bell7's 2010 Book List Part 3

Welcome to the first post-75 Book thread!

Here are my previous threads of 2010:
Part 1
Part 2

I'll be keeping a running tally of books and manga on the same thread, but separate counts, as well as monthly tallies of what I've read and brief commentary on favorites, number of abandoned books, etc.

Here are my threads in the challenge groups I'm participating in this year for a slightly different perspective of what I'm reading this year:
1010 Category Challenge
Dewey Decimal Challenge
Reading Globally and
Books off the Shelf Challenge
75 Picture Books

And finally, here are the number of books and pages (rough estimate, because I can't count audiobooks) read this year:




Note - I took out the page number counter because I'd forgotten to update it after several books and it was hopelessly inaccurate.

76. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall

The Penderwicks sisters' mother died when Batty was a baby, but before she died she asked her husband's sister to give him a letter. When Aunt Claire comes over, bringing the letter that asks Mr. Penderwick to start dating again, the sisters cook up the "Save Daddy Plan" to keep their father from getting remarried.

This story is as funny as the first book about sisters Rosalind, Skye, Jane, and Batty. Though the plot is more predictable the older the reader, I had fun anticipating what was going to happen. I really enjoyed listening to Susan Denaker's narration of the audiobook because she interprets each character well and adds to the humor with her delivery. 4.5 stars.

Found you! Am I the first?

I have both The Penderwicks and The Penderwicks on Gardam Street home from the library now. I hope I enjoy them as much as you have!

>3 ronincats: yup, you're first, Roni! Thanks for following to the new thread.

>4 alcottacre: Stasia, I hope you do too. I look forward to reading your thoughts!

76. Essays of E.B. White

This collection of thirty-one essays by E.B. White is as delightful as it is varied. The essays are arranged by subject - the farm, the city, and memories, to name a few - but even within these subjects, the collection showcases the breadth of White's thoughts and interests. In one, he discusses "The Death of a Pig," a short but powerful piece that gave me a glimpse of the man who would save the pig in Charlotte's Web. In another, he wrestles with the troubles of hydrogen bomb testing and disarmament, never giving a definite Answer, but provoking thought in himself and his reader.

I took several weeks to read these essays, not out of any lack of enjoyment but because of the need to pause between them and not read too many at a time. I've come to the conclusion that collections of essays need to be owned rather than borrowed so that I can take my time and muse over each one instead of trying to hurry through and evaluate the book as a whole. I loved White's sense of humor, which permeates every essay and includes a few good one liners about politics and even essayists. In the foreword, he writes, "The essayist is a self-liberated man, sustained by the childish belief that everything he thinks about, everything that happens to him, is of general interest." Though I can't say much about general interest, I can say that this collection was to my interest, and I would love to own this collection to dip into whenever I like. 4.5 stars.

6- I started that book last year, put it down, and haven't gotten back to it yet. I agree that the essays are good, but it's difficult to read quickly. The essays need to be digested. :)

Angela - I felt exactly the same way. Even taking me three weeks, it felt too fast. I think I've decided that while I like essays, I'm going to have to purchase the collections I read so that I can take as long as I like. It may mean I never review them because I've forgotten the beginning before I got to the end, but at least I won't feel like I'm giving individual essays short shrift by moving on too quickly!

No new books to post about, just some reading updates:

I started Tongues of Serpents because it's due back at the library first (this is how I choose most of my reading, honestly). I was a little worried that I'd have trouble following it because it's been so long reading the rest of the series, but it stands alone well and I haven't found myself confused over too much. I'm nearly halfway into it, and have enjoyed returning to Temeraire and his alternate world, this time in Australia.

I'm also reading Northanger Abbey and am also about halfway through. This one has been slower going merely because it's my own book and has no due date. It's definitely funnier than I remembered, reading some and abandoning it as a much more literal-minded teenager. I'm going to try to get a friend of mine who abandoned Mansfield Park to read this one instead, because if it's a "predictable story" (his words), he might as well read one in which the heroine is made fun of.

In audiobooks, I've continued listening to the Keys to the Kingdom series and now have Sir Thursday going during my commute. I don't remember much about this one, so it will be an interesting re-listen.

Other books I have in various states of read-ness but have not entirely abandoned are The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis Volume 1, Surprised by Joy, and Write from the Heart (for Go Review That Book).

Touchstones don't like me today. I'm going to try editing to see if they will fix.

Edit: Yep, that worked. The first time, the touchstone for Surprised by Joy only worked after I misspelled "surprise" as "suprise" - go figure.

I play library roulette all the time, Mary, so I know how it goes!

>9 bell7:: I had the same reaction the second time I read Northanger Abbey. I'd liked it ok the first time, but had kind of written it off as too fluffy. I don't think I quite got it. Very funny.

>10 alcottacre: Library roulette - I like that term, I think I'll steal it. :) That's how I usually choose my next read, and it also means that The Hunger Games comes after I finish the latest Temeraire book.

>11 madhatter22: Yeah, I didn't even finish it the first time because I found it such hard going. I didn't get it at all.

So now that I've been reading more and thinking about it, "stand alone" is definitely the wrong word for Tongues of Serpents. To be more specific, the plot is entirely separate from the rest of the series, as far as I can tell. I don't quite get what the story has to do with anything that's happened before, though I suppose by the end of the series I may be proved wrong on that score. The situations of the characters are not explained in such a way to make sense to anyone who has read none of the series, however, so it's not a standalone in the strictest of terms. Explanations are generally terse and helpfully remind me of what's happened before without being long summaries. I wish we were getting more of the dragons' banter among themselves, though. Temeraire and Iskierka crack me up.

77. Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik

If you haven't read the first five books in the Temeraire series, this is a **spoiler warning** for those titles.

Temeraire and Laurence have been convicted of treason and transported to New South Wales, Australia. Arriving, they find that the political situation at the penal colony is in disarray - the troops staged a coup and overthrew the governor, who wants to be in power. Both sides want Laurence's backing, and he's not sure how best to navigate through the political turmoil without giving up his own high standards. Temeraire also has dragon eggs brought along to attempt the creation of a colony, and he only hopes that one won't open for the wrong sort of person.

I have been looking forward to Temeraire and Laurence's continued adventures ever since I finished Victory of Eagles a couple of summers ago. To be entirely fair, my expectations for this story were extremely high, so when I say that the story did not live up to them, this is not as harsh a judgment as it might otherwise have been. I do enjoy these characters. I like the relationship between Temeraire and Laurence as it has developed. I love Iskierka and her banter with Granby or Temeraire. I wished there were more interactions between the dragons, because that was my favorite part. I had a tough time caring about the plot, however. A group sets out cross-country, and their direction seemed meandering to me, both in terms of events and the overall scheme of the series. I would reread it as part of the series to remind myself of what happened, and I will certainly continue reading the series, but I think it's the weakest of the six so far. 4 stars.

I have still only read book 1. I imagine I will get to the rest of the books in the series. . .eventually :)

I've read the first three books, I want to get up to date for when Tongues of Serpents comes out at the end of September.

>14 alcottacre: Hope you enjoy them when you do get to them - I know what the "eventually" list can be like! :)

>15 souloftherose: I really could've used a reread of the others because I'd forgotten a lot, but with all the books on my library pile, I didn't think I could afford it. Hope you continue to enjoy the series!

78. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

In a future North America, twelve Districts now exist, each providing two "tributes" - a boy and a girl - for the annual Hunger Games. The Capitol reminds each District of its power and the futility of uprising by requiring the twenty-four tributes to kill each other on national television. District 12, which provides coal and is the poorest of the districts, has only one living winner and is not expected to do well. Then, Katniss Everdeen volunteers herself in place of her younger sister.

Intense. That's the word left in my mind after finishing this story, narrated by Katniss herself. The author uses Katniss's narrative to convey details of the world in a very natural way - reflecting on memories or history lessons - making it flow with the story without overwhelming the reader. Given the premise, I was a little afraid of a bloodbath, but since this is young adult literature I was, thankfully, spared most of the gory details. Katniss is the type of heroine you're behind all the way. She is not perfect, but she struggles with what she must do and knowing what is right. I'm waiting with bated breath for the next book to come back to the library. 5 stars.

#17: I loved that one too. I am so looking forward to Mockingjay, if only for the reason that I can read the entire trilogy at once.

>18 alcottacre: I'm thinking the timing on these books should be perfect for me - I just read The Hunger Games, Catching Fire is due back at the library on the 16th and Mockingjay comes out on August 24. I'm not sure who's ahead of me on the waiting list, so I may not get it until September, but both books should be fresh in my mind when I pick up the last book in the series.

I have deliberately not read Catching Fire, so I will be reading all 3 at the same time. Sounds like a good plan for you to keep them fresh while you are waiting for book 3.

Did you read The Hunger Games earlier this year, Stasia, or was in earlier than that (if so, I'm totally off the hook 'cause I was in the 50 Book Challenge then)? I probably would've kept putting off The Hunger Games, but a few people had it listed on the TIOLI Challenge and I decided it was time to bite the bullet. (Now I'm wondering what took me so long!) I just hope my plan for Catching Fire works out and whoever has it out of the library returns it on-time-and-not-too-early.

A quote from my newest-started book, The Library at Night:

"My books hold between their covers every story I've ever known and still remember, or have now forgotten, or may one day read; they fill the space around me with ancient and new voices."

I can already tell this is going to be my kind of book.

#21: I read The Hunger Games when it first came out. I bought Catching Fire when it came out because I loved the first book so much, but then I found out CF ended on a cliffhanger, so I have had it sitting unread on my nightstand waiting for Mockingjay.

#22: That is a good one. I hope you enjoy it!

Ah...cliffhanger aversion. Several years of reading fantasy series have made me...well, not accept them entirely, but put up with them, I guess. My cousin about killed me because I didn't warn her that the ending to Changeless was a cliffhanger, mainly because I wasn't that bothered by waiting a few months for the next book (and also, to be perfectly honest, because she was going to drag me to the movies instead of the bookstore until I reminded her that she could buy it!).

Yes, I have a major case of cliffhanger aversion when it comes to the Collins trilogy. The third book cannot get here fast enough for me!

I only heard about The Hunger Games trilogy this year so I've decided to wait until I can get all three out of the library at once after being warned about the cliffhangers!

#22 That does sound like a good book. I think I'm going to add it to my wishlist already...

#22: Forgot to mention - if you like that book by Manguel, you might check out his A History of Reading as well.

>25 alcottacre: and 27 Well, Stasia, I can't really fault you for it. I myself finished a trilogy in which I didn't exactly like how things were going, but every book ended on a cliffhanger and I just had to find out what happened. :) I will most likely be checking out A History of Reading ...eventually.

>26 souloftherose: Heather, hope you enjoy all three! I'm looking forward to reading the next one and very much hope I will be able to get it next week. Hope you enjoy The Library at Night. I haven't gotten very far, but so far he's talked about his personal library and the library of Alexandria. Interesting, but I'm reading it slowly so far.

79. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

Seventeen-year-old Catherine Morland is not your typical heroine, as our narrator forewarns us. Her father is respectable, her mother is not of a sickly constitution. When Catherine is allowed to go to Bath with family friends, she is excited by the prospect of all the adventures that may befall her. But as readers, and Catherine herself, discover - she is not in a Gothic novel.

When I first attempted to read Northanger Abbey in my teens I was, I confess, much like Catherine myself. Much of the banter of characters and narrator was over my head. I didn't remember that there was sarcasm, much less humor, in conveying Catherine's story, and I daresay I must have taken much of it at face value and abandoned the book out of boredom (and the necessity of library due dates). But now a little older, more familiar with literature if not the exact Gothic novels which Jane Austen is skewering, and much more adept at picking up on when the narrator was laughing at our heroine, I found the story a much smoother read. At times, I laughed out loud over Catherine's propensity for viewing events in convoluted ways suggested by her novel reading. On the other hand, I think I would find her likable as a person, given her ability to see the best in people until proven otherwise. 4.5 stars.

#29: I am planning to re-read Austen's ouvre next year. About time because, although I know I have read it, I cannot remember much about Northanger Abbey.

