ljbwell: having a go again in 2010

Just getting my 2010 thread started. It should be an interesting year.

Oooh yay, I'm first! Happy New Year, may it be filled with a whole plethora of wonderful books!

Thanks for stopping by! 2010 is already off to a great start in quality, if not quantity.

1. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (fiction, 287 p.)

A man and a boy, father and son, traveling the road and struggling to survive in a post-apocalyptic society. That's it. Classic literary battles play out in this novel. The bonds between father and son. Man against nature. Man against man. Though encounters with others are rare, the threat is constant. The few encounters serve as ugly reminders why contact is to be avoided, not sought out and welcomed.

The beauty of this book is in the link between language and content. Like the barren, unforgiving landscape, the language is sparse. Sentence fragments and dropped apostrophes are not only appropriate but necessary; flowery language would be a waste, would draw unwanted attention. In these senses, this novel combines elements of Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea and Jack London's To Build a Fire, set in a wintry Mad Max-like wasteland.

Not the most uplifting start to 2010, but from a literary standpoint a rewarding one.

2. Feng Sh*t : The Art of Domestic Disorder, by Anna Crosbie (128 p., humor)

I feel guilty even including this as a book; it was a gift meant as a bit of silliness from family who know me, and my lack of domestic goddess-ness, well. Still, I read it, so it's in. That said, I did recognize myself in bits such as, "Eliminate Gratuitous Chores: The bathtub sees more fresh water than any other household object or surface. It is therefore self-cleaning." (though I'd add sinks to that, too.)

3. Grandville by Bryan Talbot (104 p., graphic novel)

This is a visually stunning steampunk graphic novel. Detective-Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard arrives in Paris from Great Britain to investigate the apparent suicide, but actual murder, of Raymond Leigh-Otter. His investigation uncovers several more non-suicides as powerful officials attempt to cover up their past deeds. The book takes place in an alternate history, where Great Britain, after the Napoleonic War, became a part of the French empire and only recently gained independence after civil disobedience and anarchic uprisings.

Each of the characters is an animal - LeBrock a badger, Leigh-Otter an Otter, LeBrock's sidekick is Ratzi (a rat), Prime Minister Jean-Marie Lapin (rabbit). In fact, humans are called "doughfaces" and are lower on the evolution scale and not given rights as citizens. There are some quirky references to European comics - Bécassine and Milou/Snowy, for example, make appearances (Milou's being a bit more off-character & disturbing).

I have railed in the past against books that feel the need to have some sort of 9/11 and Iraq War allegory/tie-in/parable. Here again, it was unnecessary; the steampunk, belle époque setting for a fun noirish Scotland Yard-in-Paris crime story was enough. That said, I am willing to overlook it in favor of the absolutely gorgeous graphics and scenes.

I have to see if I can find Feng Sh*t at the library or somewhere, it sounds like a really fun read. And boy, does that "self-cleaning tub/shower" theory ever hold in my house! My husband and I both hate scrubbing it with a passion.

Oh yeah... and why is it that a freshly-cleaned white sink/bath seems to immediately attract every stray speck of dust in the vicinity? *sigh*

Ha! So nice to know I'm not the only one! Let me just say, "read" is a stretch. It's one of those pithy-tip-or-two-per-page books. But for a non-cleaner, it has its moments.

I've just started Män som hatar kvinnor, which could take a bit... (Girl with the dragon tattoo)

Nice review of The Road!

Thanks! Do you have a 2010 thread yet? (I'm lazy, or I'd hunt around more for it myself...) :-)

Really like your review of The Road - that's another one for my TBR list! I want to read it before I check out the movie....

Are you talking to me? :-) If so, my thread is here:

4. Män som hatar kvinnor by Stieg Larsson (Swedish, 367 p.)

(In English, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo)

I've been hearing so much about this trilogy that I finally broke down and picked up the first one. I'm glad I did. Män som hatar kvinnor follows two leads: Mikael Blomkvist, the disgraced (but otherwise deep digging) journalist convicted of libel and Lisbeth Salander, the young, damaged woman who works as an investigator for a security firm. After his fall from journalist grace, Blomkvist is hired by an old and wealthy businessman - Henrik Vanger - ostensibly to interview family members for a tell-all biography; parallel to that, he is instructed to try to solve the decades old and seemingly unsolvable mystery of what happened to Vanger's niece, missing and presumed murdered. Salander is briefly hired by Vanger to look into a business rival, who also happens to be the cause of Blomkvist's libel conviction. Ultimately, Blomkvist and Salander cross paths and join together as events unravel.

The title in Swedish, "men who hate women", is much more telling about this very Swedish book. And there are some unpleasant scenes which lend credence to the title. I appreciated the background given to each character, giving each one depth and (usually) understanding of why they react and behave as they do later on. The characters are put in compromising situations and we see how difficult the decisions made in the gray areas of life can be. Yes, there are typical "ugh, really, you went there alone? What were you thinking??" type moments (you know, like the horror movie run-down-the-abandoned-alley-and-not-into-the-open-store-with-people-in-it moment). I'm also curious if some things dropped almost in passing will be revisited in the subsequent 2 novels. I'm looking forward to finding out.

Good review! My book club chose this as our next read. That's really interesting that the Swedish title is "men who hate women"...I've seen a lot of comments regarding the graphic violence and sex scenes in the book that are sort of put into a new context given that title. I'm glad you enjoyed it and I'm looking forward to finally reading it!

Let me know what you & your group thought of it. There was more I wanted to write, but was afraid of unleashing too many spoilers.

Yes, parts are definitely graphic & violent, and not always even related to the "central" crime - but not gratuitous, either.

Sputnik Caledonia by Andrew Crumey (fiction, 553 p.)

For better or worse, I often judge books by their covers, which is what initially drew me to Sputnik Caledonia. The book gets off to a great start. Robbie Coyle lives in Kenzie, a Scottish suburb, in the 70s. He has a vivid imagination and dreams of joining the Russian cosmonaut program; he also drifts off into his daydreams, has a tendency to wet his bed, and is seen as a bit of a loner, weird kid by his peers. His father is a rather cranky conspiracy theorist with Communist leanings; his mother is more upbeat, rolls her eyes when the father gets started and provides a more balanced counter to the father. This section of the book develops interesting characters and is a wonderfully written slice of life. We get hints of things being slightly awry, for example, when Robbie hears voices through an old bakelite radio.

Then come the 2nd and 3rd parts. The 2nd part jumps 'ahead' to the Installation, where a 20ish year old Robert Coyle has been recruited from the military to join this highly secret, experimental mission; even he and the other recruits are not told much about the program. This is where the science fiction/alternate reality really kicks in. The Installation is in Scotland, but very cordoned off from its surroundings; higher-ranked residents have their own vouchers instead of money, can't discuss their jobs with lower ranks, and find release, well, of all kinds at the Blue Cat. This is an alternate Scotland, where Communism has prevailed and a space program is being developed. Without giving too much away, the 3rd part shifts yet again.

Again, I loved the 1st part of this book. I was less enamored of the 2nd part. The alternate reality is interesting, and the parallels to stories of life behind the Iron Curtain are clear. The 3rd part leaves the reader with a lot to debate in terms of what actually has happened. These are all positive points. It just felt that the writing and the characters so wonderfully drawn and captured in the 1st part get lost in the more strident, even stream-of-consciousness latter sections. The new characters in these sections just don't have the same depth. That said, it does leave me wanting to talk about it with others, and even a few days after finishing it I'm still thinking about it.

Sounds interesting! That's one book for my wishlist and one thumb for your review...

ETA: Well, it would be if I could find it - if you post your review up on the book's page let me know, then I'll give it a thumbs up!

Thanks for the attempt!! I admit I'm too reluctant/shy to put the things I write here up for everyone to see. But I really appreciate that you tried!

Ah well, you know you got a well-deserved thumbs up even if you can't see it... :-)

thx, ellie! :-)

6. Misfortune by Wesley Stace (529 p.)

Ahhh, Oxfam. This one was a stab in the dark and a fingers-crossed that it would be good. Misfortune takes place in the early 19th century (largely c. 1820-1840) and tells the story of a newborn meant to be disposed of to die, but who is rescued and adopted by Lord Loveall. Young Loveall lost his much beloved sister, Dolores, at an early age and is determined to raise this baby, Rose, in Dolores' memory. Since Dolores' death, Loveall has been withdrawn, obsessed with her memory, and completely uninterested in the women put in front of him to continue the Loveall line. In Rose, he sees the perfect opportunity to present Love Hall with its heir and give her every opportunity and the protection he feels he failed to give Dolores. But every Rose has its thorns (or, in this case, thorn)... Rose is a baby boy.

