antqueen's 11

I'll try for 11 in each, though I doubt I'll make that next year. My goal is to whittle down the tbr pile to just the one little book case... wish me luck.

My 2012 challenge is here.

Current categories:

1. Person, place or thing? - Non-fiction (NF Challenge thread) - Complete
2. Dusting the shelves - on my tbr shelves before 1/1/2010 (since a year old hardly counts as tbr) - Complete
3. Somebody must like it - Prize winners - Complete
4. Who is it? - authors I've never read - Complete
5. The show must go on - continuing series - Complete
6. Oldies - historical settings - Complete
7. Magical mayhem - fantasy - Complete
8. To boldly go... - science fiction - Complete
9. Random fun - TIOLI challenge books (my thread) - Complete
10. The Bard - Shakespeare, of course - Complete
11. The sky's the limit - everything else - Complete

1. Person, place or thing? - Non-fiction

1. Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson
   
2. Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King
   
3. A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking
   
4. The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene
   
5. Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victoria Finlay
   
6. Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich
   
7. Why Do Buses Come in Threes? by Rob Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham
   
8. Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky
   
9. Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick
   
10. The Code Book by Simon Singh
    
11. The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester
    
12. An Ocean of Air by Gabrielle Walker
    

2. Dusting the shelves - on my tbr shelves before 1/1/2010

1. Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney
   
2. The Grand Ellipse by Paula Volsky
   
3. Wizard and Glass by Stephen King
   
4. To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf
   
5. Like Water For Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
   
6. Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King
   
7. The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy by James Evans
   
8. Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson
   
9. The Sonnets by William Shakespeare
   
10. Steel Magic by Andre Norton
    
11. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin (3rd in the Song of Ice and Fire)
    

3. Somebody must like it - Prize winners

1. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny (Hugo)
   
2. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman (Newbery, Hugo)
   
3. A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (James Tait Black)
   
4. The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell (James Tiptree Jr., Arthur C. Clarke, British SF)
   
5. Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (Hugo)
   
6. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (Pulitzer, National Book Critics Circle)
   
7. The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois (Newbery)
   
8. The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold (Hugo)
   
9. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond (Pulitzer)
   
10. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (James Tait Black, Booker)
    
11. Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (Nebula)
    

4. Who is it? - authors I've never read

1. Wild Seed by Octavia Butler
   
2. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
   
3. Horse, Flower, Bird by Kate Bernheimer
   
4. Apples from the Desert by Savyon Liebrecht
   
5. A Robe of Feathers by Thersa Matsuura
   
6. The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe
   
7. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
   
8. The Incas by Daniel Peters
   
9. The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry
   
10. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg (Newbery)
    
11. The Tower of Ravens by Kate Forsyth
    
12. The View from the Seventh Layer by Kevin Brockmeier
    

5. The show must go on - continuing series

1. Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (2nd in the Thursday Next series) (audio)
   
2. The Waste Lands by Stephen King (3rd in the Dark Tower series)
   
3. The Spiral Labyrinth by Matthew Hughes (2nd in the Henghis Hapthorn series)
   
4. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot series) (audio)
   
5. I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (4th in the Tiffany Aching Discworld subseries)
   
6. Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (Hercule Poirot series) (audio)
   
7. Lord of the Fire Lands by Dave Duncan (2nd in Tales of the King's Blades)
   
8. The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (3rd in the Thursday Next series)
   
9. Labyrinth by Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan series)
   
10. A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss (2nd in the Benjamin Weaver series)
    
11. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey (3rd in the Pern series)
    

6. Oldies - historical settings

1. A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (audio)
   
2. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
   
3. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (audio)
   
4. A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (1st Sherlock Holmes)
   
5. The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (audio)
   
6. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
   
7. King Lear by William Shakespeare
   
8. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (audio)
   
9. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (audio)
   
10. Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (1st in The Adventures of Captain Alatriste)
    
11. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton
    
12. On Stranger Tides by Tim Powers
    

7. Magical mayhem - fantasy

1. Nation by Terry Pratchett
   
2. The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (2nd in the Earthsea series) (audio)
   
3. The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold (3rd in the Chalion series) (audio)
   
4. Truckers by Terry Pratchett (1st in the The Bromeliad Trilogy) (audio)
   
5. Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (1st in the Castle series) (audio)
   
6. Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn (1st in Tales of the Otori) (audio)
   
7. The Gates by John Connolly (1st in the Samuel Johnson series)
   
8. Song of Susannah by Stephen King (6th in the Dark Tower series)
   
9. The Dark Tower by Stephen King (7th in the Dark Tower series)
   
10. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (1st in the Farseer trilogy) (audio)
    
11. Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle
    
12. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
    

8. To boldly go... - science fiction

1. Singularity Sky by Charles Stross
   
2. The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton (3rd in the Time Traders series)
   
3. Polaris by Jack McDevitt (audio) (2nd in the Alex Benedict series)
   
4. I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (audio)
   
5. Classic Science Fiction Volume 4 by Willard Hawkins, J. G. Ballard, and Joseph E. Kelleam (audio)
   
6. The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (4th in the Miles Vorkosigan series)
   
7. The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (Vorkosigan series)
   
8. To Trade the Stars by Julie Czerneda (3rd in the Trade Pact Universe)
   
9. Earthlight and Other Stories by Arthur C. Clarke (audio)
   
10. Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold (14th in the Miles Vorkosigan series)
    
11. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
    

9. Random fun - TIOLI challenge books

1. Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare
   
2. Winter World by Bernd Heinrich
   
3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen
   
4. Lord Byron by Lord George Gordon Byron
   
5. Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest by Sharon Receveur and Tavia Cathcart
   
6. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (audio)
   
7. Emma by Jane Austen (audio)
   
8. Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare
   
9. The Collected Short Fiction of C.J. Cherryh by C. J. Cherryh
   
10. The Tragedy of King Richard II by William Shakespeare
    
11. King Henry VI, Part 1 by William Shakespeare
    
12. The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (audio)
    

10. The Bard - Shakespeare, of course

1. The Taming of the Shrew
   
2. Troilus and Cressida
   
3. Twelfth Night
   
4. The Winter's Tale
   
5. A Midsummer Night's Dream
   
6. Othello
   
7. All's Well That Ends Well
   
8. As You Like It
   
9. The Life and Death of King John
   
10. Julius Caesar
    
11. Pericles, Prince of Tyre
    
12. The Tempest
    

11. The sky's the limit - everything else

1. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 9/10 2010
   
2. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1/2 2011
   
3. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 3/4 2011
   
4. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 5/6 2011
   
5. Analog, April 2011
   
6. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 7/8 2011
   
7. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 9/10 2011
   
8. The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 11/12 2011
   
9. To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust
   
10. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (audio)
    
11. King Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare
    

So... getting things ready for tomorrow! A few changes since I originally posted. Most stayed the same, surprisingly, but I discovered the TIOLI challenges in the 75 books group (what can I say, I'm addicted to things like that) and I decided to dig out the big Shakespeare volume.

The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare

My first book of 2011 is, well, a play. I don't remember at this point if I've read this before, or seen it, or maybe I just knew what the story was. It's a play-within-a-play, though the outer doesn't come back in the end, which seemed odd, to me. The inner is the story referred to by the title. There's the common suitors-in-disguise plot, focussing on Kate's (the 'shrew') sister, and of course Petruchio, who 'tames' Kate. The way it's written, it would be easy to spin the ending a lot of ways on stage. Personally, I'd play it as Kate playing along with Petruchio, perhaps finding someone who can challenge her enough to keep her interested. But that's just me.

I saw The Taming of the Shrew performed, and the actors chose to interpret the ending as ironic as well. I haven't a clue whether or not Shakespeare intended this to be so (most likely not), but due to Values Dissonance I prefer the Kate-and-Petruchio-as-equals ending.

It's interesting how perceptions change. We have some Looney Tunes on DVD and the box says it may not be suitable for children. I don't know if it's there because of the violence or the non-pc-ness or what, but it made me laugh.

Book 2: Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

I always like Zelazny's books, but I never know what to say about them. Colonists suppress technology and rule as Hindu gods, and are challenged by one of their number who introduces Buddhism and fights against them. Which is an accurate summary, but limited enough to not be very accurate at all. I enjoyed watching the story unfold. A good book. I like the way he writes. What else can I say?

@17 Does it seem outdated at all?

It didn't strike me as outdated, but then I like older books, and I think my baseline for outdatedness is farther back than this... say, 50s Asimov, in which the modern mind boggles at the female characters in particular :) Plus, it's not a techy sort of sf novel, so you don't get the future-tech-dissonance you get with a lot of older sf.

