japaul22's double challenge for 2014

Hi everyone! I can resist no longer! I've got the general outline of my 2014 challenges in my head and I need to get the thread started to see how it's panning out. I've decided to record two separate challenges here. One is a traditional category challenge with 10 categories and 4 books needed to complete each for a total of 40 books. The second challenge I will be tracking here for the sake of convenience and also because I like to share all of my reviews on this thread since I enjoy the comments here. This challenge is to help me make progress on reading off of the 1001 books to read before you die list. I've decided to read 26 books from the list by dividing the list into 50s (#1-50, #51-100, etc.) and choosing one book from each set of 50. Because the list is presented in chronological order of publication, I think this will give me a nice variety of books. I know it isn't a traditional category challenge, so I hope no one minds if a track it here in addition to my more traditional challenge. The two challenges will give me 66 books for the year which is a typical number for me and allows me to read some longer works. I will not be mixing the two lists and will try to have no or few 1001 books in the traditional category challenge.

My current categories are:
1 Other books by authors of my favorites

2 New releases (2013 and later)

3 non-LT finds (books that I first hear of from a source other than LT, because I feel like I'm losing the art of finding my own books because of all of the great reviews I read here!)

4 Historical fiction

5 Mysteries

6 Non fiction

7 TBR off my shelf, pre-2014

8 TBR list, pre-2014 (I'll try to get to some of the oldest on the list I keep here)

9 Group Reads

10 Rereads

*the goal is to have no or few 1001 book list books in this challenge

Category 1 "Other Books by Authors of my Favorites"
1. Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
2. Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson
3. Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym
4. True Deceiver by Tove Jansson
5. Lucia in London by E.F. Benson
6. The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton
7. A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley

Possibilities:
Paradise
Slammerkin
The Reivers
The Wine of Solitude
Home

Category 2 "New releases"
1. Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
2. The Bees by Laline Paull
3. The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
4. Jane Austen Cover to Cover by Margaret C. Sullivan
5. The Secret Place by Tana French
6. A King's Ransom by Sharon Kay Penman
7. In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides
8. Lila by Marilynne Robinson

The Signature of All Things
The Goldfinch
Margaret Fuller
A King's Ransom
The Good Lord Bird
The Bees
Before I Go to Sleep
My Life in Middlemarch
The Secret Place

Category 3 "Non-LT finds"
1. Masterminds and Wingmen by Rosalind Wiseman, heard on NPR
2. The Pentrals by Crystal Mack
3. Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling
4. Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore

Category 4 "Historical Fiction"
1. Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman
2. Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
3. Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman
4. The Secret River by Kate Grenville

Possibilities:
The Secret River
The Lacuna
Caleb's Crossing
The Book Thief
complete the Eleanor of Aquitaine Penman series
Pillars of the Earth

Category 5 "Mysteries/Thrillers"
1. Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James
2. Revelation by C.J. Sansom
3. The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters
4. Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear
5. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith
6. A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey

Behind the Scenes at the Museum
Revelation
The Glass Devil
The House at Riverton

Category 6 "Nonfiction"

1. Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner, January RandomCAT
2. The Brontes by Juliet Barker
3. The Planet in a Pebble by Jan Zalasiewicz
4. My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead
5. Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace by Kate Summerscale
6. A Royal Experiment by Janice Hadlow
7. Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman
8. Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt
9. In the Heart of the Sea by Nathaniel Philbrick

Possibilities:
Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters WHo Ruled Europe
Pearl Buck in China
Virginia Woolf
The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery
Schindler's List
My Life in MIddlemarch

Category 7 "TBR off my shelf, pre-2014"
1. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
2. Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
3. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
4. A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

Possibilities:
We Need to Talk About Kevin
Hotel du Lac
The Tiger's Wife
Life and Fate
A Distant Mirror

Category 8 "TBR off my LT list, pre-2014" (differs from above in that this is a book I would not own yet, but made a note of in my LT library)
1. The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
2. I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
3. Swimming Home by Deborah Levy
4. Heartstone by C.J. Sansom

Swimming Home
A Distant Mirror
Heartstone

Category 9 "Group Reads"
1. The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton by Kathryn Hughes
2. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
3. The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer
4. Four Queens by Nancy Goldstone

Bel Canto (March)
Four Queens (third quarter July-Sept)
GeoCat and RandomCat challenge books
Bleak House (January)
Thomas Mann with Author Theme Reads Group
THe Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton (first quarter)
Georgette Heyer month (June)
1001 books group reads

Category 10 "Rereads" and "Miscellaneous"
1. Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson
2. Vanity Fair by William Thackeray
3. Sense and Sensibility: An Annotated Edition by Jane Austen, annotated by Patricia Meyer Spacks
4. The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien
5. Alberta and Freedom by Cora Sandel
6. Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson

1001 books to read before you die - completing this will get me to 200 books read from the list

Pick 1 per 50 for 26 total - book in parentheses are possibilities
1-50 Cloud Atlas, #42
51-100 The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor, #64
101-150 (God of Small Things, Cloudsplitter, Tipping the Velvet)
151-200 Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks, #192
*201-250 (Jazz, The English Patient, Regeneration)
251-300 Paradise of the Blind by duong Thu Huong, #277
301-350 Oranges are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, #324
*351-400 (Schindler's Ark, Flaubert's Parrot, House of the Spirits)
*401-450 (Smiley's People, So Long a Letter, A Bend in the River, If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, The Sea the Sea, Blaming)
*451-500 (Sula, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Black Prince, Surfacing)
*501-550 (Fifth Business)
*551-600 (Cat's Cradle, The Vice-Consul, Pale Fire)
601-650 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, #607
651-700 The Roots of Heaven by Romain Gary, #663
*701-750 (The End of the Affair, The Heat of the Day, Gormenghast)
*751-800 (If This is a Man, Under the Volcano, The Bridge on the Drina, The Razor's Edge, Chess Story, Titus Groan)
*801-850 (Out of Africa, Summer Will Show, Of Mice and Men, Independent People)
851-900 The Waves, #875
901-950 Alberta and Jacob, #919
951-1000 Growth of the Soil, #970
1001-1050 Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann, #1027
1051-1100 The Real Charlotte by Somerville and Ross, #1053
1101-1150 Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne, #1113
1151-1200 Bleak House by Charles Dickens, #1157
1201-1250 Evelina, #1239
1251-1294 Moll Flanders, #1264

*Extras/replacements:
#946 The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield
#1043 Misericordia by Benito Galdos
#1079 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
#1088 La Regenta by Leopold Alas
#1246 The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
#298 The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster
#673 The Quiet American by Graham Greene
#185 Felicia's Journey by William Trevor
#1040 War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
#854 Thank you, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
#14 The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid

and one to grow on

Sounds like an excellent way to organize your challenge. I know quite a few people in here are working on the 1001, so I'm sure your reviews will be highly appreciated!

Indeed! And may encourage others to set up a category for them. Hmmm...

Nice setup! Have fun whittling down the 1001 list :)

Great challenge setup. Love the list of books you have set aside for your 1001 reading. I recognize a number of those books so I will be looking forward to seeing what you think of them, and joining you in the reading Bleak House in 2014!

Great to see you here for another year. Looking forward to following your reviews. You make a very good point with your third category, these days I very rarely read a book that I haven't first heard about here on LT.

Glad everyone is ok with me adding my 1001 books challenge here!

Deltaqueen - I love all the book suggestions I've gotten here, but I don't want to completely lose the books I used to find in newspaper book review sections, browsing the library, or talking to friends "in real life". Just trying to find a tiny bit of balance!

This looks like a great plan. I look forward to your opinions, reviews.

I'm looking forward to another year of following your reading and adding books to my TBR.

Welcome to the challenge! Great categories!

Adding my interest in your 2014 Challenge and I'll definitely be following along. That's a good idea to separate the 1001 books - keeps your reading life balanced!

Enablers, that's us!

Here's a picture of me and my eldest son on a tour of the White House holiday decorations. They had a book tree!!



and a close up of the book tree

Ooh book tree! Very neat!

Yay, Book Tree! That is awesome! I also love the picture of you and your eldest. Such a sweet holiday picture.