This book came as a pleasant surprise. There are many wonderful aspects to it. It fits in well with Dickens - class issues and the portent of shifts in power in society; an orphan of unknown, mysterious parentage; power struggles within the families of the nobility; story lines you just *know* will come together in the end; and intrigue, quirky characters, & characters you love and ones you hate. It also explores how nature vs. nurture affect a child's upbringing and identity; in this sense it complements Middlesex (though in Middlesex the issue is gender itself, whereas with Rose it has more to do with identity). While Misfortune sometimes feels that it meanders, in the end it is a fun read, with lots of flowery prose, entertaining characters, and pre-Victorian era doings.

Another imaginary thumbs up for that review! And I've added it to my wishlist as well... Which does not bode well for my shelves - I seem to be royally falling off the wagon recently when it comes to buying books. And don't you just love those 'stab in the dark' buys that turn out to be wonderful?

That sounds really interesting! And I loved Middlesex, so this is another one for the TBR.

Thanks! It feels like I'm often running out to get things I've read about here. It was nice to get something unexpected.

As an aside, Stace is also musician John Wesley Harding.

7. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (480p.)

Another Oxfam buy, though this one I knew about and was more than happy to find. Anansi Boys is intially the tale of Fat Charlie Nancy, an accountant and engaged to be married. Fat Charlie is constantly embarrassed by and in the shadow of his father, who is everything Charlie isn't: charming, gregarious, fun-loving and carefree. It is only when his father dies, in the throes of a flirtatious round of karaoke, that Fat Charlie learns who he really is. Charlie is not only the son of the (now-deceased) spider god Anansi, but he also has a brother he knew nothing about. When Charlie summons Spider, a chip off the old block, things in Charlie's life will never be the same.

Many of the standards of Gaiman's other books appear here, too: gods and the supernatural amongst us, modern bits of of traditional myth & folklore, colorful characters, and odd goings-on. I enjoy Gaiman, and the entertaining story helps overcome things like the odd moments of accent/dialect that seem to come and go in certain characters and a storyline that didn't seem entirely necessary. There's also, I can't put my finger on it, but I'll go with glibness to his writing. He thanks folks for helping with movie rights to his books, and I sometimes wonder if he is more focused on this side of the business. Still, in the end Anansi Boys is a fun read.

8. Flickan som lekte med elden by Stieg Larsson (632 p., Swedish)

This is the 2nd of the Millenium Trilogy (see msg #14 for the 1st) and it picks up about a year and a half to two years after the events of Män som hatar kvinnor. Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander once again cross paths, this time with trafficking & 3 murders at the center.

Where in the 1st book I, contrary to most, found Blomkvist to be the more compelling and complex character, Salander is definitely the driving force - in many ways - of this one. We learn much more about her and the deep-seated issues that compel her to react, often violently, to certain people and types of events. She distrusts and avoids nearly all forms of authority and trusts almost no one. For those who watch or have read Dexter, she similarly has a sense of justice that she lives by. This makes her behavior and decisions understandable, but not always comfortable for the reader.

My main criticism is that there are so many threads, some get lost in the main story. That said, Flickan som lekte med elden is a tense read with an intriguing central figure.

9. Elephant House (128 p.)

I don't like hero worship or cult of celebrity. The closest I've come to it is Edward Gorey. I'd discovered his works early on - the opening credits to PBS's 'Mystery', ballet posters around NY, illustrations, and probably more than I realized at the time. A long admirer (by the ripe old age of maybe 13 or 14), I had the chance to 'meet' him at the 5th Avenue Book Fair, where I bought and he signed a poster of The Gashleycrumb Tinies. I was shy and excited all at once. Here was someone who already was, and continued to be, an enormous influence on my sense of humor; style & design; dark, sardonic outlook on life; and so much more.

Elephant House is a quiet examination of Gorey's Cape Cod home, photographed soon after his sudden death at the age of 75 (the day I found out, I quietly closed my office door and mourned his passing). McDermott's photos capture the way Gorey lived - a collector, a cat lover, a reserved man. His anecdotes reveal much about Gorey that once again reminded me why I have been so drawn to him all these years. A book to be treasured.

>28 spacepotatoes: The prospect of learning more about Salander's past is the only thing motivating me to pick up The Girl Who Played With Fire eventually. The first book in the trilogy was ok but not as great as all the hype made it out to be, I thought. I really liked Salander's character, though, so the second book sounds more promising.

>28 spacepotatoes: Sorry you didn't like it. The books are a great way for me to keep up my Swedish reading now that I've moved. They make me wince at times, and threads trail off, but overall I'm glad I've read them.

10. If Minds Had Toes by Lucy Eyre (288 p.)

I stood in Oxfam originally in the mood for Sci Fi and in a last ditch effort to get *something*, *anything*, in fact, I picked this up. I'm not sure I was in the right frame of mind for it, and that likely affects my opinion of it...

The premise of If Minds Had Toes hinges on a bet between Socrates and Wittgenstein on whether or not philosophy can change someone's life for the better. Their subject: 15 1/2 year old and all-around regular kid Ben. Their go-between: 24 year old Lila, who also lives in the World of Ideas, a sort of Limbo for philosophers. Ben is introduced to the World of Ideas, where he is brought in on discussions about life, morals, ethics, free will, and other areas of philosophy.

I read recently that the reader shouldn't hear the author's voice when reading a book; the characters should be strong enough to come through and stand on their own. And that was my biggest problem with this novel. I felt the author's presence the entire time. Each trip to the World of Ideas felt episodic, contrived, merely a way to bring up each new topic. Conversations felt stilted. Yes, it smacks of Narnia, I suppose, in that he goes through a closet to get to the World of Ideas. Other than that, I found it lacked the charm and nuance of C. S. Lewis' wonderful series.

11. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (566 p.)

The Corrections is about a mid-Western family - their lives, their relationships to each other and to others, their thoughts, their dysfunctions, their frustrations, and their attempts to deal with all these issues. The father has Parkinson's, the mother in part doesn't want to admit the degree of his deterioration, in part she doesn't want to be burdened with it, and the 3 children (all moved to the east coast and adults, 1 married with children) are battling emotional demons of their own.

This has been sitting unread for several years now. At first, I hated it. I didn't like any of the characters, finding them grating and/or unsympathetic. The writing felt unnecessarily repetitive, flowery and overwrought (and I tend to like a more descriptive writing style).
Then I settled in to the book a bit more. In the end, I looked past the individual characters and the writing style/word choices (which drove me nuts to the bitter end - scalpy? a crowd of human beings?) and focused on the emotions and relationships.

Whether you like it or not, this book captures the complexity of family: the tensions between family members who misunderstand one another; the desire to escape or distance yourself from family, and the (sometimes simultaneous) desire to be loved and taken care of by them; the obtuseness of family members; the endless attempts to live up to family expectations, and often feeling like you are falling short, whether they think you are or not; the conflicting feelings of wanting to criticize & complain about your family, yet heaven forbid anyone else (including your own spouse and children) do the same. Strip away the specific events and characters and examine the raw emotions and relationships below, and you're bound to recognize bits of your own experiences in there. And that can be an uncomfortable exercise.

Män som hatar kvinnor or The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo

Anansi Boys

Inserted (belatedly) just to get active touchstones for messages #14 & #25... - or not. What *is* it with these two books??

This has been sitting unread for several years now. At first, I hated it. I didn't like any of the characters, finding them grating and/or unsympathetic.

That perfectly describes why I only read the first few chapters and stopped. I'll have to tackle it again--especially since I got it from my son (though I'm still a bit worried about the significance of him giving me this book!)

I've got to say, it was a book that left me somewhat emotionally exhausted. You don't like them, but you somehow understand them and see bits of your own relationships in them - which then feels even worse because you don't like them....

Your note reminded me that I got it as a 2nd hand from my mother, granted with the warning that it wasn't an easy/light book. I'm hoping she didn't see me in any of the kids. ;-/

12. Halting State by Charles Stross (414 p.)

It is no secret that I enjoy cyberpunk, near fiction, alt fiction, sci fi, etc., so I was admittedly predisposed to liking this book. I was not disappointed. And despite a certain amount of acronyms and tech jargon, I found the book eminently enjoyable.

