Benita's Big Bad Book Pile

I finally decided to take this challenge because one of my New Year's resolutions is to only buy one book per month for my personal library. Anything else I want to read I can get at a library. However, what do I do with the 700+ books I have in my house? Of course, the answer is that I should read them. So I am going to try to read 25 of them this year. That would leave me with some time to read books for my various book discussion groups. I think it's a doable New Year's resolution. I'll sure give it the ol' collage try!

Here is the list of the books off the shelf I have read in 2010.

134140::Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig
2299244::Wicked by Gregory Maquire
4200006::Once Upon A Time in the North by Philip Pullman
4797738::Calder Game by balliettblue::Blue Balliett
1355461::A Duke of Her Own by Eloisa James
2294891::Titan's Curse by riordanrick::Rick Riordan
409::Blind Assassin by atwoodmargaretatwood::Margaret Atwood
1070881::Collapse by Diamond, Jared
63521::Warrior Queens byAntonia Fraser
49760::History of the World in Six Glasses by standagetom::Tom Standage
4737264::God's Middle Finger by richardsgrant::Richard Grant
7779::Shadow Divers by kursonrobert::Robert Kurson
2108::Foucault's Pendulum by ecoumberto::Umberto Eco
4179539::Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely
1541442::Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by larssonbystieg::Stieg Larsson
1769540::Girl Who Played With Fire by larssonbystieg::Stieg Larsson
4264201::Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan
4806661::Madapple by meldrumchristina::Christina Meldrum
6204462::Ghost Medicine by andrewsmith::Andrew Smith
55735::Feed by andersonmt::M. T. Anderson
35299::Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom
3214306::Sepulchre by katemoss::Kate Mosse
20031::Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
5321468::Angel's Game by zafoncarloruiz::Carlos Ruiz Zafon
71270::One Thousand White Women by fergusjim::Jim Fergus
928042::The Lemon Tree by tolansandy::Sandy Tolan
25077::Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by gurganusallan::Allan Gurganus
2360877::Free Food for Millionaires by leeminjincollect::Min Jin Lee
3305891::Elijah of Buxton by curtischristopherpau::Christopher Paul Curtis
5677::All Over Creation by lozekiruth::Ruth L. Ozeki
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
1363050::Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clark
Ataturk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal by Patrick Balfour Kinross

My rule for books off the shelf is going to be any book that came into my library before January 1, 2010. For this challenge I am going to start keeping track of my reading as of January 1, 2010.

So in January 2010 I read the following off the shelf books.

Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig
Wicked by Gregory Maquire

I had fun with the Pink Carnation and really disliked Wicked.

In February I started reading the following two books off of my shelves

Collapse by Jared Diamond
Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus

I hope I can get through these two by the end of the month. But I have also had to start reading two books for my book discussion groups as well.

Started listening to Warrior Queens today. I've had this on cassette for several months and think it is time to get it listened to. Purchased this one at the Friends of the Library Book Store. It's an old library copy.

Did you already finish Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All? If so, how was it? Is it non-fiction, historial fiction, or something else?

Welcome to the group. I find that trying to buy just one book is like trying to eat just one Lays potato chip...can't have just one!!!

My cassette player in the car went on the fritz so I had to stop listening to Warrior Queens to replace it I listened to Once Upon a Time in the North. I picked this one because I have had it on the shelf for a year or more and wanted something short and sweet to fill in until I get the cassette player replaced. The whole weekend went by and I didn't get to Best Buy to get a new cassette player so I finished Once Upon a Time in the North. That makes three of my Off-The Shelf books done out of 25. Only have 22 more to read or listen to before the end of the year.

Because I still don't have the new cassette player purchased I started listening to The Calder Game. This is a YA book that I have been wanting to read for a long time. I finally purchased the CD's while at an ALA conference. I was surprised today when I added it to my list of current reads that I got it in 2008. This one will definitely be on "off-the-shelf."

So in February I finished only one book from off-the-shelf.

Once Upon a Time in the North

This is really a novella or short story that is part of the His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. It is the background story of Lee Skorsby. The Texas aeronaut and balloonist and his demon Hester. This was a fun quick listen. Recommended for anybody who has read the other books in the series. I hope that Pullman will continue to publish more of these short stories set in his alternative world.

