Mabith's 2014 Reads Part II

2014 Reads, July through December!

January through June (total read: 104)
Rainbow ROOTs thread

Salt, Sugar, Fat by Michael Moss
The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters
Why Does He Do That by Lundy Bancroft
Matilda by Roald Dahl
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat by Hal Herzog
The Sinking of the Lancastria by Jonathan Fenby
War With the Newts by Karel Čapek
Mean Little Deaf Queer by Terry Galloway
The Making of a Poem edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland

Ronia, The Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren
Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson
A Man and His Ship by Steven Ujifusa
Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington
Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

A Train in Winter by Caroline Moorehead
Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis
Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George
The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz

Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King
How to Be Sick by Toni Bernhard
Empire of Sin by Gary Krist
Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines by Ruthe S. Wheeler
Rommel? Gunner Who? by Spike Milligan

The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Parisians by Graham Robb
Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman
A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park
Stay: A History of Suicide by Jennifer Michael Hecht

Saga Vol. 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express by M. Wiesenthal
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
10 Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah
Ireland: A Concise History by Paul Johnson

Saga Vol 2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson
Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne
The Holy Thief by Ellis Peters
The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit

Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
The Eastern Front 1914-1917 by Norman Stone
Without You, There Is No Us by Suki Kim
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink
The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
Saga, Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
13 Bankers by Simon Johnson and James Kwak
The Turret by Margery Sharp

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Woman Who Would be King by Kara Cooney
Rat Queens Vol 1 by Kurtis J. Wiebe
Which Side Are You On? by Thomas Geoghegan
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

The Earth Moved by Amy Stewart
The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker
Girls Like Us by Gail Giles
Bible and Sword by Barbara Tuchman
The Harps That Once... edited by Thorkild Jacobsen

A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie
Trouble-Twisters by Garth Nix and Sean Williams
Help Me to Find My People by Heather Andrea Williams
Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson
Monty: My Part in His Victory by Spike Milligan

English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs
Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt
You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes by Laura Love
Brother Cadfael's Penance by Ellis Peters
Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright
The Riddle of the Compass by Amir D. Aczel
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Falco: The Official Companion by Lindsey Davis
Uncle Scrooge: The Seven Cities of Gold by Carl Barks

Dracula by Bram Stoker
Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan
The Getaway Car by Donald E. Westlake
Heidi by Johanna Spryi
Parzival and the Stone from Heaven by Lindsay Clarke

The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas
A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow
Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Son of the Sun by Don Rosa
Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett
A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson

A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild
Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by P.G. Wodehouse
Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: Return to Plain Awful by Don Rosa
The Old Ways by Robert MacFarlane
The Caller (Shadowfell) by Juliet Marillier

Just My Type by Simon Garfield
Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast
The Last Nude by Ellis Avery
Freddy's Cousin Weedly by Walter R. Brooks
Millions Like Us by Virginia Nicholson

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale
Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott
Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier
As You Wish by Cary Elwes

Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel
The Story of Freginald by Walter R. Brooks
China Dolls by Lisa See
What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein
Ms. Marvel Vol. 1 by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry
Away From the Vicarage by Noel Streatfeild
Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

Gemma by Noel Streatfeild
American Rose by Karen Abbott
The Damned Utd by David Peace
Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay
The Property by Rutu Modan

The Siege by Ismail Kadare
The Chosen by Chaim Potok
West of Kabul, East of New York by Tamim Ansary
Safekeeping by Karen Hesse
William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher

The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay
I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak
How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman
Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

I'm continuing the total from the previous thread so I don't get confused!


105 - Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us by Michael Moss

A very interesting read, though nothing really surprising in it. It did make me kind of glad I don't eat much processed food anymore. My parents tried to keep all junk out of our house entirely (barring birthday parties), and I think they pushed it too hard early on since my sister and I became complete junk food junkies (it's not like we didn't get to have it at friends' houses). I spent every penny I got on candy and chips for a long time (it did mean I was pretty good at mental math and excellent at calculating tax at age six).

The only thing that surprised me had nothing to do with junk, actually. It was about Lunchables (eww) being marketed to working moms who didn't have time to fix their kids lunches in the morning. Which, first, why are you fixing them the night before and second, why aren't your kids making their own lunches!! I made my own from third grade onward, and I admit I felt pretty smug that I did it myself. I talked to a women's group I'm in and apparently there was quite a feeling of "I wish my mom did it for me" but I suppose that's the difference in how I was transitioned to it. I'm sure my mom couched it in terms of "Now you're old enough to do it yourself! Congrats!" She was sneaky like that

Anyway, the book is worth reading, though I wouldn't call it necessary reading if you already have a dim view of processed food.

There was a stage where my kids were miffed at me because I was the "only" mom who didn't buy Lunchables. They'd ask for them at the store, and I'd say, "hey, we can make our own better version of this--using quality cheese, for example. And it will cost a fraction of what Lunchables cost. In fact, I have given you that and most of it comes back home." After several years of asking I finally bought it once and then they both agreed that it was crap. Lunchables have never been mentioned again. I think it was just the little compartments that they liked.

Yeah, the packaging was alluring, that kind of bologna type lunch meat always icked me out when I was a kid though, and the cold pizza? weird). I was like that with marshmallow cereal as a kid. My parents finally bought me a box for a birthday or something and it was so gross. Only I was still young enough that I still felt like I had to pretend I wanted it (plus I had this whole act that amused everyone, and I was always the family clown).

106 - The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters

This is Ellis Peters at her finest! Not that she ever fails to put a spirited young women in Cadfael books, but this girl (hesitate to call her a heroine) was especially great.

The murder was not the main part of the mystery, but that was fine by me. I'm in it more for Cadfael and from the historical fiction angle than the mystery angle.

I only have three Cadfael books left, and I just don't know what I'll do after that. Hopefully the Phryne Fisher books improve and become a nice substitute (I'm in the market for a good historical mystery if you have a favorite!). Luckily I still have some Miss Marple to get to.

Have you read the Mathew Shardlake series by C. J. Sansom? The first book is Dissolution. I listened to the audio version of the series, and enjoyed Steven Crossley's narration.

Colleen, I haven't! I'll put it on the list, though I'd probably wait a while to try another monk series (even with the very different year setting).

107 - Why Does He Do That: Inside the Minds of Angry and Controlling Men by Lundy Bancroft

This is an incredible book. It's extremely informative but just, the level of straight talk and myth busting about abuse, abusers, the abused, the courts... I am in awe of it. Bancroft makes no bones about the fact that most abusers are men and most abused people are women. Other scenarios are talked about, but the facts and ratios are set plainly out. Bancroft points out that he was a believer in some of the myths until he started his more intensive study of and work with abusers.

I was briefly involved in an emotionally abusive relationship, though thankfully it ended before things got really bad. There is nothing like the feeling of being so on guard, so mindful of how you ask for what should be simple, standard things, constantly skittish. Yet there's always a good side to the relationship, especially early on, the person knows how to be occasionally wonderful and the world feels so lopsided. You feel so tiny and insignificant and worthless.

Everyone should read this book, but especially every woman. Disabled women like me are at a far greater risk for abuse. I read it now in part because I saw this quote from it:

“Myth #6: He loses control of himself. He just goes wild.

Many years ago, I was interviewing a woman named Sheila… She was describing the rages that my client Michael would periodically have: ‘He just goes absolutely berserk, and you never know when he’s going to go off like that. He’ll just start grabbing whatever is around and throwing it…. And he smashes stuff, important things sometimes. Then… he calms down; and he leaves for a while. Later he seems kind of ashamed of himself.’

I asked Sheila two questions. The first was, when things got broken, were they Michael’s, or hers, or things that belonged to both of them? She left a considerable silence while she thought.

Then she said, ‘…I’m amazed that I never thought of this, but he only breaks my stuff. I can’t think of one thing he’s smashed that belonged to him.’ Next, I asked her who cleans up the mess. She answered that she does.

I commented, ‘See, Michael’s behavior isn’t nearly as berserk as it looks. And if he really felt so remorseful, he’d help clean up.’”

Okay, I feel like going berserk myself just reading that. Not sure Why Does He Do That would be a good book for me (my husband, brothers and father are all pretty even tempered--but I do have a brother-in-law who goes berserk). It sounds interesting though.

108 - Matilda by Roald Dahl

I really blame my dad for me not reading more Dahl as a kid. I mean, I couldn't be expected to work it all out. Sure we got Walter R. Books, Eleanor Estes, Maud Hart Lovelace... but still!

Of course this is a wonderful book. Dahl is great for really letting characters be mean, which if you're a kid who has to deal with mean adults then it's certainly a comfort to see that in books. I'll have to make sure my niece and nephew get the books.

While I loved Matilda, I'm still most devoted to The Witches.

>10 mabith: Matilda is great. I've listened to it a couple of times with grandchildren on the way to Cape Cod or Maine.

I didn't read Matilda when I was a kid because I was an adult when it came out (1988). However, James and the Giant Peach was the first book I stayed up all night to finish (on a school night), which would have been grade 4 or 5. I also loved Charlie and the Chocolate Factory at that time. He's still one of my favourite authors.

Why does he do that sounds like one of those books you should read! but you know it might be an uncomfortable experience. Excellent review.

Dahl is definitely an extremely special author, and his books really haven't become dated at all, and I don't think they ever will.

Why Does He Do That was an intense read, but for me heavily punctuated with the feeling of righteous agreement for all the straight talk.

Why Does He Do That sounds remarkable and well worth reading, even though I am very fortunate to have never been involved with an abusive man. That quote is fascinating.

I love some of Dahl's stories but haven't read Matilda.

109 - Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is not something I would have picked up from the description alone, in part because it's so vague. An online book club I'm in chose it, and part of the reason I'm in it is to read fiction outside my usual tastes.

I really didn't enjoy this one. It was easy to read and keep going with, and very well written, but very little happens. There's no bigger event, no truly big discovery by the characters (there's one, sort of, but it matters so little and happens so late I couldn't care). However, I didn't feel like you found out enough about the characters to like them or be invested in them. They're all so naive and sheep-like, even as adults, which really grated on me. The things I was a little more curious about were never answered. The narrated I cared about more, but she's also just a boring, too-nice, sheep.

At least one person in my bookclub gave it four stars. It's wonderfully written and all, but only frustrating for me. If you took out the dystopic/science fiction element and subbed in normal 'now I'm an adult' issues no one would give this book a second glance. Since that element is constantly said but unsaid and only barely given prominence, what's the point? I get that the normalization of that issue was part of the author's intent, but it really didn't work for me, especially given how it was handled by the peripheral characters versus the main characters.

Okay, this is the dystopic element, which I don't exactly consider a spoiler since it's hinted about/you're basically told at the beginning, just not in a super clear way because of the first person narration and it being this totally accepted thing The kids in this special school are being raised to incubate donor organs once they're adults. The kids are seemingly raised with this knowledge but it's all very unclear when they're told and how much they know..

I'll look for more Ishiguro to read because the writing itself was wonderful, but I'll stay away from anything with a dystopic/science fiction edge. They made a movie based on this, apparently, though I've no idea how and imagine that, for me, it might be better than the book.

I agree with you about Never Let me Go. It was neither one thing or another. I think Ishiguro may have been trying to create a special kind of feel in the book, a sort of sheep like dreaminess about the inevitability of death - perhaps. A friend lent the book to me and when I told her I didn't rate it very much she promptly lent me An artist of the floating world which I thought was very good.

>17 baswood: Glad it wasn't just me! I'll have to choose the next book by him very carefully...

I never got around to Ishiguru when, a few years ago, I was reading some Japanese literature for the Author Theme Reads group. Not sure I want to after your review.

>16 mabith:

I had a similar impression to yours. Wonderful writing--I had bought the book for a friend without planning to read it myself, but just trying one page hooked me. However, I felt weirdly split--on the one hand, I was really drawn in by the minute observation of relationships and touched by the sadness of that world; on the other, I kept thinking "but this is complete nonsense--people just wouldn't behave that way".

Bizarre as it sounds, somehow he managed to be truthful and false at the same time.

I did like Never Let Me Go. I had no idea what it was about and I listened to it on audiobook. I can see that I may not have been as forgiving if I read it in paper. I've also read the same author's Remains of the Day. I thought it was better than okay, and gave it a four for the obvious wonderful writing. When I posted my comments on LT, I had a bunch of people jump on me for not loving it. I definitely going to look for more by this author. That said, your thoughts on Never Let Me Go are not unusual.

>19 rebeccanyc: Well, lots love him, and some of his books did sound really interesting to me, this just wasn't one of them.

>20 LolaWalser: Yes, truthful yet false is a good description to me.

Ha, I listened to the audiobook too. I had no real idea what it was about beforehand either, since the summaries of it are so vague. The writing is what made me keep listening, certainly, rather than taking lots of breaks, but the behavior and nothing happening combined with the characters being pretty shallow depictions anyway... If it had just been some historical setting I probably would have just focused on the writing, but the barely discussed dystopic thing that felt like it should always have more presence drove me nuts.

110 - Some We Love, Some We Hate, Some We Eat: Why It's So Hard to Think Straight About Animals by Hal Herzog

This was a really fascinating book about humans' relationships with animals. The divide between pet and food and pest, the way we literally expect our pets to want the things we want (namely things in general).

I tend to feel like I have a country/farm girl attitude towards animals despite never living on a farm. I like them, but I don't agonize over eating meat. I try to eat local meat when I can, and get farm raised eggs (and those are basically pet chickens). I don't have the financial or mental freedom to agonize over it though. I have a cat, but I don't have her to save a pet, I have her because it distinctly benefits me to have a pet. i love her individually but I'll love the next cat just as much, if for different reasons. I have no trouble admitting that if pets didn't benefit humans we wouldn't have them.

One part of the book talks about gender differences in regards to attitudes toward animals, and I don't think the author talks nearly enough about socialization being a factor in differences (and I don't really know why he looked at that aspect anyway, other than some men being obsessed with inherent differences between the sexes). Barring that, it was an excellent and interesting book. Beware the audiobook as the reader does accents (his attempt at Oxbridge is just beyond awful).

Nice little pop. science read. Recommended.

111 - The Sinking of the Lancastria: The Twentieth Century's Deadliest Naval Disaster and Churchill's Plot to Make it Disappear by Jonathan Fenby

That subtitle is a lot more provocative than the truth. Also there's only a page or so focused on the "plot" to cover it up.

It is, however, a little known fact of history, the sinking of a ship carrying nearly 6,000 people (at minimum estimates), military and civilians, wherein over half were killed. One survivor put it correctly in my eyes "War is war, but this was murder" (paraphrasing).

An interesting account, written largely to honor the victims and survivors.

112 - War With the Newts by Karel Čapek

A dark science fiction satire published in 1936, which was remarkably prescient in some ways. Though, really, surely it's a fantasy satire? It invents a new creature and places it on earth, so is that really science fiction? If only I'd paid more attention during this discussion in the science fiction elective I took in high school (it involved seeing the play Proof and then discussing whether or not that was sci-fi, I recall).

A great classic, and at times hilarious, though I feel uncomfortable with the fact of using these newt-like creatures to bring up these themes. Though I suppose it's not exactly different than if they'd been alien creatures landed on earth, when we're talking about human oppression I don't think making comparisons to what are at least initially taken to be simple animals is a good idea.

I suppose we can argue that was the view of many European colonizers (and racists in general), only was it really, or was it a mental justification they were constantly having to defend in order to take self-serving actions? Given that they never get anywhere without local translators and guides and such, how can it be a true belief? I don't know. That aspect just makes me a little uncomfortable. Like when people who say they "don't see" race proclaim that by talking about purple and green skin.

In any case, an excellent book and now maybe my dad will stop giving me his Čapek speech. It's been months, it never changes, and if he acts smug one more time talking about how he knows how to pronounce Čapek, I may explode.

Interestingly varied reading and I enjoyed our reviews. I have two other books by Čapek that were given to me several years ago, and I have yet to read them.

Loved your review of War with the Newts Meredith. I have it on my reading shelf (that is books I hope to get to this year). I shall bear your questions in mind when I get to it.

Thanks, Rebecca! If I didn't have so much variety I definitely wouldn't be reading as much. I don't know how the people who mostly read one genre do it!

I'll be interested to see what you think of it, Barry! His books seem to be rightly remembered, and his satire of inter-European attitudes was particularly amusing. I'm wondering if he gets much attention among young science fans anymore though (versus, say, in the 1960s when the set of SF books considered classics was very different than now).

I'm slightly agape that my dad's been bringing up the book and Capek for some months but never actually mentioned what it was about (or that it was a satire).

113 - Mean Little Deaf Queer by Terry Galloway

This is an absolutely amazing memoir, which doubly pleased me, as it was my pick for a diverse books group I'm in for books about disability. To be clear, most deaf people do not consider themselves to be disabled, and nor do I, but I think there's a line between having a disability and being disabled (and unable to work a traditional job).

Galloway talks a fair bit about her own ableism towards those with more severe disabilities, ableism she experienced, and the feeling of not being "disabled enough." I feel like that's something people in most marginalized groups can understand, not being ENOUGH to fit in somewhere. She addresses the "them" that haunts so many disabled lives and the feeling of being "other."

Her life has been interesting and difficult and loving and all over the place. It's beautifully written, though I'm sure some will find it harder reading than others. She also struggles with episodes of mental illness. She grows so much in this memoir and I found it impossible not to love her.

The audio edition is very well read.

114 - The Making of a Poem: A Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland

Well, I'm conflicted about the quality of this book. First off, the paper and cover are so cheap, like it's designed almost as a throwaway book for college courses.

I bought it because I like poetry and having something that addressed the various forms would be nice. Each section starts with the rules of the form, but the rules could stand to be more detailed for some and they cover SO FEW forms (only seven, plus a section on stanzas, and then elegies, pastorals, odes and open forms). Some forms don't work as well across languages (such as the haiku), but many of the other European forms should work fine with English and surely they could be covered even if only a few examples are used? They also include poems which do not meet all the rules for a form but don't talk about why they were specifically included. I'd have also liked them to be in chronological order in the sections with date written attached to each poem (they sometimes seemed to be chronological, but I can't be sure).

At first the balance of male to female poets was good but it dropped off sharply in the second half of the book when we'd moved to elegies, pastorals, odds, and open forms. I can understand why they're not using poems in translation in the first half, because then they'd no longer meet the rules of the forms, for the second half they certainly could have. The book is dominated by British and American writers, with three Australians, and maybe six poets from Europe (only I think at least three of those were army brats born in other countries, but not really part of those countries). Didn't even see any Canadians when I glanced through the author summaries.

If you're familiar with Norton anthologies the 330 pages here (not including indexes) will seem incredibly short. If they'd bothered to look at more forms, to be more detailed about the rules, to at least give the rules for forms from other countries that we don't have English language poems of (though I imagine we do for all of them), they could have easily filled this out to the normal length for their large anthologies. I also find it slightly odd that the cover blurb is from a review in the magazine Elle...

The Shrinking Lonesome Sestina

Somewhere in everyone's head something points toward home,
a dashboard's floating compass, turning all the time
to keep from turning. It doesn't matter how we come
to be wherever we are, someplace where nothing goes
the way it went once, where nothing holds fast
to where it belongs, or what you've risen or fallen to.

What the bubble always points to,
where we notice it or not, is home.
It may be true that if you move fast
everything fades away, that given time
and noise enough, every memory goes
into the blackness, and if new ones come--

small, mole-like memories that come
to live in the furry dark--they, too,
curl up and die. But Carol goes
to high school now. John works at home
what days he can to spend some time
with Sue and the kids. He drives too fast.

Ellen won't eat her breakfast.
Your sister was going to come
but didn't have the time.
Some mornings at one or two
or three I want you home
a lot, but then it goes.

It all goes.
Hold on fast
to thoughts of home
when they come.
They're going to
less with time.

Time
goes
too
fast.
Come
home.

Forgive me that. One time it wasn't fast.
A myth goes that when the quick years come
then you will, too. Me, I'll still be home.

-Miller Williams

(Sestinas have six stanzas of six lines each followed by an envoi of three lines. The same six end-words must occur in every stanza but in a changing order following a set pattern and must occur in the envoi as well. I like how Williams cheats a bit in the fourth stanza.)

115 - Ronia, The Robber's Daughter by Astrid Lindgren

This is one of those books where I can see how much I would have loved it as a kid but some of the magic is lost as an adult. Ronia is the daughter of a robber chief, and allowed to roam the forest full of animals and magical beings. One day she meets the son of the rival robber chief. She saves his life, a couple times, and he saves her life too. They swear to be brother and sister. Cue feud between parents, running away to live in the woods, and reconciliation.

I did enjoy it quite a lot, but I wasn't lost in it (the way I was in Swallows and Amazons, say). Apparently there's a movie being made of it? It would be so simple to make a good movie of it, but children's book adaptations do tend to get mussed up.

Did anyone else struggle to understand there were multiple books by the same author for years as a child? Like until I was 11 maybe I didn't think of looking at the library for more by the authors we had at home. Like we had five of the Betsy Tacy books so I didn't realize there were more. We had The Children of Noisy Village but no other Lindgren chapter books and I never thought "I'll look for more!" Books were always just THERE, and in such abundance why look for specifics? It shows how good my parents were that my main grievance is them not guiding my reading more (I read great books, but no one thought to give me Count of Monte Cristo at 11 or so? CRUEL).

I LOVED the Pippi Longstocking books when I was a child, and I know what you mean about other books -- never knew Lindgren wrote others. We had a lot of books at home but I also read my way through my elementary school library -- it was my home away from home and I still know exactly which books were where on the shelves.

I'm like that with the library we went to every week when I was a kid (and some of the places my dad worked, as he was a librarian for most of my life). We drove to the much larger city 45 minutes away to use their library since it was so much larger and I knew those shelves so well.

Though bookstore work is what really made me memorize shelves, since you end up checking most days to make sure things are in alphabetical order.

Shame about The Making of a Poem. It all sounds a bit shoddy, which is unusual for Norton anthologies.

Yeah, it being a Norton publication is what made me buy it without really examining it.

116 - Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson

The second book in the Mapp and Lucia series, and quite a hoot. I liked the slightly more openly malicious attitudes of these villagers. Others on LT have given far better reviews than I can.

I will say if you're looking for a funny, quick read that doesn't have the tightly plotted madness of Wodehouse but involves English society nuttyness, this is a great series. I started it when I wanted something like Wodehouse, but just didn't have the energy for him. Likewise if you love Elizabeth Gaskell's Cranford, this is for you.

