pamelad's 1010 challenge

1. Prizewinners
The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga (Booker, 2008) 4.5*
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Booker, 2009) 4*
Kim Rudyard Kipling (Nobel)
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout 4.5* (Pulitzer)
Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man by Thomas Mann (Nobel) 4*
The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll (Miles Franklin, 2008)3.5*
Holiday by Stanley Middleton (Booker, 1974) 3.5*
The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness (Nobel) 4*
The Broken Shore by Peter Temple (Ned Kelly) 4*
Bad Debts by Peter Temple (Ned Kelly) 3.5*

2. Recommended on LT
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay Michael Chabon 4.5*
A Dying Fall Henry Wade 3.5*
Forty Words for Sorrow Giles Blunt 4*
The Misses Mallett by E. H. Young 4*
To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis 3.5*
The Curate's Wife by E. H. Young 3.5*
Borrowed Finery by Paula Fox 4*
Smoke and Mirrors by Kel Robertson 3.5*
The Eye of Love by Margery Sharp 3.5*
A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym 4.5*

3. Crime
Murder on the Costa Brava by John and Emery Bonett 3.5*
The Rising of the Moon by Gladys Mitchell 4*
Or Be He Dead by James Byrom 3.5*
Death at the Opera by Gladys Mitchell 3*
Road Block by Hillary Waugh 4*
The Mysterious Commission by Michael Innes 3*
Lord Mullion's Secret by Michael Innes 3*
Mingled with Venom by Gladys Mitchell 4*
Death Has Deep roots by Michael Gilbert 3.5*
When Last I Died by Gladys Mitchell 3.5*

4. Non-fiction
Pushing Time Away by Peter Singer 3.5*
Smile or Die by Barbara Ehrenreich 3.5*
That's Not What I Meant by Deborah Tannen 3*
Forbidden Journey by Ella K. Maillart 4.5*
How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman 4*
Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich 4.5*
West with the Night by Beryl Markham 4*
The Peter Principle by Peter and Hull 4*
Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen 4*
On Secret Service East of Constantinople by Peter Hopkirk 3.5*

5. Last 10 years
The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters 4*
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson 3.5*
Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby 3*
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson 4*
U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton 4*
Merry Wives of Maggody by Joan Hess 3*
The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies 3.5*
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil/In Persuasion Nation by George Saunders 3.5*/4*
A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil by Christopher Brookmyre 4.5*
Inspector Ghote's First Caseby H. R. F. Keating 3*

6. More than 40 years ago
Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym 4*
The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym 3.5*
Shear the Black Sheep by David Dodge 3.5*
Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym 4*
Wildfire at Midnight by Mary Stewart 3.5*
My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather 4*
The Whipping Boys by Guy Cullingford 2.5*
Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes 3.5*
Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert 3.5*
The Hand in the Glove by Rex Stout 3.5*

7. New authors
The Glass Room by Simon Mawer 4.5*
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin 4*
By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah 4*
That Summer by Andrew Greig 4*
The Chosen by Chaim Potok 4*
Five for Sorrow Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden 3.5*
The Charlotte Armstrong Treasury by Charlotte Armstrong 3.5*
Queenpin by Megan Abbott 4*
The Revolution in Tanner's Lane by Mark Rutherford 4*
The Beacon by Susan Hill 4*

8. Australia and the Pacific
Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho 4.5*
Bony and the Black Virgin by Arthur Upfield 3*
Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher 4*
A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper 3*
The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John 3.5*
The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St. John 4.5*
Frantic by Katherine Howell 4*
Kittyhawk Down by Garry Disher 4*
Wyatt by Garry Disher 4*
The Bachelors of Broken Hill by Arthur Upfield 3.5*

9. More recommendations and prizewinners
The Weather in Africa by Martha Gellhorn 4*
Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding 4*
In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden 3.5*
I'm Not Complaining by Ruth Adam 4*
Frenchman's Creek by Daphne Du Maurier 3.5*
Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym 4.5*
Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple 3.5*
The English Assassin by Daniel Silva 3.5*
No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym 4.5*
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany 4.5*

10. Books in Translation
Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami 4*
The Successor by Ismail Kadare 4.5*
What I Saw by Joseph Roth 5*
The Spirit of Prague by Ivan Klima 3.5*
The Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri 4*
Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell 4*
Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier 4*
Excursion to Tindari by Andrea Camilleri 4*
The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil 3.5*
Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih 4*

What I Saw by Joseph Roth added to non-fiction category.

Populated the prizewinners category (post #2) with Nobel Prize Winners from my tbr pile. Many worthy books sit in the tbr pile while I read ancient crime and spy novels instead.

Gotcha starred. Looks interesting! I have The Fish Can Sing on my shelf and as a possible 2010 read too. Same with Kristin Lavransdatter. If all goes well, by this time next year, I'll have decreased my TBR shelf by 75+ books!

Welcome Terri. Do you mean that you're only reading from the tbr shelf? No new purchases? That would be really hard.

If you're looking for Australian fiction, you might look for the Boney series by Arthur Upfield. It's about a half Aborigine detective and I'm reading the first book as part of my "It's A Small World" Challenge.

I have a couple I'll need to buy, or get from the library - and I'm sure there will be some new ones that I simply must have! But mostly TBRs. Not really hard, I have some great books there!

Added Cat's Eye to the tbr too long category. Will read it for Atwood in April.

mstrust, it's years since I've read an Arthur Upfield, so I will seek him out. But I think the author might be English?

ETA Upfield was born in England, but spent most of his life in Australia, so I reckon he's Australian by adoption.

I like the books in your challenge and have starred your thread so that I can read your reviews. With an annual total of 160 books this year and we've still got time before the end of 2009, you must be a quick reader. Do you plan to read ten books in each category?

I'd forgotten about Arthur Upfield and his Boney series that mstrust mentioned. I wonder if his books are hard to find in our public libraries. I'd like to tackle another Patrick White novel this year but was thinking that Voss may be more accessible than The Solid Mandala. Have you read much of his work?

Welcome socialpages. I've just bought Upfield's The Widows of Broome from a second hand bookshop. Also bought Andrew Greig's That Summer because Howard, the bookseller, said it was a masterpiece.

Earlier this year I read Patrick White's The Twyborn Affair, his last novel, which was was surprisingly readable and has encouraged me to read some of his others. I've also read The Tree of Man, a long time ago. I bought The Solid Mandala when I couldn't find a copy of Voss. Will be interested to hear what you think of Voss.

Added A Dragon Apparent to the non-fiction category. Norman Lewis's travels in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam, first published in 1951.

I'd be interested to see what you add to your Australia and the Pacific category. One from that region I really liked was The True History of the Kelly Gang by Peter Carey.

Hi mathgirl, I enjoyed Peter Carey's Oscar and Lucinda and Illywhacker. Will keep an eye out for The True History of the Kelly Gang.

Have found another piece of Australiana in a second-hand book shop in Rutherglen, up in the Kelly country. The Hard Way is about Frank Hardy's legal battles after the publication of Power Without Glory.

ET fix Frank's touchstone.

I have True History on my list of Booker prize winners. Looking forward to it. I loved Oscar and Lucinda.

I look forward to seeing the rest of your Australia/Pacific choices. I've had Arthur Upfield's Boney books recommended to me a number of times but it seems they're all currently out of print. I keep hoping to to stumble across a pile of them in a small out of the way second hand bookshop.

Melbourne is the place then, Cheese. I found War with the Newts, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep and a cache of Arthur Upfield's in one second-hand book shop. Abe books could be worth a try.

Just finished The Widows of Broome, which is reviewed here in my 999 thread.

Changing a category. Replacing 10. Big, thick books with 10. Books in translation.

The thickos can fit in other categories.

Changed 7. On the tbr pile too long to 7. New authors.

Was filling in time by reading books from the bottom of the tbr pile but, with the exception of As a Man Grows Older, they've been mediocre, which I dare say is why they've been languishing there.

Now reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay, which I am enjoying hugely. Thanks to everyone who recommended it.

Changed category 9 from "Mooched from Bookmooch" to "More recommendations and prize winners"

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay

Started this a couple of days ago thinking that it was so thick that it would take me ages, but it was so good I had to read other books so that I wouldn't finish Kavalier and Clay before today.

4.5*

I'm interested you liked it so much, because I just read The Yiddish Policeman's Union, which intrigued me but was also so bleak I thought I'd wait awhile before reading Chabon again. Have you read Policeman's Union?

Kavalier and Clay wasn't nearly as bleak as Policeman's Union (I thought) but it took me much longer to read because I'd get overwhelmed by everything fate was throwing at the characters and put it down for a month or more at a time. Not that bad things didn't happen to the folks in Sitka too, but that was a noir book so you expect it. Kavalier and Clay had a lot more light as well, so the contrast was more dramatic.

Kavalier and Clay just raced along with too much energy to be bleak. It was like a serial, with cliff-hangers larded through. Like kristenm, I put it down, not just because I didn't want to finish too soon, but because I thought one of the main characters was doomed, and I didn't want to know.

The holocaust looms over the book, but life is hurtling along in the US, with its endless opportunities. Actually, the reason I gave the book less than 5* was that I thought it was too tidily and sentimentally positive. But perhaps that's the point.

I also enjoyed Wonder Boys, which I didn't find bleak, despite the disillusionment of the main character. Might give the The Yiddish Policeman's Union a miss for now because it sounds too depressing.

I was disappointed in The yiddish policemen's union. I thought the premise was great, but as a crime novel, I just didn't do it for me. Kavalier and Clay however, I remember as a fast and exciting romp, with loads of vanishing acts both with and without tights. I loved it. Do any of you Chabonites have a good tip on where to turn after those two, if you enjoy the tall tale side of Chabon? Gentlemen of the road?

Such a shame, The yiddish policemen's union is on my Mount Toobie and I was looking forward to reading it this year. Kavalier and Clay sound's great Pam, I'll have to look out for that one.

I thought Gentleman of the Road was a hoot.

My fiance is currently reading Chabon's new essay collection, Manhood for Amateurs, and really enjoying it.

Pushing Time Away by Peter Singer

Singer's grandfather, David Oppenheim, died in the Thieresienstadt ghetto in 1942, his ashes dumped, with those of 1800 others, in the river. Singer has commemorated his grandfather's life with this book.

David was a member of Freud's Wednesday group then, after a split with Freud, aligned himself with Adler. Singer has used his grandfather's letters and writings to shed light on the bitter feuding between the pioneers of psychology.

Oppenheim participated in the intellectual and cultural circles of Vienna, so the story of his life is also a history of the city from the end of the Hapsburg Empire, when 15% of the population was Jewish, until 1942 when no Jews remained.

Much of interest in Singer's book, in particular the reality of people's lives in Vienna after the German annexation, and in the ghetto of Thieresienstadt.
3.5*

Pushing Time Away has been on my bookshelf for years.
With a 3.5 rating, Pam do you think it was a worthwhile read?
Sounds like history examined from an unusual angle?