Welcome to the group! Looks like you're making good progress! I'm an avid audio book listener too, although I only get them from the library.

Got the new cassette player so as soon as I finish Calder Game I will go back to Warrior Queens. Couldn't believe it but actually found a cassette player at Radio Shack. It cost $50.00 but it works and allows me to listen through my car speakers. It seems that anytime I have needed some obscure piece of electronic equipment Radio Shack has had it. More than I can say about Best Buy. Now on to listening to more books.

And after I finish listening to most of these there will be far fewer recorded books coming into my house. They cost too much and it is better to get them from the library.

Finished Calder Game so now have four books read on the Off the shelf challenge. I had trouble with the cassette player so didn't get Warrior Queens finished. However, as soon as I finish the new book in the CD player I will go back to Warrior Queens as I am very interested in what Antonia Fraser has to say about that subject.

While wandering around the various groups on LT I discovered an Atwood in April group. So I pulled Blind Assassin from my shelves. If I haven't finished that dag nabbed Midnight's Children before April 1 I am moving on to Atwood. This book will be one for my off-the-shelf challenge as I have owned it for four years. It is just begging to be read.

Being sick for three days sure helps the by-the-bed-book-pile shrink. I finished A Duke of Her Own which is one more for the off-the shelf challenge. That now makes five books for the year. Yeah me!

This one was a romance novel. I felt so awful that I didn't want to read anything heavy. This book was just what I needed. The author did a good job of plot and characterization. She even managed to work in some of Shakespeare's Sonnets. Just the ticket for when I was sick and only drinking tea and eating bread.

Book number 6 off the shelf!

I finished Titan's Curse. This one is book 3 of the Percy Jackson series. The author sure has a sense of humor and I think this series would be wonderful to use in the classroom. He totally turns Greek Mythology into something that kids would love. I won't quite say that he rocks, but he does do lots of teaching in these books and might turn kids on to mythology.

Book number 7 off the shelf!

I finished Blind Assassin for the Atwood in April group read. This was a very good book. It surely deserved the Booker Prize! I have two more Atwood books on my shelves so maybe it is time to get them down and read them as well. That would get several more books off my shelf. But for now I will be content to have 7 books off the overburdened shelves in my apartment.

Book number 8 off the shelf

I finished Collapse this weekend. Diamond has some very innovative ideas. I was happy to discover that this book was based on a class that he taught at UCLA. Those students should feel privileged to learn at the feet of this great thinker and teacher. While the subjects he tackled in this book are hard and difficult he made some innovative connections and drew some insightful conclusions that may help the world be a better place.

Started reading History of the World in Six Glasses which will be another book off the shelf when I finish it.

benitastrnad, that book is on my wish list. Which is growing faster than ever since I'm trying to read what I already own. I'm anxious to hear what you think of it.

Finished reading book #9 for my 25 book challenge. Warrior Queens was an audio book I listened to in the car. It was more of a treatise on feminism than a history of warrior queens. However, there was lots of history in it. All-in-all, it was a very refreshing look at women rulers. I learned about some women warrior leaders I didn't know about previously and that was good. Very readable, if not strident feminism towards the end. But they were good points and Fraser would have been remiss not to mention them.

Book #10 is done.

I finished reading History of the World in Six Glasses. This was light weight entertainment history. Kinda like what you see on the History Channel. It was easy to read and entertaining. Not a waste of time, but not a real history book. I will pass it on to my sister.

Book #11 Off The Shelf

I finished reading God's Middle Finger yesterday. It was a very depressing look at the Sierra Madre Mountain area of Mexico. The book turned out to be written by a thrill seeking traveler who didn't have the sense God gave a gunny sack. Even though I thought the author stupid and without a lick of sense I think learned something. First, of all that the drug trade is involved in every aspect of Mexican life. This has relevance today as the Mexican President is currently in Washington, D. C. trying to get Mexican trucks free access to American highways. After reading this book, I would say - NO WAY! Secondly, the author laments the inability of tourists to see what is under their noses. Tourists in Mexico see jolly natives whereas the reality is far different. The reality is the drug trade has destroyed Mexico's environment and its ability to feed itself. Sad book on many levels.

Greetings! I, too, recently read The Blind Assassin and thought it was very good.