The book tree is awesome! Great pictures.

My first book of 2014 goes in the historical fiction category - Devil's Brood by Sharon Kay Penman.

This is the third book in Penman's series exploring the realm of King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine. This book focuses on Henry's struggles over power with his four ambitious sons. After a decent but not overly exciting start with the first two books of the series, Penman really caught fire with this tale of deceit, power struggles, and family drama. I kept thinking that often you hear about the drama of Kings struggling to provide a male heir to their throne, but in this case, having four ambitious sons provided just as much drama and conflict as all of them wanted the crown or at least significant power in their own right. Eleanor is held in captivity by her husband for supporting their sons' rebellion for much of this book, but she is still fascinating.

As always, I love Penman's brand of historical fiction. She sticks to the facts when relating historical events and the positioning of characters, using very few fictional characters. Even some of the servants are names that are included in contemporary historical records. Then she flushes out the story by drawing her own conclusions from the evidence to characterize the people she writes of, guessing at their motivations, personalities, and reactions. I find it very easy to separate fact from fiction in her work and tear through these long novels without wanting to put them down.

Loads of fun!

4 stars

Original Publication Date: 2008
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 768
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for Kindle

These are great pictures! Your son is adorable.

@ 29 -- Glad you liked Devil's Brood so much! I love Sharon Kay Penman...her novels are long, but they always seem to fly by!

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The Roots of Heaven by Romain Gary to fulfill my 651-700 category.

Elephants, elephants, and more elephants. This is the story of Morel, a survivor of the German concentration camps in WWII, who goes to Africa after the war to bring attention to the killing of innocent elephants. During his time in the concentration camps, he survived by imagining himself with the elephants, roaming free over the African plains. When he takes up this cause, the different factions in French colonial Africa attribute all sort of secondary motives to him - mainly equating saving the elephants to freeing Africa from French rule. Morel insists that he takes no side in these human concerns, just wants elephants to be left alone to live their lives. He attracts a following of misfits and the book tells the story of their cause and reactions to them through a story-teller, retelling the events which gives the book the feel of a fable or tall tale.

This book was a bit outside my normal comfort zone, but I ended up being pretty intrigued by it. It gave me a lot to think about and I enjoyed it even though it was a little weird.

4 stars

Original Publication Date: 1956
Author’s nationality: French
Original language: French
Length: 375 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: out of publication - ordered a used copy from Amazon

>32 japaul22: Hi good review, I've never read a novel by Romain Gary. This one is going on the BB list.

With this book I wrap up my 2013 reading!

For my nonfiction category, I read Reconstruction: America's Unfinished Revolution by Eric Foner.

I’ve been reading Foner’s definitive account of Reconstruction off and on for the past 6 months and definitely had a love/hate relationship with this scholarly and dense book. Though parts were extremely readable and interesting and the whole book is impeccably and fairly researched, I also found large sections, especially those focusing on the corrupt politics of the time, to be terribly dry and hard to comprehend.

Foner’s book focuses on 1863, with the Emancipation Proclamation, to 1877, with the fall of the last Southern Republican governments. It was interesting to me that many of the same arguments still heard today were born and internalized in this era. There were many powerful arguments from all sides that government support of the recently freed slaves would only lead to never-ending dependence, and argument against welfare still heard today. Keep in mind this was after enslaving a whole people, denying them education, family, and any opportunity to learn to live independently. Also, towards the end of Reconstruction, laws were created and enforced only for blacks that effectively incarcerated a large percentage of black men, viewed by blacks as another way to enslave them. I couldn’t help comparing the sentiment to today’s current drug laws as explained in The New Jim Crow, one of the most eye-opening books on social justice I’ve ever read.

Reconstruction was largely a failure as most of us know. At the end of it, any efforts made at the beginning to create public education, enforce the legality of blacks voting, support freed slaves in earning a living, or include blacks in politics were reversed and opportunities were closed off. Racism was not the only factor in it’s failure; a severe economic depression, worker strikes in the north, inept Republican politicans (President Johnson most obviously), and of course the violence of the Ku Klux Klan all contributed to it’s failure. There were a few nominal positives in that in did establish a legal framework in the Constitution for the federal government to later (like, 100 years later!) intervene in the South and support the Civil Rights movement. Also, this was when black families finally got to strengthen after separation through slavery and the church and community developed where the civil rights movement would be born.

If you have any interest in this time period, this is the book to read. It is regarded as the first book to contradict the deplorable books previously written by “historians” who defended the decisions of the Confederate south and perpetuated the idea that the freed slaves and all blacks were not fit to be anything other than slaves or menial labor. It is quite shocking how long that viewpoint was regarded as scholarly truth.

Original Publication Date: 1988
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 611 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased from Amazon

I also decided Reconstruction could count toward the January RandomCat as it is about both the end of American slavery and the beginning of the very long road towards real freedom and equality, in some ways and some areas an ongoing struggle. It was also very much a transitional time in the US.

Nice review of Roots of Heaven. Now I'm really disappointed I missed out on the group read of it.

For my "discovered outside of LT" category, I read Masterminds and Wingmen by Rosalind Wiseman. I heard an interview with her on an NPR program and was interested in the book.

Rosalind Wiseman is, well, what is she? She's not a doctor, a psychologist, a psychiatrist, a researcher . . . her bio says she's "an internationally recognized expert on children, parenting, bullying, social justice, and ethical leadership". If any of you have heard of her, it's probably for her book Queen Bees and Wannabes and the spin off movie, Mean Girls, produced by Tina Fey.

This book is the boy equivalent of Mean Girls. In it she attempts to decode "boy world". Since I have two little boys I thought this might be interesting. I was not impressed. To be fair, maybe it would all mean more to me if my boys were in the target age group she's describing, middle-high school, but I don't think so. I found her way to quick to try to categorize every boy and every parent and too slow to acknowledge that people rarely fit in such well defined categories. The book is divided into sections for specific problems, so if you're having a specific problem I guess reading that section might be helpful, but I just wasn't a fan of her approach or tone.

I'm sick of writing this review!
2 stars

Original Publication Date: 2013
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 384 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library book, hold list

For my 1001 books challenge, I read #1157 off the combined list, Bleak House by Charles Dickens.

I enjoyed this very long Dickens novel that weaves together multiple stories and has more characters than you can possibly remember. This novel has it all - mystery, lawsuits, love triangles, blackmail, death, crazy people, spontaneous combustion, pre-marital sex . . . you name it. This makes the book both fun and long/confusing. I had to pay attention to every single character introduced, because they all end up being important. As I've found to often be the case with Dickens, I found the peripheral characters to be more interesting than the main characters. I actually didn't like Esther, who narrates half of the book, much at all. She had a goody two shoes attitude that I just couldn't stand or believe.

Central to this book is a lawsuit about a dispute over the estate left in a will. I found the harsh commentary on law to be both amusing and interesting and I think it really bulked up the book in a good way.

Overall, I felt like I did with other Dickens I've read - I liked the plot and characters and some of Dickens' writing is just beautiful, but it was just a bit too long and diffuse for it to really be a favorite.

Original Publication Date: 1853
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 1088 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle (free from amazon)

For my group reads category, I read The Short Life and Long Times of Mrs. Beeton: The First Domestic Goddess by Kathryn Hughes.

This is a biography that I picked up because of a group read happening here on LT. I had never heard of Mrs. Beeton - I'd be curious to know if any of you (especially the Brits!) have. Isabella Beeton was a Victorian woman who is known for her "Book of Household Management". Isabella's husband was a publisher and she wrote for his magazines and wrote this book as well which has been edited and republished countless times and is in fact still in print. Isabella Beeton's name may be long-lived, but as the title states, she had an all to short life, dying in her late 20s most likely of syphilis contracted from her husband.

There has been much controversy about Beeton's life and writing. The Book of Household Management is often blamed for the much-maligned state of British cooking (i.e. boiling vegetables for hours at a time) and there is also the fact that people think of "Mrs. Beeton" as a middle age mother of many and expert at running a house and cooking, when in fact, Isabella Beeton was in her early 20s, had no living children and probably never cooked the majority of the included recipes. To write the book, she rewrote or sometimes directly plagiarized from other cookbooks and housekeeping books.