117 - A Man and His Ship by Steven Ujifusa

This book follows the life and career of William Francis Gibbs, the naval architect behind the SS United States, perhaps the greatest ocean liner ever built. The unfortunate truth, however, is that it was built at the tail end of the liner era, 1952, and was in use for only a little over a decade. It still holds the fastest time for westward transatlantic crossing. It's true speed capacity and propulsion system were classified until the 1970s or 1980s (I forgot which).

Gibbs wanted to design this particular super liner since he was very young. He was born to a wealthy family, but the wealth was lost by his college years. Gibbs struggled horribly with math all through his school and never finished college. Most of his spare time was spent working on his ideal super liner design with his brother. WWI allowed them an opening into the world of ship design and his career took off from there, albeit going fairly slowly. It follows his big projects but the focus is definitely on the SS United States

The book is well written, and completely in chronological order (which pleases me). It's very accessible, and gives you a short history of passenger liners in general along the way. My favorite new bit of knowledge is that the propulsion system was designed by a woman, Elaine S. Kaplan. She left the engineering business when she had children, though Gibbs tried to keep her with promises of nannies, daycares, and flexible hours.

My grandparents, mom, and aunts sailed on the SS United States in 1963, as the first step in their journey to Egypt. My grandmother said she would be fine to move there but insisted they make the atlantic crossing by boat, not plane. My granddaddy had a time convincing his bosses to pay for it, but he did, and gave my mom and aunts a remarkable experience. I have the menus from their trip and good god, the luxurious food!
Here's one of the every-day dinner menus: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-menus3_zps6cf6d285.j...
Luncheon: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-menus2_zpsabeeb45b.j...
Breakfast: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-menus1_zpsa564d902.j...
Gala Dinner: http://i186.photobucket.com/albums/x9/mabith/SSUnitedStates-GalaDinnerMenu_zps92...

Safe to say that my mom at 12 and her sisters (9, 7, 4), did not appreciate the food.

118 - Rabbit-Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington Garimara

A short book about Pilkington's mother's escape from an aboriginal settlement "school" and 1500 mile trek back home along the rabbit-proof fence. The book doesn't try to be incredibly precise (that would be impossible). Due to reports filed about the girls and search parties sent out I don't think there's ever been any doubt that they did this.

The book is best read with the view point of an old aunty telling you a story, with other aunties breaking in at times with extra detail. It was very easy to listen to and just amazing. The sheer act of audacity in attempting to escape at all took so much courage.

What's horribly sad is that the author spent most of her early life in the same facility her mother escaped from. Very worthwhile read, and short enough that everyone should pick it up.

Glad you're enjoying Miss Mapp and Lucia and their friends. Just thinking about them puts a smile on my face!

Rabbit-Proof Fence has been on my radar screen since I read Terra Nullius earlier this year. Thanks for your review and for the advice on the best way to read it.

119 - Who Fears Death by Nnedi Okorafor

I really wanted to this like this book more than I did. I'm not a big reader of science fiction or fantasy (this leans more towards fantasy), particularly when it involves war or genocide. If I'm going to read about those things I would far rather read non-fiction or at least historical fiction so that I'm learning something true.

The first summary I read of it wasn't particularly accurate and I spent a lot of time wondering about the apocalypse that apparently happened (which isn't ever really mentioned).

Okorafor's writing is good and she brings some surprises along the way, though all in all things were fairly predictable. Onyesonwu is a natural sorceress, a child of rape, and struggles to get tuition from a local sorcerer, who does not wish to teach girls or children of rape (children between two groups always come out with sand colored skin and hair, and are mostly products of rape). There's a journey to confront her birth father who is a local ruler (and sorcerer) in part responsible for the genocide taking place against her people.

Though this wasn't for me, I think it's probably an excellent book for people who are more into fantasy/sci-fi.

Great reviews, mabith, and an interesting mix of books.

Thanks, Diana! I'd probably read a fair bit less (or at least enjoy it less) if it weren't so varied.

120 - A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France by Caroline Moorehead

As the title says, this is the story of women in the French Resistance, specifically those who were captured and sent to concentration camps. While statistics are given throughout about the total numbers of French women deported, this book focuses on a group who were together through three camps (Auschwitz, Birkenau, and Ravensbruck). The beginning is taken up with their lives and activities, and why they were arrested, before moving on to their remarkable survival.

While I feel some of this may be altered remembrance, the group seems to have been able to remain remarkably close through their experience, refusing to give in to selfishness. They shared food when they were allowed packages from the outside, they tried to help others in the camps, they certainly helped each other survive the roll calls, and they took moral stands at the risk of their own lives. One was a nurse or doctor and was made to help with medical experiments in Auschwitz. She took a stand saying she would not keep doing it, and a friend forged paperwork saying she'd died and smuggled her back to Birkenau. When they were leaving Ravensbruck one woman smuggled out film which showed the medical experiments there.

They were a remarkable group of women, and though in our eyes so few survived, statistically more than you'd expect survived. They stayed close after the war, and as with many survivors of the camps had difficulty talking about their experiences with their children but opened up far more to their grandchildren.

The end of the book pulls no punches about the number of French who collaborated or who was honored after the war (aka, not women at all) or the ignoring of the huge numbers of people deported and the French role in that. An excellent book, adding another lesser known chapter to your WWII knowledge.

121 - Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis

I listened to a lovely audio edition of this, read extremely well by James Avery.

What a fabulous book, set during the Great Depression. It follows Bud, raised only by his mother who died when he was six. He spends the next four years in an orphanage. When his placement with a foster family starts with their son sticking a pencil up his nose, Bud slapping the boy, and the parents locking Bud in a shed, he decides enough is enough. Going by clues in the things his mother left him, he decides to find his father.

I really loved this book, and Bud, and being sucked back into childhood in terms of the way kids think (or the way I thought, anyway). I laughed, I moaned, I commiserated, and I was joyful for Bud. He is such a wonderful character. I can't wait until my nephew is old enough for it.

>45 mabith: Great review, and it sounds like this book is a more serious work than the title leads one to believe.

>46 mabith: Meredith, have you read Dave at Night? Its set in the 1920s, during the Harlem Renaissance, and it features an orphan who loves jazz. I've always thought the two books were a nice tandem read.

122 - Empress Dowager Cixi by Jung Chang

I found this to be a very interesting and well-done book. Unlike some others I did not go into it with an idea of Cixi already formed. There have been criticisms that Chang excuses the executions directly ordered by her, but I didn't feel like this was so. She talks about why they were done or thought to be necessary by Cixi, but I don't think that's the same thing as justifying or excusing them, that's just an important part of the history.

Given the very different pressures and expectations on female rulers (even today), I find it amazing she didn't have to deal out more death, honestly (there were maybe 10 at most, and one cold-blooded, direct murder at the very end of her life). No matter how Cixi acted there were always going to be people making up their own truth about her, to fit in with misogynistic views. If she had truly been the devastatingly cruel ruler historians made her out to be should would not have stayed in the picture for so long, and she would not have been allowed to rule in even minor ways. She did not have an army or a league of spies and assassins on her side to threaten people and could easily have been shut away. She had a few loyal friends and her talents kept her involved.

The most interesting thing to me is the constant push and pull between traditional China and the modern world, which happened to everyone involved. The modernizers had their faith and loyalty to traditional things, and the traditionalists had their own weaknesses, I think particularly after seeing the leaps and bounds made by Japan and the military gains of modernization. She was not a paragon of virtue, but what ruler could have been, particularly anyone trying to change a culture so much?

>41 rebeccanyc: Yeah, going into it looking for a more scholarly work full of time lines would just ruin it, I think. The girls were young (and somewhat traumatized, god knows), and not literate and not really numerate, the proof of the journey comes from the documentation of their pursuers and isn't what makes the story interesting or powerful.

>47 LibraryPerilous: Thanks for the rec of Dave at Night! That does sound like a great thing to read with Bud, Not Buddy. Onto the list it goes.

>48 mabith: Interesting about the Jung Chang book. I'm afraid I was turned off by her biography of Mao which had such personal venom in it that it made it difficult to know what was true and what wasn't, even given that Mao deserves a lot of venom; it also made much of some personal physical problems, which put me off too.

Yeah, I've heard enough about the Mao book that I don't feel the need to read that one. Actually I don't particularly feel the need to read biographies about people like Mao (or Hitler or Stalin etc...), I read enough about their actions and the effects.

Good review of A Train in Winter that is one I ought to read.

123 - My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George

As a kid I had such a weakness for "kids surviving on their own" stories (really I still do), and such dreams of going out and living in the woods. It's probably lucky I didn't read this one as a kid or I might have tried some serious running away.

This is a fun little book, which I enjoyed, but it doesn't really have much direction. It has a vague "the city/technology sucks," message that gets stronger towards the very end but it doesn't really have a plot. It just follows a teenage boy who reads a bunch of survival type books and decides to go to the ancestral land and live on his own. While he doesn't have the absolute perfect luck of the Swiss Family Robinson, he has very few problems come up and quite a lot of luck, all in all. And apparently a photographic memory of any helpful books he read given that he grew up in NYC...

I wouldn't give this one to any kid over 12, as it's just a bit too easy and aimless, unless they've seriously run out of Kids Doing it for Themselves titles (definitely get them The American Boys Handy Book and the Foxfire books though).

124 - The Harafish by Naguib Mahfouz

I love Mahfouz and his writing, and especially the way he writes relationships. The variety is huge and the nuance he can put into a relationship in a short space of time is wonderful to me. They always feel very real (particularly when the characters are arguing!).

This one follows 12 generations of a family from a lower class urban area. Harafish generally translates as 'rabble.' About three quarters of the way three my attention wandered a little and I slightly lost track of the families and how the relationships were linked and such, but still enjoyed the writing. It has a lot of rising and falling fortunes and morals as the generations pass.

Not my favorite Mahfouz, but worthwhile if you're a fan. Also, I feel I can say with certainty that his favorite female name was Zaynab. I think there's one in every book I've read by him (barring the ones set in ancient Egypt).

>53 mabith: I'm pretty sure I read My Side of the Mountain when I was about 10, but I have no memory of it. I was very into books the wilderness because we spent a lot of our summers up in the mountains.

125 - Leonardo and the Last Supper by Ross King

This book is just what it says, about Leonardo Da Vinci and the painting of The Last Supper. Both about him, and his life during that period, and the painting itself (the symbolism, where it came from, restoration efforts etc...).

It was very interesting, since the general conscious thought about Da Vinci is fairly different than the reality. He finished very few paintings in his life, he was pretty slap-dash (aka why the painting started deteriorating so quickly), he would not have a good rating on Angie's List!

I did think there was occasionally more information than necessary about Bible matters that didn't relate directly to the painting, but it didn't happen too much. I was also disheartened that the author felt the need to address things stated in the book The Da Vinci Code. Plus, isn't all of that also in a "non-fiction" book? So the author could have at least referenced that one instead.

All in all, a good read.

126 - How to Be Sick: A Buddhist-Inspired Guide for the Chronically Ill by Toni Bernhard

I've had two disabling chronic illnesses for almost 10 years now, so this book is really a bit late for me. Many of the lessons in it I'd already gathered from my personality alone, having four much older siblings, and going to a Quaker high school (not to mention coping with my illness for so long).

It generally deals with coping with our new lives and restrictions. Accepting that suffering is always a part of any life, learning to take joy in others' joy, allowing ourselves to be sad/recognizing that something is hard, building new communities, learning to refocus or drop our stressful thoughts. It will definitely be helpful for some.

One aspect of it I disliked. The mantra "There is sickness here, but I am not sick." Though Bernhard is no longer able to work she always says sick, she never uses the word disabled in reference to herself (though she certainly is disabled, and I wonder if this comes from internalized ableism). For me, disability is an important part of my identity. For one thing it's important for raising awareness about inaccessible spaces and ableism, but it's also just who I am now. It's not ALL that I am, but it's an important part of me. I much prefer my version "There is sickness here, but sickness is not all there is."

Catching up. Perfect time to hear about Why Does He Do That. A friend has left her abusive husband and I think I'll pick her up a copy of this book to give her before we go back to Germany.

The Da Vinci book sounds interesting, I think I'll watch out for that. I've always found things about him interesting.

Sounds like Dan Brown has a lot to answer for!

I much prefer my version "There is sickness here, but sickness is not all there is." Yes your version sounds right.

I have got that Ross King book on Leonardo on my to read shelf.

>58 RidgewayGirl: so glad it showed up at the right time! It's really a book everyone should read.

The Da Vinci book was very interesting, especially since I really didn't know much about him, and I hope you both enjoy it if/when you get to it!

127 - Empire of Sin: A Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans by Gary Krist

This review is based on an advanced reading copy (uncorrected proof). I've never pointed out when something is an ER book the way many do, should I? I'm going to review the same way no matter what.

Empire of Sin covers a thirty year period of New Orleans history, focusing on the vice industry which was initially legal, but sectioned off into one area of town, Storyville, in the early 1890s. To the white, New Orleans elite jazz also came under a heading of vice.

I enjoyed this book, and found the writing good if not amazing. The flow between topics worked well, as Krist introduces us to well-known people in this period and we follow them off and on throughout the book. The murder aspect of it (following some major crimes of the era) sometimes seemed out of place, especially since there were no moral campaigns directed in that area.The scope of this title is a little hard to pin down, it is both a big picture and narrow history book. This didn't bother me while reading though, just while thinking about my review!

New Orleans has a somewhat unique place in southern US history, due to it's outside status early on and initially more liberal society (compared to the rest of the deep south). The author is quick to point out privilege and racism where necessary, and I appreciated that. This is also the period where Jim Crow started to take hold in New Orleans (later than most of the south), and much of the will behind campaigns against vice was directed at making 'racial mixing' illegal.

I would recommend this book for people who enjoy US history, and want a clear view of the progression and effects of the 'moral' crusades of this period (including prohibition). It is not the deepest book, due to covering various topics, but it's a great primer for developing deeper interest in these topics.

Also great for anyone interested in the birth of jazz! Those sections were so interesting. Wish I'd thought to play some of those artists while I read.

Nice review of Empire of Sin I would be interested in the birth of jazz bits.

Barry, it made me want to read a lot more about Louis Armstrong. Talking about their daily lives as musicians when their music was totally dismissed and people literally wanted to police it, and the way many of them started really held me. The beginning of a passion is always interesting, but I think especially so with music, and when it can cost you so much to keep at it (the way in could in New Orleans in this period).

My nerve pain disease means sound can affect me in really painful ways, so live music is really one of the most important things it's taken away from me (plus being able to sit upright for the length of a gig). Right now I'm really wishing I could go stay with my aunt and let her take me to all the amazing music in Austin (she's a huge jazz and blues fan).

>62 mabith: Interesting review. One of the things I learned from Land of Love and Drowning was the racism experienced by the soldiers from the Virgin Islands in New Orleans (they were near there for basic training during WWII), something they had not encountered back home in the VI.

Rebecca, I have a feeling that people from almost any country coming to the US in that period would have been surprised at the level of absolute racism in the US (affecting every single aspect of life).

128 - Jane, Stewardess of the Air Lines by Ruthe S. Wheeler

Published in 1934 this is about two girls, newly graduated nurses, who are to become the first stewardesses on a large airline (along with six or seven other new nurses). It's a ridiculous book in the most fun way possible. I wish I'd read these kinds of girls' adventure books when I was a kid, but it's not like new ones really existed (other than the Vesper Holly series) that I knew about, and they're not common today either, unfortunately.

I didn't think it was going to be quite so adventurous, since in the beginning it seemed like it was leaning towards being propaganda to make the younger set feel secure about air travel. But no, there's a crash in the first 20 pages, then air bandits trying to shoot them down, then a poisoning, then a kidnapping, then two more crashes... Of course our main girl, Jane, comes through all of it a hero AND gets to be in the movies AND turns down a chance to become traveling companion and nurse for a billionaire old lady during her round the world cruise/tour.

I read it all in one go last night. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are a bit older. I'd buy them cheap e-readers just to read all the girls' adventure books you can get on Gutenberg (I don't trust them with my fragile old copies).

#67 - that sounds like a hoot.

>66 mabith: Touché! And now too (even if a lot of things are better). It is still astonishing to me that the major civil rights laws were passed in my lifetime.

I agree about now too. Certainly the War on Drugs giving bonuses for arrests and convictions didn't help, given that it's impossible not to have some internalized racism, even if the person isn't overtly so. I'd like to think there was a period when things were better, but obviously I can't really judge what was going on when I was young and didn't pay attention to the news at all (not to mention the higher availability of news from all over given the internet).

Have you read The New Jim Crow? Appalling and persuasive.

I have, it was just horrifying. I felt like I going to throw up through the entire read (I listened to the audiobook which made it even more impactful, I think).

129 - Rommel? Gunner Who?: A Confrontation in the Desert by Spike Milligan

The second in Spike Milligan's war memoirs. This one has more serious moments than the first, as they approach the fighting lines and there's more contact with German shelling. It's still WWII at it's funniest, of course. I admit I do find the switch from manic comedy to serious wartime fears to be a little jarring, particularly since I'm listening to audio editions read by Milligan himself. In this book also is his first awareness (though I think not meeting) of Peter Sellers and another future Goon, though now I forget who.

Presumably the future Goon would be Harry Secombe? I really need to read Milligan's war memoirs.

130 - The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker

I loved this novel from the very beginning and just enjoyed it more and more as it continued. It is in the "Fantasy for People Who Think They Don't Like Fantasy Because They Think All Fantasy Is Like Lord of the Rings" genre. It involves real cultures during specific historical time periods, but their folklore/religion is true. I have a feeling people might be calling it Literary Fantasy, but I'm never clear on what makes a book 'literary' or not.

A golem is created to be a wife for a man traveling to America. He awakens her during the crossing and promptly dies of appendicitis. She escapes the ship into New York City and is noticed by a Rabbi, who secretly takes her in. Without a master she hears the desires and fears of everyone she passes and must work to resist fulfilling those wants, with the Rabbi teaching her about humans along the way.

In a Syrian neighborhood a metal worker is repairing an oil flask, and when he completes a broken portion of the design, a trapped and still bound jinni is expelled. An iron cuff keeps him from changing his form or accessing more of his powers. He is skilled at metal work, and the tinsmith keeps him on, trying to him teach him to behave more quietly and avoid getting discovered or arrested.

It takes some time for these two to meet each other, and though their temperaments are wildly different they're drawn to each other because of their outside status and the fact that neither sleep yet must keep occupied. Along the way we are slowly given the story of how the jinni was imprisoned (which he cannot remember), the life of the maker of the Golem, and the life of another in the Syrian community who was affected by a jinni.

Without doubt this will be one of the five best novels I'll read this year, and one I know I'll want to reread. I can't recommend it enough.

Also, The Golem and the Jinni is Wecker's first novel, which is so impressive to me. The pacing is mostly steady, even a little slow perhaps, but it always worked for me. I wanted to know what would happened but I never felt impatient or wanted it to go faster, I felt like every word in there was important and every scene necessary.

>74 valkyrdeath: I think you're right!

>75 mabith: Another book on my wishlist.

I've never liked the whole "literary fiction" thing as a label for works with literary merit, because in the end, who decides what has literary merit and what doesn't? I find it's so often used by the same people who look down on "genre fiction" as being worthless. I've never seen why books have to be segregated like that.

The Golem and the Jinni That one sounds good Meredith and two for the price of one; a golem and a jinni.

Yeah, I definitely associate people going on about ~literary~ fiction with snobbishness and a refusal to recognize the merits of "genre fiction."

Hope you both enjoy The Golem and the Jinni if/when you read it! It's one of those that I almost want to start reading again right away.

So I bought that basically based on the cover and the premise. Glad to know it lives up to those! I will have to start it soon.

Choosing by cover+premise has worked very well for me, in terms of books published in the last 15-20 years. It is a gorgeous cover.

Nice review of Empire of Sin, Meredith; I've added this to my wish list.

Thanks, Darryl! If you do the ER program it's on there for this month and probably will be for next month as well. I think it's actually the first I received more than a week before the publication date (this one is out in October).

131 - Parisians: An Adventure History of Paris by Graham Robb

I'm afraid I found this "Adventure History" rather dull. The format didn't work for me at all, and going from the summary and introduction, I was expecting something quite different.

My impression was that this would be a jaunt around Paris, a specific walking path and would tie in monuments and sites that were less well known and talk about the adventurous history behind them. Perhaps someone more familiar with the city would feel that was accomplished (other than the walking tour aspect), but I did not. More over, the various tales from history weren't really told in an exciting way, things that should have been interesting and exciting were rendered dull. Perhaps it was the fault of the audio edition. Whatever the issue, I just couldn't get into this.

This was actually my second go at the title, the first time I listened I found I just kept spacing out, so I stopped after the first hour. This time I was more determined, but it was a struggle.

Not really recommended. Try to read a chapter or so first before you buy if it seems like something you'd like.

132 - Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman

This is not something I would have picked up on my own, but it was a choice for an online bookclub I'm part of.

It alternates points of view, between a super-villain who's in prison and a woman just joining a superhero team. I really wanted to like this, and I did like it quite a bit until about halfway through. I think the pacing went a bit odd, and at times the writing really fell flat. It went past "this is supposed to be cliche superhero stuff" to "this is horribly cliched writing," particularly in reference to a fey character.

I really wanted to enjoy this, and if I'd just been reading for pleasure I probably would have more, but when you know you'll have to discuss something later...

The author has worked on a lot of video games, and I could see this book as a Mass Effect type game, where you can play from various sides.

There was a quote in this that I absolutely loved:
“When you can't bear something but it goes on anyway, the person who survives isn't you anymore; you've changed and become someone else, a new person, the one who did bear it after all.”

133 - A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

Set in 12th century Korea, this children's novel follows an orphan and informal apprenticeship to a potter, and his relationship with his guardian and friend, Crane Man. It's main theme is perseverance.

While a relatively enjoyable little book, the history nerd in me (and in my childhood self) wanted more details that really put us there. Really, I wanted a longer, more detailed book in general.

It features the "harsh but ultimately caring master with kind wife who have lost their only child" trope (that's a trope, right?). Children will still enjoy this, but it doesn't carry over to the adult audience with any sort of strength (it was not annoying or tedious to read, but I just wanted more substance).

134 - Stay: A History of Suicide and the Philosophies Against It by Jennifer Michael Hecht

I have Hecht's book Doubt, about the history of atheism, on my life, but not being up for a 24 hour audiobook, I picked up Stay. It seemed like timely reading, of course.