Book #12 Off the Shelf

I finished listening to Shadow Divers last night. I really liked this book. At first I thought it was going to be another macho he-man history book full of drama posing as history. It wasn't. The divers made the most amazing discovery and it wasn't all about the boat. It was about history and how history works - or in this case doesn't work. The majority of their time was spent in research. The kind with books and going to museums and archives. Of course there was diving and parts of the book reminded me of A Perfect Storm, with all the details about drowning, but on the whole it was a real thrill ride and good history with a great deal of humanity included.

It is good enough that I put it on my best of 2010 list. I highly recommend this book.

22 > I second the recommendation for Shadow Divers. I found it very interesting on many levels...history, diving, personal interactions.

I "third" that recommendation. Fascinating story!

>22 benitastrnad: I actually couldn't finish The Perfect Storm because of that chapter!

My son has that book. Does it count as "off the shelf" if I take it off HIS shelf?
Thought not. Might do it anyway...

Book # 13 Off the Shelf - half done with my 25 book challenge for the year.

I finished reading Foucault's Pendulum on Saturday night. I have had this book since 2005. I have known about it since it was published back in the 1980's and wanted to read it for that long. I purchased this book at Von's books in West Lafayette, IN. when I went to visit a friend working on a post-doc at Purdue. The group read here on LibraryThing prompted me to pull it out and read it.

After all that time and anticipation I thought the book was just average. Somehow I think that I my anticipation had built the book into something stupendous, which it wasn't. However, I liked Eco's sly way of poking fun at conspiracy theories of all kinds. The Pastor of my church should have read this one before he gave that sermon on the Da Vinci Code. He would have understood that the Da Vinci Code was a work of fiction.

#26

I think it does count if it is off of somebody else's shelf - if it is in the same house as you.

#14 Off the Shelf

I finished reading Predictably Irrational. This book is much like Freakanomics, but better. This one is more practical with ideas that a person can put to use in their personal life. The author has a easy writing style that is fun but yet serious. All of the topics discussed in the book are based in hard academic research making this book less sensational than Freakanomics. Instead of topics like race or social class this author discusses honesty (cheating among college students - business expense accounts) and whether bandages should be ripped off at once or slowly in small amounts (the authors own experience as a burn patient). If this book had been published first I doubt the public would have paid much attention to Freakanomics.

#15 Off the Shelf

Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
And what a read it was. This book certainly lived up to the hype. Of course, it is much like other mystery/thriller/suspense/spy novels in that once you get into the story it just doesn't let you go.

This series of books have been taking the U. S. by storm this summer. My boss, who isn't hip to much of anything, even read it. When she told me she had stayed up all night to finish the book I figured that I simply had to get busy and read the. I have had this book in my house for a year. According to my records I purchased it in August of 2009 so it was time to get it off the shelf. If you are looking for a great read with characters who are flawed but lovable this might be the series for you.

While sitting at the swimming pool yesterday I started the second book in the series, Which also qualifies as a book off the shelf.

#16 Off the Shelf

Girl Who Played With Fire
Loved it. Some folks have complained that this book is not as good as the first and so suffers from sequel syndrome. I disagree.

Larsson turned in the outline for a ten book series to his publisher. I think that all those loose ends and partial threads that appear in this books would have appeared later on in other books. For instance the man who tried to murder his wife at the beginning of this book. The woman was rescued by Lisbeth. I think this was a back story or story line for another book. For this reason the book is long - approximately 590 pages- and seems to have so much extemporaneous stuff in it.

There was a plot twist in this that I didn't see coming and so was more surprised by this book than the first one. I am genuinely sorry that there is only one more book in the series. I would love to read more of them.

I just finished the third one and look forward to your opinion.

>29 benitastrnad:

I also enjoyed Predictably Irrational, although sadly I couldn't count it for the challenge because it was a library book.

The problem I had with Freakonomics was that every time I'd go online to look up more information on a really interesting anecdote, it would be debunked. After the third instance, I gave up on the book altogether and never finished it. They weren't making things up. They just weren't confirming the accuracy of their research and many urban legends snuck in.

I recently picked up a sale copy of How We Decide by Jonah Lehrer, which is supposed to be similar to Ariely's book. Should probably hold it for next year's challenge though....

