RidgewayGirl Goes into Overtime/Has Trouble Saying Goodbye

I thought I'd be content to add comments to everyone's threads and work on my side challenges, but I miss my bully pulpit! So I've come up with a reasonably sized post-challenge challenge to placate myself.

Nine categories, of three books each, should take me nicely up to the new year.

Who? (Books with names in the titles)
1. Naoko by Keigo Higashino
2. Matilda by Roald Dahl
3. Serena by Ron Rash

No, Really, Who? (Memoirs or Biographies)
1. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman
2. Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster
3. Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris

What? (Books with Objects in the Title)
1. The Monster in the Box by Ruth Rendell
2. The Wall by Jeff Long
3. Snow Angels by James Thompson

No, Really, What? (Topical Non-Fiction)
1. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman
2. The Lost Painting by Jonathan Harr
3. Don't Go There by Peter Greenberg

When? (Historical Novels)
1. The Outlander by Gil Adamson
2. The Information Officer by Mark Mills
3. Bad Haircut by Tom Perrotta

No, Really, When? (As in, when are you going to read this book? Aged specimens from my TBR shelf)
1. You Kill Me by Alison Gaylin
2. The Dark Eye by Ingrid Black
3. Testing Kate by Whitney Gaskell

Where? (Books with Places in the Title)
1. The Last Bridge by Teri Coyne
2. The Rose City by David Ebershoff
3. Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman

No, Really, Where? (Non-Fiction set in a particular place)
1. Bad Land by Jonathan Raban
2. Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland
3. Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad

How? (Mystery Novels)
1. Bone by Bone by Carol O'Connell
2. Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper
3. The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper

It took me a minute to wrap my head around this. Not the least because I'm pretty hopped up on Novacaine right now. But can I just say:
"Yay! I'm glad you're sticking around!"

Tom Perrotta is one of my favorite authors. He wrote Little Children and The Abstinence Teacher, among others and his books are always critical and compassionate of modern life. Bad Haircut is his first book and consists of a series of chronologically arranged stories about a New Jersey boy named Buddy, growing up in the seventies. At turns funny, poignant, sad and uncomfortable, it's an excellent book that reflects the unique experience of growing up in a specific time and place. Well worth reading, especially if you've enjoyed any of his later books.

Interesting concept. I'm glad you're sticking around!!

Clever categories! Glad to see you'll still be here!

Love the categories! Glad you're not leaving!

However, I'm going to take a pass on the Perrotta - I read Abstinence Teacher and really didn't like anything about it. I kept wanting to like it, but just couldn't. Even though I know I should, I really don't have any interest in giving him another chance.

Glad you're staying. I like the categories. In case you're looking for recommendations, my favourite travel book is From the Holy Mountain by William Dalrymple. He's tracing the middle-eastern journey of a medieval monk. He meets such interesting people and gets on well with everyone, because he's so broad-minded and open to experience. Lots of fascinating historical bits.

That does look interesting. I have added it to my wishlist!

Book 2. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress by Susan Jane Gilman. I have loved Susan Jane Gilman since earlier this year, when Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven blew me away. So I eagerly anticipated loving this earlier memoir of hers. I was not disappointed. Gilman came of age a few years before I did, but such experiences are universal and she writes with such compassion and ironic humor; a combination that works. I stayed up late last night, reading this book and reading sections aloud to my husband (it's that kind of book), who would nod and try to go back to sleep.

Book 3. The Lost Painting is a fast-paced romp through Rome, Dublin, London and Edinburgh in the search of a lost painting by Caravaggio. The artist and art history are short-changed, but if you are interested in the competitive world of art historians, restorers and academics, this is an excellent peek at how reputations are made and lost.

Caravaggio was a paranoid nutbag who was forced to flee Rome when he killed a guy. Being a fugitive changed his personality only for the worse, but the guy could paint. Most of his paintings have been lost or destroyed over time and so the discovery of a new Caravaggio was enough to send the art world into a tizzy. This book had a limited scope, which allowed Harr to write a tightly plotted and exciting book about a fairly unexplosive topic.