I enjoyed your NA review! I read an enjoyed it when I first discovered Austen a few years ago, but it wasn't until I read Ann Radcliffe's The Mysteries of Udolpho and then reread NA that I started laughing aloud at Austen's rapier wit. Though the novel can be enjoyed with any level of preknowledge, I did appreciate it more when I knew exactly what Austen was poking fun at. Good stuff :)

>30 alcottacre: I have only Persuasion left unread, and then I will have read her six major novels, which is one of my goals for the year. I'm not sure yet if this will include Lady Susan or the unfinished works. I'm a disorganized, guided-by-serendipity sort of a reader, so even having this one goal is a little unusual for me.

>31 atimco: Thanks, Amy! I will have to read The Mysteries of Udolpho some time to get even more, though my edition of Northanger Abbey had endnotes that were helpful about specific references to it.

Edited for clarity.

#32: I read Lady Susan in 2008, so I doubt I will re-read it next year. I am just going to concentrate on the major novels.

80. Sir Thursday by Garth Nix

Arthur Penhaligon is determined to hold on to the third key while he and his friend Leaf return to Earth. But the front door cannot let him through because a spirit eater - a Nithling very like Arthur himself - has taken his place in the world. Leaf goes back to try to defeat the Nithling, while Arthur is drafted into the Glorious Army of the Architect, which means he must travel to Sir Thursday's domain, the Great Maze.

Continuing my reread of the Keys to the Kingdom, I realized that this particular title had the most I remembered in it. I remembered the maze and the tile movements, "washing between the ears," and the spirit eater. I didn't remember how Arthur's challenges were solved, however, so much of the reading felt like a new experience to me. I continue to notice more symbolism and details than before. I love that Suzy and Leaf are such well-drawn characters and Arthur, though a reluctant hero, has enough of a backbone when pressed with the Will with an agenda of its own that I enjoy cheering him on. 4.5 stars.

#29 I think I had similar thoughts to yours when I first read Northanger Abbey, I've reread it since and enjoyed it more. One day I will read The Mysteries of Udolpho...

>35 souloftherose: Heather, that's on my "someday" list too. Unfortunately, there's a few hundred books (maybe more, I refuse to count) on that list vying for my next read...

81. The Lumby Lines by Gail Fraser

Mark and Pam Walker are vacationing in the Northwest, discussing where they want to go next in life. Mark's ready to retire from the corporate world; Pam's not so sure. Then, the couple comes across a monastery that was shut down and damaged in a fire. They decide to move from Virginia to the small town of Lumby to renovate the monastery and turn it into an inn.

This is a gentle read focusing on character - and there are some quirky ones at that! I found it pleasant and entertaining, especially enjoying the details of renovation. Descriptions of Hank, the flamingo that's given an appropriate wardrobe for what's going on at various points in the story, and news clippings from the local paper, the eponymous Lumby Lines infuse the narrative with humor. 4 stars.

Thanks, Stasia, for bringing the book to my attention. I can honestly say I wouldn't have come across The Lumby Lines otherwise.

I am a little late getting to your new thread, but found you! Looks like you've been doing some good reading this month. I didn't realize that Mockingjay comes out so soon - yay!

Lumby Lines sounds sweet. I keep reading that as "Lumpy Lines" ;))

#37: The thanks go to Cheli, who introduced me to the book :) I am glad you enjoyed it.

>38 RosyLibrarian: Hi Marie, glad you found me! Can't wait to see what you think of Mockingjay.

>39 atimco: Amy, LOL now I'm going to start seeing it wrong too. It is a sweet story, kind of like Mitford, but different too.

>40 alcottacre: Well, thanks to Cheli, then. Though it's your name that's a medium-sized tag on the book, Stasia. :) Oh, and regarding that paper...imagine my surprise when one of the pages where I work told me today that the local paper includes the police blotter and she and her friends read it for entertainment!

Mary
Stasia reminded me that there is only 21 days until we meet at Richard's party!

Wow, that soon? I'm very much looking forward to it!

Me too!

I haven't read the Mitford books yet, though I have all of them. I'm guessing you would recommend the series?

It's been about 10 years since I've read them, but I certainly enjoyed them then (my reading taste has changed a lot since...I should probably reread the first couple and see what I think now!). Go ahead and try it - if you like the first one, the others are much the same in style.

82. Oath of Gold by Elizabeth Moon

As the third book in a trilogy, my review for this book necessarily has **spoilers** for the first two books, The Sheepfarmer's Daughter and Divided Allegiance.

After her capture by iynisin and subsequent debilitating fear, Paks has been wandering for some time when she finds herself back at Brewersbridge. Not sure where to go, she seeks refuge with the Kuakgan. Can he heal her where Marshals of Gird failed? Can she be used for good in the land if courage fails her?

In many ways, the story begun in The Sheepfarmer's Daughter comes full circle in Oath of Gold. One of my worries reading the first two books was that the episodic style made it hard to see the overarching storyline, but this story ties up plot lines while bringing to light in the importance of earlier events in the larger scheme of things. Despite the battle scenes in the first book, this book had more disturbingly violent moments for me, sending me skimming through some passages. I had a moment, about 50 pages or so in the middle, where I got a little bored because someone's true identity was clear to me before it was to Paks, and even then it was a major plot point that made me wonder what could happen for the next 200 pages to keep my interest. But that was a bump in a generally enjoyable ride. Paks' character truly develops over the course of this novel, and it was fun to see her progression not only in this one book but in the trilogy as a whole. 3.5 stars.

I've added The Mysteries of Udolpho to my basket immediately. I'd already got it on my wishlist through combined references in Becoming Jane and The Jane Austen Book Club as linking in to Northanger Abbey, but based on this conversation I think I'll read it BEFORE I read Northanger...
Oh no, another book... how completely and utterly tragic... ;-)

LOL Ellie. It's like Alberto Manguel says in The Library at Night:

"In my adolescence, I remember watching with a kind of fascinated horror, how night after night the shelves on the wall of my room would fill up, apparently on their own, until no promissory nooks were left. New books, lying flat as in the earliest codex libraries, would begin to pile up one on top of the other. Old books, occupying their measured place during the day, would double and quadruple in volume and keep any newcomers at bay. All around me--on the floor, in the corners, under the bed, on my desk--columns of books would slowly rise and transform the space into a saprophyte forest, its sprouting trunks threatening to crowd me out" (66).

But honestly, would we have it any other way? ;-)

Does Manguel live in my house?!

I'm glad you ended up enjoying the Paksennarion trilogy, Mary. I hope you'll go on and read the new book that came out this year, Oath of Fealty. It's just as good as the last, doesn't have any equivalent violent moments, and Paks isn't the viewpoint character. It's really interesting and I can't wait for the next one to come out. *runs to Amazon to see when it's scheduled*

#50: But honestly, would we have it any other way? ;-)

If you ask my husband, the answer is probably 'yes.' If you ask me, the answer is definitely 'no!'

>50 atimco: Honestly, Amy, I kind of wish the book was my own so I could mark that passage. I know that's exactly what happens in my house. :)

>51 ronincats: Roni, thanks for the recommendation of the trilogy and Oath of Fealty. I'll definitely have to look into it someone soon. (I keep telling myself I should finish some series before starting new ones, but I don't listen...)

>52 alcottacre: LOL Stasia! I do hope someday to have the same luck as a friend of mine who also married a reader so that my future husband will understand the necessity of books in every room, shelves filled to capacity, and frequent trips to the library (of course, I work there, so the as-yet-hypothetical husband would have to put up with that, at least).

83. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

If you haven't read the first in the trilogy, The Hunger Games, this is a **spoiler warning** for that title.

Though the Hunger Games are over, Katniss is still in danger. The government is watching her, believing her attempt to eat the poisonous berries with Peeta to be an act of defiance and a possible spark setting off revolution in the Districts. The President himself threatens her family if Katniss can't play her role as a lovesick young woman well. But she didn't ask for revolution, and she just wants to run away and be safe with her family and friends.

Once again, the tension builds as events in Katniss' life swirl out of her control. Though the story starts out slower than The Hunger Games, there is still a pervading sense of unease because of the threats to Katniss, her family, and her District. The government isn't giving out any news of uprising, but Katniss is able to put together enough information that you realize there's much more going on beyond what she knows. The intensity in the story builds as we learn about the Quarter Quell, the special Hunger Games that occurs every 25 years, leaving me breathless by the end and extremely glad that I have Mockingjay here ready to go. 4.5 stars.

#54: I loved The Hunger Games, but I am anxiously awaiting my copy of Mockingjay before I read Catching Fire. I hope I enjoy it as much as you did, Mary.

Hope you do too! I just finished Mockingjay but will not be posting a review until tomorrow, I think. It's getting too close to bedtime to put that much thought into my wording... :)

I received my copy of Mockingjay Friday, so hopefully I will be reading the entire trilogy some time soon.

84. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

If you haven't read the first two books in the trilogy, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire, this is a **spoiler warning** for those titles.

**Some spoilers for Mockingjay ahead - I tried to limit spoilers in my discussion of Mockingjay, but I am talking about tone and some events that come later on, so read at your own risk.

Katniss is adjusting to life in District 13. With its strict schedules, rules about food, and careful procedures for life underground, she's finding it rather restricting. The rebels of District 13, in waging a propaganda war against the Capitol to provoke uprising, want to make Katniss into their symbol as the Mockingjay. She isn't sure if she wants to be a piece in their games anymore than a participant in the Hunger Games - but in this situation, how much choice does she have?

In many ways, the tone of this book surprised me. The first surprise was that Katniss has been living in District 13 for a month and we learn about some of the changes to her life, and her reaction to the destruction of District 12, retrospectively. The other surprise is how much of the war is occurring elsewhere. Katniss is a symbol rather than a major player for much of the story, so the main focal point is not the plot but her character. What do you compromise in war, and who loses? What do you do when you don't fully agree with either side, and what are you personally responsible for as a result of others' choices and use of power? All in all, this wasn't what I was expecting, but I continued to be interested in the characters and their choices to the end. 4.5 stars.

*Hurriedly skipping over the Suzanne Collins reviews until she's read the trilogy* I have all three - might take them on holiday with me in a couple of weeks!

That Manguel quote applies to me perfectly as well - and I'm pushing that one up my wishlist... You know, to add to the stacks of books breeding in my living room. First there were none, then there were.... five. With a whole heap more still to be catalogued and balanced on the top. And another box on the way. *happy grin, tempered with a rather large amount of fear that I may finally push my mother over the edge*

LOL Ellie...yeah, skip my reviews 'til you've read the trilogy. Definitely. Hope you enjoy them when you get to them!

Space doesn't stay on my shelves long. When I moved and got an additional bookcase (borrowed from the folks I'm renting from), I thought I would have space but wouldn't you know....all I had space for was all those books I was double shelving, my DVDs and CDs. I have maybe enough room for six books as long as they're fantasy or nonfiction, 'cause that's the bookcase where there's space. I'm pondering buying small baskets for the DVDs and CDs to make maybe half a shelf space for more books (adult fiction or Shakespeare), but I just know that as soon as I do the books'll start multiplying like rabbits. And kids books? I'm already ready to double shelve again now that I bought...er, acquired...Emily of New Moon.

But I'm following Stasia's advice and moving A History of Reading up the TBR list as well...just can't help it, I guess. :)

I already cleared a shelf by putting my DVDs in a storage box and my CDs in the wardrobe (hey, needs must, ok?)

I've commissioned my stepdad to make me two new floor-to-ceiling bookcases in the recesses on either side of my fireplace, so hopefully some of the books will come off the floor then. Except that the lady who is 'leaving me her books' (except it's too expensive to change her will officially) has already given me a huge swathe of her books too, which are now strewn around in boxes and bags and piled on my kitchen table... *sigh* Even I'm thinking this is getting out of hand now!

