richardderus Cleans 25 Books From His Shelves 2010

From the hundreds and hundreds of books I have that I haven't read, I will read, review, and dispose of 25 this coming year. Yes, I will. Uh-huh. Yeup.

*gulp*

And there's also my 75-Books thread to be considered.




Reviews are in post:

26. Birds of Prey...#195

25. The Fighting Agents...#193

24. The First Salute...#192

23. Standing at Armageddon...#184

22. A World Lit Only by Fire...#182

21. Divide and Perish...#181

20. The Blue Zone...#179

19. Act of Revenge...#178

18. Echo Park...#177

17. The Poet...#174

16. Desire Street...#173

15. Airframe...#172

14. Native Tongue...#171

13. The Murderer's Club...#170

12. For the President's Eyes Only...#169

11. Four Perfect Pebbles...#148

10. Greetings from Jamaica, Wish You Were Queer...#142

9. Small g...#141

8. Orgy Planner Wanted...#131

7. Ysabel...#125

6. Flower Confidential...#115

5. Dream Angus...#104

4. The Cruelest Month...#89

3. A Fatal Grace...#69

2. The Trapp Family on Wheels...#15

1. The Street Where I Live...#12

You can do it, Richard. Welcome and good luck!

Wait wait wait - dispose? You're not getting rid of books, are you?

If you are planning on getting rid of books, you should try bookmooch (if you aren't already). There are lots of people out there who would love to take your unwanted books off your hands :)

Good luck in the challenge!

Welcome to the group! If you really are going to "dispose of" your books, another alternative is Bookcrossing.com.

Welcome richardderus. Glad to see you here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_D7AebhY4qg

Or you could just send them to me.

Great clip, Marty! Joel Grey and Michael York look so YOUNG!

7: tloeffler
So did I wayyyyyyy back then ;P

We still do look young, don't we? Or maybe I'm thinking we still ACT young.

If you're still looking young, I want nothing to do with either of you! I look like the potato(e) after it was peeled and forgotten, these days...lumpy and discolored in strange places....

"Disposal" iin my case means passing on to others, usually via mail. I owe Stasia about 30 books because I completely forgot her chain-book thingumabobber. She's set to get most of the first batch.

#10 - Well, there's the first Sunday at the Acre for January, then. Wonder what she'll do for week two?

Review: 1 of 25

Title: THE STREET WHERE I LIVE

Author: ALAN JAY LERNER

Rating: *** of five

FOR THOSE JUST TUNING IN: I don't practice book reporting in my reviews. I see the purpose of my review of a book as describing what I *felt* and *thought* and why I think you *should* (or shouldn't, though that's rare with me; why review a book I didn't like unless there's a compelling reason?) read it. I don't know the readers of my reviews personally, for the most part, so I don't have any way to gauge whether you'll agree or disagree with me. It's always perfectly fine with me either way, and I invite comments from all.

Camelot. Gigi. My Fair Lady.

Really, that list right there should tell ya everything you need to know about the author, lyricist of these three epoch-defining musicals. He wrote "The Night They Invented Champagne" and "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "If Ever I Would Leave You." Egads! Gadzooks! Forsooth! So what the heck else is there for a man whose resume has those little bagatelles depending from it to say for 254pp of text?

Not a helluva lot.

No nasty, salacious gossip?! Nuh-uh. No cruel-to-be-kind character assassinations of his friends?!? pffft So is this book a complete yawn-fest? Almost.

I found Mr. Lerner's explication of the writing, adapting, and collaborative processes illuminating and useful. I thought his stories of life behind the scenes as a Broadway neophyte were funny. But I would never suggest to you, o budget-conscious book consumer, that you seek this book out and pay good coin for it. If you run across it at the charity shop or a yard sale, snap it up! Search AbeBooks? Oh hell no. Best of all, those of you in roughly my age bracket, go rooting in Mom's books and see if she got one back in 1978, thinking she'd wile away a few hours with a martini and a gossipy tell-all.

Betcha you'll know immediately where she gave up and moved on to dirtier fields...the spine'll crackle as you turn that page.

You do great reviews even when you aren't "enchanted' with the book!

BTW How about reading some of the Ngaio Marssh books you have and sending them on. I'm back on my Roderick Alleyn kick! (999 challenge limited my mystery reading last year--one reason I didn't do 101010 this year.) :-)

OMG I completely forgot! I wonder what happened to the stack...The Divine Miss must be consulted!

*blush* Please to forgive, please.

Review: 2 of 25

Title: THE TRAPP FAMILY ON WHEELS

Authoress: Maria Augusta Trapp

Rating: 1/2* of five

If anyone here does not know The Sound of Music was based on the adventures of the Austrian Family von Trapp, stop reading now and run along home to grandma to ask her aaalll about it. Trust me, she knows.

Baroness von Trapp, aka the Little Governess Who Could and Did, wrote several books about the family's life, and this is the last of them. Thank goodness. It's a lovely piece of film lore that Christopher What's-it who played Captain von Trapp told an interviewer he felt he was "hit over the head with a Valentine" while working with the talented, lovely, wholesome Julie Andrews. Damn good thing grumpy ol' Chris didn't read any of the Baroness's books! He'd've flat died.

I wondered if I mightn't just suffer a diabetic coma myownself. Treacly is a good description of the Baroness's style, as are labored and stiff. The stories themselves, dating from 1949 to 1955, aren't in any way current or relevant to our modern world, but they are fascinating period pieces. Hawaii, still a territory, is just too gorgeous for words (did y'all know that "wiki" is a Hawaiian word for "easy"? You can learn useful things ANYwhere!) and so the Baroness uses very few of them to describe it. She spends a good bit of time being Catholic in this book, and Hawaii's indigenous religious observance of the hula is, let's say, treated condescendingly. The family's meeting with a Hawaiian Royal Princess is used as a chance to be, well, imperialistically kind. The Lady Bountiful, yeah?

How about the family's trip to South America? The Baroness calls it, unblushingly and without irony, the "land of manana"--I thought I would unswallow.

I suppose my horrible psychic abuse at the hands of Catholicism is what puts my back up about the book's slavishly servile extolling of the Catholic orthodoxy oof the day, but really! The breathless excitement of being taken to see the Actual Tomb of St. Peter under the Vatican was a little much (tip: People who aren't real don't have tombs, Baroness dear).

Oh well, it's read and off the shelves now. I do not in any way recommend it to anyone at all for any reason except if you need kindling after Civilization comes to an end on 12/21/12.

15> It is said that Christopher What's-it also referred to the film as "The Sound of Mucous."

I read one or two of Maria's books when I was a girl, before musical or movie. (More like "current events" then, hah!) I enjoyed them at the time. It probably helped that I was a Catholic schoolgirl at the time.

>16 PhaedraB: I can certainly see that the currency of the events would add to the charm of the Baroness's tales, Phaedra, and being a Catholic schoolgirl would complete the picture!

Side note: The edition of the book that I have has "Nihil Obstat" on the copyright page! Approved for Catholic consumption. I found that really interesting.

I read the first book several years ago and found it interesting. I am not Catholic and I remember being quite astounded at the familial Catholic practices. Even when I don't agree, I always admire others' adherence to devotional life.

>18 lbradf: Devotional life being what harmed me to the point of near-breakdown, I don't share your tolerance.

My now-73 year old mother tells me how, back in her days at a Catholic grade school and high school, they'd talk about how books were criticized in the New World which was the Chicagoland Catholic newspaper.

She said she and her classmates would use it as a tool to find out which books to read, reading the "banned books" that is.

>20 lindapanzo: Linda, my stars! Your mom must be a stitch! My own mother's wildly independent streak contrasted unsubtly with my father's rebellious attitude towards everything. Both checked their brains at the church door, though. Weird people.

Back in the late 40s/early 50s, they really followed (or not, apparently) what was said in the New World. By the time I came along to Catholic schools in the late 60s and the 70s, it was more of "what's the New World?"

I have that same independent streak that she has.

My father once said he thought the weirdest and worst cultural change in Catholicism came when, sometime in the 50s, Hell disappeared. Just vanished. Never mentioned, not part of the conversation anymore.

And that was a BAD thing...?

The New World! Yes, I grew in Catholic Chicago, too! Some things brand you for life. Now if I were to do a DVD challenge, it would be to find all the Condemned movies, whose titles fascinated me as a child :-)

Speaking of Chicago Catholic youth, here's one for your TBR piles: To Sleep with the Angels: The Story of a Fire.

#24, I've read several books about the Our Lady of the Angels fire, including that one.

When I say I have an independent streak, that was actually one thing that came to mind. When we lived in the city, my Catholic school had many floors. I remember my mother telling me about how, during the OLA fire, the nuns told the kids to stay at their desks and pray.

Mom always said that I should be respectful towards the nuns but that, if they ever told me anything that I thought wasn't safe like that, I should disregard it and save myself.

>24 PhaedraB: That's a really interesting sounding book! I've wishlisted it, but I think my liberry has a copy. I'll check.

>25 lindapanzo: I've fallen in love with your mother.

Okay, I am laughing hysterically while wondering how in the world a book called The Trapp Family on Wheels came into your actual possession??? I don't claim to know you well, but somehow, the thought of you book-shopping and picking this up ("Oh, this should be interesting") has me rolling on the floor.

Quite frankly, I was wondering the same thing...