ETA that seemed quick! Was it a quick read?

Kim, it's about 300 pages, but I've been doing a lot of reading lately. I have reservations about the book - what's going on around Oppenheim is interesting, but the man himself I didn't find so. The book started slowly with a long section about Classicism and Platonic love. I nearly stopped reading, but persevered.

It's worthwhile as a record of the times, what people thought and how they lived, as revealed by Amalie Oppenheim's letters. Singer's parents emigrated to Australia, and wanted to bring out their own parents, but the Singer and Oppenheim parents took too long to decide to leave, then found that they couldn't. Singer's young uncles just managed to get out in time;the letters form the parents describe the difficulties, and the suspense. Just reading about the vicious restrictions the Nazis placed on the Jews is awful - they weren't allowed to use public parks, for example.

The warfare between Freud and Adler is also interesting.

So it's definitely worth a read, but you might like to skim some bits, unless you're a classical scholar interested in the links between classical mythology and Freud's theories.

The White Tiger by Arvind Adiga

Balram Halwai, servant, callously and ruthlessly escapes his servitude to become a successful businessman. The book is a series of letters from Balram, entrepreneurial businessman of Bangalore, to the premier of China. The Chinese premier has been quoted as wanting to know the truth about Bangalore, so Balram is telling him.

Adiga's novel is scathing about India's corruption and the plight of the poor, bit it's not a dry political tract. Balram's voice is sardonic and amusing.

Highly recommended 4.5*

I really thought The White Tiger was very good to Pam. Showed a real dog eats dog world. It was a deserving winner of the booker in 2008, but I really enjoyed Sea of Poppies from the booker short-list that year. Have you read that one?

Haven't read it yet Kim, but have reserved it at the library. Have heard many good things about it.

I've just started The Children's Book, from the 2009 shortlist.

The Children's Book was one of my favourites of last year, hope you enjoy it Pam :-)

One of the interesting things in The White Tiger was the mechanics of vote fraud in India. That was a neat thing to find in fiction. I'll chime in and say Kavalier and Clay was more enjoyable than Yiddish Policemen for me also. The latter never came together in a way that satisfied me.

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Waters tells a good story, and this one swept me along, despite the poltergeist theme. Unfortunately, the ending wasn't strong enough to carry the preceding 498 pages.

A good read all the same 4*.

I have put The Children's Book aside for a while because I'm bored by the descriptions. So far there have been far too many lovingly described works of art and items of clothing. Puts me in mind of Dombey and Son, where Dickens describes every item in a rubbish tip. Many people have enjoyed Byatt's book though, so I'll give it another go later on.

VisibleGhost, was looking for your thread to see what else you were reading, but couldn't find it. Under a different name?

pamelad- my 1010 thread title is VG-Tens. I'm trying to remember now why I used VG in the title instead of VisibleGhost but I'm coming up empty. I think I just got used to posters using VG for shorthand and now I think of my LT ID as VG. It is much faster to type. ;)

I have found that A.S. Byatt requires a certain persistence on the part of her readers. It is eventually rewarded! It took me 200 pages to get into Possession: A Romance, which is a hundred more than I'll usually give a book, but it was worth it in the end.

The Children's Book is a real change in pace to The Little Stranger!
I found The Little Stranger to be a page turner but if anything I found The Children's Book to be a rich and vivid read- one to savour slowly maybe?

I was wondering something with The Little Stranger - Do you think the doctor was given the role of an unreliable narrator? I found him just a bit too obsessed with the house to take at face value the way things were described by him.
I even toyed with the idea that it was his "energy" that was causing all the strange activity.

I hope in saying that it doesn't spoil it for anyone else.

Will give The Children's Book another go, more slowly this time. I borrowed too many library books that I wanted to read straight away.

Kim, I did think the doctor's narration was self-serving, and that he wasn't aware of his own motives.

Reading The Glass Room and enjoying it.

Pam, what does the bold book in a section mean, please and thanks?

I agree that Byatt requires a certain persistence...or patience.

Tui, the bold books are those I've read.

Enjoyed Possession and have recommended it to many people. The Children's Book, with its connection to the Arts and Crafts movement, concentrates on objects, at least in the first section, in a way that Possession did not. Much Victorian fiction is long, with, as in the forementioned Dombey and Son, digressions for detailed descriptions, so I am assuming that the same features in Byatt's book are integral to her purpose.

Many of us, I'm sure, skimmed the war bits in War and Peace, so perhaps I can skim the ornaments, clothing, furniture and other material things in The Children's Book.

The Children's Book talks about the arts and crafts movement? It moves much higher on the books I need to read! I adore William Morris and have spent too much time in the V&A back when I lived close enough to visit it regularly. Now I'm all excited!

RigewayGirl, you made me laugh. Sounds like The Children's Book is right up your alley.

The Glass Room Simon Mawer

The glass room is a modernist house, the masterpiece of the famous architect von Abt. He builds it in 1929, a time of optimism for the new country, Czechoslovakia, and for the house's owners, the young couple, Viktor and Liesel Landauer. Viktor is Jewish, so the Landauers have to leave their house to the invading Germans.

The book traces the fate of the glass room, starting as a family home for the Landauers, then as a Nazi research institute, a hospital for children, and finally as a museum.

Highly recommended 4.5*

You are starred Pam - looking forward to keeping up with your reading. You are already covering a lot of gound!

Wow, Pam! You've really started off with a BANG! I loved both of Michael Chabon's books and White Tiger. I almost bought The Glass Room at Powell's last week. Instead, I bought a book that I thought I had heard good things about--Oops! I got home and saw that it had bad reviews. I should have taken my list with me! :-( I have Sea of Poppies in my tbr pile so it will be read soon, but I'm not doing nearly as much reading as you are. You're smokin'! :-)

>54 bonniebooks: ahem. You were at Powell's and didn't call me??? *sulks in corner*

:-) Terri, I tried to convince everybody to meet up at the smaller Powell's closer to your house, but no one would consider any place but the original. Besides, I was dragging--oops! I mean I had the pleasure of my mom's company with me and she gets tired easily. Deborah and I are going to have to come down together as soon as the weather gets better; I want to try the train sometime.

I heard that The Glass Room is based on the World Heritage Site Villa Tugendhat. It's one on my book list. Glad to see that you gave it 4.5 stars.

Had a look at the Villa Tugendhat, Kim. Impressive.

Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym

Back to the fifties with Barbara Pym's wickedly observed community of anthropologists. Jean-Pierre le Rossignol, urbane Frenchman, observes English suburban life; stocky Miss Clovis may have left her last job because of a contretemps regarding tea-making, but no one dares ask. It's a wonderful cast of characters.

4*

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

Eighteen-year-old Eilas Lacey leaves her small Irish town to find work in America. Once over her initial loneliness and homesickness, she starts to enjoy her new life, until a tragedy at home in Ireland drags her back there.

An enjoyable, quick read. Not nearly as heart-breaking as the blurb states.

4*

Oh, but didn't you find it to be a lonely book?

I did, but lately I've read a few books about WWII, so I didn't think Brooklyn was tragic. Thought Eilas seemed to act out of character in the last section of the book.

ET fix touchstone.

You have some very interesting book selections. I'll be following along.

Welcome aruba.

One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson

Jackson Brodie, the detective from Case Histories, accompanies his actress girlfriend Julia to the Edinburgh Festival. He becomes entwined in a many-stranded plot that involves a corrupt builder and his sentimental wife, an enforcer with a baseball bat, a wimpy crime-writer, a third-rate comedian, a Russian dominatrix, a contact killer and two fourteen-year-old boys.

I raced through the book, but by the end was irritated by the nastiness of most of the characters, and Atkinson's sardonic tone.

3.5*

I had to laugh when I read your synopsis. It looks like something Carl Hiaasen would write! I read Case Histories last year (on a recommendation from RidgewayGirl) and fell in love with Kate Atkinson. I received One Good Turn as a Christmas gift and plan to read it for my 1010 as well. Is the style very different?

Victoria, I found the tone of two books quite different. In Case Histories there was some compassion for most of the characters, and the crimes they were involved in were tragic, but One Good Turn verges on caper crime. The only really sympathetic characters are Brodie and the police inspector.

@64 Haven't read Atkinson since she stopped being translated into Swedish (happens to a lot of writers, sadly), but your little synopsis, not-all-positive as it was, made me curious to pick her up again. Thanks!

Smile or Die: How Positive Thinking Fooled America and the World by Barbara Ehrenreich

When Barbara Ehrenreich was diagnosed with breast cancer, she was appalled by the prevailing idea that her recovery depended on her ability to deny her anger and embrace the cancer as an opportunity to change her life. She gives examples of women blaming themselves when, despite meditation, exercise, diet and heroically positive attitudes, their cancer recurs, and even being ejected from cancer support groups. She has reviewed the scientific research on the relationship between positive thinking and cancer recovery and has found that there is no relationship at all.

From the blame the sufferer attitude of the positive thinkers in the medical world Ehrenreich moves on to materialistic religious positivism with its proponents, such as Joel Osteen, who preach the message that God wants us to be rich. She talks about positive psychology, and links the GFC to an epidemic of corporate positive thinking, with gut feeling and intuition replacing rational decision-making.

I wasn't keen on Ehrenreich's heavily ironic tone, which struck me as a bit undergraduate, but her book is definitely worth reading. 3.5*

ETA
Touchstone won't work, so here's a link.
Smile or Die

I could so go on a rant about this. It's important that relatives and friends of people who have cancer--or any serious illness--read books like this, because it is so easy to listen to, and repeat, the psychobabble (some of it spouted by doctors which makes it even more harmful because we assume every doctor's comments are based on science) and unintentionally cause more distress in people they care about. When I had cancer (25 years ago, thank goodness!) people were constantly coming to me with ideas/suggestions based on inadequate to non-existing research. I knew it was because they were afraid, but so not helpful! So thanks, Pam, for reading and reviewing Smile or Die. In this day and age, is there anybody who doesn't know someone who has cancer?

eta: That's weird how even when you pick the right touchstone (others), the posting doesn't change.

She has reviewed the scientific research on the relationship between positive thinking and cancer recovery and has found that there is no relationship at all.
Yep, I saw a documentary on Cancer and the oncologist said he'd seen very positive people who were determined to live die from their cancer and very negative people survive and go into remission.
Sounds like this book tried to cover a lot of ground from cancer to GFC!

Caught a discussion with Barbara Ehrenreich, Orhan PamuK and Simon Schama on radio 4 last week:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00pqfjh

I have been tempted to hunt down a copy but wasn't sure how much mileage there would be in the subject, so thanks for the review.

I remember reading a self help book last year that said "positive thinking" exercises could actually be detrimental.. quite refreshing really. (btw book was average & was called 59 Seconds: Think a Little, Change a Lot).

Thanks for the link clfisha.

