Foxen's books for 2010!

Hi everyone! I'm back, and looking forward to 2010! I probably won't make it to 75, since I'll be in school for most of the year and that seems to sap my reading time, but encouragement in the form of 75 book challenges is always welcome!

See you in 2010, and until then I'm still finishing up over in the 2009 group, so come over if you feel like it!

A Ticker! Last year I had a turtle and a treasure chest, so I'm going for something equally incongruous this time around:




And a page count ticker:




Books!
1) Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (429 pages).
2) Emma by Jane Austen (465 pages).
3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (435 pages).
4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (759 pages).
5) Archives and Power: A South African Perspective by Verne Harris (445 pages, but awarding myself 100).
6) Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts by Kathleen Roe (170 pages).
7) Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron (309 pages).
8) Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (429 pages).
9) From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory by John Ridener (184 pages).
10) Ethics and the Archival Profession: Introduction and Case Studies by Karen Benedict (84 pages).
11) The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones (329 pages).
12) Confidentiality and Privacy Perspectives: Archivists and Archival Records edited by Menzi Behrnd-Klodt and Peter Wosh (391 pages, awarding myself 150).
13) No Innocent Deposits: Forming Archives by Rethinking Appraisal by Richard Cox (301 pages).
14) Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts by Frank Boles (192 pages).
15) Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones (263 pages).
16) Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age by Alasdair Roberts (322 pages, but awarding myself 100).
17) The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey (404 pages).
18) Possession by A. S. Byatt (528 pages).
19) History on Trial: My Day in Court With a Holocaust Denier by Deborah Lipstadt (346 pages, read 100 so far...).
20) Documenting Localities by Richard Cox (182 pages, giving myself 50).
21) Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction by Suzanne Keen (288 pages, but read 62).
22) Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (673 pages).
23) Varsity Letters: Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities by Helen Willa Samuels (281 pages, but giving myself 30).
24) The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (217 pages).
25) The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum by Lawrence Rothfeld (216 pages, giving myself 50).
26) Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (402 pages).
27) Pocket Posh Word Roundup (there are 100 puzzles, so... 100 pages).
28) Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (256 pages).
29) Dracula by Bram Stoker (380 pages).
30) Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (416 pages).
31) Freedom of Expression: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property by Kembrew McLeod (379 pages, counting 60).
32) Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (168 pages).
33) The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle (315 pages, giving myself 50).
34) Photographs: Archival Care and Management by Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Diane Vogt-O'Connor (529 pages, giving myself 100).

37) Enchantment by Orson Scott Card (419 pages).
38) The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (479 pages).
39) The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien (415 pages).
40) The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien (413 pages).
41) Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones (274 pages).
42) A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (194 pages).

Note: I took out the touchstones in this list - too cumbersome to fix them each time I updated it.

Welcome back!

Glad to see you back with us again, Katie!

Good luck!

Thanks everyone! I added a ticker to the first post, and I'm going to spend the next few days furiously reading trying to finish up last years's challenge, so see you over here in a few days!

First book!

1) Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (429 pages). This was a great book to start the year off with, and I found it thanks to several reviews from 2009 75ers, so thanks you guys! It's also my first Diana Wynne Jones, and I'll definitely be looking for more from her.

Howl's Moving Castle is a wonderful story full of magic and silliness that starts when Sophie is turned into an old woman by the Witch of the Waste and has to seek her fortune even though she is the eldest child. What follows is a delightful fanciful story that I'm finding difficult to adequately describe. Check out lunacat's review on the work page to get a really good feel for the story. The overall impression is one of sedate, slightly mysterious and inevitable magic, with themes of identity and love mixed in. Before I read the book I had seen Miyazaki's anime based on it (also highly recommended), and the light pastels and soft landscapes represented there seemed to fit quite well in the book form as well. Overall a wonderful book, that draws you into a pleasant, believably unreal fantasy world where anything is possible. Highly recommended.

New Diana Wynne Jones coming this month (or was it next? Suddenly unsure & too lazy to cross room to newspaper to check... SOON, anyway)!!

Just a note to explain some edits. I'm revamping my thread a bit because I've decided to keep track of more stuff this year, notably to keep a page count. I'm aiming for 22,000 pages, which I arrived at just by multiplying 75 books by 300 pages and rounding down a bit. It's very loose, though, and mainly just to see how far I get.

#6: That is one of the few Diana Wynn Jones my local library has. I am hoping to get to it this year.

#7 Re Enchanted Glass, Yep, it's this month! Wooo!! Expecting it through the post any day now - yay!!!

#9 Stasia, recommended. Definitely :o)

Hallo Foxen, got you starred - always good to see another DWJ convert - I'm a little obsessive about her stuff... ;o)

Woohoo, Diana Wynne Jones! I am admittedly not as excited about her new book, since I've still got all her others to get to, too (not a bad thing!). I mentioned Howl's Moving Castle to a friend and she offered to loan me any of her extensive DWJ collection, so I will likely be reading much more of her!

9 - Yes, Stasia, definitely recommended! (and I don't know how I missed your post earlier!)

#11: It is very easy to miss posts when there are about 25 bazillion floating around in this group!

#11 Ah, my jealousy of all those wonderful books you've yet to discover!

I'm very happy at the moment, because I've finally got hold of a copy of Everard's Ride, which was the only one I've not read - it only had a small pressing, which I missed. What I completely failed to realise was that it was in one of her short story collections (Unexpected Magic) along with a couple of other short stories I hadn't read (mostly her novels are better, so I don't own all the short stories) - woo! And Enchanted Glass soon! Yahay!

...anyway, if you ever want any DWJ "if you liked this then you might like this" type of recommendations...

2) Emma by Jane Austen (465 pages). This was a book I had read before but barely remembered, and thought to read because of all the discussion over in Cait86's thread. I really enjoyed it, so thanks Cait!

Emma is the story of Emma Woodhouse, a self-sufficient, intelligent young woman of means with a habit of trying to arrange her friends lives. She and the people around her have loves and misadventures, and by the end Emma has grown some and everyone ends up with the person they most deserve.

It was a fun read, and I didn't have as much trouble getting into it as I do with most Austen, but maybe that was because I half remembered what was coming. I'm glad I read it, because I had almost given up on Jane Austen prior to this. I enjoyed Pride and Prejudice, but couldn't bear Northhanger Abbey and found the end of Mansfield Park so unsatisfyingly didactic that I pretty much gave up on it. Does anyone else have this mixed reaction to Austen? Most people I've talked to either love her or hate her, so I'm curious if anyone else is in my camp.

Emma, however, I found fun and satisfying to the end. Guardedly recommended?

P&P is a favorite reread, and I enjoyed Persuasion and Emma, but didn't like Northhanger Abbey at all! Austen was just snarky--the humor was just so negative, always at the expense of all her characters. I didn't like any of them and it felt like she didn't either. I hate the thought of someone forming an opinion of Austen's work based on Northhanger Abbey. Maybe there was a reason why this one didn't get published during her lifetime.

15: So glad to hear that I'm not alone in that opinion, then! You've completely put your finger on why I put Northhanger Abbey down. Far too negative, and all of the characters were so unappealing. I guess the problem is similar in Mansfield Park: Fanny Price just seemed terminally dopey to me, and the ending just confirmed it in her.

#14 - You are very welcome! I understand what you are saying about Austen too. I love P&P, Persuasion, and now Emma, but to me Northanger Abbey and Sense and Sensibility are just ok. Like any author, I think Austen grows over her career, and NA and S&S were the first two novels she wrote (even though NA was not published).

Katie
I read Howl's Moving Castle last year and loved it! The creativity is incredible!

17: I had been thinking that it was specifically the early works that I objected to, but I wasn't sure where Northhanger Abbey fit in- now I know, it fits the pattern perfectly! I think I need to find a copy of Persuasion for my next Austen read...

18: I remember your review! You're one of the people who convinced me to pick it up, thanks!

3) Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling (435 pages). Reread out loud with my fiance. He doesn't have much time for reading (he's a medical student) and has shown a shocking lack of memory for the details of HP recently ;) , so I've been reading the books to him when he has free moments and it usually combines nicely with cooking or some other activity. Nothing much to say about the book this time around - still as good as ever. One thing I noticed this time that I'd never thought about before was this: Lupin is watching the Marauder's Map when Harry, Ron, and Hermione visit Hagrid during the ending (that's how he knows where they've gone, and also where he sees that Peter Pettigrew is with them), but he doesn't see Harry and Hermione, who are also running around (in two places at once) having used the time turner. It's either an inconsistency that Rowling didn't think of, or some property of the Marauder's Map, or some property of time-turned people, but I thought it was kind of interesting. I don't think Rowling's ever addressed it, either, which is impressive given the many many fan questions she's answered over the years.

Ok, I admit it, I'm a nerd. :)

Glad you posted your link in lunacat's thread--it helped me find you too!!

21: Thanks for stopping by!

I second Roni! I didn't read your thread last year, but lunacat and I have similar tastes, too, so I followed the link and here I am! Got you starred. :)

#20 One of my colleagues is reading the Harry Potter books aloud with her partner too - sounds like a lovely thing to do!

Re Jane Austen, the only one I have trouble with is Mansfield Park - mostly because Fanny is such a drip - really, most of my sympathy was with the Crawfords (and I just couldn't help but feel that maybe Jane Austen's were a teeny bit too), but there are still some very enjoyable parts of it.

I do also want to defend Northanger Abbey a little bit - certainly, I agree, it's not her best, but you do have to place it in context of the Gothic Novels at the time - it's really quite an affectionate satire on them (she by no means disliked them - in fact the whole Austen family read them). If you can ever face a re-read, personally, I found that I got a lot more from it the second time around.

...anyway, if you haven't read Persuasion, can I recommend it to you? It's my favourite (just ahead of Pride and Prejudice...) and was a more mature work, which may appeal to you.

Hurrah, got you. Thank you very much for the link, most appreciated! I knew I wanted to find you again but couldn't......despite looking lol. I'm hopeless. :)

23: Thanks for coming over! I know I read some of your thread last year (and enjoyed it), but I think I might have lost you at some point. I'll go find your new thread.

24: Fliss, I think we actually have rather similar opinions on Austen (even if I sound like I'm a radical hater ;) ). I did feel like their might have been some mixed messages about the Crawfords on Austen's side, which makes me feel better about that book. You're probably right about Northhanger Abbey, too: I'm not very familiar with gothic novels, so it's entirely possible that I just didn't "get it" when I tried to read it. I might reread it some day, but I guess I'd want to read a gothic novel first (which one was it the protagonist was reading?...*looks it up* The Mysteries of Udolpho, right).

You may certainly recommend Persuasion! I was thinking that should probably be my next Austen, anyway, and your recommendation definitely puts it up a notch. I probably won't read it for a while, though, since I'll have to find a copy first and I'll be up to my neck in school reading until August anyway (sigh).

25: Hurray, you got here! The group page this year is hopeless for finding people- I've given up going to it and just rely on my starred threads and the search function for people I remember I'm looking for. Glad you made it!

Yay, I finally found your thread, so a belated "Hi there!" :) I'm at work right now (break's over), so I'll drop by again soon. Ciao.

>26 Foxen: If you're interested, my new thread is here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/79163 :)

Hope you enjoy it when you get to it!

4) Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling (759 pages). (Reread aloud with my fiance... yes, we're going out of order...) Oh my. The final Harry Potter book. Everything that should happen in this book happens in it, and it's great. That's the most I can say.

5) Archives and Power: A South African Perspective by Verne Harris (445 pages, but I'm only awarding myself 100). This is a collection of essays by Verne Harris, the most prominent South African archivist and advocate for archives as a form of social justice. He's an engaging writer and I agree with a lot of what he has to say. One of his articles (not included here) was one of the things that first got me thinking about archives as a career. If you're interested in archives, postmodernism, social justice, deconstructionism, and narrative, then give Harris a try, but fair warning: it's extremely academic.

Side note: I realized that I haven't really introduced myself, having never gotten around to the introduction thread. I'm an archives student with professors who assign at least a book a week, so prepare to see a lot of partially read archives books. I'm expecting many of them to be broadly interesting (I'm looking forward to The Island of Lost Maps, for instance), though, so don't run away too fast. Ah, for July when I will graduate and have time to read fiction again...

6) Arranging and Describing Archives and Manuscripts by Kathleen Roe (170 pages, but awarding myself 60). This is a quite good manual on arrangement and description from the Archive Fundamentals Series. I actually wish I had time to read it properly, because it's very clearly laid out. A book that accomplishes its purpose quite well on a technical topic.

#30: I read The Island of Lost Maps a couple of years back and really enjoyed it. I hope you do too, Katie!

The Island of Lost Maps is on my TBR pile. Looks like I need to bump it up a bit!