It is a good book, dealing only with depressive (and other similar) types of suicide, not with end-of-life care during fatal illnesses. It talks about the history of reactions to suicide, as well as bringing up many arguments against it from a wide variety of philosophies. It also includes a lot about the contagious nature of suicide, and the sometimes small actions that encourage or discourage it.

Having had a front-row seat, so-to-speak, for the suicide of a teenaged cousin when I was in high school, certainly affected my attitude towards the act. Watching his mother struggle afterword was a real education.

There were many ways this idea was expressed, but this was my favorite:
Suicide “takes from the universe the goodness that is you.”

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest.........................comes afterwards. Albert Camus

>88 mabith: I just heard Hecht interviewed on my local public radio station; apparently it was a return visit, as she had been interviewed when the book came out, spurred by Robin Williams' suicide.

http://www.wnyc.org/story/arguing-against-suicide/

>89 baswood: I think Camus was certainly letting his privilege show there, given the immense spectrum of our lives (and the quality of them). There's a fairly long section about him in the book.

It's a hard issue for me in many ways, as I have constant chronic pain, that literally never stops and is often severe. I don't actively want to kill myself, but I've had nine years of this, I'm only 29, and I have a hard time imagining coping with another 20 years, let alone 40-60. And of course those with serious depression have a hard time seeing that their lives add value to the world. It doesn't feel right to tell someone who is suffering that they MUST keep suffering because we'd feel bad if they left us, but given the percentages who say they immediately regret a suicide attempt, only seconds after makes it seem like pressuring people to stay and suffer is right.

Thanks for the link, Rebecca!

Hecht didn't address physical suffering (or end of life issues) in the talk I heard. But her perspective on emotional suffering was that it often gets better, and committing suicide at the low point robs the person of the opportunity to live an improved life later on. She believes that just knowing this can help some people.

Oh yeah, I know, that's all in the book (though she only mentions fatal issues, not non-fatal health problems which tend to lead to depression and which damage the brain over time in ways that also greatly increase anxiety and affect how the sick person is able to form emotional bonds with others, giving the situational depression a stronger hold). I was talking more about the Camus quote with most of that reply.

It's definitely an important book, and I think will be helpful to some people.

135 - Saga Vol 1 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I finally made a point to get this from the library. I was a little nervous that I'd be the one person who didn't like it, but no fear. I couldn't put it down. I admit I already loved the fact that in included someone breastfeeding on the cover, given the ridiculousness of the US at least on that.

This was a great start to a series though. I can't wait to get the second volume.

136 - The Belle Epoque of the Orient Express by M. Wiesenthal

You would think from the title and the fact that the book is full of pictures from 1880s to the early 1920s, that this is a book about the golden age of the Orient Express or the train during the Belle Epoque period, NOPE!

This book is a sort of travelogue of someone's third class journey on the train in 1976. Only is it a normal travelogue that waxes on about the train and its history? NOPE! It's like a beat poet travelogue in the worst sense which tells you nothing interesting or useful about the trip. It includes imaginary conversations between the writer and the (seemingly fictional) basis for a Tolstoy character.

It was awful, but short, and I needed it for my ROOT rainbow reads. Here is an excerpt from the imaginary conversation section:
"Let me tell you, my dear friend, that time doesn't exist. It is just another absurd invention of those who want to find logic in everything."
The watermelons of Trieste are large and red.
"The idea that there is logic in the world belongs to Aristotle who was a cretin."
The melons of Trieste have writing on their skin.
"The worst thing that one can be in this life is a classic cretin like Aristotle, a cretin with a face like a bust."
The figs of Trieste show the red pulp of their heart through their bursting skins.
"The whole of European culture comes from Aristotle. And that's why it's stupid."
Trieste is the city of fruits.

137 - Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Does anyone else keep a list of books to hand to their past selves in the event of being able to time travel? It contains all the books you wish you'd read earlier in life. This title certainly goes on my list. I would give it to me at age 19, I think she really could have used it.

I can't attempt to review it other than to say I can't wait to read it again. The language was so incredible and the book flowed so well. It's a crime it was out of print for so long.

If you haven't read this yet, go and do it.

>94 mabith: I'm already chomping at the bit to get the 3rd volume. ETA: I just put the 3rd volume on hold! Yay!

p.s. Your title touchstone goes to Twilight.

I was annoyed at myself that I didn't have the foresight to get vol 1 and 2 from the library at the same time.

Thanks for letting me know about the Touchstone! That's the trouble with multiple threads and keeping the list at the top of this one - I always forget to fix one of the touchstones. It is baffling where some of the touchstones go though, when the titles are so completely different.

>94 mabith: Saga gets better with each issue, and the third omnibus is sublime. I hope you continue to enjoy the series.

On the topic of suicide, I'm reminded of a poem by Alice Walker, "Suicide," in which she challenges: "Then, all things done / ask those outraged / consider their happiest / summer / & tell if the days it / adds up to / is one."

Love your review of The Belle Epoque...!

What else is on your book list for your younger self?

Thanks!

Swallows and Amazons for 9 year old me, The Count of Monte Cristo for 11-12 year old me, all of Terry Pratchett's Discworld 12-14 year old me, John Steinbeck and PG Wodehouse in high school.

138 - 10 Things I Hate About Me by Randa Abdel-Fattah

This is the story of Jamie and Jamilah, the same girl struggling with her identity as a Lebanese Muslim Australian. Her mother died when she was a child, and her father became a strict enforcer, though lopsided towards her, while her older brother and sister largely did as they pleased.

She dyes her hair, wears colored contacts, and is Jamie at school, hiding her family and her heritage. She struggles with making friends since she can't be honest about her life and her worst fear is being viewed as a stereotype. She witnesses a lot of racism and ignorance coming from the popular kids, while still wanting to be part of their group.

It was a good book, though everything was very predictable for me, so I only gave it 3 1/2 stars (four on sites without halves). I think it's especially a nice book for kids who aren't exposed to other cultures and only have a single view of Islam garnered from the media. It's one I'll set aside for my nieces and nephews.

Is there a word like anglophile but strictly for Australia? While obviously I'm picking and choosing genres I like and avoiding things I know I'll dislike, I've developed a serious thing for Australian writers and TV shows. And sorry BBC, the ABC has my heart now.

139 - Ireland: A Concise History from the Twelfth Century to the Present Day by Paul Johnson

Really this is a history of the English in Ireland, which isn't too surprising for the later centuries especially, but well over half the book focuses on the 19th and 20th centuries. I couldn't help but feel anything not related to the English in the earlier years was skipped.

It was an okay read, not a great read, probably not the best of its kind. I also felt there was a pro-Britain bias at times.

140 - Saga, Volume 2 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

Can't wait for the third to come out! It's listed in my library's catalog already, so perhaps I was the only one wise enough to go ahead and add myself to the hold list. I really love the art in them as well, Staples is good at getting the characters to say a LOT in a single drawing.

>104 mabith: It's already out, so you should only have to wait until they pull it for you!

Ah, I'd assumed it wasn't out yet since when I looked it up it said 'on order.' Seems odd that they'd have waited this long to get it!

141 - Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson

This is a novel, presumably based partially on lived experiences, about a girl with cerebral palsy (CP) attending a cross-disability summer camp. It's set in 1970, pre ADA, and uses the language of the time. The main character, Jean, has a loving and supportive family and has attended a regular school. She is full to the brim of "just like a normal girl" and has never been away from her family before. The author has CP and attended cross-disability summer camps for multiple years.

At camp she meets Sara, who has muscular dystrophy, already an disability rights activist and outspoken about the world as she sees it. Jean has never really been around other disabled kids before. It's a great novel, full of learning experiences for Jean, but without some miraculous change that takes place over a single week and would lead to it feeling unrealistic. It's a disability story without cures and healing and the ever-present "overcoming your disability" crap, which was immensely refreshing. It briefly touches on the ever-present racism of the area, but there too are only very minor awakenings.

I was surprised by how happy I was to read a novel mostly peopled with disabled people, no matter how different their problems. I've been disabled for 8 years, sick for 9, starting when I was 19. I've always counted my blessings for having it start post-high school, and I can imagine how lonely the reading world is for disabled kids.

This book seems to have been removed from collections and criticized heavily for a small scene about sexual abuse and the fact that many adults view disabled people as sexless or with pity think they're doing the person a favor. It is such a necessary conversation, because disability brings with it HEAVILY increased rates of abuse, it is not an exceptionally graphic scene (involving counselors dancing with the kids in sexual ways, and ignoring the kids' discomfort or confusion).

I recommend this to everyone. Disability is so ignored in our media, though it can happen to anyone and statistics say 1 in 5 people in the US have a disability (not necessarily unable to work). Because we don't talk about it, people don't understand how to act or how ableist our society is, how firm the idea that productivity=worth is embedded. Also, if you are ever tempted to put quotes around ableist, remember that architecture is literally more important than accessibility in this (and most) countries. I love beautiful architecture, but that says a lot about our world.

142 - Empire of the Summer Moon: Quanah Parker & the Rise & Fall of the Comanche Nation by S.C. Gwynne

I have mixed feelings about this book. Gwynne uses the the word civilized way too much and it's only occasionally sarcastic (likewise savage), and it really wasn't necessary. There were also some dodgy bits, talking about how few people preferred life with a native tribe above one in a white community. From everything I've read that's not true. Jamestown had quite a problem with settlers running off to live with the native Americans and having to be dragged back. Plus, among child captives (the subject here) there don't seem to be any who were willing to return to white society.

There was also the matter of the statement that native Americans were "naturally violent." Later he points out that nearly all peoples at the level of technology behaved the exact same way. When he talks about white settlers having a clear idea of "good and evil" and being horrified by native attacks that involved kidnap and rape, well, are we saying whites with their clear, Christian code didn't do those things to the tribes or African slaves or their own servants? White morality often seems ONLY to apply to other whites of the same or higher social standing (and often the person judging doesn't apply the standard to himself). I was a little surprised this was written in 2010.

It was an interesting book on the whole, with a lot that I was interested in, barring my reactions to some of his language and statements. I can't judge the accuracy of the information in general, of course. The organization of the material could have been better in parts. On the whole it seems like a good portrait of the area's history (mainly Texas) during the middle and end of the 19th century.

Excellent reviews Meredith, plenty to think about in both books.

Both very interesting reviews; thanks.

Thanks, guys. It was an angry/righteous/depressing/with my people couple of days with those books.

List 10 books that have stuck with you. Not necessarily your favorite books, not the books you think are the best written, just 10 that have affected you and stuck with you.

1. The Well of Loneliness by Radclyffe Hall
2. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein
3. We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse by James Hillman and Michael Venture
4. Honey and Salt by Carl Sandburg
5. The Woman Warrior by Maxine Hong Kingston
6. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
7. Kaddish by Allen Ginsberg
8. The West Virginia Mine Wars by David Alan Corbin
9. The Tempest by William Shakespeare
10. Alan Mendelsohn: Boy from Mars by Daniel Pinkwater

Great review of Accidents of Nature, Meredith. I first learned about Harriet McBryde Johnson from a New York Times Magazine story a dozen or so years ago, which I remembered after I looked at her photo on her LT author page. I've just purchased the Kindle version of the book, and I'll read it soon.

143 - The Holy Thief by Ellis Peters

Another lovely Cadfael. With these, there's generally a layer of obvious things that aren't part of the mystery (just part of the Cadfael journey) and then the layer of actually unknown things. I love them. Only a couple left that I haven't read yet though.

144 - The Phoenix and the Carpet by E. Nesbit

I hadn't actually realized this was a sequel to Five Children and It, not that it's necessary to read them in order.

It's your typical turn of the century children's book. I enjoy Nesbit, but I don't think I'd read these to my niece and nephew. While there's less casual racism than one might expect, the gender roles are so rigid. The girls are always crying and scared and goody goodies. It's not that they don't have a part in the adventures or help save the day sometimes, but I wish Nesbit could have broken away from this view of girls more. It's not quite as bad in The Railway Children.

I enjoyed the phoenix, and the way the magic doesn't always work out (and doesn't last forever), since of course it shouldn't. These children aren't my favorites, they are so very snobby and classist. Completely common with British children's lit in the early 20th century, but still.

Mabith - back around 2000 I thought I wanted to be a children's author and reread all my favourites, and then started read the so-called canon. I bought all the Nesbits you mentioned but then moved on to other interests and they are still in my TBR. I know what you mean about some of the literature of that era. One that I did get to was Swallows and Amazons, which had a lovely, charming quality to it, but was so completely ridiculous at the same time. There is no way my kids would have read it. Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, and Narnia}, and even Alice in Wonderland, but somethings were just too dated.

Do you think Nesbit belongs in the canon, or are these books too dated?

I still plan to read these Nesbit books, but you've sort of pushed them down my TBR pile. I do have a lot of fabulous books waiting for me, after all.

Aww, my kids liked Swallows and Amazons enough to ask for the sequel. But my son has an odd affection for Victorian Children's literature. I think it may be the sheer quantity of orphans.

I think it may be the sheer quantity of orphans.

That's pretty cute

>116 Nickelini: Oh wow, I loved Swallows and Amazons and I know I would have adored it as a kid. Kids being self-sufficient was my favorite thing then. I didn't really find it very ridiculous either, honestly (the burglar was a little more out there, but it is a kid's book and compared to all the girls' and boys' adventure books of the period S&A is a life study!). When I was four and my siblings were 9 and 11 we'd take the pup tent and hike out a ways from the house, make a tiny fire and just hang out for a bit, and I'm only 29, so getting to go camp on their own didn't strike me as strange, particularly for the era, none of the skills they need were far-fetched. The children weren't cardboard cutouts of "older brother," "younger sister," etc... and I thought the adults were written wonderfully too.

I think Nesbit should still be read be read by adults at least, and of course, I've only read a few of her books out of many. The thing she gets right is the structure and the proportion of success and failure, the easy and the difficult. That's why she's still talked about.

>117 RidgewayGirl: Not Victorian, but look for Circus Shoes (also called The Circus is Coming for a great orphan story. I had a thing for orphan stories as a kid too. My siblings and I would argue over who got to be the adopted one in the family (even though our parents were lovely).

>113 kidzdoc: Thanks, Darryl! I hope it's a good, informative read for you.

I didn't really find it very ridiculous

I can't get past what they did about going to the bathroom, plus a whole slew of practical details. And the mother basically saying "have a fun summer kids, see you when it's over." But other than that, yeah, it's fun. My kids wouldn't have enjoyed it though (not enough actual magic--I was the same way when I was young).

Well, the mother does visit and keeps tabs on them through other people (and is only a boat ride away). Back then official campgrounds didn't have bathrooms anyway and in England that's still more common than in the US at least (plenty of people my age on English TV talk about camping with no bathrooms when they were kids).

I loved the "shoes" books when I was young. My son has now moved past the being read to phase, although he liked it longer than most. I never tried any of the Streatfield books with him as the covers were all so overtly girly - even my daughter turned her nose up at them. I reread Ballet Shoes a few years ago, and I'm surprised at how much I enjoyed it even as an adult.

the shoe books were on my canon list too, but I didn't get to them. Maybe one day.

>115 mabith: I loved Five Children and It but it's probably 50 years since I read it and I have no memory of it. I'm almost certain I also read The Phoenix and the Carpet and probably other books by E. Nesbit. I don't think the gender roles bothered me at the time, but I'm sure they'd drive me crazy now.

Yeah, the girly reprint covers turned me off when I was a kid (and unfortunately my mom didn't check I was reading them since she knew I was reading lots anyway), so I only read them as an adult, and I love them. The currently-in-print UK cover of Circus Shoes is very neutral, so that's not an issue there (here in the US it's been out of print forever, so we just found an old hardback). So annoyed at whoever chose the covers, since they're not "girly" books at all and all but a couple have multiple male and female main characters.

I'm so mad at myself for being so cover-judgy when I was a kid and missing out on Streatfeild at that age, and for thinking traditionally feminine things were bad. You feel like you have to choose when you're a kid though, and rebelled against the things that were marketed at me. It's hard to understand there's a middle road when you're a kid. Mainly for me that just meant hating pink and long hair, since my family was very against reenforcing societal gender norms.

145 - Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman

Just as an upfront, the book is really nothing like the TV show. There are some personalities taken for the show, and a very very few events.

It's an interesting topic, and Kerman generally handles it well. Her own awareness of her part in the drug trade evolves as she spends more time among women in jail for drug charges. Given how much time passed between knowing she would go to prison and actually going, she was able to really prepare herself, and of course her experiences come from a very privileged place.

She did rub me the wrong way sometimes (as did the show), and showed her ignorance at times (equating a trans woman's voice lowering because she wasn't given access to hormones - estrogen doesn't affect voice pitch). What really bothered me was when she said hairy armpits were a masculine trait. Bothersome but also made me laugh, because are her pits naturally smooth? Pretty sure it's a human trait. She also throws around phrases like "dykey looking" pretty frequently, which annoyed me as well. At least she gets it right that Alderson prison is in WEST Virginia and not Virginia (unlike the TV show and I hope someone got fired for that).

If you're wanting to gradually prepare yourself for more detailed books about current prison life or drug trade/use prosecution, it's probably a good starter.

146 - The Eastern Front 1914-1917 by Norman Stone

This is a very dry book, originally published in 1975, and its age shows a bit (partly in the random French quotes which aren't translated, I am so glad that is no longer common, and it's really difficult in an audiobook). It's full of figures and wanted me to keep track of a million names which I did with varying degrees of success.

However, I've read almost nothing about the eastern front, and that's a problem. I imagine/hope there are more recent books about it, and quite possibly Soviet archives were opened on this subject since the book's publication, but I think this gave me a good base for further reading.

Ultimate takeaway: bad leadership was responsible for Russian troubles, not material shortages or 'lack of will' on the parts of the men (artillery men hoarded shells, deciding the infantry would waste them or they were a waste if used to help the infantry). The Russian generals were idiots, but luckily so were the German and Austro-Hungarian ones, so they cancel each other out a bit. The end of the book focuses on the economy and social situations in Russia just before the revolution.

Recommend for the WWI completest. There's a more recent book Battles East, which I'll probably try to get in the future. It was published in 2007 and the description still talks about only a handful of books being published about the eastern front!

147 - Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim

This is a review based on an ARC.

Kim was born in South Korea, and moved to the US with her family when she was 13. A journalist and novelist, Kim visited Pyongyang on various trips for some years, seeing the very little Westerners were allowed to see. In 2011, however, she goes there to teach via PUST (Pyongyang University of Science and Technology), which has been completely paid for by donations from fundamentalist Christians, and features only foreign teachers. Kim is only posing as a believer, however, her real intent is to produce this book.

Here she is teaching English to the sons of the elite of North Korea, and able to glean far more about the country and especially its youth. The attitude of the young men is never particularly surprising, given what they've been taught, but it was an interesting journey. Especially interesting since both the staff and the student body are confined there. Some of the students haven't seen their parents for a year, many have siblings doing their military service only six or seven hours away but haven't seen them in four years.

What I'm so confused about is why the Christian groups set this school up. They're not allowed to mention anything about religion, or to talk too much about their home countries (and they are serious about following that rule), so no student will be converted or lifted too much out of the isolation. If they cannot actually bring Christianity to these students, then it really feels like this project is for their own self-satisfaction or brownie points from god.

Kim's writing is fine, though at the start of the book there were a few too many flowery, novelistic phrases those faded out quickly. Generally recommended, though I wouldn't make it your first book about North Korea (I'd go with Nothing to Envy, which is extremely well-done).

148 - Lord of the Flies by William Golding

One online book club I'm in does a free-read month every year, with a theme. This time it's "Books I Should Have Read in School" and I picked Lord of the Flies.

While I didn't think it was a bad book at all, I don't quite see why it's still such a classic. I wonder if it's in that class that were considered classics soon after publication and though they've faded with age the label still clings. My mum says it's probably partly that growing up with frequent references to the book has affected my reading of it (though really there was only the one reference). I don't know. I am not one to think about all the symbols and allegories while I read, so perhaps that's part of it. I tend to think more about the psychology of the characters, and in this it didn't hold up with reality, in my opinion.

I had a very hard time shaking the thought that in this situation what would really happen is the kids would either accidentally poison themselves trying out foods, or they would simply eat fruit, have chronic diarrhea and get cholera.

149 - The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson

This is one that has been on my to-read list since it was released about ten years ago. Having finished it, I'm a little surprised that it was so popular at the time (I was working in a bookstore when it came out). Perhaps this is one of the titles that led the charge into a more creative type of popular history writing and that accounts for it, but I don't know.

Frankly, the two stories, that of the fair and a serial killer, did not need to be combined. They're completely unrelated to each other. The killer did not use the fair to stalk his victims, there's just no connection. Larson also wasn't the most skilled at switching between the two stories, and since the threads never meet that may explain it somewhat (I was comparing it to Candice Millard's skill in telling two stories in Destiny of the Republic).

Likewise, I'm not sure where the magic mentioned in the subtitle comes in. There definitely wasn't any magic and I find it annoying it was shoved in just to make a list of three things. The fair in and of itself would have been a great topic for a book, and I can't help feeling that some interesting details of it are left out to make room for the murder story, likewise the serial killer story would have been perfectly fine in it's own book.

Not particularly recommended. I'm not annoyed I read it, but I wouldn't give it to anyone.

150 - Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink

First time reading this classic. While it had some extra ridiculous stuff (the father being the grandson of an English lord who had disowned his father for marrying for love, por ejemplo), I loved it. I loved Caddie, and I think I'd give this to the kids before Little House, really. While both are problematic texts, I think Caddie is less so, and I like that she gets to run free and be a tomboy, and I like that she realizes she can do and enjoy "girl's things" too and that then the boys want to do them as well.

151 - The Long Mars by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter

I guess this is a series of five books now. I'm not sure I'll really continue with it, though I will probably feel completest about it.

The concept of The Long Earth really intrigued me. The idea of millions of earths you just step to like walking through a doorway, most without intelligent life, is a great platform for so many story directions. I liked the first book, felt like the second was way too much filler, and again the third kind of feels like that too. They don't really excite me, I'm not on the edge of my seat, I'm not really attached to any of the characters.

The pacing always seems off to me. Things happen very slowly and then suddenly there's an event that could spark a lot of chapters but the book ends. Plus an aspect of this one just felt a bit too ridiculous to me (hyper evolved people who went from regular human to super duper in one generation).

Also, for goodness' sake, why would you get an English audiobook reader when ALL THE MAIN CHARACTERS, and the vast majority of side characters, are American. The only English character appeared for about 10 lines of dialogue in the first book. Listening to this guy do not-great American accents for 11 hours kills me. THAT will probably be the main reason I don't continue with the series. I expect better creative control from you, Pratchett.