I have a copy of How We Decide and maybe I should dig it out and bring it up to read for this challenge. It might be nice to compare the three books.

I didn't know that about Freakonomics and the urban myths. Glad you clued me in.

#17 Off the Shelf
The Piano Tuner

I finished listening to The Piano Tuner yesterday and loved this book. It started out so gentle and it turned into a raging wildebeast! It was a typical period piece that morphed into a "Heart of Darkness" tale. I loved the twist at the end. I was not quite sure if it was the malaria or if it was real. What a great surprise ending. This one goes on my best of the year list.

I had a paperback copy on my shelves and really didn't plan on reading it for this challenge. However, on my last visit to the public library I saw this lonely cassette recording of the book and for some reason it screamed at me and grabbed me. I had to take it with me and am glad that I did. It's wonderful lyrical writing was a pleasure to listen to and all that history about piano's, piano tuning, and the mathematics of sound was skillfully worked in to the story. This may not be a book for everybody but I really liked it.

I found you Benita! I know you liked Shadow Divers, I just started the audio of Kurson's last book, Crashing Through. It's excellent so far, he's a strong writer. Also got the dvd of Dragon Tattoo today from Netflix. Looking forward to it!

Finished another book today. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. It was a wonderful book, but I can't put it on this list because I purchased it two weeks ago. For this list the book had to be in my possession before December 1, 2009. It was for my book discussion group otherwise I wouldn't even have it in the house. It is a great book. I am going to pass this one on to others.

#17 for the challenge done yesterday

I finished listening to Battle of the Labyrinth yesterday. I have only the last one in this series to read - or listen to, and will do that on my way home this next week. I have been going out to pick blueberries the last two weeks and since it is a half hour each way listening to this book has gone very fast. I like these books and the ability that the author has to put the adventures of the gods, demi gods, and heroes into a modern setting is fascinating. These books are just great good fun and I hope would lead kids to read more of the old stories that started it all.

Next up is The Last Olympian, but this one can't count for this challenge as I just bought it in January. Books have to have been in my possession before November of 2009 in order to count on this challenge.

#18 completed

I finished listening to Madapple by Christina Meldrum by driving home to Munden, Kansas for a wedding. I had picked this recorded book up from the Listening Library sales reps at the ALA conference in Chicago last summer. I hadn't heard much about this book except that it was on the ALA Best Books for Young Adults list, but Listening Library doesn't do much junk and always has quality productions so I figured it wouldn't be a waste of money. It wasn't. In fact I liked this book. It captured and held my interest. The author toggles back and forth between the present and the past. Between Aslaug's daily life and her murder trial. This is very effective in creating tension and suspense in the narration. Also each chapter starts out with a short essay on a medicinal plant that is somehow related to the story. Madapple is the folk name for Jimson Weed. This is the plant that causes all the trouble in the story. All of this is tied up in a convoluted tale of manipulation and exploitation by a religious sect. There is only one flaw. In 2007 it would be very easy for a court to order blood tests and medical examinations to determine if Aslaug was lying or not. Drawing out the courtroom drama without doing this was implausible. Other than that this was a very good story to listen to while locked in a car. I found myself shouting at the girl but I kept listening.

I am not sure if this is really a YA book. I think that most YA's would give up on it because the storyline is too complicated, but I enjoyed it.

#19 Off-The-Shelf!!!
Ghost Medicine by Andrew Smith

I listened to this YA book while I was driving home to Kansas for my vacation. This was a rather typical YA boy book/adventure. I think that most YA's would find it interesting and exciting because of the adventure but for me it was rather redundent. Basically the plot was boy gets horse - boy meets girl - boy gets bullied by older stronger boy - boy takes off on horse on a vision quest - girl finds boy and brings him home - boy and bully meet and a tragic accident is the result.

I found the writing in this book heavy and ponderous with foreshadowing that was repetative. However, I think that most YA's would like this book.

I also have to ask where were the parents of this boy? I find that there was too little thinking and problem solving on the part of the main character and too much action. In real life parental involvement would stop most of what happened in this story. However, then there wouldn't have been a story. However, I think this kind of book sets a bad example for teens.

I also hate it that the boy got a stallion. Once again - in real life that wouldn't happen as a child wouldn't be near a stallion. They are dangerous. My Friend Flicka was more realistic in its depiction of boys and stallions.