That's the book for the semester that I'm looking forward to the most... looks like I'll be reading it in early March. I'll look out for your review if you get to it first, dr!

7) Dewey: The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the World by Vicki Myron (309 pages). There's been quite a lot of hype about this book, and it delivered pretty much exactly what I expected. It's a heart-warming story about a library cat who touched the lives of many people. The hook story - about the kitten shoved in the freezing book-drop box one January night - is really the best part of the book. The book was good, but not extraordinary. The parts of the book that were about the cat were wonderful, and you really do get the feeling that Dewey was something special (and yes, I cried at the end). The book dragged in places where the author focused on herself or descriptive scenes of Iowa, but overall a nice, fluffy read about a nice, fluffy cat. Solidly 3 1/2 stars.

I'm looking forward to reading Dewey (it's sitting in a pile of books next to my computer at the moment), but I'm expecting just about what you described. On the other hand, the book Homer's Odyssey - which I read last year - about a blind cat, was absolutely fascinating, remarkable, and inspiring. I highly recommend it if you haven't had a chance to read it already!

Hi phoenix! Homer's Odyssey sounds good! I'll look for it next time I'm looking for a cat book. Thanks!

Whew, life has interfered and I haven't been around LT for a while. I am seriously behind on threads, including my own. Lets see, what have I read...

8) Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (429 pages). Yes, again. That's what I get for telling my fiance how much I liked a book when we're looking for a new read-aloud. :) It's quite good as a read-aloud; it's relatively episodic and easy to put down and pick up. I don't have any new comments on it, but I found my fiance's comment interesting: He said it has the same shortcomings as a Shakespearean comedy - much of the story revolves around mistaken identity and it ends with a group marriage (kinda). Apt maybe? or interesting? I don't know, but I thought I'd pass it along.

As a relatively unrelated DWJ note: we're now reading The Lives of Christopher Chant, and we like it a lot!

9) From Polders to Postmodernism: A Concise History of Archival Theory by John Ridener (184 pages). This book is precisely what it claims to be: a concise history of archival theory. Ridener focuses on appraisal theory as representative of the greater philosophical changes in the perception and function of archivists. He identifies four paradigms within archival history that he focuses on: the Dutch Manual, Jenkinson, Shellenberg, and the contemporary paradigm that he calls the "Questioning" paradigm and associates with postmodernism. For each paradigm Ridener goes in depth with the context they were created in, their implications, and their relation to the larger academic trends of their times. The book is quite good at what it does, and provides a good background on archival theory. It's most problematic aspect is that it skips and homogenizes a lot of the more recent theories - everything past Schellenberg is a bit of a muddle. Overall pretty informative, though.

10) Ethics and the Archival Profession: Introduction and Case Studies by Karen Benedict (84 pages). This is a relatively quick read that covers most aspects of ethics within archives. It's based primarily on the code of ethics of the Society of American Archivists, and has several introductory chapters about aspects of the code, followed by extensive case studies that show ethical decision making as it actually occurs. It's quite readable, and the case studies are well presented and engaging.

ETA: I also finished the Kathleen Roe book, so I'm adding those pages to my page count.

I am currently reading Howl's Moving Castle for the first time and greatly enjoying it!

Ooh, good! For the record, I think I'm liking The Chronicles of Chrestomanci even more (so far), so consider those for future reading!

#39: My problem lies in getting hold of the books. My local library has very few of them (4) unfortunately.

Howl's Moving Castle is now on my TBR list, thanks !

40: Ah, good luck then. I hope you enjoy the rest of Howl!

41: I hope you like it!

The Lives of Christopher Chant was always my favourite of DWJ's books!

I liked the Chronicles of Chrestomanci, but I think her best series is the Dalemark Quartet

43: Zoe, we're really enjoying it so far - we've both been wanting to ignore our homework just to get on with the story.

44: The Dalemark Quartet looks good, too! Thanks for the rec. I'm pretty excited to have found a whole new author to explore.

#39 & 49 Yay! _Zoe_, The Lives of Christopher Chant is one of my absolute favourites also - with Deep Secret, Archer's Goon, The Magicians of Caprona, Howl's Moving Castle, The Spellcoats and Fire and Hemlock (and I've probably missed a couple) - the top favourite rotates and tends to depend on which one I'm actually reading at the time ;o)

#44 Except for The Spellcoats, The Dalemark Quartet are among those I know least well as for a long time I didn't own my own copies - I re-read them again fairly recently though and I suspect that, in particular The Crown of Dalemark will probably join my "favourite DWJ" list with more reading...

Good to see you again this year, Foxen. I think I remember your name so easily because of the book I was reading when I first read your thread last year - Roxaboxen! It all just flowed together so nicely.

Howl was good for read-aloud - I read it to my son a couple of years ago. I'd forgotten that I meant to look for some more of her books. Thanks for the reminder! Maybe I'll splurge on the new one...

I read Howl's Moving Castle a few months ago and really liked it.

Hi Muddy! Thanks for stopping by! I don't think I've found your thread yet this year (and I'm horribly behind already!), but I'll go hunt it out. I enjoyed your thread last year. I'm really glad I've discovered Diana Wynne Jones through this group.

Hi Whisper! I've been meaning to comment on your thread for ages, but every time I blink it seems like you've got 40 or so new posts! I remember that you liked Howl- that was one of the factors that caused me to pick it us, so thanks!

11) The Lives of Christopher Chant by Diana Wynne Jones (329 pages). Wow, this was an excellent book. Christopher Chant is a little boy with nine lives. Because of his nine lives he can travel effortlessly between the Related (and many unrelated) Worlds, and he also happens to be a powerful sorcerer. In spite of his power, however, Christopher's life is constrained by the people around him, all of whom seem to want to manipulate him to some purpose. There's his mother, who wants him to enter Society, his father, who seeks to live vicariously by making Christopher the next Chrestomanci, and his uncle, who manipulates Christopher into smuggling rare artifacts between the Worlds. As Christopher's choices are made for him, the only ones who understand are the Living Asheth, the girl vessel of a vengeful Goddess, and Throgmorton, an extremely grumpy temple cat.

There's plenty of straightforward adventure in this book, as well as good coming of age story. Christopher and the people around him could sometimes be annoyingly dense about each other, but the thing that set this book apart was that, dense as he could be, everything about Christopher was explained. We see his development from the beginning and it's clear that, really, things couldn't have happened differently. And in spite of that, the book ends with an affirmation of choice over fate. And it works. This is definitely the best fantasy I've read in a long time, and I will definitely be following the rest of the series. Highly recommended!

n.b: We read this one aloud, too; my fiance liked it, but I think he found Christopher a bit more annoying than I did. Throgmorton totally makes up for that, though.

Bother - I'm going to have to go off and re-read it this evening now - what a chore!... ;o)

Hehe. So glad to have ruined your evening. ;)

;o)

(...and believe me, I needed it after all the Holocaust memories I've been reading recently!)

Howl's Moving Castle is amazing. A friend of mine lent this book to me a few years ago and I'm pretty sure I read it cover to cover without a break. Glad you enjoyed the book and the anime. I've noticed that whenever Miyazaki uses a pre-existing story as inspiration he changes it in such a way that it stands well as its own work rather than just being a straight adaptation (I really wish more books turned movie were like that).

Hi Neurorin! I completely agree about Miyazaki. He's very good at picking books that match the aesthetic feel he wants, and then the result is always something that complements the book instead of competing with it.

I'm not sure that I know any other books that he's converted, but I also agree that he certainly does good things with Howl's Moving Castle - and Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favourite authors, so I'd have been very upset if he'd messed it up...

More archives books:

12) Confidentiality and Privacy Perspectives: Archivists and Archival Records edited by Menzi Behrnd-Klodt and Peter Wosh (391 pages, awarding myself 150). This is a reader of interesting articles on issues of privacy and confidentiality in archives. Some of the articles are quite good- I particularly enjoyed the article on the unsealing of the Stasi records in Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the article on lesbian archives.

13) No Innocent Deposits: Forming Archives by Rethinking Appraisal by Richard Cox (301 pages). I'm counting this book now (and awarding myself the entire thing, even though I haven't read it yet) because I will be reading most of it this semester and I don't want to lose track of it. The book is about the way in which we go about appraisal (appraisal refers to deciding what records enter an archive - nothing to do with monetary value), and I'm hesitant to criticize it too strongly because Richard Cox is currently one of my professors (although not the one who assigned this book), and is kind of the celebrity professor in my program. Nonetheless, I've really objected to many of the ideas in this book so far. He's advocating a new paradigm of appraisal that focuses on evidential value and belittles the haphazard collection of "interesting" records. To me this sounds like it would result in a dry and systematic documentation of only the professional side of everything. I think probably his actual opinion is that more of a balance is needed, but it's stated very strongly in this book and I found it pretty annoying.

14) Selecting and Appraising Archives and Manuscripts by Frank Boles (192 pages). Another one that I'm considering myself to have read somewhat in advance. I actually quite like this book, even though it has a mixed reputation among archivists. It lays out the basis for appraisal theory, and presents both sides of the extensive debate that has been raging about it for decades. And it's reasonably practical.

(Edited to fix touchstones - this cat sitting on my arm is messing up my typing!)

Hi Fliss! I just did some wikipedia research since I realized I wasn't sure what of his other movies were based on books. It turns out there are fewer of them than I thought. Kiki's Delivery Service was apparently an adaptation, but I haven't read the book it was based on (or seen that movie yet, actually). I'd also heard that early in his career Miyazaki had wanted to do an adaptation of Pippi Longstocking, but that it fell through. I guess he only does adaptations of this when he has a pretty good idea already of what he wants with them. It certainly seems to work, though.

flissp- He did a version of the Earthsea books by Ursula K. Le Guin and Laputa, castle in the Sky, was based off the floating city of Laputa in Gullivers Travels, both of those were great movies well worth checking out.

59: I hadn't heard about his version of the Earthsea books. I'll have to look for them. Thanks!

I love Diana Wynne Jones though my collection of her books is by no means complete and I have quite a lot of them to read for the first time, I'd also like to reread the ones I read as a child/early teens since that's now 25-30 years ago. I reread Charmed Life and read a couple of the Chrestomanci books for the first time about 3 years ago (when pregnant with my first baby who will be 3 in May).

I should persuade my boyfriend to read them but I don't like having books I love destroyed - he's mean to books!

I enjoyed Northanger Abbey on unabridged audio, I like her pastiche of other writing of her time. Mansfield Park was one of my A-level texts at school and the thing that the boring characters are right and the charming ones are wrong does make it difficult to love as much as some of her others. Sense and Sensibility is quite dry but I loved the film with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet playing Elinor and Marianne, I think it was true to the spirit of the novel (with some liberties) but made it much more lively and enjoayble. Emma is probably my second favourite (after P&P), and I need to reread Persuasion as I suspect I'd like it more now at 40 than at 20.

#58 - 60 Ah - I've seen the Earthsea one ("Tales from Earthsea") - I actually found it rather disappointing - it wasn't so much that the story was again completely different (it's based on the final book of the Earthsea series from what I remember and I'm less possessive about the later ones as I didn't like them as much!), I think I just expected more from Miyazaki from his other films that I've seen.

I particularly thought "Spirited Away" was fantastic and actually loved how he'd made Howl's Moving Castle his own. I haven't seen "Castle in the Sky" though, so I shall have to find it!

#61 I am a complete Diana Wynne Jones addict - she was my favourite author growing up, so I've read pretty much everything she's written (if you want a quick reference guide, you can go to my library page and search for her! The only things missing are the odd short story.) It means that I find it very hard to be objective about her work, but I do get a lovely warm glow every time I pick up one of her books - I also find it very hard not to get into a DWJ reading streak whenever I read one.

The Lives of Christopher Chant counts among those I've read many, many times, so I'm really enjoying my reread after you made me pick it up ;o) - but now I'm going to have to follow it up with Charmed Life, Witch Week and The Magicians of Caprona at least... ;)

Yes, don't let your boyfriend destroy her for you!

Jane Austen is another of my favourite authors... I agree, I think Mansfield Park is the novel I like least - the problem is that Fanny is such a drip! That said, it still has it's good bits... I know a lot of people agree with you about Sense and Sensibility, but I actually prefer it to Emma, Mansfield Park and Northanger Abbey - there are one or two slow bits yes (that's one of the great things about the Ang Lee/Emma Thompson film in my opinion - it mops up the not so good bits!), but I love the relationship between the two eldest sisters. Persuasion is and will always be my absolute favourite though (although Pride and Prejudice is not far behind...)

Ah - I've just looked "Tales from Earthsea" up and it's actually directed by Gorō Miyazaki - the son of Hayao Miyazaki...

15) Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones (263 pages). I've been putting off reviewing this one because I'm not sure quite what to say about it. It's quite similar to The Lives of Christopher Chant in plot and characters, and I think I liked Christopher better. Charmed Life takes place about 25 years after The Lives of Christopher Chant (which means no reappearance of Throgmorton :( , an almost unforgivable offense ;) , although there is a playful dragon who almost makes up for it) and follows the life of Cat, seemingly the next generation of nine-lived presumptive-future-Chrestomanci who does not know his own power. Honestly, it seemed a bit predictable. I wouldn't have minded the formulaic plot, actually, except that Cat was a far less engaging character than Christopher was. He was just as lame to begin with, but with less reason (or at least, less elaborated on reason), and didn't grow into himself the way Christopher did. I also found Gwendolen unrealistically evil (and there really was no developmental explanation for her!), although I did like Janet. Finally, given Christopher's own background, I would have thought he would've handled Cat's situation better.

However, lest you think I didn't like it, I did. It was fun, and it did keep me guessing about the details of the plot if not the final outcome. I suspect that whichever of The Lives of Christopher Chant or Charmed Life you read first you will like significantly more, but I do think that Christopher is a stronger character overall, so I'm glad I read them in the order that makes me like him ;) .

My boyfriend has, I think officially bailed on this series at this point (don't take it personally DWJ fans! He does this even with books/authors he really likes once he's "got" what they're about), so I'll be reading the last two books (and I will be reading them) on my own as soon as I can borrow them from a friend. We're now reading Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay, thanks to numerous recommendations from last years 75 group, and I think we're both liking it.

Tigana is a wonderful book. I wish I could read it for the first time again, I loved the experience that much.

You are right in that, for me, I prefer Charmed Life over The Lives of Christopher Chant because I read the former before the latter. I wonder why it works like that.

I like Charmed Life a lot and must get to The Lives of Christopher Chant - I bought it years ago when I discovered there was a whole series of Chrestomanci books. I used to write acquisition dates in my books which is quite interesting now I can see how long some of my books have been around for (a long time).

Actually, I prefer The Lives of Christopher Chant and I first read Charmed Life quite a bit before hand - it was written a lot earlier (1977 vs 1988) and the former hadn't come out yet - but I do, it is true, still love Charmed Life - partly because it was my introduction to Diana Wynne Jones in the first place and I instantly loved it.

I definitely think that Charmed Life benefits from being read at an earlier age the first time round (I was 8 or 9 I think), when you're a bit less picky, because I completely agree with you about Gwendolin. I also was always a little uncomfortable about the outcome for Janet (don't want to give the plot away). On the other hand, I didn't really mind that Cat's a bit of a wimp - he's lived his whole life bullied by Gwendolin and he's only little - younger than Christopher in The Lives of Christopher Chant. I would also defend any lack of consistency in Christopher as Charmed Life was written 11 years before hand and she probably hadn't thought out his back story so much yet. It was one of her earliest books and I think that this can explain a certain amount. It also feels as though it's written for slightly younger children than some of her later books.

Re the rest of the series, there are actually more than two more, although only Conrad's Fate has Christopher as a reasonably central character (four years after The Lives of Christopher Chant). In the other two (Witch Week and The Magicians of Caprona) he only drops in as part of the resolution of the plot (as Chrestomanci). There are also several short stories that he drops in to - these are collected in Warlock at the Wheel.

Just realised that I forgot all about The Pinhoe Egg (it's much more recent) - which is set after Charmed Life and centers around Cat again...

65: Hi Luna! We're definitely enjoying Tigana. I'm a little bit surprised, actually, because my boyfriend generally doesn't have much patience with complicated fantasy and it's not a genre I've read much of recently. We're really getting into it, though.

66: I hope you enjoy The Lives of Christopher Chant! That's interesting about writing in acquisition dates- something I would never have thought to have done. Most of my books now fall into two categories: pre-LT and post-LT. I have very good stats on everything I've acquired since I got my catalog up to date. :)

67-68: Thanks for the background on the publication order, fliss. I didn't realize that The Lives... was written quite so long after Charmed Life (knew it was after, but had no idea there was such a gap). That does explain the inconsistency with Christopher. Millie, too, now I think about it- when I was reading it I thought maybe that was a bit of a dig at boarding schools (no matter what she is before she goes in, afterwards she's a dutiful, Christian (!) lady...), but it fits much better if her younger character just ended up developing a little differently.

I guess I agree with you about Cat. He has been continuously bullied, but it doesn't me I have to like him. ;) I found it pretty frustrating that Janet kept trying to figure out what was going on and he just found her annoying.

Don't know how I got it into my head that there were only two more... must be losing it. :) Do you recommend any particular order to read them in? I thought I was going chronologically, but I've already messed that up a bit anyway, and I've obviously messed up publication order. I'm borrowing them from a friend, so I'll probably end up reading whatever she hands me next, but is there a next one I should request?

I read Tigana last year and really enjoyed it. I am glad you and your boyfriend are liking it.

"I guess I agree with you about Cat. He has been continuously bullied, but it doesn't me I have to like him. ;)"

...indeed it doesn't! ;o)

Regarding reading order, as with most of DWJ's books, I don't think it really matters to be honest - while certain of the characters do pop up again, they can all be read as stand alones - I suppose I'd pick Conrad's Fate for you to read next, if you have the choice, but I wouldn't really worry about reading them out of order too much...

This is the chronological order:

1) The Lives of Christopher Chant
2) Conrad's Fate
3) Charmed Life
4) The Magicians of Caprona / The Pinhoe Egg / Witch Week (all more or less the same era)

Mixed Magics & Warlock at the Wheel are two short story collections whose stories range all over the place in time relative to the Chrestomanci stories (and also contain stories that aren't related at all).

DWJ's recommended reading order (according to Wikipedia - clearly she made this comment before The Pinhoe Egg was written) is this:

1) Charmed Life (1977)
2) The Lives of Christopher Chant (1988)
3) Conrad's Fate (2005)
4) Witch Week (1982)
5) The Magicians of Caprona (1980)
6) The short stories can be read in any order after that.

...anyway, as I say, I wouldn't worry about the order too much!

Hi Katie

I have been wracking my brains all through the Diana Wynne Jones conversation to try and remember which of her books I read when I was younger and I can't remember at all. You and flissp have inspired me to do a reread though (although I need to get hold of the books first!)

Also added Tigana to the wishlist.

Thanks Fliss! I won't worry about it too much then. I haven't seen my book-loaning friend yet, anyway, but I will request Conrad's Fate when I do.

Hi souloftherose. I hope you enjoy your reread and Tigana! I know a lot of people last year liked it a lot, and I'm certainly enjoying it as well! Speaking of which, I need to get of LT and do some reading tonight...

Hope you enjoy it!

16) Blacked Out: Government Secrecy in the Information Age by Alasdair Roberts (322 pages, but awarding myself 100). I should have read more of this book than I did, so I don't feel completely qualified to review it. From what I did read (which was actually about half, the last 100 pages, quite literally, are notes and bibliography), this book is a good history and discussion of the policy related to government transparency, and particularly what happened to transparency in the wake of 9/11, when it was largely made to give way to the concerns of "national security." Roberts' thesis (or one of them) is that the equation of secrecy with security makes some sense when "the enemy" is another government, but less so when you're fighting terrorism. The difference is that with terrorism you don't know where the threat is coming from, so it's highly beneficial to have people be aware of potential threats, so that they can be caught in time. Additionally, the information that was classified because of the terrorist threat was information on "critical infrastructure," most of which could be discovered or estimated from unclassified sources by a dedicated terrorist, but that prevented potential threats from being known and, in the absence of public accountability, sometimes from being fixed. It's a rousing topic but it's somewhat dryly delivered, but it wasn't difficult to read. I wish I'd read more of it, but it just wasn't working out this weekend, and now I'm on to next week's reading. Pick it up if you're interested in government secrecy: it's a good, relatively unbiased and non-partisan overview of the topic.

This is a dangerous thread. You are making me want to re-read all the Chrestomanci book. Controversially, The Magicians of Caprona is, I think, my favourite Chrestomanci book: the Capulet/Montague parody, the hilarious mis-spelling that goes on, and the exciting denouement... oh, I love that book. MUST. NOT. REREAD. Must also find my copy of Fire and Hemlock.

Hehe, that does sound enticing. I really need to progress with my DWJ...

p.s.- Thanks for coming over!

#76 Not controversial with me anyway - The Magicians of Caprona is my joint favourite with The Lives of Christopher Chant ;o) (and also on my general DWJ favourites list, which is, it has to be said, extensive...)

...it wouldn't take long to re-read Rachael - neither would Fire and Hemlock... (cackle, cackle, mwah ha ha ha ha!)

Oh and Katie, having been re-reading them, I've got a better memory of the chronology, so, here it is, whether you want it or not!:

1) The Lives of Christopher Chant
2) Conrad's Fate
3) Carol Oneir's 100th Dream (short story)*
4) The Sage of Theare (short story)*
5) Charmed Life
6) Warlock at the Wheel (short story)
7) The Magicians of Caprona
8) Witch Week*
9) Stealer of Souls (short story)
10) The Pinhoe Egg

*I think these go here, but they're harder to place, as Chrestomanci is mostly just there for resolution of the plot...

Hehe, thanks fliss! I still haven't seen my lending friend yet though!

17) The Island of Lost Maps: A True Story of Cartographic Crime by Miles Harvey (404 pages).

I finished this last week and I've been trying to review it ever since, but I just can't focus on it right now. Hopefully a review will follow soon.

Ok, I now owe a review of this one too. Grad school is really getting in the way of my LT time.

18) Possession by A. S. Byatt (528 pages).

#81: Grad school is really getting in the way of my LT time.

How dare it!

I know!

That's the problem with school and work, they get these high flown ideas like they should come before pleasure reading. Some peoples priorities just don't match up.

#82 I have a similar problem with work...

Throwing these on the "to be reviewed" pile, sigh:

19) History on Trial: My Day in Court With a Holocaust Denier by Deborah Lipstadt. This was a really good one. I wish I'd had time to actually finish it...

20) Documenting Localities by Richard Cox. I just need to say this: I am tired of this man's grad students assigning us his books and articles all the flipping time. Yes, he probably should be teaching this class instead of you, but he's not and a more balanced approach would really be appreciated.

21) Romances of the Archive in Contemporary British Fiction by Suzanne Keen. I've only read the first two sections of this one, but I might read more and it's pretty interesting literary criticism. I'm writing a (big) paper on the representation of archives in Possession (still currently unreviewed above, it's amazing, though - I need to review it so that I can convince all of you to go out and read it), and this is one of my main sources.

Oooh, looking forward to your comments on Possession then!

#86: I read Lipstadt's Denying the Holocaust a couple years back. I will have to look for the one you mentioned too.

87: I really hope I get to soon! It's probably going to wait until after I've written the paper, but hopefully that will be soon too.

88: If you liked the Denying the Holocaust book, I think you'll like this one. One of the deniers that Lipstadt mentioned in Denying the Holocaust sued her under British libel law, and this book is the story of that experience - actually proving that the guy was a Holocaust denier (and to some extent that the Holocaust happened) in court. Interesting stuff.

#89: Unfortunately, the local library does not have History on Trial, so I am going to have to look further afield for it.

Ok:

22) Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay (673 pages). This was... difficult to sum up in one word. Here are a few words that were possible: long, epic, verbose, good, complicated. Part of my reaction to this book is because I read it aloud to my boyfriend. I do not recommend this one as a read-aloud. A lot of the detail is lost for the person being read to. It becomes difficult to keep track of names when you can't see them written down, and switches of perspective are often denoted just by section break (we had a lot of conversations like this: me: "ok, new section... *starts reading*", bf: "wait, where are we?", me: "you're not supposed to know yet. *continues reading*", bf: "so, what's going on?", me: "ok, well I glanced ahead and saw Dianora's name, and *commence plot summary of previous Dianora section (probably 100 pages ago)*".) This is a complicated fantasy novel with lots of different characters and story arcs and I think it just works better for keeping it straight in your head if you can go at your own pace and read it yourself- you get a better sense of the overall structure.

That aside, the book was very good, but wouldn't have suffered from a harsher editor. It is fantasy on the epic scale of the kind that I haven't read any of since high school. Twenty years ago the Peninsula of the Palm was taken over by two invading sorcerers, one from the east and one from the west, the native provinces were subjugated, and since that time the peninsula has been split in half, power balanced precariously but staticly between the two invaders. The province that fought the hardest, Tigana, was responsible for the death of the son of Brandin of Ygraith, the sorcerer from the west, and was punished severely in the aftermath. All memory of Tigana's heritage, culture, and name was removed by magic. Only those who had lived there before the spell was cast could remember Tigana, and to everyone else it became Lower Corte, the most oppressed province, and even the ability to hear the name "Tigana" was removed. The book is the story of the quest of various characters, primarily from Tigana, to restore Tigana's memory, rid the Palm of the invading sorcerers, and unite the provinces which were previously always divided by petty wars.