I think I mentioned somewhere else that I loved Caddie Woodlawn when I read it probably 50 years ago; I wouldn't dare read it again, but I enjoyed revisiting it through your review.

I can definitely see wanting to keep the childhood memories of that one. Most of my young-kid books still hold up for me (Oz, Ramona, Eleanor Estes), but I had a long period as a kid of just reading Holocaust fiction and non-fiction, so I didn't read as many children's classics as I might have.

Loved Oz and Ramona too, not familiar with Eleanor Estes. I graduated to adult books in my teenage years -- no YA then -- but Holocaust fiction/nonfiction might have seemed daunting as a kid. Although I did read The Diary of a Young Girl, but I guess everybody did.

I was completely obsessed with being strong, for various reasons, and I thought the Holocaust stories would help me be stronger, plus I always preferred history to everything. I'm happy my mom didn't worry about it (though in fourth grade a friend's parent called her angry because I'd loaned my friend our copy of Maus and there were nightmares involved, granting a lot of these parents still let their kids watch terrible horror movies, which my parents did not).

152 - Saga, Volume 3 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I wish I'd waited until the whole series was released to start reading, because I am SO IMPATIENT to find out what happens.

153 - 13 Bankers: The Wall Street Takeover and the Next Financial Meltdown by Simon Johnson and James Kwak

I admit my brain had a bit of a meltdown during the sections heavy with financial-ese, but I think it was a valuable read for the larger concepts. The big story was the way the financial advisers and industry changed in terms of going from bankers to Wall Street investors and the very different attitude that came with it. The later half of the book focused on the "too big to fail" issues.

Recommended, though parts might be hard to focus through.

>137 mabith: There was probably more Holocaust fiction and history when you were growing up than when I was growing up; I read Maus when it came out but I was already in my 30s.

Oh yes, I'm sure there were. I think the 1980s saw a big increase in books about the Holocaust. Survivors of the camps (including those held by the Japanese) always seem to have an easier time sharing their experiences with grandchildren rather than their children. And while I read a mix of adult and YA/children's books, there were certainly more children's books about WWII in general published starting in the late 1980s.

#141 - I think the 1980s saw a big increase in books about the Holocaust.

I heard Margaret Atwood talking about this on the radio just yesterday, but I was concentrating on driving and wasn't focusing. She was tied it somehow to the changes in the relationship between East and West Germany. It really made sense at the time . . . off to see if I can find it. If I do, I'll be back with a link.

154 - The Turret by Margery Sharp

This is the third in the book series started by The Rescuers and I love them so much! They're just really fun, and maybe slightly progressive. Miss Bianca gets to be soft and feminine and strong and brave and thoughtful and strategic and luxury-loving and willing to go without and compassionate and selfish all at once. She's just wonderful. And Bernard is lovely too and the books are funny in spots. Really recommended, wish I'd known about them as a kid.

The character's vivid and realistic personalities are similar to those in the Freddy books by Walter R. Brooks.

I had a stretch in my early teenage years of reading a lot about the Holocaust, set off by a probably terrible book in which a girl has an adventure saving Jews during WWII, which I got from Scholastic. It was long enough ago that having a swastika on the front cover was no big deal.

>144 RidgewayGirl: It was long enough ago that having a swastika on the front cover was no big deal.

There was a swastika on the spine of the dustjacket of my copy of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, and after I moved and had the bookcases facing my living room sofa I had to take the jacket off the book because I just couldn't stand (or sit) looking at that swastika.

I do have a few books that I would feel uncomfortable reading on the Munich U-Bahn.

Yeah, I think no longer putting the swastika on books about the period is only a gain (since it's not like we've stopped reading or writing about it). I think I still read a book about some aspect of WWII almost every month.

>130 mabith: Just the thought of that book makes me cringe!!!! We had to read it in eighth grade. Oddly enough, as I recall, it wasn't my English teacher who assigned it but my geography teacher. I'm so glad my kids have made it through school thus far without having to read it.

>127 mabith: My son loves that show; me - not so much.

>146 RidgewayGirl: I do have a few books that I would feel uncomfortable reading on the Munich U-Bahn.

And I have some that I wouldn't read on the NYC subway. And then there was the time I realized someone was reading over my shoulder while I was reading a book by Roberto Bolano in which the whole first section was pages and pages of sexual experiences. That made me decide that it wasn't meant to be a subway read!

#149 - I know that experience. Back in the '80s I learned not to read Lady Chatterly's Lover in public after I had not one but two creepy guys chat me up while reading. Ugh.

>148 avidmom: I don't love the Orange is the New Black show in the way lots of people do, but I did eventually watch all of it. It was rather nice to watch something with so many women who weren't all the typical supermodel and mostly wearing minimal makeup made to look like no make up. The second season got into more interesting back stories (my favorite part of the show) though it had an annoying on-going drama. I do question some of the character changes from the book (where the race of the character was changed), because why do that other than for reasons of existing stereotypes/casual racism?

I haven't had any "whoops, reading this in public!" moments, though I've not done loads of that really, beyond on planes and once on a greyhound bus, which seems much more private. Now I want to make sure I'm never leaving the house without something about labor unions in tow (I live in West Virginia, we fought damned hard for unions).

155 - Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

This is my second/third Connie Willis book (Blackout/All Clear are really just one long book broken up for publication). I really loved every minute of it. Part of what I like about her books is the realism. It may seem slow or annoying to people, but I just eat it up, it makes me feel like this world is the real world when there are so many normal human problems.

She highlights the fact that studying history is a huge remove from understanding the lived reality, and that even the historians going back in time can't truly understand the reality of living there until they're STUCK, until they're as clueless about the future as the contemps.

There was one bit at the end that I felt was odd. Someone doesn't recognize something and then does but there's no middle bit to transition the reader between the two states. Otherwise, totally enjoyed it. Recommended. This is one in the "science fiction for people who think they don't like science fiction" category.

156 - The Woman Who Would Be King: Hatshepsut's Rise to Power in Ancient Egypt by Kara Cooney

Writing about ancient Egypt is a difficult task, and Cooney leaves us with an interesting book which gives us a lot to think about. One of the big problems with writing about the rulers in ancient Egypt is that the king-ship was seen as a sacred position, and the holiness of it could not be sullied by recording in writing political struggles, coups, how an heir was chosen, etc...

Cooney does go far in her suppositions, but she is upfront about when she's going out on a limb. The book provides a lot of sources and notes about the differing views between Egyptologists, and the reasons for her views in particular.

The key thing with Hatshepsut is that she seems to have been an incredibly intelligent, capable, and bold woman. It seems clear that she was involved in the large decisions during her husband's reign and that the priests and generals were happy for her to continue as regent when he died, despite her young age.

I enjoyed this book, and felt like I got a lot out of it. I think Cooney's suppositions are generally reasonable, barring the idea that Hatshepsut truly believed in the religious visions she describes and uses to justify her rule. She does not have to have been grasping or power-hungry in order to use religion to her own ends, there is a middle ground (and Thutmose III was still too young to rule at this point).

157 - Rat Queens Vol 1 by Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch

An obviously D&D inspired work featuring a group of four women fighters. I had a friend who played a lot of D&D and explained their campaigns in detail to me, but somehow made it seem like the most fun thing ever. This book reminded me a lot of his stories in terms of the modern sensibilities and writing overlaid on the typical Olde World D&D landscape.

I like the art, I like the general style, and I'm very curious to see where this goes. I've loved comics since before I could read. The main reason I wanted to learn to read was specifically to read the Asterix comics we owned (before I could read I'd take them out and stare at the pictures). While I don't keep up with the comics scene as much anymore, I've been so happy to see the incredible work coming out lately. Comics will always be my reading home, and I can just imagine how much I'd have loved this series in high school.

>152 mabith: "This is one in the "science fiction for people who think they don't like science fiction" category."

That's me. I'm not a sci-fi fan, but I did enjoy Doomsday Book when I read it, several years ago.

>154 mabith: Oooh! I've been very interested to hear what people thought about Rat Queens ever since I first found out it existed. Good to hear you enjoyed yourself. It's definitely on my TBR.

I enjoyed Doomsday Book too, although there were parts of it that drove me batty, and I liked To Say Nothing of the Dog even better, even though medieval times are more inherently interesting to me than the Victorian era.

>156 PawsforThought: I'd had the same reaction, and finally my library got it in! It was ruder and cruder than I'd been expecting, definitely not for younger kids, but still fun. I wasn't in the I NEED TO READ IT ALL RIGHT NOW state, which I was with Saga, but I loved it. I do wish more of these great new series were for children, because there SHOULD be new comics for young kids that are outside the mold, and I want something like Rat Queens for my nieces and nephews.

Rebecca, I have a feeling that a fair few of the annoyances when reading Doomsday Book in print disappear when listening to it (in part because the audio edition is very well done, but also just in general fiction in audio allows some things to fall into the background).

>158 mabith: Well, I have no problem with rude and crude (as long as it's done well).

But I can see your point about there being a need for this sort of things for younger readers.

Glad you enjoyed Doomsday Book as much as I did! I'm now trying to think what thing you're referring to at the end though. I think there were one or two things I spotted but got into the story again so much that I forgot about them.

>159 PawsforThought: The way people kept talking about it I thought it WAS for younger kids (in terms of representation and such). Not that high schoolers don't need female comic heroes who don't have perfect model bodies and who act like real people, but they have more options already. I didn't mind the rude/crude either, it was just a surprise.

>160 valkyrdeath: Talk to you about it later today!

>161 mabith: I tend to take for granted that GNs are for adult, nowadays. So much if it is, it's easier that way.

I wouldn't call this a graphic novel. It's released individually in issues, like any Marvel or DC title, and this is just the first collected volume.

>163 mabith: Comics/GNs, then. I tend to call them GNs no matter what.

158 - Which Side Are You On?: Trying to be for Labor When it's Flat on its Back by Thomas Geoghegan

First off, this is a review of the first edition of this book published in 1992 or 1994 (I forget which). There was an updated edition published in 2004, though I think it's too bad he didn't wait until 2010 or so. The book does read as dated, but is useful all the same.

Geoghegan's style is very loose, the chapters are more like individual essays and it's all a bit stream-of-consciousness, but it generally worked for me and made for quick reading. There's a fair bit of latent misogyny oozing from the pages and some language regarding race that made me check the publication date (he refers to someone as "a black" where he never said "a white" but always "a white man"). He writes "I almost said..." constantly and by the end I did rather want to scream "Well, why didn't you?!" at him. He at least never pretends to really understand the lives of the workers.

The labor history I'm most familiar with is West Virginia's (covering 1900 to the early 1930s) and the country's at large in the 1930s, so it was a good primer for me about what was happening in the 70s and 80s. Particularly in regards to the legislation that weakened unions so much.

I'm very curious to see what's been added to the updated version, but I doubt I'll read it just to compare any time soon (would have read it, instead of this old one I own, but the library didn't have it). It is an important read, and I'm glad I picked it up. Oh, actually has a new one about the labor movement published this year, so I'll probably pick that up at some point.

I'd recommend anyone interested pick up the updated edition. If you're not already interested in labor history this probably isn't the best book to start with.

159 - As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

This one is a bit hard to review. I listened to the audio book, which was done with multiple readers (six for the 15 narrators). However, some of the readers were too theatrical, and even without that, I think this book is far better served with a print reading.

I contemplated not finishing it, but it's short, so I persevered. It was interesting, and I can see why it's a classic, but I'm just going to need to read it in print to get a better feel for it. Probably any stream of consciousness work reads better in print, really.

160 - The Earth Moved: On the Remarkable Achievements of Earthworms by Amy Stewart

This is a short, popular science book that I picked up at random. I have some of Stewart's other books on my to-read list and saw this one on the library's e-lending site just when I was looking for something quick.

It was quite enjoyable and interesting, reminiscent of Mary Roach's writing style, though with less humor (there is still some). It made me want Stewart and Roach to be best friends who go and tour odd facilities together.

Recommended in general, particularly for gardening enthusiasts looking for a quick science book.

161 - The Eye in the Door by Pat Barker

This is the second in Barker's WWI trilogy, which begins with Regeneration. I really loved this, and maybe liked it even more than the first. That's probably in part because the men Rivers was treating are now out of the hospital (largely), and back in the "real" world, where life is very different. She delves into pacifism and COs more here, but doesn't lose sight of her characters or Rivers. Here she goes into Rivers' own dysfunction and possibly traumatic past very briefly.

Apparently after two books set in the north and focused around women, Barker was pegged as a Northern, working class, feminist novelist and the question was asked "but can she do men?" As if most media isn't focused around men already! Blugh. I believe all her other books have involved WWI with male main characters, and I think it's a bit of a shame. My library has all of them EXCEPT the first two, and while I love this series, I think we need more working class, feminist novelists. I certainly need more in my life.

Enjoying catching up with your varied reading.

162 - Girls Like Us by Gail Giles

This YA novel follows Biddy and Quincy, who have just graduated from their high school's special ed. program. They've been chosen as roommates and given jobs, though the girls are very different in temperament. Quincy is sharp-tongued and combative, while Biddy is sweet but often extremely fearful, particularly about being near men. Quincy has been in foster homes since she was six, while Biddy has been raised by her mean grandmother. They live in an apartment above the garage owned by Elizabeth, the older woman Biddy will be working for (while Quincy will walk to work at a nearby grocery store). Elizabeth is kind and thoughtful, and is good at understanding how to help Biddy especially, but she still makes mistakes and treats both girls like a project. The book involves sexual assault.

I follow a blog about disability in kid's lit, and I saw an interview with this author that led to me picking up the book. She worked in special ed. programs for years and said one thing she learned is that all the kids know they're special ed. and they all know their dys (dysfunction). We need so many more books, particularly for children and teens, that have disabled characters and focus on their lives as they are (not on cures and not making it seem that disabled living is nothing but misery - especially since that misery often derives from ableism and the resistance to making the world more accessible).

The book is very well done, I think, and I read it in a single sitting. Intellectual disabilities are probably especially misunderstood, due to not being represented particularly well in the rare media where they're featured. I think/hope that Life Goes On got it right (best family show EVER), and from the few seasons I saw of Glee they actually seemed to do a good job as well. One of the best things about this is that they take pains to show that good intentions aren't everything, that good people have to rewire their thinking about disability too, and the correct way to apologize when we've behaved offensively and are called on it.

163 - Bible and Sword: England and Palestine from the Bronze Age to Balfour by Barbara Tuchman

An interesting account of England's relationship with Palestine (and Israel). One has to keep in mind that this was written in 1956. It seems a thorough, chronological account, and I always enjoy Tuchman's writing style.

While there was no perfect action, and I understand the desperate desire for a Jewish state, I have to wonder at anyone who felt that displacing people was a wise or reasonable option. To be okay with displacing a population you do effectively have to dehumanize them and consider them "less-than."

164 - The Harps That Once...: Sumerian Poetry in Translation edited by Thorkild Jacobsen

I did not finish this book. However, I did read 250 pages, which was half the book, and I feel perfectly able to review it based on that, so I'm putting it on my list.

Most of this book is concerned with Sumerian mythology. They just have endless hymns and tales in poetic form all about their founding gods. However, it's repetitive, and not really enjoyable to read (unlike Ancient Egyptian Literature, which I read earlier this year and really enjoyed). It all feels very impersonal and removed from humanity.

There were a few poems at the beginning which were personal and enjoyable, but then it shifted into myth mode. The poems are preceded by quite long explanations of the goings on, and each is marked by copious footnotes. All in all I'd rather read a straight prose book about their mythology and I just couldn't continue to force myself to read these.

165 - A Murder is Announced by Agatha Christie

This is perhaps the only Christie I've read where the murderer has seemed obvious from the beginning! Not that I guessed all the other whys and hows, but it was unusual. This was published in 1950 so maybe she was slipping by then or it was just a bad year.

It's a typical Marple, lots of older women and some young things who don't give the older people much credit. If one were playing a mystery trope drinking game I'm sure this one would get you very very drunk. It was enjoyable, however, as usual with Christie.

166 - Trouble-Twisters by Garth Nix and Sean Williams

I can consider Garth Nix to be one of the greatest writers of children's fantasy books around today (children's, not YA). His Keys to the Kingdom series was just brilliant, and the Sabriel series for older readers blew me away with its originality. Why doesn't it have a movie? Why isn't there a Keys to the Kingdom cartoon series? I just don't know. I'm still aggravated that The Golden Compass got waaay more press than Sabriel.

So onto this book... It was generally very enjoyable. I like the world, I like the children (Miriam Margolyes narrated the audiobook extremely well). There were some moments where I could not suspend my disbelief, largely in terms of the way the parents and grandmother treat the children. While plenty of people don't treat children as full-fledged humans with strong emotions, that was out of character for the adults in this book. The children failed a bit in critical thinking, but being uprooted and turned over to a stranger who behaved very strangely doesn't foster calm thought.

All in all a good start, and I'll be reading the rest of the series.

167 - Help Me to Find My People: The African American Search for Family Lost in Slavery by Heather Andrea Williams

Williams divides this book into three parts: Separation, The Search, and Reunification. She spends much of the book giving background to the ads the were written searching for information on family members. She talks about specifics of separations, such of that of enslaved children and separation between husbands and wives. In giving the background she talks about the facts of marriage between slaves, the fact that ceremonies left out the line "let no man tear asunder" and the agreements that were worked out between owners in reference to marriages across plantations.

The book also includes white attitudes toward these separations and towards their slaves in general. If you've read much about the period it's mostly the familiar paternalism combined with a complete lack of empathy and often the insane shock and surprise some owners confess to when understanding that no, their slaves aren't going to come running back to them.

The Search is divided into two sections - searches during slavery and after emancipation. The final section talks about the reunifications we know about and what led to firm recognitions (and the difficulty of the renewed relationships).

Williams organizes the book well, and gives us all the background we need to appreciate what a monumental task it was to find family after separation during slavery. Certainly recommended, especially if you're a frequent reader of American history texts.

168 - Snow Falling on Cedars by David Guterson

This is a slow novel of regular folks. It follows the residents of an island in the Pacific northwest, who are largely of German/northern European ancestry and Japanese immigrants/second-generation Japanese-Americans. The time shifts between pre, during, and post WWII and relationships between the white and Asian residents. The big focus is a court case, where a Japanese-American man is accused of killing a white man.

It was well written, and I thought the pace was set well. However, it was also nothing new. It did not distinguish itself from similar stories of immigration, "true" Americans, racism, and post-war hurt. The idea of "Hey, you realize you're German Americans and no one interned you and no one is calling you a Nazi bastard now..." isn't raised except once at the very end. It also largely reduces the Asian population to tired stereotypes.

So, I don't know. I wasn't bored by the book, I didn't want to stop reading it, but I also wasn't drawn into it tightly or really connected to the emotions of the characters. If it hadn't been for the outcome of the court case I might not have felt any particularly desire to continue reading it either.

169 - Monty: My Part in His Victory by Spike Milligan

The third in Milligan's humorous war memoirs. Not to much to say about it, but they are very enjoyable and interesting.

170 - English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs

To be fair, quite a few of these are Scottish tales (and many don't involve fairies). Jacobs published this in 1890, so these are the old fairy tales, with lots of death and blood. However, the women in them have far more agency than in Anderson's works or the old French tales (I haven't read many of the old Grimm works). The English version of Cinderella, Cap O'Rushes, was wonderful. That girl gets everything done on her own.

It was great fun to read, though many of the less common tales I knew from my dad (a professional storyteller, who kind of got his start from this book, given to him by his college roommate).

Here's the last paragraph of The Three Bears (Goldilocks is an old woman in this one):
"Out the little old woman jumped; and whether she broke her neck in the fall; or ran into the wood and was lost there; or found her way out of the wood, and was taken up by the constable for a vagrant as she was, I cannot tell. But the Three Bears never saw anything more of her."

The notes were amusing to read as well. Here he mentions the other version of Jack and the Bean Stalk, which has a fairy at the top who says the giant stole the gold, goose, and harp from Jack's father:
"The object of this was to prevent the tale becoming an encouragement to theft! I have had greater confidence in my young friends and have deleted the fairy who did not exist in the tale as told to me."

Here he is on Johnny-Cake, a version of The Gingerbread Man:
"Chambers gives two versions of "The Wee Bunnock," the first of which is one of the most dramatic and humorous of folk-tales. Unfortunately, the Scotticisms are so frequent as to render the droll practically untranslatable."

He makes quite of few comments on the necessity of leaving out all those dreadful Scotticisms. There was also a Mr. Sabine Baring-Gould who published some articles on folk tales all being directly descended from religion and interpreting many in monotheistic or "sun-myth" terms. Jacobs doesn't think much of that and after quoting Baring-Gould's analysis of Ass, Table, Stick says "Mr. Baring-Gould, it is well known, has since become a distinguished writer of fiction." Old snark is the best snark.

>175 mabith: Help Me to Find My People sounds particularly interesting.

It was! For the all the great background, if nothing else, but I think it's a very worthwhile read all around.

171 - Hadrian and the Triumph of Rome by Anthony Everitt

Everitt has a very enjoyable style, and this is the third book I've read by him. It's well organized and he's able to communicate the excitement behind these events. Though, I am speaking as someone who just adores reading about ancient Rome, as it was my first history love born from reading the Asterix comics as a kid.

The books takes us in chronological order, and you'll be reading a fair bit about Trajan as well. While we don't have a huge wealth of information about Hadrian, the book still felt full. Excellent read.

172 - You Ain't Got No Easter Clothes by Laura Love

Laura Love is a musician I had the privilege of seeing twice on Mountain Stage, a local live radio music show (aired on many NPR stations). Her music is often referred to as Afro-Celt, but I'm not that sure where the Celtic part comes in, it's more bluegrass than Celtic and sometimes there's yodeling.

I was looking up something about her and saw that she'd written a memoir, so I snatched it up immediately. I didn't think I'd read it so soon, but after glancing at a few pages I couldn't put it down. I almost read it in one sitting, but staying up past 2 am never leads to anything good.

Love had a very difficult childhood. Her mother has paranoid schizophrenia, and had episodes requiring hospitalization several times during her childhood. Money was also always a struggle for them. Born in 1960 and living in Nebraska she was also dealing with a lot of racism. Love is candid about the reality of the times, and she's also honest about her own mistakes.

It's a wonderful little memoir. It only follows her up to age 19 or 20, so I hope she writes about her young adulthood and getting started in the music industry at some point. Knowing more about her now I want to listen to all her albums again.

