Laytonwoman3rd CAN meet this challenge

This group is an excellent idea. And it just might work. I pledge to read 20 books off-the-shelf (or out-of-the-box) in the coming year. If I read at my 2009 pace, that means one quarter of the books I read in 2010 will be from my own stacks. I will give myself an even more stringent challenge, and hope to read 5 of the 20 before the next library book sale. (I hope that's not until April.)

Good luck! It's those darn FOL book sales that get me every time! Just when I think I am making some headway BAM! February comes and I have an additional 50+ books to try to shelve.

Welcome to the group! Your goals seem doable and laudable. Good luck!

I just parked my thread up the row two days ago. I wrote Lois a thank you for a great idea. I've been working on my list. I have some good books that I want to read that go way back. I was aiming for fifteen to twenty. My list right now is way over that. I will kick it around and be good to go next Friday.
Nice peaceful holiday and I have a new book list game to play.
A treasured moment of contentment.

Happy Holidays to All!

1. My first book toward this challenge is Scottsboro by Ellen Feldman. I've only had it since August, but since I wanted to get in at least one Orange Prize contender this month, I picked this one off the shelf. I'll choose older residents of the stacks for the rest of my "Off the Shelf" challenge.
My review is here It was a good book, but not as powerful as I expected it to be.

</b> 2. The Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan An ARC passed on to me by another LT'er last September. I gave it 3 1/2 stars. An enjoyable read with a great setting. You can pop over to my main thread and see what else I had to say about it if you like.

3. The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns Can't even remember where I got this one; it's been on my shelf a long time. Not what I was expecting, but what a gripping read!

Stephen Dobyns was unknown to me before I read this book, and I began it with the mistaken impression that it was going to be a fairly standard "whodunit" detective/suspense thriller. (Stephen King's extensive blurb should have clued me in.) It has that element to it, but primarily it is an exploration of the effects of suspicion and fear on the small town psyche. If you like your mysteries "cozy", this isn't for you. It includes a couple very difficult crime scene descriptions, and concerns the abduction and murder of three young girls. Presented in the first person, singular and plural, by an oddly omniscient narrator who, no matter what the reader's suspicions may be, could not have been in all the places and seen all the things he describes. Once I "got" that it was all about personalities, prejudices and psychology, rather than detection, it kept me reading past my bedtime, having carefully checked the door-and-window-latches.

4. Finn by Jon Clinch

If you think Huck Finn's Pap was a sorry excuse for a human being, wait until you meet his father.

I'm normally not inclined to read sequels, prequels or other take-offs on classic literature written by authors who did not write the originals. I've refused to read Scarlett, for instance, or Mrs DeWinter, or any of Gardner's James Bond series, and if anyone EVER DARES to try to pick up the Spenser or Jesse Stone sagas now that Robert B. Parker is gone I will...well, I just won't read 'em, that's all. I have indulged in some of the various Sherlock Holmes follow-ups, and not without pleasure, I admit. I read Wide Sargasso Sea long ago, but that could have been about people totally unrelated to the characters' literary origins. Now, however, there is Finn, a book that intrigued me when I first heard about it, and which my brother (perhaps Mark Twain’s greatest champion in rural Wayne County, PA) slapped into my hand last fall with an emphatic “You have to read this”. And the highest compliment I can pay it is to say that having read this tale of Pap Finn's wretched life and poetically just death, I truly feel that I have learned Huck Finn's back story as Mark Twain might have envisioned it himself. The writing is nothing like Twain’s, but that is naturally preferable to having someone attempt to copy his style and fail at it. There is a bit of jumping back and forth in time that requires the reader to be very attentive to clues, and Clinch uses a quirky style of punctuating dialog that I could have done without, but there's where I quit quibbling.

The first surprise Jon Clinch has in store for us is the revelation that Huck Finn's Pap was born and raised in a "great white clapboard mansion alongside the grand white limestone courthouse on the finest block of the highest street in…the most cosmopolitan village" in Adams County, Illinois. We are never told what his Christian name is, but I have a very strong suspicion that, as the elder son, Pap was named for his father. For his part, he refers to his parents as simply "The Judge" and "her".