The most interesting part of this book for me was the exploration of Victorian middle class life through Isabella's life. Everything from rising and falling through the middle classes, courtship, marriage, home life, food eaten, clothes worn, and the ravages of syphilis is explored. As well, publishing and copyrights are integral to this book which I found very interesting.

Reading this book came at a good time for me since I was reading Dickens' Bleak House at the same time. It was entertaining and easy to read.

Original Publication Date: 2006
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 461 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: borrowed from library

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
Anyone who has been on LT for any length of time has heard rave reviews about this slim book of letters between an American book lover and a used book store in England. I'll add my voice of praise to the chorus and say I'm in love with this book. I laughed, I cried, I neglected my children to finish it. So grab an hour and a glass of wine and read this book. You won't regret it.

Original Publication Date: 1970
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 97 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased from Amazon (which I feel very guilty about after reading about this fantastic bookstore)

>40 japaul22: OK I was hit by a BB last year for this one. The aim, this year, is to read as much books from the shelves as I can but seeing this review I can only buy this one right now, right ?

I have heard a lot about CCR and I'm adding it to my radar blips category. Thanks for reminding me.

@ 41 -- electrice, if you buy it now, then it will be on your shelves! :)

41 - yes, do buy it! It's fabulous!

>43 christina_reads: & 44 Ok you're a bad influence. I just purchased it from The Book Depository :) I'm looking forward it.

For my non-LT finds, I read The Pentrals by Crystal Mack.

I need to preface this review by saying the the author, Crystal Mack, went to the same high school that I did. I don't really remember her, but she was friends with my younger sister, who introduced me to this book.

The book is a YA fantasy/world-building story and is the first in a series. It is about the world of the Pentrals, who are the beings who inhabit our shadows and reflections. The story is very clever. A group of teenagers are at the heart of the book and the shadow of Violet, whose name is Antares, narrates the book. Antares and Violet end up switching places and in a human body, Antares begins to see that there is something very wrong with the world that Violet is living in. As Antares learns more about her shadow world she also begins to understand the mystery behind why all the adults are so miserable in Talline. Talline itself is interesting. It's a city built in the Grand Canyon comprised of mirrors on every surface, creating a bright, shining city but also containing darkness in the reflections it presents.

I thought the world building was very successful and the writing is great. It's clear and concise and also had some deep themes that were presented without being overworked or getting too cheesy. The love triangle and relationships between the teenagers were a bit over-dramatic for my personal taste, but then again, teenagers are pretty dramatic!

I don't read a lot of YA fiction, but I did enjoy reading this book and will continue with the series when it's published. I think that teenagers who like fantasy will love this book and I think that most adults who enjoy series like The Hunger Games will like it as well.

Original Publication Date: 2013
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 246 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle purchase

Really? She went to the same high school? Was she your sister's age?

*trying to think who this person might be*

eta: and I see it is only $1.99 so I think I'll try it too.

Yeah, I think she was in my sister's grade - class of 1999. I don't really remember her either, but I vaguely remember her older brother, Gary Mack, who I think was a year younger than us.

I thought it was pretty cool that a Jacobs alum has a published book!

For my 1001 books challenge, I read #192, Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.

I have had this book on my radar for a while now, but after seeing some mediocre reviews I wasn't sure I would like it much. With the WWI theme and a group read in the "1001 books to read before you die" group, I decided it was time to try it. I'm so glad I did since I ended up loving it.

This is the story of Stephen Wraysford's war experience. The book begins in 1910 and shows a youthful Stephen in France falling in love with an older married woman, Isabelle. This is the most obvious "love" part of the novel. Next we skip to 1916 and see Stephan's brutal war experience. He is cold and detached, uncaring, perfect for a soldier. He also has luck and as all of his comrades are gruesomely dying around him, he somehow lives on. But for what? The next part of the novel takes place in England in 1978 and focuses on Elizabeth who is becoming interested in the history of her grandfather who was a soldier in WWI and who she knows almost nothing about.

The novel is subtitled "A Novel of Love and War" and I found it a significant addition to the title. What really struck me about this book was the idea of love. To me, the idea of love between Stephen and the other soldiers he fought alongside was the real love present in the book. It is an untraditional love - these men don't really know much about each other, they don't share much, sometimes they don't even remember names, but I think you could still say that they do love each other. As they die together and experience the same horrors, they are bound together. It isn't a way I've really thought of love before, but I think it counts. This idea all came together for me when Jack Firebrance says "I could have loved you" towards the end of his life. Then I thought of all the men Stephen had watched die and thought that this was such a deeper love than he ever felt for Isabelle, even though it didn't strike me as love when I was reading those parts.

I did not particularly love the 1970s portion of the book. I thought the main character, Elizabeth, was pretty annoying, and though there was a connection to the war story, I just didn't think it added all the much to the book. I do think, though, that it gave some relief to the horrors of the war sections.

Overall, I really loved this book and would recommend it to anyone looking for some WWI reading during this anniversary year.

Original Publication Date: 1993
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 483 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: book purchased from library sale

For my 1001 books challenge, I read #324, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson.

This book did not hit the right note for me. It's an autobiographical novel about a young girl who is adopted by a Pentecostal family. The church is their life and she's raised with the thought that she'll be a missionary - until her teenage years where she discovers she's a lesbian and her mother and the church find out.

The book is humorous in a mocking sort of way, but instead of finding it funny I really just thought it was sad. I think that's why it really didn't work for me. It made me really mad that the super-religious mother had obviously converted later in life and had a wide variety of life experience before confining her adopted daughter to her narrow beliefs.

I just didn't like it, though I suppose I did appreciate the writing.

Original Publication Date: 1985
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 176 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback from a library sale

Good review of Oranges Are Not. I liked it more than you did - not by much, mind you - and I seem to remember having the impression that the story would not appeal to all readers.

I tried to read something else by her and just couldn't finish. She must be a love it or hate it type of author.

Lori and LittleTaiko - yes, Winterson's writing style is unique enough that she's not going to be for everyone - myself included!

For my mysteries category, I read Death Comes to Pemberly by P.D. James.

After seeing lots of mediocre to negative reviews of this mystery that uses Austen's characters from Pride and Prejudice, I had very low expectations for this book. That ended up working pretty well for me. I've been really stressed out from work and having two little kids and I wanted something totally mindless to read. I ended up kind of liking this revisit of some of my favorite characters.

I though the book started out pretty well, reintroducing everyone 6 years after the end of P&P, though I was suspicious of the evil turn that Colonel Fitzwilliam has taken. Things were shaping up with the conflict between Alveston and Col Fitzwilliam for Georgiana when the unfortunate mystery started. The mystery was really lame (why did they not ever ask Lydia what Wickham and Denny were fighting about?). I think the book would have been better if James had brought in totally new characters for the mystery part and used the setting of Pemberly so she could use Austen's characters.

Basically, I liked the first third of the book and became more and more dissatisfied. But, honestly, it fit the bill for my mood and it was such a fast read that I don't feel like it wasted my time. Not really recommended unless you understand what you're getting and feel in the mood for it.

Original Publication Date: 2011
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 291 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: hardcover from library sale (most likely going back!)

For my historical fiction category, I read Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue.
Slammerkin is set in the 1700s and is the story of Mary Saunders, a young, poor girl who is raped, becomes pregnant, and is thrown out of the house by her mother to fend for herself. She becomes a prostitute in the first half of the book and then escapes to the small town of Monmouth where she attempts to restart her life. I won't give away any more plot though suffice to say a lot more happens!

This is one of those books where you know things won't turn out well. Mary repeatedly becomes a victim both of her circumstances and her choices. It's also one of those books where the plot really steals the show. I was racing through the reading to find out what happens. In a book like that, I often find that I've enjoyed the reading experience, but later find that I didn't read closely enough to really find out if there was much deeper than the "can't turn your eyes away from a train wreck" plot.

I suppose time will tell - for now, 4 stars.

Original Publication Date: 2000
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 384 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, library sale

I remember loving Slammerkin when I read it, but you are so right about finding yourself racing through it in order to find out what happens to Mary next!

I'd read Room a couple of years ago and was very impressed. I've been meaning to try more of Donoghue's work. Slammerkin sounds like it would a good choice.