Halting State takes place in the near future, 2017, in an independent Scotland (and Scotland has the euro; England is still using pounds). LARPs (live action role playing) & MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games) are par for the course, everyone wears camera-video screen glasses, and taxis are unmanned, instead being driven remotely. The three main characters, Sue (cop sergeant), Elaine (forensic accountant) and Jack (gamer, programmer), are brought together when they are each called in - for very different reasons - to solve a robbery. The thing is, the robbery took place *inside* an MMORPG. So is it really a crime? What motivated it? What's at stake? And what's really going on?

Halting State uses the 2nd person and present tense, each chapter focusing on one of the 3 main characters. These are tricky devices, but for me they suited the novel perfectly. One of the appeals (to me, at least) of the idea of virtual reality and gaming is the ability to feel simultaneously like you are directly in the action and yet safely removed from it, looking at it from the outside. Using the 2nd person & present tense throughout captures that feeling - you aren't right inside the character's head, as in 1st person, nor are you fully outside it as with 3rd person. Other aspects of the novel lend themselves to a SIMs experience, too. For example, cops can spot people with criminal records by colored diamonds rotating over their heads.

This book is what's best about speculative near-future fiction. It marries some futuristic technology and politics, but these developments feel oh-so-near to where we are headed now; in fact, most of the technology in this book already exists. In addition, there is a lot of (both sardonic and pun) humor*, but without becoming annoyingly wink-wink-nudge-nudge. Stross makes sharp observations about the future of technology, business and geopolitics, and you sense none of it is that far off from becoming reality.

*one chapter subheading: "making plans for Nigel".

13. A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld (197 p., graphic novel)

After Hurricane Katrina, Neufeld volunteered for 3 weeks with the Red Cross. That work led to what became A.D., a graphic novel that primarily follows 7 people's experiences as they stay through the hurricane, evacuate from it, or a bit of both. Neufeld provides some background on the hurricane, shows the different reactions to announcements to evacuate, the experiences during the hurricane, and then the aftermath.

The panels are well done - solid colors provide a stark backdrop to the events. His 7 subjects come from different backgrounds and represent a spectrum of what people went through in New Orleans - from the shopkeeper and his friend determined to tough it out (pretty stubbornly and unabashedly so) and protect the store; to the woman and her mother, niece and niece's daughter who eventually end up in the Superdome; to the Doctor who holds a hurricane party in his French Quarter house; to those who decided (very reluctantly, especially in one case) to evacuate. It also revisits them two more times after the event - in the sections "The Diaspora" and "The Return".

I appreciated that, for the most part, the book focuses on events and the individual stories, not beating the reader over the head with what went wrong and who to blame. There is one conversation that felt like the political version of product placement - you understand why it's there, but it comes across as awkward, stilted and obvious. However, the overall impression is an honest recounting of what happened before, during and after through the eyes of these 7 people.

For the earlier online version, as well as some other bells and whistles (e.g., links to a "making of" video with some of the people from the book) see Smith Magazine here.

A.D. sounds very interesting. There have been so many good graphic novel recommendations lately on LT. It's neat to see the format being used to tell such a wide range of stories these days. I will be adding this one to the TBR, thanks for the review!

Thanks! I've come late to graphic novels, thinking of them only as comic books, but have learned the error of my ways. These days, I really enjoy a good one now and again.

14. Mystère rue des Saint-Pères by Claude Izner (French, 283 p.)

I think in English this was called Murder on the Eiffel Tower. It is the first in a series written by two sisters, Liliane Korb and Laurence Lefèvre. I was drawn to a few things about this series. First, the "detective", Victor Legris, runs a used bookshop. His father-figure, who came into his life around the time of his father's death when he was a young boy, is Kenji Mori. Second, it takes place in Paris at the end of the 19th century; in this book, the World Fair and the new Eiffel Tower take center stage (people are dying of bee stings - or is it muuuuurder? well, of course it's murder!). It is the time of Impressionism, literature, industry and steel. The idea of mysteries (a genre I enjoy) in this setting and with these characters seemed a slam dunk.

Unfortunately, something about it fell flat. I chalked it up to disappointingly, at times frustratingly, rusty French. Then I read other reviews. In the end, I come down somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed the setting, but wished there were more of it. I like the idea of Legris, but wished the bookstore didn't seem like such an afterthought for him (something even Kenji and his other co-worker Joseph bemoan multiple times in the course of events). His romantic dalliances were, to an extent, annoying and in one case just seemed unnecessary to the overall plot. In addition, it took about 100 pages for me to feel like the book somewhat kicked in; when the total is under 300 pages, this isn't a great sign.

All that said, I have the next two and will give them a fair shot and hope that the characters grow more, that we get more of a feel for the milieu, and that the mysteries are, well, more intriguing. Fingers crossed...

15. Brooklyn by Colm Tóibín (253 p.)

This one popped up on all kinds of best of 2009 lists from authors and critics alike. I see why.

Brooklyn starts in 1950s Ireland. It is post-war, and jobs are hard to come by. Eilis Lacey, whose father died and left behind her mother, an older sister, and 3 brothers, has a great head for numbers and wishes to become a bookkeeper. When her older sister, Rose, arranges for Eilis to live and work in Brooklyn, NY, Eilis realizes is obliged to make the move to help out her family. Once there, she goes through homesickness, witnesses cultural changes coming (for example, the store where she works decides to allow blacks to shop there, and makes it clear to all employees that everyone is welcome; she is one of the few females - and the only Irish - in her night classes at Brooklyn College, where she studies to get a bookkeeping certificate; she experiences the new flavors of Italian food), and begins to find her place in the immigrant salad bowl that is NY.

While I have chosen to be an expat (two times over now) and have learned to embrace the bumps that go with each upheaval, Eilis has this decision made for her. As such, she spends much of the book examining her experiences as an outsider, seeing things happening around her and to her, but at the same time maintaining a distance from it all. She accepts things dispassionately, as if this, too, must be what is expected of her. And yet, the time comes when she has to make a decision.

We get a brief glimpse of the disconnect one can feel, not just the physical distance of being in a new country/place, but an emotional distance - that feeling that your life is happening to you. We see that decisions can be difficult, emotions complicated - there's no clear right or wrong, no clear good guy or bad guy. Home and family, too, are comfortable, familiar, needy and stifling all at the same time. Maybe not much happens; and yet there is so much there.

Great review of Brooklyn. You captured the tone of this book perfectly! I'm going to go see if you posted it and give it a thumbs up!

eta: Couldn't find it! :-(

Thanks so much! I enjoy doing the reviews but tend to think I'm not treading any groundbreaking territory to put them fully out there. But I really appreciate the attempt and the comment!

16. La disparue du Père-Lachaise by Claude Izner (302p., French)

In English, The Père-Lachaise Mystery. The 2nd in the Victor Legris detective series. See #37 above. My feelings about the series remain pretty much the same. I'm not drawn in by Legris. His eager employee, and emerging sidekick, Joseph seems to do most of the work, and yet Legris gets "top billing". The characters I'm more interested in once again get superficial time, whereas the storylines I'm less drawn in by get a lot of print.

And the writing still seems patchy - I just start to get into it a bit, when I find myself once again frustrated by an almost Harlequin-esque quality, or a switch in tone. Given that the books are written by sisters, I often found myself wondering if there is one sister whose writing I like, and the other less so.

In any event, this one picks up in 1890. A character from the 1st book disappears after a seance/meeting in Père-Lachaise cemetery. Victor is approached to help find her. More murders occur. I think I'll hold off on the 3rd for a bit (though it kills me not to finish off my b'day stack in one fell swoop)...

17. The Night Sessions by Ken MacLeod (368 p.)

The 2nd to last in my b'day haul and the 2nd near-future alt. fiction in Scotland from the batch (see also Halting State, msg #34 above). Despite falling into a similar genre, the two books are quite different.

The Night Sessions takes place after the Faith/Oil Wars. Religion & State have been completely separated in the US, former-UK (hints that Scotland is independent), Australia, for example. Fundamentalists still exist, and many have left or been exiled to New Zealand. Religion is allowed, but it is clearly grudgingly tolerated by the apostate State. The sun is blocked by soletas to keep global warming in check, and there are two giant Space Elevators - the Atlantic and the Pacific. Humanoid robots were attempted, but largely discontinued because of the unsettling feeling humans got from them. Most have been replanted into more "acceptable" robot bodies, but still have developed individual emotions and beliefs. Others have also migrated to New Zealand to hide where they feel more accepted. And a few still live in, but apart from, society.