The plot is full of intrigue, the characters are well developed, and the ending is fantastic. No spoilers, but the twist (not really a twist... the unexpected development) at the end was the best kind: completely unanticipated, and yet it fit perfectly and had been anticipated in previous scenes that became quite chilling in retrospect. Even prior to the twist the ending was exactly what it should have been (it's always so satisfying when that's done right), and I didn't even anticipate the overall strategy until it was revealed. (wow, that's hard to describe without spoilers - anyone who's read it, do you know what I mean?). The biggest strength of this novel is in its portrayal of good and evil, I think. All of the characters are complex, even the minor ones, and nothing is as straightforward as it at first seems. There are definitely characters that are purely forces for good in the world (though they have their own dilemmas, as well), but the villains are well done, three dimensional characters instead of the cardboard cutouts of evil that made me drop this genre in the 10th grade. Everyone does everything for a reason, psychological or real, and you really get a sense of the forces at work that make things play out the way that they do. Add to that a cast of realistic background characters, and you have a quite good story.

My only complaint with this book is in the writing, and this is where my comment about a good editor comes in. The book is long, and the length is primarily the florid, epic musings of the author. I understand what he's going for- the epic, tragic feel, and particularly the poignancy of lost Tigana- but really it was a bit too much. Such a feel has to be created with emotion, not just long sentences, and at the beginning particularly it felt unearned. Given that the only real action of the book is in the last 100 or so pages, the verbosity of various characters' lamentations and angst in the first 500 pages sometimes just obscured their own sense of purpose and came across as whiny.

So, yes, a thoroughly 4 star book, based on very tangible positives (characters, plot, ending, also somewhat the world-building) and tangible negatives (the writing). Recommended, but only if you're definitely in the mood for it, and be willing to put it down if you're getting tired of it. Do finish it, though, eventually- it's worth it.

And on a more *squee* and less "review" note, for those who've read it, OMG I can't get over how perfect the ending is, how perfectly it adds up, and also I need to mention that I love Dianora- she is really an excellent character. I love tragically inevitable stories like that, and yet the element of fate was never there- it was all her choices, all the way. Thinking about it, I think that's what I found great about this book, actually, the kind of feel of fate throughout the whole thing, but that really everything was driven by choices made by the characters. Not easy, its-a-choice-but-not-really-a-choice choices, either, but a combination of difficult choices driven by honor but never guaranteed, and split-second changes of heart that have pros and cons of their own. Very well done.

Edited to make the touchstones work.

Tigana was one of my favorites from last year. I am glad to see that you enjoyed it, Katie.

23) Varsity Letters: Documenting Modern Colleges and Universities by Helen Willa Samuels (281 pages, but giving myself 30). I'm annoyed with myself for not giving myself enough time to actually read this one, as I'm quite sure this will be the best and most helpful book to come out of the program I'm in. Helen Samuels applies institutional functional analysis to the college setting to determine the documentary needs of that kind of institution. The documentation strategy approach is, I think, really the only way to go (although, I know, may people think that it's impossible to implement - I tend to disagree), and this is it applied in a useful, applicable, and extensible way. Hopefully I'll finish this later in the year, although I did read all the theory- I just didn't get to the specific analyses.

#93: institutional functional analysis

Huh? I have no idea what that is and I do not think I want to!

Hi Stasia! It was all the great reviews in last year's group that got me to pick it up. Never would have heard of it otherwise. It certainly comes highly recommended!

94: lol, sounds intolerably dull, doesn't it? Probably not a good thing that it's actually one of the best ideas theoretical archivists have had...

#95: LT certainly expands reading horizons, doesn't it?

#96: Yes, it does sound intolerably dull. Since I do not know what a theoretical archivist is, I think I am safe in my ignorance and do not need to read that book :)

24) The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin (217 pages). This is one of my favorite books of all time. The Westing Game along with one other YA book (The Wall of Words by Tim Kennemore, significantly less well-known but excellent - all you YA readers go out and find a copy. I'll have to reread it this year so that I can review it for you. {Edit: I just wrote a short review, you can find it here, since the touchstone isn't working}) is one of my ultimate comfort reads that I have read probably over 20 times. I picked it up this week because I've had a nasty cold. In spite of having read it that frequently, the book still always draws me in, calms me down, and, yes, I always cry during the last few pages. I couldn't possible review it properly, give you the plot set up and all that, but you probably already know it and if not there are dozens of good reviews on LT and elsewhere. The Westing Game is, as its dedication states, a puzzle-mystery, and it's really excellent at what it does. The puzzle is wonderful, and probably surprisingly tricky the first time you read it- another one of those where it adds up perfectly afterwards. The characters are what makes it: they're all quirky and fun, but well drawn and progress over time. The writing is also excellent: written at a simple level, but quirky or enigmatic as necessary for the plot. Raskin is very good at giving you the right information at the right time, or in the right way that you don't understand what's being shown to you. I feel like I'm not really conveying it properly, but it's really good. I recommend it for everyone- it's light, it's quick, it's comfortable, it's fun, and it's excellent.

97: Yes, definitely. ;)

#98: OK, that one has been in the BlackHole for a while now, so I just put it on hold at the local library before I forget!

Ooh, good! I hope you like it! :)

Me too!

Update (mainly for me): Ok, so the first post is now up to date. Also, this is silly, but I kind of missed my turtle and treasure chest ticker from last year, so I switched my ticker styles around. I still owe reviews for The Island of Lost Maps, History on Trial, and Possession, but I'm going to let Documenting Localities and Romances of the Archives stand with the few remarks I've already made (no one but me is interested in those anyway ;) ). History on Trial I could review pretty quickly, probably, but I also still have hopes of finishing it, the Possession review is waiting for me to finish my paper on it, and the Island of Lost Maps... I dunno, I waited to get some perspective on it and then completely haven't wanted to wrest my mind back onto that topic. We'll see. I'll try to review that one soon, though.

Ok, I'm at least mostly caught up in my own thread at least. Still hopelessly behind on everyone else's (sorry!).

Well, if nothing else, you have caught up to yourself!

Tigana is on my fav books list. Loved your review. For me, the language added to the charm, but I understand. And I had to laugh at the read aloud story. Had the same prob, diff book. We (I) read aloud in the car, mostly on longer trips, but in town too. Sword of Shannara was just too long to work well, but the husb enjoyed it. Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold was absolutely perfect. And the humor crossed cultures well (the husb's French). We also enjoyed The Green Rider as a read aloud.

What books have you found that work well as read alouds?

Hi Suslyn! We tend to read light and/or funny books aloud, so mostly children's lit and YA, with some fantasy thrown in. Our biggest successes by far have been Harry Potter and the His Dark Materials series. And then sometimes I try to read him more serious books that I like that I know he would never read on his own (ex. Middlesex), but that predictably usually doesn't work as well. Magic Kingdom For Sale Sold sounds good in the way that works for us - I've never read any Terry Brooks. I read Green Rider years ago, but I didn't know it had sequels! (or maybe it didn't then, LT says the publication date for Green Rider was 1998, which is probably about when I read it). Thanks for the recs, I'll look out for them!

Green Rider's immediate sequel is a downer. But the next book makes up for it (and ties it together) IMO. Unhappily, the next book is not out yet!

We tried Wrede's Talking with Dragons one of my fav books, but it didn't work at all for Steph. That doesn't mean, however, that it wouldn't work for you guys. I think it's hilarious. Maybe the humor is too subtle, or maybe steph just doesn't like YA...

ET try again with the touchstone... they're being a bit finicky

Talking with Dragons sounds fun. Nick isn't much of a fantasy reader, though, (actually, I'm not much of one anymore either, but I have read a lot of fantasy in the past) so if the humor is particularly genre-based he might just not like it. I think I'll avoid Green Rider's sequels for now, then- I remember liking the first book, but not being completely overawed or anything so it sounds like it probably wouldn't be worth it for me. I just went through and tagged all the books I could think of that we've read aloud: looks like it's mostly pretty classic children's fantasy, hm.

Ok, time to go to work...

I have a tag for the husb, but not for the books I read aloud with an old boyfriend. One had the gaps you mentioned... I just said "space" but it was difficult for the listener to follow.

And, no, I don't think the humor is genre-based in TwD at all. Maybe it just struck me as funny -- but it isn't funny like Brooks' Magic Kingdom. I did notice that 'humor' is one of the tags someone had for TwD so I'm apparently not alone.

There is one hilarious YA fantasy in my library in France. If my brain manages to dredge up the name I'll post it.

Found it: Lawrence Watt-Evans' Blood of a Dragon. And that reminded me that I really enjoyed his The Unwilling Warlord as well. Very fun. Touchstone not coming up...

Thanks for the tip on The Island of Lost Maps; it looks interesting.

Hope you enjoy the ones you wishlisted from my thread.

Thanks for all the recs, Suslyn. Some humorous fantasy sounds great right about now, so I'll look out for them. :) Who knows when I'll have time to read them, but that's another story...

Hi bdb! Thanks for coming over! I really enjoyed The Island of Lost Maps, now I just need to find the time and mental energy to actually review it.

Caught up with your thread! Loved your review of Tigana, I have The Lions of Al-Rassan by Kay to read which will be my first of his books.

And The Westing Game and The Wall of Words by Tim Kennemore have both gone on the wishlist

Hi Heather! I'm glad you caught up! Tigana was the first Kay that I read, and I was relatively impressed. I think it will be a while before I pick up another just to give myself a break from his writing style, but I definitely will be reading more of him, and The Lions of Al-Rassan is one I was thinking of so I'll be looking forward to your review! And yay for The Westing Game and Wall of Words! I really can't recommend either of them enough. :)

Ok, heading over to catch up on your thread!

>#93 Well, I don't think you can say *nobody* here is interested in Varsity Letters. I work in a library and it sounds like just the sort of thing that might be very interesting. We're a high school library, but much more like a college library in many ways, and maintaining institutional archives is a big part of what we do. We're in the very beginning stages of working out a future vision for the library and it sounds like this might be quite helpful. Thanks!

PS I should very definitely be working on my own paper instead of browsing about here :o(

Hi Muddy! Funny, I should be working on a paper, too... I'm excited that you might be able to use Varsity Letters! Its the approach that I'm the most excited about coming out of my archives program; it makes a lot of sense, and the book is very straightforward about it, too, so it's much easier to actually implement than many of the other theories out there. As I understand it the main criticism of the approach has been that it's hard to institute with large organizations (i.e. research universities with tens of thousands of students), but I think, at least, that it's perfect for smaller schools like it sounds like yours is. My secret employment dream currently is to do this kind of work for my undergraduate school (small liberal arts school in Western Mass.), where I think Varsity Letters would also be perfect. Good luck with your archive, that sounds like a great job to me!

Great review of Tigana. Hmmm. Can't decide whether it would be for me or not - I do love well drawn, complex characters - particularly villans you can sympathise with, but I get extremely frustrated with long-winded musings and massive, complicated cast lists. Do you think it's worth me giving it a shot?

Grr... I'd written a whole response and my computer died! Anyway...

I think you should try it, probably. It's mostly the long-winded musings, which I think seemed longer to me because I was reading them out loud. The cast list isn't really that complicated, at least not in terms of fantasy, and everyone is generally fleshed out enough that it doesn't get particularly confusing. As for the villains- I wouldn't say that you could actually sympathize with them, but you can understand why they do everything that they do even while heartily disliking it, which represents pretty good writing on its own, imo. So... you might like it or you might not? I would say try it, and if the characters grab you then keep on with it, if not don't feel bad about stopping. So many LTers have loved it though, that I think it's worth checking out if it sounds interesting to you.

Oh, you read it outloud! Wow. That would definitely change the tenor of the story for me. I'm impressed. :)

lol, thanks. I wouldn't recommend it though, I think it'd be much more enjoyable to read at one's own pace, and I'm sure that I wouldn't have found the language so bothersome.

I think you're right!

Okey dokey, onto the list it shall go!

25) The Rape of Mesopotamia: Behind the Looting of the Iraq Museum by Lawrence Rothfeld (216 pages, giving myself 50) (aaaand, the touchstones aren't working). This is a book that makes you angry. It's about the looting of archeological artifacts from the Iraq Museum after the American occupation of Iraq in 2003 and the lack of planning and cultural awareness that allowed it to happen, as well as the history of the intersection of archeology and politics. The author is obviously very angry at the Bush administration's creation and handling of this situation, and he succeeds in making the reader just as angry as he is. The ownership of antiquities has always been complicated, particularly in the Middle East where the rich archeological heritage of Mesopotamia and a history of occupation and violence overlap, and this book is also a good exploration of those issues.

26) Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus by Orson Scott Card (402 pages). Our next read-aloud book. I won't review this one since I read it last year (last year's review is somewhere on the work page), but it was still great on a second reading, and worked really well for a read-aloud. Thought-provoking but never too challenging or difficult to follow. Highly recommended!

#123: I am adding The Rape of Mesopotamia to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation.

I read Pastwatch earlier this year and really liked it. Nice to know it stands up to re-reading.

I'm glad you liked Pastwatch! I think I must go on a quest to seek out more Orson Scott Card now...

I adore Pastwatch but hadn't considered it for a read aloud. And I was just about to select a new one. :)

ETA Have you tried Modesitt's Tangible Ghost series? I wonder how'd they work as read alouds... pretty well I'm guessing. As they're in storage I'll have to wait to give it a go.

#125: The only other of Orson Scott Card's other books that I have read is Ender's Game and I really liked that one. You might give it a go, Katie.

126: This is the first I've heard of Tangible Ghosts, but it looks interesting! I'll look for them. Thanks for the rec!

127: Ender's Game is one of my favorite books, actually. I only recently discovered Card's non-Ender stuff, though, and I've been liking it (the only other I've read is Enchantment which was a very good variation on the fairytale theme). If you liked Ender's Game you should read the sequel, Speaker for the Dead, which I actually like even more. I haven't read any of the other sequels, though, since my bf insists that they go downhill fast after that one. I don't know how true it is, but I've certainly been liking Card's one-offs as I find them.

128: I have heard that the sequels are terrible from several folks as well. I am guessing they are best skipped. Best to stick with Cards other books.

Thanks for the confirmation, I won't feel bad about those then! I do want to put in my word for Speaker for the Dead, though. If I recall correctly, Speaker was the book that Card wanted to publish, but his publisher said it needed more back-story and that was why he wrote Ender's Game in the first place. It's kind of what you'd get if you crossed the large-scale socio-political aspects of Pastwatch with the intense plot of Ender's Game.

I'll be watching to see if you try Modesitt's ghost books. There's one I don't have, but I hope to correct that one day (especially as I haven't read it yet!)

I guess I need to re-read Ender's Game since it has been a while and then pick up Speaker for the Dead. Thanks!

I guess I'd better read The Rape of Mesopotamia... I've read a lot about looting and forged artifacts, though I'm not sure why I continue as they simply make me upset. But I suppose it's better to be informed of these issues than ignorant, considering.

>133 dk_phoenix:: I've read a lot about looting and forged artifacts, though I'm not sure why I continue as they simply make me upset. But I suppose it's better to be informed of these issues than ignorant, considering.

Normally, I'm with dk_phoenix, but there's only so many things I can be upset about. Maybe it's hypocritical, but I'm glad The Rape of Mesopotamia was written--I think it needed to be written and hope others will read it--but I'm already mad enough about the War in Iraq, so not really wanting to read it, myself.

#123 Pastwatch is already on the wishlist but I have added the second recommendation and I enjoyed your review!

133 & 134: I agree that these type of books need to be read, but I also totally sympathize with finding them just too upsetting to sit down with sometimes. It doesn't help that it often seems like there's just nothing you can do about it. With the Iraq Museum, the looting was part and parcel with the lack of postwar planning that went into the invasion in general and it's just infuriating to read about.

Faith, if you've already read a lot about lootings, you might find parts of this one repetitive. It does a lot of context building by describing other sites of looting and destruction in the Middle East. I'd still probably recommend it, but just a heads up.

135: I hope you like it!

I haven't posted in a while because finals happened, and then was immediately followed by a book slump. I'm out of fun books to read! All of the books I have that I haven't read are serious and literary and all I want to read is something happy and fluffy. So... to Amazon! (and I actually haven't bought any non-school books in about... a year, so I don't even have to feel bad about it!)

In the mean time, this book doesn't involve any actual reading, but I'm counting it anyway since I did all the puzzles. :P

27) Pocket Posh Word Roundup (there are 100 puzzles, so... 100 pages). So, the gimmick here is that it's word searches, but instead of the words themselves, you're given clues to the words that you have to find (along the lines of: 'find four jungle animals,' that kind of thing).

It's ok. It's a good idea, but the searches are really small (and not maximally used, either - it would be better if it were also one of those where the left-over letters spelled something), and the words are fairly obvious. Also, their clues to the words repeat quite frequently throughout the book, and where they tend to obscurity (which they usually don't) it's in a pop culture way rather than a crossword puzzle clue way.

Overall, a tolerably fun, but astoundingly easy, puzzle collection.

Congrats on making it through finals--and for finding a very creative way of adding #27 to your list! :D I'd count it too. In fact, I put a calendar on mine (one of those tear-off-a-day kind: Bad Cat Page-A-Day). How's that for scrounging?? And I hope you found a way out of your book slump. Did Amazon help any?

I will add my congratulations to Sara's about making it through finals!

I hope the book slump is gone soon, Katie.

Thanks guys! The book slump seems to be over. I stayed up late last night reading Dracula and my Amazon purchases should be arriving soon after I'll have finished that one. Very frustrating timing, though, since I only have a week before classes start again, and I'd rather be reading than slumping!

Ooh, Dracula is one of my favourite books - so scary!

Wooo for your finals being done!

that is lousy timing for the books. here's hoping you find some good reads and that you fully enjoy your break!

I was reminded about a book that I discovered at a friend's house when I was in high school. It was called "Everything I Know About Sex" by Friend's Dad. When you opened it, every page was blank. That would probably not count for this challenge!

LOL! Good one, mamzel. But really, wouldn't that count? Or can we only count things with words? (wonders about photography books, graphic novels, etc....)

Thanks for the finals congratulations and well wishes, everyone!

Re books that "count": I think what I would count is anything where I've looked at all the pages to the extent expected- so graphic novels count if you've mentally processed all the images into a story, photography books if you've looked at most or all of the pictures and thought about them, page-a-day calendars if you've read or looked at the daily thing on all or most pages, puzzle books if you've done all the puzzles, even probably coloring books if you'd colored all the pictures. I don't know about the sex book, though- if the point is that there's no content, it hardly makes a difference if you've looked at it. In the end, of course, you can count pretty much anything you want, though. Lol, sorry I took a funny topic and treated it seriously, but I enjoyed thinking about it!

Time for me to read some more Dracula. I've been enjoying it, but I only ever feel motivated to read it in the middle of the night, so it's been going kind of slowly.

#146: I only ever feel motivated to read it in the middle of the night

So appropriate for Dracula, isn't it?

I know!

#146: Yep, I think you summarized it right. That's the way I look at counting books, too--if I've looked at everything from end to end.

Btw, good luck with Dracula. I tried reading it once in middle school, but it was too long-winded for me at that time. I may give it a go...eventually. But since I've seen so many movie remakes, I figure, why bother? Still, liking vampires and all, I figure I should at least finish it.

>134 bonniebooks: & 136: Well phrased input from the both of you! I certainly understand the "only so many things I can be mad about" stance and respect it. Personally, since I was trained in Near Eastern archaeology, I feel that it's almost a duty to stay informed on the subject, though that sounds a bit weird now that I type it out... especially as I'm not working in the field right now... but anyway, if I find a copy, I'll read it with caution and a heads up that it might be info I've read before. Thanks both :)

I'm still plowing through with Dracula. It's great, but slow going (and I've had a lot of distractions). In the mean time, though, I got to go to my favorite used book store this weekend! It's Roger's Book Barn (I just added it to LibraryThing Local, here: http://www.librarything.com/venue/54619). It's way out in the country in southeastern upstate New York, near the Massachusetts border (and I mean really, really way out in the country, down a dirt road - use google maps because you will not find this place otherwise). It's one of those places that you don't know how the first customer ever found it, and you'll only ever hear about it by word of mouth, but I really recommend it if you're ever nearby. It's an actual barn, out in actual farmland, stuffed full of books. It's cute, the books are really cheap, and it has the best selection of any used bookstore I've ever been to. I think they must get most of their stock from estate donations, because it doesn't fill up with mathom-books like most used book stores. The only thing that they're a bit weak in is YA books, but they have a really impressive selection of fiction. Anyway, I could promote them for ages since it's one of my favorite places and I don't get to go there very often, but here are the books I got:

Maps for Lost Lovers by Nadeem Aslam.
Angels and Insects by A. S. Byatt.
The Archivist by Martha Cooley.
On the Beach by Nevil Schute.
The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers by Christopher Vogler.
Tuck Everlasting by Natalie Babbitt.
Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie.

Yay!

Nice haul!

On the Beach was a cool read a couple of years back for me. You should like it. Some have complained of its staleness or datedness, but I didn't have those problems.

I love On the Beach!

I love On the Beach too. That's the only book I bought that I'd already read. I got it from the library years ago and liked it enough that I wanted to own a copy. I one I got from the book barn is the same edition as the library copy I read, which makes me happy. I may have to reread it now, though!

Been rummaging for a copy of a Town Like Alice but that one seems much more rare at the second hand book shops.

A Town Like Alice is on my rummaging list as well. Good luck finding it!

Sounds like my kind of books store... looking forward to getting my books on barns out of storage. I think books in a barn is even better than books about barns!

Whew, I feel like I'm falling behind, here! I got overwhelmed with all my new books and started too many at once. I'm almost done with Dracula, but I started reading Watchmen in the middle of it and distracted myself. Now I'm back to Dracula (Watchmen half finished) and just finished:

28) Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (256 pages). Inspired by all the mystery readers I've seen around here lately, I decided to pick up an Agatha Christie as our next read-aloud book. I'd read some Christie before (Why Didn't They Ask Evans? and Appointment with Death, if you're curious), but very before, circa age 14 probably, so I didn't remember it very well. I'm also not a big mystery reader (those other two Christies and The Westing Game are the extent of my experience with the genre, I think), so I don't really know how this one compares, but I do know that it's pretty much a classic so it seemed like a good place to start. It was good. Not completely page-turning exciting, but very well done, and it kept us guessing and changing our theories until pretty close to the end. If I were to complain, I think I would say that I never really got invested in any of the characters and so didn't really care very much who the murderer was, but that's almost a minor point since it seemed like that wasn't really even the point. I liked the puzzle, particularly the solution, and it kept us thoroughly entertained as a read-aloud. I'll be reading more Christie in the future.

Edited to get touchstones to load.

#159: No worries about falling behind, Katie. Just catch up as you like (or not!)

I read mystery a bit, but not as a read aloud. hmmm... just brimming with good ideas you are.

I'm stalled in a mystery now... just met the bad guy in part two and his murder was motivated by a porn addiction and I believe a spree is about to ensue. Yuck. And I'm not sure I like the main character (the detective). Come to think of it, I'm not even sure I'm supposed to like him. LOL

I love Agatha Christie's books, and I don't consider myself a huge mystery reader (though I do love the classics... Christie, Stout, Doyle...). I *think* I've read Murder on the Orient Express, but I'm not certain. It's true that Christie doesn't emotionally invest you in her characters -- other than Poirot or Marple, mind you -- but like you said, that doesn't seem to be the point. I think it's just her writing style, or maybe the style of the time. Either way, happy to see you'll be reading more Christie in the future!

161: I hope your next mystery is better, that one sounds like it takes "gritty" way too far for my taste. They're fun as read-alouds because you can stop and discuss the clues as you go. One of our favorite read-aloud traditions was reading Sherlock Holmes together, which was particularly great.

162: I like Christie, but I do find that dry style a bit distracting. There's been a murder, people! You should be acting shocked or distraught or shifty! I do enjoy the puzzle aspect of it, though. Probably I'm just expecting Doyle and getting Christie since I haven't read anything by her in quite a while. I'll have to fix that!

(less a review than just my thoughts:)

29) Dracula by Bram Stoker (380 pages). What a good book! I've been meaning to read it ever since all the discussion from last year's Halloween reads, and it definitely lived up. The spookiness, the creeping awareness of the situation, and the anguish of the transition from rational men of science into people who can and must believe in something occult are all extremely well done. I would recommend this book to everyone. I also liked and found interesting how the terror of the situation is conveyed almost entirely as a religious and moral horror that is almost overpowering, rather than relying on actual physical peril- yes Dracula has an impregnable fortress and hordes of wolves at his command, but for the majority of the book he is in a relatively weak position and he's totally helpless during daylight hours. That the book is so effective in making him a formidable and frightening enemy without relying on Dracula's physical attributes shows good writing and really shows that that is the focus of the novel. Vampires are not just scary monsters, they are a threat to the integrity of the human soul, and that should be, and is, terrifying.