I kept my DVDs in the closet when I lived at my parents house and only had two bookcases, so I know how these things must be. :)

Alternatively, I could put myself on hiatus from library borrowing to read the 80+ books I own and have not read, thus downsizing my collection by at least the books I determine I no longer need to own. But you know that feeling where you just want to read all the books on your TBR list now...yeah, I've been feeling like that for the last week. Plus there's so many good books coming out in September - like Blameless and Bury Your Dead...and of course, I have my holds in at the library to get them as soon as possible, and going without reading those books clearly won't do...:::sigh::: too many books, too little time, and LT sure isn't helping matters!

85. Montana 1948 by Larry Watson

Now a middle-aged man, David Hayden recounts the summer of 1948, when he was twelve years old, and the events that affect him and his family deeply, even into his adulthood. This short (175 pages) but powerful book has everything: complex characters, a sense of place, moral ambiguity, coming of age. The prose flows so you don't want to stop and lose its thread (I read it an evening, with just one full stop). I can't summarize it. I'm not even sure what I think of it. But it's definitely one of my most memorable reads of the year.

Skipping the review of Mockingjay until I get to it.

I have got to find what I did with my copy of Montana 1948 though!

Also skipping your review of Mockingjay for now...

Ditto the skipping. This is one hot book right now!

Stasia, Heather and Amy - go ahead and skip it for now, but I'll be waiting to see what you think when you've had a chance to read it!

Anyone attempting to get a copy from the ER Bonus Batch?

86. Lady Friday by Garth Nix

As the fifth in the Keys to the Kingdom series, there are necessarily **spoilers** for the earlier titles.

Arthur Penhaligon is fresh from his triumph in the Great Maze, taking control of the fourth Key and fighting the Piper and his band of New Niths. He received a missive from Lady Friday saying that she has abdicated, leaving the Will and the fifth Key for Superior Saturday, the Piper, and Arthur to duke it out. Arthur must continue on his journey to take control of the keys, all the while trying to use as little sorcery as possible so that he can stay human, and trying to figure out if he can trust his old friend, Suzy Turquoise Blue, since the Piper could potentially control her actions.

Looking back on my reading log, I realized that I had only read the book before and had never listened to the audio. So this was a reread but a first-time listen for me, but as it's been over three years since I read any of the books, I had forgotten just about everything. Allan Corduner narrates these stories pitch perfectly, and I was initially surprised at my earlier mediocre rating of 4 stars. The story moves along at a steady clip, Arthur's struggle to do the right thing while avoiding becoming a Denizen is compelling, and then I got to the end and realized why I had found it so forgettable. For the most part, this is an excellent book but the ending fell rather flat for me. Still, I have Superior Saturday at the ready, and I'm looking forward to finishing the series with the two books that I have never read. 4 stars.

#68: I have book 4 in that series home from the library now. Thus far, the third book has been my favorite.

I think out of the rereads I like the first and fourth the best. Tomorrow I'll start Superior Saturday, which I haven't read/listened to yet.

August in review -

76. The Penderwicks on Gardam Street by Jeanne Birdsall (audio)
77. Essays of E.B. White by E.B. White
78. Tongues of Serpents by Naomi Novik
79. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
80. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
81. Sir Thursday by Garth Nix (audio)
82. The Lumby Lines by Gail Fraser
83. Oath of Gold by Elizabeth Moon
84. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
85. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
86. Montana 1948 by Larry Watson
87. Lady Friday by Garth Nix (audio)

Books read - 9
Audiobooks listened to - 3
Books abandoned - 1 (!)
Standouts - Hunger Games, Essays of E.B. White
Honorable mention - Montana 1948 - I actually left this one unrated 'cause I didn't know what to do with it. I didn't like it exactly, but it was compelling and powerful and I'm recommending it to my brother who I'm about 95% sure will really like it

Nice August wrap up, Mary!

BTW - Are you going to be at the party as planned? A little over a week and I will be up that direction!

Thanks, Stasia. I thought it was a pretty good month, all told.
I am certainly planning on going to the party and don't expect anything to come up to change that - it would have to be rather drastic, if it did. Looking forward to meeting you, Linda, Richard, and the others in a little over a week!

Another quote from The Library at Night:

"Visitors often ask if I've read all my books; my usual answer is that I've certainly opened every one of them. The fact is that a library, whatever its size, need not be read in its entirety to be useful; every reader profits from a fair balance between knowledge and ignorance, recall and oblivion" (254).

I'm rather enjoying his musings, though it's a tough book to categorize. It's part history, part essay (but not quite, as every chapter builds on the next), part philosophy. I get the sense that Manguel is rather erudite, which could be intimidating, but he doesn't come across as stuffy, either. I just feel like a good third of what he's talking about is over my head and enjoy what I can understand. :)

Sounds like an interesting book--off to put it on my wishlist!

Going back to message #45, I agree! The Mitford books are a pleasant and wonderful reading journey.

#73: Cool beans! Be sure and PM Richard for directions.

#32: I think Persuasion may be her best book (even though I have a soft spot for Pride and Prejudice and have reread it the most).
I envy you getting to read these for the first time! I just read Lady Susan, The Watsons and Sanditon this year, and even though the second two were only fragments, it was so wonderful to read some Austen I'd never read before!

#63: I HAVE to read this book! I never heard of it until a few months ago and now it seems everyone's read it. I already mooched a copy from Mark and everything. Must ... find ...

>75 ronincats: Hope you enjoy it, Roni!

>76 Whisper1: Linda, I remember liking them very much, but I'm definitely due for a reread because I can't remember much of the individual books. I tried the first in the Father Tim series, but was not so enamored - though it may have been at least partly because the audiobook reader had the wrong voice for Cynthia.

>77 alcottacre: Have done! Thanks for the reminder, Stasia. I'm so looking forward to next week!

>78 madhatter22: I'd actually read 4 out of the six major novels before this year. Pride and Prejudice is one of my all-time favorite novels, and I'm afraid Persuasion has not only the story and characters to contend with, but the nostalgia that it's built up in over 10 years or reading and rereading. :) We'll see, though. I'm looking forward to it. I hope you enjoy Montana 1948 when you get to it. I hadn't heard about it outside of LT either, and was rather pleasantly surprised to find out that my local library owns it.

#79: I look forward to seeing you there!

Well, this one will sort of skew my "abandoned" books for September, because I started Write from the Heart 'way back in April and discovered it wasn't really meant to be read from cover to cover...If you're interested, my review's up on the work page, and it wasn't a bad book, just not for me.

I'm planning on putting it on Bookmooch soon. If anyone's interested, PM me and I'll reserve it for you when I do.

Edited to fix spelling.

#81: I hope you find something next that is for you, Mary!

88. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel

I so enjoyed this book, an homage to libraries of all sorts - personal, public, national, and even imaginary. Each chapter is almost an essay in its own right, though Manguel often builds on thoughts from one to the next. This book was as much over my head when it came to literature as Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time was over my head in science (and I was an English major!). Manguel's erudition often intimidated me, yet he is never stuffy. His musings become an interesting mix of philosophy, history, and literary criticism that made me wish my mental library was a little closer to his so that I could follow more of his thoughts. I most loved the book when he was meandering, talking about personal libraries or love of books, and I wish the book was my own so I could underline passages or revisit it whenever I like. 4.5 stars.

Oh right...I forgot to mention that I'd messed up on my counting earlier, so despite the lack of an "87" next to the book name (I really do not want to go back and change them all), the 88 above and the August review numbers are the correct ones.

#83: I am glad you liked that one, Mary. If I have not already done so, I would also recommend Manguel's A History of Reading to you.

Moving it up on the TBR list. :) Thanks for the reminder, Stasia.

#86: It is different than The Library At Night since it is not essays, but a rather academic (but not dry and boring!) work. I hope you like it.

I don't mind academic when I'm in the right mood for it. He had another book come out this year that I want to read entitled A Reader on Reading.

#88: I had not heard about the new book. Thanks for letting me know about it. I will look for it. Thanks!

You're welcome! If you get to it first, let me know what you think. :)

#90: Since it is not available at my local library yet, I doubt I will get to it before you do!

#83 I have loved all the quotes that you've posted from The Library at Night so that and A History of Reading have gone on the wishlist

Hope you enjoy them, Heather!

Just stopping to say hello. I've also enjoyed the quotes!

>94 tymfos: Hello Terri! Glad you enjoyed the quotes. I think I'm going to start talking more about certain books as I read them. I've found lately that doing so, especially with the books that take me longer than usual, help me gather my thoughts for reviews.

89. Blameless by Gail Carriger

The third highly-anticipated book (for me, at least!) in the Alexia Tarabotti series begins with Lady Maccon once again living with her appalling family because her husband, Earl of Woolsey and werewolf Alpha, has kicked her out. Alexia is pregnant, you see, a state that scientists agree would be impossible as her husband is not exactly living, and she herself as a preternatural never expected what she has dubbed the infant-inconvenience. The vampires seem to know more about it than she does, however, because they want her dead.

While I enjoyed reading more adventures of Alexia, Lord Maccon, Professor Lyall, Ivy Tunstell (nee Hisselpenny), and the rest, I did not enjoy Blameless quite as much as the previous titles in the series. Perhaps this has more to do with my expectations than the story itself. I expected certain plot threads to take more time than they did to resolve, and was taken aback by how much time is spent figuring out why Alexia is pregnant and what that means for the supernatural community. Personally, since the fact that she is pregnant is a given, I was less interested in the how. I enjoyed the over-the-top humor as always, and was intrigued by the hints that Ivy is not quite as harebrained as we may have been led to believe. I will be looking forward to the publication of Heartless, the next book in the series, due out in July of next year. 4 stars.

#96: I still have to get to book 1 in the series! Yikes.

Guess you do, Stasia. I will warn you though (in case you haven't already heard) to have book 3 at the ready after finishing book 2 (Changeless). I did not warn my cousin about the cliffhanger and she about took my head off...

#98: Well, I hope your head is still attached! Of course, it would be very easy to recognize you at Richard's party if you did not have a head :) I figure everyone else at the party will have one.

lol...yeah, I'm nearly headless now. :)

Nearly Headless Mary just does not have the same ring to it as Nearly Headless Nick :)

No, it doesn't, does it? Just doesn't have the same alliterative flow.

#102: For alliteration purposes, it really should be Nearly Neckless Nick though :)

LOL
Nearly Neckless Nick. I'm going to be giggling over that one all day. :)

I have seen some people who look Nearly Neckless - including me when I had mono. I looked like a linebacker.

ouch...I've had mono twice but never had swollen glands quite that bad.

#106: I had a case I would not wish on my worst enemy. The ENT doctor I went to said that in 25 years of practice he had not seen such a bad case - he would not put me in the hospital for fear that I would catch something that would kill me due to my depleted immune system. Not the best days of my life.

looking forward to meeting you tomorrow!

>107 alcottacre: oh my goodness...that's terrible. I hope you got some good reading in, at least. When I was 18, I felt mostly just tired so I was still coming in to work, and just ate with plastic utensils and didn't use the water fountain. I had it when I was six, too, but I don't remember much about it except missing my dance recital.

Edited to clarify who I was talking too. :)

>108 Whisper1: You too, Linda! I'm starting to get pretty excited. :) I just hope I don't run into traffic on the Whitestone Bridge, it was terrible leaving the US Open a few days ago, and I may leave rather early to compensate.

#109: No, no reading. I was sleeping virtually 24 hours a day.

>111 alcottacre: Understandable. And I understand you need sleep today, too, so don't let me keep you up. Go to bed! (Tries to look bossy and fails miserably)

#112: I am still at work. They frown on me sleeping here!

>113 alcottacre: Oh, I guess I could see how that would be a problem. I told you, I fail miserably at bossy, despite being an oldest child, so it's really a sad thing. My youngest sister laughs at me when I (try to) glare.

#114: Oh, I have the glare thing down pat. My husband calls it 'the look.'

>114 bell7: See, my problem is that when I try to glare, I'm usually half-laughing, so it ends up looking sort of like a ... I don't even know, but it makes my 12-year-old sister laugh. There's no real authority behind it. :)

Having now met you in real life, I can fully understand your problem, Mary.

>117 alcottacre: Hahaha...thanks, I think. :)

So you made it back to the hotel alright? I just got in myself (after a short mishap going the wrong way down 495, but definitely not so bad I ended up in West Virginia...), and will be going to bed pretty much now. Just in case you have a Sunday post I will make sure to check it before I run off to nursery tomorrow!