Bonnie, unfortunately most of us do. So glad yours is 25 years in the past.

A Dying Fall by Henry Wade

Having a short break from Wolf Hall to feed the crime addiction. Fifties England, fox hunting, loveless marriage, femme fatale, a fatal fall.

First Wade I've read - not bad. A twist at the end.

3.5*

ETA I found this book in Library Thing recommendations, which is a very good thing because it means I can put it in category 2, Recommended on LT, rather than in 3. Crime.

68. I wasn't keen on Ehrenreich's heavily ironic tone, which struck me as a bit undergraduate,

That's what I thought about Bait and Switch - which I also thought was a bit condescending and arrogant to assume she could fake her way into and nail a professional job with no credentials. I imagine that if I met her she would strike me as one of those people who after debating with a while I would just stop and smile and nod because she has no idea what she's talking about but thinks she does.

Positivism may not be able to achieve all it claims to, and it may be a little self-disingenuous at times, but in some cases, it can help to provide a mechanism to avoid self-defeatism, victimization, and/or to encourage and enable finding creative opportunities out of hardships, and to take a step back and look at a situation from a different perspective.

Juliet Naked by Nick Hornby

Picture the main characters from High Fidelity, the man obsessed with music trivia and his intelligent, capable girlfriend. Now move them fifteen years on, give them jobs they don't like, and put them in a dreary English seaside town. Juliet Naked!

For fifteen years, Annie has been living with Duncan, who is obsessed with the retired, reclusive singer songwriter Tucker Crowe. Crowe, feckless failed parent, recovered alcoholic and reader of Dickens, makes contact with Annie through Duncan's fan website.

Hornby makes some amusing observations about obsessive music fans, but overall I found this to be a depressing book.

3*

Touchstones!

That's funny. I read Juliet, Naked the day before yesterday and found it really light and fun. There was also wine involved, however.

I agree the issues were pretty serious, but too much of the tone was like Richard Curtis (screenwriter of Four Weddings and a Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually, etc.) for me to feel bad about it. Also, I'm the same age as the female lead and have ended up with a few of the same time-wasting situations, but don't feel particularly bad about it, so that helped temper things.

Wow, you're really cruising right along in your reading Pam. Looks like a mixed bag so far.

kristen, I wanted things to turn out better for Annie. 15 years with Duncan!

Terri, I'm still reading Wolf Hall and will be for the next few decades because I keep breaking off to read lighter books. Also reading Forbidden Journey by Ella Maillart, which is the story of the author's journey from Peking to Kashmir in 1935. Talk about intrepid!

it can help to provide a mechanism to avoid self-defeatism, victimization, and/or to encourage and enable finding creative opportunities out of hardships, and to take a step back and look at a situation from a different perspective.

I think Ehrenreich would totally agree with you on this, bfertig, and I would too, but these feelings/meanings have to come from within a person, themselves, and on their own time. I haven't read the book yet, but I'm assuming that Ehrenreich is talking about other people pushing "positivity" on a sick person. I can assume that because it happened so frequently to me and my friends who had cancer. (I helped start and co-lead a support group for years after being diagnosed with breast cancer.) For example, when I was dealing with cancer, it gave me energy, serenity, encouragement, and a feeling of self-empowerment and hope/satisfaction when I found meaning in the events of my life that others might deem bad/sad/scary; but it is quite another thing when others tell you how you should feel. Then it feels annoying and can cause a lot of stress.

This reaction is not unique to people who are diagnosed with cancer. Throughout history, people have tried to come up with the reasons for diseases that have no known cause, and have often blamed the persons themselves in ways that we would now say was ridiculous. We do this, I think, because it makes us feel less afraid and more in control of our lives. If I do this...or don't do that... At the time I found out I had cancer, there was more than one book--some of them written by doctors-- that proclaimed that women who got breast cancer had different personalities than ones who didn't. Specifically, they were more likely to hold their negative feelings inside. A common reaction by many women on hearing that was a feeling of relief: "I'm not a person who holds in my feelings, so I won't get cancer..." Somebody actually admitted to me that they thought this--that is, until they got cancer! Oops!

I don't know what it is like today, but I can tell you that every single women I met who had cancer (and I met hundreds) had these experiences! Ironically, women who had cancer were accused of holding in their negative feelings. On the other hand, once they got sick, they were being told they should stay positive--that women who expressed negative feelings/thoughts wouldn't live as long as those who stayed positive. Do you see the dilemma? I could tell you stories, but I've already hijacked Pam's thread for long enough!

... but these feelings/meanings have to come from within a person, themselves, and on their own time.

Sure, I agree. Otherwise it's entirely disingenuous externally and internally and will likely have negative impacts and reactions rather than positive ones. And I agree with you that having others dictate how one should think and feel can be rediculous, futile, obnoxious, and detrimental. And it sucks that it happened to you and your friends. There's a reason for getting a second opinion on things - doctors aren't omniscient. Every scientific field has a popular theory until it is either disproved or a better explanation that fits more facts comes along.

I imagine that there are two lines of thinking that lead to this type of behavior. One (which I would like to think is dominant) is an attempt to help - that in some way, fallacy or not, thinking positively will have some sort of benefit - personally, socially, medically, some combination, etc. And so by encouraging this behaviour, friends, doctors, etc feel that they are helping (regardless of whether or not they are) since there is really very little they can do otherwise (though that is changing to some degree for some types of cancer or other maladies).

The second line of thinking is far more selfish: its easier and more fun to be around bright shiny smiling people than dour gloomy whiny sourpusses - regardless of whether either of those outlooks/behaviors are warranted. OF COURSE if one has cancer it's perfectly valid to have negative feelings and behaviors. But its easier for those on the outside looking in around to see a valient hero fighting the good fight against indescribable odds. Folks like to root for the underdog who can go the distance even if they don't win the match (sorry for the irrelevant Rocky reference).

As for the blame game, I like to think that really constructive thinking places the emphasis on finding and achieving the solutions than being satisfying with pointing to causes. Cancer patients and their feelings (negative or positive) don't cause cancer, cell function irregularities cause cancer. Leaving blame with the patient or their feelings doesn't actually enable any improvement in treatment or care. Blaming patients or their feelings is not what I would call positive thinking because there it does not provide a solution.

I think it's great that you were able to help start and co-lead that support group. That's exactly the type of postive thinking and active engagement I would have encouraged - it enables you to reach out and go through the struggle together, and makes a positive difference in other's lives as well as your own. Another example would be fundraising for cancer research.

But cancer - or disease generally - is just not a mind over matter issue.

bfertig, I didn't like Barbara Ehrenreich's writing style, but I agree with her premise that people who believe they can change reality by thinking positively are very much mistaken. I think that the culture of blaming the victim, whether that victim is a cancer sufferer or a man who's lost his job after 30 years in the same company, comes from people's lack of control over their lives and their unwillingness to stick their necks out and try to fix what's wrong. They can't accept their own powerlessness so seek to change the only thing they can control, their own attitudes.

That's exactly the type of positive thinking and active engagement I would have encouraged.
Can't agree with you there - not our place to judge or advise.

ETA Bonnie, you can hijack my thread any time.

Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

It's taken a while, but I've picked it up again every time I've put it down, so it's an interesting read. I couldn't accept the idea that Cromwell was speaking through Hilary, so never quite lost myself in the book. Having to go back and re-read to sort out who was who also reduced my involvement.

4*

Touchstone!

Pamela and Bonnie - I think we are agreeing about the major point that thinking positively won't cure cancer, diseases etc. As I said (79) - it's not a mind over matter issue. There are biological and physical factors at work that are simply not influenced by thought patterns.

Pamela - you're right - it's not my place to judge or tell Bonnie what to do. And obviously everyone can take or leave whatever I say. I was merely trying to provide examples of the types of advice I would have given were I actually in a place to advise. And to compliment, given that her stated actions were aligned with my theoretical advice.

The minor point which I was attempting to make on first go around (73) is that in general, positive thinking is not *always* useless and can potentially provide some psychological benefits, if not actual medical benefits.

I believe that there are some things under our control and some things out of our control, but we can learn to control our reactions to either to a greater or lesser extent. Sometimes not our immediate reactions, but perhaps our intermediate- or long-term pattern of reactions. Reaction control applies to situations both under and out of our control. So both cancer and the job loss scenario Pamela mentioned (80). Positive thinking can help in some cases to get our reactions under our control so they can be channeled towards self-benefit.

Forty words for Sorrow by Giles Blunt

Adolescents are disappearing from the small Canadian town of Algonquin Bay. We know who the killer is, but the police don't. Will they find the latest victim in time?

Well-plotted, suspenseful police procedural.
4*

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

Our heroine has been shot in the shoulder, hip and brain, then buried alive, so it's taking her a while to recover. As she lies in her hospital bed, a rogue element of the Swedish security forces plots to have her incarcerated in a mental institution for ever.

***Spoiler****
Apparently the only lasting effect of the bullet in the brain is that Salander can no longer remember how she solved Fermat's last theorem!
***********

Giving this 4* because it was such a page turner.

ET fix a grammatical error

Is this Smile or Die book that you were talking about by Barbara Ehrenreich the same as her book, Bright-sided?

I am hoping to start that one soon and it sounds so similar.

Yes Linda, it's the same book.

Thanks, pamelad. I'm also planning to start reading the first Stieg Larsson book soon, too.

Running one step (or more) behind the crowd on that series.

ok, that made me grin: "shot in the shoulder, hip and brain, then buried, so it's taking her a while to recover". Is this one you have to leave the light on after you read it?

My gosh Pam, 15 books! That's some acheivement for a month of reading :-)

Stieg Larsson's books are going to turn up at my place soon, sounds like a fun read.

Happy Australia Day, Pam!

Thank you Tui. It's a good day for a holiday - the sun is shining and the temperature is in the mid-twenties (Celsius).

Kim, enjoy the Stieg Larsson books, but make sure you don't have anything urgent to do when you start one.

I'm reading Kim and am fascinated to see that Kipling made up words. I've noticed "clomb" for "climbed" and "coolth" for "coolness", and they're in the narrative, not in direct speech or the characters' heads.

Kim by Rudyard Kipling

I read Kim because it's a well-regarded classic that I missed as a child, and because Kipling won a Nobel prize.

I enjoyed the book for its descriptions of India at the turn of the twentieth century, particularly life in the bazaar, walking the Grand Trunk Road, the talkative old lady travelling the country in a relaxed purdah, the attitudes of the British to the locals. Kipling obviously loved India, but, just as clearly, he believed that the country should be ruled by the British.

The characters spoke in a semi-biblical language, which seemed unnecessary, and the spy story was childish, but this is, after all, a children's book.

3.5*

I'd be interested in reading a Kipling for adults. Any suggestions?

I read Life's Handicap last year, which was a collection of some of his best short stories. They were arranged in reverse chronological order, so that the best ones which were written later were first. My favorite ones in this collection were 'The Man Who Was' and 'Without Benefit of Clergy'. If you read that one, don't read the preface first. It will basically give you the whole plot of the stories.