Measure for Measure by William Shakespeare

I've never read this one before. It's a tale of justice vs mercy, with a side of 'power corrupts', and the obligatory person in disguise. An enjoyable read. I liked it more than The Taming of the Shrew, though Duke-in-Disguise did draw things out rather longer than I thought necessary. And why is it that no one ever recognizes anyone's voice in these things?

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court by Mark Twain (audio)

It's been a long time since I read this, and I didn't remember it as well as I thought I had. A few scenes, like the eclipse at the beginning, stuck in my mind well enough, but others not so much. And there was one scene I could have sworn was in this book... it wasn't. I even went back to make sure my audiobook was unabridged. (In case you're curious, the non-existent scene was one where the Yankee wowed the locals by lighting a match... in some other book, maybe? Or maybe I just dreamed it.) It's a little repetitive at times, such as when Twain goes off on yet another royalty-and-knight-errantry-bashing diatribe, but pretty sharp otherwise. The narrator had the character down too. All in all, a nice way to spend a few days' commute.

Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney

I got this for my husband a while ago, and finally got around to reading it myself for a group read in the 75 books group. I'd read the poem once before, along with John Gardner's Grendel, in high school. I don't remember any details of the other translation (Burton Raffel's), but I enjoyed it more this time around. Of course, I don't know if it's because of the translation or if it's just because I'm not going to be tested on it in a week or two... I do think Heaney's version flowed very well.

I also enjoyed puzzling out some of the Old English. I've been picking it up off and on since I finished to reread a passage or two just to do that. The wonderful thing about that is that it's exactly what my husband did when he read it, though he knows enough German that he had a little headstart on me. No wonder we get along so well :)

The Grand Ellipse by Paula Volsky

A Victorianish steampunk fantasy, in which the main character, Luzelle, sets off on a race around the world in the hopes of both financial independence and the chance of acquiring a weapon to save her country from an invading empire. It was fun, but I would have enjoyed it more if I'd had to wonder more about certain of the characters. As it was, it was too clear whose side everyone was on, and too clear what the ending would be. There were also a few things (and people) I expected to show back up at the end, but they never did. I don't regret reading it, but I do wish it had been done just a little differently.

I love your categories. Will be interested to see where your reading takes you this year.

The Grand Ellipse sounds fun -- maybe I'll add it to my steampunk category!

Like Christina in the message above - *** waves *** - I also have a steampunk category. My local library has The Grand Ellipse so I think I will be starting my steampunk reading with this one.

Paula Volsky is a favorite of mine. I especially loved Illusion and Wolf of Winter. I thought The Grand Ellipse was fun and wish she would come out with something new. It's been ten years.

Hello everyone :) I thought about a steampunk category, but a category I would have to buy books to fill seemed a bad idea...

#27: I didn't realize it had been that long. I've read Illusion and The White Tribunal, long enough ago that I remember liking them but not many of the details. I do remember them being darker than The Grand Ellipse. I'll have to reread them sometime.

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

A story about the romantic troubles and designs of Elinor and Marianne, two sisters of limited means. I like Austen. I enjoyed this one too, but it isn't my favorite of hers. I found it difficult to care too much about Marianne, and I spent a lot of the novel wishing Elinor would just tell her to get over herself. That may say more about my mindset at the moment than Austen, though :)

In any case, I'm looking forward to rereading Pride and Prejudice later this year.

Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson

This was a Christmas present from my brother, who read it last year. I didn't know much about Einstein himself before, and I only have a basic understanding of his work in physics. From that start, I found this a fascinating and well-written biography, touching on both his personal and professional lives, the latter in less depth than the former (in the interests, I'm sure, of not swamping the poor non-physicist in equations). Still, there were interesting overviews of various theories as well. Highly recommended.

Troilus and Cressida by William Shakespeare

The Iliad as a play, with focus on a romance between Troilus, Priam's youngest son, and Cressida, a Trojan woman who winds up being traded to the Greeks in exchange for a prisoner of war. The Trojan War with Roman god names threw me for a loop at first, and (I'm sure this is some kind of major sin) overall it reminded me of a Monty Python sketch, what with the language and the oddly comic bawdy character whose name I forget (Thersides? It was abbreviated Ther anyway) who prodded at everyone indiscriminately.

F&SF Magazine, 9-10 2010

I read this rather late, since ours got lost in the mail and we didn't realize it until the next one came. Anyway, a decent issue, but no stories that really stood out. I was glad to see a return of Chwedyk's toy saur stories, but I think this one would have been confusing if you hadn't read at least one or two of the previous ones. My favorite, I think, was Gerrold's F&SF Mailbag, which had me laughing out loud (written as a series of letters from him to the editor complaining about various science-fictiony replacements for real authors).

Singularity Sky by Charles Stross

I'm having a hard time coming up with a one-sentence blurb, so I'll forgo the run-on and go with two. A travelling bunch of non-corporeal entities shows up at a repressive, enforced-low-tech world and starts granting wishes, triggering a revolution. An engineer with an ulterior motive and a governmental agent from Earth join forces (and bodies) to prevent Big Problems when the off-world government tries to send an invasion force.

I went back and forth about this one while I was reading it. I enjoyed finding out about the Festival (the non-corporeal ones) and the rest of the story-world, and I liked the parts about the revolution on the planet's surface. I didn't find the parts with the main characters in the invading fleet as interesting... the characters came across a bit flat, the romance was rather forced, and I would have been happier if the opposition hadn't been quite so bumbling. I don't know if I'll pick up the next one in the series or not.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare

This was a silly, fun play. Disguises, convoluted romance plots, mistaken twins, a shipwrecked woman deciding to disguise herself as a man for no readily apparent reason. Just what I needed today :)

ETA touchstone

I love Twelfth Night! There's a pretty good movie (starring Imogen Stubbs, Helena Bonham-Carter, and Ben Kingsley) if you want a nice visual with your reading!

I bet it would make a good movie... I'll have to check that out!

Nation by Terry Pratchett (audio)

Terry Pratchett's books defy blurbing too. Too many interwoven threads to do justice to them. But there's a tsunami, and a boy who is the sole survivor of an island nation, and the shipwrecked daughter of an English aristocrat, alone on an island. And then things happen. I read this about a year ago in print. I liked it then, and I think I enjoyed it even more the second time around. I'm not sure if it was different circumstances on my part or just that the second time around I paid more attention to the details. It made the transition to audio well too (most of Pratchett's do).

I put this under my fantasy category, for now at least (I've already moved a few others around). It could be fantasy. But then, it could also not be fantasy. Do the gods exist after all?

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

Currently 2nd in the prize winners category.

Bod escapes his family's killer when he's a toddler and is raised in a graveyard and protected from said killer by ghosts and various supernatural beings. It's an episodic book, with the individual stories tied together by the main one. Not generally my favorite format, but it worked very well. I really like Neil Gaiman. But I generally prefer non-YA, and while I like his novels it's his short fiction that really shines for me, so I didn't pick this one up right away. I wish I had. I wound up reading the whole thing yesterday... it's not unusual for me to do this, especially on a lazy, grey Saturday, but it was not my intent this time :)

So many threads with so many eye-candy-covers. I had to go through today and add my own :)

Book 15: Michelangelo and the Pope's Ceiling by Ross King

For my non-fiction category.

A very interesting book about Michelangelo, focusing on the painting of the Sistine Chapel. It's not a subject I knew much about. I didn't know how little painting he had done before this, for example. This was one of several books I got for Christmas last year.

The Tombs of Atuan by Ursula K. Le Guin (audio) - Magical Mayhem

This is the second Earthsea novel, and a reread for me. Tenar was taken as a child to be priestess to old, half-forgotten gods and mistress over their dark, underground labyrinth. Her world is dull, if lonely, until the mage Sparrowhawk shows up to take back a treasure hidden for centuries, and Tenar must decide whether to help him or stay true to her gods. I have mixed feelings about this one. It's deeper in a lot of ways than A Wizard of Earthsea and has a much darker feel. But Tenar frustrates me as much as she draws me in. Still, that isn't all bad. In any case, it's a good book, worth reading. The narrator fit the story as well, though it took me a while to get used to her.

The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (audio) - Oldies

Also a re-read... most of my audiobooks are. Hard to believe how little I really remembered, though. It's one of those stories that are retold so much that it's hard to remember what happened in the original. I didn't care for the narrator... he read too fast and without enough distinction between dialogue and narration, or between the characters' voices. It was a little hard to follow.

The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 1-2 2011 - The sky's the limit

I don't have much to say about this one. Glad I read it, but there seemed to be more stories I wished I liked more than those I really liked.

Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde (audio) - The show must go on - 2nd in the Thursday Next series

Thursday Next, a literary detective in a book-mad alternate Britain, is having a bad time of it. Everyone's out to get her, time travelers have eradicated her husband to force her cooperation, and the coincidences are building up. A silly, fun book, with people and characters jumping between books, and from books to "reality" and back again (just don't let Miss Havisham borrow your car). And the entropy-detection device cracked me up.