*off she goes humming "the hills are alive..."*

Why, ladies! You do me a disservice! I selected Baroness von Trapp's little marvy quite deliberately, expecting to receive Christian uplift and edification!

*urp*

Now I've gone and upset my stomach.

It was in a garage-sale book box that I rooked the garage-sailor out of for a buck. It's goin' to the Salvation Armani.

LOL!

You may have been snookered out of a buck unless there was something better in that box!

Oh, goodness yes! I got:

Water for Elephants -- old liberry copy, great reviews, so finally getting around to reading it
The Irish Village Murder -- never heard of the books in this series, but the authoress lives in Sag Harbor...support your local writer!
How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend -- appropriately covered in fang-marks
Journey to the Centre of the Earth -- don't think anyone's even cracked the spine
The Marble Faun -- a Hawthorne I'd never heard of, still less read! W00T!
The Poem of Hashish -- not the biggest Baudelaire fan, but for a few pennies, whatthehell
Even More Muck -- some English person named Joyce tells all, wonder if it's a man or a woman
Native Tongue -- every house needs some Hiassen, no?
and, the real reason I bought the box:
One Nation, Underprivileged -- the author had me at wondering why Murrikins will pay for more and more and more prisons, but cut school and liberry budgets...YEAH!!

Nice! Quite an eclectic box of books. I'll be interested in your comments on One Nation, Underprivileged and seeing if that question gets answered.

I, like many, loved Water for Elephants.

And remember, friends don't let friends chew on their books.

Gee, thanks, Richard. I needed to add another mystery series to my list. ;)

>32 Copperskye: Ha ha, Joanne, no way was it MY dog who chewed the book! (For one thing, she'd be DEAD if she ever did, and I wouldn't be the killer...The Divine Miss, a biblioholic, would throttle her.)

>33 jennieg: Jennie, I haven't so much as opened the cover, so I can't vouch for the quality of the writing. Be forewarned! Though if the authoress is at all competent, I can see myself getting hooked, since I like imagining Irish people being murdered.

;-P

Yeah, but the LT like-o-meter thinks I'll enjoy it.

So what do you have against the Irish? They make decent whiskey, they can't be all bad.

I do like Old Bushmills a lot, but I am less enthused about sectarian warfare. Plus they perpetrated Frank McCourt on us, thereby fanning the memoir mania. Boo hiss Ireland!

(Actually, I love Ireland and have loved more than one Irish person, including my best friend.)

How to Be Your Dog's Best Friend -- appropriately covered in fang-marks

Ha! I swear, animals make the most interesting literary critics. Once, when I went on vacation for two weeks and left my cats alone (except for a friend who stopped by periodically to feed and check in on them), they pulled my copy of Cats for Dummies out from the middle of a shelf and clawed it up.

>37 bragan: LOL

I swear some animals can read, as well as understand English.

They can spell too. We spell out W A L K and my Mom's dog runs to the back door and wags her tail. She knows exactly what that spells.

Try her on pig latin.

We had a beagle who learned to spell "walk" when I was a kid. That animal was too smart for her own good.

Stella, my 18mo old Jindo, can't spell yet, but she's doin' good with the English. She can clearly understand every food name. "B-O-N-E" is a real trigger word some days.

Whew. My opinion of you has been redeemed. I'm sure you were up all night worrying about that.

>12 richardderus:. The Street Where I Live. OK, so you (kinda) sold it to me, but only to the point that I put it on my Wish List instead of immediately buying it from Amazon used. Which is why I'm in this group and have so many %#&@-blankin' unread books on the shelf in the first place. Seriously, this thing sounds like its right up my alley. Thanks!

>31 richardderus:. Please promise me you won't read The Marble Fawn. Life is too short.

What a variety, Richard! Can't hardly go wrong for a buck.

>43 tloeffler: Thy good opinion matters e'er, good milady.

>44 labwriter: I'd give it a miss, were I you. Just not worth the eyeblinks.

>45 labwriter: The Marble Faun isn't any good? Oh dear, and drat.

>46 karenmarie: I'm nothin' if not eclectic, Karen!

Oh, how I loved your review of the Trapp Family on Wheels fiasco... I kinda wish I'd started up a thread over here now - it's an appealing concept - but since I'm trying to read MOSTLY from my shelves this year anyway, it'd be a bit pointless. Maybe next year I'll diversify across the groups a bit more!

Y'know, I am so proud that this year so far I have only bought ONE book, and that was from our shop anyway and a replacement copy of one I lost. Place your bets now as to how long it will be before I crack hideously and spend £100 in one go!

#46 - this I know, Richard from the variety you read and the fact that you and I are still are the only two people that have Rara Avis by Jacqueline Bograd Weld. Maybe I will actually pull it out this year and read it!

#48 elliepotten - Not buying books is very hard to do. Congratulations so far. Part of me wants to say stay strong, the other part of me says if you find something fantastic go for it!

I've started buying exclusively from thrift stores, Habitat for Humanity stores, and Library sales and relying on the kindness of family members to give me gift cards/certificates to book stores.

>48 elliepotten: My money's on 12 February, 4.30p GMT.

>49 karenmarie: I've started buying exclusively from thrift stores, Habitat for Humanity stores, and Library sales and relying on the kindness of family members to give me gift cards/certificates to book stores.

Exactly! Maybe it's all the years I spent in Austin, infested as it is with vegans, liberals, and students, but I think very carefully about my book-buying habits. I still buy new books, because authors gotta eat, but I'm very much a reduce/reuse/recycle kind of a guy.

>49 karenmarie:, >50 richardderus:. What's most important to me at this point is getting my money's worth. I buy used books, but they have to be in good shape unless the title is so obsure that finding the book in any sort of shape is hard to do. I like them to come with a dust cover if they're hardbound, and I refuse to buy a book with ANY underlining. Library markings are OK. It's simply amazing how many absolutely like-new used books are out there.

And yes, occasionally I buy new if it's a new title that I really want, and you're right, it's a good thing to support the book industry. But if it's a choice between buying a collection of correspondence for 1 cent plus shipping at amazon.com used or buying it for $35 at Borders--that's a no-brainer in my book.

1 cent plus shipping at amazon.com used or buying it for $35 at Borders

I concur. I don't have enough money to ignore a value proposition of that magnitude!

>47 richardderus:. The Marble Fawn is supposed to be Hawthorne's best, but I've never understood why. I guess an obsessive, dated, endless travelogue of Rome just isn't my thing. If I'm going to read Hawthorne, then I'll read The House of the Seven Gables. But that's just my opinion. I imagine if someone likes travelogues and/or Rome a whole lot, then The Marble Fawn might be OK.

>15 richardderus:. Your review of the Trapp Fam is hilarious. But my question is, why did you read the book? Not that I haven't read books myself that I've hated myself for later, but this one sounds like a real stinker. Do you ever give up on a book that you've started, or are you just one of those who reads to the bad, bitter end, always?

>53 labwriter: Ruh-roh...I sense a disaster...*ponders regifting Hawthorne*

>54 labwriter: are you just one of those who reads to the bad, bitter end, always? Good HEAVENS no! I am a devout follower of Nancy Pearl, she of the Rule: To be fair to a book, you must read at least 50pp until you are 50; after that, you may subtract one page for every year your age exceeds 50.

The Pearl Rule is Law in my library. Though *glances furtively over shoulder for Nancy Pearl* I don't always make it to 50, sometimes something is just SO AWFUL that I can't make it there. Skeletons at the Feast lasted until the second-person chapter, then was slammed shut ne'er to be opened again. I actually got out of bed, got dressed, and drove to the local Catholic cathedral's donation box to shove that disgusting waste of a perfectly good tree into its maw, secure in the knowledge that (given my aversion to all things Catholic) I'd never have to see the book again.

>55 richardderus: - Richard, what happens when you're a hundred years old? I guess you could just judge a book by its cover.

>56 sgtbigg: Actually, Mike, I'm wondering if I *need* to wait 'til I'm a hundred to do that....

>57 richardderus: - You don't, I do it all the time.

See now, I loved Skeletons at the Feast. For every book, there is a reader and I'm sure that there's someone out there who has a much loved collection of books by Maria von Trapp.

>59 RidgewayGirl: someone out there who has a much loved collection of books by Maria von Trapp Doubtless you're right...I sure hope I never meet him. I fear I would become violent.

Richard, Richard, Richard... *tugs red-faced on rd's sleeve like a small child who's just done something naughty*... I fell. One day after my happy 'I-haven't-bought-a-book-this-year' message, I fell. The bank wasn't open yet and I'd already been to the newsagent and... well... there's a charity shop next door. One book I had years ago and gave away before I read, one book I wanted anyway, 79p each because the lady thought they had torn pages. In fact, ONE of the books had a page turned down, that was it. Does that make it any better? Anyway, the point is: you lose the bet, I lose face... does that make us even?!

Oh, poor Ellie! It was such a good try...lasted over two weeks, which is pretty much forever in New Year's resolution terms.

*there there, pat pat*

#61 Oh, but it was a charity shop, so the money went to charity . . .

Besides, Ellie, I broke my book-buying resolution on Jan 2, so on the whole I think you did quite well.

No way could I make that resolution!

Mine is to not buy new books but to request them from the library (authors still get royalties and other people can also read the book) and only buy second-hand (to keep those wonderful second hand book shops open or, when buying from charity shops, donate to charity) — what's not to feel good about that resolution ;-)

I didn't even attempt to resolve not to buy books this year. But I AM going to try to read more from the shelves than I acquire new.

