Rebeccanyc Reads from the TBR . . . Or Does She? Volume III

Currently Reading

 

Read in August
61. Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
60. He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum
59. The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
58. The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier*
57. Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson
56. Eva's Eye by Karin Fossum
55. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
54. Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum
53. Deception by Denise Mina (in the UK, this is Sanctum) (started in July)

Read in July
52. Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado*
51. Desert by J.M.G. Le Clézio
50. Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George
49. The invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
48. The Buddha's Return by Gaito Gazdanov
47. Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov edited by Robert Chandler (started in May)
46. Hit Me by Lawrence Block
45. Hit and Run by Lawrence Block
44. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope (started in June)

Read in June
43. Hit Parade by Lawrence Block
42. Hit List by Lawrence Block
41. Hit Man by Lawrence Block
40. Just a Corpse at Twilight by Janwillem van de Wetering
39. Juan the Landless by Juan Goytisolo
38. Dark City Lights: New York Stories edited by Lawrence Block
37. The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán

Discussed on Previous Threads

Read in June
36. La Débâcle by Émile Zola (started in May)

Read in May
35. Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
34. Tyrant Banderas by Ramón del Valle-Inclán*
33. The Earth by Émile Zola*
32. Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm
31. The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky*
30. The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm* (started in April)

Read in April
29. Voyage along the Horizon by Javier Marías
28. The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
27. The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
26. The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov*
25. An Olympic Death by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
24. Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo (started in March)
23. Between You & Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris*
22. Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós
21. Game of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri
20. The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous
19. The Wrong Side of Paris by Honoré de Balzac* (started in March)

Read in March
18. Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov*
17. The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
16. The Hollow-Eyed Angel by Janwillem van de Wetering
15. Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
14. Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
13. Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai*
12. Hard Rain by Janwillem van de Wetering

Read in February
11. The Three Leaps of Wang Lun by Alfred Döblin*
10. Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida edited by Robert Chandler*
9. The Rattle-Rat by Janwillem ven de Wetering
8. The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki*

Read in January
7. Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
6. The Streetbird by Janwillem van de Wetering
5. My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose
4. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope*
3. Honeydew by Edith Pearlman*
2. The Mind-Murders by Janwillem van de Wetering
1. Orient Express (Stamboul Train) by Graham Greene

List by Country of Books Read (Nationality of Author)

Asia
India
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose

Europe
England & the UK
The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
Deception by Denise Mina (in the UK, this is Sanctum)
Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope
The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope
Orient Express by Graham Greene

France
Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
Desert by J.M.G. Le Clézio
La Débâcle by Émile Zola
The Earth by Émile Zola
The Wrong Side of Paris by Honoré de Balzac

Germany
The Three Leaps of Wang Lun by Alfred Doblin

Italy
Game of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri

Poland
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki

The Netherlands
Just a Corpse at Twilight by Janwillem van de Wetering
The Hollow-Eyed Angel by Janwillem van de Wetering
Hard Rain by Janwillem van de Wetering
The Rattle-Rat by Janwillem van de Wetering
The Streetbird by Janwillem van de Wetering
The Mind-Murders by Janwillem van de Wetering

Norway
He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum
Eva's Eye by Karin Fossum
Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum

Russia
The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
The Buddha's Return by Gaito Gazdanov
Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov edited by Robert Chandler
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida edited by Robert Chandler

Spain
Juan the Landless by Juan Goytisolo
The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Tyrant Banderas by Ramón del Valle-Inclán
Voyage along the Horizon by Javier Marías
An Olympic Death by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous

South and Central America and the Caribbean
Argentina
The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo

Brazil
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado

Cuba
The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier

Peru
The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa

USA and Canada
US Fiction
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson
Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George
Hit Me by Lawrence Block
Hit and Run by Lawrence Block
Hit Parade by Lawrence Block
Hit List by Lawrence Block
Hit Man by Lawrence Block
Dark City Lights: New York Stories edited by Lawrence Block
Honeydew by Edith Pearlman

US Nonfiction
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett

List by Time Written of Books Read

21st Century
Deception by Denise Mina (in the UK, this is Sanctum)
Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George
Hit Me by Lawrence Block
Hit and Run by Lawrence Block
Hit Parade by Lawrence Block
Dark City Lights: New York Stories edited by Lawrence Block
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much: The True Story of a Thief, a Detective, and a World of Literary Obsession by Allison Hoover Bartlett
Game of Mirrors by Andrea Camilleri
The Discreet Hero by Mario Vargas Llosa
Our Endless Numbered Days by Claire Fuller
Honeydew by Edith Pearlman

20th Century
He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum
The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier
Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson
Eva's Eye by Karin Fossum
Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum
Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado
Desert by J.M.G. Le Clézio
The invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Buddha's Return by Gaito Gazdanov
Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov edited by Robert Chandler
Hit Parade by Lawrence Block
Hit List by Lawrence Block
Hit Man by Lawrence Block
Just a Corpse at Twilight by Janwillem van de Wetering
Juan the Landless by Juan Goytisolo
The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Roadside Picnic by Arkady Strugatsky and Boris Strugatsky
Tyrant Banderas by Ramón del Valle-Inclán
Psychoanalysis: The Impossible Profession by Janet Malcolm
The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Voyage along the Horizon by Javier Marías
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
An Olympic Death by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán
Thus Were Their Faces by Silvina Ocampo
Pushkin Hills by Sergei Dovlatov
Clear Light of Day by Anita Desai
The Three Leaps of Wang Lun by Alfred Doblin
All the Janwillem van de Weterings
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida edited by Robert Chandler (some stories)
My Kind of Girl by Buddhadeva Bose
Orient Express by Graham Greene

19th Century
Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo
The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov by Anton Chekhov
The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope
Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov edited by Robert Chandler
Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope
La Débâcle by Émile Zola
The Earth by Émile Zola
The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
Tristana by Benito Pérez Galdós
The Wrong Side of Paris by Honoré de Balzac
Phineas Finn by Anthony Trollope
Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida edited by Robert Chandler (some stories)
The Manuscript Found in Saragossa by Jan Potocki
Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope
The Way We Were by Anthony Trollope

16th Century
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous

Books Recommended by Others
(Idea for this stolen from Deebee's thread)

Carried Over from Previous Years
The Recognitions by William Gaddis Recommended by EnriqueFreeque
Arabian Sands and The Marsh Arabs by Wilfred Thesiger Recommended by Linda92007
The Exile Book of Yiddish Women Writers and Found Treasures edited by Frieda Johles Forman Recommended by Cyrel/torontoc
Mao's Last Revolution by Roderick MacFarquhar and Michael Schoenhals Recommended by Edwin
In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language by Joel Hoffman Recommended by Jonathan
A Natural History of Latin by Tore Janson Recommended by Jonathan
Story of a Secret State by Jan Karski Recommended by Lisa
The Medusa Frequency by Russell Hoban Recommended by Suzanne/Poquette
The Dream of Scipio by Iain Pears Recommended by Suzanne/poquette

New Recommendations for 2015
By Night the Mountain Burns by Juan Tomás Ávila Laurel Recommended by SassyLassy
The Fortunes of Africa by Martin Meredith Recommended by AnnieMod
Books Burn Badly by Manuel Rivas Recommended by charl08
Outlaws by Javier Cercas Recommended by Darryl/kidzdoc

Welcome to my third thread. I decided to start it even though I haven't finished a new book because I had time today. I'll post a review when I finish my current book, The Buenos Aires Quintet.

Look at me...first through the door!

If you get to The Medusa Frequency this year I'll be very curious to see what you think. It wasn't until recently that I learned Hoban was a novelist, only being familiar with the picture books about Frances the badger (which are genius in their way).

Welcome, Linda! And Meredith, I have no idea when, or if, I will acquire The Medusa Frequency, as I'm trying, not very successfully, to read from my TBR this year.

Happy new thread!

Congrats on finishing up your Zola adventure. I had a roommate in college who went bonkers over Zola, truly, I kept thinking of her while reading your reviews.

Thanks and welcome, Rhonda and Lucy.

I finished The Buenos Aires Quintet yesterday, but won't have a chance to review it until tomorrow at least.

Will be waiting impatiently for your review of The Buenos Aires Quintet. I used to like Montalban but then I found that his later books became too pessimistic and bitter for my taste. I'm pretty sure I haven't read these (I assume there are several books - 5 maybe? But shouldn't it be called a trilogy if it has five books? Sorry, bad joke, I've started re-reading the Hitchhiker's Guide "trilogy of five").

Florence, it is just a single novel in the Pepe Carvalho series. The quintet refers to both a band for the tango (which is featured a lot in the novel) and, I think, the five chapters. It is definitely a pessimistic novel. I hope to review it later today, but we'll see.

>12 rebeccanyc: I've got that on the shelf unread. Must get to it! Look forward to your comments.

37. The Buenos Aires Quintet by Manuel Vázquez Montalbán



This book was unlike any other Pepe Carvalho novel that I have read so far. In it, Pepe travels to Argentina, at the request of his uncle, to search for his cousin, Raúl Tourón. Raúl had initially fled Argentina for Spain, at the time of the so-called Dirty War 20 years earlier, but has returned, worrying his father. At the time, his wife was supposedly killed and his infant daughter was among the "disappeared," presumably being "adopted" by someone high in the regime. It develops that Raúl is searching for his daughter, as well as wanting to receive some kind of compensation for his scientific work which is now being exploited by businessmen, businessmen undoubtedly connected to some of the killers of the prior dictatorship.

That's about as straightforward as this novel gets. Nothing is what it seems to be and people have shifting, or at least secretive, loyalties. Carvalho initially meets Raúl's sister-in-law, Alma (who turns out to be someone else), a professor who just happens to be teaching Raul's daughter, now known as Muriel, at the university; Muriel, in turn, has been "adopted" by the Captain, a nefarious holdout from the Malvinas/Falkland war and, especially, from the Dirty War. (All of this comes out early in the book, so it isn't really a spoiler.) Other characters include some policemen, who may or may not be crooked; a cross-dressing Jewish nightclub impressario; a tango singer; a man who dresses up as Robinson Crusoe, complete with a Man Friday, a llama, and a parrot; a con man whose latest con is to claim that he's the illegitimate son of Borges; various habitués of a club devoted to Borges and a gourmet club; a boxer; a heroin-addicted flunky; some motorcycle-riding thugs and a man known as the "fat man" who provide violent backup for the Captain; and many more. Over the course of the novel, various of these characters get gruesomely beaten up or killed. It was difficult for me to keep track of who all the secondary characters were, and how they were connected to the main plot. There are many many twists and turns.

The recent history of Argentina, and the fate of the "disappeared" are a major theme of this novel, and it takes a pessimistic view of the current (1990s) state of politics, with many of the architects of the Dirty War reincarnated as corrupt businessmen.

The tango also plays a large role in the book, with many tango lyrics quoted (or made up by Montalbán). Most of them are gloomy. There are also many references to Argentine literature, especially but not exclusively Borges, and I suspect a lot went right by me.

From the previous thread - congrats on finishing the Zola cycle! I'll be looking forward to your review of Therese Raquin especially as I think that will the next Zola I try to tackle (not sure when that will happen though - have only read Nana so far).

Great review of The Buenos Aires Quintet - have you read any other books dealing with the Dirty War and the "disappeared"?

Wait, my eyes crossed a bit reading your Montalban review...

Congrats on Zola. I'm intrigued on him tackling the Paris Commune. It got interesting coverage in The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris by David McCullough.

>17 DieFledermaus: Thanks, Stephanie, and I'm not sure when I'm going to read Therese Raquin. I've not read any other books about the Dirty War and the disappeared -- can you recommend any? I did see a movie years ago that dealt with the aftermath of a military government in a South American country and it was excellent: Death and the Maiden.