>56 DeltaQueen50: - I felt the same way about Room. I wonder if all of her books are like that?

>57 mathgirl40: - Slammerkin is very different than Room, but is just as compulsively readable.

For my TBR off my LT list, I read The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley.

Smiley has written a work of historical fiction about 14th-15th century Greenland that is slow, detailed, bleak and ultimately an unforgettable reading experience. Life in Greenland over this time period is waning. By the end of the 15th century, no evidence of these settlements exists, so the entire book is shadowed by the end of times for this people. Characters die left and right; life is hard to the point of almost no scenes of joy. The constant death seems to make characters not even connect to each other because they know they will be separated. Life revolves around the arrival of ships from Iceland and Norway. These come less and less frequently and the news they bring is mainly of widespread death in Europe. Greenland waits for a Bishop, receives one, and waits again in vain when he dies. They’ve been forgotten by the Pope and are on their way to being forgotten by all of Europe.

The book is written, especially in the beginning, with lots of myths and stories of past Greenlanders inserted. It’s obvious that the ancestors of the Greenlanders were much more adventurous than they are now. The previous generations used to travel to Vinland and Markland and north into Greenland. These trips are never attempted anymore. In fact, there are not even any large boats by the end of the book. Other things they lose over the course of the book are their knowledge of the laws usually enforced at the Thing, as well as contact with the church.

Smiley’s writing style is bleak and spare, just like the events of the book. Though many of the actions are dramatic, the writing stays detached and with painful slowness reveals the reactions and feelings of the main characters. It took me a long time to warm up to the pace of this book, but by the end I can’t imagine it being written any other way. Smiley doesn’t help the reader, the book is only divided into 3 large sections with no chapters to pace the book. I had a hard time with this, especially for the first third of the book. When I compare this book to The Long Ships or Kristin Lavransdatter, it suffers a bit since those books I found more engaging with easier characters to connect with and love. In the end though, I feel like I know what life was like for the Greenlanders - in fact I feel liked I’ve actually lived it. I also felt a deep connection to several of the characters, despite the slow reveal of their personalities.

Original Publication Date: 1988
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 608 pages (really? that's what amazon says, but I read it on my kindle and it seemed much longer!!!)
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle

For my 1001 books to read before you die challenge, I read Around the World in Eighty Days by Jules Verne.

I don't feel like doing a review but I loved this adventure story about Phileas Fogg's bet that he could travel around the world in eighty days.

Original Publication Date: 1873
Author’s nationality: French
Original language: French
Length: 191 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback from library sale

Wasn't that a fun book? So different than what I was expecting b

Yep, I was surprised how much I enjoyed it. It was the first Jules Verne book I've read.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The Real Charlotte by Somerville and Ross
This is a relatively obscure Irish novel written in 1894 by cousins Edith Somerville and Violet Martin. It sets up an interesting contrast between two cousins - the 40-something, unattractive, scheming, and bitter Charlotte vs. the 20-something flirtatious, naive, and beautiful Francie. The novel revolves around Francie's three love interests and Charlotte's jealousy of one of these in particular. The characters are well-drawn and complex and I wasn't sure where Somerville and Ross were going with some of them, especially Charlotte. The rather abrupt and unsatisfying ending of the book was the only low point for me. Otherwise, I found it interesting and readable with memorable characters.

I'd recommend this book to anyone who likes writers from this era (Trollope, the Brontes, Gaskell, etc.).

Original Publication Date: 1894
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 415 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle

Hi everyone! I'm back from a fun but exhausting trip to Disney World. We ended up getting there at 3 am late Monday night. (Is there any way to travel with a 4 year old and 1 year old that isn't exhausting???) Anyway, I am hopelessly behind in both my reading plans for March and reading everyone's threads.

I'm in the middle of two books (I should say at the beginning), the very long, detailed and fascinating The Brontes by Juliet Barker and Bel Canto.

Disney World! Fun but exhausting sounds like a great vacation to me. ;-)

Almost sounds like you need a vacation to recover from your vacation! ;) Glad to hear you had a good time.

I absolutely need a vacation to recover. I think work might actually do the trick, ironically!

The Brontes is so, so, so good. And so is Bel Canto. Enjoy!

Good luck recovering from your vacation. Can't wait to hear your thoughts on Bel Canto.

For my group read category, I read Bel Canto by Ann Patchett.
I finally finished a book in March - the wonderful Bel Canto. I've avoided reading this book for years because I knew a central character is an opera singer. As a professional musician, I usually find fiction writing about music and musicians to be over-emotional and extremely inaccurate - all talent and no work - but this book did a good enough job to not annoy me and I really loved it.

Most of you probably know the premise, but to refresh, this is a story of a group of terrorists who take a large dinner party hostage in the hopes of capturing the President of the country. Unfortunately for them, the President is unexpectedly not in attendance so they keep a large number of the dinner guests instead. One of the hostages is a famous opera singer who was hired to perform at the party. The hostage situation lasts on for months so there are the inevitable relationships that develop, both between the hostages and the hostages and their captors. Throughout the book there is the knowledge that this stalemate between the inside and outside world cannot last forever. Another interesting aspect of the book is that many different languages are spoken and a central character is Gen, who is there as a translator and ends up playing the role of translator to everyone in the house.

I really enjoyed the book, but there were a few aspects that could have been a bit better done that will make it a 4 star rather than 5 star read for me. One is that I think Patchett intended this book to have the feel of an opera in terms of some of the plot and also the pacing and emotion in the book. In this respect, I think she could have been a bit more convincing. Also, I really didn't like the ending where Gen and Roxanne end up marrying.

Anyway, this was a very satisfying book to read and it made me want to read State of Wonder as well.

Original Publication Date: 2001
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 352 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle

The ending is the only part of Bel Canto that didn't quite work for me, so you are not alone in questioning it!

Really liked Bel Canto much better than State of Wonder. The ending didn't bother me too much as at one point earlier in the book I could see that potentially happening. Looking forward to our group discussion!

For my miscellaneous category, I read Queen Lucia by E.F. Benson.

Fabulous, just fabulous! Small town life in England in the 1920s - everyone trying to one-up each other. It was funny and has fantastic characters, which was just what a needed right now. Looking forward to the rest of the series. The bad news is that the series doesn't really fit any of my categories, but I'm going to continue it anyway. Oh well!

Original Publication Date: 1920
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 188 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle

They just keep getting better and better! Wait until you meet Miss Mapp!

I'm considering starting it right away. Seems like what I'm in the mood for these days. I'm struggling to get through the last 100 pages of Life and Fate

For my "off the shelf" category, I read Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman.

I've finally finished reading Life and Fate and what an experience it was. This is the tale of an extended family in Soviet Russia living during the Siege of Stalingrad in WWII. Grossman explores everything from the German concentration camps, to the Gulag, to the culture of fear under Stalin, to marital strife, to typical family dilemmas. It's an epic book that I learned a ton from and will want to read again at some point in my life.

Grossman's book was confiscated by the Soviet government when he tried to have it published in 1960. I believe it was first published in the 1980s (Grossman had hidden copies of the novel with several different friends). It is certainly not all negative about the Soviets, Stalin, and Russia, but Grossman definitely posits that Hitler and Stalin, Fascism and Communism, have many negatives in common, a theme that was obviously not popular to the communists. Also, Grossman tries to humanize Stalin in sections, and the fear that the characters live with of being unjustly and unfairly accused and punished of disloyalty is constant. I'm sure all of this contribute to the book being banned.

I came away with great respect for this book, but can't say that I felt deeply connected to it. Grossman chooses to throw the reader into the middle of both the war and his characters' lives. Somehow I just couldn't get involved with the characters. It may be that there were just too many story lines going on, or it might be that I don't have enough cultural and political background to have made some events in the novel as impactful as they should have been. I'm also not convinced that the translation was as well done as it could have been. I felt that a lot of the language had a stilted feel. I have no way of knowing what it would have been like in the original Russian, but I wondered. In the end it was a book that I was extremely grateful to have read, but also grateful to have finished!