The Waste Lands by Stephen King - The show must go on - 3rd in the Dark Tower series

My husband read the Dark Towers series a few years ago (when the last one came out, if I remember correctly), but I didn't pick them up until recently. I think I like the 2nd (The Drawing of the Three) the best so far. The Waste Lands was good, but it didn't hold me in the same way as the first two. Still, I'm enjoying the ride with Roland & company. And c'mon. Blaine may be a pain, but so was that ending. I can't imagine reading that and then having to wait until he wrote the next book... I'm glad they're all right here on my shelf :)

Winter World: The Ingenuity of Animal Survival by Bernd Heinrich - Random Fun

This was an interesting book discussing the many ways that various animals survive the cold temperatures and often famine conditions of winter, especially the animals around the author's own home in the NE United States. It seemed a little disjointed at times, a series of loosely connected tidbits, sometimes essays, and an uneven depth of coverage of the animals and survival techniques mentioned. Not a complaint, really, but not what I expected, and something I had to get used to. Recommended, to those interested in such things.

Wow, three reviews on books that are all interesting to me! I actually just read Lost in a Good Book for this challenge.. are you using the 11 in 11 challenge tag? I loved it so much (Having read The Eyre Affair last year) that I read The Well of Lost Plots right after it. I have yet to write my review. I loved it but Lost in a Good Book was a smigen better if you ask me. Still great. Apparently the 6th is coming out this year:
http://gaskella.wordpress.com/2011/02/23/a-ffunny-evening-with-the-ffabulous-jas...

Winter World is going on my wishlist.
Wastelands is already on my wishlist (The name caught my attention). However I must not have been paying attention enough as I did not realize it was a series! Wups :P

I ordered Well of Lost Plots the other day. I'll have to get to it soon :) Yep, using the tag (when I remember to, anyway! I went through last week and fixed all the ones I'd missed). The tag page says I've used it 44 times now, in fact, which I find rather amusing.

And if you do read King's series, you definitely want to start with The Gunslinger... it's not a series to pick up in the middle.

Good to know, I will add The Gungslinger to my wishlist as well. You have been busy with your tagging! I think I only have about 15 tagged :P Between us we will push Fforde to the ffirst page! :P

The Defiant Agents by Andre Norton - Science Fiction

Mindless space opera, my guilty pleasure. This one wasn't the best, though. It's the third book in the Time Traders series, which I have read all out of order. Very cold war, very US good guys vs commie baddies. Travis Fox and some fellow Apaches are given a treatment that causes them to gain ancestral memories/skills (intentional) and, to some degree, forget their modern experiences and training (not so intentional). I never quite understood why this was necessary, incidentally. Anyway, they're sent to a world which the Russians have already started to colonize with similarly treated Mongols, except they use mind control too. 'Cause Reds are Bad :)

#49, even busier than I thought, since I've only tagged 23 books :)

Wild Seed by Octavia Butler - New authors

I've put off writing anything about this because I can't figure out what I want to say, but it's been long enough. I think I'll just ramble... Anyway, this a story about Anyanwu, a woman with healing and shapeshifting powers that grant her immortality, and Doro, a man whose own immortality requires taking the lives of others. It deals with, among other things, slavery, family, and loneliness, and the different ways the characters cope. I liked it more the more I read; though it started out a little slow, by the end I couldn't put it down. An excellent book.

A Brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking - Nonfiction

Somehow I've never read this. I can see why it's such a popular book. An understandable (and brief, as the title says) intro to a lot of physics topics, in a very readable, almost chatty style. Funny too, in places, when he adds an anecdote or two. I've been on something of a physics kick lately (Brian Greene is up next) and this was a nice, easy interlude.

The Spiral Labyrinth by Matthew Hughes - Continuing series (2nd in the Henghis Hapthorne series)

This is a fantasy/science fiction/mystery series set in a universe where rationality is giving way to sympathetic association (aka magic). The series really started in short stories printed (mostly, at least) in F&SF magazine... some are also embedded in the novels, and he has a story collection out that includes others. Anyway, Hapthorne is a very rational Holmes-esque detective who, in this book, is stranded in a totally magic-using place and time. This installment was weaker than the first, but still fun. I'll have to read the third sometime.

The Winter's Tale by William Shakespeare

Paranoid kings, lost heirs, royalty in disguise, forbidden romance. What more can you ask for? I have to say, though, the ending is rather bizarre, however you read it.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (4 - New Authors)

The story of a German girl in Germany in WWII whose foster family hides a Jewish man in their basement. The flash-forwards and little asides put in by the narrator, Death, were an interesting device. You know certain details of the ending long before you get there, though many of them are misleading at first, especially since the book also meanders in and out of the main timeline. It worked, for me at least, because, while you know what, you don't know when, or, sometimes, how. You're a little uncertain about when you are to begin with, and you keep expecting what you know is going to happen. Highly recommended.

Horse, Flower, Bird by Kate Bernheimer (4 - New Authors)

This is a collection of short stories, mostly about young girls and often with a more or less unspoken theme of violence or abuse in the background. They're all quite short and have a distant and dreamy feel. I'm not entirely sure what I think about all of the stories. Not bad, but it isn't going to be one of my favorite books this year.

The Hallowed Hunt by Lois McMaster Bujold (audio) (7 - fantasy)

Another audio reread for me. This is the 3rd in the Chalion series (well, it's the 3rd book set in the same world, though none of the characters are the same and it is not, in fact, set in Chalion). I've found that I enjoy Bujold's books even more the second time around, when I can slow down and watch how everything is set up. There tends to be a lot in them. Which also makes them difficult to summarize. Ingrey, who was the unwilling recipient of a forbidden wolf spirit as a child, is sent to the scene of a prince's murder. The killer is Ijada, who you find out early on is the unwilling recipient of a likewise forbidden leopard spirit. There's a romance, and a dying king, and a polar bear, and old, old magic, and many machinations personal, political, and divine. I liked Ingrey and several of the secondary characters, but Ijada never really grabbed me as a character. Still, a very good book.

Book 30: A Study in Scarlet by Arthur Conan Doyle (6 - oldies)

The first Sherlock Holmes story, and one of the few that are novel-length. Holmes meets Watson here and, of course, is called in to solve a mystery. I read most (or maybe all? I don't remember if my big book had all of them or not) of the short stories years ago... I'll have to get it back out sometime.

I also listened to Neil Gaiman's short story A Study in Emerald. It starts out similarly to A Study in Scarlet, with a Holmes counterpart meeting a Watson counterpart (I don't think either is actually named in the story), but in a Cthulhu-inspired London. Very interesting to read along with the actual Holmes story.

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (9 - challenges)

This is still my favorite of Austen's books. I won't bother with a summery, but will just say that I love Elizabeth and Darcy, and while Mr. Bennett might not be the best father ever, he still makes me laugh :)

Truckers by Terry Pratchett (audio) (7 - fantasy)

Truckers, the first of the Bromeliad series, stars a group of Nomes (yes, without the G) who find their way into a department store where a Nome civilization has grown up believing that there is nothing outside the store. If you get your dander up when people poke gentle fun at religion then I suggest you pass on this one. Otherwise, it's a quick, fun story.

Book 33: The Elegant Universe by Brian Greene (1 - nonfiction)

An excellent, readable explanation of relativity, quantum theory, and string/M theory. There were parts that were over my head (which isn't entirely surprising), and parts where I wished he'd gone into more detail (though the detail would probably have been over my head too). Overall, it was a good introduction to the details of the theory for me. Highly recommended, if you're interested in physics and cosmology.

The Elegant Universe sounds great, thank you for the review! :)

I hope you enjoy it, if you wind up reading it!



Wizard and Glass by Stephen King (2 - Dusting the shelves)

The 4th in the Dark Tower series. This one takes us back to Roland's youth, where we meet several characters he's mentioned before and see the events that set him off on his quest for the Dark Tower. I think this may be my favorite, so far, though the second one is in the running too.

Book 35: Apples From the Desert by Savyon Liebrecht (4 - New authors)

A beautiful collection of short stories, mostly featuring Israeli women, and with views into Israeli life that you (well, I, at least) don't often see. Several of the stories will stick with me, I think, and I'm sure I'll pick up the book again to reread them. Highly recommended.

The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (audio) (5 - continuing series)

One of the Hercule Poirot novels. My mother had a lot of Agatha Christie's books when I was growing up, and I read this one then. I remembered whodunit, but absolutely nothing else, so I enjoyed watching the pieces fall into place. I'll have to pick up some more of hers in audio... I wasn't sure how well I'd like them in audio (I tend to flip back to check on things I remember in mysteries) but this one was quite fun.