All I have read is Kim and the Jungle Books...although I think there were short stories...blanking on titles.

cmbohn, Life's Handicap looks good, thank you. I've added it to my Bookmooch wishlist.

Tui, I've had a look on the Book Depository and found that Kipling wrote an extraordinary amount in many genres. They have a few short story collections, so if there's no joy at Bookmooch, I'll be able to order something from the B.D. Not that I need to buy any more books!

Murder on the Costa Brava by John and Emery Bonett
A muck-raking reporter is found dead in a luxury hotel. There are rather too many people with motives for killing him. Quite readable, but rather silly.
3.5*

John and Emery Bonett are a husband and wife writing team. Emery is Felicity Coulson, who did the writing, while John is her husband John Coulson, who did the planning.

Having read most of the well-known crime writers of the 1920s to the 1970s, I've been seeking out some of the more obscure. Barzun and Taylor's A Catalogue of Crime led me to the Bonetts. Murder on the Costa Brava is not, according to Barzun and Taylor, one of the Bonett's best. B & T recommend A Banner for Pegasus aka Not in the Script and Dead Lion.

The Rising of the Moon by Gladys Mitchell

Young women are being knifed and killed in a English country town. The narrator, thirteen-year-old Simon Innes, with his younger brother Keith, investigates the murders.

Mitchell brilliantly maintains the perspective of the young narrator. This is an entertaining book, an adult variation on The Famous Five.

Recommended 4*

Rising of the Moon sounds like a good one. It's going on the list!

By the Sea by Abdulrazak Gurnah

A sixty-five-year-old man leaves Zanzibar to seek asylum in Britain. He comes across a younger countryman whose life has been intertwined with his own, and they exchange stories. Our perspectives on the characters keep changing as we learn more about them, and the tragic history of their country.

4*

>100 pamelad:: I read Gurnah's Desertion and liked it quite a lot; By the Sea sounds like another good one.

I've added Desertion to the wishlists: The Book Depository, Betterworld and Bookmooch.

U is for Undertow by Sue Grafton

Kinsey investigates a twenty-year-old unsolved kidnapping.

I've liked all of the alphabet series, but some are definitely better than others. This is a good one.

Recommended 4*

The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym

The middle-aged Leonora Eyre has an immaculately arranged life. She dresses elegantly and surrounds herself with beautiful, perfect pieces of Victoriana. A search for Victorian books leads Leonora to meet the sixtyish antique dealer, Humphrey, and his epicene nephew, James.

Leonora appropriates the handsome James and becomes, unusually for her, attached to him.

The Sweet Dove Died is as perceptive and funny as Pym's other novels, but the characters are shallow and selfish, so Pym's humourous observations are less gentle than usual, her judgements less charitable. For this reason, I rated this book a little lower than Less than Angels, my previous Pym.

3.5*

Shear the Black Sheep by David Dodge

David Dodge, one-time income tax consultant, wrote s series of crime novels featuring the accountant-investigator James Whitney. This Nick and Nora Charles knock-off is quite amusing, as Whit and his partner, Kitty McLeod, drink and detect their way through the Los Angeles of the late forties.

3.5*

Oh I love Nick and Nora. May have to check those out.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

This was the first of Murakami's books to become a best-seller. It's a love story, and for Murakami, is surprisingly easy to follow. The narrator is the eerily detached student, yet kind and well-meaning Watanabe, who falls in love with a girl who pines for her dead boyfriend. There's always a cat in Murakami's books, but this one doesn't appear until quite late in the book.

Recommended 4*

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami

This was the first of Murakami's books to become a best-seller. It's a love story, and for Murakami, is surprisingly easy to follow. The narrator is the eerily detached, yet kind and well-meaning, Watanabe, who falls in love with a girl who pines for her dead boyfriend. There's always a cat in Murakami's books, but this one doesn't appear until quite late in the book.

Recommended 4*

Or Be He Dead by James Byrom

I picked this green penguin off the shelf at my second-favourite second-hand bookshop despite never having heard of James Byrom. I've found some very good reads this way, authors who were popular in the forties and fifties, but have since faded into obscurity.

Another attraction of this battered paperback is the stamp on the title page, the "Seymour St Laundry-Mat & Book-Exchange, Traralgon." I like to think of the country people coming into town to do their washing and swap their paperbacks. (Traralgon is a town in rural Victoria, Australia.)

Back to the book. Raymond Kennington, writer of true crime stories, has uncovered an old case of blackmail and what, despite the court's verdict of accidental death, he thinks is murder. On the eve of publication, the publishers are warned that a journalist who wrote about the same case had been sued for libel and had committed suicide. Kennington, with the aid of the publisher's socialite secretary, sets off to find out whether the acquitted man is still alive.

An entertaining crime novel with many twists and turns. 3.5*

Look Who's Morphing by Tom Cho

This is a collection of insane short stories that had me snorting with laughter. After a couple of beers with the narrator Auntie Wei ends up in a novelty shop in Swanston street where she buys an apron with attached breasts which she wears down to Flinders Street station and home on the train. Other people are seeing her differently, the narrator notices, and in fact, Auntie Wei has become possessed by the devil. I can't do justice to this; it's hysterically funny and you have to read it for yourselves.

In another story, Cho starts of as Maria, turns into Captain von Trapp, and fantasizes about Fonzie with the Mother Superior. When the Australian Government launches a program to turn low income earners into robots, he becomes a robotic protocol expert, working at the UN. He's a cock rock god, staked to the earth like Gulliver. He's Whitney Houston's bionic bodyguard, then a penguin muppet.

Comic lunacy. 4.5*

@110 Wow.

Those both sound really good. Thanks for the reviews!

That's good to know that Norwegian Wood was Murakami's first best-seller since I bought it after not wanting to finish The Wind-up Word Chronicle. :-)

Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher

Ellen Destry has taken charge of the Waterloo CID branch while her boss Hal Challis is in South Australia waiting for his father to die. Katie Blasko, a ten year-old girl is abducted; rumour suggests a local paedophile ring.

A gripping police procedural, Disher's book is appeals to me even more because of its local setting. Waterloo appears to be the town of Hastings on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, about an hour's drive from Melbourne.

Recommended 4*

I'll look out for more of Disher's Challis and Destry series.

#110: Deffo going on the hunt for this one. Or at least an apron like that.

A Child's Book of True Crime by Chloe Hooper

Didn't like this much. Kate is a newly-qualified teacher at a Tasmanian country school. She's having an affair with the father of Lucien, one of her grade four students. Lucien's mother has written a book about a local murder. Kate imagines parallels between the old murder and her current affair. Interspersed with the main narrative is a faux children's story, with native animals discussing the old murder and Kate's current activities. This was way too cute for me.

3*

@116 Bored me to tears too. Hardly remember anything from it, more than it felt a chore to finish.

I'm reading another Gary Disher book, The Dragon Man, now and I'm really enjoying it. I'll have to find the others.

Forbidden Journey by Ella K. Maillart

In 1935 Ella Maillart set off to travel from Peking to Kashgar. She teamed up with the British journalist, Peter Fleming, whose book News from Tartary covers the same journey. The Russians are skirmishing with the Chinese, and the Turks of Chinese Turkestan are fighting for independence. Governments change, and travel documents become obsolete. Other European travellers have been accused as spies and have disappeared. Maillart and Fleming are constantly at risk of arrest.

Maillart experiences the last days of the centuries-old customs and culture of the peoples of Central Asia. She travels by donkey and camel, from oasis to oasis across the Gobi desert, through fertile farming land and through wastelands where food is scarce. She carries gold bars to exchange for the local currency to buy food and good along the way. She is stuck for weeks in some places, negotiating for the hire of scarce camels. Donkeys die, camels get ulcers, and the water runs out. This is an extraordinarily difficult journey, but nothing deters Maillart.

Highly Recommended 4.5*

>119 pamelad: Added to my wishlist. I love older travel narratives, and this one sounds great!

Forbidden Journey sounds really good--thanks!

To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

I enjoyed Willis's book, but if I were a science fiction fan I would have loved it.

It's 2057 and Lady Schrapnell is rebuilding Coventry Cathedral, which was destroyed in the blitz. She's a stickler for details and in her quest for authenticity has sent crews of time-travelling historians back into the past to check the minutest of details. Ned Henry has been sent back to the Victorian era to look for a hideous ornament, the Bishop's Bird Stump.

Ned has made too many trips recently, so he's time-lagged and confused. He meets Terrence and his dog, Cyril, and sets off with them on a trip down the Thames that just may change the course of history.

Entertaining and funny, but a plot based on time travel is not for me.

3.5*

The Successor by Ismail Kadare

Albania's future leader dies in the night, and the death is reported as suicide. In Albania though, to be out of favour with the leader, known as the Guide, is to be condemned to death.

Kadare's short book, with its spare writing, involves the reader in the fragility and terror of life in Albania.

Recommended 4.5*

Kadare's book was translated from Albanian into French and then from French into English, so it's in my Translated category, but only once.

Death at the Opera by Gladys Mitchell

Dame Gladys wrote more than eighty books, so it stands to reason that some were better than others. The Rising of the Moon was a lot better than this one, where multiple murders were committed with translucently thin motives.

3*

#122, I like time travel books so I'll have to look for To Say Nothing of the Dog.

#124 I've got that Death at the Opera book from the Rue Morgue press and have never gotten around to it. Sounds like I can keep it on the back burner.

How Doctors Think by Jerome Groopman

I've read a few of Groopman's articles in The New Yorker, so when I saw his book on special at the remainder shop, I picked it up.

Groopman describes the ways that doctors misdiagnose illnesses. According to Groopman, it's not a lack of knowledge or skkill that leads to most mistakes, but errors in thinking. He interviews doctors about mistakes they've made, and what changes they've taken to avoid making similar mistakes again. He describes patients who've shuttled from doctor to doctor, pursued by the initial incorrect diagnosis. Groopman also advises readers on what to do if they think their doctor is not listening, and is rushing to a facile diagnosis.

The insights into the contribution of health funding to excessive use of surgical procedures, and pharmaceutical marketing to the medicalisation of normal life stages are also interesting. 4*

Road Block by Hillary Waugh

Lloyd Ragan has planned every detail of the Tool and Dye Company payroll robbery and the getaway. He knows the police will set up road blocks, but Ragan knows how to avoid them. Things go wrong, and the police search desperately for the gang of vicious killers holding hostages in a secret hideout.

A tense, hard-boiled thriller.
4*

I was planning on making 1. Prizewinners all Nobels, but something is preventing me from reading books by Nobel laureates, perhaps the dearth of crime novels, so I'm going to put the Bookers and other prize winners in there too.

In 9. More Recommendations, I'm going to include books from lists such as the Guardian top 100, 1001...... before you die, and reference books like A Catalogue of Crime.

ETA Fixed a touchstone.