#20 Off-The-Shelf
Feed by M. T. Anderson

I have been wanting to listen to this recorded book since I heard it discussed at an ALA program about five years ago. I finally got around to doing so while driving back and forth on vacation. This recorded version was every bit as good as the reviews led me to believe. As far as YA books go this is very well done. The reader does a good job and there is interesting vocals for the "feeds" so it is easy to know that they are feeds and not conversation. This recording will easily appeal to YA's. And I liked it to. In fact it was much better than the later M. T. Anderson Octavian Nothing books, which I did not think were as good as the critics said. This one is relevant and has so many classroom applications as well as real life situations. Very well done.

#21 Off-the-shelf

Roads to Santiago by Cees Nooteboom

I have been wanting to read this book it seems like forever. I finally got it done and enjoyed it. The author is Dutch and the book is translated from the Dutch. The translator did a very good job and probably got little to no credit for it. Translating is a vastly under appreciated job.

I thought the book was going to be about the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela but it turned out to be a book about the history of Spain and Spanish art and architecture. Even if I felt a little deceived and really wanted to take a walk down the Pilgrim Way this was a very interesting book with lots to say about historiography and the art of traveling.

Benita- Looks like you are reading some interesting books! I like the sound of Feed. There is another new book, with the same title, by Mira Grant, that also sounds very good.

Finished reading Sepulchare by Kate Mosse late last night. This book has some problems. It is overly melodramatic and leaves some really critical plot details out, but it is a well done period piece. The descriptions of the Beaux Arts period in Paris is well done as is the life of the rich bourgeois artsy fartsy crowd. I would go so far as to call them the idle rich. I started out not liking the rich spoiled childish heroine, who at the beginning of the book, was 17 and ended up crying at the tragic ending. I also liked the dual time lines, which is the exact same plot device that the author used in 100884::Labyrinth. Since she had practice with Labyrinth she should be good at it.

I also liked this book because the major portion of the story takes place in Languadoc around the city of Carcasonne. While the Cathars and the Albigensian Crusade is not a major part of this story they are still there. The occult and Tarot cards are major factors in this story and provide the mystery and suspense. There is also a great deal about music and literature of the period included so the composer Debussy is in there, as is a really nice description of a European Spa town as it would have been in the late 19th century. This is a good vacation book. You don't have to think too hard and the ride is enjoyable.

#23 off-the-shelf

I finished reading Five Quarters of the Orange on my Labor Day holiday. I liked this book but had a complaint about it. The heroine was so unsympathetic. How can the author expect a reader to continue to read a book when they don't like the heroine? Was the author just taking the reader down the garden path towards a ho-um ending, or was there some reason to create so unlovable of a character and then have the reader like her in the end? Turns out it was the later reason.

I have not read anything by Joanne Harris before this book. I do have another of her books in my collection but haven't read it. She is most famous for her book Chocolat - a book that I do not have - but I have seen the movie. (Juliet Benouch was fantastic in that movie and reminded me of Penelope Cruz.) I really liked how the author intertwined food and farming - the mother in the story loves her trees and plants - with the larger story. What I didn't like was the nine year old heroine - Framboise. Would a nine year old be that conniving and manipulating? Would a nine year old fall in love with a twenty something man and reasonable expect him to stick around when she knew he was a soldier? Would a nine year old be able to fool a woman has smart as her mother for so long? I doubt it, so this part of the book was not plausible to me. However, it did a very good job of showing how in a time of war that the obvious is not always the obvious, and danger lurks in the most innocuous things.

The other thing this book did very well was to tackle the issue of collaboration by the French populace during World War II. There are not many books on this subject and this book did a great job of telling a story and raising the issue. It also showed the repercussions of decisions over a long period of time and having to live with the shame.

I would recommend this book for book discussion groups.

I recently read Suite Francaise which is in two parts. The first is about various individuals fleeing Paris ahead of the Nazis and the second is about individuals in a small occupied village. I was really taken aback in the first half of the book. This was not France's finest hour! Likewise, when the Germans inhabited peoples' houses and formed relationships with the owners, there were no consequences. The message I got was that one did what one had to in order to survive. This book was written by a woman who died in Auschwitz, by the way. Excellent book but disturbing.