That's where I am too, Flossie! No way would I ever succeed at not buying books :-/
So I'm just not going there. But I'm doing pretty well with cutting down the TBR towers. :-)

Well, exactly - of COURSE I'll be buying books this year (I would be very worried about my mental state if I didn't!) but I thought I might last a LITTLE longer given the hundreds of unread books already calling out to me from my shelves. Ah well.

Thank you Richard! *sniffling a little but feeling much better about the whole sorry affair*

I'm allowing myself to buy books this year, too. My goal is to read 60 books that I alreay own, which will be about 1/2 of what I read in a typical year.

Review: 3 of 25

Title: A FATAL GRACE

Author: LOUISE PENNY

Rating: 1/2* of 5
(no, really: ****)

The second Armand Gamache mystery set in Three Pines, Quebec. I got this book as a giftie from mckait, who shall be the goddess of my idolatry fore'er thereby.

Still Life, the first of these warm, acutely and accurately observed, scrumptiously comfy cozy mysteries, hooked me in completely to the world of Gamache, the Surete (weeeeurrrrnh goes the WWII siren, off to catch Jews in Nazi Paris, the line of Traction Avant sedans hurtling through the rain-soaked night) of Quebec, and the madhouse-meets-retirement-home that is Three Pines. It had its issues, including an inordinate focus on a minor character's past when that character was shuffled off tout suite before the end of the book. But it was perfectly wonderful, and I fell in love with it immediatment.

The second entry is more assured a performance on every level, and the minor character is back again, despite being shuffled off last book. It's amazing how annoyed I was at the appearance of a character I disliked so very much. I *resented* having even the name on so many pages! I know Inspector Beauvoir, Gamache's second-in-command, felt the same way.

The interpersonal dynamics in this book are stellar. Gamache et sa femme, Reine-Marie, are clearly the best-suited married couple in all of fiction. Gamache and Beauvoir love each other deeply, in a tender and gentle way, and it never shades into prurience or sentimentality. How Penny achieves that, I cannot venture to guess, but I wish to goodness she'd give lessons to Anne Rice and Stephen King in how it's done.

The two murders in this book are both heart-wrenching, though for completely different reasons. Their solutions are exactly in tune with the series's ethos, and the events of a cold winter's night that take place on a lake will, unless you are insentient or a sociopath, make you take a Kleenex break until you're eyes actually smart from crying in...in...joyous furious sadness.

I've always had it in my mind that I'd spend my declining years in Skookumchuk, British Columbia, because well who doesn't want to live in a place called Skookumchuk? Daily laughter guaranteed! But now I want to grow old in Three Pines, next door to Clara and Myrna and with Reine-Marie and Armand at the top of the hill. One will always be safe, if not from murder, then from the outrages of the wider, more callous, uncaring world. That's worth a lot.

And did I mention I recommend the book?

Lovely review! Three Pines is going to be a very crowded place, I fear. Quite a few of us would love to drop in for the weekend.

And the books just keep getting better!

Bien fait, Richard, et merci!

#69: I am heading to Three Pines, too. I love the place, I love the people (even if they do keep killing each other), and I expect to meet every LTer that I love there too - including you, Richard.

Lovely review of a book that I loved. A thumbs up for you!

I am sitting at my desk and humming "the street where you live". Out loud. The only good part of this is that it has distracted the cats from clawing at the spines of the books in the shelves. (I keep books that I really don't like there on purpose...)

I remember reading the first two von Trapp books around the age of 12 or so, back in the 70s. I loved the movie as a little girl (I think it was because the kids, post Maria, looked like they were having fund) and was really taken aback by all the Catholic dogma stuff in the books. Of course, what they were really singing was a lot of religious music (some of which -- i.e. Bach -- I have since come to adore). But it really was like a bit of the 19th century come back to life.

I am going to have to succumb to Louise Penny. As a quasi-Canadian, I try to avoid overly-lionized writers, but everything I hear tells me her books must be read. Sigh. I'm also going to have to go and play the My Fair Lady soundtrack. Right now.

I'm about to start book #2 in the Three Pines series, so your review was perfect timing for me and makes me excited to read it.

I'm curious to see if the minor character who drove you nuts and was shuffled off in Still Life is the same one that I disliked so much as well!!

Hallelujah - I've dodged this one (for now) since I haven't read numero uno yet... Still gave you a thumbs up though!

I can hear my husband right now, singing "The hills are alive/With the stench of goat dung."

He hated musicals, and Sound of Music in particular.

Hmmm... if everything almost without exception is off my shelves does that mean I win? (last year out of 288 reads, 4 weren't mine...)

I have Three Pines on my wishlist on BM and am glad to see that it's getting some good press here. The only problem is that I was only planning to read books already in my TBR pile this year and I'd have to put it aside till next year if I got it in a mooch. But I think I'll go add the next one to my wishlist also.

edited because my fingers go faster than my brain causing spelling errors

suslyn, winning is in the eye of the beholder. While I'm trying to clear the shelves, I'm afraid I might panic if I actually succeed!

>80 LynnB: LOL Well I finally realized it was not "reading off the shelves" but cleaning out the shelves. In that case, I removed 38 last year. (I shipped over a bulk lot of books that were given to me and had very little choice over what came... otherwise, it is highly likely that I would *not* have parted with 38 :)

Thumbs up for your Fatal Grace review! I read it last month and loved it. I'm looking forward to the third installment--but I will wait. I really don't want to catch up with the series until the next book is ready to come out!

I have finally succumbed to that which is Three Pines, and I am currently reading Still Life. I blame you. Really I do.

>83 tloeffler: You're welcome. And bienvenue a Trois Pins!

>84 richardderus:. Merci. C'est incroyable!

:)

Suse! So glad to see you about. Are things progressing positively pour vous?

I've just reviewed Diana Gabaldon's Lord John and the Hand of Devils, a collection of mystery novellas.

I liked 'em. Read all about it in post #59.

Review: 4 of 25

Title: THE CRUELEST MONTH

Author: LOUISE PENNY

Rating: **** of 5

Ruth Zardo comes out best in this awful, wrenching hanky-moistener of a book.

That's all I can say. Anything else is a spoiler, and if I spoil this book for anyone, that person will hunt me down and kill me.

Dead, like Madeleine Favreau! Eternal rhyming blank verse written by Odile recited in my ears by Rod McKuen. *shudder*

Secrets. Lies. Jealousies. Anguish. Loathing for the happiness of those close to us. If it lasted a few thousand more pages, I'd say it was a Ken Follett novel of medieval times. It was impossible to put down, as "People" magazine yodels from the cover. It was harrowing to see these characters I've invested so much in suffering from blindness of the spirit, self-inflicted, attempting to shun painful knowledge.

(Kath--re A Certain Party I indicated admitration for--you were right, ew.)

Being a murder mystery, one knows from the outset that one is being set up to sympathize with a character who later proves to be a murderer, doubtless to one's shock and horror. Strangely, this murderer left me cold, was someone I thought, "oh yeah, that's logical" about, and in whom I made not the smallest investment.

I was wretchedly, abjectly, tearfully sorry for someone else's miserable awakening, and almost...only almost!...forgave an annoying, nasty character's existence at the end of the book.

There is, about 2/3 of the way through the book, a scene of memorable power and beauty between Gamache and Beauvoir. The sex is awesome!

No, not really, but the two men confront each other honestly and unguardedly for the first time, and it adds so very much to the extant emotional resonances that Penny layers into each of her works that I can't wait to read the next installment. Next year. I need some time off, back reading about the Cathars and how the Pope and his fellow Satanic Minions tortured, murdered, and vilified their fellow beings for the greater glory of Jesus. Less emotionally draining, y'know.

Really, if you're so suspicious or so backward not to have run out and bought or checked out this entire series already, there is little point in recommending that you do so, but I must: Highly, highly recommended, and NOT just for mystery lovers, but for those who live to discover subtlety and grace in writing.

Great review, Richard!

Great review, Richard! You tweaked my interest. I'll have to put it on my future TBR list. ;>)

Perfect review rdear..
I am sneaking in from work.. no kids..
well worth it just to see thins..

I am gonna have to get me ordering these Penny books. What with your glowing reviews and practically having to swim through an LT tide of Penny-worship everywhere else, I think it's time...

>90 alcottacre:, 91, 92: Thanks, guys! I loved this book. I was so hoping Penny wouldn't his a downer on only her third book. It will come, of course, it always does to every author, but it's so happy not to see it this soon.

>93 elliepotten: Ellie darling, I predict confidently that you'll be a Pennyite soon. Her burnished, mellowly glinting prose is like beautifully polished sterling: Enough tarnish left to show the design and the careful etching, and the highlights are never vulgarly, cheaply **BRIGHT** like the silicone-coated, $1.99-at-Walmart "silverplate" one buys for the servants at Christmas.

You like Mrs. Gaskell, you'll like Miss Penny. If you don't, I promise never to call you "Miss Eleanor Potten" again, no matter how much you deserve it. Perniciously young brat.

ellie...RUN ! do not walk to get a Penny

really.

*Resists the urge to make a really bad 'See a Penny, pick it up' joke*

Well, good luck with that ...