>18 dchaikin: And thanks, Dan. I think Zola took a dim view of the Commune . . . (Wikipedia takes a much more positive attitude). What was interesting about the coverage in the McCullough book?

What I mainly recall is how convoluted and curious the Commune was. It was not a good time to be in Paris. But the details escape me.

I enjoyed your Zola reviews. I've had a negative prejudice against him ever since my schooldays. I guess I should try reading at least one.

And I think I might have read The Buenos Aires Quintet after all, though I don't remember much about it. Much of Montalban's appeal for me is his descriptions of Barcelona, so maybe that's why I didn't enjoy this one (I assume, though I don't remember).

38. Dark City Lights: New York Stories edited by Lawrence Block



I love Lawrence Block's Matthew Scudder mysteries. And I love stories about New York City. So I expected to love this anthology of mostly mysteries, mostly noir stories about the city that was edited/commissioned by Block. But I didn't. Sure, I loved some of the stories, but lots of them didn't hold up for me. Some were decidedly creepy, some were surprisingly moving, and some were just fun. But some made me say 'so what?".

I particularly enjoyed the really odd "Chloe" by Jerrold Mundis (not a mystery, more sci fi, but very psychological), "The Dead Client" by Panell Hall (fun), "Hannibal's Elephants" by Robert Silverberg (more sci fi, but rooted in New York geography), "See/Saw Something" by Peter Carlaftes (wacky, but perceptive about post-9/11 paranoia), "The Tour Guide" by Kat Georges (also wacky), "Why I Took the Job" by Peter Hochstein (definitely creepy), and Block's own "Keller the Dogkiller" (which introduced me to another of his series, those involving Keller, a hit man for hire). I'll definitely explore the Keller series.

And I was annoyed by an error is one story, in which a taxi driver turn downtown on Amsterdam Avenue, a street which is one way uptown!

>16 rebeccanyc: Great review, and this sounds like a very intriguing book.

Too bad about Dark City Lights - it's always disappointing when you're really looking forward to a book and it turns out to be just meh. Glad you found a new possible series by Block though! Have you read any of the Noir series (the one I saw at the library that looked interesting was Haiti Noir)? I haven't read any but was wondering.

>19 rebeccanyc: - I haven't read anything about the Dirty War - a friend suggested No Place for Heroes by Laura Restrepo so I might read that one, but didn't have anything else in mind.

>16 rebeccanyc: The Buenos Aires Quintet sounds quite good, Rebecca. Great review. I'm sorry that Dark City Lights didn't pan out.

>23 reva8: Thanks, Reva.

>24 DieFledermaus: >25 NanaCC: It wasn't a total loss, Stephanie and Colleen, as I did enjoy about a third to a half of the stories, and I've already started Hit Man, the first of Block's Keller series. I've read Manhattan Noir and Manhattan Noir 2 (both of which Block also edited). The first one contained stories commissioned for the volume and the second contained stories that were already written, largely by well-known authors; I liked more of the second book, and some of the stories in the first seemed like they just took place in their neighborhoods rather than having the flavor of them. I also have St. Petersburg Noir somewhere, although I'm not sure where it is.

And thanks for the info about No Place for Heroes.

Catching up after a brief hiatus.

>16 rebeccanyc: The Buenos Aires Quintet sounds interesting. I am intrigued by the period it covers, and the tango references also would be interesting. I recently saw an old movie called Assassination Tango which, aside from the hit man's adventure, is a kind of documentary on the Argentine tango. Quite haunting.

>22 rebeccanyc: Sorry Dark City Lights was such a mixed bag. Otherwise, it sounds like something I would have liked.

Thanks for stopping by, Suzanne. I'll check out Assassination Tango!

ETA Netflix has it, but it's a 2002 movie. Is that the one?

Yes, That's the one.

Just checking, because when I think of "old" movies, I think of those from the 30s and 40s!

A half-brother, 13 years younger, came to visit us here in Vt when we were still YOUNG, as in 30ish and took a look at our record collection (Allman to Zappa) and said, "Wow! Look at all these antique records!" It was a startling moment.

I enjoy your reviews a great deal, Rebecca. I love to wander over to read reviews of books I'm not likely to read. Although more Zola is very tempting.

>31 sibylline: That does sound like a startling moment, Lucy! I'm sure I too had many of those A-Z records. And, thanks.

39. Juan the Landless by Juan Goytisolo



In the first line of his afterword to my edition of this book, Goytisolo writes, "I have always rejected the term "experimental" in relation to my novels . . . Every book that aspires to be innovative does just that, experiment . . ." And yet, if this novel isn't experimental, I don't know what is! Not only is it written in completely run in sentences divided by colons (with nary a period in sight, and no capital letters to start), but it is very difficult to follow what is going on. And, indeed, not much "happens," in the traditional novelistic sense; it appears to be more a series of vignettes that frame scenes fraught with some meaning that is developed at length, in almost poetic language, but opaque to me.

There are several recurring themes and images. Perhaps the most recurring is the use, which requires a strong stomach, of different approaches to defecation as a metaphor for the difference between poor, powerless, people of color and rich, powerful white people. Goytisolo first uses these images in the first section, which refers to his ancestors, slave-owning sugar cane farmers and processors in Cuba. Another image/metaphor Goytisolo uses is the of the writer's pen as analogous to a penis. Needless to say, the Catholic church doesn't come off well in this book.

Reading this book drove me constantly to the dictionary, Wikipedia, and Google Translate: not only are there references to writers, places, etc., but some subsections have Latin titles, and indeed there are passages in Latin, French, and other languages.

What is this book about? I hesitate to say. Some descriptions I have read say it reflects Goytisolo's attraction to the pariahs of the world. This book has been on my TBR for several years, and I read it for the Reading Globally theme read on the Iberian Peninsula. I'm glad I read it, but it mystified me. (It has been almost a week since I read it, and perhaps I could have said something slightly more meaningful if I'd had a chance to review it earlier, but definitely only slightly.)

40. Just a Corpse at Twilight by Janwillem van de Wetering



This Grijpstra/de Gier novel finds the two Amsterdam detectives, as well as the Commisaris (who is one of my favorite characters in this series), retired. Grijpstra is working as a private detective when he receives a phone call from de Gier, who has landed in Maine after first going to New Guinea. Ever seeking enlightenment, he is living on an island near a small fishing village filled with colorful characters, but he is in need of help because he thinks he may have killed a woman by pushing her off a rocky cliff on his island, but was too drunk/stoned/enlightened at the time to be sure; however, two of the colorful characters, who operate a boat, showed him what he believes to have been her corpse and are now blackmailing him. Of course, Grijpstra can't turn his request down, and of course, via long distance, the Comissaris is involved as well. This novel brings the characters back to a region also visited in The Maine Massacre. As always with this series, the joy of this novel is in the characters, and the sense of place. This was a particularly philosophical mystery.

" too drunk/stoned/enlightened" I love that! I'm intrigued by this series, but am holding it in reserve, as I think I'm at my limit of ongoing series just now. I particularly like the title of this one.

41. Hit Man by Lawrence Block



I found this series thanks to a story in the moderately disappointing collection that Block edited, Dark City Lights, and was glad to find it entertaining, if not quite up to Block's Matthew Scudder series. Keller is a killer for hire, so if this bothers you, this series isn't for you. This novel has been read as a collection of short stories, since every chapter tells of an individual killing for hire, but for me it read as a novel because the associated characters, and Keller himself, develop as it progresses. The strength of this book, for me, was in the character of Keller, and Block's imagination, and I've already ordered the next two books in the series.

It sounds as though Keller is not only a hit man, but a successful one, if he is knocking someone off every chapter!

It would appear that most other readers are mystified by Juan the Landless as yours is the only review.

>33 rebeccanyc: your review intrigued me, although this sounds like a book that is difficult to read!

>37 labfs39: He is that, Lisa, although in the next novel, which I have yet to review, he encounters some challenges.

>38 baswood: >39 reva8: Ha ha ha, Barry. I wondered about that too, and thanks, Reva.

42. Hit List by Lawrence Block



In this, the second of the Keller series, Keller gradually realizes that someone is trying to kill him, to hit the hit man. I enjoyed much of this novel, although not as much as the first one; unusually for Block in my experience, some of it felt padded, in particular the time Keller spends on jury duty. It was interesting, but seemed extraneous to the plot. I will, however, read the next in the series.

Enjoying your summer reading! I should try to lighten my own, which once again is bogged down in heavy stuff. Enjoyable, but I'm not exactly breezing through my planned reading!

Catching up... Juan the Landless sounds like something I would enjoy, and, like you, I've owned a copy for years. I'll bump it up the TBR list. I see that it's listed as being the third in the "Álvaro Mendiola Trilogy." I assume you haven't read the others, but are you planning to? I wonder if reading the novels in order would make them more comprehensible.

I'm also catching up. But I think I will enjoy Goytisolo, the mysteries and the hitmen best by limiting myself to reading your reviews of them.

>42 Poquette: Thanks, Suzanne. When I am stressed, I read mysteries. It isn't so much that I want to read lighter stuff over the summer; in fact, I usually read heavier (or at least longer) books over the summer because my work load lessens and I can spend time reading at home instead of mostly on the subway (which limits the size of the books I can read).

>43 StevenTX: I saw that too (about being the third in a trilogy), but since there's nobody name Alvaro Mendiola in Juan the Landless, that was just another mystifying piece of information. I think you might enjoy it, Steven, and if you read it and can figure out what it's about, I for one will be grateful!

>44 dchaikin: That's how I feel about a lot of reviews I read on LT, Dan!

Letting you know I've been by and read and enjoyed the Juan the Landless review. Love yr questioning of his pique about being described as experimental - why would innovative be better, anyway! When I first started teaching someone told me, "Whenever you do something you haven't done before, never tell your students, just say 'It's an experiment.' Students love that idea, while they are freaked if you admit you don't know what you are doing!

I just posted this on the favorite books of the quarter thread; I will analyze my half-year's reading a little later today.

Favorite Fiction
(in reverse order of when I read them)
Tyrant Banderas by Ramon del Valle Inclan
The Earth by Emile Zola
The Dead Mountaineer's Inn by Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky
The Suitcase by Sergei Dovlatov
The Wrong Side of Paris by Honore de Balzac

Favorite Nonfiction
The Journalist and the Murderer by Janet Malcolm
Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris

Fun, Fun, Fun
The Keller series by Lawrence Block
Continuing the Amsterdam detective series by Janwillem van de Wetering

Duds
The Man Who Loved Books Too Much by Allison Hoover Bartlett

Writers Discovered
Boris Strugatsky and Arkady Strugatsky -- they mostly wrote science fiction and I also read their most famous book, Roadside Picnic.
Lawrence Block's Keller series; I had previously loved his Matthew Scudder series.

And my half-year statistics.

Books read: 43
Fiction 40/Nonfiction 3
Books my men 36/Books by women 7

Books by US authors 8: 5 fiction (of which 4 were mysteries), 3 nonfiction
Books by British authors 5 (4 by Trollope)

Books by people from other countries.
Asia: India 2
Europe: France 3, Germany 1, Italy 1, Poland 1, The Netherlands 6 (all mysteries), Russia 5, Spain 7
South and Central America: Argentina 1, Peru 1

From the TBR: Bought before 2015 20, on TBR > 1 year 9, > 3 years 3, > 20 years 2

Read for LT theme reads 9
LT recommendations 2

Clearly, I am not doing to well at my stated goal of reading from my TBR; I have acquired 43 books this year (some were gifts) and have read at best 20 from the TBR. I will strive to do better for the rest of the year! In fact, I think instead of buying books for my upcoming 9th Thingaversay, I will select 10 book from the TBR that I hope to read over the second part of the year (subject to substitutions, of course).