Book 4. Bone by Bone was the first book by Carol O'Connell that I've read, although I've been aware of her popularity with many LTers. This is a stand alone book. Most of hers are in a series. I've tried to read the first one, but haven't managed to get through. Bone by Bone has inspired me to give that series another shot.

Bone by Bone is set in an eccentric small town full to the bursting with characters. That some them are stupid and many are mean spirited is the only thing that saves this novel from becoming a "cozy", more about which later, if I manage to finish my first (and likely my last) of that genre. As a mystery, Bone by Bone isn't bad, and would be most likely enjoyed by those who like a more old-fashioned story, a murder mystery unfettered with forensics or even routine police work.

Whew! *wipes brow* I don't know if I can handle the pressure of recommending books to you!

And yet you bravely persevere! I do like most of them!

So glad you're sticking around! It's gotten a bit lonely around here as those who have completed the 999 move on to the 1010, leaving those of us "first-time-arounders" in the dust. I'll be lucky if I make it to 81 (I'm at 63 at the moment), so I'll be here until the very last hour of December 31st, I'm sure.

P.S. I already added Undress me in the Temple of Heaven to my wishlist on your recommendation. Now I'll have to add Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress.

I spent a few days last week trying to read a "cozy" that has received glowing reviews here on LT. It is well written, and I've always thought that I could read anything that was written well. I was wrong. I don't have a problem with the sweet village tale in which jam is made and people are kind and I certainly don't have a problem with the murder tale, it's just that the combination doesn't work for me. Also, in this book that shall remain nameless, every relationship was fairy tale perfect. 1. Unlikely and 2. Boring. So that was my attempt.

Book 5. The Killing Circle by Andrew Pyper is a very satisfying story about a guy who joins a writing group, steals the bones of a story from another member and then finds that the story he wrote may not be fiction. This is scary stuff and features a very frightening serial killer, an endangered child and some Canadian cold weather.

Book 6. I stayed up way too late last night finishing this book, especially considering that my SO is out of town and the kids get up earlier on the weekend. Of course, if he'd been home, I would have gone to bed at a reasonable hour.

The Wall by Jeff Long is a thriller about climbing. It was compelling, even if I disliked the main character. I am fascinated with mountain climbing, I think because I can't understand it. A pointless risking of life, discomfort and cold, but also really interesting. What kind of person would seek that out? This book answers that a little -- to be a climber you have to be self-involved, determined and very, very selfish. It's what allows a climber to abandon a dying companion or continue past an injured climber, because to help them would mean giving up your dream of glory. The protagonist, Hugh, is narcissistic and self-righteous. He believes it's best to leave people and circumstances if they start to bring him down, or require him to give something of himself. Now middle-aged, he and his best friend set out to reclimb El Capitan, along a route they pioneered thirty years earlier. It doesn't go according to plan, in a very creepy way.

There's lots of climbing details in this book, of the kind that don't make the memoirs, like where to people go to the bathroom and what happens to the dead bodies. I will definitely stick to short hikes and approved campgrounds.

Testing Kate is a light Chick Lit novel set at Tulane Law School in New Orleans. Nothing great, but highly readable. About as substantial as a meringue, but diverting and fun.

Book 8. The Last Bridge is a melodramatic story of familial disfunction. It was a rip roaring read that reminded me of Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects and Cornelia Read's Field of Darkness, up until the very last chapters when the whole thing was wrapped up a little too neatly and much to happily to match the rest of the book. With a different ending and about a hundred more pages this book could have been a knockout. It was still worth reading, but I do feel a little manipulated.

Book 9.

The first, spontaneous reaction with regard to the stranger is to imagine him as inferior, since he is different from us.

The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down by Anne Fadiman is the story of the infant daughter of Hmong refugees and how misunderstandings on both the side of the parents and of the American medical community led to tragedy. Lia Lee had severe, hard to control epilepsy. Her parents brought her to the hospital many times but were unable to communicate with the medical professionals caring for her due to both linguistic and cultural barriers. The result was that Lia did not receive the care she needed, and her family, as well as the Hmong community, were given ample reason to distrust American authorities.

