duaney_h's 15 Dusty Books

My First Group and Challenge on LibraryThing!

As part of my general mission this year to reduce all my material possesions I'm going to try and read through and get rid of some of my To Be Read shelves. I don't have nearly as many books as some people here, about 15 shelves in total but what I would really like is to have only books on my shelves that I love and that I can feel happy to look at instead of guilty for neglecting them.

My main enemy in this task is the library. I'm pretty good at not buying things, but free books!!! And now that Edinburgh libraries have removed the reservation charge...

Anyway I have selected a small pile from some of the different shelves and will post them up here for motivational purposes! X books are finished.

To Be Read 2010
X 1. Life of Pi by Yann Martel
X2. Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling
X3. The Oxford Book of Canadian Ghost Stories edited by Alberto Manguel
X4. The Loop by Nicholas Evans
X5. A Pattern of Islands by Arthur Grimble
X6. Sea Room by Adam Nicolson
X7. The Lost Language of Cranes
X8. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
X9. A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon
X10. The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories edited by Alan Ryan
11. Pip Pip: A Sideways Look at Time by Jay Griffiths
X 12. On the Track of Unknown Animals by Bernard Heuvelmans
X 13. The Crow Road by Iain Banks
X 14. Shanghai Baby by Wei Hui

Welcome, duaney_h!

What did you think of the Life of Pi? I loved most of it, but there were parts that were just.... odd. Definately made an impression, though.

I really enjoyed The Loop, too.

I'd also be interested in knowing what you thought of Life of Pi. I know that it was suppose have some deeper meaning about life but I didn't get it. It was an interesting read but I was left feeling like I missed something.

I also enjoyed The Loop...Nicholas Evans is one of my favorite authors.

Welcome to the group...this is my first LT Challenge as well and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. But, I'll warn you right now, this challenge will increase the size of your reading wishlist. =-O

Will be interested to read your thoughts on Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress as I have that sitting somewhere, too.:) I think Life of Pi is a bit of a boy's book -- I loved the beginning but once they were actually underway, I lost interest. (But don't mind me, I might have just been bitter that Martel got the Booker instead of Rohinton Mistry.)

Love your frog -- are you counting on progress in leaps and bounds?

I hope you like BATLCS as much as I did. It was made into a good movie, too.

Welcome to the group. Glad that you picked us for your first group and challenge.
Read and enjoyed Just so Stories , and Sea room looks interesting and has tweaked my interest.
Good luck and enjoy the books.

Welcome to the group. Like you, my problem tends to be the free books of the library. This challenge has really helped me keep my attention (and intention) toward books I already own. Your list looks very good. Have fun!

Hello!
I quite liked the Life of Pi, but kinda like ca_dmv I felt like I was missing something. I actually liked the middle part of the book the best, the first part didn't really catch my interest. But I loved the bit on the island, and the parts whith Richard Parker.
I actually found that I liked the book more after I had finished reading it than when I was in the middle of it. It stuck in my mind after it was done and I kept thinking about it at random times during the day. I think I'd like to read it again one day now that I've thought about it a bit. I guess for me it was just getting warmed up when it finished!

I finished my second book last night On the Track of Unknown Animals by Bernard Heuvelmans. The first book I've read on general cryptozoology, I thought it was really exciting and interesting. I really liked that it had a scientific basis and thought that Heuvelmans did a great job of sifting through the local tales of fantastic beasts and reports from explorers and finding the grains of truth that could be point to actual undiscovered creatures. The only thing wrong with this book is that it is quite an old book, and a lot of the information is outdated. In a lot of cases the most recent cited evidence for creatures is now 100 years old! Like reading a mystery without the ending. So now I guess I need to get a modern cryptozoology book in order to find out more recent developments...

I've never heard of cryptozoology. I'll bet that would be interesting.

Darn...another book to add to my wishlist. Maybe I won't be able to find a copy. This sounds really interesting and fun.

You might enjoy The Fortean Times. They have a regular section on cryptozoology.