>128 pamelad:: I have tried reading Nobel winners myself, but I found I did not enjoy them nearly as much as other prize winners. My theory is that those who win the Nobel Prize write stuff that requires you to think. I didn't think I'd mind that at all, but the effort required to read and appreciate the work of Nobel-winning authors was more than I was prepared to invest.

Laura, 10 Nobel prize winners seem too many because when I'm busy at work I'm looking for escapist reading. As you say, they're an effort. The change of groups is a psychological ploy - if I don't have to read them, I'm more likely to read them.

Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym

Four elderly people, two men and two women, work together in a small office, doing dull and unimportant work. All the same, they approach their impending retirements with trepidation. As usual for Pym, the characters are minutely observed and drawn with finesse. I'm sure I've met Norman.

This is a sad book, but it ends on a note of hope.
4*

>130 pamelad:: ooh, I loved Quartet in Autumn. Sadder than her usual work, but quite good.

I found How Doctors Think fascinating.

Also, as I've said all over LT, Quartet in Autumn is my favorite Pym book, for its depiction of loneliness and aging.

That Summer by Andrew Greig

Len is a young fighter pilot, a working class boy whose father is a game keeper. Stella is a middle-class girl, a little older than Len, working as a radar operative. They meet in a pub in 1940 and gradually fall in love. I had to put this book asiide for a while because I was so attached to the characters and couldn't bear that they might die. It's the battle of Britain, and the life of a fighter pilot is short.

Recommended 4*

The Women in Black by Madeleine St. John

It's Sydney in the fifties, where Australian men are useless and women make the best of things. The book follows the lives of a group of women who work in the cocktail frock section of Goode's department store. From the women's unpromising lives, St. John has crafted a surprising number of happy endings.

Tidy and pleasant. 3.5*

Women in Black sounds good so it's going on the list. I've got Quartet in Autumn on the shelf and hope to get to it soon.

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
The Curate's Wife by E. H. Young
The Merry Wives of Maggody by Joan Hess

The first two, excellent. Slices of the world - Hasidic Jews in New York in the sixties, and working for the minimum wage around the US in the nineties.

I thought Nickel and Dimed was better written than Brightsided, and more important. Wider scope. I was surprised how fascinating The Chosen was. Now looking for The Promise.

The Curate's Wife was quite enjoyable but not as good as The Misses Mallett. Still looking for Miss Mole.

Joan Hess's latest effort was a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps I've read too many of the Maggody series.

Quartet in Autumn is one of my favourite Pyms. You're right: the details were so "minutely observed".

I like the sound of How Doctors Think...it sounds like it would be a really useful read.

I think The Curate's Wife does better with Jenny Wren read first...did you read them that way? Good luck with finding Miss Mole (I loved it).

The Essence of the Thing by Madeleine St. John

After nipping out to buy cigarettes, Nicola returns to the flat she shares with the gorgeous, stuffy Jonathon to be told that he no longer loves her, so she should move out.

The devastated Nicola moves out to stay with friends, and starts to rebuild her life.

This book reminded me a little of Barbara Pym's. Nicola behaves very well, whereas pompous, self-centred Jonathon behaves appallingly. Like Pym's heroines, Nicola is intelligent and capable and, despite her misery, capable of laughing at herself.

Highly recommended 4.5*

West with the Night by Beryl Markham

Markham was brought up in Kenya by her father, a horse trainer and farmer. She had an active and independent childhood, growing up with the African boys who were training to become warriors.

Markham was the first person to fly across the Atlantic from west to east. I loved the philosophical flying bits of this book, and the safaris, and the African landscape, but skimmed a couple of chapters because I have no patience for people who prefer animals to people and a few paragraphs of plucky, big-hearted dogs and horses is more than enough.

Markham has left a lot out of this biography - a child, three marriages and numerous affairs for starters. She's included the best of herself, which is fair enough in an autobiography.

A fascinating woman. I must read more. 4*

I read Nickled and Dimed in 2008 and enjoyed it, and have her book about dancing in a box in New Zealand (I'm blanking on the name!) Just re-read that. I mean the book is in a box ;)

And The Chosen is one of my favourite books! I've forgotten the details of The Promise but remember liking it, but not as much. I also read My Name is Asher Lev but don't think I enjoyed it, but I can't remember why, and I was much younger then so might like it more now. I have Potok's Wanderings: History of the Jews in another box at home.

Deffo going to hunt down the St. John book.
I think a book about dancing in a box in New Zealand has potential, Cush. I thought maybe it was the down under version of pole dancing.

Just read two of Michael Innes's Honeybath novels, The Mysterious Commission and Lord Mullion's Secret. Light, undemanding and silly. I quite enjoyed them but have subtracted half a point because they were so appallingly snobbish.

Spoiler
The intelligent young gardener who wants to better himself turns out to be not a real villager, but a by-blow of the noble Mullions. Shades of Oliver Twist - blood will out - but this book was written in 1981!
End

I was pleased to see some Michael Innes at the local library, which normally runs to multiple copies of Patricia Cornwell's latest, and has limited space for anything interesting.

Were they tongue in cheek appallingly snobbish or snobbish with intent?

Innes's work is all tongue in cheek, but I detected an underlying acceptance of "The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate, he made them high and lowly and ordered their estate."

I don't think the privileged can justify being tongue-in-cheek about the British class structure, though perhaps it's changed by now, and Innes was a fossil in 1981.

I have just been reading Nickle and Dimed so am in crusading mode. Which reminds me, how on earth could a cleaning the floors on hands and knees be selling point for a maid service? I am appalled.

ET fix the typos I only see after I've psoted.

I thought Nickel and Dimed was better than Bait and Switch. So far it appears that Nickel and Dimed is the winner of the lot of her books, from what I can tell from this thread.

Great review of How Doctors Think. Having just finished another book on health care, The Healing of America: a global search for better, cheaper and fairer heath care, I'd be interested in reading another. A number of my friends are doctors, I'd be curious to discuss it with them as well.

Waiting on cmt to get Ehrenreich's dancing book out of the box, but so far I agree bfertig. Might give Bait and Switch a miss. Interested to hear people's opinions about her other books.

Have done a bit of light reading over the last couple of weeks. Two from the fifties:Wildfire at Midnight, romantic suspense by Mary Stewart, found at a charity book sale in the Blue Mountains; The Eye of Love by Margery Sharp.

Smoke and Mirrors, a crime novel set in Canberra, harks back to the dismissal with the murder of a Whitlam minister who is writng his memoirs. Brad Chen, the detective, is an Australian-Chinese ex-AFL player!

Just finished Borrowed Finery, Paula Fox's memoir of her rackety childhood and adolescence. Her father is a charming drunk, and her mother hates her, so the infant Fox is dumped in an orphanage. She's initially rescued by her father's family, and finds some stability with a minister who unofficially adopts her, but her parents disrupt her life time and again.

Fox is looking back at her childhood from a distance of sixty or so years; she's calm, measured and factual, and shows no self-pity.

Half-way through. One category is finished: Recommended on LT. Not a surprise! Glad I have another category for recommendations.

>145 pamelad:: I thought Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed was well worth buying and reading. Some of the other ones are just 'preaching to the choir' for me, so don't feel they're worth buying. I read/skim them at the bookstore or the library. Sometimes I'll buy books like that because I want to support the author, but then I don't read the books all the way through. (Think I have about 25 books on my shelves that fit that category.)

I should buy Borrowed Finery for my mother. It describes her life. Well, minus the "charming," and the minister to come to her rescue, or the parents who bother to come back to disrupt her life. Hmmm...maybe not that close, but I like Paula Fox's books, so thanks for the rec! :-)

Five for Sorrow Ten for Joy by Rumer Godden

I'd been looking for a copy of In this House of Brede, which many people on LT have recommended highly, but hadn't seen anything at all by Rumer Godden, so when I found this book in Katoomba, I snapped it up.

Elizabeth Fanshawe, a naive twenty-year-old, becomes separated from her army companions on the night of the Liberation of Paris. During the wild celebrations she meets the suave and seductive Patrice who sets her on the path to ruin: prostitution, murder, and a fifteen year prison sentence. While in prison, she falls under the influence of the Sisters of Bethany, and on completion of her sentence begins the long training necessary for joining the order.

This was an intriguing and entertaining read, with plenty of interesting details about life in a convent and in a brothel. The story romps along, with breaks for religious contemplation that don't slow things down too much. 3.5*

The Peter Principle by Laurence J. Peter

People are promoted until they reach their level of incompetence. Tragically amusing classic.

4*

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Borrowed this from the library because Ridgway Girl recommended it highly. Enjoyed it greatly. Her participation links the commonplace yet tragic stories of the people in a small US town. Strout observes her characters closely and treats them with sympathy.

Highly recommended. 4.5*

I'm glad you liked it. I find that I'm really enjoying reading books with unsympathetic characters, although I appreciate them somewhat less in real life.

>150 pamelad:: so glad you liked that one, Pam. I thought it was wonderful and also gave it 4.5 stars. It fell just short of making my 2009 Top 5.

Ditto

My Mortal Enemy by Willa Cather

Discovered Willa Cather last year, and now I pick up every book of hers that I see. This is a novella, and not a word is wasted.

Myra Driscoll leaves her rich uncle's house to elope with her impoverished fiance, Oswald Henshaw, and is disinherited. She never adjusts to her relative poverty, despite Oswald's devotion. Both Oswald and Myra are complex characters. We see them at three different stages of their lives through the eyes of the intelligent young narrator, Nellie, who has grown up with the stories of Myra's romantic elopement.

The characters linger. 4*

What I Saw: Reports from Berlin by Joseph Roth

A collection of Roth's journalism, published in Berlin in the twenties. The last article, written in Paris in 1933, tells the world of the fate of Jewish writers in Nazi Germany.

Roth gathers impressions as he wanders the streets of Berlin, in and out of cafes, and nightclubs, the Riechstag and a shelter for the homeless. He writes with wit and passion. A brilliant record of Berlin during the Weimar Republic.

Highly recommended 5*

And on the wishlist it goes! Ernest Hemingway also wrote newspaper articles about life in Germany between the wars. There was one especially evocative report about the runaway inflation that occurred and how the French would cross the border to buy things cheaply because of the exchange rate. I wish I could remember the title of the book made of his collected reportages as they were fascinating. I look forward to finding and reading What I Saw.

The Spirit of Prague by Ivan Klima

A collection of journalism, some of it initially published in samizdat. Klima spent his childhood in Terezin concentration camp, and was educated during the Stalinist period. Although he studied literature, he was twenty-five before he discovered the works of Kafka.

Klima reflects on Czech life from the forties to the nineties: the Soviet invasion, totalitarianism, the velvet revolution, and the division of Czechoslovakia. These are opinion pieces in the mode of Orwell.

The ideas were important, but the writing was pedestrian. Perhaps the translation?
3.5*

#145, 147 I don't get over here much but I just want to chime in on Borrowed Finery. I think it is everything a memoir of a horrifying childhood should be, but so often is not: deeply perceptive and completely unsentimental.