Original Publication Date: 1960 (text finished)
Author’s nationality: Russian
Original language: Russian
Length: 871 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased book and kindle edition

For my "other books by authors of my favorites" category, I read Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey. I've loved both The Franchise Affair and Daughter of Time that I've read by her.

Another well-written, suspenseful mystery from one of the British mystery masters, Josephine Tey. The orphaned Brat Farrar is discovered as a lookalike to the deceased heir to an English estate. He is coached by a family friend to pretend to be this heir, Patrick Ashby, who committed suicide at the age of 13 and whose body was never found. His story is that he ran away instead. All of this is presented up front, so you think you know what is going on and just watching the family try to figure out if he is really Patrick Ashby, but then other complications arise and there is more to the story than meets the eye. My definition of a comfort read.

Original Publication Date: 1920
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 288 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased on amazon

>77 japaul22: I loved Brat Farrar! Glad you enjoyed it as well. :)

Brat Farrar, oh yes! Something I can read again and again and again.

For my TBR off my list category, I read I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith.

This is a very charming love story told through the journal of 17 year old Cassandra. Cassandra lives in genteel poverty in a run down English castle with her sister - Rose, brother, one servant/family friend, stepmother, and her father - a one-hit-wonder author who is suffering from a decade-long case of writer's block. One day the owner of the main house falls into the hands of his son who has been living in America. The son, Simon, his brother, Neil, and their mother come to take care of the property. The family knows Cassandra's father's writing and they take the family under their wing. The love lives of Rose and Cassandra are central to the book, as any journal of a 17 year old girl should be. The characters are fun and the plot moves along. All in all I really liked it and it's a book that screams to be reread. The only thing is that I think I would have enjoyed it more in high school or my early 20s. It's a bit over-emotional for my stage in life.

Original Publication Date: 1948
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 343 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased on amazon

Hi everyone,
As some of you have seen on other threads, I have some sad news to share. My dad, who was only 63, passed away on Sunday. He was diagnosed with cancer of the liver, esophagus, and bones on March 27 and went quickly downhill. He passed away just 2.5 weeks after his diagnosis. I am in shock and of course very sad, but I'm lucky to have a lot of support.

I'm still reading to take my mind off things, but don't feel like doing much reviewing, so I'll probably just list books I've completed until I feel up to doing more.

For my mystery category, I read Revelation by C.J. Sansom, a Matthew Shardlake mystery.

3.5 stars

So sorry to hear of your unexpected loss. Glad to hear you aren't going through it alone. Hang in there.

You and your family are in my thoughts. Hope reading provides some comfort. Take care.

so sorry to hear about your Dad. Take care of yourself.

My deepest condolences for you and your family.

Very sorry to hear about your father. Words feel inadequate at times like these but you have my sincere condolences and I hope you're surrounded by people who care about you.

Thanks so much everyone. I'm having an understandably hard time, but do have a lot of support, so I know I'll be ok with time.

I just finished Miss Mapp by E.F. Benson which I very much enjoyed. I'll definitely continue with the series, though I'd give Queen Lucia the edge in comparing the two books.

Oh my goodness, Jennifer. I am so sorry for your loss. He was such a nice, funny person.

And also, my condolences to your mom and sister and the rest of your family.

When you feel up to it, we should argue the relative merits of Queen Lucia and Miss Mapp. Because Miss Mapp is better. :-)

Thanks, Jenny. I forget that we hung out at my house so much in high school that you probably saw both of my parents quite a bit. It's just been such a shock that he went so fast. I can't quite grasp it all yet.

I'll look forward to our Queen Lucia vs. Miss Mapp discussion in a couple of weeks!

So sorry to hear about your dad and that it went so fast. My condolences to all of you.

Thanks, Eva.

For my historical fiction category, I read Lionheart by Sharon Kay Penman.
Penman is always able to get me hooked in to her story, which is just what I needed. This book focuses on Richard's crusade. As such, it was a little more battle oriented than some of her books, but I enjoyed it all the same. She creates the time period and place so well.

>92 japaul22: I love SKP as well! After just finishing The Sunne in Splendour, I've now read all of hers except Lionheart and A King's Ransom. I'm hoping to get to them soon though!

>93 christina_reads: Yep, I only have A King's Ransom left of her historical fiction, but I haven't read any of the historical mysteries she's written. I have the first two of those on my shelves, though. I loved The Sunne in Splendour the most (it was also my first of her books) and I think I overall liked the Welsh trilogy better than the Plantagenet series - but I love them all. How about you?

What I particularly liked about Lionheart was seeing Richard as a crusader; most of my knowledge of him comes from "the ransom years", so Lionheart was very educational.

>94 japaul22: I read the Welsh trilogy first, so it remains my favorite. :) I have read the Justin de Quincy mysteries as well, and they're good fun too -- although more focused on the history than the mystery, as you might expect!

>95 rabbitprincess: I didn't know much about Richard at all so I'm expecting both books to be new info.

>94 japaul22: The Welsh trilogy is excellent and I am not suprised (and am pleased) to hear that the mysteries are heavy on the history.

For my nonfiction category, I read The Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Barker.

I've been reading this 1000+ page biography of the Bronte family for months. I found it alternately utterly fascinating and excruciatingly boring so I'm not sure how to review it. I'll start by saying that it is as complete and detailed picture of all the Brontes (father Patrick, children Branwell, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne) as you can get with the source material available. Barker includes lots of the juvenelia of all of the children and while this is interesting for a while it got really old for me. She also seems to have worked most of the biography around refuting the picture of Charlotte and particularly Branwell and Patrick that Elizabeth Gaskell painted in her biography, The Life of Charlotte Bronte which I read several years ago. She does this well, creating a more well rounded portrait of the subjects, including each persons good and bad sides.

She spends a lot of time on Patrick Bronte and some of these sections detailing his work in the church and his political activity kind of dragged to me, though some might find it interesting. I also was disappointed to find that even this detailed, long biography that left no stone unturned really can't tell me what Emily Bronte was like. She is the sister that really intrigues me most and I have never been able to wrap my head around how a person who wrote the fantastical, dark, brooding Wuthering Heights could have been utterly unwilling to ever leave her house. I still don't get what she would have been like. Charlotte, on the other hand, I have a picture of, but one I really don't like! So whiny and complaining and unwilling to work. And constant headaches and "woe is me". My dislike of her also slowed me down in reading this biography. I love her novels, but her - not so much! I do like what I know of Anne - she comes across as the most normal of the children but I feel had an inner strength that is often overlooked.

For any lover of the Bronte sisters who also loves a detailed biography, this is the book for you and is well worth the many, many hours you'll spend reading it. I would not recommend it to anyone who isn't a bit obsessed though - it's a bit daunting and not an easy read.

Original Publication Date: 2013 (this is a second edition)
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 1184 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle edition

What about Anne? She's my favorite of the Brontes. Emily seems kind of neurotic, Charlotte controlling, but Anne, despite her emphasis on faith, seemed pretty grounded for that family.

Kay, she spends quite a bit of time on Anne. Anne is definitely the only Bronte I think I would have liked. Barker puts forward that it seemed Charlotte didn't value Anne's writing very highly. In fact she strongly censored both of her sisters' writings and there's suspicion she may have destroyed a partial manuscript of Emily's second book (though that is not much more than speculation). I liked that Anne was willing to go out work and be a governess for most of her adult life even though she didn't like it either. Barker also refutes the myth that Charlotte somewhat perpetrated that Anne calmly and gladly accepted her death.

The book has so much of interest in it; it's just so long that I can't imagine there's anyone that wouldn't find at least one topic in it boring.

For my TBR off-the-shelf category, I read The House at Riverton by Kate Morton.
This was fun. An absorbing read - part historical fiction, part mystery, party romance. It's a familiar format to me. It's constructed from the point of view of a woman in present time dying and looking back on her life as a servant to an old English family during and after WWI. It's mainly just an absorbing story, but Morton does touch on some deeper themes of the shell shock that the men in WWI dealt with upon returning home.

Overall, this was fun and enjoyable - a good diversion. I'll look for more of Morton's work when I want an easy to read, absorbing book.

Original Publication Date: 2006
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 470 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

For my 1001 books challenge, I read #64 The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor.