I read Life of Pi twice. A year or two after I'd read it, my book club decided to read it. Without giving anything away, I knew the two perspectives you could view the story from and how I'd reacted the first time. The second time, I deliberately read it from the opposite conclusion. Totally different book.

Yann Martel's earlier book, Self was equally amazing -- dare I say even better?

Three more books down! This group is really helping me to focus my efforts.

Just So Stories were really enjoyable, The Elephant's Child is still my favourite from when I was a kid. I love the way the stories are written, and it was a great book for reading aloud (to my peace lily!). I think my favourite parts of the book were the illustrations and their descriptions which I loved.

The Oxford Book of Canadian Ghost Stories was good in places. Since it was full of short stories by different authors I liked some better than others. I generally preferred the ones set in the wilderness, which I thought were creepiest, my favourites being A tale of the Grand Jardin by W.H. Blake, Vengeance is Mine by Duncan Campbell Scott, Dreams by Timothy Findley and Death By Landscape by Margaret Atwood. I'm ashamed to say I've never read any of Margaret Atwood's books although I've been meaning to for a while... and now I want to even more.

The Loop I really liked although I wasn't expecting to. It was a present from a friend and the description on the back hinted rather to strongly at *shudder* romance than I would have liked. But I thought I'd better get on with it and I really enjoyed it. That'll teach me to judge a book from it's cover. It was one of those books where you finish a chapter and then glance at the next page and then...

Now I've started A Spot of Bother which so far I'm finding really funny.

The Elephant Child was one of my favorites and I loved reading it to my kids, using voices and pinching my nose when the crocodile had his nose. When I was young I had a vinyl recording of Just So Stories read by Boris Karloff. They were great!

"Son, son, son," said the Mother Jaguar, ever so many times, graciously waving her tail.

Love that line.

My favorite line was:

"Them that takes cakes
that the Parsee man bakes
makes dreadful mistakes"

:-D

I love the jaguar line as well! All the repeating lines like that make the stories really fun to read. My favourite poem is from How the Camel got his Hump. It really has some good advice, and is the reason my garden is now all clear of weeds!

I’ve been a bit distracted by library books recently but I have managed to read a couple of books from my shelves.

A Spot of Bother was a book my mum gave to me after she had finished reading it. The description on the back didn’t interest me much but I don’t like to give books away without trying to read them so I thought I’d better get on with it. And actually it turned out to be a very good book. It was very funny and because each chapter was from a different character’s point of view I always had to read just that one more little bit...

A Pattern of Islands was another book I wasn't too keen on but it was on the pile and I gave it a go and I'm so glad I did. I was a bit wary because the book is an account of the author's posting to the Gilbert and Ellis Islands in 1913 as part of the colonial government. I thought that the author's views of the native people might be a bit colonial and I really didn't want to read a whole book like that. Luckily I couldn't have been more wrong and I think Arthur Grimble is probably a lot more open-minded about different cultures than a lot of people around today. He tells stories about the people of the Islands which are sometimes funny, sometimes sad, or serious or happy but you can always tell that he views them with respect. He also has a very self-depreciating sense of humour and I often found myself laughing out loud, especially where he recounted his attempts at native fishing techniques. I’d definitely like to read the sequel, but it’s out of print so I’ll have to track it down somewhere.

Another one down: Sea Room by Adam Nicolson. Unlike some of the books in my TBR pile I thought I would really enjoy this book and was looking forwards to reading it. That didn't really work out. I'm not entirely sure why but I didn't enjoy reading it much at all. I found it so hard to pick up the book in order to get through another chapter. (so instead I've been reading lots of non-fiction from the library!) It was a chore! From an enjoyment point of view I would give it two stars, but I rated it as a 3 because I thought it was a good book. I can't figure out why I didn't click with it. The writing seems beautiful but I just couldn't get involved with it. There was a lot of interesting information about the Shiants and the surrounding area but it wasn't enough to catch my interest for any length of time... If anyone else was thinking about reading this book then I'd say give it a go because I have the feeling this is a personal problem I have with the book. The book will now go to a new and happy home somewhere in a charity shop (from whence it came).

