Librariansteffen's 2014 Reading

Here we go again... I am going to try for 156 (or 3 books a week) this year. I read 171 last year, but I was on sabbatical for part of the year so that upped the reading time significantly.




I am also keeping track by category at in the 2014 Category challenge at: www.librarything.com/topic/172142

1. Unthinkable by Nancy Werlin

2. Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

3. Bristol House by Beverly Swerling

Happy New Year librarian & good luck with your 2014 reading challenges. I look forward to following you.

Welcome back, and it looks like you're already on track!

You've made agood start already. Welcome back!

Finally back from the study abroad course I taught in Europe this month and home to better Internet:

4. Paris Architect

5. City of Lost Dreams

6. Ghost Dance In Berlin

7. Amsterdam (Russell Shorto)

8. Signal and Noise

9. Road to Berlin

10. Salinger Contract

11. Stella Bain

12. Lowland

13. Careless In Red

14. Rose Under Fire

15. Into the Still Blue

16. Still Life With Breadcrumbs

17. New Countess

18. Under A Wide and Starry Sky

19. Voyage of the Jerle Shannara: Ilse Witch

20. How the Irish Saved Civilization

21. Gifts of the Jews

22. Killer

23. Desire of the Everlasting Hills

24. My Life in Middlemarch

25. Spiderwoman's Daughter

26. Museum of Extraordinary Things

27. What We Have Lost Is Nothing

28. Aleppo Codex

29. Stitches (Lamott)

30. Rust: Visitor in the Field

31. Rust: secrets of the cell

32. Strobe Edge 1.

33. Mysteries of the Middle Ages

34. Cambridge

35. War Brothers

36. Will and Whit

37. Nothing Could Possibly Go Wrong

I would be interested to hear your thoughts on both #26 and #27.

I do not have a lot to say about the Museum of Extraordinary Things, except that it seems to me that Alice Hoffman is trying to apply her magic realism to a historical subject with facts and that it works sometimes and sometimes not. Not my favorite Alice Hoffman or historical fiction.

What We Have Lost Is Nothing would have been an interesting story and quick read about the consequences of burglary in an inner ring suburb, except that I live in that suburb (Oak Park) and in that neighborhood (east side bordering on Chicago). First, she got the geography all wrong with streets intersecting that are parallel and placing the whole neighborhood in the wrong place which was annoying to me, but also impacts the story. Second, the events of the story, day time burglary and home invasion, are very real things that happen in my neighborhood and are very complex events to respond to because of Oak Park's commitment to racial and economic diversity. We are not perfect, but we are trying. The resolution of the story did not make sense and was pretty unrealistic and there could have been a lot more character development.

I agree with you about the Hoffman. It just fell a bit flat for me. The placement of the historical events felt stilted and didn't ring true within the story.

I did like the Hoffman more than you though. I understand how annoying it is when you read about an area with which you are familiar and the author doesn't get it right. When the reader knows the subject better than the author it can never end happily.

38. Big Girl Small

39. Brunelleschi's Dome

40. Dogs of War

41. Adventures of Superhero Girl

42. Freakboy

43. Leonardo and the Last Supper

44. Relish

45. Little History of Literature

I'm disappointed to hear that about Museum of Extraordinary Things--I love her work, and I'd been looking forward to getting to that newest one....

46. Love and Treasure

47. Hotel on Place Vendome

48. Two Boys Kissing

49. Astonish Me

50. Wonder Women

51. Mother Mother

52. Dr. Bird's Advice for Sad Poets

53. This is the Story of a Happy Marriage

54. Help for the Haunted

55. Mind Mgt

56. Other Story

57. Visible City

Looks like you're well on track for 100! Congratulations on reaching the halfway point already.

58. Storied Life of A. J. Fiery

59. Farewell to Arms

60. William Shakespeare's Star Wars

61. Alena

62. Inferno

63. Saving Italy

64. Juliet

65. Galileo's Daughtrt

66. Serpent of Venice

67. To Be Perfectly Honest

68. Allegiant

69. Boxers

70. Better Nate Than Ever

71. Saints

72. Golden Boy (Sullivan)

73. Branded by the Pink Triangle

74. Charm & Strange

75. Golden Boy

76. Winger

77. Midwinterblood

78. Antrax

79. Morgawr

80. And Dark Sacred Night

81. Possibilities

82. Fallen Beauty

83. Jarka Ruus

84. Body of Death

85. Lovers at the Chameleon Club, Paris 1932

86. Nazi Hunters

87. Destroyer Angel

88. Tanequil

89. Reign of Error

90. The Arsonist

91. Heretics and Heroes

92. Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands

93. Cuckoos Calling

94. We Were Liars

95. Year Zero

96. Straken

97. Wards of Faerie

98. Early Decision

99. Danubia

100. The Danube (Thorp)

101. The Danube: a cultural history

102. Sex and Violence

103. Give War and a Peace a Chance

104. Hidden

105. Hundred Year House

106. Blood fire Quest

107. Prime Minister's Secret Agent

108. Witch Wraith

109. Shadow Hero

110. Shackleton

111. I always loved you

112. Late Scholar

113. I Am Having So Much Fun Here Without You

114. Mockingbird Next Door

115. Girls of August

116. Phantoms on the bopokshelves

117. Magician's Land

118. Care and Management of Lies

119. Sense and Sensibility (Trollope)

120. Devil In the Grove

121. Conversion

122. Last Train to Paris

123. All the Light There Was

124. Beautiful American

125. Kill Artist

126. English Assassin

127. The Confessor

128. The Good Spy

129. High Druid's Blade

130. Fortune Hunter

131. 1913

132. Small Blessings

133. Bones Never Lie

134. Dear Committee Members

135. Children Act

136. Bittersweet

137. Believing the Lie

138. Like No Other

139. Only Emily

140. Gospel of Winter

141. How Paris Became Paris

142. Paris Reborn

143. When Paris Went Dark

144. Dogs of Littlefield

145. To Dwell In Darkness

146. Twilight of the Belle Epoque

147. Lisette's List

148. Murder 101

149. Paris At the End of the World

150. Atlantia

151. Pro

152. First Impressions

153. El Deafo

154. Blue lily, lily blue

155. Paris In Love

156. Wild Things: Acts pf Mischief in Children's Literature

157. Brown Girl Dreaming

158. Gilded Youth

159. Belzhar

160. Paris Discovered

161. This One Summer

162. And We Stay

163. Berlin: portrait of a city through the centuries

164. Berlin: a cultural guide

165. Gay Berlin

166. Husband's Secret

167. Big Little Lies

168. Gray Mountain

169. Leaving times

171. Tulip Fever

172. Impossible Knife of Memory

173. The Collapse

Done!