(I also loved the movie Chocolat.)

#24 off-the shelf

I wasn't going to count this book as part of my cleaning off my book shelves by actually reading the books project, but this book has been on my list of books to read ever since I read Shadow of the Wind. Angel's Game was also published in June of 2009 so technically it was on my shelf before November of 2009, so I am counting it.

I liked this book. As I said earlier I think it is a twist on the classical Faustus story. The Boss, or the Angel depending on how you see it, is Lucifer. He says so several times in the book. He calls himself the "Son of the Morning" which is what he is called in the book of Isiah, etc. He even says one time to Martin that he wanted to be God when he was younger. That spells Lucifer to me. So David Martin sold his soul to the Devil in exchange for his life.

It also seemed to me that there was some warping of time in this book. (The pictures of scenes that came to life long after David Martin had seen them in the gallery.) The problem I had with that was that the author did not make it clear to the reader that was what was going on. While hunting out details in a book is part of the fun of reading, the draw back is that the author cannot be too oblique or the reader doesn't get it. I am not sure I got that part of it.

While the author stated that he was going to write a quartet, he was not writing a series. The unifying thing in the quartet was going to be the city of Barcelona. In that he succeed. In fact he documented every step that Martin took. Almost as much detail in that regard as in the Steig Larsson Millennium books. At least in this book the author didn't have the main character stop at a 7 Eleven to pick up Billy's Pan Pizza. However, I can see walking tours of Barcelona based on these books in the future, if they aren't there already.

This may not be a series, or even a prequel to Shadow of the Wind but it is close. Several of the main characters in this book are prequel characters to the characters in Shadow of the Wind. Isabella is the mother of Daniel, who was the main character in Shadow. This author seems to have a thing for the implements associated with writing or creating a story. (At the end of the story his typewriter, which was also Diego Marlasca's, was destroyed.) Not to throw in a spoiler but I would watch for the pen set and the nibs in the next book. They were prominent articles in Shadow of the Wind and in Angel's Game so they will probably show up in future books.

While these books may not have achieved the popularity that the Larsson books have, I will be waiting for the next one, as I find this author's approach to his setting and theme intriguing. At it's heart it is a literary mystery. Both Shadow of the Wind and Angel's Game were about the creative process and that the writer's life and his way of telling the reader that this kind of life consumes people is fascinating. Gotta love that first sentence in the book for that reason.

#25 off-the-shelf

I finished listening to One Thousand White Women Thursday evening. I have to confess that I didn't find this book all that interesting. It wasn't bad enough to put down, but it didn't hold my interest ... until right before the end. This book won the Mountains Plains Fiction Award back in 2000, and I have to wonder why. I thought the plot was predictable and the portrayal of the Native Americans abysmal.

The plot was good in outline form, but when it got translated to the story it slumped. May and the other white brides were interesting and the story of their growing friendship and dependence on each other was the one thing that was of great interest to me. The story about the life of the Native Americans wasn't that bad, but it was just too flat. None of these characters were anything but one dimensional. The love affair of May and John Bourke was contrived and hard to picture as happening, and the birth of Bourke's daughter was just a page out of fantasy.

The story ended with a bang. I only wish that the rest of the book had lived up to that ending.

I gave this book a 2 and half star rating.

#26 off-the shelf

I read The Lemon Tree and finished it last night. I had heard this author speaking on a book review program on an NPR station while driving through Georgia when it first came out. I was shocked to realize that was in 2006. I dug the book out of the pile and started slowly reading it.

The book has 400 some pages but over 100 of those pages are end notes. Not only does it have extensive end notes it has a bibliography for additional reading. I have rarely read a book that has that much documentation published in the book. And it also has maps. One of my great pet peeves is the lack of maps in books. Maps help me to visualize what the author is talking about so I greatly appreciate maps.

The book was well written and the author makes both of the people - Dalia and Bashir - come alive. However, ultimately the book is hopeless. Not the writing or the structure, but the message is one of helplessness and hopelessness. Neither the author nor Bashir sees any hope for peace in the Middle East. The only one who does is Dalia, the Israeli woman. She keeps on trying to find a solution that both sides can live with and build on, but I don't see that happening.