This is a beautifully written haunting and tragic story of how decisions, or lack of action, can create a chain of events. The story begins in Ireland in the 1920s with tension between the Irish Catholics and the Protestant landowners. The Gault family decides to leave their family home after attempted violence and their young daughter runs away to try to prevent their departure. This sets off a chain of events that is unexpected and just so sad. I don't want to give away the plot. The plot is important to this novel, but the reason it's so moving to read is that as central as the actual events are, this is a novel that only uses that plot to explore themes of guilt, loneliness, miscommunication, and forgiveness.

I found the language beautiful and the ideas moving and well-developed. I'd highly recommend this short but loaded novel.

Original Publication Date: 2002
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 228 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

Edited to change the category

I really loved The Story of Lucy Gault as well.

For my rereads category, I read Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery.

This was a reread for me of a book that I know I loved the first time around but could remember almost nothing about. As I read, the plot came back to me, but much of it was pretty unfamiliar. Fortunately, my remembrance of loving it held true.

This is a novel of contrasting characters. There is the steadfast, honest, naive Amelia vs. the smart, conniving, enigma Becky Sharp. There is the all-show, no substance George vs. the loyal, talented, but modest William Dobbin. How these characters and the substantial supporting cast of parents, brothers, friends, and family interact composes this novel.

You can't read this Victorian novel without comparing to Dickens (at least I couldn't!) and I felt that it came out very favourably. I found the characters, especially the supporting ones, to be of much more substance and less of caricature than Dickens's characters. I also appreciated that the saintly Amelia is shown at the end to have been not so innocent in her treatment and usage of the faithful Dobbin and that though Becky is often the villian, she is a character that I loved to hate.

I found a lot of depth to go with the entertainment found in this book. It is a book that I will most likely reread again at some point.

Original Publication Date: 1848
Author’s nationality: English
Original language: English
Length: 736 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: Easton Press edition purchased on ebay

I'd be curious in hearing people's ideas about rereading books. It's something I really like to do, but don't always get to. I think a good goal for me is to reread 4-6 books a year. Since I normally read 65-75 books, that seems like a doable goal. So often when I read a book I think that it would mean a lot more if a reread it but then I never do. When I do reread something, though, I always get something new out of it. Also I have a terrible memory and I've found it takes 3 readings for me to commit a book's plot, characters, themes, and details to memory. Otherwise, with only one reading, I tend to remember a feeling I got from the book or a major theme but very little of the actual plot.

That sounds like a good goal. I have a rereads category as well and six is the minimum I'm aiming for. I also have a tag called "going through the stacks" where I'm aiming to reread and review some of my really old books and decide whether to keep or get rid of them. It's very satisfying to reread but difficult to make time for when there are so many new books clamouring for attention as well!

Rereads for me depend upon the books. I will admit to dipping back in and re-reading my Astrix the Gaul GNs on a somewhat regular basis because they are fun and quick reads. Otherwise, my rereads are few and far between. That said, I did gain new insight from my recent rereads of Candide, The Little Prince, and To Kill A Mockingbird so you idea of working some rereads into your normal reading plans seems like a great idea.

I also do very few rereads, but the few I have done have been successful in that I certainly gained new insight. To Kill A Mockingbird, and Gone With the Wind still held their magic for me. For sheer fun I am slowly working my way through Diana Gadaldon's Outlander series in an audio version.

Thanks for the comments on rereading! Seems like most people I've talked to have a hard time making time to reread because of all the unread books they have to read, but have a good experience when they do reread. I think trying to do it a few times a year will work for me. There are of course certain books (ahem, Jane Austen's) that I reread all the time!

For my non fiction category, I read The Planet in a Pebble: a Journey into Earth's deep history by Jan Zalasiewicz.

In this book intended for armchair geologists, Zalasiewicz traces the journey of one Welsh pebble from the creation of the earth through the earth's demise in 13 vignettes. He discusses topics such as plate tectonics, the specific minerals that make up layers of the pebble, life on the ocean floor, creation of mountains, fossilization of various creatures that could be found in the pebble, etc. I think it was clever to limit the book to the experience of creating one pebble from the very beginnings of our planet, but sometimes I lost the thread of the pebble's experience in the midst of the science discussed.

Overall, Zalasiewicz's writing is very accessible to the layperson. I've been interested in geology since I started doing a lot of hiking, but don't know much about it except what I learned in a college gen ed lovingly termed "rocks for jocks" by the students because it was known for being easy to pass. I found that, though the words were all understandable, the concepts presented in this book are very difficult. Trying to wrap my head around the creation of our planet and the vast amounts of time that are discussed here was somewhat overwhelming. Both the extremely tiny and the largest movements on our planet are discussed - it's crazy to think about.

As I think about what I learned from this book, I have a feeling that it is one of those books that taught me more than I could actually put into words. I think it's a good piece of the puzzle when taken together with other books I've read, like Richard Fortey's Earth, or books I intend to read, like John McPhee's Annals of a Former World.

I'd definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in the topic.

Original Publication Date: 2010
Author’s nationality: British?
Original language: English
Length: 234 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

I just heard that my library is having a book sale in mid-June. I've found some great books there in the past, and so, in an effort to clear some room on my TBR shelves, I've decided to attempt to read only off my shelves for June - no kindle books, library books, or new purchases except for the library sale of course. This really shouldn't be hard, but it still seems like a big deal.

The only possible exception I'll make is a group read of The Radetzky March that I'm getting from the library. I'll be putting off a couple of books I'd thought I'd get to soon on my kindle (particularly continuing the Mapp and Lucia series) but it's only a month. I can do it!

Good luck with your shelf-clearing goal! It will be for a good cause ;) And I hope you find some more gems at this year's sale.

>112 rabbitprincess: Thanks! I love these sales!

I keep intending to keep a record for myself of my kids' favorite books at their different stages and I've failed miserably at it thus far. Maybe next year I'll keep a running post at the top of my thread. Here are just a few of their current favorites. Touchstones are tricky for children's books so I left some out.

Isaac’s favorites (16 months):
The Foot Book
Peekaboo Farm
There Was an Old Lady who Swallowed a Fly
I like Bugs
Sherlock Holmes Sounds
Flaptastic: Colors

William’s favorites (4.5 years):
National Geographic Little Kids First big book of Space
National Geographic Kids first big book of Animals
Frog and Toad are Friends
Mouse Soup
Moomin, Mymble, and Little My

Chapter Books I’ve read with William:
Magic tree House series, 1-11
Bed and Biscuit series by Joan Carris
Winnie the Pooh by A.A. Milne
The Twits by Roald Dahl
Nate the Great

For my 1001 books challenge, I read Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell.

This thought-provoking novel looks at the idea of connections and rebirths over 100s of years of human existence. The form of the novel really creates the book. Mitchell uses a character's record (a journal, letters, a novel, a movie, an orison, and icons - since the last two take place in the future, the words or their meaning are unfamiliar) to link each section as the next character finds the record of the past character (presumably their past self). Each story is interrupted and after we've met all 6 characters, their stories are continued in reverse order so that you end where you began reading.

Mitchell uses subtle clues to let the reader come to his/her own conclusions about the idea of rebirth. The most obvious is that each main character has a comet shaped birthmark, but there are other moments that the characters share that lead the reader to link these people as well. And then there's the sextet that the second introduced character, Robert Frobisher, composes. It's called the Cloud Atlas sextet - obviously the 6 parts link to the 6 characters and the music factors in to each story in some way - sometimes largely and sometimes barely at all.

The form of the novel made me think about the importance of leaving a record of both the individual life and the life of a society.

I thought this was a smart novel. The form was beautifully done and Mitchell is great at giving you enough info to think and spark conversation/ideas without ever explaining (and thereby simplifying) his ideas. This was smart, because if he'd done too much spelling it out there would be tons of holes in the plot as there must be in an idea this incomprehensible to the human mind. But as much as I loved the ideas and form of this book, having such radically different narrators and tone for each of the characters detracted a bit from my reading. It was jarring to switch from section to section and took me quite a bit of time to resign myself to leaving the previous world. And with wildly different characters, I of course had my favorites and some I really didn't like at all. This will be a hard book to pick a star rating for because it was intriguing and I know I'll be thinking about it for a long time, but I didn't always enjoy the moments I was actually reading it. I will definitely seek out more of David Mitchell's writing, though, as this was my first time reading a novel of his.