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf (2 - tbr)

A book about a group of family and friends in a vacation house in the Hebrides, and their ties to each other. I'm not sure what to say about this. I read some of Woolf's shorter work years ago, and this wasn't quite what I was expecting. Not that I'm sure what I was expecting. I couldn't always get into the flow, but when I did it was... well, I can't think of the word I want. Anyway. I enjoyed it. I think I might get more out of it reading it a second time. Someday...

Book 38: I Shall Wear Midnight by Terry Pratchett (5 - continuing series)

This is the 4th Tiffany Aching book, set in Discworld. Tiffany has awakened something that is fomenting distrust of witches, and has to figure out what it is and how to stop it (with the help, of course, of the Nac Mac Feegles). And deal with the fact that Roland has a fiancee. I still like his non-YA books best, but after two so-so entries in the series I really enjoyed this one.

I just checked out your thread and saw King's Dark Tower series. As you mention in #45, I read them as they came out and it was awful waiting for the next one--he said somewhere that he never knew if there would be another one. Because he dribbled them out, I got lost from the series--the last one I read was Wizard and Glass. Thanks for mentioning them; I need to get back to the series again.

I'll probably read Wolves of the Calla before long... Wizard and Glass didn't end with nearly the cliff-hanger that The Waste Lands did, but I still need to find out what happens :)



Book 39: A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare (10 - The Bard)

I've always liked this one, and it was fun to read it again. It's been a long time since I've seen a performance of it. In fact, I thought of Dead Poet's Society when I read the end of it :)

67: I will likely be reading To the Lighthouse at some point this year, will let you know what I thought of it when I do! It will be my first Woolf book.

I hope you like it! I'm still not completely sure what I thought of it :)



Book 40: The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux (audio) (6 - Historical settings)

I think everyone knows the story here. The book is darker than the musical, and written from the perspective of an investigator looking into the affair. I'm afraid both Christine and Raoul got a bit irritating at times, with her helplessness and his impulsive attempts to help. But I enjoyed listening to it, overall.



Book 41: A Passage to India by E. M. Forster (3 - Prize winners)

A story of culture clash and racism in British controlled India. I wasn't impressed by the female characters -- I thought Adela, who started out promisingly, disintegrated far too easily -- but I enjoyed watching the progress of the friendship between Fielding and Dr. Aziz, and the way Forster brought in cultural issues not only between British rulers and Indian subjects, but also within each group.

Book 42: Lord Byron - a collection of his poetry... I'm sure there's a touchstone in there somewhere, but I have no idea which one it is :) (9 - TIOLI challenges)

I picked this up at a library sale last year (which explains the lack of a cover image. I don't see much point in scanning a blank, dull-blue cover that probably used to have a dust jacket). It seemed to me like an odd selection, with a few short poems and what seems like random sections from longer works, like Childe Harold's Pilgramage and Don Juan. I'm not a big poetry reader -- I tend to feel that either I'm missing something or that everyone else is reading too much into it. But I do like narrative poems (so the snippets from the two I mentioned above were good), and I like the rhythms of poetry that's, well, rhythmic. And I've always found "She Walks In Beauty Like the Night" memorable, so that was nice to revisit.

And I find it amusing that I've written more about a poetry book than anything else for quite a while :)



Book 43: Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones (audio) (7 - Fantasy)

Another YA fantasy audio reread... what can I say, they tend to be good books to listen to in the car. Sophie, having been aged by a witch's curse, winds up staying in Howl's floating castle in the hope that his fire demon can break the spell... if she can break his contract with Howl. A fun story, and I love the characters (after the story gets going, at least). And this reminds me that I need to pick up the next one in the series...

Color: A Natural History of the Palette by Victory Finlay (1 - nonfiction)

A nonfiction book about the history of various pigments and dyes and the author's travels and experiences as she did her research. There are a lot of fascinating stories here. It's a good book to read a little at a time, since the chapters are distinct... good for me last month :) She's written another book, on jewels, that I'll have to pick up some day.

I read this a few years ago, brilliant book, so interesting.

A Robe of Feathers and Other Stories by Thersa Matsuura (4 - New authors)

The stories here were a little uneven, but I suppose most collections are like that. I really enjoyed most of them. They're set in Japan, on the border of reality and fantasy, often in a way that lets you interpret them as you choose on a sliding scale ("real" to "mythical") that slides even within a story. I enjoy stories like that. She doesn't have any other books out yet, but I'll keep an eye out and pick up another if she publishes one.

Book 46: Bernheim Arboretum and Research Forest by Sharon Receveur and Tavia Cathcart (9 - TIOLI Challenges)

Bernheim forest is a privately owned forest/park, open to the public, near Louisville, KY. Hiking trails, easy walks, fun events (actually, we're going there this weekend, assuming it's not still 50 degrees and rainy). My mother got me this book for my birthday... a history of the forest and its founder, with some beautiful photographs. It was neat to see pictures from years ago, and try to place them before I read the captions. A lovely coffee table book, even though I don't have a coffee table :)



Book 47: The Sparrow by Maria Doria Russell (3 - Prize winners)

Another book where you know some of what happens at the end, and read to find out how and why. It seems like I'm picking up more than usual of those lately, but that's ok because I enjoy the style. In this one, alien life is discovered on a nearby planet and the Jesuits send a party, which ends in disaster. The chapters alternate at first between the Jesuits' investigation after the fact and the actual events years before, and it lends a sense of fate that hangs over everything. Not a fast read, but one that was hard to put down.

Book 48: Othello, the Moor of Venice by William Shakespeare (TIOLI 1 - Linked titles)

A tragic love story, featuring an elopement, a nefarious, conniving servant, and much poorly placed trust. I saw Verdi's opera a few years ago, but never Shakespeare's play. It's very, well, tragic. Moreso, in my opinion, than a play like Romeo and Juliet, which always makes me want to grab them and shake them and ask them what they're thinking. Even as a teen myself. Perhaps this will tell you something about me :) Anyway, back to Othello... there's something so much more tragic about people being led astray by someone they trust (though I confess a certain desire for some shaking at a few points here too). At least Iago didn't get away with it.



Book 49: Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich (TIOLI 14 - NF book about wild animals)

Overall, a very good book. There are a few places where I wished he'd summarized his details a little, and I skimmed through the (fortunately few) spots where he grumbled about the scientific establishment. His experiments into raven intelligence and consciousness are very interesting, and his stories about individual birds, both wild and tame, are fascinating as well. He wrote another book about ravens (Ravens in Winter) before this one, which I gather prompted him to make the experiments that led to this book. That one would be worth picking up sometime too.



Book 50: Polaris by Jack McDevitt (TIOLI 12 - 1 word title that isn't a character name)

Alex Benedict and Chase the first-person narrator whose last name I don't remember are antique dealers in the distant future. This book revolves around the mystery of the disappearance of the passengers of the spaceship Polaris some 60 years before. It's not deep by any means, but it's a fun book, good for listening to in the car. It's actually the second in the series, though it stands alone. I'll have to read the first one of these days.

I'd noticed that you added Polaris to TIOLI #12 -- I really like McDevitt's Alex and Chase books, so I was glad to see that you enjoyed it, too.

I can't imagine any reason why you wouldn't like the other books in the series. That said, I have to admit to having only mixed success with his other books....

>78 antqueen: I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't find Romeo and Juliet all that romantic. My favorite parts in the play are some of the comedic asides from the servants, if that tells you how I feel about the main plot.

#79 It's the only one of his I've read. I've got the first one on my wishlist now.

#80 It will be interesting to see what I think when I reread it... if I felt that way then, I'm sure it'll be even moreso now...

I'm surprised how many books I've read this year. I think overall they're shorter than last year, but still...



Book 51: Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (6 - Historical settings)

For some reason I felt like I should like this more than I did. It wasn't bad, but I just didn't really care about any of the characters. Fanny's too self-effacing. Mary's too self-absorbedly clueless. Edmund has his moments, but I never warmed to him; if he'd changed his mind for another reason, maybe, but as it was... meh. I liked him in the play scenes, though. Henry's alternately amusing and irritating, but the whole thing at the end was just random. Which perhaps was the point but it seemed so even given his character. It never really meshed for me. Not my favorite of Austen's books.



Book 52: The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction March/April 2011 (11 - Misc)

Some good stories here, and some odd (both good and just... odd) ones. No clear favorites, but I think I liked The Paper Menagerie best. Who can resist origami that comes to life?

Book 53: Como Agua Para Chocolate (Like Water For Chocolate) by Laura Esquivel

Two pretty big caveats about this one:

1) I read it in Spanish. Ten years ago I could hold a conversation in Spanish, if the other person was patient and helpful (and in my experience they invariably were, even the gypsy lady who really wanted me to pay her for that little sprig of something or other she shoved into my hands). Now? They'd have to be decent at charades too. Reading's easier, but even so... The story itself I got, but any subtleties I won't swear to catching.