Sorry, but I'm not a Penny chaser (the writer, i mean)...but i liked your review...Three Pines was a bit twee for my taste.....ahem

I love it, and would live there if I could :)

I'm wavering about the living-there thing...just finishing The Brutal Telling and not so sure I can recover from the blow the book delivers.

*snivel* Poor dear. No wonder there is such a huge denial scene at the end of the book. I'd be flattened too. *sniff*

I have heard that The Brutal Telling has a bit more meat on its bones than Still Life.....did i hear correctly? I had the second book A Fatal Grace.....or Dead Cold...one (AFG for me) from the Library..but returned it unread..what with the snow here and all i hate to have Liberry books in captivity...they suffer so...

anywho..i never say never and might visit Three Pines again..as long as Gamache and his team are present as well

;-}

There is sadness everywhere.. and evil. I think I would like to try to cope with it there..to me it is a magical place.. although Saskatoon is a close second :)

Still drawing us in, I see. Have you ever considered reviewing for, er, money?

I loved the first Penny I read. She's an unusual and special talent, I think.

Review: 5 of twenty-five

Title: DREAM ANGUS

Author: ALEXANDER MCCALL SMITH

Rating: ***1/2 of 5

A very interesting idea for a series, this. Retell the classic myths of the world from a new perspective, only a serious point is to be made: Myths are the stories of our collective unconscious, and can always bear updating.

It works out well in Dream Angus in large part because McCall Smith is Dream Angus's little brother. He creates magical invisible kingdoms of thought and convinces the millions that they're real and they're worth visiting time after time after time (Isabel Dalhousie novels, No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency).

The Irish myth of Dream Angus, the god of love, dreams, and youth, is "...a cloud based upon a shadow based upon the movement of the breeze" (p xiv, hardcover edition). (Quite a trinity to get stuck with! Obstreperous, illogical, wilful things to be god of, all three.) McCall Smith gently deflects the breeze in his desired directions, and weaves the mythic base into more modern stories of Angus's doin's in this world. I don't think he did a brilliant job of this, but it's a tough technical challenge to tackle. I rated the book down a whole star for its heterosexism. It's explicit, and it rankled me.

But the lushness of Angus and of his beautiful self-aware selflessness in doing all the things he does for humanity...! Curmudges there a crusty old crab so dead to wonder and passion and love as to find this slightly arch, somewhat precious conceit anything other than glisteningly gorgeous?

Gods, I hope not. And I hope not to meet him/er, either. Go on, suspend disbelief and read this book. Soon. You'll be glad you took this vacation in the land of Celtic myth.

gorgeous review!

>105 mckait: Thanks, cuddles, and the book is on its way to you.

Sounds good, Richard, I'll look out for that one.

ETA - already reserved at the local library;-)

#104: I do not like the No. 1 Detective Agency series by Smith, so I am not sure whether to give Dream Angus a go or not. What think you, Richard? Will I like it?

I'm with Stasia in NOT being a fan of the No. 1 Detective Agency series, so I already have an opinion of the guy's style, etc....this Dream Angus on my TBR list? Doubtful. Your review? Always.....

;-}

I sent two books off to you today, rdear... and what!!! I get Angus?!
No wonder you are my favorite curmudgeon :)

>110 mckait: I bought it for you, dearest, I just read it before I sent it off to you.

>109 jdthloue:, 108...I can't stand Mma Ramotswe. I don't like the books at all, because I don't like the main character. She grates on my last nerve with a rat-tail file. And I loved Dream Angus, despite the heterosexism.

So on balance, yeah, I'd say y'all should read it.

you are a dear curmudgeon indeed...

#111: Thanks for the input, RD!

Stasia, I've yet to succumb to the No. 1 Ladies Club (I don't even like the television adaptation), but I like a lot of the other stuff that Alexander McCall Smith has written (with the exception of his newest series, a 44 Scotland Street style series set in London). You need to have a certain tolerance for whimsy and eccentricity, but it's worth seeking out something else of his to see if it's the subject or the author's style.

Review: 6 of twenty-five

Title: FLOWER CONFIDENTIAL: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful in the Business of Flowers

Author: AMY STEWART

Rating: *** of 5

I don't like flowers. I know most of you will think of that as an admission, but I think of it as a statement of character. Flowers are the female porn stars of the plant world: Look! Look!! These are my genitals, all splayed out and unnaturally manipulated to get you big, drooling apes to do what I want you to!

So I approached this book as a source of ammunition for my entrenched dislike of its subject. I was not disappointed.

Flowers are completely useless. We can't eat most of them, and are seldom hungry enough to eat the ones that won't make us ill. They serve little purpose in the insect world, at least the ones that a) don't eventually turn into fruits or b) have convinced the big drooling apes to do their reproducing and colonizing for them based on their sex organs' perceived attractiveness.

It's instructive to read this book as one who is immune to the "charms" of the flowers. The unacknowledged root (snort) of the whole enterprise of developing, growing, and selling the stupid things is never even questioned. Of course, the (female) author seems to say, of course you'll want to see these genitalia up close and personal all day and in your own home (why is that a given?)...she even says, at the end of the book, "Every day Americans go out and buy about ten million cut flowers...That's just over one flower a month {per person}. How can anybody get by on one flower a month?" (p269, hardcover ed.)

A better question is, "How DARE anybody spend actual money on these useless, frivolous things when there are hungry, homeless, and sick people right here in the richest country on Earth and in its history?!?" And spare me the argument of all the jobs lost if we suddenly stop buyiing flowers...1) we won't and 2) they should go get useful jobs in homeless shelters, soup kitchens, free clinics and other places that do something worthwhile.

Writing's adequate, I suppose, nothing wrong with it; some moments of humor; but I can't recommend it to anyone, since if you're a flower person you don't need it and if you're not, you don't want it.

PS: Anyone want my copy?

But other than that, how was the theater, Mrs. Lincoln?

:-D

>116 MerryMary: I thought the second act was a little weak, couldn't hold my attention... ;-P

#115: I think I will skip that one. I hope you like your next book better, although I am wondering why you would bother reading a book about flowers in the first place . . .

>89 richardderus: Ah heck I wanna read that one! :)
Saved by the impossibility of a tbr LOL

#115 Richard - you reading that book is like me reading a book about Bush 43. You love to hate it.

You could always put it on BookMooch - it's on 35 wishlists worldwide.

>120 karenmarie: Exactly! I was looking for ammunition to heave at the flower-buyer in my orbit.

And BookMooch requires effort I'm not willing to expend. I'm *obligated* to participate. That makes my itsy-teensy "oh yeah?" follicle produce an upright hair.

Quite a review rdear... but all of your reviews are quite something.

I like your description of Bookmooch, my friend.

I finished Spook and am on to?

I have had very little time to read for a list of boring reasons, including Cory being home again this wee. More cooking, cleaning , laundry and so on. Then the ensuing .. well.. you know.

I will miss him when he goes back.. but I am about ready to start missing him .........

>122 mckait: you crack me up. And I can so relate! LOL Funny how that works.

#121 - yes, Richard, once you put books out there, you're obligated to participate. I don't mind for some reason. In fact, today at lunch I took 3 packages to the Post Office to mail.

That makes my itsy-teensy "oh yeah?" follicle produce an upright hair.

Cute, dear one. Quite visual.

Review: 7 of twenty-five

Title: YSABEL

Author: GUY GAVRIEL KAY

Rating: ***3/4 of five

Since there are no 3/4 stars, I've had to round this up to 4. I liked the book very much, and I found reading it very easy. I like the PoV character, Ned, and found his development from adolescent smartass to postadolescent smart youth involving.

Apparently this book winds up a series of books about its semi-immortal characters, doomed to replay and replay their ancient passionate triangle through millennia of time. The accidental instrusion of Ned, his aunt, his uncle-by-marriage, and the lovely assistant his father brought with his professional menagerie of assistants and fixers, makes the stakes for the book quite high: Who wants to call a young woman's parents to announce, "Hey, you know your daughter? Well, she's now a goddess and by the way she's not going to be seen on the mortal plane again for, oh, maybe 300 years, 'kay, bye!"

Provence exerts a strong pull on me, and this book's exploration of the ancient world of Provence as it impacts characters in today's world is meat and drink to me. I am fully convinced of the reality of the past, and that its shadows are felt...not just thought about, but felt...in the present. I experience this oddly overlaid reality myself, in most places that I go, so I am already predisposed to like a book about the subject.

Provence and Tuscany and Umbria are places I've been to and felt in the way author Kay describes in this book. Machu Picchu is another. It seems likely to me that Kay has experienced this odd, through-a-scrim sensation of looking at physical reality himself, or he'd be less good at conveying its weird dislocations. This alone makes me likely to seek out the other books in this series (sob!), but next Kay on deck for me is Tigana per that fiend-in-soignee-human-form Caroline.

What doesn't entirely work about the book, to me, is its pick-'em-up-and-drop-'em way with some minor though important characters, like the Brit expat blowhard who could have been a fun addition to the cast but was instead cast off as a deus ex machina at two crucial points. Well, nothing made by man is perfect, so I forgive the failings in acknowledgment of the far more frequent pleasures reading Ysabel offers.

Recommended! Ignore that silly "YA" label, enjoy it for itself!

Thumbs up and welcome to the world of Kay lovers.

For some inexplicable reason I still haven't got my hands on this one. I hope you enjoy Tigana.