The first half of this book was the amazing story of what happened. It's strength was that it was clear that from the beginning everyone wanted to do what was right. Her parents loved her and were excellent caregivers. Her doctors were dedicated and professional. Nevertheless, they spent much of the time in conflict, fatally separated by differences of beliefs and traditions. I appreciated Fadiman's telling of the story, which was both compassionate and impartial.

She lost that strength a little in the second half of the book, which detailed the history of the Hmong people and why they emigrated to the United States and why they didn't integrate in the way expected of them. In a nutshell, the US used the Hmong in their "quiet war" in Laos, bombing their villages and jungle environment into a wasteland, then leaving most of them to their fate when we pulled out of South East Asia. Many escaped across the Mekong river, settling in refugee camps in Thailand. The American government reluctantly allowing them to come to the US when Thailand shut the camps down. The Hmong didn't want to come, but there was truly nowhere else they could live. They believed that their wartime service had earned them a degree of thankfulness from the Americans, and we wondered why they were given welfare out of our tax dollars. It was a fascinating history, well-told, but in the telling she lost a little of the impartiality that had marked the first half. Maybe she had no choice; this wasn't a case of a story having two sides--we destroyed their way of life, while they fought valiantly on our side, but when the war was over we were resentful of our responsibility. And as Americans, we are often too attached to our melting pot view to allow immigrants to keep their way of life. I did agree with her views, I just felt a little preached to, which is never fun, even when you agree with the preacher.

#23 Excellent review.

Book 10. The Lost Girls by Andrew Pyper. I really enjoyed his newest book, The Killing Circle and so thought I'd read another. Pyper writes really creepy, menacing psychological thrillers set in the big city of Toronto and in the small, Northern towns above Lake Superior. Not only do they make me want to lock my doors and stay away from the windows, but they describe Ontario so beautifully.

Great review, RidgewayGirl! I loved The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down! Funny, I can't remember being preached at. In fact, I thought her even-handedness was one of her strengths, but then I sort of like being preached at when someone is saying what I think, only doing it much better than I could. Know what you mean, though with non-fiction you sort of expect that. I've felt that way about books too, but it bugs me more when I'm reading fiction.

Book 11. Serena by Ron Rash is set in a logging camp in the mountains of North Carolina during the Great Depression. It's a fast paced story, with undertones of MacBeth, about a logging magnate named Pemberton and his ruthless bride, Serena. They are determined to succeed on their own terms and willing to do anything, including murder, to get their way. The book was hard to put down and meticulously researched, although the research was woven naturally in with the story. A compelling novel, and one I'm very glad to have read.

I've been finishing books without the time or brain to write anything coherent about them (see post above). I read Matilda to my children who are great fans of his more blood-thirsty tales. This is a gentler, sweeter story, about a girl who cleverly saves herself and her teacher from uncaring parents and an evil school principal.

I finally finished The Rose City, a book of short stories from the author of The 19th Wife, David Ebershoff. The stories are well told, but heart-breaking, about young men beginning adulthood, coming to terms with being gay or discovering that youth fades. I found the stories to be tremendously sad, although the author (who answered my questions about the book when he was on an LT Author Chat) says that they are also hopeful.

Despite my looming TBR, I was glad to find a copy of Gil Adamson's The Outlander a few weeks ago. I'd heard an snippet of it read on BBC's Radio 4 and was hooked. The story concerns a young woman, unnamed for part of the book, who, flees into the wilderness of the Canadian Rockies after she murders her husband. What happens next and what led up to her crime make for a rip roaring adventure featuring evil twins, a dwarf in a hat, a natural disaster, theft, Bible verses and much more. An excellent historical novel.

#29 Canadian Rockies - so I guess this one is Alberta? I've seen your comments on the Canadian challenge that everything you've been reading is either Alberta or Ontario. This one looks good - it's gone on the wishlist.

It was good. Well written and fast paced. The specific province was not named, but it was pretty clearly Alberta.

Book 15. The Information Officer by Mark Mills is a wartime thriller in the style of Alan Furst. Taking place on the Mediterranean island of Malta during the fierce bombing raids of 1942, the story follows Max Chadwick, in charge of presenting a British view of events to the inhabitants, and his actions after he learns that someone, probably British, is murdering young Maltese women. The story is fast paced and well plotted, if implausible. Malta's part of the Second World War that is not that well known, at least here in the United States and the presentation of its history and role in the war was well done and not intrusive. I enjoyed this book, and hope that Mills continues to explore the era.