At times a bit uneven, overall I really enjoyed this book. The tensions between religion and nation are current. For followers of the recent Battlestar Galactica series, you will see many parallels with the Cylons here. Religion, apostasy, faith, fundamentalism, and humanity are explored in this entertaining thriller.

18. Sommarboken by Tove Jansson (191p., Swedish)

The Summer Book in English.

Known more for her Moomin works, Jansson here relates the story of 3 people, the grandmother, Sophia (granddaughter), and the father, through a series of vignettes. The 3 live together on an island in the Gulf of Finland archipelago. In fact, the vignettes focus mainly on 6-year-old Sophia and her grandmother - their conversations and small events over the course of 1 summer.

This book reminded me of The House on Mango Street, not in terms of subject matter, but in the richness and depth of the vignettes, which provide slices of life, a series of small windows into a concentrated period. It develops the relationship between the aging grandmother and her young granddaughter. This is not a book with lots of action or tension, and that is its beauty.

19. The Cry of the Sloth by Sam Savage (248 p.)

A mostly epistolary novel, with occasional writings, of Andrew Whittaker. Whittaker is editor of a literary journal called 'Soap', he's a (bad) landlord, and a divorcé. There are parts of this book I thought were funny (his letter in response to someone's 2nd attempt to submit to Soap is great). I can see the comparison to Confederacy of Dunces, a book I despised. I did like this much better. His fragile hold on keeping things together comes through clearly, not just in the letters when he is asking tenants or family for money, but also in the ones where he writes letters to the editor of the local newspaper under anagrammed versions of his own name. Like the movements of the sloth, his unhinging is slow and steady.

20. Luftslottet som sprängdes by Stieg Larsson (The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest) (709 p., Swedish)

This is the 3rd and final in Larsson's Millenium trilogy with Mikael Blomkvist and Lisbeth Salander. While I found this one a decent page turner, I couldn't help feeling that, with tighter editing, books 2 & 3 could have been one book. There are few surprises in this one. Luftslottet picks up precisely where book 2 left off, and largely involves pre-trial and trial events and a lot of government intrigue. In that sense, it has more in line with a John Grisham or John LeCarré novel than the earlier two. There is one storyline that I think was wholly unnecessary. Again, though, it was a good summer read and ties up the series.

21. Breakfast at Tiffany's by Truman Capote (111 p.)

I misjudged my vacation reading and found myself without a book for the 1 day left. Luggage restrictions (and a shelf full of unread books back home) meant I didn't want to go buy one, so I looked for a quick read off the shelf of where we were staying. Having neither read the novella nor ever seen the movie (I know, I know!), I thought this would be perfect.

It wasn't at all what I thought, and I'm curious now to see what the movie does with the story. In many ways, Holly Golightly is not an entirely likeable character - she floats through life getting men to help her out and uses people when it suits her, all the while laughing about it. As iconic as Hepburn has become for the role, while reading it I couldn't help thinking Capote was writing, at least in part, about Marilyn Monroe, a friend of his in real life and for whom he seemed to have a mix of fondness and sympathy (funnily enough, a quick search on B a T's and Marily Monroe does show that he wanted Monroe to play the part) - a lively party woman with looks & charms that men immediately fall for and remain entranced by; a woman who comes from the sticks and wants to put those times behind her; and a woman who tends to go for older men, both intellectuals and those with shady backgrounds.

What I liked about the short stories in Music for Chameleons holds true here, too. The first person narrative is done in a way that feels like a blur between fiction and reality. The narrator is a writer, struggling to get stories published, briefly off-put at Golightly's nonchalance when a piece gets accepted. She is a woman who, despite her lightness and flightiness, leaves a lasting impression on those she meets, even after she is well out of their lives. This is true not only for the characters in the book, but also for the reader.

Hi ljbwell, the film of Breakfast At Tiffany's is actually my favourite film, but it's quite different from the book and rather "Hollywood-ised". I think there's something of the same selfishness about Hepburn's Golightly, but it's hard to believe that she was originally a country girl and that her "profession" is quite what it's supposed to be. I adore the film and wouldn't change anything about it, but as an adaptation of the novella it's probably disappointing. It's ages since I read the book, so I've probably forgotten a lot, but I'd be interested to know what you think.

The way you describe the character in the book, it sounds like MM would be a better fit. You make me want to both read the book and watch the movie again.

Hi there- interesting stuff about Breakfast at Tiffanys, I've never even thought about the book seeing as the movie has so much in your face imagery nowdays. It's great to read them first though, it'll be interesting how the movie compares for you. (now that I've forgotten most of the movie, it might be a good time to read the book!)

Hi all, and thanks for the comments. I don't know when it happened, and maybe not having seen the film helped, but at some point I just remember thinking how much it sounded like Monroe. This went from gentle niggling to firmly planted impression at the part with the name change (Golightly's Lulamae Barnes to Monroe's Norma Jeane Mortenson/Baker; plus Capote originally had Golightly named Connie Gustafson...).

Either way, your comments about the movie make me want to see it even more now! Thanks!

22. First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde (416 p.)

In my defense, I finished this book a couple weeks ago and am only just getting to posting now. On the downside, 50 is looking well out of reach for the year. Argh.

In any event, this is the 5th Thursday Next BookWorld adventure, picking up with Thursday in her 50s, wife and mother of 3. Odd things are going on in BookWorld, many of the same bad guys make an appearance, and the reality TV craze is threatening literature as we know it.

As always, an entertaining summer read. Fforde bemoans the death of books and the bookstore. He loves a good story. Given the ending, it is safe to say that there will be a 6th in the series.

Still chugging along, though well shy of where I thought I'd be towards the end of the summer.

23. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams (219p.)

A fun read. The 5th in the Hitch Hiker trilogy. It has his usual characters, themes, travel through space and parallel universes. My main issue was that it has been so long since I read the 1st four that I mostly had to enjoy the book on its own, with vague recollections of the various characters. It still made me laugh out loud in a few parts, and served as a reminder as to why I'd liked the 1st ones so much.

Hi lbjwell! I never did get around to following up on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I thought it was pretty overrated when I read it and didn't care too much for Larsson's writing style. The movie, though, was fantastic. I think cutting out all of the extraneous things that didn't contribute to the plot made a big difference. And, it got me interested in the next book. I just finished The Girl Who Played With Fire last week and really enjoyed it. Still thought it could have been written better, but it did keep me turning the pages in many places. I'm looking forward to the last book in this set!

>52 ljbwell:, keep chugging! That's what it's all about really isn't it! You look like you're doing pretty well (those 400+ page books can slow you down ay!).

>53 spacepotatoes:, fun name spacepotatoes, I have to agree with you there on The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo....I never got past that one on account of it being to stressful for me to read- had to keep going to see what happened, and ended up reading all blimming night and feeling very tense!

@53 & 54: Absolutely agree he c/should have been edited down. I found the 3rd book frustrating both on that front and on its being too Grisham-esque. Still, they kept me entertained.

In the spirit of seeing what I can salvage from the year:

24. The Dear Green Place by Archie Hind (248 p.)

Having moved recently to Glasgow, I'm trying to read a bit more Scottish literature. The Dear Green Place tells the story of Mat Craig and his young adulthood in working-class Glasgow. As a writer, he is concerned about art, education, literature. However, he is also from a world that doesn't fully understand his drive and puts more emphasis on 'honest work' - hard physical labor. To that end, he works in a slaughterhouse. Mat is torn between these two worlds - the physical and the artistic. He is married, his wife eventually expecting their 1st child.

This book is both tender and raw, gentle and brutal. I think it is at its best in the slaughterhouse (and as a vegetarian, that is saying a lot) - the scenes are vivid, the camaraderie of the men working there, (especially one of) their suspicions about Mat's other interests. Beautifully written.

25. Firmin by Sam Savage (232 p.)

Firmin is the tale of a runt rat, born in the basement of a 2nd-hand bookshop in Boston to an alcoholic mother, the smallest of 13 siblings. Unable to fight with the bigger siblings, Firmin is reduced to gnawing on books. As a result, he is able to absorb what he eats. He becomes a literary rat, able to read and with dreams of joining the Big Ones of literature. He sees the run-down bookshop owner as a kindred soul, and feels for him knowing that the shops on the square the bookstore is on is due to be demolished.