Oh RIchard. I'm so glad you liked it. I really, really did think of you as I read it. The husb and I were discussing our Provencal vacation just last night. Our anniversary is tomorrow and we were discussing what, if anything, there was to celebrate from our 8 years together. Our vacations were what surfaced, that being perhaps the best of them (although we both loathed Avignon for what it represented, with all the crimes against God, the people and even the church ... seems they did their best to earn a bad rep!)

ETA a question. So you just bought this book, read it and now you're what? giving it away? ('clean 25 books from his shelves')

>127 suslyn: Yes, Suse, I'm on the "catch-and-release" program with books now. I have accumulated a LOT of books, and frankly unless I live to be 200, I can't re-read most of them. So now, unless I'm so passionate about it that I can't bear to part with it, it's fair game, or checked out from the liberry.

You and Stephane got it right about Avignon...crimes against God abound in Provence, not least the hideous Albigensian Crusade! A blood-soaked landscape of unearthly beauty. If I could terraform a planet to my personal specifications, I'd be sure it was 33% Provence, 33% the Big Sur/Santa Cruz coast of California, and 33% the barrier islands of the Atlantic Coast of the US. The other 1%? Who cares?

Send Stephane my regards, and best wishes.

Sounds lovely! I bid my swamp in Manorville for the remaining 1% -- wonderful ice skating in the moonlight in our own backyard swamp LOL

K

You got it!

Review: 8 of twenty-five

Title: ORGY PLANNER WANTED

Author: Vicki Leon

Rating: *** of 5

Hell, what are we all complaining about?! At least we're not Roman aquarii, fishing around down in sewers or funeral clowns (we call those preachers these days) or bath slaves ewww ewww...a lot of careers in the ancient world weren't things that DeVry or Virginia College would prepare you for.

Vicki Leon, in the course of researching the ancient world for serious books, would run across these weird or simply obscure references to jobs that no longer (thank GOODNESS) exist. She kept her notes. She patiently accumulated information. And now, in this book (called "Working IX to V" in the USA), delivers an amusing, browsable capsue description of ~150 weird and wonderful ancient jobs. I chuckled and giggled my way through this book, using it as what Jerry calls a "between" book, and thoroughly enjoyed it all.

Don't plan to sit down to a long winter's afternoon of reading, and this book will repay your purchase price. Go on, have fun, and not incidentally learn just how much our ancestors were like us...they hated their jobs too!

Who but you would find this little gem?

Richard, I'm afraid that my wishlist shelf is going to resemble Stasia's blackhole soon...you have so many good recommendations.

Gail, I fear that's exactly why this is on the remainder shelves....

It sounds good! :) Fun reads are essential!

Kath my apple fritter, you would snort and guffaw your way through this silliness! Procure instanter or nevermore complain of ill humour! (Not that you do, though, and GOODness knows if anyone's entitled to it's you.)

I may have to do that...
I have no willpower this weekend so....

Good review. I, too, own this lively little tome (only mine is Working IX to V )....and it's worth every penny. I wish I'd had this book when studying Roman Culture for LATIN class in High school!

One Thumb for your review, sir!

;-}

I have also succumbed and the book is waiting for me at the library as we speak.

Well, I wasn't able to mooch Orgy Planner Wanted, but I was able to mooch Vicki Leon's Uppity Women of Medieval Times.

Catching up with this thread.

Stopped by to say hello and now I'm going to go back to bed. Nighty night.

W

Review: 9 of twenty-five

Title: SMALL g: A SUMMER IDYLL

Author: PATRICIA HIGHSMITH

Rating: 3* of five

This was for my own June TIOLI challenge, to read a GLBTQ book in honor of Pride MOnth.

By now everyone knows Highsmith was a lesbian. It wasn't that widely known early in her career, which is why she wrote her single best novel-type novel (ie, not a thriller), THE PRICE OF SALT, under a pseudonym...one couldn't write a book about happy lesbians in 1952! So I decided to read this book, long unavailable in the US, to honor a fellow Queer artiste.

Wish I hadn't.

It's not the best of Highsmith's books. It's not at all bad. But it's just not that interesting. There is a murder in the first two pages, and that seemed as though it would set things off...but it set off a dull little interspecies romance between an older gay man and a young woman, who is under the protection of a dreadful old closeted lesbian. I understand that this character was Highsmith's bitter self-caricature, and that it's devastatingly accurate.

It's got the thing that Highsmith's readers like best, though...lots of spot-on character building! And it's not devoid of action, it's just...well, the Ripley novels kinda spoiled me for action, and The Price of Salt is so excellent...just not the high point for Highsmith.

Anyone who wants to have the book, PM me.

Review: 10 of twenty-five

Title: GREETINGS FROM JAMAICA, WISH YOU WERE QUEER...

Author: MARI SAN GIOVANNI

Rating: 3.9* of five

Oh hell. Here I've got an interesting wife and an adorable boyfriend, and I've gone and fallen in love with a lesbian.

Well, can you blame me? This particular lesbian, author of the tome named above, has a wicked sense of humor and a snarky eye for characters and a good sense of timing. She's written, in this her first novel, a laugh-out-loud funny slamming-doors sex farce set in an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica. I mean, really, go fight those odds! I'd fall in love with *Rush Limbaugh* under those circumstances!

(No I wouldn't, not a chance, but it's a good line so I used it anyway.)

Marie, our heroine, is in a miserable dead-end relationship with the once-gorgeous-to-her Jessica, a cold, cheating slime. Then one fine morning, Marie wakes up rich, with a legacy of $21 million - the ENTIRE ESTATE! - from her mean, evil grandmother, whose respect for Marie's honest dislike of her has paid off.

Marie's extended Italian-American family, predictably, goes into hyperdrive debating the use that they will make of (Marie's, and Marie's alone) money. This gets old, so she buggers off to Los Angeles to throw herself at actress Lorn Elaine, hoping to convince the said actress to be in the movie she's written. This fails spectacularly, and Marie slinks off to Jamaica with her entire clan, both to salve her screenwriterly wounds and to announce her decision about the division of the money. That was left to HER, mind.

So who shows up at the selfsame all-inclusive resort? C'mon, guess! Oh, all right...Lorn Elaine! With her mother in tow! It's now that the doors begin slamming, the sex (some pretty sticky stuff there!) begins not happening, and the entire cast runs around at warp speed trying to keep secrets and ending up telling lies.

If you're unsatisfied by the ending of this book, you're a prune-faced old moralizing killjoy. As for the humor quotient...well, the author's email is MariLaughs@cox.net. Go on, say it out loud. I'll wait.

Now, if that didn't make you laugh, don't read this book. Read one on how to get a sense of humor.

Great title! And a very nice review, Richard. Into my wihslist...

ROFL!!! I love it!

LOL You're too much. :)

Brilliant! :-)

Review: 11 of twenty-five

Title: FOUR PERFECT PEBBLES

Author: LILA PERL

Rating: 4* of five

In the annals of man's cruelty to man, the Holocaust stands out for its sheer, industrial-scale coldness and horror. There is ample literature attesting to the awfulness of being condemned to death for the mere accident of being born to a Jewish parent. This book, another entry into that corwded segment, is aimed at young readers.

I don't know that any book about the Holocaust is something I want young readers to read. It's too huge and too vile a topic to make me feel comfortable introducing it to those whose lives are still in the vulnerable and bendable stage. I wouldn't let my child read this book, far better she should read the Marquis de Sade than this kind of material.

But the world disagrees with me. So I am renewedly glad that I have no young children. But I think this story is one that makes the idea of the Holocaust, its especial and unique evil in human history, more painfully poignantly real than any other literary work I've ever seen: This is the story of a child who went through the system with her family intact, until the bitter horrifying end of the tale. This is what the horrible, vile, evil, disgusting Germans wanted to destroy: A little girl, her mama, her papa, and her big brother.

Because they were Jews.

Humanity deserves its inevitable extinction. Stories like this one make me think the Christian god is, in fact, in control, with all the thundering "no" and reviling abominations that the Bible tells us are the fate of those who aren't like them.

I hope all of y'all who don't like Jews, gays, liberals, Catholics, whatever, are *proud* of what your horrible little narrow-minded cult gave birth to. I'm sickened by it.

I hope all of y'all who don't like Jews, gays, liberals, Catholics, whatever, are *proud* of what your horrible little narrow-minded cult gave birth to. I'm sickened by it.

Amen my friend... amen

Amazingly sad and terrible to contemplate the depths to which humans will sink...

I, too, find reading about the Holocaust painful in the extreme -- in part (as a Christian) because I'm aware of how misguided strands of the Christian tradition laid the hateful anti-Semitic groundwork for it. ("Misguided" is not a strong enough word, but words are failing me here.)

I have a similar reaction when I read books about civil rights atrocities in the US (which some have also justified by misuse of the Bible). Different tactics, different scale, but nobody should be targeted for abuse or worse because of their race or religion.

... Or any other differences, of skin color, of religious beliefs, or, or, or ... you get the drift, I'm sure.

*****************************************

BTW, Richard Dear, when is thy B'day coming upeth? Which month? I enjoyed the fashion suggestions of the LT friends and family, but, I liked your selection best of all. I will say, Carolyn and Linda had some pretty good ideas and very good imaginations to come up with what they offered.