2) Magical realism isn't my genre. I don't get it. Maybe it's just the books I've read, but the magic seems tacked on, as if it's just there for some added sparkle rather than because it really matters to the story. I felt the same way about this one. I mean, some of the details would have to change, but nothing at all about the story itself. I dunno. Maybe that's the point? In which case... why bother?

Anyway. That said... Tita is Mamá Elena's youngest daughter, which means, in her family, that she's destined to stay single and care for her mother all her life. But Tita falls in love with Pedro, who winds up marrying her sister instead. I mentioned Romeo and Juliet a few posts back, and said that I wanted to shake some sense into them. Well, that goes here too. I felt sorry for poor Tita in quite a few places, especially when she has to deal with her mother. But Pedro? Seriously, chica? Your guy marries your sister fully intending to get into your bed too, and you think this is romantic behavior? I'd have given him dry toast for dinner for 30 years. On the plus side, I like Gertrudis (a different sister). She cracked me up.

Book 54: Wolves of the Calla by Stephen King (2 - Dusting the shelves)

The 5th book in the Dark Tower series. In this one, Roland & company are in a farming town in the Calla which is beset by the Wolves of the title, raiders who come every 20 or so years to take one of each pair of twins (most kids there are) and send them back later severely mentally damaged. I might have appreciated the bits about Father Callahan more if I'd ever read 'Salem's Lot, but still, a good entry. I'm liking Jake more and Susannah and her various personalities less. And I like Oy. I will be very sad if anything bad happens to Oy.

Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn (audio)

A fantasy/romance set in a fictional, fantasy Japan. Takeo is adopted by Lord Otori Shigeru after his own family is killed, and discovers that he has certain magical skills as the story goes on. Kaede has been a hostage of another noble family for years, until she's sent to a marriage with Shigeru that neither of them want. My audio version was narrated by two people, one for Takeo and one for Kaede... Takeo's guy was good, but Kaede's was a little flat... I think she was trying too hard to enunciate clearly. Anyway, it's a good story, full of intrigue and secrets. I liked it enough to pick up the second one (like most of my audio books this was a reread... the second is pretty good too).

Catching up on your thread. I think I will have to add the Raven book to my wishlist. I have a copy of Like Water for Chocolate, but that kind of behaviour would rub me the wrong way too :P

I have Across the Nightingale Floor on my wishlist and I enjoyed reading your review of it. I am going to have to check and see if my library has the audio version.

I hope you both enjoy them!



Book 56: The Bonfire of the Vanities by Tom Wolfe (4 - New authors)

A satire of '80s New York, which I'm too sleepy to summarize in any meaningful way just now. It was a good book that I didn't really like much, if you know what I mean. I got it for my husband a few years ago and have meant to read it since, because I'd heard about it and because it was already here (so hooray for TIOLI #6!). I think the biggest problem was that I didn't give a rat's rear what happened to anyone in the book, though I guess I was vaguely rooting for Sherman (the main character) by the end. I realize that I wasn't really supposed to find them very sympathetic. It doesn't matter. Anyway, I'm glad I read it, but it's not one I'll reread.



Book 57: Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (audio) (9 - TIOLI challenges)

Two boys from the US midwest are drawn in and then pursued by the soul-stealing owners of a carnival. I thought I'd read this a long time ago, but it turns out that I hadn't... this one is a good example of why I usually don't pick up the audio version until I've read the story. It just takes too long :) The audio was good, but I think I'd have enjoyed it even more on paper... too much of the suspense is lost when you have to stop in the middle of something and not come back to it for hours or days. A good story.

Book 58: Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge (8 - SF)

The overly-brief summary: a grumpy old poet cured of Alzheimer's, his clever tech-savvy granddaughter, and his bumbling teen school-mate get tangled up in some international intrigue. I've gone back and forth about how I feel about this one a few times since I've finished it. It alternately felt like very near future and not-so-near... for much of the book I felt like the timing couldn't work out (backstory/long-term, I mean... I actually counted up years at one point and grudgingly conceded that it might), but that may just be because the tech felt unevenly advanced. It was entertaining, funny in places, clever in others, just weird in a few. It ended well enough as a stand-alone, but I was surprised to find that there wasn't a sequel... enough loose (or loosely tied) ends that I expected to find one. Apparently he's considering one, though.

Book 59: Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction 5/6 2011 (11 - Anything goes)

There were several good stories in this one. Also, a couple that were rather light on the sf/fantasy side of things. Not necessarily bad, but...



Book 60: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz (3 - Prize winners)

Oscar's a hopeless nerd living in New Jersey, but this is really a story about his family as much as about Oscar himself, jumping between characters, generations, and locations, mostly Jersey and the Dominican Republic, where his family is from. Sometimes it took me a page or two to figure out who I was reading about... it's written in a casual, chatty style, which I think contributed to that. It took me a little while to get into it, but I really liked it by the end. Poor Oscar, and his poor family...



Book 61: Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (audio) (5 - Continuing series)

Another fun Hercule Poirot mystery for my commute. I won't say much about it, but it was a fun puzzle with good characters (and suspects!) and a rather unusual situation. The narrator was good too.

Book 62: I, Robot by Isaac Asimov (audio) (8 - SF)

A connected collection of Asimov's robot short stories. They show their age, but are still fun. Listening to this reminded me, though, of that movie that came out a while ago. The one that, when I saw the previews, I said, "What, are they talking about Asimov's I, Robot? Really?" I never did see it. Still not going to. Why is it that they feel the need to make everything explode, anyway? For that matter, why do they feel the need to hook their movies on books when they're very loosely based at best? (Sherlock Holmes, anyone? I admit, I didn't see that one either, but the previews were about as non-Sherlock-Holmes as you can get).

Why yes, I do feel better now, thanks.


 
Book 63: Classic Science Fiction, Volume 4 (audio) (8 - SF)

More older science fiction short stories. "The Dwindling Sphere" by Willard Hawkins, "Billennium" by J. G. Ballard, and "Rust" by Joseph E. Kelleam. All three are of the humanity doesn't know how to take care of itself variety. Not bad, but not my favorites.



Book 64: The Gates by John Connolly (TIOLI 6: Double double letters) (7 - Fantasy)

This is a humorous YA fantasy, a depiction of the near-apocalypse, in which Samuel and friends save the world from a host of rather incompetent demons. Cute and silly, and a nice vacation read. Apparently there's a sequel (pretty obvious that there would be, from the ending, though it did end well) which I'll pick up sometime.



Book 65: All's Well that Ends Well by William Shakespeare (10 - Shakespeare)

A young count is forced into marriage and runs off to war to escape it. Naturally, his bride follows him and engages in much duplicity to regain him. And all ends well, even for the slimy guy :) I think Helena might have done better than dear Bertram, though.



Book 66: The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold (8 - SF)

One of the Miles Vorkosigan stories. I've read two that feature his mother, but this is my first actual Miles book. In this one, the young Miles accidentally finds himself gathering and commanding a mercenary troop. It was fun, and had me chuckling more than once. A few times I thought things worked out a little too easily for him, mostly near the beginning... it was the set-up for the main plot, really, but it was still a part of the story. Anyway, I enjoyed it, as I've liked everything I've read by Bujold, so far. Her characters are well-written and her worlds are convincing. I'll be moving on to the next story in my omnibus soon.

Sherlock Holmes, anyone?

A friend and I are known for being diehard Sherlock Holmes fans. Most of our friends can't figure out why we refuse to see the movie.

I'm glad we're not the only ones :)



Book 67: The Mountains of Mourning by Lois McMaster Bujold (8 - SF)

This one's a novella set just a few years after The Warrior's Apprentice. It's a mystery, of a sort. Miles is sent to take care of a reported infanticide in the boonies of his father's lands, where killing infants with birth defects has only recently been outlawed. He has to manage not only justice, but also the villagers' opinions of he himself because of his own birth defects.

Book 68: Why Do Buses Come in Threes? by Robert Eastaway and Jeremy Wyndham (1 - nonfiction)

A quick, simple book with lots of little math trivia tidbits, mostly about why seemingly improbable things really aren't improbable at all. I'd seen most of it before, but it was fun, and I think would be a good introduction to things like this. I do wish my niece was a couple of years older so I could try out the card tricks in the last chapter :)



Book 69: Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak (4 - new authors)

Well, now I'm going to have to see the movie, if only to see how much they differ. My husband kept wandering by and humming the theme song while I was reading it. Anyway, Zhivago is a doctor and poet caught up in and trying to survive the Russian revolution. I think I was expecting more of a love story, probably because of what I'd heard about the movie... the romance(s) were important, but not the focus. That's not a complaint, by the way. I like the big, sweeping Russian novels.