I also like the presentation of the story through the letters and diaries of the characters. Depending on how well it's done, I either find epistolary novels annoying or fantastic, and Dracula is definitely in the fantastic category. It's very effective for only slowly revealing what's going on and conveying the misgivings and perceptions of the characters. From a point of view of thinking about archives and documentation, which I've been doing a lot recently, I also really liked the "Note" section at the end (no spoilers) which noted that most of their documentation for the events of the story (i. e. the diaries and letters you've just been reading) aren't authentic and have no provenance- they're typeset copies of the handwritten documents which no longer exist, and therefore wouldn't be accepted as historical proof of their exploits. That pleases me as an archival aside and also ties in with the believability of the occult theme. Really, the whole thing is very well thought out and wonderfully executed. Dracula definitely deserves its literary status.

#164 Oooh, you make me want to go and look out my copy to read all over again!

Oh, good! I really enjoyed it. I forget, did you read it for last year's Halloween list?

Nope, in fact I haven't read it for years, but it made a big impression at the time - another very good reason I should root it out!

I got a copy of The Annotated Dracula last year, but I have not read it yet. Maybe this year - come Halloween . . .

Glad you had such a great experience with Dracula. I have found so many of the classic horror novels better and more real than the hype and follow up stories that have follwed.

Hope you're gonna join our Halloween reading this year. I already have a list chosen, posted on my thread and my profile page!

168: Ooh, you should!

169: I saw the list, it looks good! I'm not sure I could keep up with the whole thing, though. I might read one or two with you guys. A lot will depend on what I'm doing in the fall (hopefully I'll have a job...).

I may even join in for the halloween reading of Dracula... (goes off to check out what else is on the list...)

Dracula's on my list. You just make me want it all the more :)

Ooops, Dracula was on last years' list...But I suspect you could get some folks to do a group read of it.

30) Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (416 pages).

My review on the work's homepage (don't trust that touhstone!).

This is going to be a conflicted review. First off, I have to say that I saw the movie before I read the graphic novel, and that's going to heavily color my impression. Second, I have to say that, whichever form you experience it in, Watchmen is really, really good. The conflict comes from the unavoidable comparisons between the two. This isn't The Wizard of Oz, where the book and the movie can be thought of as different works: these representations beg to be compared. First, though, the set up. Watchmen takes place in a dystopian alternate present (past now, it's set and was written in the 80s) in which superheros kind of actually exist. Most of the superheros are men in costumes, seemingly a psychological manifestation of the turbulence of the times, but one superhero is Dr. Manhattan, a physicist who was trapped in a nuclear accident at the start of the Cold War, and whose god-like existence is implied to have contributed unintentionally to the current state of the world. Nixon is in his fifth term, for example, after asking Dr. Manhattan to intervene in Vietnam. The story starts with the unexplained death of the Comedian, a dark jokester character who sees the brutality of the world and laughs in the face of it. Masked vigilante-ism has been outlawed by the start of the story, and to a large extent the story is about these former masked characters coming to terms with themselves and the state of the world. So yes, it's very good, or at least I think so. It's a dark and thoughtful look at recent American history and the human condition.

Now for comparisons, since I really can't evaluate the graphic novel on its own. For the first three quarters of the book, the movie is remarkably similar. So similar that it was almost as though I had already read the book, since the images were sometimes verbatim reproduced in the movie, down to camera angles and specific blood splatters. This is a good thing, I think. It speaks to the artistic integrity of both works and certainly makes the movie better. It also meant that the movie somewhat spoiled these parts of the novel for me, though. That is, until the end. The end of the novel differs significantly from the movie, and I absolutely can't explain why without spoilers, so I won't (but I would love to talk about it with anyone who's read/seen both). The problem I had, which may be partially an artifact of expectations since I had seen the movie first, was that I liked the movie ending better. Returning to the Wizard of Oz example, this isn't the end of the musical Wicked, which throws out a good portion of the point (imo) in favor of a more satisfying conclusion. This takes threads that should have been woven together at the end and does it, spectacularly, in a way that the novel doesn't even approach. The end of the movie makes more sense to me than the end of the novel. And it kills me to say it, since usually I fall squarely on the side against movie adaptations.

So... I don't know. Watchmen is great. See it, read it, experience it somehow. Pick your poison: original form or an adaptation that follows it closely and then deviates wildly. Or do both, and then come talk to me about it.

Edited for touchstones and proper linking.

Interesting. I will try Watchmen. Thanks.

#174: When I read Watchmen a couple of years ago, my succinct one-word review was "Wow!" I have not seen the movie version and really do not care to, but I would read the print version again in a heartbeat.

175: I hope you like it!

176: I think the movie version was actually very specifically designed to not offend people who loved the book, and it is a very good movie. I'd be interested to hear what you think of it if you ever do see it. Glad to hear you liked the novel!

Great review of Watchmen! I've seen the movie already, then picked up the graphic novel; but a few negative reviews have kept me from reading it. I liked that you mentioned the two are virtually similar scene-wise, so at least that shouldn't disappoint me. I'll have to give it a go and see how the ending pans out. Thanks for reminding me about this one!

178: Do try it. I wouldn't dream of giving it a bad review except that the ending threw me. I'll look forward to hearing how you think they compare!

Katie
What a wonderful review of Watchmen. I don't see it posted on the review page. If it was posted, it would be thumbs up from me.

Thanks Linda! It is posted on the work page, but it's this one, http://www.librarything.com/work/7233, not this one, http://www.librarything.com/work/7724212, which is (annoyingly) the default touchstone. I noticed that when I was originally trying to post the review, and it seems there's already a big controversy over whether the works should be combined or not, so that problem probably won't be resolved. I'll post a link to the correct one bdb style at the top of the review. Thanks for pointing that out and liking the review!

31) Freedom of Expression: Resistance and Repression in the Age of Intellectual Property by Kembrew McLeod (379 pages, counting 60). A book for class. Unfortunately similar to many other books I've read on this topic for class, and I'm getting tired of it. This might be a great book. I've heard from people who read this before reading all the others that they liked it a lot. So maybe. But really, I don't think so. There are a lot of books written for popular audiences on the issues with current copyright law. They all make the same arguments. They all talk about the same things. These things are interesting and important things, but there are better expressions of it than McLeod's Freedom of Expression. McLeod isn't a lawyer, and his arguments reflect it. They meander through faux-clever tangents and ignore major points that could be made with the same information. They get confused in opinion, and digress with long, repetitive examples. Probably you would think that this book was good, if it was the first you've read on the topic. But it isn't. Read something, anything, by Lawrence Lessig instead. This book is trite where it tries to be entertaining, and it's a shame, because it's a topic that should be better understood by everyone. But seriously, read Free Culture or Remix by Lessig instead. You'll get the same content, but arranged into actual arguments.

#182: OK, I feel free to skip that one!

Ditto. No offense, but 379 pages on copyright sounds kind of dull. :D I think I'll agree with LT's prediction this time that I won't like it.

Thumbs up posted for your review of Watchmen

Definitely feel free to skip it. Copyright isn't boring, though! That was kind of the tragedy of this book, actually- it tried too hard to make it entertaining with pop culture examples and completely lost the point somewhere along the way. Other copyright books are entertaining, though, while also making a cogent argument. If you even occasionally read nonfiction about political topics or anything like that, I do strongly recommend Free Culture or Remix as entertaining and alarming looks at copyright law. It's a big way that America has been becoming less free in the past 20 years or so.

Thanks Whisper! :)

Again, great review. I am #5 in the thumbs up of your well written comments.

#186: I do read a small amount of nonfiction, just not a lot in the political realm. I checked out Free Culture and Remix's pages, just because I don't like giving up on a topic, even if it doesn't appeal to me straight away. Both got a "won't like" from LT's predictions, but you can never tell with that thing. It's like my Magic 8 Ball: I keep rechecking, hoping I'll get the answer I want, but I never do. I liked the looks of The Anarchist in the Library (probably because of the title; it reminded me of some library staff I know! lol), but LT just keeps discouraging me from reading anything copyright-related. :D That's it, I'll blame LT for everything!

lol, well I'll certainly let you off the hook, then. I have trouble reading nonfiction even about things that I actually am interested in when it's not for a class, so I definitely understand. The Anarchist in the Library does have a wonderful title! I might check it out sometime when the current spate of copyright reading has faded from my memory. :)

I snuck a book in around school reading:

32) Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie (168 pages). I'm not sure what I thought of this. It's the classic story of the boy who never grows up and his interactions with children who do. Peter is an interesting character. He is essentially inhuman, and, the story seems to say, he must be, since growth and change are essential to humanity. The Neverland he plays in is the embodiment of the collective childhood imagination, full of pirates and fairies, and with a fair dose of infantile racism in the form of highly stereotyped "redskins." On the one hand, there's a lot more going on here than just the childhood fantasy. There's a lot going on under the surface: social commentary (Hook went to Eton), Freudian sexuality (not as much of a stretch as you'd think), romance and love triangles, and the inevitable philosophy that gets involved when you contemplate who Peter is. On the other hand, the book seems to try really hard to ignore it's own more interesting themes. I wanted to like this book. I like the idea, I like a lot of the motifs, I like the exploration of memory and imagination, and I like the coming of age (or not) theme. In the end though, I didn't enjoy it much. Reading the actual book added less than I expected to my general understanding of the story (based largely on adaptations, I suppose), and I found the writing style irritatingly juvenile. The narration is given almost in the tone of one of the flighty, none-too-smart children in the story itself. Think Rudyard Kipling's style, but without any ridiculousness and about half as much whimsy. I didn't hate the book: I like the story, and the growing up part at the end did get to me, but I was hoping for more, and it just wasn't there.

#191: I read Peter Pan last year and admit to being disappointed in it as well. Perhaps if I had read it when I was a child I would have liked it, but not now.

Glad to hear I'm not alone in that, then. Probably my expectations were too high, but I was expecting more adult appeal since I had heard that it had a lot of allegory, etc.

Nope, you are not alone. One thing I did not realize when I read the book last year was that it is the first book of a series. I was so disappointed in Peter Pan that I never sought out any of the others.

Apparently it was also a play before (?) it was the novel, and the novel has changed versions and names several times in its early existence, so even going back to Barrie it seems like there isn't really a definitive work. I probably won't be seeking out sequels either, though.

Hmm, I thought the book came first. I will have to investigate . . .

It's pretty muddled. Here's what wikipedia says about it:

"Peter Pan first appeared in a section of The Little White Bird, a 1902 novel written for adults. Following the highly successful debut of the play about Peter Pan in 1904, Barrie's publishers, Hodder and Stoughton, extracted chapters 13–18 of The Little White Bird and republished them in 1906 under the title Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, with the addition of illustrations by Arthur Rackham.

The character's best-known adventure debuted on 27 December 1904, in the stage play Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up. The play was adapted and expanded somewhat as a novel, published in 1911 as Peter and Wendy, later as Peter Pan and Wendy, and still later as simply Peter Pan."

Bummer. Remind me not to read Peter Pan anytime soon. I'll just stick with the old Disney version instead. :)

#197: OK, that saves me having to look. I did not know that the play came first - it just sounds backwards to me :)

198: Hehe. I need to re-watch the Disney Peter Pan. It's one of the ones I barely remember, even though I'm sure almost all my Peter Pan knowledge comes from it...

I have a 1929 hardback (which I have not read) called The Plays of J.M. Barrie. The first play is Peter Pan, Or The Boy Who Would Not Grow Up. The first edition copyright date is 1914.

199: That's what I thought, too! The sense you get from the wiki article, too, is that Barrie just threw in whatever would work and changed things around a lot. A bit disillusioning...

201: Now that sounds like a nice book to own!

One book I do want to read regarding Barrie is J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys: The real story behind Peter Pan by Andrew Birkin.

#200: Yeah, it's pathetic: I can remember Disney songs, but ask me anything pertinent (what's your SSN? what's the date today?), and I wouldn't have a clue! :D

Since we're talking about Peter Pan-ish books, has anyone read the Starcatchers series by Dave Barry? Is it better/worse than the original? It looks kind of interesting.

Bummer about Peter Pan not being great. Have you read the original Bambi? Seems like just about the only thing in common was Bambi himself. I remember it was just about the longest book I'd ever read at the time (as a kid).

I'm one of the seemingly rare people who enjoyed Peter Pan when I read it a few years ago... though, I'll admit, it may have been due to my fascination and amusement over Tink's cursing and the rather unexpected sexual tension between Tink and Peter. I definitely want to read the book about the story behind Peter Pan that Stasia suggested -- I think that would be really, really interesting...

#207: Tink's cursing and the rather unexpected sexual tension between Tink and Peter

Hmm, now maybe I do want to read Peter Pan. :D I did pick up a weird vibe between them in the animated movie, but I thought it was just me. Thanks for changing my mind, dk_phoenix! :) I'll have to give it a go.

Hi everybody! I got busy and didn't check my thread for a while. Sorry!

Suslyn: I haven't read Bambi, in fact, I'm not sure I knew it was a book! Would you recommend it, or is it another one to skip?