173 - Brother Cadfael's Penance by Ellis Peters

The last Cadfael book, barring the prequel. Cadfael rides forth to rescue his son. There is a murder, but it's a small part of the book. I will greatly miss Cadfael when I'm done with him. If I meet my reading goal early I'll spend the remainder of the year on re-reads and will hopefully get to some of the early Cadfaels in that.

174 - Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe

I admit I mostly found this hilarious to read. Moll's not exactly shifts of morals but views toward "Well, I don't consider us really married or these really my children since it turns out you're my half-brother." It was an easy read, and Moll goes from sometimes-naive to much more calculating as she ages and has to fend for herself when less able to attract male admirers.

Moll and those with her shifting morals are certainly still in evidence today. It's certainly always interesting reading books of this age.

Upon looking up something else I find that Susanna Rowson (who wrote Charlotte Temple), wrote a musical farce about the Whiskey Rebellion. Gracious, she had an interesting life.

It's certainly always interesting reading books of this age.

Yes, they always surprise me!

175 - Return to Gone-Away by Elizabeth Enright

Enright's first Gone-Away book didn't blow me away. This is no Swallows and Amazons, Enright loves gender stereotypes. The one thing she seemed to consider a break-away is that a girl is best friends with her male cousin. Gasp!

I had the second one to hand though, so I thought I'd finish the series. Frankly, I'm pretty sure she conceived the name Gone-Away Lake, SOLELY so she could title a book Return to Gone-Away, because obviously you would.

These books don't deserve to stick around as classics of children's literature. Unlike, say, E. Nesbit's ability with plot, pacing, and general structure (which are also gender stereotype after stereotype), The Gone-Away books do not shine in any arena. The village of houses, locked up for decades with possessions still in them, is something most children would love to explore, but Enright doesn't give us anything great other than that basic idea.

176 - The Riddle of the Compass by Amir D. Aczel

While waiting to find Aczel's Pendulum, I thought I'd pick up this short work on the compass. It is needfully short because there just isn't a large amount of information about the invention of the compass. I appreciate that the work wasn't drawn out too much.

There a claims that an Italian of Amalfi invented the compass, but if he did it was after the Chinese invented it (as per usual). Aczel goes through what we know and might know and suspect.

This would be an excellent book to give to children. It's short, deals with the difficulty of assigning credit for some things, the idea of a single thing having multiple inventors and multiple uses, and of course the vast importance of the compass. Certainly appropriate for age 11 and up, and I'd say it's find for any child of reading age with an interest. The scientific jargon is minimal and the ideas behind the compass generally understandable to kids. Plus, can you ever give someone a book TOO early?

177 - Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai

This is a beautiful book, which uses some of the author's own experiences. She says in an afterword that she wrote it in part because the younger members her family just could not imagine what life was like in Vietnam.

The book follows Hà, a 10 year old girl, from the Tết before the fall of Saigon through their escape from the Vietnam, being in a refugee camp, and sponsorship to Alabama, to the next Tết celebration. She deals homesickness, the absence of her father, learning a new language, and a lot of racism. Her observations on English are especially apt.

Lai's writing is extremely vibrant and does a wonderful job of putting you in the middle of Hà's life and experiences. She especially brings color and sound to the forefront. It is written in prose poems, which I didn't know initially as I listened to the audiobook (read very well). Lai does not wrap everything up neatly and happily, which I appreciated (it would have been incredibly unrealistic if she had).

It's the type of book I will horde away for my nieces and nephews - something to introduce them to a part of US and world history. These are the kinds of books I loved most as a child.

I found Moll Flanders a lot more fun than I expected as well! One of my favorite lines was something like I began to have the scandal of a whore without the joy. Definitely a colorful character!

178 - Falco: The Official Companion by Lindsey Davis

Having been a fan of Falco for nine or ten years I jumped at this book. It includes a little mini-autobiography of Davis, and she has not had an easy life.

I loved the sections where she talks a little about each book, particular researches, dilemmas, etc... She also goes into detail about each main character and some more minor characters who appear in more than one book. She talks about the writing process and influences, people who write in with corrections, her history with getting her work published, etc...

In the end she talks about the places in Falco's Rome, gives a timeline, and deals with basic aspects of life in Rome during this period.

What the book really did was made me love Lindsey Davis even more. She's so sharp and funny and I just want her to adopt me or become traveling companions with my mother. My mom gave me the first Falco book soon after I had to leave university due to my illness. I was stuck at home, depressed, and in pain.

Falco became an absolutely necessary companion for me, and I still re-read the books regularly. Few other historical novelists manage to put me so completely in another time and place. Davis manages to flood her books with historical detail without it feeling forced or like a history lesson. She is simply a wonder and a treasure.

Nice to catch up with your varied reading.

179 - Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge: The Seven Cities of Gold by Carl Barks

Finally a second volume of Uncle Scrooge! I'm so glad they're publishing the complete Carl Barks library, I just wish the process were a little faster! In this volume you start to see the evolution of Scrooge as an adventurer and do-er, not just a hoarder of cash. This volume covers 1955-56.

180 - Dracula by Bram Stoker

I don't know how to review classics well, but I enjoyed this one quite a lot. I'd loved a children's version in the library when I was a kid, and the actual thing was fun. I enjoyed the style of it (diary entries, and so forth) and got a lot of laughs during the medical sequences. If you're feeling faint after giving blood wine will DEFINITELY help, according to this book...

The main problem for me was the female characters constantly voicing their feelings about men being just SO noble and wonderful and women being awful and petty and shallow. I mean, Mina's the one who makes everything come together at the end, but oh no, it just doesn't count. Sigh.

All in all though, a fun read, and recommended.

181 - Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan

Cahalan had a rare auto-immune problem which presented itself via seizures, extreme paranoia, hallucinations, and other symptoms of psychosis.

The story is fascinating, and she was so incredibly lucky to be where she was, to have the family she had, to have insurance, to have the money to pay for the out-of-pocket expenses, to get just the right doctor, etc...

Extremely interesting book, and well put-together. Definitely recommended.

>193 mabith: But don't forget, the reason Mina was so impressive was because she had a brain like that of a man!

>195 valkyrdeath: That was the same explanation given for Marian in The Woman in White; her masculine mind.

Oh of course, brains like men. Thank goodness they found ways to justify having women who acted like actual woman in these books...

"There are these women around, and even though we've stuffed them into uncomfortable and restrictive clothing, given them toxic skin products, and tried to deny them education, they seem rather good sorts anyway. Must have man-brain syndrome! We'll keep the pretty ones who give credit to us and stuff the feisty and ugly ones into asylums. Problem solved!"

I believe the feisty and unattractive ones were simply considered termagants and avoided.

In the parallel universe where I start a band, I will call it The Feisty Termagants. Wanna join?

Yes! I'm assuming in the alternative universe there will be more demand for clarinet players in rock/punk/pop bands. Or alternate universe band teacher will have let me switch to drums when I asked...

Since I'll have musical ability in this parallel universe, you can play any instrument you want. A punk band with a clarinet would be awesome.

Not to interrupt the parallel universe band, but I recently read an article (not sure where, but my friend Google found this article which says much the same thing, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-mens-brains-are-wired-differently-... that said that women's and men's brains do differ. We have more connections between our hemispheres, leading to more integration of analytical and intuitive thinking, and men have more within their hemispheres, leading to better motor skills. Of course, this comes with a heap of caveats that this is in general and that individuals are, well, individual.

Ha, yeah, I've read those articles too. Though Stoker's version of women's brains involve no thinking at all, so you know... I've also seen studies that show that trans women's brains match the brains of women who were assigned female at birth (curiously on how agender brains read). Though of course, I also wonder what part socialization and cultural expectations plays. No matter how a parent raises a child cultural gender norms and stereotypes still play a huge role in their lives. Since brains aren't static in their wiring, particularly in babies and toddlers, does it make a difference in the adult wiring if young children are given building or puzzle toys versus things like stuffed animals or musical instruments? Given that children now (in the US anyway) are given puzzle and building toys at far younger ages than in, say, the fifties, and often have more direct, one-on-one attention, has that made a difference?

Really, other than for use in surgeries or treatments of brain diseases/malfunctions, it doesn't seem like that information is really of much use (other than in negative ways enforcing stereotypes) beyond curiosity's sake. Even then they'd still need to scan each person first and not go by generalities. We differ so individually and of course our desire to do something can influence how good we become at it and how much we do it impacts how natural it becomes.

182 - The Getaway Car: A Donald Westlake Nonfiction Miscellany by Donald E. Westlake

This was a wonderful collection of articles, reviews, forwards, introductions, and a tiny bit of unpublished memoir. It made my fondness for Westlake grow. His wit and sharp intelligence shine through. The writings about the mystery/detective/crime genre and how it has shifted through the decades were particularly interesting.

I would only recommend it to the longer-time Westlake fan, if you've read ten or more of his books, say. There were a couple little things I skipped, when the author and genre he was talking about was far from my tastes or interests, but mostly I read them and found enjoyment in them despite the disinterest.

An interesting observation from the man himself, talking about his Abe Levine works:
"I had written myself into a terrible corner, the one in which the character himself has become the world in which the story is set. (A simpler and sillier example of this is Batman. Somewhere around 1955, the evil activity most pursued by the criminals in Batman became the uncovering of Batman's identity! If Batman didn't exist, they wouldn't be criminals. In self-referential fiction, I can think of no peer to Batman.)"

183 - Heidi by Johanna Spyri

I was not in the absolute best mood to read a book where the poor invalid is magically cured by mountain air and being pressured to push herself (being permanently disabled myself), but I enjoyed it pretty well anyway.

Heidi is one of those little girls who brings joy to everyone. Like Pollyanna and somewhat like Rebecca (of Sunnybrook Farm) and Anne of Green Gables. However Rebecca and Anne do not automatically charm the pants off of everyone on first meeting, and thus, to me, are more fun and believable heroines.

Spyri is particularly descriptive of the landscapes, which is nice. While Heidi is a bit too sweet and perfect, and there was a little too much god-talk later in the book, I do recommend it. It's a classic for a reason, and now I need to re-watch the Shirley Temple movie version.

Much better than the Shirley Temple version is the movie loosely based on the story called Courage Mountain. Featuring Charlie Sheen as Peter. The high point of the movie is when he skis from mountain peak to mountain peak to rescue Heidi from peril.

I don't know, I like that book Heidi doesn't need rescued from anything and that Peter is largely a lout. Also I love Shirley Temple way more than Charlie Sheen...

I agree with you, especially on the respective worth of those two actors. But a really, really bad movie is an awful lot of fun.

>202 mabith: We differ so individually and of course our desire to do something can influence how good we become at it and how much we do it impacts how natural it becomes. I agree with you there, and of course "they" do so everyone's brain is different anyway -- generalities generally get us in trouble!

I'm not counting this towards my total, but I won it as an ER and though I'd put the review here too.

Once Upon a Playground: A Celebration of Classic American Playgrounds, 1920-1975 by Brenda Biondo

This is a beautiful collection of photographs which brought back a host of memories for me. Interestingly enough, though I was born in 1985, most of the playgrounds I played on were from the 1920s-40s. The 1920s-30s slides had generally been replaced in the 1940s, judging from the photographs in this book. I learned a lot about physics on the witch's hat and merry-go-round equipment... (Our conceptual physics teacher actually took us to a playground to learn things!)

After a short foreword and shorter introduction, the photos begin. The foreword is paired with photographs and catalog images from the 1910s, which show some impressively dangerous playgrounds that I wish to hell I'd been able to play on! Everything in them is so incredibly tall, it's brilliant.

The photographs are beautiful, a mix of long shots and closeups, and often paired with the catalog pages of the equipment pictured. This was a great touch, which I hadn't been expecting. Initially I thought perhaps I'd give this volume to my father, but it's so lovely that I'm forced to keep it for myself.

There is a playground in a city near me which was designed by someone famous (in the 1960s or 70s, I believe). It's quite dangerous but it's a historic landmark now and can't be bulldozed, which amuses me.

This ended up being a favorite photograph, though it's a simple shot:

>208 rebeccanyc: I wish I could just be curious and interested with these studies, but my brain tends to drift to how the sexists will try to use them to justify sexism...

184 - Parzival and the Stone From Heaven by Lindsay Clarke

I have quibbles with the way this book was presented. On the cover it states that the book is “a holy grail romance retold for our time.” To me, this implied that it was written in a modern style and highly novelized. There is no foreword, no introduction.

The book is actually an adaptation of the medieval writer Wolfram von Eschenbach's grail work of the same name, using modern language and editing some aspects for length. The style is still very much a medieval tale, though, with that feel to it. There's an afterword explaining all this, which really should have been at the front, as it's important for the reading, I think.

This isn't the type of thing I enjoy reading, Arthurian stuff is not of much interest to me. It's a ROOT though, and my dad gave it to me, so I thought I'd give it a go (it also wasn't that long). I didn't get into at all, though I'd have found it FAR more interesting if I'd read that afterword first. The author talks about Wolfram's unique text and how he feels it influenced more modern writing.

185 - The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas

I first watched the mini-series based on this book because I was looking for everything Essie Davis had been in (after loving her as Miss Fisher). The show and the book are almost identical, with only a few changes. I don't think I've ever seen+read a more faithful adaptation.

Official description:
At a barbecue in suburban Melbourne, a man slaps a three year old boy across the face. The child, Hugo, has been misbehaving without any intervention by his parents. The slapper is Harry, cousin of the barbecue host and adulterous businessman whose slightly older son, Rocco, is being threatened by Hugo. This event sends the other characters "into a spiral, agonizing and arguing over the notion that striking a child can ever be justified."

This book is seriously hard realism, told in sections that center around eight main characters in turn, but without overlap in time and all in the third person. It is hard reading in some of the language and thoughts of the characters. It gives the reader a LOT to think about. It's also very obvious that the female characters were written by a man. The high level of misogyny from all characters was difficult to take, but it was certainly realistic.

At the end, I think most of us will feel that the final actions by Ritchie, a teenage boy just graduated, are unrealistic. However, looking back from a teenage point of view, knowing how many people put up with rubbish friends, it's actually quite believable (in the real world, versus the more idealistic worlds we and our memories often imagine).

186 - A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow

This book takes the most fundamental concepts from A Brief History of Time and simplifies them. I admit to still scratching my head at some points. Maybe I'll re-read it every year and eventually it will all sink in.

187 - Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: The Son of the Sun by Don Rosa

This is the first volume of the Don Rosa library. Actually, there were two volumes of Rosa's Donald Ducks comics published a year or two back which I purchased and a few of which are repeated it, a little annoying. I was under the impression that the comics in this volume would only be those featuring both Scrooge and Donald (I think the only Rosa comics just featuring Scrooge are in the Life and Times series).

It's quite a large volume, and features a short commentary (four-five paragraphs) by Rosa on each of the longer comics, plus a little auto-biography of him. In some ways, his comics are more special to me than Barks' because I inherited a pile of old Barks comics that all the siblings had read. Rosa's were the ones my dad and I would pick up at the grocery store and read together, his were entirely MY property, both physically and emotionally. His comics are also firmly in the real world, barring that the people are ducks. He stays away from mythological creatures (though admittedly allows ghosts at times), and the made up places. His are full of real history, which appealed to me so much.

My poor book shelf is bowing under the weight of Duck comic collections, which is a truly wonderful thing.

188 - Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett

This is the second in Pratchett's trilogy about Johnny Maxwell. In this one Johnny can suddenly see the dead hanging around the local cemetery, which is slated for destruction. He brings one of them a newspaper and they're outraged when they learn of the plan.

While Johnny and his friends research the dead to see if anyone is famous enough to save the cemetery, the dead are figuring out how to work telephones, the ghosts of dead electronics, and send themselves by satellite signals and radio waves.

The pacing towards the end is a bit odd, but it felt rather realistic. Of course after all the effort to the save the place the dead decide they no longer need it, that's just what would happen in real life. It's an interesting book for Pratchett's views on death and aging long before his Alzheimer's was evident.

189 - A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain by Michael Paterson

This is an incredibly rosy look at life in Victorian Britain, largely the lives of the upper and middle classes. He says the workhouses weren't really grim at all, guys, they were great! Phew!

While presenting interesting information, as one would expect, the author sometimes inserts opinions about modern life that don't really have a place in the book and grated on me (there was a line about how we're "obsessed with political correctness today," which, sorry, we're more aware of how language hurts and the histories of certain words and less willing to cause further hurt by some ridiculous refusal to change vocabulary, it's not about correctness or politics).

Then, especially in the last quarter or so of the book, he repeatedly talks about how colonization was actually good and imperialism shouldn't be a bad word. Yeeaah... I stopped the audiobook with forty seconds to go because it was frankly a little disgusting.

Not recommended.

>216 mabith: It sounds like Michael Paterson himself belongs in Victorian Britain. I don't see how anyone can defend colonialism and imperialism these days. He must have really glossed over all the atrocities. I think I'll avoid it.

I'm skipping A Brief History of Life in Victorian Britain, and thanking you for reading it so I won't pick it up somewhere and think it looks interesting.

Will you post your review to the book's page? There are no reviews yet posted.

>217 valkyrdeath: Maybe he's actually a ukip candidate?

Ooh, I hadn't thought to check the book page (admittedly I never do). It's up there now.

Enjoying catching up with your reviews. I have read Parzival and the Stone from heaven and was not impressed. You would do much better to read Wolfram Von Eschenbach.

Photographs of children's play grounds sounds a fascinating project and would be good subject matter for black and white photographs.

there was a line about how we're "obsessed with political correctness today," which, sorry, we're more aware of how language hurts and the histories of certain words and less willing to cause further hurt by some ridiculous refusal to change vocabulary, it's not about correctness or politics

Thank you, yes!!

>220 baswood: Well, I wouldn't have read Clarke's Parzival but for it being a root. I have basically negative interest in Arthurian stuff. I suppose I understand his wanting to make the language easier to understand, but one would think a complete translation versus forcing it into a more plotted form (while not actually being novelized in any sense of the word) would have been the favored course. I suppose this was the only way to get it published. I still find myself seething that there was no foreword, no introduction, no word of Wolfram at the beginning.

>221 lyzard: Glad it's not just me!

That kind of justification of deliberately hurtful language drives me crazy!

190 - A Vicarage Family by Noel Streatfeild

This is the first volume of Streatfeild's memoirs, covering her young girl-hood, from about age 11-17. She felt compelled to use different names for her family but not to really disguise that it was a memoir.

It is a very self-focused memoir, and for that period it almost has to be. She felt like the odd one out as a child, the one who wasn't at all gifted, and felt guilty yet annoyed for the way people pitied her father the vicar for having her as a daughter. While her family was generally quite loving, that love wasn't always expressed in the way best for the child, and individual needs were not really considered (things would be done the way they'd always been done for all the children, of course!).

It was a very enjoyable book for me, both for being put smack in the Edwardian period, and for learning more about one of my favorite children's authors. Streatfeild had a wonderful gift for portraying children as they really are, and showing relationships where two children or an adult and child tried but just couldn't get on the same page about an issue. The way she was able to write sibling relationships and show that “not like the others” feeling was also wonderful. I can't wait until my niece and nephew are old enough for her books.

191 - Jeeves and the Feudal Spirit by PG Wodehouse

Another delightful episode in what often seems like the long line of Bertie being engaged to another girl and needing to get out of it. As usual the girl is under the impression that Bertie is completely heartsick over them and feels sorry for him. Poor Bertie, always just being a duty.

Wodehouse is Wodehouse is Wodehouse, though I'd say this one was far less complicated than many of his efforts.

192 - Uncle Scrooge and Donald Duck: Return to Plain Awful by Don Rosa

Volume two of the Don Rosa library. Again there are a few repeats from the first Donald Duck volumes published by Boom and I think one repeat from Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck Companion. Some great stories in this one, and I'm looking forward to the future volumes.

193 - The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot by Robert MacFarlane

This was a very calming book. The author talks about various old paths that he walks, mostly in Britain, but some outside it. It is both a book about the tracks themselves and their histories and about the act of walking and the people who are so driven to walk. While I read it in one go, it's a great title to pop in and out of over a long stretch. If I had a more hectic life I'd probably keep a copy about just for that purpose.

Admittedly, it's made me rather sad, as even taking a relatively short walk about the block isn't something I'm physically able to do, and being in a wheelchair on even average sidewalks is very uncomfortable. However, now I'm more driven than ever to get out into the woods if we have anymore fine, warm-ish days, and schedule a camping trip as early in the spring as I can.

The Old Ways does sound both calming and intriguing.

194 - The Caller (Shadowfell) by Juliet Marillier

This is the third in Marillier's YA fantasy series, Shadowfell. It is the only series she's done set entirely in a fantasy world (her others are historical fantasies, very character driven, with less emphasis on the fantasy elements).

While it's not my favorite work of hers, it's still very solid. I read the last two-thirds of the book in one sitting, staying up until 2 am. Marillier always manages to hook me.

195 - Just My Type: A Book About Fonts by Simon Garfield

I was never a hardcore font nerd, I think only graphic designers and such professionals really approach that territory. However, I did notice fonts a lot and have an eye for them. I've been using computers since I was 4 though, and I love text and design (and of course I grew up staring at book covers and noticing their design!). When I started identifying fonts when out and about with my mom as a kid I think she was always vaguely puzzled.

It was quite an interesting book for me, though I think it would bore most people. You do need a strong interest in fonts, their design, and history to enjoy it.

I'm a mild font nerd myself, and have browsed through Just My Type when I needed some info for work. One day I'll read the whole thing.

196 - Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast

This is Chast's memoir of the last few years of her parents' lives, dealing with caring for them, arranging their care, and her own distaste for the entire task.

Her childhood was hard and she consistently felt like an intruder in her parents' tight duo. Her mother also had a temper and no patience with normal childhood wants (they were also far older than her peers' parents). She is not close to them, and they are both very difficult to deal with in their own ways. Chast is honest about her guilt for not being able to be the devoted caretaker but also her enduring feelings of just not wanting to be there.

I grew up seeing her cartoons, and loving her drawing style. Depending on where you are in life (and in your parents' lives), it could be a very difficult read. I found it rewarding. Chast does her best, but she cannot magically summon a loving relationship with her parents, and no matter how loving the relationship is all people in caretaking positions will be frustrated at various points.

>230 mabith: I've had Just My Type on the TBR for a few years and I do mean to get to it some day . . .

>232 mabith: I saw some of this (in the New Yorker????) and I've always enjoyed Roz Chast's cartoons there, but I'm not sure I'm up to reading this book.

I hope I will soon get to The Old Ways: A Journey on Foot.