The Judge in this story is not the benevolent Judge Thatcher of Twain's books, but his polar opposite, Judge James Manchester Finn, a man less concerned with the "Truth" than with his concept of the "Right". From his days of riding the circuit on horseback, to his occupation of that home above it all, to his decision to hire a white man to attend his family rather than employ black servants, Judge Finn elevates himself over all other men, but especially over the black race, for which he expresses a hatred that knows no bounds. This is not his story, but he is very important to it. It isn't Huck's story either, but it fits perfectly into the framework of that story as given to us by Twain, allowing for the assumption, which Clinch admits to making, that Huck was not an entirely reliable narrator.

To quote the author, "In matters of location and timing and continuity, the events retold in this novel are fitted meticulously into and around Pap Finn's appearances, both alive and dead, in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The elements of his character---his drunkenness, his cruelty, his virulent and overwhelming hatred of blacks--are all drawn whole from Twain's novel and followed here to their likely ends." There are more surprises in store, (we meet Huck's mother, for instance) but I will not include any spoilers here.

It is impossible to like anything about Pap Finn, or even to raise a shred of sympathy for him, despite the obvious fact that he is doomed by nature and lack of nurture to be what he becomes. His grandfather was a drunk; his father a contemptuous tyrant; his mother absorbed with memories of her youth in Philadelphia and with tending to her more delicate younger son, Will. Nastier even than we knew from our encounters with him in Huckleberry Finn, Pap is also vastly more interesting here…and haven't you always longed to know the significance of the mysterious contents of the room in which Pap was discovered dead? Huck told us "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer…". If Pap could speak to us, he would say "You don't know about me without you have read a book by the name of Finn…That book was made by Mr. Jon Clinch, and he told the truth, mainly."

5. To My Dearest Friends by Patricia Volk Knocked this off in a couple evenings--it was light, but touching. A woman dying of cancer leaves instructions with her attorney for her two best friends (who hardly know one another) to open a safe deposit box together after her death. They find two copies of the same letter, an undated, unsigned billet doux from a lover they didn't know about. Just that. No note of explanation, no clue as to what they might be expected to "do about it". From there we get lovely vignettes (some of them hilarious, others poignant) of these two survivors as they try, separately and jointly, to decide what to make of the secret that has been revealed about their dear departed friend---and what it may suggest about their own lives. Quite delightful.

6. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. A little classic gem of horror that I've overlooked until now. Eighteen-year-old Mary Katherine Blackwood narrates the tale of her reclusive life with her older sister Constance and their invalid Uncle Julian. What happened to the rest of the family years ago? And will Cousin Charles's unexpected appearance disrupt their equilibrium? Jackson's genius puts us right inside MerriKat's head, where, heaven help us, we start to feel eerily comfortable. Wicked little touches of dark humor are the icing on this gothic cupcake.

I've wanted to read that book for a long time. But it's not on my shelves. Do I go to the library? Do I buy it? Do I wait till the FOL sale in May and if I find it, call it an omen that I should read it right away?
Sigh. This is my life.

Go to the library now. My post is your omen...read. the. book.

You know, it's people like you who keep my TBR shelves so packed. It's on reserve as we speak. Expect to see it read in the next month. But you won't see it in this group. Unless we stretch "off the shelf" to mean "off ANY shelf"....

I will second the recommend on We Have Always Lived in the Castle - it is a creepy gem. And as a bonus, it's pretty short so you can get back to your shelves in short order!

We Have Always Lived in the Castle is on my wishlist, too. You are tempting me to go get it...