I am a sucker for noirish mysteries set in Europe during WWII, and so this book was right up my alley. However, it didn't seem to have an emotional heart and, just to quibble a bit, has anyone noticed that in books written by men, when the guy sleeps around on his "true love" it all turns out alright in the end (although not always for the bit on the side)? I'm just saying...

Have you read any of the World War 2 mysteries by J. Robert Janes? These sound like something you'd enjoy. I read one of them and thought it was excellent. I think it was called Sandman.

Sandman is on my amazing, ever-expanding TBR pile. I'll have to read it soon.

#32 Glad to read your comments. I've been carrying this book around in my purse all week and haven't even opened the cover. I'm still looking forward to it. Re: your comment about male authors and their characters who sleep around - I've noticed the same thing and have concluded that men enjoy fantasies. It is fiction, after all.

28: I found the stories to be tremendously sad, although the author (who answered my questions about the book when he was on an LT Author Chat) says that they are also hopeful.

This is interesting. So upon reflection do you also find them hopeful? Or did he not communicate it effectively on the page? It brings up the argument about what is "fact" about a book/character -- what's on the page (including between the lines) or what's in the author's mind? (I vote: on the page.)

How about what's in the reader's mind based on his/her experiences, MJ? I think that's as much a part of the equation as what's on the page or what was in the author's mind.

Definitely. It makes me want to read Michael Cunningham's The Hours (I only saw the movie) -- interwoven stories exploring the author, the character and a reader of Mrs. Dalloway.

But with all the opportunities now to hear writers talk about their stories, I increasingly hear them contradict reader interpretations -- based on backstories or imagined futures that readers had no exposure to.

Well, if a reader is telling other readers what s/he thinks the author is trying to say, then the author should feel free to "contradict reader interpretations" but if the reader is interpreting the book based on her thoughts, feelings, and experiences then who can really argue with that, huh? The same thing happens with art too, doesn't it? But, I know what you're saying. By the way, I reread Mrs. Dalloway right before reading The Hours and it made the latter much more interesting.

I read somewhere that a literature teacher once told Isaac Asimov that just because he wrote the story didn't mean that he knew what it was about.

I read the last few stories in the collection (The Rose City) somewhat later than the rest, and they seemed to be less mournful, and more forward-looking than the others--maybe my mood was dictating how I thought about the stories. They all deal, more or less, with young men coming to terms with being gay, and therefore outside of the mainstream, which is never going to be happy in an uncomplicated way, but reading at a different place in my life changed how I saw it.

Maybe that's why we want to reread books at different places in our lives. And why I gravitate to certain genres, depending on what is happening in my life.

The Dark Eye is the second in a series of dark mysteries featuring ex-FBI agent Saxon, who left the agency, wrote a bridge-burning account of her time there and moved to Dublin where she's at loose ends. She's supposed to be writing, but she'd much rather use her connections (her lover is head of Dublin's homicide squad) to investigate things on her own. So when a man phones her to say that someone is trying to kill him and asks her to meet with him out at Howth's lighthouse, she agrees and is given a convoluted mystery to occupy herself with. Along the way, she tangles with a serial killer, the art establishment and a bunch of seriously disturbed individuals. The ending is dramatic, but somewhat diluted by the need to explain things afterward.

This book is part of a series, but it stands alone well enough. It gives a bleak and somewhat hopeless version of Dublin. Saxon is a prickly and difficult character, somewhat reminicent of early Kay Scarpetta. She's interesting and opinionated, and not always able to control her tongue. She has a distinctly right wing view of justice, but there are plenty of more balanced characters to balance things out.

"early Kay Scarpetta" .... might have to check that out!!

Well, without the forensics angle, just the prickly personality.

Bad Land: An American Romance is the story of one of the last homesteading opportunities of the American west. A hundred years ago a railway was built from Chicago to Puget Sound, across the great, unsettled expanse of North Dakota and Montana. Now railroads need customers and so "The Big Open" was advertised as a great opportunity, with homesteads carved from what previously only held a few ranches. New, scientific farming methods were sure to bring prosperity to all who farmed there. By the middle of the Great Depression, the land was almost as empty as it had been before the homesteaders arrived, the decaying towns and abandoned farmhouses the only evidence of what had once been.