This is a fun read - though not always light-hearted, and definitely not a children's book. The book takes a bit of a turn mid-way, but does come back to the central storyline, which is when it is at its best. Good story about reading, literature, change and living as an outsider/in the shadows.

26. Spies by Michael Frayn (234 p.)

An elderly man goes back to the English village of his childhood and looks back at events during WWII. He recounts and examines his friendship with Keith, another boy in the village and an only child (and he is basically Keith's only friend). Everything changes when one day Keith announces his mother is a German spy.

This is a story that plays with perspective. It was interesting how the narrator sometimes referred to his childhood self in the 3rd person - distancing himself, examining this stranger's actions, looking back in puzzlement or dismay at who this person was. Other times he tells the story in the 1st person - bringing the reader in to the immediacy and urgency of the events, the importance that the boys gave them at the time, but also to keep the reader from fully knowing what is really going on (though we clearly know more than the boys). Frayn creates a tense atmosphere and mounting dread about what the truth behind the boys' suspicions is. He takes a fun child's game of spying on and tailing neighbors and makes it ominous laden with layers that the narrator only understands better in his adulthood. At the same time, he brings you in to his frustrations - those moments as a child when you want to do the right thing (or something other than what you actually do) but find yourself doing something else. Highly recommended.

27. O Caledonia by Elspeth Barker (160 p.)

The book opens with the death of Janet, a teenager, the oldest of 5 siblings. It then goes back to recount her story. She's a bookish loner, the daughter of the headmaster of a boys' school in the remote, austere Scottish highlands. She loves words & learning (except arithmetic), and finds that others - including her family - don't understand her. From a young age she is seen as weird, to be avoided.

I was treated to a trip to Alnwick, England to spend pretty much as much time as I wanted in Barter Bookstore, a used bookstore & cafe housed in a converted train station. Scouring the fiction shelves, I came across this novella. With comparisons to E. A. Poe, coupled with the Scotland setting, it was a definite find. It isn't always clear if the reader is supposed to sympathize with Janet (there are often justifications for her actions that those around her don't understand or want to hear) or also to find her odd (she is socially awkward, difficult to go on trips with, gets others into trouble, chooses to be different). It is a book I could see reading again - finding details I'd missed, or coming to new interpretations. A keeper.

28. Fatherland by Robert Harris (388 p.)

For years, I've been waiting to come across Fatherland in a used bookstore. My husband, knowing how much I enjoy alternate history/reality fiction had long been recommending it to me and it was high on my list. Turns out it wasn't exactly the book he thought (now SS-GB is high on my list), but still recommended it. Very glad he did.

It is 1964. Hitler is in power and his 75th birthday celebrations are nearing. The Greater German Reich extends from Germany east to the Urals. President Kennedy (no, not John, but...) is due to visit. Xavier March, one of Berlin's Kripo (Kriminalpoizei) homicide investigators and with the SS rank Sturmbannführer (Major), has been called to examine the drowned body of an old man.

This is a very entertaining thriller with all the fixings: a divorced, sardonic policeman; a young, feisty female American journalist; the government's and police officials' misdeeds coming to light but those in power doing whatever it takes to hold on; conspiracies, international and domestic intrigue; a race against time (and evildoers) to get to the bottom of what's really going on. And all set in a what-might-have-been Europe (brief aside: the relationship between March and his son becomes an interesting one, and one that is particularly telling about the nature of WWII Germany, and subsequently this alternative empire). It is a tense ride to the inevitable revelations of what those in power are fighting to keep from seeing the light of day.

29. The Affinity Bridge (350 p.)

Steampunk. Victorian England. Murders. Zombies. Airships. Automatons. A glowing policeman. Occasional nifty steampunky gadgets. Yay!

And the frequent misspelling of "hanger" instead of "hangar". In a book centered on airships. Written by a man who is not only an author, but also an editor and publisher. So help me, it drove me crazy. I understand that spelling is falling by the wayside, and that this is a common enough error, but it is a freaking key feature to the book (and the genre): zeppelins and where they are kept. And that isn't in the object you hang your clothes on (though this makes the tour of the "hanger" particularly entertaining to imagine).

OK, stepping off that soapbox... I think this would make a much better movie than it did a book. Play up the gadgets and other visuals, tighten - or do away with - some of the storylines (there are a couple that really could be done without and not affect the overall story), and you've got a fun film. As a book, however, it has its flaws.

The duo investigating the goings on are Sir Maurice Newbury, an Investigator for the Crown, and Miss Veronica Hobbes, his strong willed (usually) and independent new assistant. While she is often outspoken, a keen observer and willing to get stuck in, she miraculously either loses her nerve, or gets in the way, or... so that Newbury ultimately has to do the vast majority of the physical bits. Though she's there to tend to him each time afterward. This becomes apparent in the 100+ pages at the end (nearly 1/3 of the book) devoted to 4 successive conflicts/chases.

Have I mentioned that every time the 'glowing policeman' came up, I couldn't help thinking of Scooby Doo?

Don't get me wrong. The book is entertaining. But it could have been so much better.

Fingers crossed for the 24th...

As a complete aside,

1. I am currently multitasking: entering this review and watching Swedish election results.

2.#62 is in reference to having thrown my name in the hat on my 1st early reviewer lottery on a book I really, really want. Really.

3. And I've started putting up some of my reviews from the past few years as public reviews. Eek.

That said...

30. The City of Dreaming Books written and illustrated by Walter Moers (461 p., English translation from German)

Actually, to be more accurate, this was translated by Moers from the original Zamonian into German, then translated into English. :-)

The City of Dreaming Books is the 3rd (or 4th) of the Zamonian fantasy/adventure books, and far and away my favorite; in fact, it is a new favorite book in general. As with the others in the series, this one can be read on its own without having read any of the others. This one recounts the adventures of Optimus Yarnspinner, a young Lindworm dinosaur, a Zamonian species that has a strong appreciation for literature and writing. Each lindworm has an authorial godfather. On his deathbed, Yarnspinner's leaves him an unpublished story, the most incredible piece of writing by an unknown author. Yarnspinner heads off to Bookholm in search of the author, and in search of his own authorial voice. Once in Bookholm, Yarnspinner encounters adventures and dangers both above ground and in the labrynthine catacombs below Bookholm.

This is a book about the magic of books and writing. Bookholm, the Catacombs & Unholm are teeming with writers, booksellers, bookhunters, antiquarians, and critics of all stripes. Writing is a mystical, magical art - the best authors rumored to have experienced the "Orm".

As with the rest of the series, this is one character's journey of discovery - of new worlds, new creatures, and most importantly of himself. Along the way, I was constantly reminded why I love books - that discovery of new worlds, real or imaginary; the excitement of learning; and the beauty and power of a well-written book.

Finally, a quick excerpt which captures how I often feel about reading and language:
"I've read and long forgotten many books in my life, but their important features have lodged in my mental net, ready to be rediscovered years or decades later. The incorporeal books of the Weeping Shadows were another matter. They had passed through me like water trickling through a sieve. I thought I'd forgotten them within seconds, but I noticed the next day that some of them had lodged in my mind after all. /I suddenly knew words I'd never read before. I knew, for example, that 'plumose' was an archaic synonym for 'feathered'. Although this knowledge may at first sight seem useless, whenever I visualise a young chick the word plumose strikes me as far more appropriate, somehow, than the humdrum word feathered."

>63 ljbwell: & others: Love that quote! And it's so true for most of the words we know that we know them from books, not our everyday language. Words come wrapped with feelings, experiences, and connotations derived from our memories of them within the context of stories told in books--both fiction and nonfiction.

That's good that you're making your reviews more public. They're always entertaining/interesting to read, even when I don't put the book on my wish list. Stopped myself after the first paragraph about Spies though, as that's on my wish list already.

And one final comment re: I was treated to a trip to Alnwick, England to spend pretty much as much time as I wanted in Barter Bookstore... How come you're back already!? ;-)

>64 bonniebooks: Exactly! There are so many books that I don't remember details about the books themselves, but I know I love them, and I know they've left their imprint on me in some important way. And words! Oh, the fun one can have with words! Sigh....

(actually, rereading your comment - do take a look at Orsenna's book. It revels in language and words, and the need to respect & protect them - and it can also be used as a great lesson on parts of speech).

I'm curious to see what you think of Spies. It is always interesting to see another reader's take on the same book.

Ha! I'll have to figure out how to put up a couple pics - of the interior and of the haul I came home with. Much longer in there and I would have bankrupted the household! ;-)

Finally, thanks for the encouragement. Pushes me to go beyond the more anonymous comforts of these threads.

