome Dove springs to mind as a potentially less-violent-than-usual western - I think it was awarded the Pulitzer prize back in the 80s...

Sorry, no help here! Westerns are also waaaaaay out of my comfort zone :)

Re #43 - Henry Tilney is my favourite part of Northanger Abbey. Must read Persuasion again one day soon - it will probably mean more to me than it did when I was seventeen. I must say, though, that I never was a fan of Mansfield Park. I just don't get Fanny Price as a heroine. Anyone?

Happy to report that I've finished wookiebender's bookring read:Ethan Frome - a taut & tragic tale, well-told, about the torture and hopelessness of an impoverished and loveless marriage. It's um, better than it sounds - really :)

Now ready for livrecache if you're around!

Miss-Owl, I've not read Mansfield Park because even my Mum - renowned Austenophile that she is - thinks Fanny is annoying beyond all reckoning. I'd like to re-read Northanger Abbey, that was her first I'd read and I don't think I've gone back to it since...

Although I picked up a couple of Puffin Classics (new! $8!!!) yesterday, so I think a re-read of Treasure Island might be happening first. (I **loved** that book so much as a kid!)

Glad you liked Ethan Frome too, thanks for the good JE! You said what I wished I could express. :)

Now I've got to try and explain my impressions of The White Tiger in a JE... Maybe it's the lurgi/lack of sleep, but I'm having difficulties being able to talk about books lately. Maybe it's also because they're superficially easy to read and bounce along nicely, but once you stop and have to sit down and *think* about it, there are hidden layers and depths that niggle the back of your mind.

The White Tiger was a great read, and a worthy Booker. And chock full of hidden layers and depths, I think (after worrying about it until about 1am this morning) I leapt on "an amoral parable" as a good description. Not sure where I got "parable" from, but "amoral" is definitely going to get into my JE somewhere. Must talk to nlr about it over coffee this morning too (she read it while I finished off a few books, but never has time to make any JEs herself)...

Will probably start The Leopard for the Group Reads: Literature group today. And it's a "1001" book! And get back into Anna Karenina tonight...

Can't help with westerns either! The only one I've read was All The Pretty Horses and it was neither light nor fluffy...

sally906, I'm not really a western reader, but I have read and enjoyed a few Louis L'Amour books. My father, who does read a fairly broad range of books, used to devour them when I was younger.

I received livrecache's address today, so it'll be off to the post office with Ethan Frome some time soon during the coming week. I'm glad you liked the journal entry, wookiebender - sometimes I think my style is too pretentious, but then again I'm not pretending - it's just me :)

The rest of the books in my SIY challenge are not suitable for reading at night (except Anna Karenina, maybe, but I'm saving her for March) - I get freaked out by books like Dracula at night - so am taking some time out with another 1001 read, What I Loved. Maybe it's just my tiredness at the end of a long week, but nothing went in last night. Amazingly, this morning, all I can remember is something about a guy named Bill... and what that 'something' is, I'm not entirely sure. Hope it gets better from here!

Ooh, and as for The Leopard, I will always remember it as the book that inspired the film that precipitated a particular relationship bust-up! It wasn't going well, we went to the Chauvel, it got worse, came to an end... and this, I should add, turned out to be a good thing :) Happy reading!

Miss-Owl, oh dear, I do hope What I Loved gets better - it's on my Mt TBR! I did really enjoy her latest, The Sorrows of an American however, so I'll still be giving the earlier one a chance. (But "Sorrows" might be an acquired taste, I remember thinking that the topics - philosophy and neuroscience, from vague memory - wouldn't be to everyone's taste!)

Got back into Anna Karenina last night, although I did leave it a bit long between readings and had to refresh my memory as to who was who! (Yay for character lists at the front of books!)

And I saw The Leopard at the Chauvel too! Maybe five/six years ago or so? Mr TQD's mum really wanted to see it on one of her visits to Sydney, so we went together. She liked it, I was bored sh!tless (and I've sat through - and enjoyed - a lot of arthouse movies, but this one I practically snored through), but I remember thinking "this would have been an interesting book", only to find out many years later (on LT) that it was originally a book. Excellent! Only a few pages in, very dense prose so far.

I am still reading The Sense of Being Stared At, but it is quite heavy reading, so I have begun alternating it with The Darwin Awards: 180 Bizarre True Stories of How Dumb Humans Have Met Their Maker by Wendy Northcutt which is, so far, absolutely hilarious.