Original Publication Date: 2004
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 514 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

*This fits my June off-the-shelf challenge.

For my group reads category, I read The Reluctant Widow by Georgette Heyer.

This was a fun diversion. Heyer is yet another author I discovered through LT. She wrote dozens of books and this is one of her Regency Romances, i.e. a Jane Austen era romance, as I like to think of it. It was great - implausible but entertaining plot about an attractive woman whose father has died leaving her no money. On her way to take a governess position, she mistakenly ends up at the home of Lord Carlyon who convinces her to marry his dying cousin. The story turns into a quasi-mystery, even treading into espionage. It was pretty silly, but the dialogue is fun and the characters were good and it was just comfortable to read.

I'd pick up more of these from the library or used but I won't necessarily seek them out. I read Faro's Daughter a year or two ago and it was much worse than this one, so I'm glad I read one of the better ones so I understand now why so many people enjoy her books!

Original Publication Date: 1946
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 315 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

>115 japaul22: Aww, I quite like Faro's Daughter, but apparently it is not one of Heyer's more popular titles! Hope you will give more of her books a chance in the future. :)

>116 christina_reads: Maybe I just wasn't in the mood when I read Faro's Daughter. Glad I tried again though - I could definitely see myself picking up more. They scratch a certain itch. Actually, I was thinking that they are kind of like a better alternative to all the Jane Austen continuations that are out there. I never really like those, but these are set in the same time period so kind of remind me of her books. The love story in The Reluctant Widow has a hint of the Darcy/Elizabeth relationship.

>105 japaul22: Hi Jennifer, coming late to the reread discussion. I tend to just remember a general feeling about a book if I read it only once. I'm trying this year to start to reread some books that I really like the first time around but it's a slow going affair as I'm not a fast reader. Nevertheless, it's always a great reward as I relish in the best parts and rediscover some new gems.

>114 japaul22: Good review of Cloud Atlas. I already have this one on my bookshelves and I've seen the movie, I just have to read it ...

>40 japaul22: So far, 84 Charing Cross Road, is one of the best read of the year, so thanks for the extra incentive that your review provided.

For my 1001 books category, I read Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel.

Alberta is a teenage girl living in the far north of Norway. She is painfully shy to the point of being practically mute both out in town and at home. She blushes at the drop of a hat and hides from everyone. Her exacting mother is constantly frustrated with her and her father is too preoccupied with his own money problems to take an interest in her. At the point we meet her, she is done with the schooling her parents can afford and supposed to be learning domestic skills like the other girls her age, something she is hopeless at. She has no desire to be a part of the community or find a husband. The only person she openly loves is her brother, Jacob, who escapes their town as a sailor after disappointing his parents’ hope that he will find a scholarly career.

Alberta is also cold – physically cold. She sneaks behind her mother’s back to drink more than her share of coffee – gulping down the scalding liquid for a moment of warmth. She sneaks coal when her mother is out to build a fire in her room. She runs as fast and hard as she can outside, hoping the physical activity will warm her up. It is all to no avail. The setting of northern Norway is a character in this book – the constant dark and cold of the winter and the round the clock sun in the summer that gives the only short bursts of warmth and with it brings a few characters Alberta’s age home from school in the south. Even with the people her age who try to be friendly to her, Alberta can’t manage to string together more than a few words.

With that bleak description and unsympathetic main character, you may be surprised to hear that I LOVED this book. It is the start of a trilogy about Alberta and I had wish-listed the next two books after reading about ten pages and then purchased them before finishing. I’m not sure what it was, but I just loved the writing and description. I also really liked the awkward Alberta. I certainly was never as shy to the extreme as she is, but I could sympathize with many of the feelings she has. She’s trapped in that age and circumstance where she’s not an adult yet but not a child either. She also has no interest in staying in her town but no vision for an alternative. I’m excited to have found another Norwegian author that I love and looking forward to the rest of this semi-autobiographical trilogy.

Original Publication Date: 1926
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian, translated to English in 1962, trans. by Elizabeth Rokkan
Length: 220 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased from amazon

Intrigued by your review - must add to my wishlist.

I love books that sound odd or boring but something in the writing just knocks it into orbit, it's so good. Congratulations on such a find.

>120 LittleTaiko: There are so few people on LT that have read this - I'd love to hear some other opinions if you get to it!

>121 mamzel: It was a great find from the 1001 books to read before you die list.

For my new releases category, I read Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall.

After loving Megan Marshall's first book, The Peabody Sisters, I bought this book as soon as I heard about it. I'm embarassed to admit that I barely knew who Margaret Fuller was before reading this except for a vague notion of Transcendentalists and feminism. Marshall's book gave me a detailed but readable account of an interesting woman's life.

Margaret Fuller was educated in the classics by her father and was a bright child. She went through awkward teenage years before slowly coming into her own through her friendships with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Elizabeth Peabody, the Channings and many in the Boston Transcendentalist circle of the 1840s. She wrote a novel, edited several magazines (including Emerson's work), wrote a seminal feminist work called Woman in the Nineteenth Century, and was a columnist for the New-York Tribune. She went to Italy in the late 1840s and reported on the political upheaval there. She also met an Italian man who she had a child with and ended up marrying. On their way back to America, she, her husband, and their two year old son died in a shipwreck off the coast of New York. Margaret Fuller was 40.

Marshall does an excellent job of showing how Fuller's personal characteristics impacted her career and vice versa. She also uses Fuller's own words to write this book. This worked since Fuller was such a good writer, but it took me a little while to get used to this technique. The quotes interrupted my flow of reading at first and I still wonder exactly what Marshall was paraphrasing in between Fuller's own words. Here's a random example of what I mean.

But "a new young man" was not enough to lure Margaret from the close proximity of enigmatic, "unhelpful, wise" Waldo Emerson. In December, after a tearful parting with her "row" of pupils, who presented her with an "elegantly bound" set of Shakespeare, Margaret was off to the "vestal solitudes" of Groton. "I do not wish to teach again at all," she declared. She knew she might not have her wish, but she expected to devote at least a year to "my own inventions" before attempting once more to effect "my dreams and hopes as to the education of women," if necessary. And: "What hostile or friendly star may not take the ascendant before that time?"

Like I said, I got used to the technique, but it was a little distracting. Overall, a recommended book for anyone interested in biographies of American women.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 496 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased on amazon

I hit the library book sale today and found some good books. I bought:

Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
Gunnar’s Daughter by Sigrid Undset
Tar Baby by Toni Morrison
If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino (a nice everyman's library edition)
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell (this I just read but I had a paperback with all the movie actors on it which I had and this was a nice early copy with a better cover!)
The Vice-Consul by Marguerite Duras
Confederates in the Attic by Tony Horwitz
First Salute by Barbara Tuchman
Jane Austen: Women, Politics, and the Novel by Claudia L Johnson
The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin

Yea for all the books especially If on a Winter's Night a Traveller.

Nice haul! :)

>124 japaul22: Ooh, that Jane Austen book caught my eye! :) I may have even read an essay from it in college...I'll be interested to see what you think!

Great loot! Looking forward to hearing what you think of the ones that are on my Mt. TBR. :)

For my 1001 books category, I read Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe.

For a book published in 1722, this sure was smutty! It was a good reminder that the Victorian Era prudery was not in full force until Queen Victoria. This is the story of Moll Flanders, a first person account of the life of a woman who lives a life of debauchery and crime in the mid-1600s. Midway through the book, Moll sums up her life thus as she contemplates marrying yet another man who thinks her a good sort:

What an abominable creature am I! and how is this innocent gentleman going to be abused by me! How little does he think, that having divorced a whore, he is throwing himself into the arms of another! that he is going to marry one that has lain with two brothers, and has had three children by her own brother! one that was born in Newgate, whose mother was a whore, and is now a transported thief! one that has lain with thirteen men, and has had a child since he saw me! Poor gentleman!"

Well, Moll does go on to hide her past successfully and marry this man, have 2 more kids, and marry another man after he dies. Oh, and she turns to stealing when she gets too old to attract more husbands.