The good thing that the book does is make people aware of why there is a problem over housing in Israel and the Palestinian West Bank, and why they are building a wall. (How long will it take before people in the world realize that a wall doesn't work?) For readers who don't know much about the history off the Middle East since the fall of the Ottoman Empire this is a good book to read.

I think they build walls because they make good press.

"Mr. Gorbechov, tear down this wall."

(pardon if spelling or accuracy of quote is off)

#27 FINALLY off the shelf.

I finally finished reading Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All by Allan Gurganus. It took me ten months. It felt interminable. I read it when I was trapped in airports, on airplanes, and when I had nothing else to read. I kept reading it even when I had decided I didn't really like it that much. I have had this book in my possession for at least twenty years and moved it with me through a couple of moves because it caused mild ripples of sensation among my friends back in the late 1980's. People said it was so funny and so true to life while being a great historical fiction novel. It may have been that back in 1989 (the year my edition was published) but it has not weathered time very well.

The story it told by 100 year old Lucy Marsden. She married a Confederate veteran when she was 15 and he was in his 50's. She spent her early adult life as a mother of eight children and ended up taking care of a senile old man before she was 50. The sequence of events is jumbled and I believe that the author was trying to include elements of magical realism into the novel. Some of these episodes worked and some of them didn't. I did not like the segment about Calista moving from Africa as it seemed like to much of a send up on Roots and was superfluous to the story.

The heart of this story is Will's story. He suffers from what today is known as PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) and has a rather severe case. This affects Lucy's life and that of her children. Lucy is a wonderful heroine. She is resourceful, direct, and clear eyed about life in North Carolina in the post reconstruction era, but that is one of the few good points about this book.

It tried to be a mash up of Roots and One Hundred Years of Solitude and failed. Why did I stick with it even when it was apparent that it wasn't going to be a great book? Lucy. She kept me reading and I wanted to find out what happened to her.

Benita- Good review of Oldest Living Confederate Widow! And thanks for saving me the time to read it! I owe you one! Hope you are having a good weekend!

#28 off-the-shelf

I had Free Food for Millionaires as an ARC but instead of reading it I listened to it. Either way, I got it off the shelf!

The main characters in this book are Korean immigrants or first generation immigrants. Each of them brings their own set of problems to this modern story of money, sex, greed, and love. Basically, it is the story of the burdens that immigrants and their children feel to succeed.

The main character, Casey Han, is Korean American and is a first generation immigrant. She is well educated and good looking. She has a bright future in the banking world, but her heart lies in fashion design. She is also very proud and doesn't want to accept help from anybody. She has problems finding the right man. Yada, yada, yada.

This is a book that had many good things about it, but in the end it lost its focus. It simply had too many characters and spent too much time tracking each one of them. In meticulously chronicling each thought and reason why each character did what they did the author lost focus. It would have been a better book if it had focused on the main characters and let the rabbit trails remain rabbit trails. This would have cut the overall length of the book considerably and tightened the story up making it a more rewarding story for the reader. I found myself wanting to shout through the pages "focus, focus, focus!"

This book reminded me of An Na's award winning YA book Step From Heaven. That book was a better immigrant story than this one because it had better editing and story telling but covered the same ground as did this book in a much more concise fashion.

Benita- Good review!Actually, a friend lent me this book and I snuck it back to her unread. It doesn't look like I missed anything!

Yes, Step From Heaven is a great book, but I think I'll skip Free Food. Sounds like after awhile, the characters perhaps become so driven to "succeed" that I would lose sympathy for them.

#29 off-the shelf

I finished Elijah of Buxton and loved it. Curtis is an author who never disappoints me. Nobody does historical fiction for young adults better than he.

This book is set in the freedmens settlement in Chatham, Canada in 1859. Elijah is the first free born baby in the settlement and in this book he is 11 years old. Through the book he grows and matures and finds out more and more about the real world outside of Buxton and the world from which his parents escaped. It is clear at the beginning of the book that he has no idea how privileged he is to be free and educated and oftentimes finds the references to that world that are made by the adults in his life to be incomprehensible. Elijah learns in the year that the story takes place about this scary outside world and it changes him. Curtis has created a character that is believable and emotionally engaging while staying true to the historical context of the time and place that is the setting of the book. He also manages to make a very modern statement about the use of the "n" word and its meaning while staying true to the time period in which the story is set. That is no mean feat for an author.