And I should also try to read more books by women and from a broader part of the world.

43. Hit Parade by Lawrence Block



Hit man Keller is out of town on a job when the 9/11 attacks happen, and in this novel/series of linked tales he deals with the consequences of those attacks, both personal and professional. He also decides he ultimately wants to retire, so needs money (hence jobs) to enable that. I liked this, the third in the series, better than the second one, and will continue my reading of the series.

Brilliant idea for celebrating your thingaversary! I was entitled to five books this year and simply couldn't buy any it being only a few days after Christmas, but choosing five books from my tbr shelves would have been perfect.

Thanks, Lucy! I'm going to have fun thinking about what books from the TBR I might choose to read. I'm not very good at planning my reading in advance, so I'll make sure I substitute another TBR book for one of the ones I pick.

44. Phineas Redux by Anthony Trollope



In the fourth of the Palliser series, Phineas Finn, recently widowed after just a year of marriage, is persuaded to return to London and stand again for Parliament. He loses, but challenges the election on the grounds that the long-time holder of the seat bribed the electorate, and ultimately gains the seat. The big issue in Parliament is the "disestablishment" of the Church of England, meaning that it will have to be supported by its parishioners, rather than by the nation's coffers, i.e., the taxpayers. (In the US, we would call this separation of church and state, although, if I can get on my soapbox for a minute, that has come to involve much more than was originally intended.) The conservative prime minister has proposed this and the liberals (among whom Phineas finds himself), who actually support the idea, roundly criticize the prime minister for hypocrisy and vote against the measure. Ultimately, the conservative prime minister is out, and the liberal prime minister is in, thus setting the stage for a potential return to a paying position for Phineas.

But the novel is not largely about Parliament and Phineas's role in it. Rather it is about the complications of his personal life. Readers of Phineas Finn will recall that Phineas proposed to Lady Laura, only to find that she had just accepted the proposal of Robert Kennedy and that her marriage to him was so unhappy that she fled to Dresden with her father to escape him. In this novel, Phineas learns that Lady Laura has been in love with him all this time (he no longer feels the same way about her) and that Kennedy has sensed this and is insanely (and I mean insanely) jealous. When one of the London newspapermen comes to Phineas with a letter written by Kennedy he plans to run, a letter alleging that Phineas and Lady Laura have been having an affair, Phineas first goes to talk to Kennedy who, in his madness, fires a gun at him, and then goes to a lawyer friend to seek an injunction against the newspaperman printing the letter, thereby earning the bitter enmity of said newspaperman. That is one thread of the story.

Another thread is the bitter enmity of Bonteen, another member of Parliament, who accuses Phineas obliquely of "sinking the ship" when he voted his conscience on an issue in the previous novel and left Parliament; needless to say, Phineas takes offense. Bonteen and his wife are also helping Lizzie Eustace (from The Eustace Diamonds) prove that her husband, Emilius, is a bigamist who has a wife back in Prague. Then Bonteen is murdered, and while Emilius is initially arrested, he proves to have what appears to be an alibi, and then Phineas is arrested. Thus begins an ordeal of imprisonment and trial, which enables Trollope to describe the system of trials at the time, and how lawyers for the prosecution and defense deal with what is only circumstantial evidence.. Ultimately, Phineas is acquitted through the efforts of his friends, especially Marie Goesler, to find evidence incriminating Emilius.

As I have come to expect from Trollope, his characterization of women is extraordinary, especially considering the period in which he wrote. The women spring to life, not only Marie Goesler and Lady Laura, but also one of my favorite characters, Glencora Palliser, who becomes the Duchess in this novel when the old Duke of Omnium dies and her husband, Plantagenet Palliser, becomes the new Duke. Lady Chiltern, the former Violet Effingham, another previous love of Phineas's, plays a role in this novel too, as does, in a subplot, a new character, Adelaide Palliser, a cousin of the Duke's. I am sorry to say that in this novel Lady Laura has become a very unhappy and even obsessed character; although her situation is of her own making (she married Kennedy rather than Phineas because she needed money at the time, having used her own to pay off her brother's -- Lord Chiltern's -- debts), I believe Trollope is also commenting on the strictures placed on women at the time.

Of course, there are subplots too numerous for me to explain, but some involve the old Duke's attempt to leave Marie Goesler money and jewels, which she tries to reject; a controversy between the Chilterns and the Duke about fox-hunting rights; the on-again, off-again engagement between Adelaide Palliser and a man named Maule, and the attempt by another man, Spooner, to take advantage when it is off-again; and the delightful reappearance of Lizzie Eustace and her attempt to get rid of her husband.

I thoroughly enjoyed this novel, even if it as a tad melodramatic, and look forward to the next in the series.

>52 rebeccanyc: Another excellent review. Enjoying Trollope through your reviews.

I just read my first Trollope, and while it hasn't aged well, I'm ready to dive into the next book.

>52 rebeccanyc: Fascinating review. I can't say I've ever thought about reading Trollope, although I do admire his output. I hadn't realized there was so much social history there.

Thanks, Dan, Kay, and Charlotte. Which Trollope did you read, Kay? (I agree that the expressed anti-Semitism of the characters is a little hard to take, but definitely was a prejudice of the times, and I take it as such.)

45. Hit and Run by Lawrence Block



This is my favorite so far of the Keller novels (only one more to go) and indeed I couldn't put it down. Keller realizes he has been set up by a man known only as "Call me Al" when he sees his face on national television after the governor of Ohio is killed in Iowa, where Keller has been sent on a job that never seems to materialize. He is named as the killer. How he escapes, what becomes of Dot, and how he creates a new life with a new name are what kept me on the edge of my seat.

Rebecca, I read The Warden, the first in the Barsetshire series. I was warned going in, but I had the first book. I did like his writing style. I've heard several times that Barchester Towers is a much better book and I plan to read it this summer.

I'm looking forward to getting back to the Palliser series soon, though I'm already two novels behind you. I can remember when I was in school we were taught that "antidisestablishmentarianism" was the longest word in the English language, and now I see what it means.

>58 RidgewayGirl: I recall The Warden being rather simple and humorless compared to anything else I've read by Trollope. Barchester Towers is wonderful.

Great review of Phineas Redux.

I am feeling guilty not getting to Trollope yet this year, but as compensation I am enjoying your reviews.

Enjoying your reading of Lawrence Block. I liked a short story of his (can't remember which) in an anthology so much that I bought his book on writing, Telling Lies for Fun and Profit, (sigh, still in my TBRs).

You make it seem such fun to read through a series, I may go find myself one!

Thanks, Jane, Barry, and MJ. I have now finished my romp through the Keller novels and will review the fifth and (so far) last, Hit Me, tomorrow, hopefully. I still like the Matthew Scudder novels better, and I also have Telling Lies for Fun and Profit on my TBR. If you read the series, MJ, I would start with the first and read them in order because although several consist of linked stories, the lives of Keller and the people he's involved with develop as the series progresses.

>33 rebeccanyc: - Juan the Landless sounds really bizarre! Great review - thumbed, although I think I'll probably skip that one. I have his Quarantine somewhere on the pile though.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the Keller novels!

Always good to read your Trollope reviews - Phineas isn't my favorite character, but I did enjoy catching up with all the other characters, even Lizzie Eustace.

>64 DieFledermaus: Lizzie Eustace is a great character, one you love to hate.

Your reviews of the Palliser novels are making me want to get to them soon. I'm enjoying the Chronicles of Barsetshire though, and don't want to rush through them.

46. Hit Me by Lawrence Block



With this book, I've come to the end of the Keller series. In it, Block returns to the extended story format, but keeps Keller developing along with the others in his life throughout the "novel." Keller is now living his new life (see Hit and Run), but eventually needs cash and returns to his old career. The tales in this book are as much about the ins and outs of stamp collecting, Keller's serious hobby (and, it seems, Block's) as they are about the ins and outs of killing people. The last story ends midstream, so I live in hope that there is another Keller novel in the works (and another Matthew Scudder, for that matter). And now back to more serious reading!

Catching up on everyone's threads. Regarding the 2 Trollope series discussed here, is it possible to just read the first book without getting getting sucked into a series, or do you really need to read all of the books in a series to get the most out of each book?

>68 AlisonY: I can't speak for the Barchester series, but with the Palliser series I would say all the books can stand alone (except for maybe Phineas Finn and Phineas Redux, but you might get sucked in anyway . . . Trollope also wrote books that aren't part of a series, and I first read The Way We Live Now, which isn't part of series, and which I loved. I also have He Knew He Was Right, which isn't in a series, on my TBR.

Thanks Rebecca. Need to get to Trollope soon, I think - everyone in CR has raved about him.

Well, in two days, on July 14, it will be my 9th Thingaversary. In thinking about this, not only have I reflected on the enormous difference LT has made in my life, from "meeting" other booklovers to reading books I would otherwise not have tried or even heard of, but I've also realized how enormous my TBR has grown. So, as I noted above, I've decided not to buy new books for my Thingaversary, as has become the tradition, but to look through my TBR (virtually) and identify 10 books that have been on my TBR for more than a year that I will try to read over the remainder of the year. I am calling this Project TBR.

Needless to say, this wasn't easy! I have 636 books in my Hope To Read Soon Collection, and this mostly includes books acquired since I joined LT; there are many more unread books on my shelves that predate LT. From these 636 books, I put 164 into a Project TBR Possibilities, based on a feeling that I would like to read these sooner, rather than later. This was still too many, so I struggled and put 51 in a Project TBR collection, based on feeling that I would read these sooner sooner. Of course, this was still too many, so I narrowed it down to these ten titles, with some runners-up, all subject of course to how I feel at the moment that I need to choose a new book. My "rule" is that I can substitute any book for any other one, as long as it has been on my TBR for over a year. (Nearly all of these titles are by authors I might not have read if it weren't for LT, and some are direct LT recommendations.)

Project TBR
✓Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands or War of the Saints or Discovery of America by the Turks by Jorge Amado
Collected Tales by Nikolai Gogol
✓The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta or The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa
Flaw by Magdalena Tulli
Reasons of State or ✓The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier
Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac
Heart of a Dog or Diaboliad Other Stories by Mikhail Bulgakov
Satantango or The Melancholy of Resistance or Seiobo There Below by Laszlo Krasznahorkai
✓Notre Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo

Runners-Up
Why Translation Matters by Edith Grossman
The Obscene Bird of Night by Jose Donoso
Palinuro of Mexico by Fernando del Paso
Island of the Lost by Joan Druett
Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
The Third Tower by Antal Szerb
The Land Breakers by John Ehle (on TBR since last December, so not a year
the Heart of Midlothian by Walter Scott (ditto)

I've not included in this list TBR books that I'll read for the Reading Globally theme read on Nobel laureates who didn't write in English, and of course I've not included books I'll pick up on the spur of the moment. But I am committed to making a (small) dent in my TBR in the second half of this year.

>71 rebeccanyc:. I like your Project TBR, Rebecca. You have some good ones listed, and I look forward to your reviews.

Looking forward to hearing about your TBR books as you get to them.

>71 rebeccanyc: Browsing the TBRs is almost as fun as browsing a bookstore! Love gathering the shinies into a list, too, no matter what becomes of it :)

>71 rebeccanyc: I think that's a stupendous idea, and I will take it on when my next Thingaversary comes around. Sometimes I browse over a shelf and amaze myself by finding a book I don't even remember knowing about, let alone having in my possession! I recently discovered two (2) copies of Mrs. Dalloway side by side on a back shelf. I knew I had one, but I have no idea where or when the second one came into the house. And I must have put it right where it belonged, with the other Virginia Woolf volumes I own, and I must have realized at the time that I now had two editions...no recollection.