31. Yellow Blue Tibia by Adam Roberts (326 p.)

Yellow Blue Tibia is an alternate history/sci fi that takes place in the USSR. The story is narrated by Konstantin Skvorecky, a sci fi writer-turned-Russian/English interpreter. Stalin has assembled sci fi writers to create the Soviet Union's next big enemy: aliens. He wants a disaster scenario that will unite the USSR against a common enemy. The writers come up with the story, and then are shuttled back to their lives, told never to breathe a word of ever having been at - much less discussing what went on at - the dacha.

Fast forward to 1986. Space shuttle Challenger has exploded. Glasnost has recently begun; the Soviet Union is changing. Skvorecky is now working as a translator/interpreter. He is brought in to interpret between The Office of Liaison and Overseas Exchange and 2 American Scientologists. A series of events after his meeting with the Scientologists begin to make Skvorecky wonder if what he and the other writers created at the dacha is beginning to come true.

There are some great passages in Yellow Blue Tibia, and some that made me laugh aloud. It is about change, power, fear, reality, fiction - and the different responses to these. It covers a fascinating time in world history, and provides alternative explanations for actual events.

32. The Dogs of Babel by Carolyn Parkhurst (265 p.)

Not all books are meant for all people. This was a loaner, and really not my style. So, at the risk of sounding highly critical of a book I'm sure many people quite liked...

I resented reading this book almost from the start. While the premise is an interesting one - a widowed man seeks comfort and answers from his dog, the only witness to his wife's death - the execution fell flat. I felt like I was reading the book equivalent of a Lifetime Original or Hallmark TV movie. Wife dies. Man haunted by her memory and unanswered questions about her death (she falls from a tree; she's not really a tree climbing type). Man reflects on their marriage in a series of flashbacks seen through his filter. Maybe rosy life not all that rosy. Man, a university linguistics professor, decides next research project will be to attempt to teach dog to speak, thus helping him find answers he needs to heal and move on. Man goes to the brink, must wake up and find way back. Others worried; others get hurt in the process.

While I could identify with many of the emotions of the book, like the aforementioned Lifetime TV movies, it felt obvious, manipulative and heavy handed. The book club-friendly interview and questions 'provided' at the end just added to the impression that this book was manufactured for a certain audience. And that audience just isn't me.

Oh, and speaking of book clubs, I've joined my first. The first book chosen is The Book Thief - a reread for me, but one of my favorite books. It'll be interesting to see other people's reactions to it.

I had a similar reaction to Dogs of Babel, and I'm pretty sure we're not the only ones. I'm still surprised to find out who loves a book vs. who doesn't. I loved the narrator in Book Thief in spite of my real-life beliefs.

>69 bonniebooks:: I tentatively brought it up with the person who lent it to me, worried I'd be unintentionally insulting. Turns out, while she did like it more than I did, she had some of the same reactions. Phew.

I've picked up Book Thief again and am reminded why I loved it so much the 1st time around. There are already things I'm picking up on more, too.

33. Uno: Lärarens lilla lovbok by Stellan Sjödén (Swedish, cartoons)

I had time to kill on a recent visit to my old hometown in Gothenburg. I'd already been walking around a while - taking pics, going to a museum, general meandering - and it was getting chilly, so I decided to visit the main public library and sit and read a bit. I looked for something I could finish in a short time and picked up Lärarens lilla lovbok.

The books is a series of humorous cartoons with observations about being a teacher. Though written in the mid-90s, about 8-10 years before I started teaching in Sweden, many of the cartoons captured in a sentence how teaching is. One of my favorites was, "Man kan bli tokiga på sina elever, men frågan är hur man skulle bli utan dem?" (loosely: Students can drive you crazy, but the question is what would you do without them?) The author-illustrator himself has written several textbooks and is clearly familiar with the teaching world. A sweet diversion and nice, quick brush-up on my Swedish.

34. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (335 p.)

I don't remember where I heard that Díaz had written this book for a very narrow audience (something along the lines of male New Jersey Dominican sci fi/comic book ghetto nerds in the 1980s). I hoped that by covering, let's say, 3-3 1/2 of those categories, and having taken enough Spanish to pick up on the language peppered throughout, that I'd find enough to identify with. In the end, it was much less daunting than I'd expected.

I was also very concerned that this was going to be like Vernon God Little - highly praised, and I'd hate it. Not the case either. I found the characters in Oscar Wao interesting and complex - not always sympathetic, but more understandable as their stories are revealed.

We learn from the start that every Dominican family is cursed (has a fukú story to tell). We are then introduced to Oscar de León and his family. Oscar starts off a quite the ladies man as a very young boy. This changes drastically over the years - he grows increasingly overweight; has an impressive vocabulary (one which his friends, family and people he meets find stiff and off-putting); is obsessed with role playing games, comic books, science fiction, etc; and, despite being completely obsessed with women, remains a virgin into his 20s. His mother is cold and dismissive. His older sister tries to look out for him, but has done her best to escape things in her own life, so can't always be around. He has very few friends, and often feels isolated from them.

And yet, despite how it sounds, this book contains a lot of warmth & humor.

The tales jump back and forth over generations - and back and forth between Santo Domingo and New Jersey. Díaz interweaves Dominican history, along with explanations of some of the comic book references, in particular in detailed, humorous (with a bite) footnotes. What makes Díaz's novel that much more impressive is that, despite his assertion that the book is for such a limited audience, the themes of loneliness, trying to fit in, family, and feeling cursed are universal.

Experimentation time. Message #59 mentions a trip to Barter Books in Alnwick (though a couple of my earlier reads were from there, too). So here's me trying to post the photo of my haul...



And a couple sections of the inside of the bookstore:

Looks like the experiment worked! I'd heard of Barter Books, but, after seeing these pictures, I need to visit it!

My book club read The Book Thief in the spring, and I fell in love with it too! Such great characters. Also glad to hear you liked Oscar Wao. My husband read it and didn't care too much for it, which made me nervous since we have similar tastes. I am looking forward to getting to it eventually.

>73 Rebeki:: and those pics don't show the café, murals, or model train, and only hints at the quotes all around! :-) It is a bit hard cover heavy, but definitely worth it. Funnily enough, found out *after* that the place where they film Harry Potter was nearby.

>74 spacepotatoes:: It's funny with Oscar Wao - there's a lot about it that I normally wouldn't like, but somehow it worked for me. It is definitely a book that, if you describe different events, it seems strange to call it 'funny', too, but somehow it is. And between context and recall of Spanish from many moons ago, the Spanish bits didn't seem tough to sort. (there are a few online glossaries - which I only found after I finished the book - that can help with the Spanish and comic book refs and such).

35. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (554 p.)

Reread this for (my first ever) book club next week. Good thing I read at home, because I bawled my way through a couple parts even more than the 1st time, and I'm not usually a crier at books.

It was actually a great reread. This time, I took the time to focus more on the foreshadowing and to think more about the themes and threads throughout the novel. I also appreciated the books more, not just the ones she steals, but the ones she is given, and how she shares books and reading with others. I paid more attention to how Death lingers and hovers and is always there, lurking (and yet both sympathetic and critical, almost melancholy at times about what he is doing). There is also so much tension: between good & evil, survival & death, fight & flight, strength & weakness, courage & cowardice, etc.

WWII Germany encapsulates these tensions perfectly. What the novel shows eloquently is that the same person can have an application in to be a member of the Nazi party while hiding a Jew at home, that a child can wear the brown uniform and also try to give bread to the Jews being marched through town on the way to Dachau. With distance, it is easy to criticize. What does it mean to honor a promise, what does it mean to share bread, or to offer seemingly small comfort to someone? What we do at those moments are what truly count, and what make others take notice - in life and Death.

36. Salem Brownstone: All Along the Watchtowers by John Harris Dunning, illustrated by Nikhil Singh (graphic novel)

I'd read a Guardian review of this last year and had it on my "to obtain" list for ages. I finally got around to getting it.

Salem Brownstone's father has died and, after years of not having any contact, Salem goes to the house he has inherited - a house that, when Salem see it, he wonders aloud if his father was an undertaker. Dr. Kinoshita's Circus of Unearthly Delights nearby lends a host of interesting characters - Cassandra Contortionist, Jynx Monkeygirl, Roscoe Dillinger the tiger tamer, Dr. Kinoshita and more. In addition, there are other shadowy figures who threaten mankind. It is up to Salem to find out about his father and save humanity.