Jonathan Raban, a transplanted Brit, explores the geography and the history of eastern Montana, learning about the kind of person who stayed through the worst of it and about the people who still remain. Bad Land is an intriguing combination of a social history and a contemporary look at the people who live there today. He's clearly fascinated by the place and it's impossible not to get caught up in the passion he feels for this difficult land.

Book 19. Weekends at Bellevue by Julie Holland. I wanted to love this book, I really did, and I should have been able to. It follows Julie Holland as she spends nine years working in the psychiatric ER of Bellevue, New York's busiest public hospital. She has plenty of material; everybody arrested who's suspected of having mental problems goes through here as well as being the place where the mentally ill come when they are at a loss. And there are several fascinating stories. She doesn't go into any depth, mainly because she doesn't see anyone for any length of time, but the vignettes are bleak and heart-breaking. What keeps this book from shining is that it is mainly about Holland, her own therapy (important to her, desperately boring to the reader), how her boss sucked and the difficulties involved in having a place in the country and an apartment in the city. Hard times, I know.

Book 20. My Early Reviewer book this month was set in Finland. It's a dark mystery/thriller called Snow Angels written by an American but set in a small skiing town a hundred miles north of the Arctic circle during the cold winter darkness. Kari Vaara is in charge of a small police station when the mutilated body of a Somali film actress is found on a reindeer farm in his jurisdiction. Suspicion quickly falls on her Finnish lover who, coincidentally, is also the man his ex-wife left him for some thirteen years earlier.

Thompson has lived in Finland and describes the land and culture with an outsider's eye, which is to say, he is attuned to what is unusual and noteworthy. He uses Vaara's wife, an American, to voice criticism of Finnish culture, a touch that felt very real to me. Unfortunately, Vaara himself sounded American in places, Finnish in others. That quibble aside, this book has a wealth of details about life in Finland, from offshoot religious groups to the importance of alcohol in daily life.

That said, the mystery itself defied reason. It had its moments, but didn't hold together, especially the unbelievable ending. This was clearly a debut novel, but Thompson shows signs of being able to develop an interesting series, he just isn't there yet.

Book 21. Don't Go There by Peter Greenberg. I picked up this book when I was waiting for the kids to pick out their books at the library. In general, I love quirky travel books, like Roadside America or stories of travel gone wrong, like in I Should Have Stayed Home. This was more a FOX "news" version of a travel book; that is to say, it was humorless and seemed designed to frighten more than inform. In its defense; it's an equal opportunity fearmonger with the US represented more heavily than the rest of the world.

Book 22. Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman is a fictionalized account of the infamous Scottsboro trials of the early 1930s. It's one of the best books I've read this year and as soon as I've thought about it some more, I'll try to put my thoughts down into some sort of review.

I have five more books to go on this mini-challenge, so chances are I won't finish by the end of the year. I may give it up, or I may give myself until the end of the holidays to finish up.

#48 Anxious to see your comments about Scottsboro - I read it earlier in the year and loved it. As you said, one of the best books of the year.

With both your comments, I had to go see if I had wishlisted it and, sure enough, I had--and based on your rec, sjmccreary. Added yours while I was there, RidgewayGirl.

I added to my TBR list too.

Glad to see you enjoyed Badland, RidgewayGirl. I picked it up at a remainder shop and was fascinated. Since then I've read two more Jonathan Raban's, both about America and both good, Hunting Mr Heartbreak and My Holy War, and am now looking for Old Glory. I like that dry British outsider perspective, and that Raban is in sympathy with America.

I have Jonathan Raban on my wishlist.

Book 23. Naoko is the first book by Keigo Higashino to be translated into English. It's an odd tale of a mother and daughter who are in a bus accident, the mother, Naoko, sustains fatal injuries, the daughter, Monami, lays in a coma. Heisuke, the father, is there when his daughter awakes from the coma. But it's Naoko, not Monami, in the body of the eleven-year-old girl.