Define "alright." We made it back to the hotel. "Eventually" is probably a better description.

Skipping your review of Blameless until I have read it! I'm just starting to reread Soulless now and then I am going to work my way through the others.

Glad you all had a good time at the party and got back to hotels 'eventually'!

>119 tloeffler: Ohhhh...and I thought I got lost! Your drive wasn't as long as mine, was it? (About three and a half hours, including a little bit of turned-aroundness myself.)

>129 bell7: Hope you enjoy them, Heather! There will be at least one more, coming out in July of next year.

In all the excitement over Richard's party, I almost forgot to post the review of the audiobook I finished on the way...

90. Superior Saturday by Garth Nix

In the sixth book, Arthur is finally matched up against the Trustee who has been the most trouble for him - Superior Saturday, whose goal all along has been to reach the Incomparable Gardens which are (in her opinion, unfairly) Lord Sunday's domain. Arthur is on Earth returning Lady Friday's sleepers, when he receives a call from his brother that the hospital is going to be nuked. He manages to at least delay the attack, but knows he has to return to the House to have any hope of making things right on his own world.

The symbolism hinted in the previous stories comes to the fore in this one. Superior Saturday's attempt at reaching the Incomparable Gardens reminds me of Lucifer in some ways, the gardens themselves very like Eden. Also, while Saturday has been the most trouble for Arthur all along (Dusk coming to the Pit in Grim Tuesday, for example), we see that Arthur also has issues with pride, struggling with the rage that wells up when he feels he is not given his due by a lesser being. I had not previously listened to or read this Keys to the Kingdom book, so being slightly distracted on a few car trips meant that I kind of missed some parts. Even so, it was a good story and (perhaps in part because of my distraction) I would definitely revisit it. 4.5 stars.

Reading Shades of Milk and Honey recently, I came across this interesting discussion between two of the characters. They're talking about magic ("glamour"), but the same could go for art, music, books, etc. -

"Illusions should be entrancing without someone looking behind the scenes to see how they are made. Would you enjoy a play if you saw the mechanicals exposed? For me it is much the same. I want the illusion to remain whole. If someone thinks about how it is done, I have failed in my art" (92).

The other responds, "I have always thought that an educated audience would more fully appreciate the effort which went into creating a piece of art" (92).

So, which side do you come down on? I think I'm somewhere in between. When I'm really enjoying a story, I'm not worrying about mechanics or analysis, "I want the illusion to remain whole." If I'm writing a paper in my head (one never stops being an English major), it generally means that the story hasn't captured me entirely. I often find experimental stories frustrating because they force me to focus on the mechanics. The fact that this particular story was inspired by Jane Austen's work adds to the conundrum. Would I have enjoyed it had I never read Pride and Prejudice or Northanger Abbey? Yes. Would I have fully appreciated it with no knowledge of Austen? Probably not. I should add that it's cleverly done, too. One can see Austen's influence but at the same time I never felt that I was reading a copycat.

Edited to try to fix touchstones.

Ooh, have you talked about this book yet, Mary? Regency, fantasy, Austen--definitely has to go onto my wishlist immediately!!!

I'm kind of like you. I like to be totally immersed in my story while I'm reading, yet having the context to truly appreciate the content is also key to enjoyment. I don't want to see the nuts and bolts during "story", although I might want to go back later and try to figure out what makes it work. And I do want to catch the allusions to other works. The works of Terry Pratchett and Jasper Fforde in particular have much more depth if you are familiar with the literature they are "incorporating" into their story lines.

ET correct touchstones.

If I'm writing a paper in my head (one never stops being an English major), it generally means that the story hasn't captured me entirely.

Oh, this is so so so true! I think this is why the Bartimaeus Trilogy hit me so hard — unexpectedly, it threw me right back into my teenage reading habits when I would completely lose myself in a book. Those reviews were hard to write because I wasn't planning them as I read. I was too immersed in the story to be thinking about reviewing it.

And yes, one never stops being an English major. I'll be majoring in it for the rest of my life!

>124 ronincats: Well, Roni, I hope you enjoy it! Good point about Jasper Fforde. I hadn't even thought about it, but it's so true that literary knowledge gives you that much of an "inside joke" in his Thursday Next series.

>125 atimco: Yep, those are definitely the hardest types of reviews to write, Amy! I felt like that after finishing A Rule Against Murder, where I just didn't even know how to describe why I liked the book because I was so immersed in the story that the mechanics of it flew right by me. My teachers said that we'd have an easier time writing about the books we enjoyed, but I definitely found the opposite to be true.

91. Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal

Jane and Melody are sisters in need of husbands in a time when propriety was everything and estates were entailed away. Lovely Melody seems to have an interest in either Mr. Dunkirk or Captain Livingston, the nephew of Lady Fitzcameron. Jane hopes to attract the notice of Mr. Dunkirk herself; she may be plain, but she is quite an accomplished lady, not least in the ability to work glamour.

Yes, you read right. In this Austenesque fantasy, working magic - known as "glamour" - is an art much like painting or music that could be added to a woman's (or man's) repertoire. When one thinks of it as this type of accomplishment, the idea is not so foreign really, and gives the fantasy a light touch. This is an inventive tale that cleverly nods to Jane Austen while succeeding as a story in its own right. 4 stars.

That one sounds intriguing.

Oh, and I forgot to add - there's an author chat with the author of Shades of Milk and Honey going on right now.

>128 _Zoe_: I thought so. Oh btw, Zoe, I was wondering...what books were holding in those pictures from the Strand trip? :)

I'm holding The Lives of Christopher Chant (in an exact replica of my well-worn childhood edition, yay!) and Fortune's Journey, by an author whose science fiction/fantasy books I really enjoyed as a child. I'll be curious to see what his historical fiction is like. These books were $1 each!

Then when we went to the Barnes and Noble, I finally bought a copy of Blameless, though of course now I'm too busy catching up on work that I should have done over the weekend to have any time left for reading. Maybe if I spent less time on LT....

Also, in the interest of full disclosure, I should add that I somehow ended up back at the Strand the next day and came away with a $1 copy of The Various.

>129 bell7:: Oh goodie...I was wondering the same thing. I 'attended' Richard's party and field trip through all the pictures and comments over on the Party Page. What fun you all must have had together!

>130 _Zoe_:: You got some great buys there, Zoe. And I thank you for the great pictures you took and shared with the unfortunates who couldn't make the party.

Going back into lurk mode now...

130> Oh Zoe - I've had Augarde's trilogy sitting right by my laptop all ready to read for simply ages. I would have paid more than $1 for them though.

Shades of Milk and Honey sounds great! *wishlists*

I've finally caught up with you again - you are reading some great books!

It was great 'meeting' you - seeing your picture on Richard's birthday party thread, that is. If you haven't found the party thread, you might want to check it out. :) It sounds like you all had a wonderful time!

Adding Shades of Milk and Honey to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendation, Mary!

Mary

How delightful to meet you!

>130 _Zoe_: Oooh....Diana Wynne Jones is one of my favorite authors, and I kind of wish I'd discovered her books when I was younger instead of as a teen/adult. The Various looks interesting as well (pretty cover!).

>131 Donna828: Feel free to delurk anytime, Donna! I think all the Strand goers should post their hauls over at the party thread, don't you? :)

>132 avatiakh: Dang, it's a trilogy? You all are adding three books to my TBR pile?

>133 atimco: Hope you like it, Amy!

>134 BookAngel_a: Thanks, Angela! I'm glad you at least got to see some of us over the weekend. I posted a few pictures of my own over on the birthday party thread, too. :)

>135 alcottacre: You're welcome, Stasia, hope you enjoy it!

>136 Whisper1: You too, Linda! Hope you're having a good week after your return home.

>137 bell7: I wish on your behalf that you had discovered DWJ as a child too! I can't manage to enjoy her books quite as much now as I did in the past.

Okay, I'll head over to the birthday thread to post my Strand purchases....

>138 _Zoe_: I like all of the books I've read by her and absolutely love a few - like Howl's Moving Castle and The Dark Lord of Derkholm - but, yeah, I definitely get the inkling that I'd have enjoyed them even more as a kid.

>124 ronincats: & 126: Since you're speaking of works where knowing the references makes reading more enjoyable...have you tried John Myers Myers' Silverlock?

Ooh...it sounds interesting, but based on the references mentioned on the Amazon description at the bottom of the page, they may go right over my head.

I'm sure I missed many. A friend and I read it together and spent a lot of time saying, "Hey, did you catch the reference to...?"

It seems like a long time since I've finished a book (three whole days...), so I thought I'd post a bit about what I'm reading now...

Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz is my ER read. I have three ER books waiting to be read (two of them came within days of each other), and I'm feeling the pressure. This is a tough book to read in large doses, so I'm assigning myself a certain number of pages when I sit down and promise myself I can read whatever I want if only I get to page x.

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare. I started this one on the evening of the 14th, after I got back from work. It's a sort-of prequel to the Mortal Instruments series, set in London, 1878, and incorporating a little bit of steampunk into her fantasy with Nephilim, vampires, and werewolves. Clare writes at a fast clip, and I made the mistake of reading a bit before I went to work today. I brought the book along with me so that I could (no, not read while I drove!) get just a little bit more if I happened to be a few minutes early (I was).

Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis. I started this some time ago and pick it up from time to time. I really should restart it from the beginning before reviewing it because it's been so long, but this is a book on my list of things to read before the year is out. Actually, it should probably be on my list of things to read before the end of October, because a relative of mine will be asking me about it when I see her then. Not to say I'm disliking it or forcing myself to read it. It's just that it's my book (that I purchased with said relative's Christmas money) so I keep putting it aside for those books with, you know, due dates.

Paris Review Interviews IV edited by Philip Gourevitch. A birthday gift from my brother that's also on the "finish by the end of the year" gift. I have been reading it (off and on, mostly off) since March, after all. Another good one, but again, easy to put aside. Besides the fact that it's my book, each interview is so different from the last that it doesn't seem quite fair to rush things.

Lord Sunday by Garth Nix. This will finish off my read of the Keys to the Kingdom series. I'm enjoying it overall, but since it's an audiobook I've been leaving it in the car, and it's a little difficult to keep three story threads in my head (one with Arthur, one with Leaf, one with Suzy) in the interim.

Oh, and for graphic novels and manga, I did start reading High School Debut. I've completely lost track of how many volumes I've read now; it's too much of a pain to keep several lists going over multiple threads. Anyway, I read through volume 6 of this one, and will probably keep going for a little while yet.

And that's a bit of what I've been reading lately.

>142 TadAD: It's good to know that I could enjoy the story without catching all the references. Duly added to the evergrowing TBR list. Thanks! :)

For some reason the Mortal Instruments trilogy never particularly appealed to me ( probably because one friend said the first book was terrible, and because of the controversy), but I've been intrigued by The Clockwork Angel ever since I first heard of it. I may have to give Cassandra Clare a try after all.

>145 _Zoe_: There was a controversy? I missed that. There's enough explanation that I think you could certainly follow The Clockwork Angel without having read the other books.

Mary

Have you seen the movie Shadowlands? You might enjoy this more than the book Surprised by Joy

http://www.amazon.com/Shadowlands-Anthony-Hopkins/dp/0783113315

>146 bell7: There was an issue with plagiarism in the fanfic that she wrote; I don't know the details, but it just gave me a generally negative impression of her. If I'm going to read one of her books, though, I might as well read them all, especially since I'd want to wait until the Clockwork books are all finished before starting on them. That means plenty of time for the first trilogy.

>147 Whisper1: Linda, I have not watched the Shadlowlands yet, but I have heard good things about it. I sounded like I was complaining a bit with Surprised by Joy, didn't I? I really do enjoy it when I pick it up - I've read so much C.S. Lewis that his style of writing is almost as comfortable with a book that's new to me as with some of my favorites.