197 - The Last Nude by Ellis Avery

This is an extremely loose historical novel. It uses real people, the painter Tamara de Lempicka, her model Rafaela, and some people in Lempicka's family, circle, and 1920s Paris in general.

Avery tells us Rafaela's story, completely made up (including her background, as far as I can tell) barring that she did model for Lempicka and that they became lovers for about a year. It's a liberty taking novel, certainly, but I enjoyed every bit of it.

It was beautifully written, and I loved Rafaela's awakening to her own agency, the difference between letting things happen to her and wanting them to happen, being the force behind them happening at all (especially in regards to sex). This is something I've struggled with too, and that awakening in Rafaela felt so honest.

Very enjoyable, so long as you're in it for a story and not historical fact. I can relate to Avery's desire to write this kind of book. When I look at antique quilts I often think about the human stories behind them and make up my own little narrative about it.

198 - Freddy's Cousin Weedly by Walter R. Brooks

This is the seventh Freddy the Pig book, and as enjoyable as the rest. It centers around the farmer and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. Bean, leaving on a European trip and Mr. Bean's aunt Effie suddenly showing up and breaking into the house. She's there to look for and take the silver teapot which her mother left to Mr. Bean "for his wife" but which she thinks is rightly hers. The animals intend to stop her, but Freddy becomes friendly with her along the way, and she is impressed with their politeness.

Not my favorite of the series, but not a weak specimen either. There's a lot of Jinx the cat in this, which is always good.

I find it rather annoying that of the first 10 Freddy books (26 total) there are still three I haven't ever read. We had a haphazard sampling when I was growing up, and while the books were read to me, it was when I was very very young and I never reread them when I started reading novels on my own, for some reason. I suppose they must have seemed a little babyish, being about farm animals. An unwise assumption on my part. They are absolute GEMS. Funny as all get out, and the animals are so well-rounded and just human. The animals have flaws, and these are frequently explored. Wonderful books for any child.

>233 rebeccanyc: My parents only being in their mid to late 60s and in basically good health, made Chast's book an easier read for me. Since I'm disabled I've had to be on the receiving end of lighter caregiving, so I also have a different perspective on that.

>234 edwinbcn: It's definitely worth picking up soon, though maybe especially when there's nice weather for walking, if that's something you do.

I've let my goal get me into a bit of a corner. Due to book clubs, ER, and library checkouts, my last ten reads to meet my goal are pretty much mapped out. I'm excited to start my re-reading, but also feeling like I won't want to give up new-to-me books for other a month! Not going over my goal is mostly an issue of me being a bit neurotic about having the number of books read in a year evenly divisible by 52.

Next year I've decided that I won't keep count of what I read as I read it (waiting until the end of the year), and I'll add my re-reads to the list. Since I've been unable to work I've used books as a work-productivity substitute, but I need to get away from that fixation entirely (the idea of my worth being determined by DOING things, by some notion of productivity). So next year, no numbers, and I'll reread whenever I like and I won't angst about it. Well, I'll try not to.

I had mixed feelings about The Last Nude. On the one hand, it wasn't great history or great literature, on the other, not only did it capture my interest, but I'm still thinking about it more than a year after I read it. Basically, I think I want to move to Paris and be decadent.

>237 mabith: I can see how that would be easier for you than it would be for me as both my parents are dead.

>238 mabith: Reading should be FUN! Even if it is a work productivity substitute. That's why I read what intrigues me at the moment (at least most of the time).

>239 RidgewayGirl: I think we all want to move to Paris and be decadent! I don't think I'm much of a Great Literature person, unless I were to start taking literature courses. I don't read looking for symbolism and themes, I read for the writing, the story, and/or a great grasp of psychology. The Last Nude wasn't beautifully written in the way Thomas Hardy or Chimamanda Adichie write, but the real-feeling portrait of Rafaela was the beautiful part for me (and it wasn't badly written in general, which definitely will ruin a story for me).

>240 rebeccanyc: Oh it's all still fun, and I do just pick up whatever appeals at the moment (barring book club reads, of course, and I'm in a few). There is a different atmosphere to my reading now though, because it's one of the few hobbies largely unaffected by my illness. I HAVE to read, because I desperately need total distraction as much as possible. I've always loved reading, I've always read a lot, but it's difficult when I'm never just picking the activities I *want* to do, but the things I *can* do. After nine years of that I'm feeling weary.

>238 mabith: I understand a bit of what you're talking about. I love reading so much, but at moments I feel so much pressure to get to everything I want to read! It's one of the reasons that I want to control the amount of physical books on my shelf that are TBR. I start getting panicky when I think I'll never get to all of them! I imagine that with your illness, these thoughts are more heightened. Good luck next year letting go of some of the number controlling!

>241 mabith: I'm glad it's "all still fun" and I am grateful for your explanation of not being able to pick your activities and can only imagine how challenging and wearying that must be.

Interesting thought combining a work ethic with the number and type of books that you read. I reckon I have been doing that subconsciously, but now I am conscious about it I still think its OK

>242 japaul22: Jennifer, I don't actually worry much about not getting to specific titles. I grew up going to work with my dad a lot, who was a librarian, and lost any sense of "Must get to everything!" very early (and only 7% of the books I own are things I haven't read yet). Spending eight hours at a time in libraries from the time I was a toddler must have hammered home "You can't read ALL the books, so don't worry."

>244 baswood: Barry, well, it's not about reading feeling productive that's a problem. It's about my self-worth being tied to being productive (in any way). This is problematic in part because it's a judgement on people who are more profoundly disabled than I am and able to do less, and because my own health may well get worse. I may not be able to read as much or embroidery or cook at all in the future. Best to get rid of that kind of thinking while I'm still doing more.

199 – Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War by Virginia Nicholson

This was a simply wonderful social history. It was thorough (albeit confined to British women) but felt very balanced, going all over the country (and following some subjects overseas) and through various classes. The information comes from interviews, memoirs, and diaries from the Mass Observation project.

Absolutely recommended. A very important book.

200 – The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

First off, don't listen to the audio edition. It kills the Greek chorus as they use an effect to try to make it sound like there are more voices than there are. The result is so jarring and makes it difficult to understand the words.

This is Penelope from the Odyssey from her own point of view and words. I'm not sure if one calls that a re-telling or not. Penelope is dead, as she narrates, and knows what was said of her through the ages, or after her death at least.

It was an interesting little exercise, but too short to really get into and too much of a monologue to feel like a proper novella. Enjoyable but not a great, lasting work or something I had a strong opinion on.

I've had The Penelopiad on the TBR for several years; I won't be rushing to it based on your review!

201 - Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale

I had my faith shaken in this book by a mixed review (where I believe the problem was that the reader didn't bother to read a description of the book), but was then eager to read it again after a great review from someone I follow here on LT. I should really write down where I get book recommendations from (especially since their reviews are always much more helpful than mine!).

This was a great read. The story of this specific trial and Mrs. Robinson's life, the background information on her closest friends and fads of the day, the general background of divorce cases and the requirements of the court... Loved it!

Rebecca, it's a book club choice for this month, so I'll let you know if a lot of people had more favorable reviews! I know it's part of a myth series and that they differ a lot in quality. I'm also not much of a fan of short works (in the sense that if I enjoy something I ALWAYS want it to be longer). Something this short and informal feeling also doesn't compare well to Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin which I read in 2012 and absolutely adored.

>249 mabith: I just read this last month and liked it a lot. Glad you did too!

Ooh, my memory proved right for once. I was thinking it was your review that tipped me over but didn't want to say and wrong (because obviously then the world would end -rolls eyes-). I'm so glad I did see your review. Such a great book.

>249 mabith: I have Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace on my Kindle. I really should try to get to it sooner rather than later.

Yes, I'm with you on if a book is truly great, on wanting it to keep going. I once expressed that idea in the comments section of a book site and was shouted down. They thought that long books were a very bad thing, which I could not understand and still don't. Of course, there are short books that stop exactly where they should, and I like those too.

Jane Austen said “but for my own part, if a book is well written, I always find it too short.” (Though of course she didn't quite have the abundance of literature available as we do today.)

I do find it very odd that other book people would dislike that statement. They've never wanted MORE of a book or for a short story to continue into a novel? Perhaps they all felt that authors know best (as if!). That's the entire reason I avoid short stories. If they're really good I want a novel out of them (Chimamanda Adichie's short story book drove me nuts for that reason, they were just so good).

>246 mabith: i think i would like Millions like us, especially if i could find it on audio. I have really enjoyed good oral histories.

Audio is how I read it, though it was a slightly mixed experience. They had a variety of voice actors who would break in during the middle of a sentence to denote that it was a quote, which was necessary, of course, but somewhat jarring. I think it's only available on the British Audible catalog right now though (I have a friend there who let me use their account to get it).

I've never really minded how long a book is, as long as it's the right length for the story. I think some stories are naturally short and some naturally very long and both are fine. I just have problems when the author tries to making it something it isn't, cutting a story short or padding out a short story unnecessarily to make a huge novel. Basically, I'll happily read 1000 pages, as long as the story needed 1000 pages to tell. I'm always quite sad to finish any book if I love it though.

202 – Jo's Boys by Louisa May Alcott

This is the third in Alcott's trilogy of the March family. It seems to have a lot more religion in it than the previous books, though it's been a long time since I read Little Women. However, I think Alcott gets to be a little more herself in this, as it's written after she's found literary success. She is a little more forceful about education for women in it.

The best part is in the beginning when she talks about the difficulty of being a famous author and all the letters and visitors and such. It's a more fragmented book, as the boys are now scattered throughout the world in their professions, and we spend a little time with most of them. While it wasn't an unenjoyable book exactly, it wasn't particularly remarkable and isn't destined to be a favorite or to be revisited at all.

203 – Dreamer's Pool by Juliet Marillier

Juliet Marillier has a way of hooking me that few other authors possess. I think a large part of it is that her characters really LIVE. All of her books are character driven, and she makes me care so much for them.

This a historical mystery, set in Dalriada (a kingdom in the sixth and seventh centuries encompassing western Scotland and a little chunk of Northern Ireland, basically Argyll and Lochaber in Scotland and County Antrim). Blackthorn and Grim are prisoners in a hellish jail. Blackthorn is waiting to see the council to inform them of a local chieftain's misdeeds, when she learns she won't be given that chance but will be killed before she can present her story. A fey man, Conmael, intervenes, saying that he will set her free if she will use her gifts as a healer and wise woman for seven years in Winterfalls, in the north of Dalriada. She must use her gifts for good and help anyone who asks for it.

As with her other historical fantasy novels, the fantasy takes a back seat to the time period and the characters. It is there, but in relatively small doses. At the end of the books I realized that Blackthorn and Grim basically have a detective agency, and the thought really tickled me. And why not have a historical fantasy mystery?

RE-READ Three Hands in the Fountain by Lindsey Davis

This is the ninth Falco book, which I think I've only read once before. It is the first of a trilogy within the series, the Partners trilogy, which finds Falco teaming up with various people. First, Petronius Longus, his best friend, which is a bit of a disaster (of course!), with single-agent tactics butting up against Petro's years in the Vigiles with their strict procedures.

It is Davis' only go at writing a serial killer, something she felt she had to do as Crime Writer (tm), and which she did not particularly enjoy. In Falco: The Official Companion she says she feels ambivalent about "using psychopathic death for entertainment." She keeps the deaths and all but one of the victims anonymous and well off-screen.

This one heavily involves the aqueduct systems of Rome, and the sewers. The Cloaca Maxima is still in use at least as a storm drain (according to Davis). She got permission (slightly to her dismay) to go down into it while she was writing the book. She always seems to attempt to travel to places that will give her greater understanding for her books, whether it's the countries in questions, or aspects like the Cloaca Maxima. It makes her descriptions so much more vivid and realistic.

If you can't tell, I adore Lindsey Davis. After reading the companion book I have even more love and respect for her. This isn't my favorite book in the series, it being necessarily more grim than most and with a bit less of her trademark humor, but it's still excellent.

Review of an ER which I could not finish. I tried for MONTHS.

Dumbing Down America: The War on our Nation's Brightest Young Minds (And What We Can Do to Fight Back by James R. Delisle

(While the use of the word 'gifted' for these accelerated programs is something many people dislike I use it here since it's the term that was used when I was growing up and it's used in this book.)

By page XV of the preface of this book the author shows just how un-gifted he is. I could not get past page 30 in this book, it made me so angry (not for the right reasons) and even sitting down to write this review has my heart beating faster than is normal.

In the preface the author states that gifted children are "our nation's most neglected minority." (Wow, REALLY? Like he SERIOUSLY thinks that?) While the cover of the book says this is “a passionate call to fix America's school systems” he is actually ONLY concerned with gifted programs, and states that is the most important thing to fix first. Well, no. While I understand that his dislike of the statement that gifted children will just take care of themselves, the ones IN gifted programs will. It's the gifted children who are not tested, whose parents don't want them in 'special' classes, or who are already turned off from the system who are done the greater disservice, and improving gifted programs won't help them. Perhaps later he suggests that all children be tested for the program, but unless there's a law requiring it, plenty of parents won't agree.

Delisle also spends time talking about how, NO, gifted programs are not racist, classist, ableist, etc... Which, the idea in abstract isn't, but it's PEOPLE who run these programs. All of us in the US have issues with latent racism, misogny, and ableism just from growing up in this culture, and it's incredibly ignorant to think that teachers are immune from this (not to mention the teachers who are overtly racist, etc...). Parents often don't know the gifted programs exist in a school, and it's teachers who pick children for testing and who administer the tests. In my school I know for a fact classism featured in who the teachers paid academic attention to. There were at least three children who definitely should have been in our gifted classes but they had the misfortune of not just being poor, but poor and dirty. They always did well in class but it wasn't until middle school that a good teacher looked past their exteriors and to focus on their intelligence (everyone in my gifted program was middle or upper middle class). He does not even admit the possibility of discriminatory teachers, administrators, and counselors. I'm not sure where he's living, but it's not the US...

I am passionate about education, but fixing the 'regular' schooling will help far more gifted children than focusing on these programs (a tiny minority). Improving teacher training (in terms of teaching multiple methods for learning and testing big concepts), getting rid of standardized testing, and making class sizes smaller would be of immediate benefit. Making sure administrators and school board members had experience in teaching or were willing to listen to those who did would be another step. It is not THAT hard to improve education, when people get out of the way and let you do it. I've lost count of the number of great teachers I've known who have left the profession due to the way schools are run and the terrible curriculum they're expected to use.

While I struggled to read this book I spent a lot of time talking to my mom about her experience with our school system's gifted programs, which my siblings and I all went through. We all got into it in different ways. My brother was bored in school and my mom thought he needed for more of a challenge, so she asked that he take the test and he was skipped a grade. My sister took it because she started kindergarten at age four (birthday in November) and that was the requirement. I went to a much better elementary school than they did, so my mom wasn't worried that I be tested. At the beginning of third grade the teacher told her I needed to take the test. In my school almost all the children were picked out by the teachers and I know there were several kids whose parents didn't want them in the gifted program. By the time we got to middle school they'd destroyed the program (and the teacher wasn't as good), and in 7th grade created an honors program with a large class-size, which forced our small gifted group to take pre-Algebra for a second time (except for me, my mother insisted they put me in the 8th grade algebra class). The gifted teacher from third to fifth grade was someone we adored, who understood us. It could have certainly been more rigorous, but I don't think it needed to be (it was just English and Math, if there had been a gifted history course that would have actually been way more helpful).

This is the only ER I haven't been able to get through, but reading it was seriously bad for my blood pressure.

204 - As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales from the Making of The Princess Bride by Cary Elwes

I grew up surrounded with love for both the movie and the book The Princess Bride. The humor was just the type that we all seemed to like best in my family, and of course, it's a complicated movie with stuff to love at various ages. A comedy, an adventure, a romance, and a few other things besides.

This was book lovely to listen to, read by Elwes with much of the cast involved in reading their contributions to the book (little sections about various scenes or issues). A couple hours in I had to stop and watch the movie, which I imagine is a common reaction for people reading it.

I'm really happy I picked this up. It was just a great read, and very interesting. My one quibble is his recapping the plot for "people who haven't seen the movie or read the book." Why on EARTH would anyone but fans pick up this book to begin with?? Not that you can't skip that part, but honestly, why? It's not a biography or memoir of Elwes' entire early career, so I can't see people who are just fans of him picking it up. There is a lot of "Oh everyone was just so lovely and perfect especially Cary and Robin" but it all seems very genuine.

205 - Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson

This is Woodson's memoir (aimed at the children's/YA audience) of her childhood, told in poems starting when she was a baby in Columbus, OH, a young child in Greenville SC, and an older child in New York City (in the 1970s and 1970s).

Sometimes books using a poetic form read like the author wrote a paragraph and then just divided it into short lines. Woodson's read as proper poems though.

It's a beautiful book, which has just won a National Book Award, which was well-deserved. It's a book I tried not to rush through, but only partially succeeded in slowing myself down. It was interesting being so familiar with the geography mentioned when she's in Ohio and South Carolina. I don't read all that much deals with familiar places.

Very recommended.

206 - The Astronaut Wives Club by Lily Koppel

This books follows the women married to the astronauts of the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo space programs. They are varied individuals who are reduced by NASA and the press into cookie cutter stereotypes of the perfect American wife and mother.

It was extremely interesting and I think/hope does justice to their resilience in dealing with the situation, both the dangerous and consuming work of their husbands and being forced into a mold. It was felt that only men with happy marriages would be chosen as astronauts (you'd really think they'd have gone for unmarried men, frankly) and the act had to be continued. One woman had left her husband when he begged her to come back so he'd get into the program. They were given a deal with Life magazine that included a cash settlement and life insurance for their husbands in exchange for exclusive access before and during space missions.

While the women became close through this shared experience, there was a distance kept as each woman feared she'd say something that would reflect badly on her husband (which might get back to NASA and affect his chances). They tried to be there for each other while hiding some of the biggest parts of their life (marriage trouble, mental health issues, etc...).

Highly recommended.

(Disjointed review as I need to leave the house, so I may add to this later.)

RE-READ Archangel by Sharon Shinn

This is the first in a sci-fi/fantasy trilogy about the land of Samaria, where angels (men and women with wings) are able to sing specific hymns to their god, Jovah, which bring immediate changes in weather, seed for crops, etc... The sci-fi part doesn't come in so much in this book, though there are a few hints.

Each person in this world, except for most members of a particular ethnic group, have a 'kiss' implanted soon after a birth - a gem in their arm that allows Jovah to know their presence and flares when they meet the partner they're supposed to be with.

Gabriel, the man the god has slated to be archangel must seek out the woman Jovah has chosen to be his bride. She must sing at the Gloria a yearly event to show Jovah the country is in harmony (yuk yuk). Gabriel has waited until only a few months before the Gloria however, and is having trouble finding his bride. When he does it's a shock for everyone. Gabriel and Rachel are both stubborn and prideful, and she does not want the honor or to be around angels at all. Gabriel has a huge political job to do trying to win concessions from the wealthy and end the enslavement of tolerated under the lax current archangel who doesn't seem to want to let go of power. It's a lot more than "can these two overcome and find love."

This is my first audio re-read, though I'd read it in print twice. This is the second audio release of this book, the first having a totally inappropriate reader. This reader was better, but still gave 90% of the female characters super high pitched little girl voices.

I love this trilogy, in part because it takes SUCH a turn from what I'd been expecting (though there are clues in this book I'd not paid attention to). There are a couple things that bug me, though only one that left me more than miffed at the author (the actions and advice given are appropriate, but the reasoning one character gives really doesn't match the psychology of the other characters involved).

It's a fun, character driven book and does a good job building the world up. The hints are here, the little aspects of the world that grow in other books are mentioned briefly, each ethnic group/clan/etc... is described, it's all very thorough but it's all added for a reason too, not just randomly mentioned. The next book takes place 150 years after this one.

So...i'm thinking i probably won't read Dumbing Down America. Enjoyed catching up with your reading. And i've made a mental note to try to get an audio version of As You Wish.

I hope no one reads Dumbing Down America, or that no one takes it seriously at least. It was especially frustrating since I read How Children Succeed last year, which deals with the character traits kids really need to succeed in college and life in general, the things that seem to have more impact than IQ alone (and which I felt like my gifted program, flawed as it was, really gave me).

The audio As You Wish is definitely worth waiting for. It was so lovely to hear all those voices again and really added to the feeling. Perfect "feel good" book too.

I'm glad that you enjoyed Brown Girl Dreaming. I downloaded the Kindle version of it yesterday, and I plan to read it next month.

Unrelated to books, I like your cross stitch!

I so agree with your comments on the gifted program. The program was good for my daughter, but I did see some of her equally clever classmates passed over and although her teachers were always pleasant, I wonder if the color of her skin influenced her inclusion. A few more kids should have been in there, is what I am saying.

And Greenville, SC! That's home to me, despite the brief sojourn in Germany. We have a gift for not celebrating any residents who aren't properly white and well-to-do, with the exception of Max Heller, who was awesome, but allows us to ignore, say, Jesse Jackson and Dorothy Allison.

>269 kidzdoc: I went into it not realizing it had been nominated for a big award, and I'm always a bit wary of YA/children's books written in poetry, so it was a wonderful surprise.

>270 twogerbils: Thanks! I do love to do it, and obviously book projects are the best! If you craft we have a tiny group here on LT, Needlearts.

>271 RidgewayGirl: My town was 99% white, so I can only speak to the classism issue, but yeah. The fact that the author just heatedly defended gifted programs without acknowledging that they are run by flawed human beings... Gross. And not something I can accept from someone who claims they know how to improve education.

My two half-brothers lived in Easley and then one in Greer SC, so I was around Greenville three times a year or so growing up. It's so distressing when places pick and choose who "counts" for celebration. In many ways it feels like a good part of the US was under the impression that "of course we're all still very racist, we just have to hide it more now," since it feels like there's been this surge of open hatred since President Obama's election, as thought some secret compact was broken.

207 - The Story of Freginald by Walter R. Brooks

The fourth book in the Freddy the Pig world is about a bear, Freginald, who writes poetry and joins the circus. He has had a hard youth, as his parents couldn't agree on his name (one wanted Fred, the other Reginald). They asked his great-grandfather to name him but didn't mention he was a boy so he was named Louise and the other young bears teased him.

In reality, Freginald is quite a lot like Freddy in personality and intelligence (and of course they both write poetry). I think Brooks wanted to write about this circus but he couldn't uproot Freddy for it so along came Freginald. They travel the country, help the circus owner, and scout out other animal talent, getting into various fixes along the way.

Another lovely book. The circus reappears in at least one of the later books so I was glad to finally read their first appearance.