The Boys in the Trees by Mary Swan Reading this book was a little like being in a whirlpool---a fairly gentle whirlpool, but one that can throw you off balance as it turns you round about its core, offering a constant change of perspective on the central event of the novel--a family murdered; a murderer brought to justice. Despite the subject matter, the story is not overtly violent, but rather explores the lives of the victims, the murderer, and the townspeople affected by the event from multiple points of view. The book begins with one young boy up a tree, attempting to carve his name into the wood while seeking refuge from an abusive father. It ends many years later on another continent, with another boy up another tree, carving his name into the wood while waiting to witness a hanging. The shifts in POV take place without obvious cues, and occasionally this results in a bit of disorientation until the reader sorts out who is being featured. In addition, one or two minor characters seem to have too much back story for no useful reason. But the overall effect is quite remarkable. Especially fine use of early photographic methods as an extended metaphor. This is a book to be savored, and ideally, re-read.

ETA: I see I've met and surpassed my mini-goal of at least 5 books off my own shelves before the Friends of the Library book sale, which is Saturday. This was easier than I thought. I discovered books I had forgotten I had, so it was sort of like browsing through a used book stall, right in my own house!

I like that reference - browsing through a used book stall in your own home.

I am finding the same thing, it's great to stumble on books that I had forgotten I owned. I've had some very enjoyable reads so far this year from these old books that I've had sitting around just patiently waiting for me.

BTW The Boys In The Trees sounds intriguing, and I am adding it to my wish list!

In case anyone wants to see what else I've read this year, My 75 Book Challenge Thread is here. I'll probably be starting part two soon, as that one is approaching 250 posts, which gets a bit unwieldy.

9. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy Excellent. Dark. Disturbing. Brilliant. The story is bare-bones, like the punctuation and the prose. Set in 1980, in the deserts and desolate towns of the Texas/Mexico borderlands, this novel explores the meaning of life, and the consequences of our choices, with a decidedly fatalistic tone. Except...except for the love. So many reviewers miss the love and the suggestion of hope underlying Sheriff Ed Tom Bell's introspective musings as he looks back on the violent events that led him to question his life, and ultimately to give up his office, not from fear, but apparently from a sense of futility. Except... except for this: "...he saw her and stopped and sat the horse and watched. She was riding along a red dirt ridge to the south sitting with her hands crossed on the pommel, looking toward the last of the sun...That's my heart yonder, he told the horse. It always was." Those are not the words of a man without hope. From what I saw of the Coen brothers' movie (the rental disc was defective and jumped over several chunks of the second half), it seems to me they concentrated on the wrong portions of this novel, as many of the reviewers do as well. The violence is all in there, but I think the Sheriff's contemplations are the heart of the book. I refrain from recommending it, because it is clearly a love-it-or-hate-it kind of novel, and there are only one or two people I'm sure are likely to love it. As for the rest of you...the best I can do is give you the option of deciding for yourself. Choose wisely.

10. The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields I didn't finish this, as I totally lost interest in the story about 100 page in. The author kept writing characters into and then rapidly out of the story, and I just didn't care to figure out where she was ultimately going. I'm counting this here, because it is coming Off the Shelf, but not on my 75 Book Challenge thread because I didn't really read it.

I tried The Stone Diaries quite some time ago, and although I think I finished it, I didn't like it at all. A grave disappointment, because, as I recall, at the time, it had a great press.

Yes, it won awards and everything.

11. The Mezuzah in the Madonna's Foot by Trudi Alexy. Read in May. Fascinating history of the "Secret Jews"--those who converted to avoid expulsion from Spain in the 15th century, and whose descendants even today are often reluctant to acknowledge or embrace their past for fear of persecution and prejudice.

12. Cataloochee by Wayne Caldwell
A fine read. The kind of historical, generational American fiction I love. This book takes us through the ordinary lives of several families in the North Carolina mountains from just after the Civil War until 1928, when they learn of the government's plan to turn the land some of them have occupied for 4 generations into a new National Park (The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, as it is now known.)

13. Gilead by Marilynne Robinson Precursor to Robinson's Home, which I read and loved last year. This one is every bit as wonderful. More on my 75 Book challenge thread once I've reflected on it a bit.

14. Digging to America by Anne Tyler. A fairly gentle exploration of what it means to belong to a culture, and to be American. Everything understated, as usual with Anne Tyler. The story features two American families-- one pure "white bread", the other one generation removed from pre-revolutionary Iran--who become close friends after meeting at the airport on the occasion of the arrival of their respective adoptive daughters from Korea in 1997. Interesting characters, although I couldn't take most of them to heart, including the children. The ending was quite satisfying, if a bit made-for-TV.