>148 _Zoe_: Ah...now that you mention it, that sounds vaguely familiar, but I'm not sure if I really remember hearing that about this author or not. I do enjoy her books. She has a very fast-paced writing style that my eyes keep wanting to do what I did when I was a kid, skim through descriptions and get on to the character's talking and acting...I have to slow myself down a little (and when I say slow, I'm actually referring to reading those paragraphs I keep skipping past; my actual speed judging from about 5:30 - 8:30 was nearly 200 pages, and that includes making dinner). I hear you about waiting 'til the series is finished, though. Now that I've done all this reading, it occurs to me that I'll probably have to wait a year for the next book...

143- Wow, you've been busy! :)

>150 BookAngel_a: haha...well, those are just "currently reading" not "read." Actually, I just finished Clockwork Angel, but the others may take me awhile yet. :)

Shadowlands is a pretty good movie. I admit it made me cry. I haven't yet read Surprised by Joy and I'll be interested in your thoughts when you finish it.

I hate the obligatory nature of ER books. I have one right now that I started and just have not wanted to pick back up.

>152 atimco: Yeah, if I'm not liking it, I still feel like I should finish it to review it fairly, if it's an ER book. Though I admit, there was one where I really couldn't stand the protagonist and ended up not finishing (I did give it over 100 pages) but still reviewing. I kinda skimmed the end.

92. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

Two Shadowhunters, Will and Jem, find a girl dead on the street, apparently attacked by a demon. Tessa, an American girl travels to London to meet her brother after their aunt dies, is taken prisoner and forced to Change. She thought she was just an ordinary girl, but she learns that she has the ability, once she has held the possession of a person, living or dead, to Change into that person in appearance and thought. Though this ability scares her, the women holding her threaten her with her brother Nate's safety if she does not do what she's told - marry the Magister.

This is the first in a new series by the author of The Mortal Instruments, and a prequel of sorts to the same. The Clockwork Angel could be read first, but the explanation of the existence and purpose of Shadowhunters - or Nephilim - may be a little confusing as an introduction rather than a reminder, and the names of characters will not resonate quite so much with readers who are unfamiliar with their (apparent) descendants. This is a fast-paced story blending urban fantasy, vampires and werewolves, and a bit of steampunk. The characters are compelling, and I had a much harder time figuring out some plot points than I did with The Mortal Instruments. I am eagerly awaiting the next installment! 4.5 stars.

By the way, did you fans of the Mortal Instruments realize there's going to be a book 4 in the series?! I just found this on Amazon when I was looking to see if I could find anything about a book 2 in Infernal Devices. Apparently the cover will be revealed in December, and City of Fallen Angels will come out in April.

(I really did not need another book to add to my "books coming out in the next year" list...)

#155: I really did not need another book to add to my "books coming out in the next year" list

Do any of us? On the other hand, new books do give us something to look forward to!

That's true; I have plenty to look forward to. :) I actually have a Word document that I keep at home and at work (because if our teen librarian doesn't order a book I'm waiting for, I ask her for it!), sorted by date with upcoming books in series I'm reading.

Edited for clarity.

93. Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz

In May 1945, Pavel and his friend Fishl are newly liberated from the German concentration camps. They steal to get money and rent rooms from a widow woman. Eventually they are joined by Fela and Pavel, two other refugees and begin to build their lives back together.

This is one of the most depressing books I've read in a long time. While I felt sorry for the characters for their war experiences, I did not like a lot of the choices they made, such as Pavel's plan to kick a widow out of her house to have for himself, Fela, and Chaim. I thought a story about characters in the aftermath of their war experiences might give some interesting insight into their psychology. Well, it did, but what I found was an awfully bleak world view in which your friends and family can betray or hurt you, and broken lives can never fully be put back together. Aside from the tone, I had trouble with the lack of quotation marks around speech, unless it was a character speaking in English. It was very hard for me to follow in the beginning, especially, trying to remember who was speaking, and knowing when speech stopped and a character's thoughts began. Because the book covers the years 1945 through 2000, there are often gaps of several years between chapters, which gave the story a very disjointed feeling that I also had a hard time with. I'm not sorry I read it, as it thoughtfully addresses the way in which tragedies like World War 2 can become commodities, but it's not the type of book I enjoy reading. 2 stars.

I think I'll skip your recent read.

I hope the next one is better for you.

>159 Whisper1: I hope so too, Linda!

I've started The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, which also lacks quotation marks, but I'm reserving judgment until I reach page 50. I usually get irritated by that kind of device, but I absolutely loved Labor Day, so I'm trying to give this one a fair shake, too.

I haven't read much this week but perhaps next week will be better.

I forgot to mention that I'm glad you made it home safe from Richard's house. I admire the fact that you came all the way from Mass, driving 3-2.5 hours each way.

#158: That is normally a book I would jump on, but given your review, I think I will skip!

>161 Whisper1: Thanks, Linda! Really, in my family, that's quite a doable drive (my dad used to drive my sister from our place to her college near DC in a day, a trip I did once and decided never again). I admire you intrepid travelers who flew there!

>162 alcottacre: I hate to knock a book off your reading list only on my say-so, Stasia. I have a very low tolerance for depressing books, and remember I didn't like The Imperfectionists very well either. (Come to think of it, I had similar mixed feelings about the characters in both...)

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake was not grabbing me, so I put it aside for now. It's not off my reading list entirely, but I wasn't going to force myself to read it before 9/21 (when it's due back at the library) when I wasn't in the mood. I figure that's not really fair to me or the book.

So I've started The Widower's Tale which I'm loving so far. The main character/narrator reminds me a bit of Major Pettigrew. He's decided to turn his barn, which was his late wife's dance studio, into a school for "Elves and Fairies," a progressive preschool in town. And that's about as far as I've read so far.

I checked some of the other ratings/reviews of Displaced Persons too, Mary. I am going to continue to give it a pass.

I will be interested in seeing what you think of The Widower's Tale since I loved Major Pettigrew.

>164 alcottacre: Alrighty, I feel a little better since it's not all on me. The pressure and power of recommendations scare me sometimes. :) I will certainly let you know what I think of The Widower's Tale. If the beginning is any indication, I will be finishing it sooner rather than later.

I know what you mean about the pressure and power of recommendations--I always worry when someone says they'll avoid a book after hearing my thoughts!

Tell me about it! I worry about it every week. I just try and keep in mind that everyone's opinion is subjective and what works for one person will not work for another.

I'm almost more nervous about derecommending a book than recommending one. If someone dislikes a book I like, well, that's one of the more interesting things about reading and discussing, and I'll have a better idea of their tastes the next time. But if they decide not to read a book because I didn't like it, that's a book they may have enjoyed that they never get to experience. I guess I should give other people the benefit of the doubt that they know their own tastes, too. My hope in reviewing is that I can make a book sound interesting to someone who would like it, even if I am not that person.

Hi Mary, I got very behind on your thread for a while. I'd already wishlisted Shades of Milk and Honey because a Jane Austen fantasy novel sounded fantastic so I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Cassandra Clare is on my list of authors to try once I've got through all the other YA series on my list (still need to start The Hunger Games!)

>169 souloftherose: Hope you enjoy Shades of Milk and Honey, Heather. And oh my goodness...make sure you get to The Hunger Games! The series was great, though the first was my favorite.

Edited to fix wonky touchstones.

94. Lord Sunday by Garth Nix

The final book in the Keys to the Kingdom series starts where Superior Saturday left off - Arthur, having just wrested the sixth key from Saturday, is falling, while Leaf is still in East Area Hospital after a nuclear strike. Not fully a denizen nor mortal any longer, Arthur must battle only one more trustee to complete the Will of the Architect.

As exciting as the rest of the series, Lord Sunday wraps up everything in a fitting way that still took me completely by surprise. The ending in particular is staying in my head as I think through the implications. I think I'm going to have to go back and read the last few chapters to make sure I understood, and didn't miss anything. In retrospect, it makes the whole story arc more complicated than I realized. 4.5 stars.

#171: I will get to that one eventually! I am up to Thursday now :)

>172 alcottacre: Hope you continue to enjoy the series, Stasia!

95. The Temple of the Ruby of Fire by Geronimo Stilton

Geronimo Stilton, intrepid reporter for the biggest newspaper in Mouse City, receives four plane tickets to Brazil. He's off to the Amazon with sister Thea, cousin Trap, and nephew Benjamin, to help Professor Von Volt find the temple of the ruby of fire. That is, if he can survive overenthusiastic hotel managers, jellyfish, a needle-happy doctor, and more strange encounters!

This is a popular series at both the libraries in which I work, so I decided to try the audiobook. I'm not sure if it was the story itself or the melodramatic (but talented) reading of it, but I rolled my eyes more than I smiled. It's a silly story and doesn't suit my (admittedly weird) sense of humor like the Captain Underpants story I read did (I told you I had a weird sense of humor). Furthermore, I was annoyed that the story became a lesson in environmentalism with a ton of oversimplification that, in my opinion, doesn't do justice to the issue or the children reading the story. Bill Lobley was an excellent reader, though, adding sounds effects (laughter, burping) and having such varied voices for the character that it almost made it sound like a full-cast audio. I'm not planning on reading any more of the series myself, but I would recommend them to the right reader without hesitation.

#173: Thanks!

#174: Passing on that one. . .

>175 alcottacre: I actually don't feel guilty about steering you away from that one, Stasia. Though the audiobook only took me one day of driving, so if you ever decided to try a Geronimo Stilton book, I'm sure it would only take about 15 min. or your time. :)

Is it somewhat anal of me to start adding books to my "Read but unowned" collection because they're showing up on my recommendations page? I have read them sometime in the past, I just don't know the exact dates because I started keeping track in 2006 (or is it more anal to only include books that I can ascertain dates read? hmmm...)

Anyway, that's what I'm doing - going through the recommendations page and adding books I've already read to my "Read but unowned" collection.

This is the weird sort of detail work I do when I get the need to clean/organize something.

177: I use that feature of LibraryThing and find it useful, especially since I borrow from the library a lot and don't own a lot of what I've read. Plus now you'll get new recommendations. That's not anal, that's just organization! :)

177- I use LT to keep track of books read, per year, not necessarily books I own. I have a 'permanent library' tag for the books I want to keep forever.

I'm in a similar situation to you, and I'm considering making a "Read before LT" tag for books like that! :)

Marie and Angela - I use the library a lot, so as soon as Collections were introduced, I started adding the books from my list (started late May 2006) of books I'd read as well as adding new books as I read them. I thought about adding a "Read before 2006" collection specifically for the books that I started adding today, but decided that would be a little too much and "Read but unowned" with no date was just as good. And at least for now, I'm not adding every book I remember ever reading, just the books that show up on my recommendations. It will help bring the more interesting, unread books to the top, anyways. :)

177 - I do exactly that. I use Your Library for stuff I actually own, Read But Unowned for all the library books and loaners I read, and I even have a collection for awful books I don't want to ever see again but need to keep in the library so reviews stay around.

Plus, I guess at dates if I don't know them exactly. I figure it's *my* library, so I'll use LT in whatever way makes sense to me as long as it doesn't spoil it for everyone else! :)

>181 drneutron: I use Your Library for stuff I actually own, Read But Unowned for all the library books and loaners I read

Yep, that's exactly what I do with those collections. I have not yet created an "Awful Books" collection, though I did think about it. I wish I was able to put in partial dates, but so far when I've tried it's automatically filled in with today's information. (That is, if I just type 2005, I get 2005-09-22) So I stopped doing that.

:::sigh:::
Another book not working for me right now. Please note this is not a derecommendation of The Widower's Tale. It's just not interesting me at the moment (I liked the parts narrated by Percy Darling, didn't care for the third-person narration parts as much focusing on other characters), and it's due back at the library Tuesday.

So, I've picked up The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block, which fits in a TIOLI challenge at the very least. It's short stories of retold fairy tales, and I will finish it if only because it won't take me very long...

(How's that for motivation?)