Book 70: The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy by James Evans (2 - TBR shelf)

This book explains the ways ancient astronomers did their work, and how they came by (or may have come by) various theories. Too much detail for me, sometimes... I had dipped into it before, but it took me a while to read all the way through, even without doing most of the exercises he gives. There are instructions and in some cases patterns for building instruments like sundials and astrolabes too. A pretty neat book.



Book 71: Analog, April 2011 (11 - misc)

More science fiction short stories, of course, and a mixed bag as usual. I seem to have read several lately about unintentional and un- or sub-conscious telepathy brought on by some sort of medical treatment. Not sure why that is.



Book 72: The Twenty-One Balloons by William Pène du Bois (3 - prize winners (Newbery))

A young adult book about a professor who takes a balloon ride and ends up stranded on Krakatoa, where he finds an unexpected group of rather odd inhabitants. One thing that surprised me a little was the way the futuristic inventions on the island didn't seem nearly as dated as they should have. I think it was because they were so zany... and now I want a room full of bumper chairs :) I don't remember why I picked this up, but it was fun, and I'm glad I did.



Book 73: Emma by Jane Austen (audio) (9 - TIOLI)

Another audio reread. I think this is my 2nd favorite of Austen's novels, after Pride and Prejudice, though I had forgotten just how meddling and sometimes irritating Emma was at the beginning. Fun and clever and full of happy endings.

You read some great stuff!

I'm really impressed that you got through Doctor Zhivago. I've tried, but as I am not a lover of Russian novels, it didn't go particularly well. The move, however, I've seen many times. If you can catch it on the big screen -- well, it's better than on any tv screen.

The Warrior's Apprentice remains one of my favorite Bujold books in part because it is funny. I hope you enjoy the rest of the series.

I don't read a lot of YA / Children's books, but based on your review I'm going to give Twenty-One Balloons a try. Thanks for the review.

I love Doctor Zhivago, both movie and book. I saw the movie first -- big screen, when it first came out, though I've watched it on small screen several times since -- and immediately read the book, which was (of course) even better.

I didn't know what Twenty-One Balloons was about. Added to my wishlist.

This is so weird -- I was just thinking about The Twenty-One Balloons the other day, only I couldn't remember the title! I just remembered this children's book about hot-air balloons and Krakatoa and diamonds, and I thought, "I really liked that book; I wonder if I can find it again." So thanks for unwittingly providing me with the title and author of this book!

#94 I like the old Russian novels, but I can understand why a lot of people don't. They are, shall we say, rather different than what gets published now...

& #95 Big-screen would be tough, but I bet Vudu has the movie. Maybe this next week...

#96 Glad to help :)



Book 74 - King Lear by William Shakespeare

In which elderly King Lear chooses poorly among his daughters and advisors, to everyone's detriment. I read this in school, along with A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley. I was too busy being scholarly about it the last time to enjoy it much, so I was a little surprised at how much I did this time. I'm also surprised at how much I remember... though maybe that's due to the scholarly-ness of the first time too :) It's one I haven't seen performed. I'll have to go sometime.



Book 75 - As You Like It by William Shakespeare

A comedy with exiled and runaway nobles in a Robin-Hood-esque setting. Silly and fun, though not my favorite of Shakespeare's comedies.



Book 76 - The Lord of the Fire Lands by Dave Duncan

Two would-be Blades (sort of super-bodyguards, highly-trained and magically-bound to their wards) refuse to serve their king, an unprecedented insult. The book's divided between the boys' history and what comes after their refusal. This is the 2nd of the King's Blades series. Apparently the first three are linked together, dealing with some of the same times and events, though all are standalone novels. It's been long enough since I read the first that I thought perhaps I'd misremembered a few things, but it seems that the third is supposed to answer all of my questions. These are fast-paced swashbuckling, sword and sorcery books, fun and just what I needed this weekend :)

Book 77: The Life and Death of King John by William Shakespeare

I had never seen or read any of the history plays before, and I wasn't sure quite what to expect. Ok, so I grant that Shakespeare may have jumbled the history up, but it does make for a good story :)



Book 78: The Vor Game by Lois McMaster Bujold

The next Miles Vorkosigan story. In this one, Miles is trying to fit into Barrayar's military, but, surprisingly to no one (not even the characters!), it doesn't work out that way. I thought this was stronger than Warrior's Apprentice overall, though it felt like two separate stories. Fewer glosses over story points, and still with the excellent characters. Bujold does tend to lean on coincidences a little more than I might prefer--there's one in particular in this book that left me thinking it was a little too unlikely--but... well. I can overlook that, since I get all the rest :)



Book 79: Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond

This has had so much written about it that I hardly know where to start. Basically, Diamond argues that geography was the key point that directed the (broad) course of human civilizations. I think he has a lot of good points. He glossed over a lot (necessary, in a book of this scope), and sometimes I felt like he was choosing his examples a little too carefully, but I tend to agree more than disagree with his argument.

Glad to see you enjoyed Guns, Germs and Steel, I loved it when I read it last year. There's so much infomation given and Diamond manages to weave so many scientific disciplines together but I still found it very readable and quite a compelling argument.

Yes, I thought he did a very good job of presenting everything without it being overwhelming. I have his Collapse too, which I'll have to get to sometime soon.

And boy, am I behind in my books here. So, without further delay...



Book 80: Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (3 - prize winners (Man Booker)

Yeah, I should have commented on this one earlier. This is the story of Saleem Sinai, who was born at the moment of India's independence from Britain. Saleem and the 1000 other children born in the hour after midnight have various supernatural powers, and their fates are tied to (or they believe them tied to) India's, in many ways. I've read two other of Rushdie's books; this one isn't as intense as Shalimar the Clown, or as... hmm... engrossing may be the best word... as The Moor's Last Sigh (my favorite of his so far). Midnight's Children is more what I tend to think of as magical realism, with odd little random magical things that don't seem to make much difference to the story, though how much is "true" and how much is a product of the narrator's (Saleem later in life) not-entirely-reliable memory could be debated. I like reading Rushdie's writing. The way he writes, I mean. Some books you read for the story and the actual words make no impression, but with his both are noteworthy, and lean on each other. I confess, though, that I wish I'd read up a little on post-independence India first. There were some parts that clearly would have made more of an impact if I'd been more familiar with the history.



Book 81: The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde (5 - continuing series)

In this, the third of the Thursday Next books, Thursday is taking (rather, trying to take) a breather from her problems in the Well of Lost Plots, where unpublished stories stay until they're either published or broken down to make other stories. This one is as wild, wacky, and witty as the last two, with lots to laugh at... Rushdie is a wonderful author, but I always need something like Fforde when I finish his books...



Book 82: Song of Susannah by Stephen King (7 - fantasy)

The penultimate Dark Tower novel. I don't know quite what to say about this. It was, well, very penultimate :) Susannah is still battling her demon-mother personality Mia, the rest of the ka-tet is still striving toward the dark tower, and they still haven't met the Crimson King. Roland and Eddie do meet Stephen King, though, which was somewhat odd. It worked better than I might have expected it to, though.

Book 83: Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World by Mark Kurlansky (1 - nonfiction)

A light, quick book with a lot of history and tidbits about cod and cod-fishing. It's an interesting book, especially since, being 10 or so hours from the nearest ocean, I don't think much about fishing fleets normally. It has recipes before each chapter and more at the end, some of which I would like to try. Others, not so much... he comments at one point about how in many fishing cultures nothing of the cod went to waste. Enough said :)



Book 84: Timon of Athens by William Shakespeare (9 - TIOLI challenges)

In which Timon discovers just how fair-weather his friends are and storms out into the wilderness to rave at them. An odd play, and somewhat disjointed, but I enjoyed reading it. I think it would be better performed (not that most aren't, but this more than many, I think) And it has some great insults :)



Book 85: Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare (10 - The Bard)

A play about, of course, the assassination of Julius Caesar, focusing on Brutus and, to a lesser extent, Antony. I don't think I've ever read the play before, though I've heard enough of the lines that sometimes I had to wonder. I enjoyed it more than I expected to. Brutus was a good, conflicted protagonist.

Great reviews! I don't have a copy of Guns, germs and steel yet, but am keeping my eyes open. I do own a copy of Collapse.

I am also happy to hear that you loved The Well of Lost Plots as much as I did! An extremely fun book :)

I am going to have to keep my eyes open for Cod... if I can manage to get the salt book at the same time and read them both it would be hilarious ;)

I have the 5th Thursday Next book waiting on my shelves, but not the 4th... why is that so much more frustrating than not having any more of the series at all? I don't know if I can hold out until Christmas...

I saw Salt at Borders before it closed and was tempted to pick it up, but the cover was torn :( It would be a good companion to Cod, I think.