>273 mabith: I think my son will love these! I'll have to get some for him to try. Is it important to read them in order?

I don't think it's important to read in order (we certainly didn't as kids and I haven't as an adult). Freddy the Detective is a particularly good place to start. The way the animals can communicate with humans shifts a bit in the first six books or so (initially they can't talk to humans but what fun is that so then they can). The later books get a little space-obsessed and particularly silly, but it's not a terrible thing. Freddy the Politician is a particular favorite as well. The books deserve to be far more well known than they are. They're funny and the characterizations are just done so well (all the animals have flaws, all have good points, some accept them with grace others not so much... just so human).

How old is your son, if you don't mind my asking?

>275 mabith: He'll be 5 in December. We've been reading chapter books out loud since he turned 4. He has loved Winnie the Pooh (even though I think the language is kind of tough in those he thinks the stories are hilarious), the Bed and Biscuit series, The Mouse and the Motorcylce, and the Magic Treehouse series. Actually, his favorite was an abridged version of Moby Dick! I was surprised, but he made it through the whole thing (it was still almost 200 pages). That's the one he still talks about most.

I also have an almost 2 year old - he loves his pictures books and would sit and read with me for hours every day if I had the time!

Thanks for the info on the Freddy books.

He'll love the stories now and you'll love the humor that's a bit too old for him (I hope anyway, Freddy the Politician might be one to save for a bit due to the humor). I feel like most kids will sit and be read to if that's something they've been used to from a very young age. That nighttime reading is such a special time too. My parents still did it through fifth grade with me, because who doesn't like being read to (and when you're the youngest by big margin you have more freedom to ignore what others think is babyish). I know I loved Freddy when I was three and four and they were read to my siblings and me.

If you haven't read anything by Dick King-Smith he has some great ones, generally animal-focused. The Fox Busters and Magnus Powermouse are great favorites (out of print in the US, but can be picked up as one volume used online pretty easily).

(I will go on at great length about children's books when I can. Others focus on YA but books for the younger set are what I find most important and most magical when you get a great one. That's where we really hook them into books, after all! My first novel I read by myself as a kid was a dreadful one and an awful experience, but thankfully the second was The Hobbit.)

208 - China Dolls by Lisa See

This is the novel of three young women who all gain employment in the Chinese American nightclubs of the 1930s-40s. They meet at or on the way to auditions and come from very different backgrounds. Ruby is a fun-loving, partying, sex-having girl who's looking for fame. Grace has grown up in Ohio, with parents who worked to Americanize her and she has never seen another Chinese person apart from them (and knows nothing about Chinese traditions, the language, how to use chopsticks, etc...). She's 17 and fleeing her father's physical abuse. Helen is from a very traditional family who see themselves as one of the most important in San Francisco's Chinatown. She's a near-prisoner in her family's compound. She sees Grace looking for directions to the club and is convinced to audition as well.

I don't think this is a spoiler since it happens so early in the book, it turns out that Ruby is actually a Japanese American. The book begins in 1938 and she poses as Chinese in order to work in Chinatown and spare herself a hard time. Helen has a visceral reaction to this, as she was in China when the Japanese invaded and saw the destruction as she fled (and of course there's the centuries old dislike between the two nations). The girls are a picture of friendship while still being wary and hiding much of their history. The chronology goes all the way through WWII and a little after. The book rotates narration between the three girls.

See's books are good at building complex women, especially this book. Ruby, Grace, and Helen are new to having friends and don't quite understand the reality of it. They stumble their way through while enduring what's expected of Asian performers of the day. See did extensive research for this book, conducting many interviews with people who worked in this clubs, in this period. She's also put all her research materials online, so this pocket of mostly-forgotten history will have a home.

I have loved all of her books that I've read (haven't read the mysteries of Peony in Love yet). She's one of those authors where I'll always want to finish the book in one day. I was slightly frustrated I chose the audio edition for this one, as it could have been better, but mostly because I kept thinking "I'd be done and know what happens by now if I'd read the print book!" While this wasn't my favorite book of hers (Shanghai Girls and Dreams of Joy win that prize), it was very good.

So 208 books was my goal, since it's evenly divisible by 52, but I didn't predict I'd reach it QUITE this early. Last year I got to my divisible-by-52 goal a week and a half before the near year, so I just picked a couple very long audiobooks and listened to all but the last chapter. Certainly can't do that this year.

I've also decided I can't stop reading new-to-me books now. As I said above I don't feel that much pressure to read new books and things on my TBR list (I have a lot more time than most for reading since I can't work), but there are just a lot of books I'm excited to read. I have decided to slow it down a bit, make my kitchen audiobook a re-read instead of something new, and to only read books I'm really excited about (versus, "hmm, haven't read a science book in a while, let's see what's on the list").

I would not have guessed 11 years ago that I'd be angsting about this stuff. So silly. That's what happens when you don't work!

Not that it's related or important, but since I'd been saving the cover images of my books I've decided I'll make a calendar for next year that shows the books I read each month this year. I discovered that Collage.com made it really easy, when I was looking for an auto-collage thing to just do an image featuring all the book covers. Perhaps it will be a nice new tradition.

209 - What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund

Every reader should read this book!! I cannot stress that enough!

This book focuses on how and what we visualize when we read, and how incomplete those images really are (as they should be, since they're largely unrelated to what the character's are like as people and what's going on in the book).

It also talks about the ways we read. The way our eyes jump around picking up the most relevant information first, rather than reading one word at a time. This was a relief to me, as I thought I was the only one doing that and it worried me a bit. Obviously it won't be true for 100% of readers, I'm sure there's some variation there, but in general...

The book is filled with pictures and text effects that increase the understanding of the text. It is a short book, text-wise, and often there's just a paragraph on each page. This leaves a lot of room to make notes about your own reactions to the text and experiences of reading, which I hope to do when I re-read it. This also helps ensure that you read it more closely, rather than skimming through.

Mendelsund designs book covers and that certainly influenced the layout of the book. I can't say I love his covers, they'd rarely cause me to pick up a book on that alone, but they're not bad.

Again, everyone who loves reading should pick up this book. Highly recommended.

The Lisa See book actually sounds interesting. I read her Snow Flower and Secret Fan and really hated it -- although I do remember it and learned a lot, so maybe it wasn't all bad. I've crossed her off as an author I consider reading, but maybe I should lighten up and give her another try.

Thanks for pointing out What We See When We Read. My library has a copy, so I've put it on hold.

Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is definitely not her best book, not by a long shot (I liked it, but I don't think it compares to Shanghai Girls). It annoys me that all her books still list that on the cover under the "author of" bit. Her history of her family, On Gold Mountain, is incredibly interesting.

RE-READ The Last Hero by Terry Pratchett

In this short Discworld book a band of aged heroes are off to confront the gods and blow up their mountain home Cori Celesti. Of course Rincewind is roped into to help stop them along with Captain Carrot and Leonard of Quirm. If the mountain blows the magic will drain away which will destroy the Discworld.

It's a fun little story, and always nice to see Cohen and Rincewind, but not among my favorites. Part of this is probably because of the audio edition. It's only the fourth book since the change from Nigel Planer to Stephen Briggs reading the series. I don't like Briggs' voices for the wizards or Cohen, so that affects things a bit. Though also, it's a short but extremely busy book, and I'd almost rather Cohen not have been given a send-off. I like imagining him going back to barbarian hero-ing in the Agatean Empire and plundering his own kingdom while leaving some random servant in charge of things.

I've really enjoyed reading your thread. You have diverse reading and great reviews.

I'm from Pittsburgh and my partner is from Charleston, WV. What would you recommend reading to learn more about WV labor history?

Thanks so much, Nancy! I see we share a lot of great books. Do you have any active threads on LT right now?

Ah, I know Pittsburgh well (and my dad actually used to work at the Mt. Lebanon public library), and miss visiting greatly. I think the most comprehensive, and my favorite, book about the WV Mine Wars is Life, Work, and Rebellion in the Coal Fields. It's one that would have to be picked up used (or possibly something a library would have). David Corbin's other books are very informative too, as they're documentary histories - newspaper articles, transcripts of court cases and senate hearings. The senate hearings are particularly interesting. West Virginia labor history focuses on the southern part of the state, as in the north the switch to unionized mines was much faster and relatively bloodless (versus the 30 year literal battle in the south).

>281 mabith: Every reader should read this book!! I cannot stress that enough!

I've been looking at this book in stores and trying to convince myself to buy it. Now I will!

I put the Mendelsund on my wishlist.

A got caught up in your review of China Dolls, and i'm intrigued by your comment about On Gold Mountain. I had been only mildly interested in See. You have made me much more interested.

The first audio book i tried was a terry pratchett. I didn't finish and it was years before i tried another. I think it writing is simply too confusing for audio.

Finally, congrats on reaching 208. Impressive even if you have the extra time - and a great use of that time.

>286 mabith: Thank you so much. My grandfather was a founder of a local union here in Pittsburgh. That war was fought long before the northern mines unionized. I'm very proud of our local history and the role it played in changing the world for working people.

My partner, our son and I live in Mt. Lebanon! It still has an amazing library. At every local parade, the librarians do synchronized marching and dancing with library carts. It's wonderful.

Do you get to Taylor's? I'm quite fond of that store.

Here is my 50 Books Thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/148328

I used to be part of the 75 group, but it is too busy. I've found 50 too lonely. I think I'll jump ship to Club Read for 2015.

>288 dchaikin: See is, for me, an ideal historical fiction writer because after her books I always want to read non-fiction about the period she's writing in. I went on a total tear through mid-century Chinese history after Dreams of Joy especially. I'll have to disagree about Pratchett. So much is added to the humor in the audio readings, and I've actually only listened to Pratchett (but I grew up listening to audiobooks and to my dad telling folktales), barring re-reads of the first two Witches books, as Celia Imrie narrates those and I think she was a terrible choice. Planer and Briggs both do an excellent job. Their being packed with great lines makes them ideal for re-listening, and I'm listened to most of them five or ten times. And thanks! I'm pleased I reached that goal, and really happy with how the mix of books has been.

>289 nancyewhite: Labor history is such a fascinating topic and of course it was such an immense struggle. I'm disabled and sometimes have a home health aide. The company I go through decided to make all the clients seven-day and I was so disgusted. It's totally immoral and bad for anyone's health to work seven days a week all the time, even if you're not working 8 hours a day. People fought so hard for the weekend and now... Ugh.

Ha, I actually used to manage Taylor Books with my sister before I got sick. I still do some web stuff for them, so I'm in every month to get paid and grumble about how much nicer things were when my sister and I were in charge!

Now I'm irrationally fearful that no one will like What We See When We Read as much as I did (though at the same time it feels impossible for any serious reader to dislike). It really was just so fascinating.

It is disheartening to see labor protections being eroded. I hope the Wal-Mart protests go well today, but it is like we're moving backwards on some issues while moving forward on others.

We're definitely moving backwards. In the 1980s and 90s many unions had basically given away their right to strike at ALL, which I didn't realize (recently read Which Side Are You On? which is largely about how unions lost what power they had). While I didn't read the updated version, I have a feeling they didn't get that back...

Meanwhile in WV mines are avoiding being inspected AT ALL and the companies seem to weasel out of any responsibility for the accidents that occur as a result of that. WV is a bit of a special case, since the coal industry seriously controls the entire state (this happens for regions in most states, an industry having a lot of control, but since our urban areas here are so few and so small and coal interests have had us in their sway since 1890 or so...). No governor who is hostile to coal interests will ever be elected in WV. That's a guarantee. And until recently, we were very much a 'blue' state and still tend to elect democratic governors (have since the 30s and it's all democrats since 2001). I don't know what happened in the 2000 presidential election, though I have a feeling that Gore seriously mishandled the state (WV is a complex state, it's not culturally southern at all, and our attitude toward politicians is pretty individualistic) and religion probably came into play somehow.

Okay, rant over. We did just elect a local representative whose surname is Pushkin, which I find very pleasing (and he's a good guy).

>280 mabith: That calendar sounds like a fantastic idea! I'd be tempted to adopt it, myself, except that I'm probably far too lazy. :)

>281 mabith: I'm glad to see that you liked What We See When We Read so emphatically. I have a copy of that I'm hoping to get around to soonish, but I've been a little uncertain about it, as I'm not a very visual person, and I often don't really "see" much of anything when I read. So I'm not sure whether it will seem relevant to me or not, but I will look forward to finding out.

>288 dchaikin: I've never listened to Pratchett on audio. Now I'm wondering how they hande the footnotes.

>293 bragan: Ha, well, I was saving all the images anyway, and then the site actually did 99% of the work.

I'm not a visual reader at all either, especially not in terms of 'seeing' how a character looks. I think part of the point of the book is that really, none of us are that visual when we read and it's kind of a myth that we are. When you challenge people to describe a character's looks even self-professed very visual readers start mentioning personality traits very quickly. It was very vindicating, especially after this annoying writing course I did where the teacher was focused on physical descriptions of characters and seemed to honestly thing that the way someone's clothing was described told you boatloads about their character.

They put in the footnotes in the audiobooks. In some of the books there's a slight audio effect done for them so you know it's a footnote (though I don't think that's necessary, they just need to be read period).

>294 mabith: That sounds very reassuring, actually! I sometimes can't help feeling a little weird about the fact that everybody else seems to have a better visual imagination than I do. If most of them are fooling themselves, perhaps I will feel vindicated, too!

Now, I do sometimes get very strong and distinct character voices in my head...

I have a feeling that the people who seem to have very strong ideas on actors who should play book characters (which always baffles me a bit) are rarely basing it on more than one or two oft-repeated physical traits in the book. It seems to be more about the other roles the actor has played and the actor's own personality. When we see settings too we're not really seeing what the author describes but the closest thing we've seen that fits.

I do think you'll enjoy it. And if not, it's very short at least!

>296 mabith: People so often do seem to have firm ideas about actors who should or shouldn't play book characters, and I never do. I think you're probably right about why.

I don't visualise character at all when I'm reading and often have no idea at all what they're supposed to look like, and don't particularly care either. As soon as a book starts going into too much depth with physical descriptions of characters or objects then I start to tune out.

>294 mabith: I'd forgotten about the clothing thing. That paragraph that was physical description only which they then went on to give an explanation of all the stuff that told you about the personality... it was more that teacher putting their own biases and assumptions onto the character.

210 - Rose Under Fire by Elizabeth Wein

It has been a year or so since I picked up Wein's Code Name Verity, which was an incredibly intense and amazingly worked book. Rose Under Fire is not a sequel exactly, but does share one or two characters with the former. While this is not as psychologically tense, it was also very well done.

Rose is a young woman who has been flying for some years. Her father is British and in about 1943 she uses his and his brother's connections to get into the Air Transport Auxiliary service, mostly ferrying planes across Britain. After Paris is taken she is requested to fly her uncle over. On her way back she sees a V-1 flying bomb and is convinced it is headed for Paris. She uses her plane to send it off course, afterward is in German airspace, and forced to land. She is sent to Ravensbrück Concentration Camp and must use all her skills, including her poetry, to survive and help the "rabbits" (the women who have been experimented on) to survive and testify to the world as well.

Wein has done an excellent job in representing two rarely told war experiences, that of very young women working for the British services who were captured by Germans, and of Ravensbrück. The experiments done there have some extra horrific sense to me and after reading the book Beyond Human Endurance about the subject in 2005 or so, I took a relatively long break from Holocaust related books. Some of the experiments were so pointless, studying things we'd known for a century or more.

Wein also did a very good job with the poetry. Rose loves Edna St. Vincent Millay and her poetry shows that influence.

Definitely recommended.

RE-READ - Bad News by Donald E. Westlake

This is, in my opinion, where the Dortmunder series started to go downhill. It was written five years after the brilliant What's the Worst That Could Happen?, which felt like a very natural end point for Dortmunder.

In this novel he stumbles into an Anastasia scam with some unsavory partners. A young woman will claim to be the last member of a Native American tribe that was thought to have died out (which will in turn give her a third share in a casino) by switching out the body of her great-grandfather with that of the last full-blooded member of that tribe. As usual for poor Dortmunder, things get pretty complicated. I only read this once, in 2005 or so, and remembered very little about it. If my memory is correct, the novel after this one, Road to Ruin, isn't bad but the three final books aren't worth reading at all.

I'm not sure precisely why this and the subsequent novels feel so much less-than than the older works. Some of them I read for the first time very close together, so it's not simply an issue of differing reading ages. The humor is less sharp, perhaps, and I think Dortmunder and the increasing technology of the day just don't mix (this was published in 2001, the first Dortmunder book in 1970).

I'm glad I am not the only one who doesn't visualise characters in a book, but What we see when we read sounds interesting

What We See When We Read was out of stock when I was in my favorite bookstore today but they had already reordered so I'll go back later in the week. Should have bought it when I looked at it before.

At least they'd already ordered it! When I re-read it, maybe New Year's Eve, I think I'll make it a project and write down all my thoughts about each section. Seems like a good way to start a new reading year.

211 - Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona

I'm so glad I got this (it was a surprise, random thing). I've been wanting to read it since I heard about the reboot concept, and it didn't disappoint at all. Love the writing and love the art.

Our new Ms. Marvel is Kamala Khan, a Muslim, Pakistani American and she is brilliant. If superhero comics had been like this when I was a kid then I would have shown far more interest in them (I was a Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge girl, with a heaping helping of Funny Times magazine, Pogo, Asterix, Tintin, and Calvin and Hobbes).

Highly recommended. I'm so sad the second volume isn't out until next March. I may actually go to the comic book store and start buying the individual issues.

>304 mabith: I'm not a fan of superhero comics (although a lot of my friends are, so I've absorbed a certain amount of it from sheer osmosis, and I have enjoyed most of the Marvel movies). But everything I've heard about the new Ms. Marvel series really does make it sound right up my alley. I think your review may be the final push that puts into onto my wishlist.

It has a lot of humor to it. I read my brother's X-Men comics when I could as I kid, but only out of the youngest sibling desire to like whatever my siblings liked, they were too confusing and not at all geared for children. Ms. Marvel, so far, isn't taking itself too seriously. I suppose it's partly since she's JUST become Ms. Marvel, but still. It's also a title that is, so far, appropriate for kids as well, and that really pleases me. Those dual titles - totally enjoyable by adults and kids, are the the ones that stand the test of time.

212 - Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor by Lynda Barry

I've been following the Tumblr account that Barry keeps for her Unthinkable Mind class for about year, and it's been really fascinating. I keep telling myself to do the assignments, but then I don't.

The book is a mix of the class assignments (I think it includes each daily sheet for one of the semesters of Unthinkable Mind, but I'm not entirely sure), her inspiration for the classes, and her personal thoughts and feelings while teaching them. It's a class she's purposefully gathered of many many disciplines and particularly wanted people who stopped drawing as children. I know at points she's shown videos that will stimulate a certain area of the brain and had them draw and then stimulated a different area while they draw again.

Really interesting book if you're interested in drawing at all or in arts instruction in general.

Now that sounds interesting. I loved her comics and have a few of the collections, and I'd read an article by Barry some time ago about how she was going to teach a class, but now there's a book, and I'll have to track it down.

>307 mabith: thinking this might make a nice gift

It would be a very excellent gift! Particularly for high school art students, middle school or high school art teachers, or anyone who used to draw frequently but stopped. It's also just beautiful. Every page is illustrated, collaged, etc... Her class handouts are all done on legal pads or composition book paper and all completely filled and drawn on, like this:

213 - Away From the Vicarage by Noel Streatfeild

This is the second of Streatfeild's slightly fictionalized biographies. In this one the only fictional elements seem to be a couple of heavy flirtations (this coming from one of Streatfeild's biographers).

Streatfeild was born in 1895. During WWI her beloved cousin (who had largely lived with them growing up) died, and it seems to have derailed her life to an extent. After the war is over she went to a drama school and started working on the stage, mostly in touring shows including to South Africa and Australia. I picked this now for the very different post-war life of Streatfeild versus Vera Brittain (two years older), since I was also reading Testament of Youth. The flyleaf on this book includes the great line "She drinks, she dances, she goes to bed late!"

She weaves it all together nicely, and you can see the germ of her children's books forming. I did suddenly realize (as after this I started one of her children's books that I hadn't read before), that all of her truculent, quarrelsome characters are girls. I realize it's partly because she was that character in her own family, while her brother and cousin were very calm and easy-going (of course, they didn't HAVE to be truculent since they were treated differently as boys), but come on, Noel.

214 - Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain

What a wonderful and extremely important book. My interest was flagging very slightly in the last few chapters, as they were more "so then we did this and then we did that," versus her introspection in the rest of the book.

Brittain seems like she would have been a lovely person to know. She is thoughtful and outspoken about her beliefs (getting a good dose of feminism in a older book really cheers me), but she is realistic about her own behavior. There were several times when I was rolling my eyes at her behavior and then she would do the same to herself, putting her actions in a more realistic light.

She really lost all of her close peers in the war. Her brother, her fiance, two very close male friends. She talks in the book about how your peers are really the people who truly know you in your life, not your parents, not your children, which is true for most, I'm sure. When she died she asked that her ashes be scattered on her brother's grave, and it seems she never got over that loss.

Highly recommended. She was a remarkable woman.

215 - Gemma by Noel Streatfeild

The first in a series, basically the original Hannah Montana story - starlet lives secretly as regular girl (though with rather more depth than the Disney, I imagine). Gemma was a famous child actress but at 11 she's at that awkward stage between child and teen or adult parts (apparently). Her mother's career, which had flagged, has been reinvigorated and she's been offered a role in New York City. She's decided that Gemma is too old to leave with governesses and so sends her to her sister's house.

The Robinson family are sweet and happy, though poor, as their father has rheumatism in his hands and has to stop playing with the orchestra. Gemma's mother sends a generous stipend to them for looking after her. Gemma must face a very different family life with the down-to-earth, never braggy Robinsons and her cousins who are all talented in their own ways.

As usual, Streatfeild builds a lovely and generally believable family with complex characters. Very different from her own youth, Streatfeild's characters always have a pretty good idea of where they're going and what they want to do.

I forgot to include this excellent quote from Away From the Vicarage. Streatfeild's parents had a baby after the others were all grown, and Noel and her siblings are consistently amazed/amused/annoyed about the differences in her upbringing.
"That sort of sheltered life we had children don't have since the war. People ask them if they would like to do things and if they say no they don't do them. Imagine anyone asking us! Why, we were still being told what to do and what to wear when we were almost grown-up."