96. The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block

This collection of nine fairy tales retells familiar stories such as Snow White and Beauty and the Beast, giving each of them a darker or more modern spin. In "Charm," for example, Sleeping Beauty is not literally asleep, but a girl who was used by men and became a drug addict. Most of the stories have a positive outcome in some form or another, however, much like fairy tales themselves, though the result is much more bittersweet than "happily ever after." My personal favorite, "Glass," told the story of a Cinderella who spun fine tales, and whose relationship with her sisters necessarily changed because of the prince. Though the stories were darker than I tend to enjoy, I have to say the writing was splendid. Sentences flow smoothly, making you want to keep reading without pause, or even try it out loud for a sound of it. Recommended for fans of fairy tales with a modern twist. 3 stars.

This is the first book I've read by the other, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as I hoped, her writing convinced me to at least try one more before giving up altogether.

I have a completely separate LT account for my 'read but unowned' collection so that the books catalogued under AlcottAcre are really the books I own. I think this makes me more anal than you, Mary :)

>185 alcottacre: Maybe the same amount of anal, just over different things. lol I did separate out all my graphic novels and manga in a collection that doesn't count towards my "connections" so that my similar libraries would not be the other people who have 20 volumes of Fruits Basket. :) I enjoy manga, yes, but it's hardly representative of my reading as a whole.

Now my recommendations (at least, the first page) are made up of books I have not read, except for things like Jane Eyre, where the copy I own is an omnibus, and I refuse to include part/whole issues. I have Jane Eyre in my library already, it's just hidden in The Works of Charlotte and Emily Bronte: The Complete Novels (which apparently does not have a touchstone). Oh well, the part/whole thing will resolve this whenever it appears.

The next project will be reading through my recommendations so I can dismiss those that I don't like. I'm guessing that project might take longer than a day. Actually, I did start reading Wicked Lovely which tops my recommendations list now, and couldn't get into it, but I haven't abandoned it so entirely that I'm ready to click the "No thanks."

#186: How do you separate out books like that so they do not count towards 'connections?' I would like to take out all the romances, but no idea how to do it.

>187 alcottacre: When you go into "Your library," on the left you can click on the collections drop down menu, the same one you would use if you wanted to toggle between "All Collections" and "To Read" or what have you. On the bottom, click on "Edit Collections." A box should pop up that lists all your collections, and they each have an arrow on the side. If you drop the arrow, you can "uncheck" connections or recommendations (or both). If you want to create a new collection like I did for Graphic Novels, you also have those options to uncheck when you title the collection. Then click on save on the right bottom corner of the big box, and you're set! Hope that helps, Stasia. Let me know if anything is unclear.

#188: Thanks for the instructions, Mary. I will give it a try later tonight.

ETA: Gave it a shot and discovered that it is not going to work for me. I do not have a separate collection for my romance novels, they are just all part of my library. I never did figure out how to drop the arrow to uncheck connections, never finding the arrow to begin with, but based on what you are saying, I would have to have a separate collection and I do not. Oh well.

>189 alcottacre: Just for the record, it's pretty quick to create a new collection from tags (say, if you wanted to create a Romance collection that included all books tagged "Historical Romance" or "Contemporary Romance"). If you ever decide you do want to go that route.

#190: Thanks for the idea, Zoe, but I think for now I will just leave them where they are.

>190 _Zoe_: Yeah, with power edit, right? I hadn't thought about that, but it's probably what I did with the manga.

>189 alcottacre: Sorry it didn't work, Stasia. It's more a triangle, and a little one at that (yeah, arrow was my choice of words, sorry). You know you're hovering over the right spot when the cursor changes from arrows to a small hand.

#192: No problem, Mary.

Going back to about >177 bell7::

Do you find the LibraryThing recommendations useful? I haven't...but then I haven't spent much time grooming my collections to try to influence the recommendation process. Since I get more than enough through other sources (primarily this group) it hasn't been important. Still, I'm curious.

In the spirit of "always look a gift horse in the mouth" I wish that we had hierarchical collections. On one hand, I like the idea of having those I own in Your Library and those I've read by don't own in Read But Unowned—the categorization is neater.

However, I also want to be able to look at everything I've read in a single list since that is my real mental definition of my library and suits my primary purpose of keeping track of what I've read and how I felt about the books.

Since the latter trumps the former for me by a long shot, I end up putting everything I've read in Your Library. If we had hierarchical collections, however, I could have had my cake and eaten it, also. Unfortunately, the only real hiearchy is "All Collections" vs. Everything Else and that doesn't work because it pulls in Wishlist.

Maybe I should do what Stasia did and keep Wishlist in another account...of course, that's a lot more work.

#194: Tad, since all I keep track of on my other account is books I do not actually own, it really is not all that much work. I enter the books on that account as I am reading them, so basically 1-3 at a time. No big deal.

>194 TadAD: I'm not sure if I would call Recommendations "useful" for a few reasons. One, I have enough books that I want to read to last me more than a lifetime, and between working at two libraries and reading 75-ers threads, I add to that TBR list all the time. Secondly, and this is tied into the first point, most of my recommendations list are books I've already heard about. So Recommendations are not incredibly useful in finding new books to read.

But, I do find it interesting in terms of knowing what other people with my books also have or enjoy reading. Plus, it's just fun to see a list with an eclectic combination of YA, fantasy, graphic novels, Shakespeare, Tolkien, and the Brontes, listed on the first page. It makes me feel like a well-rounded reader. :) I guess that's primarily why I added the books that I'd already read that were showing on my recommendations page. It's just more interesting if it's books I haven't read, and I wanted to see how and if it would change the order of my recommendations. (The answer: not much. Wicked Lovely moved from third to first after I confirmed I'd read #1 and #2.)

I play with collections not so much to tweak recommendations as to tweak connections and to satisfy my librarian need for organization. I left "Graphic Novels and Manga" in recommendations and took it out of connections because based on their relatively obscurity on LT, my weighted "Members with your books" were dominated with people who had several volumes of often just one or two of the manga series I'd read. I added other collections of books in my mental library that I wanted to keep discrete for some reason or another - "School Books," for example, being books I'd read as an English major. I keep "Your library" and "Read but unowned" separate for my own record keeping. They both show up in "All Collections," which is how I generally look at my LT library, and this helps me keep track of what I've read and how I felt about the books, as you mention above. This way I can also avoid purchasing duplicates by knowing which ones I already own (those in "Your library") and, in my opinion, is cleaner than tags.

Wishlist is another beast altogether. I'm with Zoe for "Wishlist separation," because I have a few hundred books on the TBR longlist, and it's a list of books that aren't exactly representative of "what I want to read now." They're "books that looked interesting at one time or another" and books that's it's my goal to read "someday" (all of Shakespeare's works, for example). So my "Wishlist" collection on LT is not my "TBR" list. It's a list of books that I want to own someday (which is, I admit, really useful for Christmas lists). Most of them are books I've read, though I think there's one or two that are/were upcoming books by a favorite author or a series I've been reading and knew I'd want the next one as soon as it came out.

Sorry if that was a really long explanation. I have a tough time being concise and clear at the same time.

>195 alcottacre:: No big deal

Ah, you fail to reckon with my absolute laziness.

Right now, I see something I like, I just click on "Add to Wishlist." When I finally do read it, I simply change its Collection and fill out a rating, etc. Easy peasey, lemon squeezy. Transcribing to/from another system...well, I'd probably just go back to using Amazon's Wishlist then.

Ooh, Wishlist separation... one of my biggest pet peeves. The whole point of Collections was to separate the various parts of our library, and after waiting two years for the feature it turned out we couldn't really separate anything after all! Even worse, Tim has continued to insist that the whole concept of Wishlist separation is completely ridiculous and inconceivable. Many acrimonious words have been exchanged.

That said, I'm optimistic that he'll at least start to reconsider after seeing the polling results. Despite his initial mocking response, more people have voted in favour of Wishlist separation than against, and he has shown a general willingness to take into account the results of that thread. So we'll see. Maybe I'll start a new thread about the issue later this week.

For now, I'm maintaining a sort-of wishlist on Amazon (not really a wishlist, because it's mostly just books that look interesting and deserve further investigation). It's only two clicks from the LT Work page to the Amazon wishlist, which is actually easier than adding it on LT.

As for recommendations, I've created a "Recently Read" collection (which actually includes books I've read over the past several years, since I'm a slow reader), and I've set it so that only that one counts for recommendations and connections. It vastly improved my connections, which now show lots of familiar people who I knew were reading the same books as me. The recommendations are also vastly improved in that they're now generally books that I actually want to read, but I have the same problem with them being mostly familiar already. At some point in the past the recommendations page had an option to exclude authors already in our catalogues, and I think that would be worth bringing back. I'm also getting plenty of recommendations from this group, though, so I don't really need more.

Okay, I decided just to start a thread about Wishlist separation immediately and see what people have to say about it. http://www.librarything.com/topic/99196

Thanks for the link, Zoe. I dropped my two cents in, and we'll see what happens with that discussion. You know, it's kind of interesting how people think about their mental libraries - whether a book has to be owned or not, where an unread book "goes" in its organization.

I'm reading The Red Pyramid finally, after having it home from the library for over a month. I let my youngest sister read it first because I had so much out at once, and now it's the next one due at the library. I'm about halfway through and really enjoying it so far. I like that the plot doesn't feel like a copy of the Percy Jackson series, even though it does involve kids learning about gods/mythology (this time Egyptian). The narrative is different because of the switching perspectives between a brother and sister, and the story isn't a quest in quite the same way that the previous books were.

#200: I loved The Red Pyramid, Mary. Of course, I love all things Egyptological, so that probably has some bearing on it :) I am glad you are enjoying it.

I have a read but unowned collection and also an omnibus collection for books that are contained within omnibus editions in my library, partly so I don't confused on author/series pages and think I don't own a book that is actually contained within an omnibus I own and partly so that my library gets correctly compared to other people who might have the books in the omnibus listed separately. My wishlist is books I want to read and I have a separate collection for books I definitely want to buy rather than borrow from the library (although a lot of the time I end up buying from the wishlisted collection anyway!)

For recommendations, I followed Zoe and I only have LT make recommendations on books I have read in 2009 or 2010 (and any books in my favourites collection). I find the recommendations more pertinent that way.

I think I'm ambivalent about wishlist separation. Happy for it to be implemented if that's what other people want but I can survive without it and there are other things I want more (unique author pages and other author pages - if Goodreads can do it, it makes LT seem so backward that we can't)

And on the books, for some reason I didn't enjoy the last two Keys of the Kingdom books as much as the earlier ones but I agree that there seemed to be a lot more symbolism and more to chew over in those two books than I'd thought there was in the earlier books.

I haven't read the Percy Jackson books but The Red Pyramid is on my wishlist from Stasia's recommendation.

>201 alcottacre: Stasia, I really enjoyed The Red Pyramid. Review to follow soon!

>202 souloftherose: In discussing what I would want a wishlist separate-collection to look like, it occurs to me that having a list feature instead would allow me to do basically what I wanted without changing the way collections were organized. It kind of surprised me to realize this today...

I enjoyed the Percy Jackson series a lot, and my sister finally read them after devouring the Harry Potter series this summer (my youngest sister has been much more willing to take my recommendations lately, it's kind of funny). The Red Pyramid had some similarities, but was different enough to feel like a new series, if that makes sense. I liked the last two Keys to the Kingdom well enough to rate them an "I would reread" 4.5, but feel like I missed a lot on the audio. Lady Friday was the weakest, IMO.

#203: Good! I am glad you enjoyed The Red Pyramid, Mary.

97. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan

Carter and Sadie Kane are brother and sister, but they've been apart for the last several years. After their mother died, Sadie went to live with her grandparents in England, while Carter traveled along with his Egyptologist father. Now it's Christmas Eve, one of the two days Sadie gets to spend with her father and Carter, and he takes them to the British Museum. But when a magical spell goes completely wrong, Sadie and Carter have to find a way to save their father, defeat Set, and keep chaos from breaking loose.