I've just finished Where Late The Sweet Birds Sang, a post-apocalyptic tale originally published in the 70s which sees the Earth ravaged by natural disasters and pestilence leaving humanity unable to reproduce by natural means, and the fate of mankind rests in the hands of a cloning research facility set up by a wealth family. The book is primarily concerned with the social development of a clone-based society over three "generations" - I thoroughly enjoyed it and didn't find it as dated as some 70s sci-fi can be.

next up for me: Venusian Lullaby

I've finished a nice gentle read Anne of the island also Plum Spooky which I found to be the least like Evanovich book.

Am reading Vanishing Point right now and enjoying that - also reading a 'Desert Island' selection Five go off to camp

And what is a 'Desert Island' selection I hear you all ask :) A book that you can happily read over, and over and over again. My Famous Five series is one of those - I read them all through every couple of years.

Oh, I like that phrase, sally906! My Desert Island picks include The Age of Innocence and The Remains of the Day - for no particular reason I can think of, but I'm always dipping in and out.

wookeiebender, What I Loved isn't bad at all - it's just that I'm reading it like a goldfish. I enjoy it at the time, but come morning (or even evening again) I have no idea what I've just read and don't remember until I pick up the book again. Weird.

Yep, The Leopard was indeed at the Chauvel four or five years ago! I loathed it. It was a very long movie.

Also starting to read Ender's Game in preparation for teaching to my Year 11 ESL class. Some of them are *very* new arrivals to Australia - I'm a bit apprehensive as to how we'll get through it!

Miss-Owl, Ender's Game is one of the best sci-fi novels I've ever read. I haven't gotten around to re-reading it for years (but I think I might classify it as a Desert Island Novel), but I still get moved just thinking about it. Truly great sci-fi makes you *think*, and this one did that.

My desert island novels.... Yeesh, it's a tough choice! Harry Potter is on high rotation on my reading schedule, and I'd also like to throw in a Jane Austen or two (or three...), the dreaded Possession by AS Byatt, maybe a Graham Greene or two (or three...), and lots of books I haven't read yet. ;)

Got through part 2 of Anna Karenina. Still wonderful stuff, but I'm having a quick break to read La's Orchestra Saves the World - not my usual reading material (I find McCall Smith twee to the point of vapid at his worst, and slightly irritating at his best), but Miss Boo did insist I borrow it at the library (and it was better than the Barbara Cartland she chose for me first!). Since it's a new book, I'd better get it finished before we're due back at the library this weekend! And it's really rather interesting so far, I'm looking forward to returning to it tonight.

Back to the salt mines...

Ender's Game is a surprisingly good read, that has not dated one bit.

I read it last year before passing on to a gifted year 6 boy (as well as another copy to Luckaye as part of an exchange), and was amazed by how modern it was (because I was really expecting something rather dated from the 1970s).

After walking around and raving about it to anyone who would listen several days later, my husband claimed that the book was the inspiration for the 1980s film The last starfighter. I checked IMDB, but I'm not sure. Anyone know?

I do know that Orson Scott Card along with Warner Brothers were set to make the film, but according to wikipedia, the author announced that the 'film would not be moving forward'. ???

Would have been a great film... But, apparently there are comics too?

Orson Scott Card has an intriguing background also. Mormon, teacher, political writer and prolific author. Thanks Wikipedia!

As for myself, I've just read S.: a novel about the Balkans. Depressing, grim and not one for a desert island!

I think for a desert island I would like to take all those classics that I've never read: like everything by Marcel Proust, Jane Austin and Leo Tolstoy.

I'm still wading my way through Northern clemency. Planning to start The crying of lot 49 and The time we have taken soon too.

Update on Ender's Game: we started reading in Year 11 ESL today, and the kids seemed to enjoy it - they laughed & winced in all the right places, so that was good. Sharing with them It's even better than I remember it!

Oh, a funny story when I introduced it today. From the cover, I asked the kids to predict what the book might be about... and apart from all the usual "space" and "the future" answers, one kid said "Card Games!" That's because the name of the author, Orson Scott CARD is written right above Ender's GAME :D

Finished La's Orchestra Saves The World last night. The first half was interesting (strangely enough, orchestra-free as well, but I don't think that was relevant to its interest-level), the second half irritated me (something about women being born to look after men **totally** put my nose out of joint), but the last few chapters were good again.