636 books! Wow. And I feel overwhelmed with 23! Good luck in your project, it sounds like fun!

>72 NanaCC: >73 AlisonY: >74 detailmuse: >75 laytonwoman3rd: >76 FlorenceArt: Thanks, Colleen, Alison, MJ, Linda, and Florence. I'm a little bit daunted by how many books I have on the TBR and would never have been able to winnow them down without LT. Linda, I have that problem too with acquiring books I already have; last year I bought a copy of Augustus when NYRB published a new edition, only to discover when I entered it into LT that I already owned an earlier edition.

Good luck on your TBR project; there are some great books on your list. I know the feeling of discovering that the book you've just bought is already on the shelf. Now, when I'm in the bookstore, if a book isn't on my wishlist I almost always look it up in LT on my smartphone just to make sure I don't already have it.

>71 rebeccanyc: excellent selection of books! I really enjoyed Gogol's short stories, but I would recommend reading them slowly, a few at a time. We read this for bookclub and those that spread the stories out over a month seemed to have a better experience than those that read them all in a few days.

And I hope you get to Therese Raquin soon (you can't go wrong with Zola), but more interestingly there was a NYC news story a month or so ago that really reminded me of this novel.

I was going to say I was glad my TBR list wasn't that overwhelming yet, but then realized that because I keep three different lists (text list that's mostly things the library has in their physical collection, list on the digital library lend site, and audible list) I don't actually know how many books are on there (about 600 it turns out). I guess partly it feels like that since I don't own all that many books I've never read, but still.

>78 StevenTX: Thanks, Steven, and good idea re smartphone.

>79 ELiz_M: I loved Gogol's Dead Souls when I read it a year or two ago, and have had this book on the TBR a long time. Thanks for the suggestion to read them slowly. And I know you can't go wrong with Zola, having just completed all the Rougon-Macquart books that have been recently translated into English. What was the NYC news story that reminded you of Therese Raquin?

>80 mabith: Three different lists would drive me crazy! That's why I love my Hope to Read Soon collection.

It works for me, since then I immediately know what format it is and where to find each book when I'm deciding what to read next. Otherwise I'd see a title and have to search in three places to figure out where I can get it.

>82 mabith: Your TBR looks rather like my wishlist, except I only have one. My TBR only contains books I own.

47. Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov edited by Robert Chandler



After I read the wonderful collection of Russian Short Stories from Pushkin to Buida, also edited and selected by Robert Chandler, I snapped up this one. "Magic tales" include folk tales, and this book contains real folk tales collected by folklorists from around Russia, as well as versions of magic tales as created by noted writers, including Pushkin, Teffi, Bazhov, and Platonov. I am a Platonov fan, and I was most taken by his tales (or perhaps, because I read them last, I am most under their spell, as I read this book off and on over the course of six weeks or so).

Chandler notes in his introduction that magic tales, in their original folk versions, way back when, were often filled with sex and violence, and so were restricted to men. The versions that have come down to us in the west as fairy tales for children were stripped of much of this.

Animals play a huge role in these stories, often seeking help from people. The people who help them in turn gain their help in magical situations. Often, there is a good sister and a bad sister; often there are groups of three brothers or sisters in which the first two fail and the third succeeds because she listens to the animals or old ladies, who may or may not be Baba Yagas (the witch equivalents in Russian tales). Baba Yagas are so important in Russian folklore that there is an essay on them at the end of this book, which also contains copious notes. Often too, people must travel long distances, and often seem to do so magically. And there are forest spirits and mountain spirits. Class differences also play a role, in the sense of poor peasants and rich tsars (there seem to be tsars for every region, not one tsar over all of Russia).

I enjoyed this book, although not as much as the previous collection, as I don't have as big an interest in magic tales as I do in Russian fiction overall. I probably would also have gotten more out of it if I hadn't dipped in and out of it. As it is, I preferred the versions created by authors to the versions collected by folklorists, although I found some of them quite striking. They probably would be more of interest, in general, to people who are fascinated by fairy tales.

>81 rebeccanyc: Hmmm, apparently html/links cannot be hidden behind spoiler tags. The story in the news was similar in the general outline of a central event in Therese Raquin, so those that don't like spoilers, don't click the link: NYC news story

Oh, I was all over that story! Didn't know it was like Therese Raquin but now I'm more eager to read it.

Therese Raquin is the only Zola I've read and overall I liked it, but it was so tortured and sordid that I felt like I needed a mental/emotional bath when I was done. Not sure I'm in a hurry to read more, but I'm not sorry I read it. Vivid.

>87 Bookmarque:

Therese Raquin is so different from the rest of Zola that I was actually quite surprised that it was the same person writing the book. I think had I read TR first, I wouldn't have continued with Zola so I understand your reaction.

Actually, I think there's one about a dancer that seems interesting. Or am I imagining things? I also came upon a reference to him in another book. A character mused that he had "studied his Zola" and so could better cope with a potential spy or complicated political situation. Does that make sense? That reference made me seek out Zola's work.

>87 Bookmarque: >88 lilisin: >89 Bookmarque:

Now I'm conflicted about reading Therese Raquin because I loved the Rougon-Macquart cycle so much!

Bookmarque, I don't know if that makes sense about Zola's work, but in his life he was an enthusiastic supporter of Dreyfus, so maybe that's where the political reference comes in. I'm not sure about a dancer, unless it's referring to Nana, who was a theater dancer who primarily rose to fame and fortune by selling her body. I started with reading Germinal, which probably remains my favorite Zola, and then decided to read the whole cycle.

48. The Buddha's Return by Gaito Gadzanov



I liked a lot of the first novel I read by Gazdanov, The Spectre of Alexander Wolf, but thought it contained some extraneous material. This was a much tighter novel, with a similar intriguing premise and similar philosophical musings about life, happiness, the meaning of chance and coincidence, and the influence of the past on the present.

The nameless student who narrates the novel is subject to dreamlike states in which he completely believes, for example, that he died in a climbing accident or was arrested by Soviet-style secret police. Over the course of the novel, he meets a variety of people including, most importantly, Pavel Alexandrovich, like him a Russian refugee in Paris. When he first meets him, Pavel Alexandrovich is down on his luck, begging for money, and the student gives him a generous amount, a gift which turns out to have reverberating unforeseen consequences. Later, Pavel Alexandrovich comes into money when his estranged brother dies, and starts living an entirely different kind of life. When he is murdered, and his gold statuette of Buddha stolen, the student is a suspect and is indeed jailed for a time. What happens next involves some of the other characters the student has met.

So much for the plot. The plot, inventive as it is, is merely the scaffolding on which Gazdanov hangs his philosophical explorations. The device of having the student have these dreamlike episodes allows Gazdanov to investigate what is real; throughout, chance plays a tremendous role. There is also a sort of love story, which slowly emerges, and art, history, and religion also play a role.

Eventually, the student finds that his episodes are diminishing, and towards the end, is thrilled when "for the first time ever I was indebted for my victory over this illusory world not to some external jolt or fortuitous awakening, but to the strength of my own will." He is on the path to directing his own life.

Great review of The Buddha's Return.

Intriguing review.

Enjoyed your review of The Buddha's return

Thanks, Colleen, Jane, and Barry.

Just catching up with your thread: great review of Gazdanov, and Russian Magic Tales is on my TBR too!

Project TBR: Book #1 (on TBR since 3/18/09)

49. The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares



This is a very strange and disturbing novella, clearly drawing on The Island of Dr. Moreau (which I haven't read, but have read the Wikipedia entry and LT reviews) and the Faust legend. It is an exploration of obsession, reality and image, and sanity and insanity (among other topics). Borges, to whom it is dedicated, says in his prologue, "To classify it as perfect is neither an imprecision nor a hyperbole." Hmm.

The story is the diary of a Venezuelan convict (his crime unknown to the reader) who has ventured to a previously inhabited (but now uninhabited) island after being smuggled by a sea captain to an island close to it. The uplands of the island contain a museum (which is like a hotel), a chapel, and a swimming pool, while the marshy lowlands contain a mill. Initially the narrator lives in the museum and explores its basement generators and motors, which seem to be connected to the mill in some unexplained way, and is a little obsessed with the tides in the marshes. Then, mysteriously, a group of people appears in the uplands and the narrator retreats to the marshes (at some danger to his life), while snooping on the people. Partly convinced they are part of an elaborate plot to return him to the police, he can't tear himself away, and is particularly obsessed with an attractive woman who goes every day to sit on the rocks and read. He can't help following her, and strikes up conversations with her but she seems to see through him and never responds. Eventually, through the attention paid to her by a man named Morel, he learns her name is Faustine. Although he follows her and has to frequently hide from the other people, they never seem to see him.

And more mysterious things happen as the novel progresses. The narrator can't turn off a light in the museum, but then somebody else can and does turn it off. There appear to the narrator to be two suns and two moons. Doors are locked and he can't open them. Morel and Faustine appear to have the same conversation over and over again. Is he feverish from lack of food and eating food that makes him ill? Is he insane and imagining these people? Eventually, a more "logical" explanation develops. It turns out that Morel has invented a series of machines that can capture not just the photograph or moving picture of people but their whole being, and their actions, essentially granting them a kind of immortality.. At the end of the novel, as the narrator comes to understand what has happened, and itemizes the explanations in his diary (which is annotated with footnotes by some kind of "editor"), he inserts himself into the "reality" Morel has created so he too can be with Faustine.

Part of the enjoyment of this novella lies in the way Bioy Casares writes, in the way some things the narrator writes resonate more fully later in the book, and in the way the narrator oh so slowly begins to understand what is happening. Some quotes:

When I made the garden, I felt like a magician because the finished work had no connection to the precise movements that produced it. My magic consisted of this: i had to concentrate on each part, on the difficult task of planting each flower and aligning it with the preceding one. . . .

I was going to say that my experiment shows the danger of creation, the difficulty of balancing more than one consciousness simultaneously. But what good would that do? What solace would I derive from that? Everything is lost now: the woman, my past solitude. Since I cannot escape, I continue with this monologue, which is now unjustifiable." pp. 32, 34

"It is surprising that the invention has deceived the inventor." p. 80

"The final moment must be rapid, confused; we are always so far removed from death that we cannot imagine the shadows that must becloud it". p. 90

My NYRB edition was enhanced by illustrations.

>49 rebeccanyc: This sounds like a fascinating book!

Great plan to read off the TBR. Mine is so disorganized at present that I worry about re-purchasing the same book.

Definitely a good idea to read Dona Flor

Looking forward to hearing more about your TBR project and congrats on finishing the first one!

Very thorough review of The Invention of Morel which I also enjoyed. It's definitely twisty, as well as being strange and disturbing as you mention.

The Russian stories and The Buddha's Return sound interesting as well. I have a book of Teffi's short stories on the library list and was hoping to get to them soon.

>98 banjo123: Thanks for stopping by, Rhonda. I have a "hope to read soon" collection that I put all the new TBRs into when I get them, so that's how I could keep track of them. And I love Jorge Amado but inexplicably haven't read Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands even though I've owned it for probably 25 years or more.

>99 DieFledermaus: And thanks for stopping by too, DieF. I have a book of Teffi's short stories on the TBR, but it hasn't been on it long enough to qualify for Project TBR.

The invention of Morel sounds very interesting and I loved your review of it.

You make me want to revisit the Palliser novels!

Great idea for your Thingaversary. I, too, am working hard at NOT buying more books but reading the ones I have. I've read Cousin Bette which I loved, actually! LT certainly has changed my reading life, enriching it tenfold.

The Buddha's Return and The Invention of Morel look very intriguing. Thanks for those reviews.