15. Mrs. Miniver by Jan Struther An absolutely delightful appreciation of life written from the perspective of a "professional class" London wife and mother in 1939. This isn't a novel, in any sense, but a collection of essays on daily life, both in London and in the country, full of keen observations and quotable lines, and colored with an unsentimental optimism remarkable for the time and place. Don't be misled by the movie of the same name. The book is far superior stuff.

16. Flush by Virginia Woolf Woolf's "biography" of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's cocker spaniel, Flush. It didn't do much for me, partly because I already knew the story fairly well, and partly because it was too obviously a vehicle for social commentary.

17. dirt music by Tim Winton
his novel is unlike anything I've ever read before. Set at the turn of this century in a West Australian fishing village with a rugged history, Dirt Music gives us life lived upside down and backwards, and for a while it isn't easy to decide who we ought to sympathize with. Georgie Jutland, a burnt out nurse, has a bit of a history herself, but has tentatively settled in with widower Jim Buckridge, a successful commercial fisherman, and his two young sons. His past is mostly a mystery to her, although his reputation for revenge-oriented violence is no secret. His marriage and his wife's death are taboo subjects. Soon she becomes drawn into the life of Luther Fox, an unlicensed "shamateur" fisherman flirting with disaster by poaching abalone and lobsters. Buckridge and Fox are destined to be rivals for Georgie as well as for their marine quarry, but each will face a far more complex personal struggle to come to grips with himself. Their stories are layered and mingled beautifully, leading to a resolution that you won't see coming from very far away. Winton's writing is brilliant. Sentence after sentence, even whole paragraphs, demand to be re-read, not for their sense, but for their beauty and force. Dirt Music is a symphony.

18. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
I enjoyed this very much. Such absolutely real people, some quirky, some loveable, some incomprehensible. It surprised me, actually, because I didn't expect the depth and seriousness that alternates with the pure hilarity of Miss Cassandra Mortmain's observations about life in The Castle. I am reminded of the lyrics to a song from my piano-plunkin' days..."John's in love with Joan; Joan's in love with Jim; Jim's in love with someone, who's not in love with him". That quite well describes the romantic goings-on in I Capture the Castle. But Cassandra is a very wise young lady, given to introspection, and even psycho-analysis. Though she makes some mistakes, and leaves us with things somewhat unsettled, she'll be all right, I'm sure of it.

19. Remember Me by Trezza Azzopardi
I seem to be reading a lot of books lately with over-used titles. This one was a winner, though, where some of the others were not. We meet the narrator, who has had many names throughout her life, as an elderly homeless woman who has determined to live only in the present, but is forced by a disturbing assault to remember her own complicated past. Her story unfolds in chapters alternately numbered (one, two, three) and titled ("sticks", "protection", "all-day breakfast"). The numbered chapters take us back in time through the narrator's childhood and gradually on to the present; the titled chapters tell her "now" story. The writing is glorious; the narrator sympathetic though surely unreliable; the suspense just intense enough as we experience each new revelation about who Lillian/ Patsy/Beauty/Winnie is and has been. This book could easily have been called "Trespass", as Rose Tremain's most recent novel is. But Remember Me is a far better novel.

Only one left to go!!! & then, mwahaha, I'm sure a library book sale will find you!

Oh, not to worry, I spent last weekend in second-hand books stores and came home with an embarrassing trunkload of new reads!

I enjoyed I Capture The Castle last year, found it to be a different kind of love story and one that stays with you. Mrs. Miniver sounds like a book I wil have to add to my wishlist.

Just blush & enjoy all the new books!

20. What's It All About? by Michael Caine Caine's 1992 autobiography. I believe he has recently published second one, which I will probably read someday. I enjoyed this one---entertaining and enlightening. I would definitely invite Sir Michael to that fantasy dinner party everyone talks about.