Curtis also educated me. I knew nothing about the free black settlement in Canada. As I said, I am convinced that nobody does historical fiction for young adults better than does Curtis. This book was a Newbery honor book and it should have been the winner.

Good review of Elijah of Buxton! I was not familiar with this author but thanks to you, I am now!

I am still working on Mists of Avalon, but have not given up on getting two more books off my shelves this year. I am also working on Ataturk and have End of the Hunt on my bedstand. Mists won't qualify for my off-the-shelf challenge, but the other two will. Hope to get them done by the end of the year.

You've got a whole month! You can do it.

Yeah! Number #30 off the shelf!

I finished listening to All Over Creation by Ruth L. Ozeki and really really liked this book. It is full of zany characters who are all loveable people even when they aren't. The author even manages to make the bad "seed" sympathetic. (Except for Duncan, who is a really evil man.) the ambiguity of the ending even works, as the reader understands that one of the good "seeds" now has to live with the uncertainty of his actions. The writing is very good and the author also manages to educate using the medium of fiction to do it. She never gets preachy and makes all sides of the issue sympathetic. This technique forces the reader to take sides and make some ethical decisions. It is clear where the author's sympathies lie but she leaves plenty of room for the reader to find their own way.

I don't know why this book was completely under my radar but it was. I had heard of the author because of her book My Year of Meats but I had not heard of this one. Finding the recorded version of All Over Creation was serendipitous at the Friends of the Library Used Book Store. But what a lucky find it turned out to be.

I gave this one four stars.

Benita- Good review! Sounds interesting!

#31 & #32 off the shelf.

I listened to First Among Sequels and Ladies of Grace Adieu while on the trip to Kansas from Alabama. Both were of them were entertaining and helped to make the miles go by quicker. However, even Ladies of Grace couldn't make the treacherous miles from Topeka to Manhattan any easier. It was very slick and even on the Interstate 70 I couldn't travel any faster than 30mph. I was glad to be able to stop at one of my favorite coffee shops for a chai latte and at the bistro for a loaf of 7-grain bread. It was a wonderful night for listening to fairy stories and Ladies of Grace just fit the bill.

Benita- It's great to see you! You've been missed. I hope you had a great Christmas in Kansas! Hope to spend another year, talking and sharing books!

#33 Ataturk: A Biography of Mustafa Kemal off the shelf.

I finished my biography of Mustafa Kemal, aka Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey. This biography was written in 1964 by a British historian and is still one of the few biographies written about this man.

Kemal was a fascinating man and this biography is suprisingly readable. It is also, for being written by British historian, in my opinion, very even handed in its treatment of Ataturk. There is a biography of Ataturk that was published in 2004 but other than that book, this is the only one I could find on this famous man. I wanted to read a book about him because Turkey to this day is the only Islamic country that has anything approaching a democracy and because I wanted to know more about the Grecko-Turkish War that was fought from 1919 to 1922. I was curious about this war because it figured so promenietly in the book Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenidas. Ataturk was also one of the few generals in World War I to defeat the British Army and that too was a reason to learn more about this man.

Since Turkey is more Europen than it is Middle Eastern I wanted to know more about it and about the man who created this modern state. This book certainly did all of that.

Ladies of Grace Adieu is one of the books I bought in my first employee special discount day when I worked in a bookstore. You're making me think I need to bump it up higher on the TBR stack.

I really enjoyed listening to Ladies of Grace Adieu. They were adult fairy tales and Clark's fairy world is not the standard fairy world. The world she creates is finely drawn and interwolven with the "real" world. The readers of this book were also excellent with just enough of an eccentric voice to convey the eccentricity of the subject matter. For a recorded version this was exceptionally well done and made the listening that much more of a treat. I would think that reading it would be equally as satisfying.

If I haven't miscounted you actually did 31 off the shelf last year! congratulations on that! Will you start a new this year?

I have established a new thread for my books for the year 2011. I decided to do this challenge again as I was successful in getting some stuff off of my shelves last year. Having others read, comment, and share thoughts with me made this much more interesting so am going to take the plunge and do it again.

New post is located at http://www.librarything.com/topic/107051