This is a graphic novel that looks good from start to finish. The purple hardcover is decorated with characters and images from the book. The rich black etching-like illustrations inside add to the eeriness of the story. The mix of magic, the macabre, an underworld, circus folk, and slinky, dark illustrations make for a great October read.

37. Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn (203 p.)

After The Book Thief, I needed something lighter. This was just the ticket. As the title page summarizes, Ella Minnow Pea is "a progressively lipogrammatic epistolary fable". Off the coast of South Carolina lies the autonomous island nation of Nollop, home to native son Nevin Nollop, who came up with the well-known pangram, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." When the 'Z' tile drops from the phrase on the monument in town center, the Council takes this as Nollop's communicating from the grave that this letter is no longer necessary. It is not be be said or written in any form (the onomatopoeia word for the sound bees make is forbidden). Punishment is a warning, and then a lashing or trip to the stocks. A 3rd means banishment from the island. Easy enough with 'Z', but increasingly difficult as more and more tiles become unstuck.

Dunn clearly enjoys language and wordplay. In addition to being a book about letters, the book is written in letters. The epistolary format becomes more and more condensed and absurd as more letters drop. (****SPOILER ALERT: I think Dunn cheats a bit when the Council allows phonetic spellings towards the end, but I get it. END ALERT******) Yes, there's some religion v. science, censorship, and other heavier issues, but overall this is a light, fun book for those who enjoy seeing what can be done with language.

...light, fun book for those who enjoy seeing what can be done with language..

I got a little tired of the silliness of the religion/politics/censorship in Ella Minnow Pea, but loved seeing what the author was going to do without the ever-increasing list of forbidden letters. Probably couldn't be done nearly as well in languages that don't have the hundreds of thousands of words that the English language has. Some people are just so darn clever!

Bonnie, I fully agree. I don't know if I'd go and look for his footnote one, but if I came across it in a library or such, I'd probably see what he does with that.

38. The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett (Discworld 1) (387 p.)

Well, I've finally gone and done it. For years, every time I mention the books I tend to read and like, people have said things along the lines of, "So of course you like Pratchett". My friends, my students, my co-workers, bookstore sales people - all have been surprised I'd never read a single one of Pratchett's Discworld series. Until now...

I knew the bookclub that just started at work had mentioned Hogfather for the December read, and so when I saw The Colour of Magic in Oxfam, the time just seemed right.

The Colour of Magic is the 1st of the Discworld series. Primarily fantasy, but with a touch of multiverse sci fi built in, too, this book introduces the reader to the Discworld - a disc carried on the backs of 4 elephants, which stand on a giant turtle. The failed wizard Rincewind is saddled with accompanying the first tourist, Twoflower, who naïvely and excitedly runs into one dicey situation after another. Hrun the hero/barbarian, Death, various powerful mythological figures, Luggage, and Twoflower's 'camera' (an imp in a box) all also crop up at opportune times.

As the 1st of the series, it reads somewhat more like a series of episodes. Comparisons to Douglas Adams are inevitable - humor, satire, mythology, all wonderfully blended into what I think will prove to be an enjoyable series. I'm already looking forward to reading not just Hogfather, but others as well.

39. Over the reefs by Robert Gibbings (240 p., non-fiction)

Back when I went to Alnwick (see msg 72), I thought it would be fun and fitting to get a secondhand travel lit book. I love the genre and thought I'd take advantage of picking up something unusual. Over the reefs was the perfect find.

My criteria were that it cover somewhere I knew and that it was old enough to risk being dated. Gibbings wrote Over the reefs in 1948; it describes his 18 month journey through several Polynesian islands. He ends at Tahiti and Moorea, where I lived and worked for just under a year nearly 20 (eek!) years ago. So tick and tick.

What I loved was how little of it seemed dated. Yes, there are some references using words that would not be used today, and the odd reference or two to how/when the war came to the islands. But besides that, it was amazing how I could recognize much of the culture and history that I was familiar with, even if I didn't know the specific islands. It was also interesting to read about islands I didn't know about. Even then, Tahiti was already less traditional, both incorporating and more influenced by international cultures. He mentions the ring road around Moorea - one I knew well.

The book is at its best when he recounts local lore and ties it into daily life & traditions (e.g., why the men bring coconut shells and flower garlands to fish for sharks, and why the women and children back in the village remain quiet while they are gone). Moreover, these tales are often similar from island to island, which he also highlights. I appreciated that he addressed stereotypes of life, provided explanations for why it wasn't accurate, and even went so far as to compare to Western life. For example, he explains that while Polynesians may be thought to be lazy, given their hours for example for fishing, much of the work happens in the early morning or later at night. To the outside eye, it may seem like not much goes on during "work hours", but fair enough given the daily routine. Gibbings also did the engraving illustrations that are scattered throughout the book.

I have a renewed interest in travel lit, specifically older writings and am looking forward to scrounging around in used bookstores for the next gem.

40. We are all made of glue (432 p.)

This was a book club read. I'd read her other two A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian and Two Caravans and, to be perfectly honest, was not over the moon about reading this one. Better put, it isn't a book I would have sought out for myself to read.

We Are All Made of Glue is told by Georgie, wife and mother of 2 (late teen/20 yr old). She works as a freelance journalist, primarily on a publication dealing with glue and adhesives. Georgie's marriage has just fallen apart when she meets an elderly neighbor, Naomi Shapiro, who is dumpster diving through items Georgie has tossed in the anger of the breakup. A quirky friendship ensues, pushed along by Mrs. Shapiro's hospitalization and naming of Georgie as next-of-kin. The result of the friendship also brings into the picture several equally quirky characters and new friendships/relationships. Similar to her previous books, this one has elements of farce together with trying to deal with Big Issues.

And this is where I had my problems with it. Lewycka uses Georgie, a child in Kippax during the miner strikes, to be 'Gee whiz, I don't know nuthin' 'bout that', wide eyed when it comes to world issues such as the Israel-Palestine conflict. It felt forced, obvious, and predictable. The metaphor of glue as bonding agent, sticky, etc. feels heavy handed and, again, obvious. Plus, if you don't get it on your own, the connections are made explicit time and time again, which I began to find condescending to the reader. We aren't all as dim as the main character is made out to be at times. It is a quick read, and not a bad one. Just not one that will stay with me.

There may be hope for 50 yet...

41. Domedagen gryr by Arto Paasilinna (Swedish, translated from Finnish, 250p)

A loaner that has taken me an evighet (eternity) to finish. Maybe my head just wasn't in it, but I haven't fought like this to slog through a book since Tom Jones.

Itinerant lumberjack Hermanni Heiskari saves life of wealthy woman whose balloon crashes. They fall in love and she funds a 1-year project to turn him into a gentleman, allow him to travel, improve his worldly knowledge, etc. She provides her uncle as Heiskari's butler and guide through the process. Heiskari also is planning a revolution to help solve problems of unemployment. It just didn't work for me and became a battle of wills to finish.

42. But n Ben AGoGo by Matthew Fitt (Scots, 207p.)

It is 2090. Most of Scotland has been left submerged by God's Flood in 2040. Scotland consists mostly of Port, floating island parishes. The super-wealthy live on Dryland. Flood survivors dread the spread of Senga, an even deadlier HIV-like virus. Paolo Broon is a 30-year old 'cyberjanny' (cyber janitor) whose wife has succumbed to Senga and is locked away in a Kist (chest, coffin), the Senga overtaking more and more of her, but the Kist keeping her just alive until the DNA of her infector can be identified. Broon is trying to figure out who it is so he can put his wife out of her misery. The main suspect is his own criminal father who has escaped from prison and sent his son a mysterious message.

But n Ben is written in Scots, which takes some getting used to. In this sense, it reminded me of A Clockwork Orange, though in this case the language was a real one. Still, the effect was similar - reading words that were simultaneously foreign yet comprehensible in a disturbing near future setting. Funnily enough, knowing Swedish, and even French, helped a great deal. It would be an interesting book to listen to. Fitt himself writes about, "...the initial culture-shock - of seeing words your granny liked tae use and your mither tellt ye no tae use...". Not having that background added to the challenge.

That said, context and other languages all help a great deal. And it is a fun adventure story. Having lived here a bit, and previously read Buddha Da and The Incredible Adam Spark also helped.

If you enjoy wrestling with the language of Lewis Carroll's Jabberwocky or Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, then don't let the Scots scare you off.

43. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (430 p.)

My book club chose this for our December read as a fun pre-holiday book. Great choice. I'd read Colour of Magic in preparation, as I hadn't read any of the Discworld books before. While I've read that you should read the books in order to get the most out of them, this does work as a stand-alone (though I'm sure there are some jokes and such that would have been funnier had I read others).

Hogfather and Hogswatch are Discworld's version of Santa and Christmas. The Guild of Assassins has been hired to make Hogfather disappear. Death decides to go out and take Hogfather's place. Death's granddaughter, Susan, is determined to find out what her granddad is up to. And the wizards of Unseen University keep creating new gods, fairies and gnomes.

This was a perfect holiday read. Very Christmasy with a biting edge of satire and humor. It'll be interesting to see how it works as a book club book, as I don't think it should be scrutinized too deeply. But there are interesting ruminations on belief, fairness, and the naughty-nice issue, as well as fun send-ups of academia. Very enjoyable holiday read.

44. The Magus by John Fowles (656 p.)

It is 1953 and Nicholas Urfe, a young, fairly directionless bachelor, decides to take a job as a teacher at a boys school on a fairly remote Greek island. Before he leaves, he is warned by his predecessor to "beware of the waiting-room". Of course, he doesn't. What ensues are psychological games of cat and mouse led by Conchis, the mysterious owner of the salle-d'attente, and those around him. Urfe is drawn into the events and never quite knows what is going on.

This book drew me in from the start and left me wishing I knew some of the references better (really must read The Tempest!). It would go off in different directions, but I was intrigued to see how it would all end. One issue I still have is that it is hard to tell if the some of the beliefs/opinions in the book are only those of the narrator (Urfe).

I recently had the discussion with the book club about whether we could like a book where we didn't like any of the characters. Normally, that is an obstacle for me. Where The Secret History fell flat for me, The Magus excelled. Not one sympathetic or likeable character (well, except for Greece, which is as much a character as the others), but an absorbing, intriguing book that kept me turning the pages.

45. The Master and Margarita, original novel by Mikhail Bulgakov; art and adaptation by Andrzej Klimowski and Danusia Schejbal (127 p., graphic novel)

Indie graphic novel store + a yen for a good graphic novel that was a bit different = this selection. A lot of the graphic adaptations of novels are of books I've already read or plan to read. This was one that I hadn't read and didn't think I'd read in the future.

Wrong. I didn't know what to expect, but I was intrigued and now am interested in reading the complete version.

This is a wonderful book with fantastic illustrations - a mix of B&W (Klimowski's paintings) and color (Schejbal's). I think it helped to read this before the unabridged novel in that the magical realism story moves between different storylines and settings; the illustrations clearly mark these shifts. If/when I do get to the unabridged version, these shifts will be clearer.

46. Hanteringen av odöda by John Ajvide Lindqvist (335p., Swedish)

Zombies in Stockholm seemed like a good winter read. That said, this novel takes place in the heat of summer.

The story starts right in with an unusual occurrence - all electrical appliances in Stockholm turn on and can't be turned off or even safely unplugged. After, people who died within the past 2 months become undead. The sweltering summer heat adds to the stifling, rotting corpses that come back.

It is important to point out that this is less a zombie novel than a study of how people deal with loss and, suddenly, having those they had lost back in their lives (and yet not at all the same). It is also about how people react to the unusual.

It tracks essentially 3 storylines - a man whose wife has just died and moments later is alive again; a woman whose husband died about 2 months prior after long term Alzheimers, along with her granddaughter; and the mother and grandfather of a young boy who had died in an accident.

There are some loose ends and characters that aren't always consistent. In spite of that, I actually liked this better than Ajvide Lindqvist's Låt den rätta komma in. The explorations of reactions, including uncomfortable ones, was interesting. On trend, he moved from vampires to the undead. Unlike vampires, there's no romance to zombies; it is hard to be seduced by something whose body has begun to decay. Similar to Låt den rätta komma in, Ajvide Lindqvist goes beyond the traditions of the genre. If you want straightforward horror, this isn't the book for you; if you want a read that includes those elements, but goes deeper, is more psychological, this is an interesting choice.

Tantalizingly close to 50...

The first of my latest holiday haul - 4 from my husband, 3 from my SantaThing secret santa. All very exciting and couldn't wait to delve in. Started with:

47. Apex Hides the Hurt by Colson Whitehead (194 p.)

The nameless narrator is a nomenclature consultant. He was a hotshot who was able to come up with catchy, popular names for all kinds of products. He's been out of the game for a while after losing a toe (the story of which unfolds throughout the novel) and has been recruited back in to help a town re-brand itself. The town, originally called Freedom and begun by freed blacks, was later named Winthrop after the white man who came in and opened a barbed wire factory there. Now the economic tide has shifted to Lucky Aberdeen, a software entrepreneur who wants to bring the town into a hip present and put it on the map with a new name. The proposal on the table is New Prospera. The narrator has been brought in to stay in the town and help it break the deadlock (keep Winthrop, go back to Freedom, change to New Prospera) by deciding himself what the name will be.

I'd loved the quirky subtlety of The Intuitionist and was excited to receive this one. It didn't disappoint. The narrator's job is so entwined with what we call things, and yet we never learn his name. His own apex, the product to which he gave that name, was a truly flesh-colored array of plasters. There are several hidden hurts here beyond his toe or the wounds we cover with bandages. The town has layers of hurt, from its founding to the present. Names can propel, leave impressions, hurt. In Apex, he weaves in the story of the narrator together with the story of the town. Issues of names, race, history all blend into a clever, often subtle satire.

We're still in 2010, and I'm making my final push:

48. Feed by M. T. Anderson (306 p.)

The 1st of my SantaThing books! (Many thanks to Tanglewood)...

YA dystopia where over 70% of the American population is permanently, 24/7 hooked up via implants to the feed - a constant barrage of and access to news, movies, TV, banner ads, shopping, information, open and private chat. A group of high school friends head to the moon for some fun, and the narrator, Titus, meets Violet. She is different from his friends - more advanced vocabulary, more aloof, more critical of the feed. Titus, Violet and Titus's friends have a strange encounter with an old man at a club which ultimately affects Violet the most.

Anderson writes that he read issues of Seventeen and hung out in malls to get his teenspeak down; things suck, like, and he was all da, da, da. He peppers it with some futuristic terms, which works well.

Feed is a dystopic novel rooted firmly in issues of the present - the non-stop exposure to and manipulation by companies to buy their products, the constant chasing after the latest trends, no matter how bizarre. Schools are no longer run by government, but by companies (so they could all have computers and pizza for lunch); the feed can track what you like and suggest things to buy; interaction & conversation, even when sitting right next to each other, is a mix of spoken words and private chats from mind to mind. These are all extensions of what exists already, with added upcars and trips to the moon and other planets. Without giving anything away, there is a great scene when Violet's dad gets angry with Titus and starts shouting at him. It is an interesting moment. My Secret Santa pegged this one just right for me.

And my frog is hippity-hopping ever closer to 50...

49. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (128 p.)

Christmas Eve, telling ghost stories, and this tale is offered up by one of the guests. A governess, put in charge of two young orphans, Flora and Miles, never to bother the uncle, just take care of anything that comes up. She begins to see the previous governess and valet - both 'gone now' and is convinced they are after her wards. Do they exist? Are they evil? Are the children as innocent as they seem? Is the governess going mad?

I'm looking forward to the book club discussion about this one in January. I'd never read it before and was happy to be doing a gothic classic - the weather seemed right for it. Turn of the Screw is a perfect dark, chilly night winter holiday read.

Wishing my frog would do a happy dance...

50. Into the Forest by Jean Hegland

The 2nd of my 3 Santa Thing books, I finished this yesterday just in time to make my 50 for the year. Yay!

This is the story of 2 teenage sisters and their struggle to survive after an apocalypse that cuts Americans off from gas, electricity, etc. Their house is already remote in the woods and miles away from the nearest California town. Without a car, they are left very much on their own and have to learn to cope with the challenges. The events leading to the apocalypse - and to the girls' own current situation - unfold through several flashbacks woven throughout.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I did find it heavy-handed at times and thought it took a couple weird turns towards the end. But the warnings are realistic, probably even more so now than when it first came out in 1996, and the main characters and their reactions and transitions are interesting to follow.

And now kickstarting 2011 here:

http://www.librarything.com/topic/106072

Congratulations on making it to 50! I look forward to following your reading in 2011!