I was looking at my book shelves, and the long list of unread books on my Kindle this morning. My thoughts were of your determination to read books that are already on your TBR, and thinking I should do the same. Of course this was right after ordering three books by Angela Thirkell to read as part of All Virago/All August. I am hopeless.

>97 rebeccanyc: Enjoyed your review of Morel. I had a rather heated argument with a friend about this book earlier: my friend claimed that the novel described a 'perfect love', and I said that the novel described a love for a passive subject, not a person. But you are accurate in your assessment that the book is undoubtedly disturbing, one way or another.

>101 baswood: Thanks, Barry!

>102 sibylline: Lucy, that's how I feel about LT too. And I'm glad you loved Cousin Bette; I'm feeling a little bereft after finishing Zola, but I have Trollope and Balzac to give me my 19th century fix.

>103 NanaCC: Colleen, I am hopeless too! There are a couple of books I already know I want to get this summer, including a new Chekhov collection, The Prank, put out by NYRB, and the forthcoming Shirley Jackson collection of previous unpublished stories, some of which I've read in The New Yorker, Let Me Tell You. So I can't stop buying new books. But I wanted to give myself a push to read books I already own.

>104 reva8: Thanks, Reva. I enjoyed your review too.

I have a list of TBR from January I said I would read this year. They're still on the shelf where they were in January...

50. Believing the Lie by Elizabeth George



I've been reading George's Lynley/Havers mysteries since the 80s, and even though I thought the last one I read was insanely bloated, not just in length but in the number of characters and subplots as well, I wanted to try again. This one suffers from a few of the same problems (mainly subplots), but was shorter (although still too long). To tell the truth, I read these mysteries more to find out what is happening with the major characters than for the plot. And there is no murder in this mystery, although there is suspicion of one. Rather, it is all about lies, obvious ones and startling ones, and how they are revealed and unravel, and the havoc this creates. At least one of the lies is strange and in a way trendy (and ultimately a little unbelievable). There is also a theme of the way parents do or don't care for their kids. At least this book had more of the series characters in it than the last one I read, and I will continue to read this series, at least the next book.

TBR Note: This has been on my TBR for over a year (April 2014) but I am not counting mysteries for Project TBR.

I look forward to seeing how your TBR plan works out. Great idea. I just read several of your reviews, between The Buddha's Return and The Invention of Morel, I'm beginning to question my own sense of reality.

Thanks, Dan. I'm also looking forward to seeing how it works out! And ha ha ha.

51. Desert by J.M.G. Le Clézio



I'm a Le Clézio fan, and I had been looking forward to reading this book for some years, but I didn't end up liking it as much as other books by him I've read. The novel consists of two interwoven stories, set off typographically. The first, taking place in the early years of the 20th century, tells the tale of the Saharan (and some sub-Saharan) Muslim groups that were targeted by mostly French Christian armies, and thus had to migrate from their traditional homes and livelihoods to find a place where they could be safe and find work/food. This part of the novel focuses on a boy named Nour and a holy man/sheik named Ma al-Aïnine, or Water of the Eyes. (They are Blue Men, or part of the Tuareg tribe.) The second part of the novel takes place probably in the mid-20th century and concerns a teenager named Lalla, a descendent of this group, who lives initially in a run-down area on the coast of Morocco and then ends up in Marseille, fleeing an older rich man who gives her family presents because he wants to marry her.

But the novel really isn't about these characters: it is about, primarily, the harshness and the beauty of the desert and the natural environment in general. In their seemingly endless travels, Nour and his tribe and the tribes that travel with them experience the heat, the light and the darkness, the sand, the dust, the thirst, the hunger, the illnesses, the death that the desert brings. Lalla has a friend, a mute orphan sheepherder, known as the Hartani, who introduces her to the rocks and dunes and hillsides around where she lives, and teaches her how to hide. In both these environments, Le Clézio makes the natural world come alive, as he did in previous books I read. It just seemed these sections went on too long and almost became repetitive after a while. Of course, it could be argued that that's what life was like, especially for Nour, and the book is just reflecting this.

The section in which Lalla flees to Marseille is titled "Life with the Slaves" and the mostly colonized people Lalla meets there are, if not slaves, at least wandering in a desert that is unfamiliar to them. This is in part a book about colonialism, as the ending sections of Nour's story make clear; they are dated (with 1912 dates) and reveal the final attacks by French troops (largely black African colonial soldiers with of course white French officers). Although the French think they are attacking ferocious guerrilla leaders, the reader knows that these are starving men, women, and children who were trying to find a place they could live. The attacks end up being massacres.

To come back to Lalla, she discovers she is pregnant and the end of the book was a little too melodramatic for my taste. But Lalla is a very strong character, both physically and psychologically, and I appreciated that Le Clézio could create such a female character. Lalla also has the ability to see beyond the present, in almost trance-like states.

So why didn't I like this book as much as others? Mainly it's because I thought it was too long and even repetitive, as noted above. The other Le Clézio books I've read were tighter and more focused.

TBR Note: This book has been on my TBR for over a year (July 2011) but I'm not counting books I read for other reasons, in this case the Reading Globally theme read on Nobel winners who didn't write in English, for Project TBR.

I liked this more than you did. We are supposed to be repelled and feel the toll of colonialism, but I found I could get lost in his run away descriptions. So, I didn't mind their length at the time. They do go on and on.

Have you read anything else by Le Clezio, Dan? I think if I hadn't read other books I might have appreciated this one more.

I read the The Prospector before Desert. I did like The Prospector more, although Desert is a more important work.

I read Desert because after reading The Prospector, I was so taken away that I really wanted to read more Le Clezio. I have not read another since, ha! Although I think it's just chance and changing focus. I have piles of books I really want get to, but have instead prioritized my theme reads. There is a Le Clezio in those piles.

I too read The Prospector and did like it more, but I really loved Onitsha and his memoir, The African. I'm not sure what to make of your comment that Desert is a more important work -- because it so focuses on colonialism? Or for some other reason? I did think that The Prospector also touched on colonialism, and I'm not sure what I think about some books being more important than others. Maybe a question for Questions for the Avid Reader?

I read one book by Le Clézio. I'm pretty sure it was Desert but (as usual) I remember almost nothing about it. I should probably read another (Le chercheur d'or/The Prospector?), or maybe re-read Désert...

>115 FlorenceArt: Yes, the title of Le chercheur d'or was badly translated as The Prospector (which for me has a much more limited meaning). My favorite so far, however, is Onitsha, as I noted above.

I haven't read anything by Elizabeth George. I might add this series to my list.

>114 rebeccanyc: You might have caught me out on that one. Not sure I thought it through. I saw The Prospector as more of a personalized and romantic story, and Desert as more of a call to be offended. Hence Desert seemed to be a book to motivate and therefore more important. Precarious reasoning, that.

>117 NanaCC: I started reading her in the 80s, when I read a lot more mysteries (we even had a mystery bookstore in the neighborhood, Murder Ink!). I would begin at the beginning, both because the characters develop and because the early novels weren't so bloated.

>118 dchaikin: Well, Desert certainly was a call to be offended. I probably appreciated the more subtle approaches to racism and colonialism in The Prospector and Onitsha more.

I am committed to making a (small) dent in my TBR in the second half of this year.

Wait a minute. Is this coming from the same person who has repeatedly disparaged my (futile) attempts at TBR reduction? Despite that, I will support (but not join) you in your noble effort!

Great review of The Invention of Morel. I thought I had read it, but your description makes me think otherwise! I'll have to get back to it.

I also liked Desert a bit more than you did. I'll have to check, but I think it's my favorite book by Le Clézio so far.

>120 kidzdoc: Oops, Darryl. I was afraid you would remind of that . . . but thanks for your support.

Have you read Onitsha? That's my favorite Le Clezio so far.

Very thorough review of Desert, Rebecca. I have to admit, even though you had a mixed response to the book, you make it sound appealing.

I am sure this is a problem that people here have had...I think I have a book by Le Clezio, but I'm not sure if I do and I'm not sure what it is (if it in fact exists). It may be either Onitsha or Wandering Star. I would have picked it up right after he won the award. That's what happens when I don't enter things right away on LT!

>121 rebeccanyc: I gave 4-1/2 stars to both Desert and Onitsha, Rebecca, so those would be my two favorite books by Le Clézio.

>71 rebeccanyc: Some great books on project TBR. I know you are a Vargas Llosa fan, so I would highly recommend The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta. That was the first of his books I read, and got me picking up more wherever I could find them (pre internet ordering). For awhile, it was one of those books I gave to people whenever there was an occasion to do so.

I made the same resolution to work from the TRB this year, and had been doing well until the last month, when I actually got to real bookstores. I rationalize my purchases by telling myself I am merely restocking my TBR.

>122 DieFledermaus: Thanks, DieF. It's well worth reading. And once I undertook the mammoth task of entering my library into LT, I've tried to be good about entering books within a day or two of when I read them.

>124 SassyLassy: Thanks, Sassy, for the recommendation of The Real Life of Alejandro Mayta; the first book by Vargas Llosa I read was The War of the End of the World and it remains my favorite. And I can get to real bookstores all the time (in fact, I'm heading to one later today!), so no matter how much I try to read from my TBR I keep "restocking" it!

Project TBR: Book #2 (on TBR since 2/27/92)*

52. Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands by Jorge Amado



Although I've been reading lots of Amado in the recent past, I have somehow neglected his most famous novel which has been on my TBR for decades. And what a delightful read it turned out to be.

Flor is a naive young girl, already a cooking instructor, who is swept off her feet by the charming scoundrel, Vadinho, and marries him. But, although their sex life is fabulous, he is an inveterate gambler and womanizer, stays out all night at casinos and whorehouses, and runs through Flor's money (but not what she hides away). Then, suddenly, after seven years of marriage, he drops dead, and Flor is a widow. Despite the fact that her cooking school has always been successful and that she has various friends who support her emotionally, she misses Vadhino and is tormented by her sexual desire. Finally, after her year of mourning is up, she discovers that the local druggist, Teodoro, is in love with her, and they eventually marry. Teodoro is the opposite of Vadhino: reliable, good with money, monogamous -- and boring, especially sexually, where he has a schedule of Wednesday night and twice on Saturday night, and always conducts his sexual activity beneath the sheets and with some of their night clothes on. While Flor sincerely appreciates his other good qualities, she knows she's missing something. Then, lo and behold, Vadinho appears, initially only to her, and uses all his power of persuasion to attempt to convince her that he is still married to her and so it wouldn't be a sin for them to resume their wild and wonderful sex life.

If this were all there was in this book, it would still be a delightful sex farce. But Amado goes on digressions -- oh, how he goes on digressions. The reader learns about gambling, and cooking, and the process of making drugs by hand (and the controversy about manufactured drugs), and music (Teodoro is a serious amateur bassoon player), and African gods, and corruption in government, and the criminals behind gambling, and on and on on. Sometimes it gets a little much, but mostly it is very enjoyable. Amado also creates many wonderful secondary characters, both good and bad and in between, all of whom spring to life. All in all, this was a fun read.

*I know the exact pre-LT date because there was a sales slip and a bookmark in this book from one of the NYC bookstores that is no more -- Doubleday's, which had two stores on 5th Avenue. At the time, various publishers had bookstores in NYC -- Scribners was another one -- which sold books of all publishers. The iconic Scribners bookstore is now a Sephora.

Enticing review of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands! Amado is one of those authors who have been on my shelf for years but I have never gotten to yet despite recommendations like yours.

Wonderful review of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands -- I read and thoroughly enjoyed a couple of Amado's about 15 years ago -- should get back to him.