Book 86: The Incas by Daniel Peters (4 - new authors)

A story set in the Inca empire in the years just before the Spanish conquest, focussing on Cusi Huaman, a young Inca warrior, and Micay, a rebellious chieftain's daughter who is taken to live among the Incas. There is, of course, a romance between them, and the novel follows them from city to city as they cope with war and rebellion within the empire, Cusi's rather rocky relationship with the Inca ruler, and the rumors and reality of the Spaniards and their weapons and diseases. I'm no Inca scholar, but I suspect that the society in the novel is rather filtered through a modern Western filter. I was also a little disappointed at the ending, which, to avoid going into too many details, I'll just say seemed anti-climactic. Still, it was a good book, and I enjoyed the time I spent in the Andes with the characters.



Book 87: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens (audio) (6 - historical settings)

Somehow I neglected to look at how long the audio version actually was before I started it. 36+ hours! I'm just glad I'd read it before. I should know better than to get a 36+ hour audiobook... I was very glad when it was done, but that's the fault of 36+ hours and over a month listening to it, not of the book (or the narrator, who was good). Anyway, on to the story. It's the story of David Copperfield from his unhappy boyhood to his final successes in life, and is filled with all the quirky, memorable characters (and unlikely coincidences) you might expect from Dickens. It's one of my favorite of Dickens' novels, long audio notwithstanding :)



Book 88: The Collected Short Fiction of C. J. Cherryh by C. J. Cherryh (9 - TIOLI challenges)

I think I like Cherryh's novels better than her short stories, but there were quite a few good ones here. This collection includes all the stories in Sunfall and Visible Light, plus a bunch of others. All the Sunfall stories are set in cities on a very-distant-future Earth -- some good stories here, but the cultures and city names were modern or historical, which I found disconcerting. The stories in Visible Light are told as if by a traveller talking to a fellow passenger on a spaceship. The rest are a mixture of fantasy and science fiction. Some are set in her Alliance-Union universe (I've never read any of the novels, but there were common planet names, etc in the stories). Overall, a good collection.



Book 89: The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry (4 - new authors)

In which Charles Unwin, a clerk for the Agency, is unexpectedly (and un-desired-ly) promoted to detective when Sivart, the detective whose cases he handles, disappears. Unwin really just wants his old job back, and, in lieu of actually knowing what it is he's supposed to be doing, goes in search of Sivart so they can both go back to what they were doing before. It's hard to know just what to say about this one. It starts out rather surreal, and before long you're not entirely sure how much is dreaming and how much is in the real world, or even whether it matters. It reminded me, in feel, of The Man Who Was Thursday, at least at first, except that one got more surreal as it went on rather than less. Nothing terribly surprising in the ending, but it was a fun book with some rather odd characters and settings to spice it up.

I didn't realize Cherryh had a collection of short fiction. Thanks for the review!

Oh I loved the Manual of Detection truly surreal and great fun.. reminded of the film Brazil :)

I haven't seen Brazil. I'll have to check it out...



Book 90: Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson (2 - TBR 2009 or before)

David Balfour, a young Scottish man, is kidnapped, shipwrecked, and drawn into the midst of Highlander outlaws fighting against English rule. A quick, adventurous young adult story. I read it on Talk Like a Pirate Day. There are not, in fact, any actual pirates in the book. But hey, he was kidnapped and trapped on board a ship whose captain intended to sell him into slavery. Close enough for me :)



Book 91: Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 7-8 2011 (11 - anything goes)

There were quite a few good stories in this one. I keep changing my mind about which was my favorite story, which is always a good sign...


Book 92: Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (audio) (6 - historical settings)

A romance featuring Catherine Morland and Henry Tilney, whose father owns Northanger Abbey, which provides quite fertile grounds for Catherine's obsession with Gothic novels. Not my favorite of Austen's, though I understood the satire a lot better than I did the first time I read it. She had me laughing out loud more than once.



Book 93: To Trade the Stars by Julie E. Czerneda (8 - science fiction)

The 3rd book of the Trade Pact series, in which Sira, a member of the telepathic Clan and her husband/partner Jason Morgan, a non-Clan telepath, deal with alien intrigues, psychotic ex-friends, and mysterious powers. I like the aliens in these books, and the misunderstandings caused by the basic assumptions made by the various species.

I agree that Northanger Abbey isn't Austen's best, but I love it anyway! I do think it's the most quotable of her novels. I love the line, "A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."

Oh yes, the lines about a woman's place cracked me up :)



Book 94: Pericles, Prince of Tyre by William Shakespeare (10 - The Bard)

Fleeing kings, false deaths, and unlikely reunions. The lesson to be learned is that virtue (or perhaps virginity) triumphs over all. I don't think I had ever even heard of this one before, and it was at the back of the omnibus so I expected it to be a tragedy. I realize I say this about a lot of the plays, but this one was a fun read.



Book 95: Earthlight and Other Stories by Arthur C. Clarke (audio) (8 - SF)

The touchstone isn't right on this, but the work is so tangled up I'm not about to try to recombine it right now. Maybe when I have a few days free... Anyway, this is a collection of Clarke's science fiction short stories. Somewhat dated, but enjoyable. It's interesting to see was thought likely to change, and what wasn't, both technologically and socially.



Book 96: Captain Alatriste by Arturo Pérez Reverte (6 - Historical settings)

A swashbuckler set in Spain in the tradition of The Three Musketeers, with Alatriste, a down-on-his-luck ex-soldier, as protagonist, and the young son of his friend killed in battle as narrator. I was going to write something about Alatriste's negotiable morals, but really, they're not nearly as negotiable as even he expected them to be, or there wouldn't have been much of a story at all. Not my favorite of Reverte's novels, but as a series it shows promise, and the next one is already on my wish list.



Book 97: The Dark Tower by Stephen King (9 - Fantasy)

The end of the Dark Tower series. I had a hard time getting past the authorial presence in this one. Not King as a character, which worked, but the odd little intrusions with the "we's" and "I's" that refer to King the writer rather than King the character. Perhaps the point was that they were supposed to be the same. Didn't work for me. I really have no idea why it bugged me so much. Perhaps just because I liked the flow of all the previous novels and this stopped it in its tracks for me. Anyway, I liked the series as a whole a lot. And-- I can't think of how to make this sound less confusing if you haven't read the books-- the first part of the ending made me mad. But the second part of the ending made the first part not only work, but seem like the only right choice. I think that's one of the things I most like about King. If only he could have done it with the "we" junk...

Playing catch-up... I'll be brief...



98. The Sonnets and other poems by William Shakespeare

Trying to think of what to say about these makes me feel like I'm back in high school. I like some, others didn't do so much for me. I'll leave it at that :)



99. Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold (2 - TBR pile)

This is a novel set in the Vorkosigan universe, but generations earlier than Miles. Leo Graf is assigned to a space station populated by the quaddies, an experimental, genetically engineered (and very naive) group of kids with four arms and no legs - perfect for maneuvering in free fall, not so great on land. Leo winds up having to choose between his own career and the well-being of the quaddies. Fairly predictable, but fun.



100. Labyrinth by Lois McMaster Bujold (5 - continuing series)

A novella in which Miles meets a quaddie and is trapped in a dungeon with a beast-like woman who has been genetically engineered to be the perfect infantry soldier. A little heavy-handed in parts, but also a fun story.



101. Sea of Glory by Nathaniel Philbrick (1 - nonfiction)

The story of the U.S. Exploring Expedition, which set out to explore and survey the islands of the Pacific, what would later become known as Antarctica, and the west coast of North America. It deals a lot with the interactions between the officers and scientists, as recorded in their journals, and Wilkes, the commander, who, from a combination of his own personality and what seems like poor decisions on the part of those who sent them out, was far from an ideal leader. I'd never heard of the expedition before, so it was interesting reading.



102. Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton (6 - historical settings)

A story of the love triangle between Ethan Frome, his hypochondriac wife Zeena, and her cousin Maddie. A bleak, tragic, and powerful story.



103. The Tragedy of King Richard II by William Shakespeare (9 - TIOLI challenges)

A vaguely historical treatment of King Richard II. Not bad, but not my favorite. Some pretty good lines, though.



104. Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 9/10 2011 (11 - anything goes)

Some good stories in this one.



105. Assassin's Apprentice by Robin Hobb (audio) (7 - fantasy)

Another fantasy audio reread, the first in the Farseer trilogy. Fitz, the bastard son of the heir, is abandoned into the keeping of a stableman, trained as an assassin, and taught one magical ability while trying to keep another forbidden ability secret. Oh, and the kingdom's being raided, and alliances are being forged, and... yeah. It's a busy book with lots of personal and political machinations and intrigues. And it introduces the Fool, who shows up in various guises in Hobb's later books. Not a quick read or a cheery one, but a good story. I obviously liked it enough to read it again :)



106. Diplomatic Immunity by Lois McMaster Bujold (8 - science fiction)

I usually prefer to read series in either publication or chronological order, but Bujold jumps around so much with Miles & Co., and this one was in an omnibus with two earlier ones, so I went ahead and read it. I have to admit it was something of a jolt to jump ahead to Miles so much later in life :) In this one, he's called in to handle a problem between the Barrayaran military and the quaddie space station they're docked at. In which there are missing persons, misunderstandings, political pressures, and plagues, and Miles has to save the day. I suppose Bujold could write something I didn't like, but I haven't found it yet.