Hmm, he managed to amuse AND irritate me in the one book. Must be a classic McCall Smith novel. ;) And it was nice getting him into a different time - this one was set before during and after WW2, and everything else I've read of his was contemporary.

Oh, I'm glad I'm not the only one who "gets" Mr McCall-Smith. Then again, imho, volume of sales doesn't necessarily say anything about quality of content... my sister was just telling me how she read Eclipse over someone's shoulder in the train and the line (amongst many) that most grated on her was this: "My teeth mashed together with an audible grinding sound".

I'm nearly finished What I Loved and have enjoyed it a lot more since the beginning. I think I found it hard to follow at first because of its quiet, unintrusive style - it follows the ebb & flow of everyday life, where beginnings and endings of momentous things occur, but you don't notice or realise it until later.

It's been grey, overcast and rainy all day - perfect reading weather!

Venusian Lullaby was a good story let down by a stupid "random letter" approach to naming alien characters and objects (Gwebdhallut, Mrodtikdhil & Sesifghall are the names of three Venusians for example, and the tale has a huge cast for the reader and keep track of)

next up for me is Watchmen, which I've had in my TBRs for years and I must read before the movie opens next month...

I've had a slow reading month so far this month. Something about school and family members activities starting up again I guess. Ethan Frome surprised me with how much was in the book for such a slim read (but I guess I've already said something like that when I journaled it :-)
I've been trying to knock down my TBR on my BC bookshelf so read one from the Ramses series. Very much makes that ancient pharaoh into some sort of super hero, but it was a nice light read. Surprisingly just like Ethan Frome it was one of Woosangs registered books. The difference being that I'd caught Ramses in one of her wild releases!
Been keeping up with more 1001 reading with Atonement and Moll Flanders.
Really enjoyed Atonement, watched the movie as soon as I finished the book and that was wonderful in its own way.
With Moll Flanders I already knew the story from the movie , but the novel actually fascinated me, partly because of the history and also because the style was so indirect and Defoe is said to be one of the originators of "the plain style". Very interesting reading something from meant for a different time.
None read this month are "Desert Island" candidates, but I did pop my head into Great Expectations for a few paragraphs today and I think that would be one I'd like to take. I think I'm with Jubby on taking other, as yet, unread classics.
I'm just about to start Eucalyptus now in the hope that I can get it finished this weekend. I think I have a couple of bookrings to pick up from the PO on Monday and the plan so far is to get stuck into them as soon as I pick them up. Wish me luck ;-)

Finished The Darwin Awards. I highly recommend this book - it is absolutely hilarious, the idiotic things people will do.

I am still reading The Sense of Being Stared At and I am now also reading Selling Sickness: How Drug Companies Are Turning Us All Into Patients by Ray Moynihan & Alan Cassels.

I'm about halfway through Watchmen and loving it, and I just know they're going to mangle it in the film adaptation (which opens next week)

I'll be spending much of tomorrow sitting waiting for my car to be serviced, and I don't like lugging large graphic novels around with me when I'm out so I'll start on The Fern Tattoo (a Miles Franklin Award 2008-nominated bookring book)

Oh, hey! I know the author of The Fern Tattoo. He was my honours supervisor way back when, and now I bring my own students to see him. He obligingly runs little writing workshops for us :) He's an amazing man - even though he's so gentle, I find his brilliance completely terrifying.

If they mangle Watchmen there'll be a worldwide legion of cultists who will be ready to stick their knives into it... yes, I'm looking at you, wookiebender :D

I've just finished a travel book called on a hoof and a prayer by Polly Evans. Is very good - and she doesn't look down on the country she visited like so many travel writers do.

but, but, freelunch, the bus ads for The Watchmen look so COOL. They definitely got the look right. Word on the net from fanboys & fangirls is that they aren't doing the *removed for spoiler* (which is just plain wrong). I'll discuss it later once you've finished it.

Miss-Owl, I do try to be accommodating about other people's visions of my treasured and loved stories. I keep on remembering Lord of the Rings, which somehow went from unfilmable to brilliant. Peter Jackson tweaked the stories, but he did it with respect and it all worked wonderfully. What you've got to be careful of is the people who don't understand the stories, the number crunchers etc, who want everything to be acceptable to the lowest common denominator, and so change things to make them bland. (George Lucas, Greedo did NOT shoot first.)

sally906, yes, travel writers can be very whingy at times. Honestly, makes you wonder why they ever bother leaving their home.