Welcome Rebecca.

A Glass of Blessings by Barbara Pym
An early, cheerful Pym. Highly recommended. 4.5*

The Weather in Africa by Martha Gellhorn
Three novellas. All three deal with the relations between blacks and whites, and the beliefs and assumptions that drive them. Gellhorn's Africa is lush and beautiful.
Recommended. 4*

I bought A Glass of Blessings in February when I finished Excellent Women - good to see you really liked it.

And I read Caroline Moorhead's biography of Martha Gellhorn last year - she was an amazing woman, but not very likable (to me anyway) by the end of the book.

I'll keep an eye out for the Gellhorn biography, cmt. Also looking out for a Beryl Markham biography - she's so immensely unlikeable that Martha might seem saintly by comparison. They're linked in my mind via their cover pictures: blondes in Africa.

Just read The Whipping Boys on the basis that most green Penguins are worth a try. I've discovered some forgotten classics amongst them, but this wasn't one : characters two dimensional; plot silly; pace lacking. Why did I keep reading? It was short.

2.5*

The Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri

A car accident on the way to a funeral leads Inspector Salvo Montalbano to the dead body of the beautiful Michela Licalzi.

Entertaining crime novel, set in Sicily. The grumpy, ourtspoken Montalbano is an honest man, making his way as best he can through a morass of corruption. There's a lot of talk about food, which reminds me of Maigret, but Montalbo is a more engaging, less pompous character than Simenon's inspector.

Recommended 4*

ET to restore a missing syllable to Montalbano.

I have the first two volumes of the Montalbano series (as an omnibus edition) on my tbr shelves. It's good to know the later books are also worth a read.

Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell

The first appearance of Mankell's depressed detective, Kurt Wallander. He's newly divorced, estranged from his daughter, his nasty old father is losing his marbles, and he drinks too much.

Wallander and his team investigate the savage murder of an elerly couple. A gripping police procedural. Recommended 4*.

Needs a better editor - how could anyone miss a mistake like he hadn't never?

Wolfy, I read an early Camilleri, The Terracotta Dog, ages ago and didn't like it much. I liked The Voice of the Violin a lot more, so perhaps the series keeps improving.

Are you going in order with the Wallander books? (Probably! Starting in the middle is a bad habit of mine.) I read the second one, The Dogs of Riga, last year and it was so good that I went on a second-hand bookshop Mankell hunt and bought lots of other Wallanders. The only one I couldn't find, and was always out of the library, was Faceless Killers. I keep forgetting to buy it and start at the start.

I finished the first Montalbano one, The Shape of Water, last week and liked it.

Pam, Cushla: have you seen the BBC dramatizations of Mankell's books, starring Kenneth Branagh? They're excellent.

Laura, I have to read the books first! (At the rate I'm going, Kenneth Branagh will be collecting his pension first.)

Ah, well, I didn't read the books. We watched the series first, and hubby is reading the books. And I adore Kenneth Branagh, even as a curmudgeonly old detective.

I like Branagh. I'll have to look for those on DVD.

Cushla, I've read three random Wallander books. Because I pick up books at the library and in second-hand bookshops, I read them as I find them. Goes for all series. Sometimes, having read book 6, it's comforting to know that the main character will survive the ordeal he's going through in book 3.

Talking of pensions.......Laura, when I retire I'm buying a TV. Must start making a list of what to watch!

Assignment in Brittany by Helen MacInnes

A competent WWII spy adventure written in 1942. Martin Hearne is Englishman impersonating a Frenchman in occupied France.

3.5*

ET fix touchstone problems because there are many wrong ways to spell Brittany.

The Charlotte Armstrong Treasury by Charlotte Armstrong

The three suspense novels in this collection are The Witch's House, Mischief and The Dream Walker.

All three share the theme of the evil stranger who invades an ordinary middle-class family. In The Witch's House the stranger is the new wife of a widowed university professor. In Mischief she's the the babysitter. Both of these stories work well; the tension builds as we will the ignorant victims to notice the evil in their midst, and to act before it is too late.

The third story, The Dream Walker is less successful.

3.5*

Death Walks in Eastrepps by Francis Beeding

People are being murdered in Eastrepps, a British seaside town. The holidaymakers are going home, leaving cash-strapped landladies and a surfeit of kippers at the fishmongers. Scotland Yard, with the help of the local police, is investigating. I guessed the criminal about half way through, which may just mean that I read it years ago, and have forgotten.

This classic Golden Age mystery features on a number of best mystery lists, including the Haycraft Queen list, so I've put it in the Recommendations and Prize Winners category. I don't want to fill the Crime category too quickly.

May have to include Edgar, and Gold and Silver Dagger winners in the Prizewinners category, to keep company with the Nobel laurates.

That one sounds really good so it's on the list now. I love the old British mysteries.

Another vintage British mystery. This one was written in the seventies, but at the tail end of Mitchell's long writing career so it reads as though it were from an earlier time.

Mingled with Venom by Gladys Mitchell

Wealthy matriarch, Romula Leyden, keeps her family and hangers-on in suspense about her will. Her money gives her power over her poverty-stricken potential heirs, who grimly put up with her manipulative behaviour.

Most of the characters are caricatures, including the redoubtable Dame Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bradley, consultant forensic psychiatrist to the Home Office, but the book is no worse for that.

Recommended 4*

ETA I just found this site Gladys Mitchell Best and Worst where some mad keen Gladys Mitchell fans have rated all sixty-six Mrs Bradley novels!

Death in Captivity by Michael Gilbert

This is a well-written WWII prison camp escape story. A suspected informer is found buried in the sand of a tunnel, but Captain Benucci, officer of the carabinieri and de facto commander of the camp, is still obtaining information.

The book is set at the time of the Italian capitulation.

I enjoyed it. 3.5*

The Michael Gilbert book sounds good. I've read a couple of his this year and enjoyed them.

Death Has Deep Roots by Michael Gilbert

A French waitress working in a London hotel is accused of murdering an English major. She worked for the resistance in wartime France and was imprisoned by the Gestapo; he traced the victims of the Gestapo. There was a confusion of characters, some of them irrelevant, but overall this was a very readable WWII crime novel.

3.5*

ETA This book would have finished off the crime category, but I've moved Henning Mankell out into the translated category. It would have been useful to have more crime categories to accommodate these binges. Fortunately I can fit crime novels into many categories.

Frantic by Katherine Howell

Sophie Philllips is a Sydney ambulance officer married to a policeman, Chris. The couple have a ten-month old baby, and have been very happy together until Chris is bashed by a criminal and becomes depressed, distancing himself from Sophie. Things become desperate when Chris is shot in the face and Lachlan is abducted. The search is on for the abductors, with suspicion falling on a bereaved husband and corrupt police.

The writer used to be an ambulance officer so there is plenty of authentic detail, which adds another dimension to this gripping thriller.

Recommended 4*

The Welsh Girl by Peter Ho Davies

The lives of three people cross in wartime Wales: Rotherham, the Jewish refugee who interrogates German prisoners; Karsted, a German POW; and the Welsh girl herself, Esther. Rudolph Hess also appears.

The book didn't hang together very well, and the characters were two-dimensional. Actually, I read it in a day, so was interested enough; it was just that the reviews were so good that I was expecting something special.

3.5*

ET wait for touchstone to appear, but not today it seems..

I read The Welsh Girl when it came out and had the same reaction - I thought it was going to be a wonderful book, but it wasn't - but I still finished it. I can't remember the details now (not a good sign) but I think the Hess stuff didn't mesh with the rest of the book, or something...

Mrs Tim of the Regiment by D. E. Stevenson

This is a humorous domestic diary in the style of Diary of a Provincial Lady. Hester is married to Captain Tim Christie. They have two children, the outgoing, seven-year-old Betty, and Bryan, who is away at school. When Mrs Tim is hanging around the regiment visiting soldiers' wives, gossiping with the newly married Grace and avoiding the colonel's bossy wife the diary is amusing, but half-way through Mrs Tim pays a trip to the Scottish highlands without her husband, and the book goes downhill. Not too far downhill - I quite enjoyed it - but the romance and drama didn't belong.

I have given it 3.5* because I have taken off half a star for Mrs Tim's sneer at a young woman who didn't realise she should wear a tweed suit to go fishing.

Trying to get touchstone to work.

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil including In Persuasion Nation

In Persuasion Nation is a collection of short stories. Strange, brain-washed people fight against the culture of selfishness and materialism. Put like that, the books sounds dull, but the stories are wildly, insanely imaginative and funny, and Saunders is enraged.

Recommended 4*

The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil

The nation of Inner Horner is so small that it can hold only one citizen at a time; the six remaining citizens must wait in the short term residency zone of the neighbouring country, Outer Horner. When the violent, power-crazed Phil ousts the leader of Outer Horner, the Outer Hornerites must condone the destruction of Inner Horner, or die.

I picked this up after reading Pastoralia. It's OK, but neither as subtle nor as compassionate as Pastoralia.

3.5*

Queenpin by Megan Abbott

Hard-boiled crime with two female protagonists. The queenpin herself, Gloria Denton, has survived twenty years working for the mob. Her nameless protegee starts off as a book keeper, studying during the day and working at night, but she wants a lot more. Gloria trains her, and she learns well. It's bleak, violent, and no one can be trusted. Read it in an afternoon.

Recommended 4*

Megan Abbott is addictive. I've devoured all her other books save one this year (and I'm saving that last one as long as I can).

I think what makes them so interesting is that she keeps to all the rules of the old-fashioned hardboiled, while twisting them just enough to give us strong female characters.

Queenpin has been on my to-find list for a couple months. Sounds excellent.

and now for something completely different .....In This House of Brede by Rumer Godden

Philippa Talbot, high-powered civil servant, gives up her successful career to become a nun. At forty-two she joins a Benedictine Monastery as a postulant.

I've never seen the point of enclosed orders, but Godden does, so it's edifying to look at life at Brede from her perspective.

3.5*

Confessions of Felix Krull, Confidence Man by Thomas Mann

Felix Krull's father, manufacturer of bad sparkling wine, dies bankrupt leaving his wife and son to support themselves. Felix is a beautiful young man with a talent for making himself agreeable to people and a convenient lack of scruples. He begins his career as a hotel menial, but his gift of the gab, genuine interest in people and cheerful disposition see his fortunes rise rapidly.

Felix is an engaging character, absolutely full of it, and very amusing. I enjoyed the book but, because it's unfinished, wasn't sure what the point was. It's Thomas Mann after all, so surely it's an allegory of something?

Suggestions welcome.

Recommended 4*

I'm Not Complaining by Ruth Adam

Madge Bridgson teaches primary school students in a rough school in a depressed regional city. The local factories have closed down, and most of the workers are unemployed. Madge is blackly humorous about her students and their parents, particularly the ever pregnant Mrs Hunt, her thieving husband, and their eight infamous children. From today's perspective, Madge is a bit too bleak, a bit too scathing about the chances of her working class students, but she takes her job seriously and puts her heart into it.