Thanks, Steven and Jane. I first read an Amado that had also been on my shelf for years, Showdown, for the Reading Globally theme read on South America some years ago (didn't you lead, or co-lead that one, Steven), and I've been acquiring more ever since. My favorites are probably Showdown, The Double Death of Quincas Water-Bray, and Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, but I've also enjoyed the other Amados I've read (Tent of Miracles, Captains of the Sands, The Violent Land, and Home Is the Sailor. I've got two more on the TBR.

Which books did you read, Jane?

I love that you know the exact date. I have several that must be at least that old ... I should look to see if I still want to read them.

Years ago (decades, really), a close friend was reading Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands and enjoying so much that I thought that I really should read it, too. Thanks for bringing it back into my mind with that enticing review.

129> I read Tent of Miracles which I remember loving, and I think I read Showdown, but I don't really remember it.

>130 NanaCC: I love it when I find receipts in books, but so often they have faded and are illegible. This one wasn't. I have books that are even older, though, Colleen. In my 20s, I used to write my name and the date I bought a book inside it, or who it was from if it was a gift, but I gave that up. I generally can guess within a few years the year I bought a book by looking at when the edition was published and remembering if I bought it right after it came out or waited a while.

>131 RidgewayGirl: Thank, Kay. I think you'll enjoy it.

Great review of Dona Flor and her two husbands

Rebecca, you always introduce me to something new. Now checking out Amado...

Thanks, Barry, and thanks, Alison.

53. Deception by Denise Mina (in the UK, this is known as Sanctum)



Mostly this was a creepy and claustrophobic book. (It is not part of any of Mina's series).

Lachlan (known as Lachie) is distraught when his wife, Susie, a psychiatrist in a prison, is convicted of killing a serial killer who has been let out of that prison (the reader doesn't know why for at least half of the book); it is supposed that she had been in love with the serial killer, Gow, and was upset, to say the least, when he married Donna while in prison (Donna is also missing, presumed killed). Lachie, an unemployed doctor who stays home taking care of their less-than-2-year-old daughter Margie (with the Spanish au pair, Yeni), is not an endearing character. He mostly thinks about himself, not the trauma Susie must be experiencing, and indeed the novel takes the form of his diaries. For what he does is invade Susie's private office at the top of the house, breaking the lock on the door, breaking the password on her computer, and explore computer files and her other files to prove her innocence for an appeal. Of course, he ends up finding seriously disturbing material . . .

At certain points, he visits Susie in jail, and those visits are fraught (needless to say, she is enraged when he tells about her invasion of her room and computer), and at a certain point a relative of hers and his parents come to stay. But mostly he explores Susie's secrets and relates his own state of mind. And then, seemingly out of the blue, he figures out what really happened. This was the place where I said, what?! Because the logic and creativity Lachie uses to solve the case were nowhere to be seen previously, and indeed the solution almost defies logic. I felt a little cheated because there was only one clue to the solution that I could spot earlier in the book, and Lachie was definitely too dense and self-obsessed to note it. But I couldn't put the book down up til then.

TBR Note: On TBR since July 30 of last year.

>137 rebeccanyc: it sounds like I could skip this Mina, Rebecca. I know how much you like her, so a less than stellar review makes me think "skip".

It is definitely creepy and compelling (until the more or less unbelievable end), but it isn't up to her various series.

I was trying to choose a book for my upcoming trip. I wanted an e-book and I wanted to just buy one to avoid any collecting virtual dust there. (I have some unread ebooks, not that many. And i will bring some paperbooks). Anyway, I decided to choose one not related to Malaysia and then couldn't decide. Then I remembered the conversation here. Of course, le Clezio! So i got The African. (Onitsha and Wandering Star aren't available in Kindle)

Enjoyed your inspiring Amado review (yet another?) and the mixed review of Mina. I kind of want to know what Lachie found out.

>140 dchaikin: I really liked The African and I hope you do too.

Here is what Lachie found out. Don't read this if you have any intention of reading the Mina!

Susie was really a lesbian and was in love with the woman who married Gow. But the woman who married Gow wasn't the real Donna; in fact, she was the daughter of one of the women Gow murdered but she had given the daughter up for adoption at birth so the fake Donna had to figure out who her real birth mother was. She killed several women in the way that Gow had killed the earlier women, so it would seem that someone else had killed them and Gow would be paroled. And then she could kill him. Convoluted, hunh? And concocted mostly out of thin air.

>141 rebeccanyc: oh my...

That's the Mina I haven't gone to the trouble of buying a copy. I enjoyed it when I read it, but it isn't up to the standard of her usual work.

Think I'll pass on this one!

Great review of Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands, Rebecca!

Right, Dan. I agree, Kay. Understand, Charlotte. And thanks, Darryl.

54. Don't Look Back by Karin Fossum



I owe my introduction to this new mystery series to Colleen (NanaCC) -- thank you!

In this Inspector Sejer novel, the first to be translated into English (but not the first in the series, which I will now seek out), Sejer must investigate the murder of a 15-year-old girl, Annie, who was widely liked in the Norwegian town in which she lived, but who had recently become much quieter after being very outgoing and friendly when younger. That change turns out to be a big clue to her murder, although the reason why doesn't emerge to the end of the book. Fossum excels at characterization; not only Sejer but also Annie and the many other characters in the book spring to life. There is a theme, also, of children, how they differ and how they are treated, in some cases brutally. Finally, there was more of plot than I'm used to in the mysteries by Camilleri and van Wetering I've been reading lately, and I enjoyed how Fossum let the reader see the mystery through Sejer's eyes, never knowing more than he knew. I'll continue reading this series.

Always on the lookout for Scandinavian mysteries for my mother -- thanks Colleen and Rebecca.

>147 rebeccanyc: I'm so glad you liked it, Rebecca. I really enjoyed that series.

>148 janeajones: Glad to help, Jane.

>147 rebeccanyc: I picked up one of these at the library, but it was about the death of a very young child and didn't appeal to me. Will perhaps try the others though, after your comments.

>150 charl08: They are quite dark. There was one in particular that was quite disturbing, but I like the way Fossum unfolds the story.

Rebecca I'm enjoying your TBR project. So far this year I've read 50% from my TBRs ... but only 4 from the list of 24 I'd deemed most-delicious in January :( I will re-focus!

>133 rebeccanyc: your finding receipts in your books reminds me that I've recently been finding Borders bookmarks in mine *sob!*

Summer reading!

Just spent a pleasant hour or so catching up on your thread. Your reviews are wonderful as always! Congratulations on finishing Zola. I have been stalled for the last year or so. Next up for me is The Masterpiece, but I've been reading them in chronological order, rather than the order in which Zola recommended they be read, so I think I have 5 or 6 to go. And you're ahead of me in Trollope too. I'm just about finished with The Eustace Diamonds. I skipped your review of Phineas Redux because I want to read it soon--I enjoyed the first Phineas book a lot.

Project TBR is a great idea. I probably have about twice as many unread books on my TBR shelves, mostly purchased since I joined LT (and the advent of the Kindle has definitely not helped!). I see Cousin Bette on the list--I love that book! I've read it twice, the second time in conjunction with a reread of Nana with which it shares some thematic similarities. I read Island of the Lost earlier this year. I thought I had picked it up based on a recommendation on your thread, but I guess not.

Dona Flor is one of my favorite Amados. I also really like Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon. I have Captains of the Sands on the TBR shelves, and Tent of Miracles on the Wishlist. I've read all the Elizabeth George series except Believing a Lie, the one you reviewed above. I, too, have been finding them less appealing, but want to know what's happening to the characters. However, I couldn't bring myself to read this one when I saw it featured Deborah (my namesake!) and Simon, since I absolutely hate the character of Deborah--I find her exceedingly whiney.

Regarding reading on the "disappearances" in Argentina, I've read some good books, but they are all escaping my mind at the moment. I did read Restrepo's No Place for Heroes mentioned above, and did not like it--I reviewed it for Early Reviewers, my review is on the book page.

>154 arubabookwoman: Oh! I came across a reference to a book on Argentina's "disappeared" recently, I swear I read it as a play, but it is (also?) a memoir: Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number . It looks like Rebecca even has it in her library. :)

>150 charl08: I like dark! Although I enjoy the Camilleri mysteries too.

>152 detailmuse: MJ, I can already see that I will pick other books for my TBR project than the ones I listed in >71 rebeccanyc:, so I understand finding other books "delicious"!

>153 baswood: ?

>154 arubabookwoman: Thanks for stopping by, Deborah. It was you who got me started on my Zola journey with your recommendation of Germinal. Are you reading all the Rougon-Macquart? I skipped the ones that haven't been translated recently. And I just finished The Prime Minister but I won't have a chance to review it until yesterday.

Good to know that you liked Cousin Bette so much. I'm going to read some shorter books first. I think Colleen (NanaCC) recommended Island of the Lost.

Amazingly, I don't have Gabriela, Clove, and Cinnamon! I should remedy that, but it wouldn't fit in Project TBR.

>154 arubabookwoman: >155 ELiz_M: I read your review of No Place for Heroes. And I do have Prisoner without a Name, Cell without a Number and it is a memoir, but I read it so many years ago (when it came out and made quite a stir) that I don't have any memory of it.

>147 rebeccanyc: Don't Look Back has been on my wishlist for 7 years (I looked at my Amazon wishlist, and it told me that). I think I know whose recommendation put it there originally, a dear LT friend no longer reading on this earth. I like dark, but bad things happening to children is a hard sell for me, and that's probably why this one hasn't found its way into my cart so far. After you've read a few more, I'll ask for your advice on skipping this one and beginning somewhere else with Fossum.

>157 laytonwoman3rd: I'll keep you posted; thanks for stopping by, Linda.

55. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope



The fifth in the Palliser series finds Plantagenet Palliser, now the Duke of Omnium, selected as prime minster to lead a coalition government. Temperamentally, he is ill-suited to the role, as he is shy and diffident, and thus can appear arrogant; over the course of the novel, he struggles with feeling inadequate for the job, but his mentor, the elderly Duke of St. Bungay, convinces him that it is his duty to serve the country and the queen. His wife, the always delightful Lady Glencora, now the Duchess, is thrilled by his new role, considering it the most important job in England, if not the world, and throws herself into massive entertaining at their various country houses and their home in London. The Duchess's great friend and confidante is the new Mrs. Finn, formerly Marie Goesler, who Phineas married at the end of the previous novel.

Interspersed with this story is the tale of the Whartons, a land-owning family with a branch living in London; it is that branch which intersects with the villain of the novel, Ferdinand Lopez. Lopez is an outsider (nobody knows who his parents were), of Portuguese origin and rumored to be (gasp!) a Jew, although he was raised in England, attended English schools, and worships at the Church of England. His work, likewise, is mysterious, although he seems to be involved with buying and selling various commodities, not with his own money, although he claims to have money. He is interested in Emily Wharton, the daughter of barrister Abel Wharton (of the London branch of the family), undoubtedly for her money, although he convinces her that he is in love with her. She is definitely in love with him, and eventually marries him, against the wishes of her entire family (except an aunt and possibly her brother Everett) and severely disappointing Arthur Fletcher, who has been in love with her since they were children. (The Fletchers have land near the country branch of the Whartons.)

Of course, after her marriage, her troubles begin. Ferdinand seeks to "educate" her in the role of asking her father for money and she is very troubled by that. After he gets a sum from Mr. Wharton, he rents an expensive apartment for them, but when he loses (or spends) the money, they go to live at her father's London house. This is unpleasant for all and, when Emily is forced to have a dinner party with people her father doesn't like (including Lizzie Eustace of diamonds fame) and later when she goes to the seashore with Ferdinand and his business "partner" and meets the distraught wife of the "partner" (who has lost all his money because of Ferdinand), the wool is pulled from her eyes. Then Ferdinand hatches a plan to go to Guatemala to supervise a mining operation and she feels she will be compelled to go with him because she married him and is subject to his "rule" (that was the state of married women then!), although her father encourages her to stay behind. Something melodramatic happens and everything changes.