I picked up P is for Peril the other night. Yay for Kinsey Millhone! Still going, haven't had much reading time lately (damned Oscars - even when you tape the afternoon live screening and ffwd through the ads, you're still up after midnight, *yawn*).

Hey, wookiebender, hope you could see my tongue planted firmly in my cheek with the cultist comment :) You sound much more tolerant than I am. I'm seriously worried about Baz buying the rights to The Great Gatsby, for instance.

By the way, is the *removed for spoiler* what I think it is? Argh! I'm going to send you a PM.

Finished What I Loved and I ended up really liking it. That's not the most astute review I've ever written, but it's one of those books that stays on with you, like Ian McEwan's Saturday did for me.

To move on with my SIY challenge, I guess it's time to try reading - or bashing my head up against - A Clockwork Orange... third time lucky, maybe! Or maybe I'll start Anna Karenina early instead.

Miss-Owl: yes, I definitely saw (read?) that your tongue was firmly in your cheek. Fanboys/girls do tend to get rather over-dramatic when adaptations go wrong, and I try to not slide over into that. But it is fun every now and then to let loose. (What annoys me most is the way one uber-nerd will say "it's dreadful" and everyone apes them. What is the point of being a nerd about things if you're just going to follow whatever some uber-nerd says? I thought the whole nerd thing was about being *smart* (if geeky), not a sheep. *ahem*)

I'll get back into Anna Karenina post Ms Millhone. I just couldn't face it this week, too much work/family stuff going on. (In a good way, but I'm so very tired now...)

The Fern Tattoo is excellent (well the portion I read today is at least) I'm going to have to track down a copy for my wife to read once I pass the bookring'd copy I have on.

freelunch, I have been impressed with ALL the 2008 Miles Franklin books I've read so far. I'm sorry you didn't get into Sorry (no pun intended), as that was my standout. I'm looking forward to The Fern Tattoo!

And Miss-Owl: over on Group Reads: Literature Pale Fire seems to be winning the vote for the next read. (With The Forsythe Saga coming a close second, so we're doing both; when I looked yesterday it was actually Forsythe which was in the lead!) Is it true that it's 300+ pages of *poetry*?

I have a complete inability to read poetry (it just doesn't stick) and could not finish Lolita so I'm thinking I might be skipping Pale Fire...

Yes, I too should get on to The Fern Tattoo... need to ask David for another workshop soon! Maybe I'll include it as part of my next SIY challenge - that tends to get books read!

My current SIY challenge is reasonably on track. Started A Clockwork Orange last night and third time was indeed lucky. I started enjoying the wilful perversion of Burgess's prose and think it'll be an okay read. The violence is none too pretty but the page is better than the screen, because my imagination doesn't get too gory :)

Good on you, wookiebender, for keeping up with those group reads! I loved The Trial but wasn't able to get to the discussions on time, and since then I've been in hiatus. Personally, I think skipping Pale Fire is a good decision - if you hated Humbert you won't like Kinbote either. For the record, though, it's not 300+ pages of poetry - it's a 999 line poem with about 300 pages of commentary that follow. I couldn't be bothered keeping a finger in the poem as need be, so I just read the commentary/footnotes straight through. Generally quite arduous and abstruse, but also surprising & rewarding at times. Not rushing back for a re-read, though!

Am I right in remembering The Forsyte Saga as being quite massive? I think the SIY challenge will do me for now!

More details for this quarter if anyone's interested:
http://www.bookcrossing.com/forum/6/5901740

Sorry I've been awol for a while - reading has been a bit slow over the past few weeks. Took me a while to get into reading Persuasion with the different rhythm of the prose and dialogue. I am enjoying it but in small doses . . . that is my brain is enjoying it, but my eyes are not unfortunately - definitely not enough white space!

In between I have read The Queen of the Tambourine, which was a Whitbread winner in 1991. Interesting little story with blurred lines between what is real and what is not.

And I discovered today that a book I read earlier this month, Uncle Petros and Goldbach's Conjecture, is on the revised 1001 book list. It just goes to show...

So now continuing with Persuasion; beginning Stiff which is one of wookiebender's bookrings and looks excellent, and also attempting to squash in the book for March for the Southern Cross Exchange - which I won't name so it can stay a secret.

The revised 1001 list? That sounds like something I don't need to look at, but how does one find it anyway?