Faith: The Peter-Tink tension was something that I'd heard about, and it was one of the things that made me want to read the original, especially since Disney has since made such a big deal out of Tink (and they rarely mention poor Wendy!). It was interesting (and kinda creepy/sad- in the last chapter (pseudo spoiler, so I'm putting it in strikethrough) when Peter doesn't remember her), but it wasn't actually as interesting as I expected it to be (probably just my expectations were wrong, then). Peter is just too obliviously naive for the Freudian/sexuality stuff to really be a big factor, I think.

Sara: Haha, that was what I thought, too! Like I just said, though, I think having heard about that made me approach the book with higher expectations, which were then largely unmet. :( Just don't expect too much and you'll probably like it, though.

I didn't know Bambi was a book first either. All I remember were the little Disney picture books I read as a kid (like Bambi Grows Up, Thumper, Babmi Gets Lost etc), which I sadly got rid of as a teen.

#209: I'll keep that in mind, Foxen. I usually keep my expectations pretty low, anyway, when I'm reading kids books. If I read with a critical eye, I'd have to get rid of more than half my books. None of them have any literary merit whatsoever (Sweet Valley High, anyone?)--and I like to keep it that way. ;)

(edited to get those freakin' touchstones to link properly ::growls @ LT::)

Aren't you forgetting the classic "Bambi vs. Godzilla"?

>208 saraslibrary:: LOL... yes, I agree with message 209 that as interesting as it is, don't go into it with huge expectations. In the end, it's still a children's story, but I found those unexpected elements fascinating in some ways. Maybe think about it as a children's story that gets weird/creepy when you consider the main characters. Haha.

211: Ha! I had to look it up, but that's great!

212: I agree that the weird overtones are definitely there, though! That whole scene where they're playing "house" with the lost boys, but Peter is worried because Wendy is really his "mother" has all kinds of Freudian things going on, in addition to Tink over there cursing in the corner. :)

And a note to myself to review The Book of Flying (which was excellent!) when I get a chance, since it probably won't be soon.

#214: I loved The Book of Flying. I am glad to see it has found another fan!

Ok, so #33 is The Book of Flying and #34 is The Magicians of Caprona, both of which were excellent. I'll have to review them soon. On the plus side, I'll have a master's degree tomorrow.

Yay for The Magicians of Caprona - one of my favourites!

Hi! I'm trying to catch up with those 75-bookers I haven't met before, so here I am! You've had some good reads this year, haven't you?! I am going to add The Rape of Mesopotamia to my TBR--thanks for the recommendation!

Karen O.

I just finished a complete re-read of the Chrestomanci books--The Magicians of Caprona is a lot of fun!

Congrats Foxen! I have gone back to get my master's twice and never made it beyond the first semester. I can't take the study stress. Now sit back and read some more books!

Re: #205. Sara, I read the first 2 of the Peter and the Starcatchers books that Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson wrote (I have the third, but for whatever reason, I have never read it). I enjoyed them, but they are silly (hello? Dave Barr?). Still, they're quick reads, and I liked them.
*sneaks off to read that third book*

#221: Cool, thanks for letting me know. I wondered if they'd be kind of funny with Dave Barry penning them, so I think I will add them to my Wishlist. Thanks! :)

217: Yes, I think it's my new favorite DWJ. I really like the cats!

218:That is a big task! Hello and welcome!

219: It is! I enjoyed it a lot.

220: I would love to. Unfortunately I go directly from study stress to unemployment stress, unless I can get a job before the current one runs out in September.

221 & 222: Those look fun, I might check them out for some light post-masters reading. :)

Congratulations on the master's!

Thanks!

Ok, I still owe real reviews for Magicians of Caprona and The Book of Flying (and for Possession, a long time ago, actually), but here are some school books that I can get out of the way, first.

33) The Public Domain: Enclosing the Commons of the Mind by James Boyle (315 pages, giving myself 50). Boyle does a very good job articulating the forces at work in the copyright debate, and, since his book focuses on the public domain, unlike most authors on this subject, he actually focuses on a feasible solution. It was very good. It's not going to convince people to pay attention to copyright issues all on its own, but it is an approachable, engaging book on the topic that could get people thinking. Now I just wish this professor had taught us the actual law instead of having us critique a bunch of public interest books. Oh well.

34) Photographs: Archival Care and Management by Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler and Diane Vogt-O'Connor (529 pages, giving myself 100). This is the only actual textbook associated with my degree, and thank you Mary Lynn Ritzenthaler for writing it! It tells you what you need to know to function in the field it describes. Would that have been so hard, other authors? Professors? Recriminations aside, this is a very good textbook. It lays out everything you need to know in a way that is straightforward without oversimplifying. Very, very refreshing.

#226: No offense to your school books, but I am looking forward to your review of Magicians of Caprona. I have already read The Book of Flying and Possession.

Haha, no offense taken. I need to get on those reviews!

Still not the reviews in progress, but the next few books:

37) Enchantment by Orson Scott Card (419 pages). This is a reread from last year, so I won't review it again. Instead, here's my review from last year. I like this book a lot. Orson Scott Card is really the best author of socially aware, academically thoughtful sci-fi/fantasy, and it definitely stands up to rereading. This time through was a read-aloud (that's kind of been a trend recently; we'll be looking for a read-aloud and the most obvious thing will be something that I want to share, but that he would never read on his own :) ), and it works pretty well for that. It's light and followable, while still being intellectually interesting. Highly recommended all around.

38) The Fellowship of the Ring by J. R. R. Tolkien (479 pages). My "yay, I've graduated, now I can read something I want to" read. A reread, obviously, and I really won't review it. I refuse. Recently, at least, I've been finding that the world divides itself fairly neatly into two categories of people: those who have already read and love Lord of the Rings, and those who gave up part-way through Fellowship because it was too "boring" or "slow". I've largely given up trying to convince those people, hence the lack of review (also I feel generally inadequate to the task, and y'all know what it's about anyway), but I will say this: Yes, Fellowship takes a while to get going. Bear with it, it picks up, you will like it, and if nothing else, it's something like Tolstoy that you should read. Lord of the Rings is a classic, it's the foundation of almost all modern fantasy, and besides that it's good, it's fun, it's exciting, and honestly, the fact that the first 200 pages turns a lot of people off I just find incredibly irrelevant, and I find it hard to believe that people actually let that stop them. It doesn't really bother me, though, and I hope no one reading this takes it as an attack. If you haven't read Lord of the Rings: read it or not, but I hope you will. If you have: so, do you think balrogs have wings?

Wings? Is there any textev for that? I don't think they do.

P. S. I love LOTR. I read it in three days when I was 16 years old and I was in love! And have seen no reason to change my opinion since then.

#229: Adding Enchantment to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation and review, Katie!

ETA: I do not think balrogs have wings either.

Hooray. "Do balrogs have wings" is one of those old, essentially answer-less (but fun) debates. The text says that the shadow around the balrog stretches from wall to wall like wings, and then there is another reference to "wings" later on (but still presumably the shadow ones)... eh, might as well look it up:

"The Balrog reached the bridge. Gandalf stood in the middle of the span, leaning on the staff in his left hand, but in his other hand Glamdring gleamed, cold and white. His enemy halted again, facing him, and the shadow around it reached out like two vast wings... Gandalf talks, one paragraph later:... The Balrog made no answer. The fire in it seemed to die, but the darkness grew. It stepped forward slowly on to the bridge, and suddenly drew itself up to a great height, and its wings were spread from wall to wall;" (FotR, p. 392)

That's the extent of the references to wings, but it is actually relatively pervasive- the balrog doesn't get much more description than that, really (although apparently it also has a "mane" which kindles into flame). My interpretation is that the balrog can control his appearance and surroundings to a large extent and conjures the appearance of wings much like Gandalf and Galadriel can manipulate the light and shadow around them, rather than having actual, physical wings (there's also the good argument that if it had actual wings, falling into that chasm wouldn't be such a big deal; to which the counter argument is that wings which spread "from wall to wall" wouldn't be much help in the narrow chasm; to which the counter-counterargument is, then why have them?).

p.s. Sasia, I hope you like Enchantment!

#229 Enchantment sounds interesting so I have added it to the wishlist (although I still haven't read Pastwatch which I think you also recommended)!

#232 Ah, the 'do balrogs have wings' debate. I remember there being lots of debate around this when the films were being made because everyone was speculating on what Peter Jackson would do.

Enchantment and Pastwatch both made it onto my favorite books list. I hope you enjoy them!

I remember that, too. I don't actually remember what he did, though. Did Peter Jackson's balrog have wings?

#234: I liked Pastwatch a lot when I read that one, so I suspect I will like Enchantment too.

I do not think Peter Jackson's balrog had wings. At least if it did, I do not remember seeing them.

#234 I should really bump Pastwatch up the pile then! The problem is that there seem to be at least 20 books I keep saying that about!

According to wikipedia Peter Jackson's balrog did have wings because it was based on John Howe's designs. I looked for an image from the film but couldn't find a clear one. From memory, I think the wings were fiery so it could be viewed either way (either they were wings or they were just flames that looked like wings).

Pastwatch is one of my all time favs. I need to add Enchantment! And, yes, if only to say you've read it, I think you should read Bambi. Extremely different from the movie and one which seriously impacted me as a child.

ETA Enjoyed the balrog discussions. BUt what about Ents? My visual image from the books was nothing like in the movie... but maybe I superimposed my best friend (a tree, at the time) onto Tolkien's words?

I think Enchantment may be one of my favorite books of all time. I absolutely adored it, and it sparked a desire to learn more about Russian folklore.

#236: Haha, that keeps happening to me, too. So many good recommendations, so little time. At least there will always be more wonderful books to read!

Thanks for the clarification on Jackson's balrog- I tried to look up pictures, but I also couldn't find a good one. I like having them be fiery, though- it's a good way to have it both ways.

#237: Definitely read Enchantment! I think you'll definitely like it. I'll look out for Bambi, although I think I'll have to re-watch the Disney version, too, since I barely remember it.

I also thought that Peter Jackson's ents were rather odd. Not very like the description in the books, I think, although I'm also muddling Tolkien's description of ents with Lewis' dryads, I think. I imagined them kind of wading through the earth instead of walking across it, and not very... hmmm, bendable.

#238: I'm glad you liked Enchantment! I wish I had more Russian folklore that I could recommend. I first encountered it through a book that was left on the shelf by a previous owner when we moved house when I was a kid. It was Russian Fairy Tales by Alexander Afanasev, and it definitely preserves the bizarreness and brutality of a lot of the stories, but I think it probably suffers a bit in translation. It's a good collection, though, just lacking in commentary and explanation, and a lot of common story elements (talking bladders as common characters?) seem like they probably have more behind them than is explained there. If you know of any good commentaries on Russian folklore, though, please let me know, I'm interested too!

Well this isn't RUssian folklore or a commentary on Russian folklore, but Cherryh's Rusalka is based on a Russian folktale... That's the closest I can come :)

Rusalka sounds interesting. I'll keep an eye out for it.

Finished:
39) The Two Towers by J. R. R. Tolkien (415 pages).

Hmmm. I've never read anything by Orson Scott Card, but it's a name I keep coming across. I shall have to investigate at some point.

While I'm not one of those who gave up on The Fellowship of the Ring half way through, I am one who gave up half way through The Two Towers - so I did try to persevere, even though I didn't much like the former. I think in the end, I just decided that there were many more things I wanted to read more first. One day I'll probably come back to the trilogy, as I do love The Hobbit, but it's pretty low down my list I'm afraid....

I like the sound of Rusalka too...

It's ok, Fliss, I'll forgive you. ;) You should track down some Orson Scott Card, though!

Ooh, I'll keep an eye open for Rusalka too. I have a copy of Russian Fairy Tales myself, but I haven't found any other good commentaries or collections at this time... though, I bet I read some when I was in university. I think I borrowed some books from the library there but didn't write the titles down... grrr... well, if I think of any or stumble across a title, I'll let you know!

I liked all three of the Rusalka books (Rusalka, Chernevog, Yvgenie). They had gotten me interested in reading more Russian stories. There aren't a ton that I found but there are a couple of Web sites that have some translations, such as this one.

If you don't absolutely require that there be fantasy...i.e., you just like Russian folk tales...I'd really recommend Jamilia by Chingiz Aïtmatov. I read it last year and loved it.

#243 ;o) OK, I promise!

244: I can't personally vouch for these, but OSC usually cites his sources in the back of his novels (such a good idea! Why don't more historical novelists do this?) and these are two collections he used for Enchantment: Russian Tales and Legends by Charles Downing, and Jewish Folktales by Pinhas Sadeh. He also includes a couple of good sounding references on ancient Russian culture; I can copy those out if you're interested in that as well as the folklore.

245: Jamilia sounds wonderful! Thanks for the rec; that's going right to the top of the wishlist.