In a similar vein to the Percy Jackson books, The Red Pyramid re-imagines Egyptian mythology as true and present tense. In this case, the gods have been banished for ages and are starting to be released. Instead of focusing on one character's perspective, we see both Carter and Sadie's as they switch back and forth every couple of chapters in a "recording" that we are privy to. This starts of rather cryptically with a reference to the reader, telling you to go to a particular locker and find an object that they have stashed away. Otherwise, the pace was a little slow building (again, I'm comparing this to Percy Jackson, which often started off with an explosion), slowly revealing details, often laying out mythological explanations a bit bluntly instead of expecting the reader to catch on. To be honest, I probably would not have caught on without these explanations in the same way I did with the Greek mythology that is much more present in literary and cultural references. Carter and Sadie were believable characters, and their sibling relationship was realistic and fun to see develop. I'll be looking for the next book in the series. 4.5 stars.

#205: Great review, Mary!

>203 bell7: I was also surprised to realize that I just need a list feature for my wishlist, instead of a change to how collections work.

>205 bell7: I hadn't been particularly interested in The Red Pyramid because I only read the first Percy Jackson book and wasn't impressed enough to continue with the series, but you make it sound like a worthwhile read. Maybe I'll give it a shot after all.

#207: I loved The Red Pyramid, Zoe, but as I said before, I love all things Egyptological.

>208 alcottacre: Well, considering that I'm studying ancient history, I think there's good chance that I'll like it as well ;)

#209: True!

>206 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia! It was kind of hard to write, one of those things where I liked the book well enough that it was hard to describe why.

>207 _Zoe_: Hope you enjoy The Red Pyramid if you get to it, Zoe. You may find it more annoying than I did that the myths and the gods are explained much more bluntly than in the Percy Jackson series, but since I didn't know a lot of the references and it gave Carter's character a little bit of a knowledgeable traveler feel (or know-it-all if you lean towards Sadie more), it often worked without feeling too clunky to me.

98. Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord

Tess lives on an island off the coast of Maine, and she can't imagine any other life than hers, going to the one room schoolhouse where her mother teacher and fishing lobster with her father. But year-round islanders have been moving to the mainland, leaving fewer and fewer kids on the island. To keep their school from closing, a few families decide to take in foster kids, keeping the numbers up enough to satisfy the state. Aaron comes to live with Tess, her sister Libby, and their parents. Tess and Libby imagine what it might be like to have Aaron live with him, but neither of them expect what actually happens that summer.

I read Newbery Honor-winning Rules by the same author a few years ago, so I was really excited to see a new book out by Cynthia Lord. This is the sort of story that I enjoyed reading as a child when, much like Tess, I was reading The Great Gilly Hopkins and Anne of Green Gables. Tess narrates the story, sharing her fears about moving to the mainland, her nervousness about friends, and her attempts at finding good luck. When she misunderstood some of Aaron's actions, I cringed with sympathy for both, understanding (as an adult, especially) where they were coming from. A sweet story I would recommend to readers who enjoy character-driven realistic fiction. 4 stars.

99. The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

When April moves in with her grandmother, she meets Melanie and Marshall Ross. April and Melanie become fast friends, discovering a shared delight in reading and imaginative games, and begin a fascination with Egypt. In a neighbor's abandoned yard, they begin playing the Egypt Game, using their knowledge of Ancient Egypt and imagination to create altars and rituals in an elaborate game. But their play is threatened when a local child is murdered, and there's a possibility that the guilty person is someone they know.

I chose this as my read for Banned Books Week, curious to see what sorts of rituals and descriptions might make someone react so strongly as to challenge this book just in the past year. I'd expected a fantasy where the gods came to life, and ancient rituals were described in detail. I'm still somewhat baffled, because what I found was a book steeped in imaginative play that reminded me of the games I used to play with my friends, cousins, and neighbors. In fact, reading the book became more of an experience of walking down memory lane, remembering how we played games based on movies or TV shows that we would stop to discuss who was getting eaten by dinosaurs, or if which dinosaur we were calling on for super powers. The descriptions of the kids' imagination, discussions, and power plays for making game decisions, were quite realistic. I was also surprised that a book written in the 60s has aged extremely well. Though I laughed at some of the kids' expressions ("Sheesh!" reminded me of another friend from my childhood...), for the most part their story could have been one that happened in almost any small town neighborhood. Also, the main characters are white, African American, Asian American, and more, quite a varied cast for its time. I seriously wonder what book the challenger was reading, because it doesn't appear to be at all like the one I read. 4 stars.

Edited to add star rating.
Also, if anyone has any link to a news story or some such about the latest challenge, could you post it here or PM me? I saw a quote in the ALA banned books list that I was curious to see with a little more context, but the only news stories I could find were from 1995 and cost money to view...

Just started The Bells by Richard Harvell, which I picked up from the library new books shelf entirely on a whim. (This could either be really interesting or a total flop)

#212/213: Adding both of those to the BlackHole. Thanks for the recommendations, Mary.

>215 alcottacre: You're welcome, Stasia, hope you enjoy them both!

100. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (audio)

Leo Borlock recounts his junior year, the year Stargirl Carraway stopped being homeschooled and started coming to Mica High School. Stargirl is herself, not at all conforming to the way the students think a "normal" girl should behave - she has a pet rat, and a ukulele, and sings "Happy Birthday" to her schoolmates in the cafeteria. At first she's popular, but she becomes more and more ostracized as her behavior continues and the popular kids don't think much of her.

This was a tough book to like. Stargirl was an interesting character, one who's individuality sparkles off the page so you can imagine every bit of her. On the other hand, I've never known any teenager that behaved like her because it was who they were, rather than a desire for attention. I'm not sure I agree that she's automatically to be admired for being different. Leo, on the other hand, seemed very real to me. I cringed about some of the choices he makes, all the while thinking, "Sure, I'd make a different choice now, but when I was in high school and unsure of myself and unsure of who I was, yeah, I would have done x." The story of his growing friendship with Stargirl is bittersweet, as she barely notices what others think, while Leo cares very, very much about his schoolmates' opinions. Maybe it didn't work for me because it felt more like a lesson than a story. 3.5 stars.

Great review, but I think I'll skip that one.

>218 _Zoe_: Thanks, Zoe. Looks like my opinion's the minority one, but oh well. Guess I'm a bit of a nonconformist on the book about nonconformity...

Good news! The library got Bury Your Dead in today, which means that I am first in line when it's officially available tomorrow, and if it's not ready to go I will put the stickers on myself! So if you see neither hide nor hair of me tomorrow evening, you know why. :)

I am going to read Bury Your Dead this week too, Mary, so maybe we can compare notes :)

213: The Egypt Game is one of my all-time favorite children's books. It's just so insightful and well written. I would never have thought it would make a banned-book list... wow.

Just stopping by for a quick hello!

Enjoy Bury Your Dead!

>221 alcottacre: I just finished it a few minutes ago, Stasia. Looking forward to seeing what you think of it!

>222 atimco: Yeah, I was really surprised. I couldn't help but think if this was offensive to someone, just think of what they'd do with something like The Red Pyramid...

>223 tymfos: Hi Terri! I definitely enjoyed it!

101. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

***Do I have to warn this is the sixth book in a series? I'm not talking about plot points beyond page 50, but this will have spoilers for early books. :)

Inspector Gamache is taking a leave of absence from the Surete, after an incident that scars him, both physically and emotionally. He is the old city of Quebec, spending time with his old mentor and browsing the shelves of the Literary and Historical Society, a library that keeps a collection of English historical materials. When a man fixated on Samuel de Champlain is killed in the basement of the "Lit and His," Gamache helps the local police with their investigation. Meanwhile, he has daily received letters from Gabri, friendly, but insistent that Olivier did not kill the hermit.

My sister has this habit of keeping books so she can read them over - not usually the whole thing, but portions here and there, reading the beginning, or a favorite chapter, or the ending over again. Now that I've finished Bury Your Dead, I understand a little better why she would do that. The story lines - the historical and current mystery Gamache works on, Beauvoir's story, and the revelation of just what happened to cause Gamache to take a leave of absence - are intricate and perfectly paced. I experienced a range of emotions following these characters, coming the closest I have in years to crying over a book. I want to start all over again to tease out the details and start to understand the chronology of some events that are given out piecemeal, in an order dictated by what I need to know about the characters and their choices rather than a time frame. An incredibly satisfying read that will stay with me a long time, Bury Your Dead is, in my opinion, the best of this series. 5 stars.

I am skipping your review of Bury Your Dead. No offense, Mary :)

>226 alcottacre: None taken! I started skipping reading threads where people mentioned it to avoid spoilers. :)

Great review, and I agree with you - book #5 and #6 together are my favorite in the series. :)

I've just caught up on all 150-or-so messages since I last dropped by! Still a case of reading OR keeping up at the moment, there just aren't enough hours in the day...

I LOVED Stargirl - I think I read it about three times in secondary school. A couple of times it got a bit OTT, but I thought generally it was very sweet and helped show that being yourself, no matter how much your interests and outlook on life deviate from the 'popular kids', is no bad thing. I have a friend called Natalie who reminds me of Stargirl actually! She's free and fun and just a delight to be around. She'll put on a raincoat and twirl in the rain, and splash knee-deep in the sea fully clothed, and go on a day trip at a second's notice, and collect the quirkiest teapots you've ever seen, just because... Lord, I miss that girl. I met her at uni a couple of hours away and found out she only lived half an hour away from me - then her family moved to Bakewell, near our shop! But she's moved to a flat in Edinburgh and I missed her last time she came home for Christmas. *sigh*

Oh, and I've added a good handful of books to my wishlist, as always! :-)

>228 BookAngel_a: Angela, it's hard to say what I would have thought of book 5 if I hadn't seen a certain spoiler when #6 was offered through ER, but I still enjoyed it immensely.

>229 elliepotten: Well, Ellie, obviously you need to stop in a bit more often LOL. Actually, I got a little behind on threads when I blazed through Bury Your Dead, my starred threads didn't get caught up 'til this morning. Listening to Stargirl was an interesting experience. I wonder if I would have liked the book better if I interpreted their voices in my own way. I can also really get my back up about homeschooling, since I was, and I don't like how Stargirl goes to school "to make friends" (What do you mean? I was homeschooled, I had/have friends), for example. I remember high school as being a time where I was still figuring out who I was, so having a character that was so completely sure kind of surprised me, being the kind of person I wanted to be but didn't have the ability at the time. Now I can call myself a nerd and not be putting myself down, just acknowledging that I will always be the girl who has her nose in books and just has to look up the answer when there's a question about something, because it doesn't matter if you don't need to know, now I'm curious. Makes me a great reference librarian but a... unique conversationalist. :)

102. Death Benefits by Sarah N. Harvey

Royce and his mom have moved across Canada to live near his ninety-five-year-old grandfather, Arthur. Arthur was a well-known cellist and a ladies' man in his time, but now he needs some help, but he's so ornery and a bit of a perv, which makes it impossible for his daughter to keep any hired help. This means that Royce, who's been out of school recovering from mono, gets the job instead. He isn't exactly looking forward to it, but he'll put up with his impossible grandfather to get the cash.

A well-worn plot of crusty old guy and reluctant teenager who come to respect each other doesn't have much new to add. Royce, who is a lot like his grandfather, narrates the story, and I found I was not a fan of the more crude thoughts of teenage boys. Realistic, yes, but it came down to too much information for me at times. I thought more could have been done with the ethical questions that Royce asks himself towards the end; some of his decisions seemed to be more of a foregone conclusion. The banter between Royce and Arthur, on the other hand, was often fun, and despite the swearing I enjoyed seeing Royce stand up for himself after awhile. 3 stars.

I'll pass on that last one... but back to high school! I think most people are trying to figure out who they are at that time, but there is always the odd one who knows EXACTLY who he or she is, and doesn't really care what other people think. Such a shame, thinking on it from an older and wiser capacity, that it is these sparkling individuals who are usually the figures of ridicule at school. Then, of course, there are the nerds like us, who just wait it out until such a time when our peers start to realise there's more to life than mascara and shopping... I find a perverse kind of glee in the fact that so many of those 'popular' kids are now the ones doing nothing with their lives, looking atrocious already from all those early years of sunbeds and general abuse... *cackles evilly and sticks her nose firmly back in her book*

Mary, since so many people are saying that books 5 and 6 are the best of Penny's books so far, could a person just skip over the middle books?