And as far as the reading's concerned, I'm still going with The Far Pavilions. After that, there's The Wide Window which needs to be sent out for the Oz VBB, and then a Kathy Reichs book promised to another bookcrosser.

>75 tantan: tantan
They apparently published a second edition of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and removed quite a few from the list in order to make room for others. They've included some more recent publications and also more that were written in languages other than English. As I don't own either edition I rely on the kindness of others who have transferred the lists onto spreadsheets.

One such BookCrosser is Kiri, who has spent a heap of time making a spreadsheet including all the books and detailing the changes by colour coding the entries. It is freely available as a google document here http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pB9jaZi6GsJPuSFDunAZ2HA The link is also available on her BC bookshelf.

It is such a subjective list of course, and there are always various opinions as to what should have been left in and what should have come out - or never been there in the first place! Most 'list followers' and things such as the 1001 Books VBB use the combined list now it seems. As time doesn't stand still and more books are published every year I'd say the editor and publishers have themselves a nice little cash cow there. ;-)

>75 tantan:

Yep, what crimson-tide said :)

If you haven't wasted enough time on Kiri's spreadsheet, here's another one available for download. What I like about it is that you can mark off the books you've read, and the to-be-reads, and you can also put in your age and it will work out how many you should be trying to read per year! (I did say it was a time-waster!)

http://johnandsheena.co.uk/books/?page_id=160

I wouldn't agree with every choice on the list, but that hasn't stopped me from being obsessed with it! (Hello, I'm Miss-Owl and I need to read 18 books from the 1001 list per year...)

I like the new edition, I like it's more global feel. (And I like how they got rid of a few Austens/Dickens/McEwans - all great authors, but did we really need EVERY single one of their books on the list??)

I'm extremely peeved that it's not available to buy in Australia as yet. Apparently you can get it in NZ though!!

Miss-Owl, Mr TQD & Miss Boo are headed into the city today for An Adventure, and I did suggest that maybe they pop into Customs House Library and pick up Pale Fire while they were there... (That's the only copy in the City of Sydney Library, and for some unexplained reason they won't send it to a branch in the inner west! Dagnabbit!) But I won't feel bad if they don't get around to doing that. And, yes, The Forsythe Saga is massive, it's a trilogy of trilogies. We're only doing the first set of trilogies however. It might be good, it might be soap opera for the 19th century masses...

>77 Miss-Owl:

Yes, that's a great spreadsheet. I have a copy of it relating to the first 1001 list, and have figured that at the rate I'm reading the 1001 books I'm gonna have to live to about 287 to get through them all! ;-)

Unfortunately my copy of Excel is too old to be able to download and use the new edition one - apparently it has links to wiki and amazon and all sorts of time wasting goodies attached. Hmmm . . . maybe it's a good thing I can't use it then. *lol*

>75 tantan:
I love The Far Pavillions, also Shadow of the Moon.

I'm, also, very into the 1001 list and I've noticed a lot of the older ones have been placed online with Project Gutenberg. A project to make those books that are no longer are covered by copyright available to the masses (or those masses with online access ;-) Lots of Wharton, Elliot, Joyce, Swift etc. and some of the really old ones that are really out of print. That, of course, is if anyone has a spare moment or a squillion spare moments to read entire books online.
Give me a good printed page or two that I can turn and I'm happier then squinting at my precariously balance lap-top.

Almost finished The clothes on their backs, very enjoyable.

PS I'm FreePages on BC

KimB, Sydney bookcrosser servalan does quite a bit of work with Project Gutenberg - I can't remember the details, but she helps with the "distributed proofreaders", the people who proofread all the scanned pages. She particularly likes all the 19th century travel books, and they do sound brilliant.

Finished P is for Peril last night, and it was another excellent Kinsey Millhone mystery. I'll be back into Anna Karenina tonight!

I finished Watchmen. Wow!

I've also just finished Finding Serenity which I've been reading on and off for a few weeks now. I love Firefly and I enjoyed most of the articles, though much of the speculation in them is rendered moot by "Serenity" (the movie) which had been filmed but hadn't yet opened at the time the book was published.

freelunch, we've been cherry-picking our favourite Firefly episodes of late. (Because we caught bits of the movie when they screened it the other week, and friends gave us a copy of Dr Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blob (Joss Whedon's latest project, only available online) which just made me realise how much I miss the whole Buffyverse et al.)

And I also finished Obscure Destinies, three short stories by Willa Cather last night which I've been reading on and off during the month. Fairly gentle, well written stuff.