What I want to hear about is the menu/food & drink and the choices you pick for the soundtrack/background/dancing/music. Lay it on me when you get the inclination. Station, WRDM, if you will.

Have you heard of a Tequila Mockingbird? Neither had I until I watched a news story celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the novel. It is the official drink of the town of Monroeville, Alabama, which was the "model" for Maycomb, AL the fictitious, segregated, Depression era town of the novel by Harper Lee.

(The recipe is online in several versions, none of which I have tried as yet, but I like the looks of the one on Chowhound.)

See recipe/video if interested:

Drink recipe: http://www.chow.com/recipes/10334-tequila-mockingbird

News video about Harper Lee & TKAM

- http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6668549n&tag=related;photovideo

Hope you have a cooler, saner day, my dear Richard.

Faithful friend, R

PS I am finishing up number two in the Russell Quant series. Got it on loan from a lyeberry down in South Florida nearby or in Port Charlotte. Yikes! Used to live there ages ago, when my girls were in kindergarten and first grade ... back when I was still the "Stepford Wife" of the golf pro. *grimace* for the golf pro. Pleasant memories of the girls and their wonderful teachers. *BIG smile*

>152 womansheart: Hiya Woofie! Good to see you! I have no idea what The Divine Miss will do, but my birthday's in September. She's being a little cagey on the topic just yet.

>151 tymfos: Hello Terri, glad to see you. I can't imagine, with the blood-soaked and hatemongering history of Christianity, how it is that a good person can identify as a Christian, but please understand that I reserve my ire for the narrow and the hateful, not the good and the genuine.

>150 Matke: Hey Gail! Always a pleasure. And I'm not amazed anymore, just sad and angry and scared. It *will* happen again and again, the Holocaust, many more times, because humans are not intrinsically good. As horrifying as the thought is, I think I'd prefer to be among the exterminated than to know I survived and benefit from the world they were denied.

>149 mckait: Yeup. *smooch*

--->153 richardderus:: Indeed, Richard, it continuously happens. One aspect of this that comes to mind is Rwanda, which I would not have learned about at it all (while it was still going on) if not for NPR. Such things are ignored by the "news" media of all stripes in favor of inflaming our own passing emotions about the silliest things. Lindsey Lohan! Tiger Woods! Lions and tigers and bears!

And then, of course, we are told that we can't make a judgement (heaven forbid that we be that new evil: Judgemental) because we're not aware of all the background, ethnic circumstances, etc. Gee, it would seem that the murder of innocent noncombatants, just bystanders, really, would be an evil in anyone's eyes. Like you, I'd rather be among the missing, but I hope that I'd have the wherewithall required to take a few of the bad guys out with me.

---152: Um...the Party? Are we having shrimp? I promise to bring extra-hot cocktail sauce, and extra large shrimp (surely that's nonsensical verbally but gustatorially sound)and some homemade peach ice cream. How delightful that would be! Preferred clothes: denim shorts, v-neck tee, white crew sox (I have foot problems...)

I hope that I'd have the wherewithall required to take a few of the bad guys out with me Oh my, yes. I know how to shoot, and I plan to do some before they drag my carcass off to do whatever with it.

I hate like poison the idea that I might *have* to someday.

I'm not interested in what people wear, including myself, so just don't *show up* naked and attract attention. Once behind the hedges, 'sup to youse.

What is happening in Utah and in Arizona, the hate.. I can't find a way to understand it. How is it that some people just plain hate those who are different?
( color, religion or lack thereof, body size or sexual orientation) Where does that come from?

I promise not to show up naked on the day of your party.

Hate comes from fear.

>156 mckait: K

>157 MerryMary: And fear comes from ignorance. So the fearful are the ignorant. Some people seem to love their ignorance.

i said nothing about the day after

> 159 - Your post has shifted my morning, smart woman, Kath. *Laughing and snorting like a middle school girl*

Hi, Richard Dear. Wish me well and send good vibes my way, if you please.

>159 mckait: Neither did I.

>160 womansheart: *whammys Woofie with all kinds of goodness vibes*

160 ditto rd

>162 mckait: Hmmm. Must chat later.

look forward to it :)

nothing new? It occurred to me that I could have done this challenge as generally I only have the books on my shelves and culling 25 this year isn't unlikely (i have a thing for double-negatives)

;->

I forgot all about this thread! Good lawsy me. I signed up for Operation Paperback, so I can put some muscle into these reviews soon. Thanks, Suse!

R. Dear - Could you tell me what Operation Paperback is? A topic group?

Where can I find out more, dear sir?

Would appreciate your help, whenever.

Love, R

I think the Operation Paperback thing is such a lovely idea. I'll leave Ricardo to sort out links etc. since he's joined up anyway, but generally speaking it's a scheme to send books out to U.S. troops. The 75-Book Challenge group had the idea to try to send 75 books out between them, but the Powers that Be have picked it up across LT and are aiming for 750. I think there's actually a recent LT blog post (check your homepage) about it, if I can remember ALL THE WAY BACK to this morning when I was looking at it...

ETA: Yup, here it is:
http://www.librarything.com/blogs/librarything/2010/08/operation-librarything-pa...

Review: 12 of twenty-five

Title: FOR THE PRESIDENT'S EYES ONLY

Author: RICHARD SALE

Rating: 3* of five

Pretty much the standard early 70s thriller, it's a Bond novel with an American suave and debonair enough to seduce every woman, rich enough to be unimpressed by threats, and rough enough to do some (quite violent) damage to criminals across the globe.

He's answerable to only one man, the President of the United States of America, and only because he really, really wants to defend his country--and the free world--against something called "Keyhole". It means nothing less than...Utter Annihilation!!!

Pretty much piffle, then, but nicely paced, and there's something very chauvinistically cool about Bond being a Stars and Stripeser. It was fun to read, it passed an afternoon, and it seemed a good choice to go into Operation Paperback.

Review: 13 of twenty-five

Title: THE MURDERERS' CLUB

Author: P.D. MARTIN

Rating: 3* of five

Sophie Anderson has a gift: She can "hear" what's going on in the minds of serial killers. It makes her very valuable at the FBI, as you can imagine, but it also keeps her on the fraying edge of total, irretrievable burnout. Shortly after a successfully solved case nearly costs her her life, Sophie takes an Arizona vacation to rest and recuperate.

Ha.

A rash of killings occur, clearly related but with key differences. It's the differences that alert Our Heroine to the fact that it's a plot...it's too coincidental that all these signature moves would show up in one place...but what kind of plot?!?

She solves it, of course. SPOILER! Turns out La Sophie is the target of a serial killers' online newsgroup, and her near-fatal case is used as a chance to finish her off while she's vulnerable. END SPOILER!

Pretty scary moments, very nicely plotted, decent writing...passed an afternoon, and that's not nothin' these days.

Review: 14 of twenty-five

Title: NATIVE TONGUE

Author: CARL HIASSEN

Rating: 4.1* of five

Blue-tongued mango voles. If you've read the book, you've now collapsed on the floor howling in remembered glee. If you haven't read the book before, well, it's time now.

Mix Hiaasen's trademark hapless idiot criminals, burnt-out losers, small-minded grifters, and slimy real estate developers, add a cut-rate theme park, shake with a dose of environmentalist headline-grabbing, and *poof* you have the kind of book that makes summer beach reading so much fun.

What can I add that will make a difference? Book's been out 20 years and there's already a gabloozel and six reviews, so pick it up! Really, there is so much fun to be had in Hiaasenland it's a shame to miss out. He writes very well-built sentences, he creates recognizable characters, and he has a flensing knife of an eye for human nature. If you haven't, please do; if you have, but weren't amused, please try this one; if you have and rolled around laughing, well, we're soul mates. Will you marry me?

Review: 15 of twenty-five

Title: AIRFRAME

Author: MICHAEL CRICHTON

Rating: 3.9* of five

I really hate flying. I'm not scared of it, I just dislike being herded into inky-dinky seats meant for short people by ill-tempered sky-waiters who charge for pillows and booze, and then I have to pay more than I used to make a week for the privilege of being searched, patted by men I'm not attracted to in places I don't want to be patted unless I am, etc etc etc.

Fifteen years ago, all that was more or less to come, and storymonger Crichton used planes for a very different kind of tale. What happens to cause a huge section of a plane to go *flooey*, killing a few people and making the entire world nervous about flying? We're about to find out, Casey Singleton and the reader that is. We're going to go into surprisingly interesting amounts of detail about the structure, the manufacture, the sales, the service, the use of airplanes, and how a careful planner could cause huge havoc in a few, small, seemingly innocuous ways.

I miss Michael Crichton. He understood the value of detail, the urgency of tight plotting, and the uncomplicated pleasure of following a complicated and logical plot to its only possible ending. If I didn't have Steve Berry, I'd be visiting Crichton's grave once a year with 200 roses to mourn his passing.

LitSnobs take note...turn up your noses and all that happens is us groundlings who like books that are fun get an unobstructed view of your boogers.

Review: 16 of twenty-five

Title: DESIRE STREET:A True Story of Death and Deliverance in New Orleans

Author: JED HORNE

Rating: 4* of five

There are all kinds of stories about the innocent railroaded into jails, or onto death row, by corrupt or indifferent or racist cops, judges, juries, prosecutors, public defenders...there are so many, who needs another? Especially one set in New Orleans, and twenty-six years after the crime at that?