Of course, being a Trollope novel, there are various subplots, although not as many as in other Trollopes I've read. One involves Ferdinand running against Arthur Fletcher for a seat in Parliament, and some involve the machinations of Parliament, and some involve Everett and his run-ins with his father over gambling and what eventually happens to him.

I want to say something about Ferdinand being the villain and being probably Jewish and his villainy involving money and its devious and speculative acquisition. What an antisemitic stereotype! But is Trollope himself antisemitic, or are his characters expressing what was the feeling of the era? Who can tell? The introduction author states that Trollope himself was not antisemitic, and I would like to accept that, but why make Ferdinand Jewish in addition to foreign?

>154 arubabookwoman:;>156 rebeccanyc: Chris and I both loved Island of the Lost. I'll look forward to your comments.

>156 rebeccanyc:
Which are the Zola books that haven't been translated?

>160 NanaCC: I thought it was you who recommended it.

>161 lilisin: It isn't that some of Zola's Rougon-Macquart cycle haven't been translated at all; it's that a few haven't been translated since Vitzelly's original translations which were heavily bowdlerized because the English translations couldn't include some of the sexual content of the French originals. So I've only been reading translations that were made relatively recently. The ones that haven't been retranslated are His Excellency, Eugene Rougon, Une Page D'Amour, The Joy of Life, and Doctor Pascal. After I started reading the novels. Oxford World Classics came out with a translation of Money and The Conquest of Plassans (which I had read a 1957 translation of under the awful title of A Priest in the House, so I am hopeful that Oxford will also retranslate the others.

>162 rebeccanyc: From what I can find on the Oxford Press's web site, it appears that the only Zola title they are releasing this year is a new translation by Brian Nelson and Julie Rose of The Earth, which already had a modern translation published by Penguin.

However, in googling for information about possible forthcoming Zola translations I found this page: https://readingzola.wordpress.com/translations/

As you can see there are many more translations listed here than in the articles on Wikipedia, and every one of the Rougon-Macquart series has been translated as recently as 1955.

The 1958 translation of His Excellency, Eugene Rougon by Alec Brown is not listed on Amazon, but there is a 2014 translation by Michael Murray which is sold only in Kindle format for $2.99. I compared the first lines of it with the Vizitelly translation and the French original (both on Project Gutenberg). Murray's translation appears to be looser than Vizitelly's, but it reads nicely. I might give it a try.

The 1957 translation of Une Page D'Amour by Jean Stewart as "A Love Affair" is $20+ for used copies on Amazon. There is also a 1905 translation by C. C. Starkweather that is free from Project Gutenberg. The comments on the "Reading Zola" blog suggests that only Vizitelly's revised translations were bowdlerized, so this one might be worth a shot.

La Joie de vivre was translated in 1958 by Jean Stewart as "A Zest for Life". This also sells for about $20 on Amazon, and there don't seem to be any alternatives.

Doctor Pascal was translated in 1957 by Vladimir Kean for the same publisher, Elek Books. Once again, you can get a used copy from Amazon for $20. There is also a 1901 translation by Mary J. Serrano which is free on Project Gutenberg.

Wow, Steven! Thanks for doing all that research (which maybe I should have done myself!) i was relying on the lists on this Wikipedia page, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Rougon-Macquart, and on my research for existing books online. Thanks so much!

It's nice to see fellow completists on this thread. Enjoyed your review of The Prime Minister

I read His Excellency Eugene Rougon, Une Page D'Amour and La Joie de Vivre. Even though I read the Vizitelly translation for Eugene Rougon, I quite enjoyed it. It is primarily a political novel, and I didn't think I was going to care for it, subject-wise, but I ended up liking it. The other two I read on my Kindle, as free or very cheap purchases, and I'm not sure of the translators (Kindle not handy right now). I didn't care for Une Page D'Amour, but liked The Joy of Life. None of these three are among my favorite Zolas, however, and it may be that what I consider their "lesser" quality is why there aren't any recent translations.

Interesting reading as always, Rebecca! I really enjoyed Dona Flor and her Two Husbands and planned to read more Amado, but I never found Gabriela, Clove and Cinnamon or Tent of Miracles at the bookstore. I'll have to look for some of the ones you listed.

I know what you mean about The Prime Minister - it's a bit hard to get past the whole "foreign and Jewish bad character" even though that sort of this is pretty common in 19th c. literature.

Good to know about the Zola translations for future reference!

>165 baswood: Thanks Barry.

>166 arubabookwoman: Thanks, Deborah, for that information about the Zolas and for the insight that they're of "lesser" quality than the others. Alas, I don't have a Kindle, so I will eventually be going to Amazon or ABE..

>167 DieFledermaus: I had to resort to Amazon for a lot of the Amado I've read, but Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands and Showdown had been on my TBR for decades.

56. Eva's Eye by Karin Fossum



In this, the first Inspector Sejer mystery (but not the first to be translated into English), Sejer must investigate two seemingly unrelated murders: a woman, Maja, murdered in her bed six months earlier and the discovery of a body of man, who disappeared days after Maja was murdered, floating in the river that flows through town. The connection between them is Eva, who was a childhood friend of Maja's who only reconnected with her, by chance, the day before she was murdered, and who found the body in the river, with her daughter Emma, and supposedly called the police from a phone booth but really called her father. (The body was reported later that day by somebody else.)

And then Sejer mostly disappears until the very end and the story becomes Eva's, through flashbacks. She is a divorced artist who spreads layers of white, gray, and black paint on huge canvases and then scrapes paint away to reveal the layers underneath. She is also struggling for money while waiting for a government grant. But then, she seems to have more money (she can get the telephone reconnected and take her daughter out to McDonald's -- yes, in Norway) and she also appears very anxious. All will be revealed . . .

57. Let Me Tell You: New Stories, Essays, and Other Writings by Shirley Jackson



I am a big fan of Shirley Jackson and so was very excited when I learned that her children had discovered a treasure trove of her unpublished work in her archives at the Library of Congress and would be selecting stories and essays to publish. I've read all her novels (I think) and a collection of her stories, as well as some of the newly discovered stories that were published in The New Yorker, but not her humorous family narratives or her essays. I was really looking forward to reading this new volume but, alas, while I enjoyed several stories and some essays, perhaps there is a reason many of these stories were unpublished.

The book is divided into five sections: unpublished and uncollected short fiction, essays and reviews, early short stories, humor and family, and lectures about the craft of writing. Most of the stories detail life in suburbia/college towns, often skewering pretension and hypocrisy; the early stories, however, written at the time of the second world war, deal with the impact of the war on the mostly women left at home. Some of them are definitely creepy. My favorite story, which I had previously read in The New Yorker and which is up to Jackson's published work, was creepy but unsuburban, "The Man in the Woods." I also enjoyed "Paranoia," "Mrs. Spencer and the Oberons," "The New Maid," and "Six AM Is the Hour." I liked the section on lectures on the craft of writing and several of the essays. The book is enlivened by Jackson's line drawings.

Jackson died early, at 48. I like to think that if she had lived longer she would have worked on these stories some more and created new ones.

Note: As a counterpart to Project TBR, I am trying to restrain my book buying and read books I buy quickly, rather than having them add to the TBR. This book fits in that category.

>169 rebeccanyc: Eva's Eye is one of the few Fossum's I haven't read, Rebecca. It wasn't available in English when I went through my Inspector Sejer binge.

I meant to add, that I have yet to get to Shirley Jackson.

>171 NanaCC: It isn't as much about Inspector Sejer as Don't Look Back was. I've already ordered some more, since neither of the bookstores I frequent carry anything by Fossum.

If you want to read Jackson, I highly recommend starting with We Have Always Lived in the Castle, which I consider her masterpiece.

>172 rebeccanyc: maybe I'll try that one at Halloween

Well I've sure fallen behind... and can't muster the brainpower to say much, so this is just a friendly hello.

>126 rebeccanyc: (on TBR since 2/27/92)
I bet I have some of these too, but I don't have the record to confirm.

>173 NanaCC: It's creepy enough for that, Colleen!

>174 qebo: Thanks for stopping by, Katherine; I know you've been having an extra busy summer!

Project TBR: Book #3 (on TBR since 1/20/13)

58. The Harp and the Shadow by Alejo Carpentier



Alejo Carpentier has been one of my favorite authors since I read The Lost Steps, and this book, essentially about Christopher Columbus, does not disappoint.

The story opens in the late 19th century, with pomp and circumstance, as the pope of the era, Pius IX, is escorted to his personal chambers where he will consider signing a document that will set in motion an investigation into whether Columbus should be made a saint. (This is tricky, because usually people are beatified soon after they die, so people who knew them can testify about their miracles.) As he reflects on this, he recalls his time in Peru as a young priest (he was the first pope to have spent any time in America) and by implication the political machinations that he engaged in to set him on the road to advancement within the church.

The majority of the book is set some 400 years earlier, as Columbus lies on his deathbed. Awaiting the confessor, he recalls his life, and vows to tell all to the confessor. The reader sees through Columbus's eyes as he learns of a land to the west (which he still thinks is the Indies) and builds up a spiel to try to convince ruler after ruler to finance ships for him to explore further south than the Vikings did. Although Ferdinand and Isabella first turn him down, after they conquer Granada and drive the Muslims out of Spain, they decide to sponsor him. It is Isabella who really is in charge, and Carpentier makes Columbus and Isabella lovers. (He also vaguely impleis that Columbus has "mixed" origins, i.e., Jewish. Various "new Christians" make appearances in the novel.) Once on the seas and in America, Columbus turns out to be obsessed by gold (or GOLD), and treats the people he encounters (who he calls cannibals, although he never sees them) cruelly and shamefully. The novel presents his dramatic return to the court in Spain with "Indians" and very little gold, but he is still received very grandly. Despite his lack of loot, the rulers send Columbus on another voyage (because basically they don't want him to go to other countries and have them sponsor him), and in this one he develops the idea of enslaving the "Indians" since there isn't gold, an idea which on practical and religious grounds doesn't fly. The books skims over his two other trips. But at the end of reviewing his life, Columbus hears the step of the confessor on the stair and decides not to tell him much.

Then the scene shifts and Columbus is a spirit, the Invisible One, at the meeting reviewing the proposal to make him a saint. This is an hilarious section, as the meeting participants include the Devil's Advocate and spirits of famous people like Victor Hugo (most of the others I had to look up on Wikipedia), with comments by the Invisible One on his chances; ultimately, as we know, the committee voted against making Columbus a saint. The novel closes with Columbus encountering another Genoan, and another famous sailor, Andrea Doria.

What holds this book together is the power of Carpentier's writing. With his dazzling prose, he creates worlds.

59. The Prank: The Best of Young Chekhov by Anton Chekhov



When Chekhov was 22, he assembled what he thought was the best of his writing so far, with illustrations by his brother Nikolay, but was unable to get it past the censors, despite his best efforts to eliminate what might be troubling to them. While certain of the stories have since been published and translated, this NYRB edition is the first in any language to present the entire volume as Chekhov put it together (with the delightful illustrations, too).