Then, of course, there are the nerds like us, who just wait it out until such a time when our peers start to realise there's more to life than mascara and shopping... I find a perverse kind of glee in the fact that so many of those 'popular' kids are now the ones doing nothing with their lives, looking atrocious already from all those early years of sunbeds and general abuse... *cackles evilly and sticks her nose firmly back in her book*

Haha, so true!

I'm a Girl Guide leader for girls ages 9-11, and we're always trying to get the girls to stay in the organization and move on to the next age level when it's time. So we have various combined, get-to-know you activities with the older girls (12-14). But one of my girls told me that she didn't want to stay involved because the older girls were really boring: all they talked about was boys. I couldn't really say much to that because I remember being so bored with my friends' conversations in those years. I could just reassure her that while her own friends would probably become boring like that too in the near future, it would get better eventually!

>222 atimco: Ellie, you're right, of course, that there are those few that know exactly who they are - and Stargirl is definitely one of those people, so that part's definitely realistic. I wanted to shake Leo, though I completely related to him as well. I'm not sure that he made any choices differently from what I would have done, the times he stays silent out of not knowing what to say and the times he responds with the right things. I always envied the kids that knew exactly who they were and what they wanted to do with their lives. Maybe that's one of the reasons I felt like the book was a bit of a lecture to "Be Yourself." :)

>223 tymfos: Ohhh...that's a hard question, Bonnie, 'cause I've been enjoying them all along, and I'm not sure I'd have enjoyed Books 5 and 6 as much without my growing attachment to the characters in the previous books. But I'm a very character-oriented reader, so it's really hard for me to say. Anyone else want to jump in with their thoughts on that?

>224 bell7: Oh goodness, yes...one of my friends became boy-crazy when we hit the age of 12, and I can just remember sitting on her bed letting her talk on and on and finally asking if we could change the subject... (On the other hand, I could go on and on forever about books, and I'm sure some of my friends would rather I asked questions other than, "So, what have you been reading lately?")

September in review -

88. The Library at Night by Alberto Manguel
89. Blameless by Gail Carriger
90. Superior Saturday by Garth Nix (audio)
91. Shades of Milk and Honey by Mary Robinette Kowal
92. Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare
93. Displaced Persons by Ghita Schwarz
94. Lord Sunday by Garth Nix (audio)
95. The Temple of the Ruby of Fire by Geronimo Stilton (audio)
96. The Rose and the Beast by Francesca Lia Block
97. Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord
98. The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan
99. Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli (audio)
100. The Egypt Game by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
101. Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

Books read - 10
Audiobooks listened to - 4
Graphic novels/Manga - 9
Standouts - The Library at Night, Clockwork Angel, The Red Pyramid and especially Bury Your Dead
Can't believe I read the whole thing - Displaced Persons, but it was for ER

Thoughts - boy, what a jam-packed reading month! Of course, it helped that a few at the end there were shorter children's and YA novels, but even so, 14 altogether plus a few manga volumes is not too shabby.

103. Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene

Patty Bergen is a twelve-year-old Jewish girl growing up in Jenkinsville, Arkansas during World War 2, the summer that German POWs are imprisoned right outside of town. She's a lonely girl who tries to be good so her parents will love her, but nothing she does seems to turn out right. Then, several POWs come to her father's store, and she begins a friendship with one of them, a young man named Anton Reiker who speaks English and isn't really a Nazi at all.

I'm not really sure what I expected when I picked this book up, but I found the story surprising in many ways. The book was originally published in 1973, and I couldn't help but compare the way race was dealt with in this story versus The Egypt Game, which was published in the 1960s. Patty's family is described as not having a lot of money, but Patty and her sister Sharon are looked after by a black woman, Rose, who lives in "Nigger Bottoms." I'm fairly sure that the use of the word "nigger" in this example and others was historically accurate, but I still found it jarring when I came across it. On the other hand, the people Patty loves most are Rose and Anton, a fact that's clearly not socially acceptable in the 1940s when the story is set. I was also surprised by the presence of child abuse, an issue I did not expect to see addressed in a children's book of its era. The age difference between Patty and Anton was a little shocking, and I dearly wanted an "Author's Note" at the end to explain whether or not some of the events could have (or did) happen, but no such luck. When I first started reading, I wasn't exactly taken by the story, but it grew on my as Patty herself, narrating the story started to grow on me too. 3.5 stars.

Just a bit of October TIOLI planning:

I already read -
Death Benefits by Sarah N. Harvey (Challenge #7)

I want to read -
A non-horror book by Stephen King (Challenge #2)
Savvy by Ingrid Law (Challenge #4)
Barefoot in Baghdad by Manal Omar (Challenge #7 and LTER)
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett (Challenge #9)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (Challenge #9)
Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell (Challenge #13)
Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff (Challenge #14)

I might end up reading -
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God by Mary Rowlandson (Challenge #1)
Dracula by Bram Stoker (Challenge #2)
The Color Purple by Alice Walker (Challenge #3, Fiction Pulitzer in 1983)

#238: It looks like you have some good reads planned for October, Mary. Good luck with them!

>239 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia. I don't usually plan so far ahead so exactly, but since a lot of the challenges for this month fit books on the TBR longlist (as opposed to the short list of books currently checked out from the library), I decided to keep track. It will be interesting to see how closely I stay with my original plan. :)

So, of course the book I finished this evening was a non-TIOLI read, Mrs. Mike. I'll probably wait to review it 'til tomorrow, I'm a little too tired to put my thoughts together coherently.

#240: I enjoyed Mrs. Mike. I hope you did too.

104. Mrs. Mike by Benedict Freedman

In the early 1900s, sixteen-year-old Katherine Mary moves to Canada to live with her uncle, hoping that the air will help her pleurisy. She meets Sergeant Mike Flannigan, a Mountie. He makes her mad with her teasing, but as she confides in her new friend, Mildred, "he has eyes so blue you could swim in them." When they marry, duty calls him to the North, where there are few white women and being a Mountie isn't so much being a policeman as it is peacemaker and doctor.

This was a sweet, sad, but hopeful tale. I enjoyed Kathy and Mike and their growing relationship as the years pass and they go through various experiences in their married lives. Having just read The Egypt Game and The Summer of My German Soldier, I couldn't help but notice how this book from the 1940s dealt with race. "Mrs. Mike" lives in a territory where there are primarily trappers and Indian women, and her opinions include historically accurate generalizations, such as when she wonders about introducing strikes to the Indian women, but concludes that they're "savages and wouldn't understand." Yet the portrayal of some of the individual characters, especially when compared to some of their white counterparts, give a much more nuanced picture. Though Kathy's spoken opinions never say as much, one can see a difference in the way she responds to characters in given situations. This is a story I would definitely read again, and I'm going to look for the sequels as well. 4.5 stars.

223- Bonnie, I would have to chime in and agree that Louise Penny's books #5 and #6 would NOT have been as enjoyable to me if I hadn't read the first four. The first four are quite good as far as mysteries go, and they help the reader form an attachment to the characters. Then, what happens in #5 and #6 is even more devastating, beautiful, and meaningful - because it's happening to people you care about.

But like Mary, I know that all readers are different and what works for some won't work for others. Jumping in at book #5 might work for you. Especially if you don't usually like mysteries and you want to see what all the fuss is about.

#233 I DID start with book 5 -- I received it as an ER book -- and while I could follow the story and I enjoyed it (and it caused me to go back and read the others) I definitely wished that I'd started at the beginning with book one!

I enjoyed your review of Summer of my German Soldier. It's been years since I read it but I remember enjoying it quite a bit.

>243 BookAngel_a: and 244 Thanks for adding your input. It's always interesting to see the variety of approaches people have to books and reading.

>245 atimco: Thanks, Amy. I've been reading teen (roughly defined as books with a protagonist that's 12-18, not strictly YA as I would think of it) books written in each decade from pre-1930 to 2010. I read three pretty close together - The Egypt Game, Summer of My German Soldier and Mrs. Mike - which colored my reading of them, as you can tell from my discussion of race in the last two. I found the end a little depressing, though, (spoiler) with the implication that when she got out she'd essentially have to go back to her father and wait out reaching 18. True for its time, but ugh.

What I'm reading now...

Welcome to the World, Baby Girl! by Fannie Flagg
Yeah, this wasn't on my list of planned October reads. I visited my grandparents earlier this month, and my grandmother so highly recommended it that I brought it home. For some reason, it's not capturing my interest at the moment, but I've put it on my list for reference in case I end up abandoning it for now. I haven't yet made a final decision on that, I just don't pick it up that often.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Fits the one-syllable challenge in TIOLI and one of my 1010 categories that I've been sadly neglecting. The story of a book thief and a book dealer who made it a mission to put him beyond bars, it's an engaging story that reads quickly, though at least at the beginning it's a little repetitive ruminating about collecting in general, and collecting rare books in particular.

And that's it...which is a little unusual for me, but since the nonfiction book is due soon, I'm focusing on it a little bit more than I tend to. Usually, it's the opposite, the fiction book(s) I have going are smooth reading, and the nonfiction is in bits and pieces. But I'm hoping to at least finish The Man Who Loved Books Too Much over the next day or two so I can jump into some fun fiction books for the long weekend.

The Man Who Loved Books Too Much looks really interesting. I'm looking forward to what your thoughts on it are. And I totally do the same thing with Fiction vs. Non-Fiction and actually find myself in the same predicament now. Just have to push through sometimes!

>248 RosyLibrarian: Marie, I did finish it today, and enjoyed it overall. The review is forthcoming, but I need to think it out a bit more as I write it, and I have to leave in 10 minutes...
I don't read a ton of nonfiction, either, so I go it slow even when it's not the sort of book that needs slow processing. Even though I signed up for the Dewey Decimal Challenge, I find that I tend to read in the same nonfiction genres: books about books, history of the English language, and sports. At work the other day, someone was looking for a recommendation of a nonfiction book and when I finally sat down to come up with a list of 8-10 books, I found that I was covering about three years' worth of reading. I'd only read 10 nonfiction books so far this year! I'd say I would make it a New Years resolution for 2011, but I'd never keep it. The fact is, most of the books that interest me are fiction, and I'm much more likely to push the nonfiction further down on my "someday" TBR list.

105. The Man Who Loved Books to Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

The world of rare books can be a strange place to those not given to collecting or interested in books-as-objects rather than holders of information. In fact, it's quite an impressive business and has the thievery rate to show for it. When a friend showed her an old book that was apparently stolen from a library some time ago, Allison Hoover Bartlett was intrigued enough to look into the rare book business, collecting, and stealing. In particular, she heard about one thief, John Gilkey, who stole quite a bit to keep for his own personal use rather than to resell, and the man who worked as security chair for the ABAA, Ken Sanders.

Much of the information comes from Gilkey himself, as well as Ken Sanders and other book dealers. Bartlett also enters the narrative, as she describes her reaction to some of Gilkey's comments, her experience going to a rare books fair, and ethical dilemmas she wrestles with as a reporter. Though I found much of the beginning ruminations on collecting repetitive, and wished the narrative covered more details of the psychology behind the desire to obtain rare books or other collections, this is a nonfiction book that reads quickly and one I would recommend to anyone who would like a glimpse of the rare book trade. 4 stars.

Touchstone not loading...will edit and see if it works again.
Nope.

#250: I am glad to see you enjoyed that one more than I did, Mary. Touchstones are being persnickety today it appears.

Caught up! Glad to see you enjoyed Bury Your Dead so much. I'm still waiting for my library to get hold of a copy.

And you've got me to add several of the children's/YA books you've been reading to my long wishlist.

New thread time, I think, before the Thread Police come to take you away. . .

>251 alcottacre: Thanks, Stasia. Will you let me know a little more of what made you enjoy it less on my new thread? I'm curious. Though I daresay that one of the reasons it read so smoothly for me despite its flaws was the book that I'd been struggling to read before I picked it up.

>252 souloftherose: Heather - can't wait to see what you think of Bury Your Dead. It's only fair that I would add to your wishlist, too, as your thread has the same problem for me. :P

>253 alcottacre: Love the picture! But if I get arrested, you'll bail me out, won't you? :)

Here's the new thread.