Jed Horne tells us a story that will curdle your blood as much as Zeitoun did, and it's just as true. A purse-snatching gone bad, a dead white church lady, a young rakehell who's no angel...*wham* went the jail doors on young Mr. Kyles, *swish* went DA Harry Connick Senior's bid for re-election, and no one cared a whit.

Except Kyles's baby-mama Pinkey. She had five kids with him, she knew him (Biblically speaking as well as socially, obviously), and she had no time for hearing that he could kill someone.

It took over 10 years, but the Supreme Court voided Kyles's conviction on factual grounds. But now what? The whole CITY was convinced that he did it. How do you fight that?

Read Desire Street and find out. It's a scream-at-the-walls infuriating read, but in the end...well, in the end, I was hoarse but I was satisfied justice had been served. Recommended.

Review: 17 of twenty-five

Title: THE POET

Author: MICHAEL CONNELLY

Rating: 3.9* of five

Connelly's Harry Bosch series will either make you want to read this book, or run from it. I liked the Harry Bosch mysteries well enough, but I really respond more to Jack McEvoy, Denver journalist and crusader for the rights of victims of crime.

This is the first appearance by McEvoy. He's hot on the trail of a cop-killer, one whose talent for murder makes him able to turn a crime scene into a suicide scene. Jack's brother, a homicide cop, is dead...and naturally Jack wants to know how the current spate of killings relate to the Poet, as this serial killer is known.

What happens next is everything! Connelly uses the now-mundane Internet and email (how quaint!) to give the story immediacy and scary new dimensions, and those tropes don't stand up well as stand-alones. Connelly, however, didn't graft them onto the story he told, he made them part and parcel of the case from the get-go. It's very well-built stuff, as one would expect from this capable author.

What's not so exciting is the plot resolution, but hey...at least it's not *bad*, just *expected*. I for one felt no sense of "...wha...where...HUH?" that marks out the very best of thrillers. But it's streets away from being blah! Just not...all the way, if you know what I mean. Read and enjoy. Just don't expect to need to do sock patrol after you're done, they won't be blown right off.

*sigh* I didn't even know this thread existed until now. Well, I got you starred now. *shrug*

Richard- All terrific reviews! I have not tried Native Tongue, although I have really enjoyed the few books I have read of Hiaasen. This one sounds good. I do like Connelly but I've only read a couple of his and only one Harry Bosch. Also Desire Street sounds interesting! Boy, where do we find the time?

Review: 18 of twenty-five

Title: ECHO PARK

Author: MICHAEL CONNELLY

Rating: 3.6* of five

I hit "Submit" and my review vanished! Why didn't the header part?

Anyway. This is #12 in the Harry Bosch series of mystery/thrillers, and it's the last one I will be reading. I just got worn down by the sameness of it all. It's what makes series books appealing, on the one hand, that comfortable familiarity; but too much of it loosens my grip on the give-a-damn lever.

Now that Harry's in the unsolved crimes unit, he runs across a 13-year-old case of his that's bugged him and worried him because he feels sure there's something he and/or his partner missed.

Enter a convicted killer facing death, willing to cop to the crime. Trouble is, Harry's not at all sure he did it.

So there you have it. You know the whole story. Don't flag me for spoilering, either, because all that's in the flap copy. Now you see why I am done with the series: The basics are good, but the *oomph* that could sustain me over the long haul is gone.

Review: 19 of twenty-five

Title: ACT OF REVENGE

Author: ROBERT K. TANENBAUM

Rating: 3.8* of five

This is a thriller written by a lawyer. Wait! Come back! It's not boring like most lawyerly fiction is!

Butch and Marlene, Tanenbaum's married sleuths, are back again and they're in fine fettle. I liked them when I first encountered them in No Lesser Plea quite a long time ago. They're a little Nick-and-Nora-y, but they strike out into new territory because she's got one helluva scary job: She's a protection specialist for abused women in jeopardy.

Wait! Come back! It's not like a Lifetime movie, I promise!

Butch and Marlene are facing off against the two scariest and cruelest entities on Planet Earth in this book. No, not Simon Cowell and Nina Garcia! The Mafia and the Chinese tongs. They poke their collective nose into what seems like a box-stock hit on a capo after their 12-year-old witnesses part of the war that led to the hit. Now she's a target, and so now it's Close to Home.

It's a taut, well-made thriller, and the stakes could NOT be higher. No, you don't need to read the books in order...this one would make a great place to start, for example. Tanenbaum made the leap from book-at-a-time good to series good a while ago. This 11-year-old outing is no exception.

Review: 20 of twenty-five

Title: THE BLUE ZONE

Author: ANDREW GROSS

Rating: 3.9* of five

Told from the PoV of the daughter of a nasty criminal, this is one fast book. My hair blew back from the speed I was turning pages, and I don't have a lot of hair. (Unless you count my shoulders. Oh, and back. They don't blow around so much, though.) I was awake an entire night finishing the book, and am I glad I did!

So, the girl in question is in her first year at Snazzmatazz U, thinking her life is about perfect: Daddy's rich, kind, attentive, and mommy's adequately drugged, and she's just so happy she could spit, right?

*FLOOEY*

Her father tells her the truth at last, he's not the sweetie-punkin she thought, and all five of her family are headed for the Witness Protection Program (WITSEC). Well, that's worse than a broken heel on your Jimmy Choos! She goes into the program, expecting all will go well, after all it's a government run program, right?

*FLOOEY*

A year later, her WITSEC agent-pal is found tortured and murdered and the WITSEC guys show her pictures of the remains before telling her that Pops is missing. She has to help them figure this out!!

Well, nothing here to strain the brain of a thriller reader, and all unfolds like one would want and expect it to do. Gross co-wrote a couple novels with James Patterson, who returns the kindness with a very nice blurb. He knows his onions about pacing and about plot twists. He's got some grasp of character development, too. He's not up there with Steve Berry, but he's a darn good day's entertainment.

178.. love that review.. lol

AND the next one LOLOL

Review: 21 of twenty-five

Title: DIVIDE AND PERISH: The Geopolitics of the Middle East

Author: CURTIS F. JONES

Rating: ?

I don't have the faintest idea how to rate this book. I'm not at all sure I understand it well enough to rate it.

The author spent thirty years in the State Department and has spent many years writing about the subject...he's a main feature of AmericanDiplomacy.org, a very boffin-y website that specializes in disseminating, free, very informed and well-considered articles on such topics as US-Brazilian relations (pretty intimate during Carnival, I'm bettin') and "Fearing the Freedom of Speech", which I plan to read one day when I am hopped up on two pots of coffee and some amphetamines.

This book is emphatically NOT a page-turner, and it's in no slightest way unserious; it's so extensively footnoted as to make me flinch at the sight of a superscript number; and dear GOD it's dull.

But the soldier in Whicheveristan said he wanted serious current events non-fiction, and this baby fits that bill like a *glove*. I hope it doesn't make him fall asleep over his machine gun. That could have ugly repercussions.

Review: 22 of twenty-five

Title: A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age

Author: WILLIAM MANCHESTER

Rating: 4* of five

My daughter brought this book to my attention about 10 years ago. "WHAT?!? You haven't read this?!? Here!" with a forceful thrust, causing the book to thump into my chest rather painfully. (The bruises have since healed.)

Since that copy, I have given to others eleven more; I seem to be able to keep the book for about six months before someone just *has* to read it and *now*, so out it goes again. Weeks go by, and I fretfully search the used bookeries for another copy; always one shows up, usually in very good to unread condition (philistines! Imagine having this book and not reading it!), and spend the buck or so to bring it home *for the last time* as I will keep *this* one forever.

Uh-huh. As we see, that resolve is doomed. I'm sending this one to that soldier who wanted history books. He'll like this one, I bet!

It's a leap of imagination that I feel 21st-century people have small success at making, but the time when the world was lit only by fire didn't end until late in the 19th century. No flipping switches for instant light. No reading lamp that just needs a little flick to provide bright, shadowless (unless you sited it in a funny place) light for as long as you like. No street illumination worth a damn.

A world of shadows. A world of unseen details. A world that gave us fabulous artistic achievements, amazing literary joys, and most of our modern ideas about religion, which I for one could do without.

Manchester makes this world shimmer into focus, bronze-gold candleflame coloring each and every idea, achievement, material object he describes. We really see what he's talking about through their eyes, if we possess even a hint of imagination.

I love this book, and I think everyone in the least bit interested in history should read it because it's beautifully written and conceived. It's a pleasure to pass it on to another initiate. I hope he falls in love the way I did. Please try it. It's worth your time to sink without a ripple into a world long vanished.

Who is Nina Garcia?

(wonders of the internet--I googled and found out. I shouldn't forget, these days, that I can do that instead of asking the people who bring them up. At least I know who Simon Cowell is--he's that guy Oprah is going to do a whole show on, according to the promo I saw yesterday! 8-D )

Review: 23 of twenty-five

Title: STANDING AT ARMAGEDDON

Author: NELL IRVIN PAINTER

Rating: 4* of five

I'll miss this one. I liked it a lot.

The USA has a long history of upheaval and change. The Progressive Era, one that we 21st-century beneficiaries tend to forget existed, was the cradle of such social justice as FDR was able to jam down the gullets of the horrible, nasty conservatives that have always dominated American politics and continue to do even today, to our lasting shame.