The stories vary in quality and style (for example, he parodies both Jules Verne and Victor Hugo), but the best are up to Chekhov's later work. Many of them are satirical; all poke fun at the pretentious. Chekhov shows in this early effort the quality that shines throughout all his work: the ability to look (somewhat) compassionately at individual and varied characters, even if they "represent" a class of people. As the translator says about these stories in her introduction:

"To readers of English I hope they have the effect of an early photograph of someone met in middle age. At first, the unlined young face may seem jarringly unfamiliar. But look more closely, see the smiling eyes and the familiar features. 'Yes that's him. Of course, that's him,' you will say. 'Time has changed him but it's still the same man.'" p. xiv

I particularly enjoyed the satirical "Artists' Wives," the pointed "Papa," and the dark but humorous"St. Peter's Day" (the best story in the book), but I also liked many of the other lighter-weight stories, including "Chase Two Rabbits, Catch None," "A Sinner from Toledo," and "Before the Wedding."

This would not make a good introduction to Chekhov, but for a Chekhov fan it was a treat.

Note: As a counterpart to Project TBR, I am trying to restrain my book buying and read books I buy quickly, rather than having them add to the TBR. This book fits in that category.

Great review of The Harp and the Shadow, Rebecca. I'll add it to my wish list.

I am also adding The Harp and the Shadow to my wishlist. Nice review, Rebecca.

Thanks, Darryl and Colleen. I really like everything I've read so far by Carpentier.

The Harp and the Shadow sounds like a surreal de-mythification of Columbus that only someone with Carpentier's talent could make work.

Are you sure that Project TBR and its counterpart aren't a case of "Chase Two Rabbits..."? (asks someone who is perpetually chasing entire herds of rabbits) :-)

>181 StevenTX: I wouldn't necessarily classify it as surreal but it is definitely a de-mythification. The translators point out in their introduction that in South and Central America, the indigenous people and their descendants participate in the culture, whereas in the US they don't. They quote Fuentes (sorry I don't have the book in front of me) saying something like in South/Central America the past is the present, whereas in the US the past is the past.

As far as "Chase Two Rabbits . . .," through the wonders of LT I was able to see that I bought 10 books this year since I started Project TBR on my Thingaversary (July 14), and last year in the same period I bought 21. I have read four of the books bought during that period (and am reading one now) (40 or 50%), whereas of the books I bought during this period last year I've read 7 (33%). So I think I'm doing well . . . but I still have 637 books in my "Hope to Read Soon" collection . . .

I like the way you face the issue head on (re the 637). I have not counted how many I have to read. Although having moved repeatedly I usually use the packing as a way to get rid of books picked up when shopping and apparently forgotten about.

>176 rebeccanyc: This sounds like a wonderful book. I loved The Lost Steps and have not seen anything by Carpentier since. I know I could order, but it's far more fun to happen upon a book.

Admiring your TBR reading. I wish this book was on my pile. I recently did pick up a book on Columbus's four voyages, but haven't got to it as yet. I think I might prefer what steven calls the surreal de-mythification of Columbus

That's a great paraphrase from Fuentes, which fits the South American writing I've read.

>183 charl08: And that's not all the books I haven't read! For the most part, it's books I've acquired since I joined LT, but I've had many other books on my shelves for decades that aren't in my "Hope to Read Soon" collection. And I last moved 25 years ago, and that was after living in the same apartment for 10+ years, so I don't have the motivation of packing books to get rid of the ones I'm never going to read or have read but don't want to keep.

>184 SassyLassy: I had to order all the Carpentier books I've read. The Lost Steps is still my favorite, but I also enjoyed The Kingdom of This World and Explosion in a Cathedral, and I still have Reasons of State and The Chase on my TBR.

Great review of The Harp and Shadow - the spirit Columbus, Victor Hugo and co meeting sounds amusing.

I almost wish I had read some Chekhov, just so I could read The Prank - sounds interesting, and it's nice that they put together the collection the way he wanted it. I think there's a book of his plays somewhere on the pile.

>186 DieFledermaus: I've never read any of Chekhov's plays, only his short stories (Stories and his short novels (The Complete Short Novels).

60. He Who Fears the Wolf by Karin Fossum



I continue to be impressed by Karin Fossum's mysteries; this is my third. This one features a trio of misfits, who Fossum treats with great compassion. One is a young schizophrenic man who has escaped from the asylum where he was being involuntarily held and who witnesses -- or did he commit? -- a brutal murder of an elderly woman on a remote farm. One is the fat boy who apparently discovers the woman's body, sees the young schizophrenic man in the woods, and runs to report the crime to the police; he is a resident of a home for troubled boys and has snuck out to practice his archery, which is the only thing he takes an interest in besides eating. And the third is a bank robber who takes a hostage, the young schizophrenic man who, initially, because of his long hair, he thinks is a girl (and initially the police think so too, from the grainy video in the bank). As the bank robber and the schizophrenic man escape together, the tension between them intensifies and morphs in surprising directions (including an inescapably gory one). Eventually, through an accident, they are joined in their cabin in the woods by the fat boy. The police, with dogs, close in on them and a tragedy is revealed, as well as ultimately the real killer. Inspector Sejer investigates both these crimes with discretion and, as with the other Fossums I've read, the reader never knows more than he does. (He might have a new love interest too.) I don't know how much Fossum investigated schizophrenia, but she convinced me that she got inside the young man's head.

>188 rebeccanyc: You are plowing through this series, Rebecca. I'm glad you are enjoying them.

Excellent review of the Harp and the Shadow

637 is a lot of rabbits, but it might just as well be a thousand (I like to round things up) pun intended.

>189 NanaCC: Thanks for introducing me to them, Colleen. I'm trying to mix them up with other more "serious" books, but I confess I'm interested in reading the next one to find out what happens with Sejer's interest in Sara.

>190 baswood: Thanks, Barry, and it probably is a thousand with the pre-LT books on my shelves. And very funny; thanks for the laugh.

Enjoyed catching up. Sounds like the Shirley Jackson was a bit of a disappointment. The Carpentier is curious, although I'm not sure I would want to read it. And thanks for the reminder to read more Chekhov.

(I didn't get the pun in 190...)

>192 dchaikin: Thank you Dan, I thought I was the only one!

>192 dchaikin: >193 FlorenceArt: Thanks for stopping by, Dan and Florence. "Rounding up" from 637 to a thousand, "rounding up" rabbits (reference to >181 StevenTX: and >182 rebeccanyc:.

Playing LT catch-up! The Harp and Shadow definitely sounds interesting.

Project TBR: Book #4 (on TBR since 7/14/14 (a book I bought for my 8th Thingaversary)

61. Notre-Dame de Paris by Victor Hugo



Amazingly, I reached my 60s and the second decade of the 21st century without knowing the plot or the characters of this novel, better known, albeit misleadingly, in English as The Hunchback of Notre Dame. I appreciated that my translation kept the original French title, because the novel is much more about the cathedral, and the archdeacon, Claude Frollo, than it is about the hunchback Quasimodo (who is much more grotesque in appearance than the word "hunchback" suggests, anyway) and the gypsy girl Esmeralda (and her delightful goat, Djali). The plot is very well known, except to me, so I won't repeat except to say that the about half-way through the novel Esmeralda is accused of murder, is sentenced to be hanged, and that Quasimodo, who loves her (although not the only one to do so), rescues her, secretes her in the cathedral where she has asylum, and complications ensue. I found this aspect of the plot exceedingly melodramatic.

Of course, being a novel by Hugo, there are lots of subplots and digressions, of which more later. The most complicated and interesting character is the learned archdeacon, Frollo, who at first rescues Quasimodo, earning his almost lifelong devotion, and sees to the education of his no-good, fun-loving, much younger brother but later, by implication, gets involved in so much learning himself that he has nowhere to go but witchcraft and alchemy. He falls in love with Esmerelda, but sees the hand of Satan in his love for her, with obvious complications (he is a priest, for one). The other major character is the cathedral itself, lovingly described by Hugo, with all its towers, statues, and hidden rooms. I am glad I have been to Paris and seen Notre Dame, but if I ever go again I will look at it with new eyes.

Perhaps the digressions are the most fun part of this novel (although, towards the end, it was hard for me to put it down as the plot wound to its conclusion). One of the most important is architecture and the chapter that discusses how the book will supplant architecture is fascinating.

"With the fifteenth century everything changed.
Human thought discovered a means of perpetuating itself not only more durable and more resistant than architecture, but simpler and easier. Architecture was dethroned. Orpheus' letters of stone were succeeded by Gutenberg's letters of lead.
The book is going to kill the building." (p.200)

Some of the other digressions include the nature of the criminal/begging class, justice (most often denied) and the "justice" system, the role of the king, alchemy, women who hide themselves away, and a very obvious subplot involving a girl who was stolen by gypsies.

All in all, I'm glad I read this book, although it got off to a very slow start, but I didn't like it nearly as much as the other books by Hugo I've read.

>196 rebeccanyc: nice review, Rebecca. Hugo is another author I've never read.

All in all, I'm glad I read this book, although it got off to a very slow start,

That's an encouragement. I loved this book as a child, in what I assume was an abridged version although it was indeed long. However, when I picked it up again about three years ago, I just didn't seem to make any progress. Perhaps I should try it again.

>196 rebeccanyc: Amazingly, I reached my 60s and the second decade of the 21st century without knowing the plot or the characters of this novel...

You're not the only one... It's approached the top of my TBR pile several times in recent years only to be pushed aside by something else.

Interesting comments about the book killing the building.

I read this last year and I didn't know the plot either. I mean ... hunchback, gypsy, church is about all I could probably have come up with. If my kids had been slightly older, I would have known the Disney version of the story, but it came out when they were tiny so we missed it entirely. I enjoyed it a lot, but it's the first Hugo I've read.

>197 NanaCC: Thanks, Colleen. I would recommend The Toilers of the Sea, which I thought was stunning, and The Man Who Laughs, which was horrifying, more than Notre-Dame de Paris.

>198 SassyLassy: Or try something else by Hugo . . .

>199 StevenTX: Glad to know I wasn't the only one! That was one of my favorite digressions.

>200 ursula: Ditto!

I don't think I have ever read anything by Hugo. I have a very bad prejudice against him I'm afraid, and I have no wish whatsoever to read Les misérables or Notre-Dame de Paris. I might be tempted by Les travailleurs de la mer, it's such a beautiful title.

Really interesting review. And yes - I'm another one who also didn't know the plot! I've not read any Hugo yet; one day maybe.

Curiously, this is the second message about prejudice against authors I've read today* (the third, if my original post on someone else's thread counts). The Toilers of the Sea (yes, the title sounds better in French) was the first Hugo I read and it was so thrilling and beautiful I wanted to read more by him. But nothing has lived up to that first one.

*SassyLassy suggested I make it a Question for the Avid Reader, so I will do that with the next question in a week or two.

>196 rebeccanyc: "...there are lots of subplots and digressions, of which more later."

Ha!

Because I had time, I started a new thread here: https://www.librarything.com/topic/195157. But feel free to continue the discussion here. I hope to finish one more book today, and I'll post that on the new thread in the next day or so . . . busy day tomorrow.

>201 rebeccanyc: I've read the two volume Les Misérables, and that went well. I also have The Toilers of the Sea on the TBR thanks to your great review of it. Perhaps I was just reading Notre-Dame at the wrong time.

>196 rebeccanyc:

I'm glad to see that you finally got into it after the slow start. It was slow for me too and it almost made me miss reading Esmeralda's real age. However, once you settle in it is a nice ride. And I'm glad to see you were able to immerse yourself into the two main characters. As I mentioned in my review when I read the book, it just wouldn't be the same if it had been the Sacre Coeur and not Notre Dame.

In any case, great to see you notch another Hugo on your list! Maybe next you can do Last Day of a Condemned Man. It's a short one and quite genius.

Thanks for spreading the Hugo love as I'm currently not reading and can't do it myself.

Prejudice against authors...Les Mis kind of Hugo in for me. Maybe I should try something else, but surely not Notre Dame.

Thanks, Sassy and lilisin. I'll look for Last Day of a Condemned Man. And I hear you, Dan!