While it was probably partly that this was a late baby, it's probably also true that children of their class began to have a slightly less set childhood (and keeping children perpetually in the nursery and away from most of adult life faded a bit). Rather than a constant though I think that thinking has ebbed and flowed through the 20th century.

RE-READ The Great Brain by John D. Fitzgerald

This is among the books read to me and my siblings by our parents when I was very young (five and under) which I then didn't even think of re-reading. What I remember of them is the atmosphere, not the actions. We moved when I was 5 1/2, and then had very separate bedrooms, so the books we three heard together were no more. Perhaps it was because that atmosphere of sibling togetherness was broken that I didn't re-read this series or the Freddy the Pig books or The Witch Family as a child. Hard to say.

Reading it now was interesting. It's probably best I didn't re-read it as a kid, as I was already extremely entrepreneurial and didn't need any encouragement at trying to scam my peers out of money (I even published a tabloid). The mood swings from light to very dark (the town watching the first toilet being fitted to boys lost in a cave to attempts of suicide by a boy who had his foot amputated).

I'm curious how the second book in the series will feel. The Great Brain was originally an adult novelized memoir, following along from Fitzgerald's Papa Married a Mormon and Mamma's Boarding House, but cut up and published for children as family novels for adults were going out of style. I feel like the second must feel a bit different as it was purpose written for children, but who knows.

Still good books, especially for that 10-12 set where they can feel a bit in-between children's and YA and adult novels.

Whoa, Lynda Barry has a tumblr--link, please!

It's mostly to do with her class and assignments for it, she wins everything forever though:
http://thenearsightedmonkey.tumblr.com

216 - American Rose: The Life and Times of Gypsy Rose Lee by Karen Abbott

A biography of Gypsy Rose Lee which doesn't try too hard to figure out the inner life that Gypsy preferred to hide. It follows her childhood, her sister (June Havoc), and their undeniably warped mother.

At the same time it gives us a little history of vaudeville, burlesque, and being an entertainer during the Great Depression.

I've never had a particular interest in Gypsy Rose Lee, knowing the name more than anything else, but it was a really interesting book. It flowed well, was well written, and didn't really go in for guess work at all. The inclusion of history which wasn't strictly about Gypsy rounded the work out without feeling forced or truly off-topic. Recommended.

217 - The Damned Utd by David Peace

This a fictionalized account of Brian Clough's 44 days managing Leeds United with many flashbacks to his time managing Derby Co and some job hunting post Leeds. While the audio edition was really well-read, with all the anger and frustration voiced, it was a bit difficult because the flashbacks comes so frequently. The scene changes paragraph to paragraph at times.

I saw the movie they did based on the book/Clough a couple years ago and really enjoyed it. He is a slightly more positive, or perhaps just more human, figure in the movie than in the book where his constant anger and stress dominate. Despite that, you root for Clough and clean football as you go. It's a short, intense book.

Recommended for football/soccer fans.

I'm a fan of David Peace but I've avoided that one because I have no interest in soccer.

I think probably anyone who watched the movie and liked it would like the book, but yeah it's definitely a more niche title. I'm curious what more fannish people than me think of it (I love watching soccer, and I know the game well enough to be a vehement couch-coach, but basically it doesn't matter who's playing and don't quiz me on history, players, etc...).

What else would you recommend by Peace?

>317 mabith:

Thanks, followed! She is great.

Football (soccer) fan here, but I have not read The Damned United, although I have often been tempted.

I like David Peace's novels, too, but doubt I'll read any of the footie ones. I'm halfway through his Red Riding Quartet, which is unrelentingly grim, but also compelling.

Very good to know his other works are good too! The Damned Utd is quite short, if intense and full to the brim with swearing. Good to read if you're feeling really angry about something, probably!

>324 RidgewayGirl: unrelentingly grim, but also compelling A perfect description of the Peace novels I've read (Red Riding Quartet and GB84).

RE-READ The Blade of Fortriu by Juliet Marillier

This is the second book in the Bridei chronicles. At my initial reading I was very let down, mostly due to the focus shifting to other characters (which Marillier usually does, but shifts it to the younger generation, versus peers of the former main characters as she does here). The first book in the series The Dark Mirror had absolutely blown me away.

In this book, much of the focus is on Faolan, Bridei's chief bodyguard and spy, and Ana, a royal hostage. A husband has been found for her and they're journeying to meet him, but there's trouble along the way and more trouble when the prospective husband is everything Ana dislikes.

I purposefully read this alone, without proceeding it with a re-reading of The Dark Mirror in an attempt to look at it as a single book. It is a good book, no less than any of hers, though it is still not a favorite. I think this is partially because the book does not stand alone well. Unlike the Sevenwaters trilogy, which can be satisfactorily read out of order or without finishing the series. This trilogy requires you to read in order, and the second book is a little awkward, as Faolan is left in the middle of his development as a character when it ends. Not that this is necessarily bad, or uncommon, but I prefer things that can stand alone and it is a different style than her other writings.

218 - Bad Feminist by Roxane Gay

This is a good set of essays that range from the personal to the politically personal to the generally political. The title comes from Gay's media derived picture of feminism when she was younger, a twisted caricature made of crude stereotypes ignoring the main goals of feminism. That's not something that I can relate to much, so in those parts of the book I was mainly puzzled.

There are sections on gender and sexuality, race and entertainment, and politics, gender and race. A lot of that was repeat information for me, as I've been pretty tuned into those discussions for the past couple years, but they were well-written and interesting even so.

There are, of course, some places where Gay screws up. I was disappointed when she listed groups left out of mainstream (often cis, hetero, white) feminism and didn't have disabled people on there. She didn't even mention disability later on when bringing up a quote from a feminist who stated that a woman who isn't working is hurting feminism (she only mentioned those who chose not to work). She mentioned trans women being shut out, but her language in the sections about birth control and abortion rights exclude trans men who often need those services as well.

Her views on trigger warnings (she doesn't really like them) ignore what to me is paramount - that a) some people have extreme PTSD reactions to triggers and b) we all know we'll be triggered in many spaces, but if you can possibly warn someone ahead of time and save them one extra moment of stress, why wouldn't you? It doesn't censor you to say, "Hey, I'll be talking about this later, be aware of that." In one place she also talked about psychopaths and sociopaths as though these were synonyms for criminality and all people with those disorders were automatically criminals.

I would certainly still recommend this book, particularly if you're not all that tuned in to these issues and particularly for high school and college women who often have that warped view of feminism. Her essays about media are especially important. I listened to the audiobook which was really well read, with all the anger and disbelief and humor present.

219 - The Property by Rutu Modan

This is a graphic novel about an elderly woman returning to Poland with her granddaughter, ostensibly to see about regaining property taken from her family during WWII. Regina Segal, the grandmother, is extremely cagey about everything and what she tells her granddaughter Mica, varies quite a bit.

It was an interesting and enjoyable book, very realistic in the way people and families operate. I enjoyed the art too, which is in the ligne claire style pioneered by Herge.

220 - The Siege by Ismail Kadare

Kadare has stated that this is not a historical novel, though similar events have happened all throughout history (sieges in general, but also between these two countries/empires). However, this is a generic siege, a generic army, tied to no specific action.

The Ottoman Empire is besieging a fortress in Albania, and while war is at the heart of the book it doesn't feel like a military novel. The Ottoman camp is somewhat allegorical to the communist regime Kadare had lived under most of his life (born in 1936) and was living under when this book was published (just after the country was declared an atheist state by Hoxha).

Chronicles make up another key idea of the book, as a good bit of our time with the Ottoman army is centered around the chronicler brought to tell the story of the siege and there are very short chapters interspersed which read as a chronicle of the siege written by an Albanian in the fortress.

It's a very rich book, and I really enjoyed reading it. I'm not a big fan of strictly military novels, and again, this didn't feel like one. It was more focused on life in the Ottoman camp, the various key players and their relationships, the psychology of all-powerful leaders and soldiers, etc... It all worked very well.

Recommended!

Finding you is bad for my Wishlist. I added American Rose and The Property today.

I subscribe to Rumpus Letters in the Mail, and Roxane Gay wrote one of my favorite letters in all that I've received so Bad Feminist was already on my list.

I'm really enjoying your list.

I'll keep Bad Feminist in mind for when I want a book like that. Thanks for being the first one here to review it.

Interesting trio of books from Monday

>329 mabith: One thing i really appreciated about The Property was how Modan managed to make it a fun book without lessening anything.

>331 nancyewhite: Thanks! Being bad for a TBR means it's been a good reading season!

>332 RidgewayGirl: Bad Feminist is probably a great one to dip in and out of, rather than read in a sitting. With audiobooks of course, it's not really an option.

>329 mabith: Yes! That's it exactly with The Property, which I hadn't thought of. The balance is really good and that's part of what made it so realistic, probably (plus the way it ended).

Sounds like you really engaged with Bad Feminist Meredith. I enjoyed your excellent review

Thanks, Barry! I'm not usually reading that much where I really know the subject matter well, which certainly made for a different reading experience.

221 - The Chosen by Chaim Potok

This is the story of two Jewish boys growing up in Brooklyn during and after WWII. Reuven is from a Modern Orthodox community, his father is a Talmudic scholar, while Danny is from a Hasidic community which his father leads. Danny's father, Reb Saunders, permits their friendship in part to use Reuven as a buffer to talk to his son.

It's a novel about traditions, silences, and friendships. It flows through the events of the wider world but retains its narrow focus on Danny and Reuven.

I don't know exactly what to say about it, but I really enjoyed it. Reuven and Danny are unusual young men but by and large it felt like a very realistic portrait.

222 - West of Kabul, East of New York: An Afghan American Story by Tamim Ansary

I've read two other books by Ansary, Games Without Rules and Destiny Disrupted, which I loved, so I was excited when the library had his memoir. This was his first published book, and it seems to have sprung into being after an e-mail he wrote to friends post-9/11 become widely known.

Ansary, child of an American mother and Afghani father, was born in 1948 and grew up in Afghanistan. He witnessed a variety of changes in the country, particularly when it comes to education. At 16 he started attending an American boarding school. With his sister going to an American college, his mother moved to the US with his younger brother. Their father briefly worked as some sort of ambassador or diplomat but when his fortunes fell and he was removed from that job he chose to remain in Afghanistan.

The book follows Ansary's life through college and after, an extensive trip through the middle east, and his work with charities set up to aid Afghanis during the 1970s.

It's an interesting life and an interesting book. Ansary illuminates a lot of details about Afghanistan that most Americans will be ignorant of, and I really enjoy his writing style (particularly with him reading the audiobook). I think it's a particularly interesting book for others born around 1948, just to add another life experience to how they think about their youth.

Definitely recommended, though if you only read one Ansary book, make it Destiny Disrupted: A History of the World Through Islamic Eyes.

223 - Safekeeping by Karen Hesse

I was extremely fond of Hesse's books when I was in grade school and middle school, starting with Letters From Rifka. She's a wonderful children's/YA writer, and she often tackles difficult subjects. In middle school I would re-read all her books (that my library had) every single month (along with new books), because I so wanted them imprinted on my heart.

This is a bit of a departure, being a present day/near future Dystopian story. That aspect was a little confusing to me. The president of the US is assassinated and the American People's Party (APP) has taken over (think Tea Party or the BNP). Only later it's said that president was apparently a member of the APP, so I don't know. The US is in chaos, people being rounded up, electricity spotty, roaming gangs, snipers, etc...

Radley, our protagonist, has been in Haiti working with an orphanage. When the assassination is announced she flies home only to find that she doesn't have the papers needed to get to her town. Her parents' phone is disconnected, her cell phone is dead, and she has no money. She walks to her town in Vermont to find her house empty and no sign of her parents. The police bang on the door at intervals and she hides in fear, dumpster diving at night and not attempting to, you know, contact anyone she knows (barring one person) in her small town. Sigh. She decides to walk to Canada and meets up with another young woman who's traveling there.

I just don't know about this book. I don't tend to like dystopian themes anyway, but I couldn't suspend my disbelief for some intervals. I would have liked it more in middle school probably, but even that's hard to say (I was pretty focused on the past in my reading). It's a dark book, and that's fine, but Radley is more distrustful (in certain ways) than seems realistic (and there's one instant where she's far too trusting). Perhaps Hesse was trying to convey how confused and shaken Radley was by not being clear about the political situation, or only giving us what Radley knew, but it really was baffling and made it hard to take the book seriously.

224 - William Shakespeare's Star Wars: Verily, A New Hope by Ian Doescher

Being both a fan of the original trilogy and Shakespeare, I snapped these up when they were published. I'd look at a page or two, look up how a favorite line was rendered, and then put it back on the shelf. I've read plenty of plays cold before, never having seen a production, but it takes more motivation these days.

Then I found the audio editions! They are multi-cast recordings and the stage directions are read as well. The readers do a good job of mimicking the original cast and it was a really fun listen. Rather than just doing the script straight there are interior monologues inserted for various characters (I admit I really didn't care for the ones they did for R2D2).

I do wish they had inserted more archaic words where appropriate rather than just changing sentence structure and using thee, thy, though, dost, etc... All in all, great fun though. Reminds me of being in 7th grade and listening to Star Wars radio broadcast on NPR every week on the way home from my clarinet lessons.

225 - The Secret Life of Bletchley Park by Sinclair McKay

This was a relatively enjoyable book, and talks directly to people who worked at the park about how they started, what the work was like, what the social aspect was like, etc... It's much less about the timeline of discoveries that helped the war effort. It's also just about the nature about having to keep this huge aspect of your life secret both during and after the war.

While the information was all interesting, the books felt scattered and disorganized. I listened to the audiobook and sometimes that can enhance those feelings, but I think this one would feel like that in print too. I'm not sure exactly what I expected from this, I've already read a book about the enigma machine and the work on that. Given what's covered in this, I'm not sure it could be organized all that well.

Recommended for the WWII completest, but maybe not the casual reader.

226 - I am the Messenger by Markus Zusak (everywhere but the US it was published as The Messenger, which is a much better title, really.)

I'm not quite sure how to describe this book. It's sort of YA magical realism maybe? Ed Kennedy is in his late teens, working as a taxi driver. One day he does something brave and then he receives a playing card in the mail, with a list of addresses on it. At each address he finds something is wrong, and intuits that he's supposed to help. He receives more cards throughout the book, which sometimes require deciphering.

If you've only read Zusak's The Book Thief you're missing out, and you won't realize that he has a great talent for writing teenage boys realistically and smartly. Often with YA novels there are characters who are written as we would have liked to be as teens (confident, cool, smart, and funny at all times), and those characters jar me, they never seem true to life. If there's one feeling that is nearly inescapable as a teen it's insecurity, though many of us are good at hiding that and it's easy to forget how things really felt once we're adults.

While I enjoyed this book, it won't be a favorite. The premise was a bit too silly for me, though I like the lessons the book conveys (the power of small acts, the importance of paying attention to the world and not just focusing on ourselves). Whether or not the premise of this book sounds interesting I do highly recommend Zusak's Fighting Ruben Wolfe and its sequel Getting the Girl (non-US title: When Dogs Cry). If you're struggling for book gifts for teenage boys, I really recommend those two as they have some very important lessons.

227 - How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman

This cover is so much nicer than the US one! So unfair!

Ruth Goodman is a historian who has taken part in numerous projects where she and other historians and archeologists work a farm in a certain historical period (with a pretty fixed date) for a year. I don't know if this is always called experimental archeology, but that's what they call it on the most recent show she's on. The TV shows covering this are basically my favorite thing ever, and I've grown incredibly fond of Goodman. Her focus is domestic/social history which is my favorite thing to study. She has an endless enthusiasm for this work even when it's incredibly difficult (such as all laundry forever until the modern washing machine was invented).

The book covers every day life as a Victorian by studying the routines of a single day (though I know that sounds a bit simplistic, it's not really), which is highly effective. She talks about all classes of society, differences between town and country but also between north and south, and compares the same needs at the beginning of the Victorian period and at the end.

Once I started reading the book I found it extremely difficult to put down. It's something that I could have easily read in a day, but I purposefully slowed myself down so I could enjoy it for a longer period (something I rarely do). Goodman's writing is compelling and in many places she has her own experiences to add. The book is full of small pictures throughout the text as well as one small glossy section.

Highly recommended to everyone. If you read one book about the Victorian period, make it this one.

I'd never thought about audio versions of those Shakespeare Star Wars books! I doubt I'd have read the actual books, but audio sounds really fun.

As usual, catching up. Loved The Chosen, intrigued by How to be a Victorian partly because of your response, and taking note of your encouragement to read for Zusak.

The Chosen is one I can easily see myself re-reading, especially in times where I need a quieter book. I'll have to search out the movie.

It really is the best book for understanding the Victorian era outside of our stereotypical view. I'm probably influenced in my love for having seen the author on so many shows and actually living as a Victorian with her infectious enthusiasm.

With Zusak I put off reading The Book Thief for a long time, because I didn't think it would live up to Fighting Ruben Wolfe and its sequel, which I'm sure sounds funny to anyone who has only read the former.

228 - Winter Holiday by Arthur Ransome

This is the fourth book in the Swallows and Amazons series, this time taking place during the winter. The Walker children (the Swallows) are staying near the Blacketts (the Amazons) for the winter while their mother goes to visit their father overseas. They meet and become friends with Dorothea and Dick who are also staying on the island and who are "town children." Their winter vacation gets extended by a full month due to Nancy contracting the mumps and the rules of boarding schools not allowing children back if they've been around a contagious disease. I can't remember if it had made clear they were all boarders in the other books but I didn't realize it.

Very enjoyable, though I found it rather odd that Dorothea was extremely concerned about the other children seeing her brother as more than just a common or garden variety nerd. I don't think my siblings cared even a tiny bit about what anyone thought of me. Granting they're much older, but it seems unlikely that one of my brothers bothered about how anyone thought of our sister, and they're closer to having a similar age gap to the Ds (I think).

These really are the perfect books for the child I was. Very imaginative, looking on imagination as a totally GOOD thing, and kids getting to be relatively self-sufficient.

RE-READ The Well of Shades by Juliet Marillier

The final book in the Bridei trilogy. I definitely enjoyed and appreciated this and the previous one much much when I separated it from the first in the series, The Dark Mirror. Partly that's due to Faolan, who's really the main focus in the second two books, and the female protagonist in the second one was the type to bore me (sooo perfect and ladylike).

In this Faolan, Bride's bodyguard, assassin, and spy, goes back to his home for the first time since he left his family as a teenager. He also goes to bring word to the family of a fallen comrade and discovers the man had a daughter who has been mistreated.

Probably part of my reaction is that I'm not much for the "broody bad boy who's finally learning to let his feelings in" trope (Marillier does not work in simple cliches, but you know what I mean). I much prefer the "good guy trained for certain things needs to decide whether or not to break with convention to follow his heart" of the first book. Marillier does the atypical hero much more to my satisfaction in the second book of the Sevenwaters trilogy Son of the Shadows.

Still, I enjoyed this one much more, partly for Ella, who's a great protagonist, and a LOT happens in this one in a lot of different settings. Marillier could have gotten two books out of it, but I'm glad it was combined.

RE-READ A Girl Named Zippy by Haven Kimmel

Wonderfully funny memoir of Kimmel's childhood in Mooreland, Indiana in the late 1960s and early 70s. She has a somewhat dysfunctional family, but that is not at all the focus of the book. Instead it's just about being a kid in a very small town. About making friends, about weird neighbors, about being the youngest in a family, etc...

If you can get the audiobook, I really recommend it. Kimmel herself reads it and her voices sucks you straight back to childhood and the kid she must have been. (Warning - the "Quaker" meeting they attend is somewhat of an aberration, extremely conservative and the type that has a preacher, don't take away any ideas about Quakerism from this book!)

Noting A Girl Named Zippy in mind for audio.

Here are the covers of all the new-to-me books I read this year! Image links to the full size version.



Without even thinking about it my natural ratio between (adult) fiction and non-fiction is still 60/40 in favorite of non-fiction.

My book calendars should also be here this week. One shows the books I read for each month this year and the other has covers from to TBR list. Seeing the covers is a much better reminder than just looking at the text list. It's somewhat ridiculous how much I enjoyed the busywork of finding and saving higher quality cover images (so much pain when the nicest cover just can't be found in a large enough image). Also All the Birds, Singing seems to have about a dozen fabulous covers.

>351 mabith: That's really cool! How did you do it?

I just saved the covers and then added them individually to a large blank file in Photoshop. Pretty tedious!

I ordered my calendars from collage.com, which arranges all the images into a pleasingly even rectangle, a la this (it's the March page, I think):


But they won't let you save the full, large images (and other 'collage' makers online didn't allow for that many images), so the full one-page image had to be done by hand.

Love the pictures of your books-read-in-2014covers.

Thanks for explaining, Meredith. It sounds daunting (and too time consuming), but I'm very impressed by your effort -- both the calendar page and you own montage are stunning.

>354 dchaikin: Thanks!

If you do it as you read and review it's no time at all. For the calendar I needed larger images than I can get from LT, but for the one I did myself the book images were all saved to be 200 px high, so I'd just snag a book cover from the touchstone page when I reviewed and add it to the main image then. When I was going back and saving everything from the first half of the year that took more time, but I could listen to an audiobook while I did it and the busywork of it was a bit stress-relieving.

>351 mabith: That looks fantastic Meredith and you are right in saying that book covers can lodge in your memory better than a line of Text, especially if you like/dislike the book covers, because then you start thinking about the book again

The calendars are cool too.

>351 mabith: Sweet!

That's the nice thing with the TBR calendar, I could largely pick the cover I liked best, rather than whatever was actually printed in the US in the currently available format. Should entice me easily.

It's over! The year in review:

Top Ten Fiction Reads in 2014:
Fledgling by Octavia Butler
The Martian by Andy Weir
Master and God by Lindsey Davis
All Our Names by Dinaw Mengestu
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
The Siege by Ismail Kadare
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Top Ten Non-fiction Reads in 2014:
Why Does He Do That? by Lundy Bancroft
Rez Life by David Treuer
Games Without Rules by Tamim Ansary
1941: The Year That Keeps Returning by Slavko Goldstein
Forgotten Voices of the Somme by Joshua Levine
Paris 1919 by Margaret MacMillan
Gifts of the Crow by John Marzluff
Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale
How to be a Victorian by Ruth Goodman
Millions Like Us: Women's Lives in the Second World War by Virginia Nicholson

Top Ten Children's/YA Reads in 2014:
The Rescuers by Margery Sharp
Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L'Engle
Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani
Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhha Lai
Accidents of Nature by Harriet McBryde Johnson
Girls Like Us by Gail Giles
Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

2015 thread: http://www.librarything.com/topic/185274