Adam is sympathetic to her characters, many of whom, like Madge, are well-meaning yet misguided, causing havoc when they try to help.

A left leaning view of life in England during the Great Depression. Recommended. 4*

That does look interesting.

I agree that it sounds very interesting and so, I've added I'm Not Complaining to my wishlist.

Le Grand Meaulnes by Alain-Fournier

This is a French classic, first published in 1913. It's author was killed in action in 1914, at the age of 28.

Le Grand Meaulnes turns up as a new student at the school where the narrator's father teaches. He's grand in height and in character, a romantic adventurer who makes a big impression on his adolescent classmates.

Meaulnes borrows a horse and cart to collect the narrator's grandparents from the station, but disappears for days. He finds a "lost estate", a country house set up for a fancy dress party to celebrate a wedding. For the rest of the book, Meaulnes tries to rediscover the happiness he experienced there.

There's a sadness to this book, a yearning for a joyful time that will never come again. It's particularly poignant because of its publication in the shadow of the impending war, and the death of its young author.

Recommended 4*

#192 I remember studying this in one of my French lit classes in college. Our professor actually had us watch the movie instead of read the book. I think she couldn't find affordable copies of the book in French for us to read at the time. I didn't really remember much of the story, but I remember enjoying it and I've always wanted to go back and read the book.

I've had that one for a while but haven't gotten to it. Your review bumps it up higher on the list. It sounds so dreamy.

When Last I Died by Gladys Mitchell

Did Bella Foxley murder her rich aunt? Bella hated her job at the boys home, and had been waiting for years for her aunt's money, but the jury found her innocent.

When the grandson of Mrs Bradley finds Bella's diary, Mrs Bradley decides to investigate.

I love vintage mysteries, and this was quite a good one. 3.5*

Mrs Bradley has finished off my crime category.

Might As Well be Dead by Rex Stout

On the first page, the client says, "I contacted the New York Police," and Wolfe grimaces. According to Archie, "One man who had made "contact" a verb in that office had paid an extra thousand bucks for the privilege."

I love it. What would Wolfe have thought of a man who would "interface", I wonder?

It's 1956 and Wolfe is reading a newly-published book by Merle Miller, A Secret Understanding. I've just ordered it from Abe Books, because if Wolfe likes it, it must be worth reading.

Highly recommended 4.5*

This one's an overflow.

A Tale Etched in Blood and Hard Black Pencil by Christopher Brookmyre

I was teaching science at a secondary tech. around the time Brookmyre's characters were at school in a rough suburb of Glasgow. I never understood why one of my kids would pinch a Bunsen burner, but now I do.

Martin, the show business lawyer, who used to be a nice boy but is now a bit of a prick, receives a phone call from his old school mate Noodsy, who's been arrested for murder. The story hops about between the old school days and the present, as Martin tries to find out how Noodsy and his mate Turbo got themselves in this disaster. In the process, puzzles from the past start to make more sense.

I'm a Brookmyre fan, and this is one of his best.

Highly recommended. 4.5*

I still have 3 Brookmyre's to read and that is one of them. Glad to know it lives up to his customary high standard.

That was my first Brookmyre and I loved it. The language was fantastic.

The Time We Have Taken by Steven Carroll

Carroll's book is set in an outer suburb of Melbourne in 1970, its centenary year. A few miles further north, the highway cuts through barren, flat, thistle country. Carroll doesn't name the suburb, which is very like Glenroy, or the highway, which is the Hume, and the book is the worse for it. Carroll's ponderous, repetitive language distances the reader from the suburb and its people.

The book seems to be about time passing, and what happens to people who don't take the trouble to notice the moments as they go. They are a gloomy crowd, moving in slow motion through Carroll's dreary suburb, observed by the neighbours from behind the Venetian blinds.

I'd be betting that quite a few people in Glenroy in 1970 thought they were living happy and worthwhile lives. They shouldn't read this book.

3.5* because it's set in Melbourne and won the Miles Franklin

ET try to fix touchstone. No go.

I read this one last year (for the Aussie online book group I was in) and I found it really really slow. Should've been called The Long Long Time We Have Taken. Have you read the first one in the trilogy?

Just this one, Cushla. It's enough. It was a good bedside book - sent me off to sleep nicely.

The Revolution in Tanner's Lane by Mark Rutherford

The story starts in 1814, when crowds are gathered to see Louis XVIII. Zachariah Coleman, religious dissenter, political radical and supporter of the French revolution, is attacked for failing to remove his hat as a sign of respect for the French king.

The book is in two sections. The first centres on the revolutionary politics of Coleman and his friends as they work towards democracy and the repeal of the corn laws. Rutherford's disgust for the greed and corruption of Prince Regent and his entourage, and his concern for workers and the poor come through clearly.

The second section is loosely connected to the first by the appearance of Zachariah, who symbolises passion and honesty, in contrast to the venal hypocrisy of Cornfold's pastor and congregation. Similarly, the Cornfield pastor is a sad contrast to Bradshaw, the inspiring preacher in the first section.

Rutherford was the pseudonym of William Hale White, a public servant whose father's life has many similarities to Zachariah Coleman's. He lived - the Calvinist Dissenters, the Free Traders and the corn laws, and because it described the domestic lives of its characters - their strict religious observance, the books they read (or did not), the arguments between men and their wives, their expectations of life. We don't often come across contemporary (or near contemporary) descriptions of the lives of the poor.

Recommended 4*

Edited because I saved it half-way through.

Kittyhawk Down by Garry Disher

The second book in the Challis and Destry series.

A fisherman catches a body. A nosy Parker blackmails an international criminal. A toddler is murdered. A crazed, debt-ridden farmer is on the loose with a shotgun. It's all go on the Mornington Peninsula.

Generally well-written police procedural**, with believable characters and recognisable dialogue. Recommended. 4*

The Mornington Peninsula is an hour's drive from Melbourne; the local setting increases the book's appeal. Local to me, that is.

**Unfortunate lapse where Disher describes Detective Tankard as "like a bull in heat." Amusing, but distracting.

Wyatt by Garry Disher

Wyatt is a thief; he steals jewellery and paintings, but never drugs because the crims who deal in drugs are out of control, and Wyatt's a professional. He doesn't waste words, and he kills only when he has to.

Another gripping read from Garry Disher, but I prefer the Challis and Destry series. There were no good guys at all in Wyatt.

It's set in Melbourne, a grim and seedy place from Wyatt's perspective.

4*

I picked up a few Australian crime novels from the library yesterday, including both Dishers. Also borrowed High Noon in Nimbin because the title appealed and because Barrett writes an entertaining column in the Saturday paper, but gave up after one awful page.

The Memory Room looks like a much better option.

I really liked The Dragon Man and I have the other books in the series on my wishlist. I'll have to skim over the ovulating bull phrase.

Inspector Ghote's First Case by H. R. F. Keating

This is a prequel, coming at the end of the Inspector Ghote series.

Sir Rustom Engineer, first Indian-born police commissioner, sends the newly promoted Inspector Ghote to a hilll station to investigate the death of a sahib's wife.

I've read most of the books from this series and some of them, including The Perfect Murder and The Murder of the Maharajah have been well worth the time. This one wasn't; it plodded along repetitively and predictably.

3*

Touchstone problems.

Only Yesterday by Frederick Lewis Allen

Written in 1931, this book covers the years from the end of WW1 to the great stockmarket crash in 1929. Lewis writes clearly and engagingly about the big news of the twenties, including crime and graft of the Harding presidency, the Stopes trial, the trial of Sacco and Vanzetti, the Florida land speculation, Lindbergh's flight, prohibition and the rise of Al Capone. He also records changes in attitudes and ways of life: the trend from religious fundamentalism to modernism, the changes in moral values of youth made cynical by the destruction of the war, and the rise of materialism.

Recommended 4*

One Foot in the Grave by Peter Dickinson

A rich friend of former police inspector Jim Pibble has paid for him recover from a stroke in the expensive nursing home Flycatchers. Jim is depressed and confused, and doesn't much want to recover; he retreats from the world into sleep and hallucination. He makes one last effort to pull himself together enough to kill himself, but discovers a murder instead. Jim's health and mental state begin to improve as he becomes involved in the investigation.

The writing mirrors Jim's confusion, which I found tiresome. Many pages are spent on Jim's difficulties in performing tasks such as getting dressed and climbing stairs; there's a point to this, but not important enough to make it interesting.

3*

Another extra - doesn't fit in a category.

Holiday by Stanley Middleton

Edwin Fisher, lecturer in educational philsophy, recently separated from his wife Meg, spends a week in boarding house in a seaside town, reliving the holidays of his childhood and reflecting on his marriage. When Edwin runs into his wife's father in a pub, he surmises that the in-laws have come to this backwater to persuade him to return to his wife.

I quite enjoyed this book beause the writing is good and the characters are well-observed, but since I didn't actually like any of the people, I've given it 3.5*.

>210 pamelad:: Interesting take, Pam. Like you I enjoyed the writing and characterizations. I didn't mind Edwin so much; even though he was a bit of a prat I felt sympathetic towards him.

Excursion to Tindari by Anrea Camilleri

I'm becoming quite attached to grumpy Inspector Montalbano and his detectives, and delighted by Montalbano's war against his superiors. This time the team is investigating the murder of a young man, and the disappearance of an elderly couple who live in the same block of flats.

Recommended 4*

This book has the added advantage of being translated from the Italian, so fits into my Books in Translation category. The crime category is overflowing.

The Beacon by Susan Hill

The four Prime children were brought up on a farm in the north of England. Berenice moved out at eighteen to work in a neighbouring town; Colin married young; Frank went to London to work as a journalist; May ended up at home looking after her sick mother. All of them, except Frank, remember their childhoods as uneventful, and their parents as principled, hard working, honest people. Frank's memories, in contrast, are dark and bitter, and they surface in a tell-all memoir.

On the surface there is no truth in Frank's accusations, but the reader starts to question how close the Prime siblings' memories are to reality.

Recommended 4*

The Bachelors of Broken Hill by Arthur Upfield

Someone is killing elderly fat men who spatter food on their ties and waistcoats. After a dastardly Sydney detective puts people's backs up and fails to find the murderer, Boney is seconded from the Queensland police. Boney theorises that the murders have been committed by a person who is semi-sane. They're the hardest cases to crack, because the motives are not those of ordinary men and women.

Yes, I'm laughing up my sleeve because this is very odd book. I enjoyed it though, particularly the descriptions of Broken Hill and its people. You have to suspend judgement when Upfield talks about the aborigines, or even about women, but it was the fifties.

3.5*

Glad you got a kick out of this one- I was also surprised by some of the "oddness"!