What follows is the confusion of family life turned inside out. Naoko must adjust to the life of a schoolgirl, Heisuke to living with his not-quite wife. Naoko is a well written, imaginative book, with a wealth of detail of daily life in Japan. I enjoyed it very much, staying up late to finish it.

#53 I think I need to start ignoring you - just about everything you read ends up on my wishlist. Except this one. It went directly onto the library request list - they don't own it, so I had to submit an ILL request. The library in the next county has it on the shelf, so I'm hopeful about getting it soon.

I'm not going to start ignoring you - instead, I've added you to my interesting libraries list so that I can see what books you've added even before you comment on them. Saves time.

>53 RidgewayGirl: Yay! You finished it!

I have just read my very last book by Ruth Rendell. She has been a reliable favorite for a long, long time, but has been slipping these past few years into mediocrity. This last book, The Monster in the Box was written by a very old woman, full of "kids today," and "In my day, we never...". She was never a kind writer, but was previously able to create complex, flawed characters. In this book, they were one dimensional. Rendell's upper crust, Tory background shows a little too clearly; people aren't people, they are immigrants, politically correct minions, or aged relics, harkening back to a more understandable time. I will have to reread some of the early Inspector Wexford mysteries to get the stale taste out of my mouth.

If you would like a complex mystery with compelling characters and insightful writing, try From Doon with Death or Some Lie and Some Die, or really any of her books written before 2005.

The Bookseller of Kabul by Asne Seierstad was a marvellous, harrowing and very readable account of daily family life in Afghanistan's capital after the Taliban fled. Seierstad was able to live with Sultan Khan and his extended family for three months, listening to conversations and following the various members of his family around. She has written a book about what she saw, and while she was there, she is very much absent from the story.

Life in Afghanistan is hard, especially hard for women. I already knew this, of course, but I had never delved into the details of what life there is like. This is an amazing book. I hesitate to say that everyone should read it, but it is illuminating. Fortunately, it's also very well written and a fast paced read.

I now have only two books to read to complete this mini-challenge and with one almost finished, I think I'll make it.

You'll make it by Christmas!

#57 This book sounds fascinating - I've added it to the wishlist for next year. Good luck finishing your last two books - hope they are wonderful!

Bright Lights, Big Ass by Jen Lancaster looked at first glance just like the kind of book I like. I'm a huge fan of both Susan Jane Gilman and Laurie Notaro, both of whom write about their lives in an ironic, Sedaris-like way. Lancaster sort of does, but she tries a little too hard to be funny and there's an absence of heart underneath the sarcasm. Also? She has an annoying habit? Of sticking question marks in the middle? Of sentences, that worked a few times, but repetition? Made annoying. There is a lot of filler in the form of faux emails, as well. I began the book with great excitement, but my final reaction is a giant "meh".

Despite his trademark sarcasm, David Sedaris has a compassionate heart, making him the perfect author for the small collection of short stories and personal essays that is Holidays on Ice. The best of the six is the first essay, a description of his season as a Macy's elf in Santaland Diaries. Sedaris's best Christmas essay remains Six to Eight Black Men found in Dress Your Children in Corduroy and Denim, where he discusses European Christmas traditions in a way that has me rolling on the floor, snorting uncontrollably every single time I read it. But this small book is the perfect anecdote to too much enforced holiday cheer.

And with that, I have finished my post-999 mini-challenge. I'll see you all over at the 1010 in a week's time.

Yay! Great book to end on. I'm putting a copy of that book in my sons' stockings--that and Free Range Chickens. Have you read that one or Ant Farm? Those are great read-a-loud books when you're gathered with family and/or friends as each vignette/joke is only a page long and super-snorting hilarious!

I will have to hunt down a copy of Free-Range Chickens, but Holidays on Ice would make the perfect stocking stuffer.

Oh, please, please read Ant Farm first! I thought it was lots funnier! I'm just giving my boys (and my friend's family) Free-Range Chickens because we each had such a blast with Ant Farm. My son stole my copy and took it back with him to NYC; he can still quote from it. My friend's family took their copy on a family car trip and took turns reading out loud. Lots of giggling and guffaws in both camps.