I'm also reading The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories just now and getting along much better with that!

A short break... I've had some unfortunate computer game and puzzle addictions which have been holding back my reading. And then there's the library and the Christian Aid Mega Bookfair where I managed to buy 76 new books. In fact I went out today to hand in some clothes to a charity shop and came back with 5 more books...

But I'm gathering myself together again and I'm currently reading The Crow Road by Iain Banks which I'm enjoying and just last week I devoured Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress in one go (next to an open window on a hot sunny day *sigh*).

According to my records I have read 47 books this year, only 9 of which I had to start with, and acquired 125. Yay me!

Yay you, indeed! How awesome to find 76 new books at a Bookfair! Hope you didn't break the bank with them. (Even if you did, it was probably worth it!)

Another book finished: The Crow Road This one really sucked me in once the story got going and I ended up finishing it in 5 hours or so of straight reading. I even went without dinner! I didn't know much about the book before I read it, just that my mum had recommended it to me. It really turned out differently than I had expected from the beginning of the book, and in a good way! I also really enjoyed the Scottishness of the book. It's always nice reading a book where people talk like they do in your real life.

tloeffler, yes 76 books is very awesome. They were quite cheap for books, especially on 50p day, but when you buy 76 the sums soon add up... I think it was worth it though. I'd been looking forwards to that sale for months and had decided that I was going to forget about being sensible. I can still feel that happy glow when I walk past the shelf I have them all stacked on *happiness*

One more down. The Penguin Book of Vampire Stories.

I really liked this collection of stories. The stories are arranged chronologically from when they were written, the earliest vampire stories being first. This way it was quite interesting to see how ideas and styles of writing about vampires evolved over the years. Of course being made up of a variety of different authors and styles there were some stories which didn't click with me but in the majority of cases I really enjoyed them. Several of the stories I liked so much that I have had to go out and look up what else the authors have written. And so far I've only bought one!

Book 12,The Lost Language of Cranes.

Gay father and son deal with relationships and coming out of the closet.
The first section of this book I wasn't much into at all. Boring depressed middle class people in New York. I felt very dispirited reading it. However from the second section onwards I liked it a lot better. Maybe it was because I got to know the characters a bit better, or because things started changing so that there was a glimmer of light in the pit of depression. I can now take this one off my shelf and send it off to a charity shop for rehoming.

I have one book left to read from my original selection and then I can choose another selection from my shelves to line up. I'm pretty excited about that. It's going to be like going to a bookshop, except all the books are free and live in my house! yay!

Finally book 13!
I have been moving around a bit this summer so I haven't been reading very much. But now I am settled down in my nice new countryside home and ready to fill up the long dark evenings with lots of books. To this end I have joined a new library and already have 3 books from it. Unfortunately I left all of my own library at home so I have no choice but to read new books or library books until I can transport some up here...

Anyway I brought one book from my shelves which is a reread from way back when I was in high school. I loved Shanghai Baby the last time I read it which must have been about 10 years ago now. Mainly I think because I fell totally in love with the main character's boyfriend, Tian Tian, and being a high school girl and all... Any way I wasn't quite so taken with it this time around. I didn't fall in love with this book like I remember the first time. I wasn't quite so in love with Tian Tian. And Coco pretty much annoyed me. It is a sad story. I guess the themes it deals with don't really have much relevance to my life. It was hard to identify with what was going on in the character's heads. Art and fahion and young people being young and hopeless are mainly the theme. It's a very urban book and the setting in Shanghai is quite important. I often have this problem with books set in cities which just don't much interest me. I think I'll keep this book for the time being as I loved it so much the first time. Maybe I'll come back to it in another 10 years or so and see what I think of it then.

Maybe you should get some books from the library that you know you own, read them, and then when you get your own books back, they can go directly onto the "Already Read" Shelf! You're so close!

Actually I've come back home this weekend for my darling little guinea pig Jack's funeral :( so I'll be able to pick up quite a few of my older books to take back with me. That is a very good idea though, might do that once I've run through my new supplies.

Oh, sorry to hear about Jack!

My sympathy about your little Jack!