And... that's October! Only a month behind!

107. Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, 11/12 2011

Some better than others, of course, but a pretty good set of stories all around.



108. From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

Claudia and her brother Jamie run away and hide in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, where they see a sculpture that fascinates them both by its beauty and the mystery of whether or not it was sculpted by Michelangelo. I wish I'd come across this as a child. It's fun to read now too, but I think I'd really have eaten it up then.



109. The Code Book by Simon Singh

A history of cryptography, with a brief detour into deciphering ancient languages. A little dated at the end, by this time, but the history and the explanations of the codes and ciphers used were very well written. I'll have to read more of his books.



110. Steel Magic by Andre Norton

A young adult fantasy, in which three siblings from Earth find a portal to Avalon and help Merlin and company by finding three stolen items, with each child being sent alone after an item, on which quest they have to face their greatest fear. There's not much interaction, since they're apart for most of the book; I think that's why it was a little simplistic for me as an adult. I can see a younger child enjoying it, though.



111. King Henry VI, Part 1 by William Shakespeare

I seem not to have much to say about the history plays. French rebellions, Joan of Arc, and not really very much King Henry VI :) Not as good reading as some, but not bad.



112. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (audio)

Charlie is a mentally disabled man who takes part in an experiment to vastly increase his IQ. Algernon is the mouse who underwent the same procedure shortly before Charlie did. It's written as Charlie's journal, and we follow along as his intelligence increases and he discovers--often to his dismay--what other people are really saying and doing. I read the book years ago, and listening to it was a little odd. The narrator did a good job, but the changes in things like spelling, grammar and punctuation don't come across nearly as easily in speech. I found myself wishing the ending could be different this time around. Poor Charlie, and poor Algernon. I think I liked it even better the second time around.



113. A Spectacle of Corruption by David Liss

The sequel to A Conspiracy of Paper, which was the novel that introduced Benjamin Weaver, a Jewish boxer and then thief-taker in 18th century London. In this one, he's framed for a murder and caught up in a number of political intrigues during an election (hence the title). Weaver's not exactly a nice guy, but he's a good protagonist. I enjoyed the first one better than this, but I'll pick up the next one.



114. Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle

Peter S. Beagle is... is... I don't know how to say it. He makes me happy. If I can't read anything else, I can pick up something he's written and everything falls into place. This is a collection of his short stories, only one of which I'd read before, ranging from centaurs in New York City, dragons causing traffic jams, mysterious photos, the Berlin Wall, and Schmendrick the magician (from The Last Unicorn) in his younger days. They're all wonderful. Even the ones that are less wonderful than the others are wonderful. Did I mention that I like Mr. Beagle's writing?

And that's November! So close to being caught up!

Nice run of reviews you have posted! I look forward to reading Flowers for Algernon, at some point, as well as diving into the worlds of David Liss' writing, which I also haven't gotten around to yet.

Another good review of Simon Singh I must check him out.

Thanks! I hope you both enjoy them (and that you're better at getting around to books you keep meaning to get around to than I have been lately...)



115. The Tower of Ravens by Kate Forsyth

Rhiannon is a half-human, half-satyricorn girl who captures a winged horse to escape from her people, who despise her because she looks human rather than satyricorn-ish. She joins a group of students setting off for the witch's school in the capitol, which journey is, of course, beset by all sorts of problems, from snooty travelling companions to reanimated corpses and kidnapped children. I really wanted to like this more than I did. I tend to roll my eyes at the so-beautiful-every-male-within-a-million-miles-falls-in-love-with-her gals, which didn't help, even though she is untypical in that she's rather volatile and violent due to her upbringing. Mainly, though, I think it was that she didn't really seem consistent. Sometimes it seemed that she understood too much about human society (or picked it up astoundingly quickly), and at other times she knew much less. And I found the main male character, Lewen, to be irritatingly goody-goody. Not bad, I guess, but despite the hanging ending I doubt I'll pick up the next one.



116. The Map that Changed the World by Simon Winchester

The story of William Smith, who created the first geological map of the British Isles. It's a biography more than a scientific account, though it discusses geology too, of course. A lot of time is spent on Smith's financial troubles and the various problems caused by his class background and lack of a formal education in a scientific world mostly composed of upper class men with lots of time on their hands. I do wish my copy (a trade paperback) had a better map of England. Town names are tossed around like candy at a parade, and I very quickly got tired of finding some other reference to see where they were. There was a small map at the front, but the names were too tiny and blurry to make out... possibly this would have been better in the hardcover edition. But that's a minor quibble, especially since I think most nonfiction books could do with more maps and diagrams. It was an interesting glimpse into the early years of geological science.



117. Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey (audio)

Another YA fantasy audio reread for me. Menolly is a musically talented girl born into a strict family where fishing is everything and only boys become Harpers. She winds up running away and gradually discovering that many of the things she had assumed were true back at home aren't so cut and dried after all. A fun story, with music and dragons big and small.



118. To Reign in Hell by Steven Brust

A non-traditional story of the fall of Satan from heaven and the creation of the earth, with Satan as the sympathetic character. I didn't enjoy this as much as some of Brust's other works, the Jhereg books in particular. The characters were fairly simplistic, which I think was intentional, but it did leave me wishing for a little more depth in them. I like Brust's sense of humor and style, though.



119. The Time Machine by H. G. Wells (audio)

For anyone who doesn't know the story, a scientist builds a time machine and travels into the future, where he finds that humans have diverged into a beautiful and childlike race on the surface and a technological but vicious race that lives underground. Another one where I couldn't remember whether I'd read it before or whether I just knew the story.

120. King Henry VI, Part 2 by William Shakespeare

Gosh, this one's a muddle of people and events just sweeping past in a whirlwind. Characters come and go, never to be seen again. I'm reminded of some movies based on books that try to shove every tiny little event in and it just doesn't make much sense as a narrative.



121. The Club Dumas by Arturo Pérez-Reverte (audio)

Lucas Corso is a sort of free agent in the world of rare books - he'll investigate, find, acquire (even legally, if possible) books for the right price. He winds up with a manuscript of a chapter of The Three Musketeers to find out if it's genuine, and also with a copy of a book called The Nine Doors, which allegedly contains instructions for summoning the devil; his task there is to examine the other two known copies and find out which, if any, are forgeries. His involvement runs deeper than he had expected, with a mysterious girl who follows him around, a mysterious pair who look suspiciously like Rochefort and Milady from The Three Musketeers and who keep trying to steal his books, and a mysterious, on-going discovery about the copies of The Nine Doors. Corso's fun to follow around, and I liked the narrator. I didn't like that my audio version was abridged... I obviously didn't check before I got it. Ah, well. That's hardly the book's fault :)



122. A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin

The third in the Song of Ice and Fire series. I'm not even going to try to summarize this in any meaningful way; it's a 1200 page book with a lot of intense and involved storylines, and it's in the middle of a series. Good, but I liked the first two better. I liked Jon's parts in this one, and Tyrion's. In general I like Arya but her chapters here got to be repetitive. I could have done with less of Daenarys, who has never been my favorite character. Melisandre is shaping up to be interesting. Martin surprised me with a few things, more in the when rather than the what, given the way he treats his main characters. I have put the next one, Feast of Crows, on my wishlist already.



123. An Ocean of Air by Gabrielle Walker

A quick overview of discoveries about air and the atmosphere. I think this one could have been better than it was. Or maybe it's just that it's a little too far on the popular science side of things for me (and I like popular science books). There were several things that either weren't accurate or were way too oversimplified. Minor things, that Walker was using for illustration or analogy, mostly, and for a few of them she at least mentioned in the endnotes that there was more to it than that, but still... meh. It wasn't all bad, though. She approached the history as a series of mini-biographies of the people making the discoveries, and while I'm not convinced that all of her details are accurate (or perhaps just not accurately portrayed) it at least was a good overview, and her writing is entertaining.

121 books! Hooray!

Congratulations on completing your challenge!

Congratulations... and just in time for the holidays!

Congratulations!

Congratulations on completing your challenge!

Congratulations!! Just catching up. I love to read the Wells and Clarke reviews. :)

See you in the 12 in 12?

Thanks, everyone! And yep, my 12 in 12 thread is all ready to go :)