The Jeffersonian ideal of an agrarian democracy died about 1840. Industrialization, in those early years, went on in a brutal, hideously cruel way (much as the conservatives have enabled to go on in China, Indonesia, etc, with their "unfettered flow of capital to benefit the masses" bullhockey). The 1880s came as a crisis point: Would untrammelled capitalism be allowed to kill millions without so much as a peep from those suffering from its ravages, or would the laborers whose efforts *made* all that money finally demand some of it for themselves?

The Bloody 80s began. The highly minimal social democracy that the conservatives can be forced to endure had its genesis then, and survives...battered, diminished, mocked and reviled by the jeering apes in their never-enough-profit packs...thanks to the blood and sacrifice of those forgotten ancestors.

Painter's book is a careful, complete, and even-handed narrative of what happened and why during this important turning point in the formation of the country we all love. It made me long to live a long enough life to see the tide of history come back in, washing away the institutionalized greed and stupidity that exemplify Congress and the many state governments. The book is a history...but in the right hands, teachers, it could become a call to arms....

You've done it again!

The library has A WORLD LIT ONLY BY FIRE: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age so I think I'll give it a read. Thanks for the recommendation:)

Ah, Richard, as always I love your reviews; even if the book is something I would never, but never, read, your review is still interesting in and of itself.

Re Native Tongue: When I lived in FL, it was joy to read Hiaasen's editorial/news stories on a weekly basis. I read many of his books and found them frighteningly true-to-life about the land of the Big Mouse and the alligator. Somehow I missed this one; I've added it to the wishlist.

Re: A World Lit Only by Fire: I didn't find it as compelling as you did, but his chatty narrative style and some fantastic art reproductions made it worthwhile. Manchester was (is?) a man with very definite opinions, which make his take on history intriguing; the reader who disagrees is challenged (inwardly) to bring up some facts to prove the point. I love reading his work for that very reason. My brother's favorite book is Manchester's The Glory and the Dream. It's amazing, and I think you'd really enjoy it.

And re: Standing at Armageddon: How did I miss this? Thank you once again for pointing me to what looks like a winner.

Unfortunately, while Manchester is a very good writer, his knowledge of the period completely sucks. If you want to give people disinformation about the Middle Ages, he's your man.

Sorry, Richard - I was a Medieval Studies major in college.

>185 calm: Oh good, Calm!

>186 Matke: Gail, Standing at Armageddon was a delight for me, and I think I'll have to replenish my library after this one goes out. I love its clarity of factual presentation.

>187 staffordcastle: Good heavens, why apologize? I'm not a medievalist, and I don't advocate using the book as an academic text. I don't, to be clear, think that it matters what historians think of popular histories. They're popular. Professionals want different things in their books. Did Manchester get dates or names wrong, and I don't know about it?

Waiting to hear the answer to rd's question...

*waves*

*waves back at mckait*

Yes, lots of things are wrong. Take a look at my (not very temperate) review for some starters. His images of medieval people grubbing around in the mud without clothing (doubtless in the intervals between building the great cathedrals, creating paintings we cherish today, and writing profound philosophical treatises) are an offense to any medievalist. His knowledge of the period is superficial and uncritical.

I have no problem with popular histories - I often read them myself with enjoyment. What I object to is passing on erroneous information. Because Manchester is an excellent writer, his book is an easy and pleasant read, and many people swallow his errors and go on, thinking it's a great book and an accurate picture of the period; my apology was an expression of regret for disagreeing with you, since you like the book.

For myself, I am reminded of the line about "This is not a book to be tossed aside lightly. It is to be hurled with great force." The only reason I didn't do that is that I didn't want a dent in my wall.

But.. but .. but.. that just looks like an opinion, not proof. Just saying..

Review: 24 of twenty-five

Title: THE FIRST SALUTE

Author: BARBARA W. TUCHMAN

Rating: 4* of five

The American Revolution is so often romanticized and distorted by the political needs of Government and Policy that its reality, a ragtag rebellion of seditious wealthy men subsidized by the long-term enemies of England, gets completely lost. Tuchman, in her trademark popular-narrative, chatty style, reminds us that, had things gone a different way, we'd be *horrified* at the foolhardy yahoos who thought they could break the safe, profitable cocoon of Empire.

It's why I enjoy her books. She doesn't stint on facts, but she doesn't stint on personalities and ideas either. She has an eye for the telling detail, and she's not afraid to gore anyone's ox.

Easy reading, informative, and surprising. What more can a non-academic hist'ry reader ask for?

Review: 25 of twenty-five

Title: THE FIGHTING AGENTS

Author: W.E.B. GRIFFIN

Rating: 3.8* of five

Set laregly in the Phillippine Islands in 1943, this is one of the best military thrillers I've read. Griffin's grasp of WWII history seems to me, admittedly not a professional historian, particularly sharp--he seems to be able to stitch a story to every real event that happened anywhere in the world during his story's extent.

As is usual with Griffin's books, several storylines that don't seem related are made into a tight braid by the end of the book, and characters whose purpose was obscure are suddenly revealed to be central to the *actual* story that these perspectives unite to tell. What in tarnation could a loser in Cairo recruited by the CIA's precursor and a crack agent in Budapest, whose job is to prevent Nazi interrogators from torturing information out of prisoners he knows even if it means killing them himself, have to do with a -- well, unconventional, let's say -- guerrilla commander in the Phillippines?

Telling would be spoilering. Read it and find out. Griffin, a talented writer of some eighty summers (b. 1929), is still writing! Give his stuff a try. Even the military-fiction-phobic could find a thriller or two to enjoy.

I am also a fan of Barbara Tuchman's. I've read two of her books so far and I like her style. I've read A Distant Mirror and The Zimmerman Telegram.

Review: 26 of twenty-five

Title: BIRDS OF PREY

Author: WILBUR SMITH

Rating: 3.2* of five

Wilbur, Wilbur...yours isn't the stuff of literary legend, but usually you buckle a *mean* swash and cause images of Erroll Flynn to dash around your reader's head (thanks for that, BTW).

In this book, Wilbur, you lost your way. I don't expect autheticity of language, and don't even WANT it, in books set in the 17th century. But sometimes I felt I was watching a mini-series dumbed down for a TV audience as I read this installment of the generational saga of the Courteneys. Plenty of buckles are swashed, it's true, and the hated Dutch East Indiamen are suitably hateful, but things were...foreshortened, somehow.

Could it be the Courteneys are beginning to pall in your interests? I haven't read Assegai, the most recently published of their family saga which is set in WWI times, and now I wonder if I should.

This isn't the Smith to start with. If anyone wants to know what the fuss he's made over the years is about, start with The Sunbird.

Somebody has been a Busy Reader, for sure....I'm gasping (sort of) trying to catch up:

Love Carl Hiaason, have heard good things about Robert K Tannenbaum but have never read....the William Manchester A World Lit Only By Fire sounds "to die for" and is now on The List...I read a lot of Wilbur Smith several years ago...but not Birds of Prey...i did River God and The Seventh Scroll....Barbara Tuchman will be The Guns of August forever..

Jeesh....so many good reads! Keep on doing, Sweetie!
;-}

>196 jdthloue: Jude, so glad you're here! This poor little thread gets so neglected.

All of these are books I've read before, and am now reviewing as I send them of to troops via Operation Paperback. Gets them off my shelves and gets them reviewed and gets them into hands I hope will appreciate and enjoy them. I haven't read all these this month! Great goddess below us! I'd be a wasted, withered skeleton, typing with the splintering ends of my exposed phalanges, breathing through a grinning skull-hole if I had even tried!

Yeesh! My WeatherBug has ALerted me at least four times this morning! Coastal flooding, air quality, blah blah blah...looks like Hurricane Earl is already causing ickies this far away!

Hi, Richard! So surprising to see a Griffin title here, but it's good to know that your tastes are as eclectic as mine. I loved his first military series, The Lieutenants, The Captains, etc. Very entertaining, fast-moving, comical. My husband, bless him, has every military title by Griffin.

Tuchman is one of my favorites. I especially loved Zimmerman Telegram and Stillwell and the American Experience in China, but I still feel sad that I had to abandon Distant Mirror after reading about half of it. Just couldn't struggle through any more details of castle looting, people changing sides rapidly, and general political stupidity. Wait, I may have that confused with yesterday's newspapers.

You have been reading and reading and reading. Wow!

I immediately had to add The First Salute to my wishlist!

>197 richardderus:...I kinda figgered it was the Operation Paperback thang..in motion...and you, a wasted, withered skelington.???..no way my Sweets, no way.

good job(s) anywho

;-}

Just passing through.. worked till noon.. now

In between appointments.. feeling poorly :P
Hopefully that will improve later. Second appointment @ 7:15

Not looking at blue test...

OKAY EVERYONE COMING TO THE PARTY ON 9/11:

Driving directions vary. PM me again if you need them.

Train directions are simple: Be on the train that leaves Penn Station headed for BABYLON at 1:10p on Saturday afternoon. Get off at ROCKVILLE CENTRE. Look for a tall old man with a gray beard dressed in orange cargo shorts and a small, buff woman, who will no doubt be impeccably turned out. The cars will be at the little brick station-house looking thing. Head for that and, if you don't see one of us right away, look forlorn and wobble your chin a little. We'll find you more easily that way.

So glad you exceeded your goal -- how fun is that! Your reviews make me wish for a local lending library!