The Confusions of Young Torless by Robert Musil

Torless is a student at an Austrian military academy, younger and more intelligent than his classmates. Impressed by their masculinity, Torless becomes an associate of the two class leaders, violent boys who have formed an alliance rather than fighting for complete dominance. The two of them, with Torless as an observer, brutalise another student, the son of a poor widow, who has earned their contempt by stealing money.

The boys believe they are living in a new age; they deliberately jettison their humanity and compassion as weaknesses incompatible with the new world order. They are superior beings; the boy they brutalise is less than human. This is what chilled me about this book. The boys brutalise a weaker student to find out how it makes them feel, to learn from the experience.

A great deal of this short book is devoted to Torless' attempts to crystallise his thoughts into words. It begins with a quotation from Maeterlink, which begins, "As soon as we put something into words, we devalue it in a strange way."

I didn't much enjoy this book, but I thought it was worth reading. 3.5*

The Hand in the Glove by Rex Stout

This is the first book featuring Dol Bonner, the female detective who occasionally appears in the Nero Wolfe books. It was published in 1937, and sparkles with the cynical repartee of a screwball comedy. The intelligent, dedicated Dol outshines the hard-boiled, cigar-smoking police and delivers the murderer.

A good read, but Dol's no Nero Wolfe.
3.5*

Season of Migration to the North by Tayeb Salih

After studying English literature in London the unnamed narrator returns to his village in the Sudan to find that in his absence a mysterious stranger has settled there. The new settler, Mustafa Sa'eed, has impressed many of the villagers with his hard work and intelligence, but they know little about his earlier life. Sa'eed begins to reveal to the narrator the tragedy of his former life in the London of the twenties.

Sa'eed had left his home as a child, to be educated by the English first in Cairo, then in London. He had studied at Oxford and gained fame for his economic theories, but remained an exotic oddity, a savage or a god, never the person in-between. The poetry of Salih's writing illustrates the gap between the English and Arabic cultures; it is distant and beautiful, almost biblical.

As the narrator discovers more about the mystery of Sa'eed, the tension builds. The final tragedy has its roots not only in Sa'eed's past, but in Arab culture itself.

Almost until the very end, I thought this was a wonderful book, but the revelation of Sa'eed's English downfall was too reminiscent of D. H. Lawrence. Even so, the book is well worth reading. 4*

Thinking about a second 1010 Challenge. Perhaps ten categories with at least three in each category.

Categories so far:

1. New authors (again)
2. Crime (again)
3. Non-fiction (again)
4. Europeans (for the Europe Endless Challenge)
5. Books off the shelf (for the Books off the Shelf Challenge)
6. Bookmooch
7. Found on LT
8. Rest of the world (from places other than Europe and the English-speaking countries)

Oh yes, seeing as you have a whole 6 months left in the year, you must have a new challenge!!

The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness

Alfgrimur's mother emigrates to America and leaves him with an old couple in their rough turf cottage. Alfgrimur would be content to fish for lumpfish for a living as the old man does, but is sent to school where he is far too successful to be allowed to become a fisherman. He meets the famous Icelandic singer, Gardar Holm, a man who has been sent abroad to make Iceland famous but who has, the old woman thinks, wasted his life by travelling. Holm wants only to find the one true note, and should he find it, his life will be over.

Laxness loves all his characters and treats them with respect: the dour Icelanders and the jovial Danes, the cottagers and the merchants, the elusive Holm and the naive Alfgrimur. Life is hard in Iceland, and people are poor, but they have strength and dignity. Laxness has a light touch, and is often funny.

A strange and appealing book. Recommended. 4*

Independent People is even better.

Catching up on a few fast moving threads tonight. Sorry for commenting on some ancient posts!

@183 I'm reading The brief and frightening reign of Phil (including In persuation nation) for my 1010 too. Good to see you liked it! I love George Saunders' oddly moving style, and Pastoralia is my favourite too.

@184 I keep hearing good things about Queenpin. It does sound way too cool to pass up. Pondering a crime category for my 1111 (not my usual cuppa, unlike most here!) and this would be a given.

@221 There seems to bit of a hype for old Laxness brewing! I've got Salka Valka waiting on my TBR, and activity here on LT this spring is definitely bumping it up and up and up...

Great reviews of some really interesting books. Halldor Laxness and Salih are authors I've never come across before and your reviews make me want to read them. That's what I love about LT - being introduced to new authors and their books.

On Secret Service East of Constantinople by Peter Hopkirk

It's 1914 and Enver Pasha, Turkey's supreme military leader, has committed the Ottoman armies to fight for a world-wide Islamic empire. The Germans have convinced Pasha that after the war, the Islamic countries will belong to Turkey. Right now they need his help to unite the Islamic nations in a Holy War so that Britain will have to move much-needed troops from Europe to protect its interests in India and the Middle East.

Hopkirk gleefully narrates what seems at times to be a Boys' Own Adventure. German spies disguised as Persians fight their way across salt deserts to establish consulates in remote central Asian cities.

A German diplomat accompanies two Indians, a Prince and a Muslim revolutionary, to Afghanistan to see the Emir in order to persuade him to exhort all Muslims to join in the Holy War. They carry gold for bribes and a "dazzling selecton of gifts for the Emir and his officials......designed to appeal to oriental cupidity." The Emir though, is much tougher, smarter and wilier than the Germans expect, and strings along both the Germans and the British as he fends off assassination attempts by his own subjects.

Meanwhile the British are trying to buck up the Shah of Persia, who is allowing his ostensibly neutral country, which is policed by Norwegians loyal to Germany, to fall under German influence.

Hopkirk's narrative ranges over eastern Europe, Turkey, Persia, India, Afghanistan and the Cucasus. He describes the machinations of the German and British diplomats who plan to carve up the East into zones of influence, despite what they tell the Eastern rulers. I hadn't realised, for example, that the British, to persuade rich American Jews to hand over funds, had already promised a Jewish homeland in Palestine.

I got the people and the camels and the remote cities mixed up from time to time, and was occasionally irritated by Hopkirk's boyish enthusiasm, but overall this is an exciting story about a part of WWI that we don't hear much about.

Recommended. 3.5*

Touchstone won't work. Try this link.

Seven books to go, but I've started a new challenge here.

The Broken Shore by Peter Temple

Peter Temple just won the Miles Franklin award for his crime novel Truth. The library didn't have a copy, so I borrowed The Broken Shore, a Ned Kelly award winner. Five of Temple's books have won Ned Kellys, but I'd never heard of him.

The Broken Shore is set in coastal Victoria - I'm guessing it's the shipwreck coast, down around Warrnambool. A rich old man, a pillar of the community, is tortured and murdered, and some aboriginal kids are blamed. Joe Cashin, an honest Melbourne cop recovering from serious injuries, has been posted to a neighbouring town and is put in charge of the investigation because too many aboriginal people die when the local cops are involved. Cashin grew up in the area, went to school with many of the locals, and has family connections to the local aboriginal community.

This book has rounded characters, laconic Australian dialogue, a gripping plot, and a strong sense of place. Recommended. 4*

ETA It won the CWA Gold Dagger in 2007

Some Tame Gazelle by Barbara Pym

This is Barbara Pym's first published novel, livelier and funnier than some of her later books. The middle-aged sisters, Belinda and Harriet, live together and involve themselves in church affairs. Belinda has loved the archdeacon for thirty years, even though he is married to the brisk and bossy Agatha. Harriet nurtures curates.

I loved the domestic details: Harriet's diary of suppers, so she doesn't feed the latest curate boiled chicken in white sauce twice in a row; the wrongness of being fed rissoles and boiled cabbage at the vicarage; Harriet's pastime of reinforcing corsets with elastic thread, and the necessity of hiding them under the cushions when visitors call.

A very good Pym. 4.5*

Two more for the TBR list.

That's one I hadn't heard of and it's going on the list. Great review!

I was going to abandon that Pym but after such a great review and rating I will give it another go. I just wish my borrowed from the library audio book was in disc form or downloadable on to my ipod and not tapes.

Socialpages, I put it down once - must have been in the wrong mood for it. Hope you also like it after the second start.

Just read another Peter Temple, Bad Debts, which is the first in the Jack Irish series, written in 1996. Good writing, but cliched characters and plot. Temple was originally from South Africa, and in this book he doesn't yet have the Australian vernacular down pat.

I enjoyed it all the same because t's set in Melbourne, mainly on my side of town. The places and the people are familiar, which makes the book more entertaining, at least to Melbournians. The plot features police and political corruption, horse racing, a ring of paedophiles, and the Docklands development. A bit of everything, really.

Temple's Miles Franklin winner is another in this series, so I'm pleased to have read the first one.

3.5*

Someone at a Distance by Dorothy Whipple

Until the arrival of Louise, the French femme fatale, Avery and Ella have a Very Happy Marriage. Whipple writes well, so I wanted to know what would happen to Avery and Ella, even though the descriptions of their privileged upper middle-class lives sent me into class warrior mode. I simply didn't care whether their daughter Ann could keep her horse, or Ella her daily help.

A hotel for elderly gentlewomen pops up a few times, and is actually significant to the plot. The very idea of a hotel that caters for only for gentlewomen makes me cringe.

Not my cup of tea. 3.5*

I've been feeling miserable with a cold the last few days and haven't been able to concentrate on reading so I had another go at Some Tame Gazelle and it was just what the doctor ordered. Harriet and Belinda made me smile and laugh. What a lovely, uncomplicated way of living where the most pressing decision is what to serve for supper. I'm so glad I gave Ms Pym another chance.

Pleased to hear that Some Tame Gazelle worked the second time around, Socialpages.

The English Assassin by Daniel Silva

Swiss bankers are hanging onto art works that the Nazis looted during WWII. When Gabriel Allon, Israeli spy and art restorer, is hired to restore a Raphael, he becomes involved in a search for the missing masterpieces.

Exciting, but cliched thriller. Long on plot, short on character.

3.5*

Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany

Jean and Robert meet in the thirties on the Better Farming Train, which carries its little group of experts across country Victoria. Jean lectures farmers on sewing, while Robert, her future husband, preaches the advantages of new wheat strains and superphosphate. Mr Ohno, from Japan, is the world's best chicken sexer, Mary lectures on cookery, and Sister Crock, the spinster childcare nurse, advises women on bringing up their babies.

Robert is the scientist; he settles with Jean on a farm in the drought-stricken Mallee where he puts his farming theories into practice. It's a hard life, and although Robert's rules don't fit, he can't abandon them.

Carrie Tiffany has a light and whimsical touch as she relates this minor tragedy.
Recommended 4.5*

Last book in the More Recommendations and Prize-winners category. Shortlisted for the 2006 Miles Franklin, and recommended by the man at the bookshop.

All done!!

Congratulations on finishing the challenge!

Looks like you ended with a good one-congrats!

Congratulations, Pamela! And glad that you'll be staying around with a 2nd challenge!

Thank you paruline, mstrust and ivyd. I've celebrated by buying a big pile of books.

Here's my new challenge.