The Halloween thread is up.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/98082&newpost=1#lastmsg

40) The Return of the King by J. R. R. Tolkien (413 pages - page count includes the text and appendix A).

good for you!!

Haven't been getting much reading in recently. Lord of the Rings I've read enough times that I didn't feel much urgency to finish them, I suppose, and I've been busy enough recently that I haven't wanted to focus on anything more challenging. I've started House of Leaves, which is excellent so far, but I haven't wanted to devote the energy and attention that it takes to keep the story straight. I've graduated, but now I'm studying for the LSAT next month, and I have a big job interview next week, too. The result is that instead of respectably reading books I've been reading Lord of the Rings fanfiction. Worse, rereading Lord of the Rings fanfiction. Actually, it's quite good, and I don't regret it in the least, but it's certainly putting me behind here.

Hopefully I'll start reading interesting things again in October.

Wow, sounds like RL rightfully has a priority right now! Best wishes both for the exam and the interview.

Good luck with the LSAT, Katie!

Thanks guys!

Good luck with the interview...and the LSAT.

Thanks!

Adding my best wishes for your interview and LSAT (Law School Admission Test? - I had to google it)

Heather: yes, it's the law school admission test. :) I probably should have specified...

I'm partway through three different books right now, House of Leaves, The City and The City, and Witch Week, all of which are very good in their own ways. I'm still having trouble concentrating on any of them, though. In the mean time, I thought I'd put up some fanfiction recommendations, since I've been reading them recently (and some of them are novel-length, so they deserve at least some mention here). For anyone previously unaware of fanfiction, it refers to stories written based on (or in the world of, rather) another author's work, and it's generally seen as a kind of sandbox for writers to practice in, as well as just a fun way for fans to express their feelings and opinions about a work. You can write a story based on plot, character development, or whatever, without the pressure of inventing everything from scratch and making sure absolutely everything is perfect and in balance, since you can rely on the original author's story to fill in the gaps for you. It's kind of like the amateur version of unauthorized Sherlock Holmes stories, but with any book/movie/whatever you want. Some fanfic is really bad, but fanfic does exist which is very good and worthy of reading on its own. Here are some of my favorites, if anyone is interested:

My favorite fanfiction author is Isabeau of Greenlea, who writes wonderful Lord of the Rings fanfiction set in Gondor largely after the end of the Third Age. The place to start with her is Captain, My Captain a novel-length story that introduces her primary protagonist, an unlikely female soldier in the Ithilien Rangers. The first chapters of Captain are probably Isabeau's weakest writing (since they're her earliest), however, so don't give up immediately if you think you might like it- the writing gets much better and the characters improve as it goes on. This story is impressive because it manages to be so well written, and be an interesting exploration of the social and political landscape of post-war Gondor, while still having the surface features of a self-insertion fanfic. The protagonist is a strong woman, many of whose difficulties arise from the conflicting attentions of several astonishingly admirable suitors, and yet all of the characters are plausible and realistic, and the story is incredibly well-drawn. This is a story that I've read probably five times in its entirety, which is not something that can be said of many original works that I've read. My only regret about it is that the author seems to have given up on following it to the conclusion (after about eight years working on it, so you can't really blame her), so there doesn't seem to be any more.

Isabeau's other main story arc involves Boromir and Andrahar, an original character, and starts with Discretion, and then Discovery, with a few side stories (accessible from Isabeau's author page) thrown in, and which later spins off into Noble Jewel and Passages, both also quite good stories. It also plays with typical fanfiction tropes by having a (presumed) heterosexual character in the original work turn out to be gay (word on the internet holds that the first fanfic was Kirk/Spock), however this then goes past the gratuitous eroticism (although it's definitely explicit, be forewarned) to explore what the ramifications of that would be within the story. Her exploration of sexuality and politics in Gondor (just prior to LotR) is very good, and I honestly think after reading her stories that Boromir's character makes more sense in her version than in the original. Pretty impressive.

The story that I've been reading currently is Lie Down in the Darkness, Rise Up From the Ash, a dark alternative universe story written by Dwimordene that follows the plot of LotR with the twist that Gollum is dead from the beginning. It's well written, but Dwimordene's characterization of the fellowship members differs more strongly from Tolkien's than I like, and, as would be expected from the dark tone of the premise, her Middle Earth is much more brutal and graphic than Tolkien's. It's a pretty impressive story, though, and if the premise of "it's like Lord of the Rings, but if everything went wrong" sounds interesting to you, then I would recommend it. Another story by Dwmordene that I quite like is Where the Stars are Strange, a shorter piece about Aragorn in his younger travels to Harad.

Finally, if Lord of the Rings is not your fandom of choice, I can also recommend But I'm a Weasley! by Anisky, which is a very good, currently ongoing, Harry Potter fanfic following the second generation Potter and Weasley kids. In the interest of full disclosure, this one is written by a friend of mine, but it's definitely shaping up to be a very good story and a good exploration of the fallout from Harry's time in the prejudices and perceptions a generation later.

Well, that was probably more than anyone really wanted to know about fanfiction! Now if only I could spend that much energy on LSAT prep, or, say, reading...

Edited to fix links. And grammar.

Where do you find all this fanfiction, Katie? Is there a particular website?

The biggest site by far is fanfiction.net. That's the place to go for most fandoms. Most of the bigger fandoms have other websites as well, or probably more than one. The best one that I know of for Lord of the Rings is the Henneth Annun Story Archive. I don't read much fanfic outside of LotR, so I'm not very familiar with the other sites, but I'm sure googling the name of the original work along with "fanfiction" would generally bring them up. Fanfiction.net is usually the best place to start, though.

#260: Thanks! I will check it out.

#258 I think I am too anal about LOTR to be able to tolerate fan fiction but I could cope with HP fanfiction.

I thought I heard there was some controversy over fan fiction with some authors really not liking it (for copyright reasons). Can't remember who, why or what though.

The LSAT... horrors :) Lots of people sail through it. And, with the way you read, I suspect you'll be one of them. Hope the interview goes well too!

261: I hope you like it, Stasia!

262: I know what you mean about LotR. I really can't stand it if it's not spot-on. Isabeau, who I recommended above, is really great, though, and the majority of things she writes are based on characters that Tolkien doesn't do much with, and it's nice to see them developed a bit. Dwimordene, not so much, and her writing does set off my "that's not quite right" sensor quite a lot. HP can be fun, but it's more popular currently, which means that there's a LOT of dreck that I haven't bothered to wade through.

There are definitely copyright issues with fanfiction. I actually wrote a paper on it once, so I'm relatively informed. Generally authors don't really like it, and it is a copyright violation persecutable under US law, but most authors tolerate it as long as it's not being published for money because 1) it's kind of mean-spirited and bad PR to sue 13-year-old kids, and 2) it's an expression of fandom, so you'd be suing the people that are also your most enthusiastic audience, which is generally not a smart move. There was a flare up a few years ago because Warner Bros. started sending cease and desist letters to Harry Potter fanfic authors (because they own the U.S. copyright to the movie material), but that blew over once J. K. Rowling gave her official permission for non-commercial fanfiction. Kind of an odd situation, though.

263: Thanks! :) Hopefully I'll do all right on the LSAT. And thanks for the interview wishes, too. It actually did go really well, and I got the job!

Congratulations on the new job!

Thanks!

Interesting bit of info on fan fiction. Thanks for writing about it! :)

Haha, thanks! Good to know I'm not just boring everyone to death. :)

Glad you got the position! Congrats!!

269: Thanks Susan!

41) Witch Week by Diana Wynne Jones (274 pages). Another great DWJ! I probably liked Magicians of Caprona a tiny bit better (because of the cats!), but these two are probably my favorite DWJ so far! Very fun.

42) A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett (194 pages). This is a reread for me, but this reading is a big deal because I finally convinced Nick to let me read it to him. This is possibly the girliest book ever written, and I've been trying to get Nick to read it for literally years. And he actually kind of liked it. It's a very satisfying rags and riches story about an entirely too charming little girl, with a gratifying quantity of fairy-tale justice at the end. It's not the best book in the world, but it's extremely charming.

#270: I will have to look for Witch Week. It is not one my local library has, so I will have to look further afield.

#264 Thanks for the fan fiction info and congratulations on the new job!

#270 I read Witch Week and The Magicians of Caprona a few months ago and really enjoyed them too. Mixed Magics has some Chrestomanci short stories in and also features some of the characters from The Magicians of Caprona although not the cats :-(

LOL @ A Little Princess being the girliest book ever written. I haven't read that one yet, but I'll probably read it in some lifetime. Thanks for the reminder! :)

I love A Little Princess :) It's a nice comfy re-read for me. Glad he enjoyed it!

Haven't been around for a while, and I haven't really been reading either (what's wrong with me?).

I did finish The City and The City, though. (Possible mild spoiler ahead? I'll try to be vague enough...) I liked it a lot, although the conclusions it comes to were surprisingly (and somewhat disappointingly?) more rooted in the "realistic" detective-noir genre than the fantasy. To some extent the world would have been more vindicated if the more fantastic side of things had won out. As it was you're left not knowing what the deal with the two cities really is- which I'm pretty sure is intentional. An interesting book. Gives you plenty to think about. I'll try and write a more proper review later.

And in other news, there's nothing like carrying your entire library up to your third floor apartment to make you wish you bought fewer books!

#275: there's nothing like carrying your entire library up to your third floor apartment to make you wish you bought fewer books! -- Ugh. I hope I never get to that point, where I have to start getting rid of books. :( Hope they all made it up there in one piece! :)

Haha, they made it up in one piece, not sure I did though! I loaded the truck with the help of two strong friends, and it took them about 1.5 hours to load the entire thing (not up three floors, but still). It took me by myself about 10 hours to unload it all. Phew! And like a dummy, I of course didn't think of doing any weeding until it was too late to do it before I left, so a few of those books I brought will soon be bookmooched or similar, anyway. I agree, though, I don't like getting rid of books. I am definitely a book hoarder! I'm only willing to part with them if I can turn them into more books. ;)

I'm only willing to part with them if I can turn them into more books. -- Absolutely! That's the only way to go. :)

I concur!

LOL I had friends who said they'd only agree to help me again if I got rid of 1/2 the books! (And I didn't even have my whole library with me?! What was the big deal :)

43) Winnie-the-Pooh by A. A. Milne.
44) The House at Pooh Corner by A. A. Milne.

Comfort rereads. I haven't been reading much recently. I really don't know why. I think I'm officially giving up on getting to 75 this year. At this rate, I'll be lucky if I get to 50 (particularly since I've recently gotten it into my head to reread Les Miserables - if I do that, I'll probably get to 45 ;) ). I need some light, engaging fantasy or something to get me back on track. Maybe I'll stop at Borders and get The Hunger Games on my way back from work tomorrow....

Had to laugh at the idea of The Hunger Games as "light, engaging fantasy"! How about some Diana Wynne Jones, or Pat Wrede or Tamora Pierce or Susan Dexter?

This place is not really about how many books you end up geting read, but about the companionship and conversations we have about books, so don't worry about the numbers!

And I never got around to commenting above, but A Little Princess is a great favorite of mine.

#281: I love the Pooh books, Katie!

As far as the numbers go, I agree with Roni. Just enjoy the books and the company, and forget about the numbers.

#281: You're the second person I've stumbled across on LT who read a Pooh book this year. I really to find mine and read them. Thanks for the reminder! And I'm glad you enjoyed them. Again. :)

Highly recommend Les Miserables. it's a great read.

282: Haha, I guess I meant "engaging" more than "light". Something page-turning, I guess. Everything that I seem to have around unread is interesting, but not really compelling.

Thanks everybody! I'm not really concerned about the numbers, just a bit disappointed with this epic book slump I'm in (I mean come on, it's been like, three months!). :)

And yes, the Pooh books are always a favorite. I still cry every time I read the last chapter of House at Pooh Corner.

285: Thanks BDB! Since this would be a re-read, I can also highly recommend it!

Can't read, clearly. You were pretty clear about that now that I look back up there. Makes me wonder what else I've been missing.

Hi Katie. Just stopping by to wish you a Merry Christmas. How is Les Miserables going?

Katie, I do hope you will be joining us in the 2011 group. It is up and running: http://www.librarything.com/groups/75booksin20111

Happy Holidays!

Hi Heather! Merry Christmas!

Les Miserables is not going at all, sadly! I never started it. Progressed a bit farther with House of Leaves though. Soon will come the time of year when I fill up my total a bit with mostly finished puzzle books and word-a-day calendars.

I think I will start a 2011 thread, but mainly just to be friendly. I don't anticipate magically beginning to read furiously again in January (for one thing, I'm getting married in April, so I'm going to be a bit busy!).

#290: You know we do not care if you hit 75 books or not, so come on over!

Do join us for 2011, you've given me some good book recommendations this year.