There are some interesting themes to consider in this book, especially the limited options that a woman had in those days to earn her keep. Overall, I didn't love this book though. Because it's written in first person, we only see Moll's experiences of how she attracts and marries men and there are almost no other characters. In this respect, the book was a bit too narrow for me. There are also some threads that are lost - like the many children Moll has that seem to just be conveniently forgotten with no mention of who takes care of them.

But then again, considering the time period it was written in, that it is an early example of the novel, and the interesting fact that a man chose to write a first person woman's voice, it was kind of fun to read. And there are some great quotes.

I began . . . to have the scandal of a whore, without the joy"

Original Publication Date: 1722
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 340 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

Nice review - Moll Flanders is on my list of books that I might read in July. Love the quotes you cited.

For my mystery/suspense category, I read The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters.

This was a wonderfully suspenseful novel about the decline of an English gentry family and their home. As in many gothic novels, the house is a character in this book and declines as the family does. There's a supernatural element introduced and Waters does a great job intertwining the family and the home's decline so that it's never clear where the destruction is stemming from. The book is narrated by a doctor who befriends the family and has his own ties to the house. His mother had been a servant there and he remembers visiting the home as a child. His reliability in relating the story was questionable throughout and added an interesting element to the book.

This is a book that will keep you turning the pages; it's well written and fun to read. In the end, though, I don't feel like it was really anything new, so I haven't rated it very highly. I think most people would really enjoy it though - it was fun to read.

Original Publication Date: 2009
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 509 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

For my "non-LT finds" category, I read Pearl Buck in China by Hilary Spurling.

As the title suggests, this is a biography of Pearl Buck, author of The Good Earth. I found it very enjoyable.

Pearl Buck was an American born and raised in China by missionaries. She grew up interacting with Chinese children - speaking the language and learning the stories. She was so comfortable in China that she never really identified with America when she visited there or when she ended up living there in the second half of her life. The book does an interesting job of weaving Chinese history into Buck's life and showing how it influenced and formed her. Also discussed at length is her relationships with her mother, father, and husbands and her complete rejection of the missionary philosophy as practiced in China by her father and others.

Her writing is discussed quite a bit as well, particularly because so many of the dozens of books and stories she wrote had considerable portions of autobiographical content or obvious ties to her friends, family, and experiences. I had no idea Pearl Buck had written so prodigiously, but I also have to say I'm not interested in reading much further than a reread of The Good Earth and possibly continuing on with the 2 books that complete the series. Buck's writing was written for the masses and it doesn't seem from this biography's description that most of them were the quality that you'd expect from the author of The Good Earth. I did find it interesting that she wrote by crafting the words in Chinese in her mind and translating to English as she typed the manuscript, at least for The Good Earth.

I thought this was a very readable and interesting biography of a fascinating woman.

Original Publication Date: 2010
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 251 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

For my 1001 books challenge, I read Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun.

This is a Norwegian novel that takes place in the back country where the main character, Isak, carves a farm out of the wilds of Norway with his bare hands. He literally uses his muscle and animal strength to muscle a life out of a rather uninhabitable place. Others slowly follow, but none are as successful as Isak. He marries a woman named Inger who has the slight physical disfigurement of something described as a hare lip. It seems that she is willing to stay with Isak at first because she wouldn't be accepted anywhere else, but Inger and Isak end up sharing their life together in a meaningful way and I would say love each other as well. Isak certainly loves Inger. They have two sons who grow into different men - one craving a city life but finding many obstacles and one embracing the running of his father's farm. By the end of the novel, Isak has neighbors who have followed his trail-blazing, copper mining has come to the area, and Isak owns a mowing machine.

While I appreciated this book and am glad I read it, I'm not sure I really liked it. Something about the language really grated on me. Hamsun writes in brief grunts and I couldn't decide if it was intentional, to reflect the almost animal state of the back country people, or if it was bad transition, or just his style. The dialogue was really ridiculous. It seemed that no one listened or understood anyone else and it really reminded me of the stereotypical cave man grunting. If that was intentional, I think it did a disservice to the people that Hamsun was trying to portray. I was also really disturbed by a part of the novel that explored infanticide. Two different mothers in the book kill their new-born babies. It was for very different reasons with very different legal consequences, but I wasn't really sure what the point of it was and I found it really disturbing.

This is a book that I will rate as middle of the road considering that it won the author the Nobel prize for literature and is highly respected - I just didn't see it. But it is also a book that I won't be surprised if I think much more highly of at the end of the year than I do now.

Original Publication Date: 1917
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 324 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

>132 japaul22: Interested by Pearl Buck biography. I have The Good Earth trilogy on my TBR shelves. So it's a BB !

For my group reads category, I read Four Queens: The Provencal Sisters who Ruled Europe by Nancy Goldstone.
Goldstone's book explores mid-13th century European politics through a family of four daughters of Provence, all of whom ended up being Queens. This was quite a feat for one family who didn't have particularly large inheritances to dole out to suitors. The oldest sister, Marguerite, paves the way by marrying Louis IX, future King of France. Next, Eleanor marries Henry III, King of England. Sanchia marries King Henry's brother, Richard of Cornwall who eventually becomes King of the Romans (Germany). Beatrice, the youngest sister, marries Charles of Anjou, Louis IX's younger brother. Charles later wins the kingship of Sicily.

Just how much did these women influence the politics of the time? I would say quite a bit based on Goldstone's writing and other books I've read on the time period. I think the general impression that many people have of women sitting quietly on the sidelines trying to have babies is proven wrong with only a little digging. These women used their family influence and banded together to put their family members in positions of power and influence. Eleanor, particularly, managed to infiltrate English politics with family members of her choosing. This ended up back firing on her when Simon de Montfort wrested power from the King, but it still was an impressive run of power. Sanchia was the least politically active of the sisters, but even she significantly helped Richard's play for power in Germany. Beatrice bucked the trend of family helping each other out in her quest for Queenship for herself.

This time period is very interesting to me and I enjoyed this book. It read easily, almost like historical fiction, which I both liked and disliked. I can't argue with a book that makes centuries old politics entertaining, but I felt that it may have benefited from a slightly more scholarly tone and a bit more detail. Overall, though, a lot of fun to read.

Original Publication Date: 2007
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 325 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

I'm about 1/3 through and finding it very interesting and easy to read. Amazing how young they were when they all married yet they were very mature.

For my new releases category, I read The Bees by Laline Paull.

The Bees is just what the title says it is - a book about bees. But who knew how well the dramatic life of a honeybee would translate to a novel that reads like dystopian fiction? This was a really creative idea. The book follows the life of Flora 717, a sanitation bee who is born with skills beyond what is expected of her kin. She gets to work with the eggs, meet the Queen bee, forage for nectar, and read the stories of her hive. She battles wasps, flies, and spiders. The book is filled with the "hive mind" and the instinctual life of bees which was so interesting and a bit creepy.

Unfortunately, I don't think the writing and flow of the novel quite measured up to the creative story line. I got a little tired of it in the middle and started thinking it might have packed a bigger punch as a short story. However, this kind of dystopian novel is not usually my cup of tea, so if it sounds interesting to you, I wouldn't let my reservations dissuade you. I'd give the book 5 stars for creativity, but 2 stars for execution. I'd recommend it to see for yourself.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 352 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle

Ooh, I like bees!! And dystopias. BB taken.

For my rereads category, I read Sense and Sensibility: An Annotated Edition by Jane Austen, annotated by Patricia Meyer Spacks.

I have been insanely stressed out by life and work lately and for an antidote to stress I always turn to the comfort of Jane Austen. I chose to reread Sense and Sensibility: An Annotated Edition for this comfort read. Recently, I purchased all five of the published Harvard/Belknap Press editions of annotated Austen works (the completist in me NEEDS them to also published Mansfield Park!!). These are beautiful collectors items. They are large and heavy - definitely not portable - but I highly recommend them to any Austen lover. The annotation was excellent. There were notes on cultural and societal trends of the time, but also, and more interesting to me, analysis of the text throughout and an excellent forward. The annotations are printed down the sides of each large page and there are many beautiful pictures included.

Sense and Sensibility is not my favorite Austen novel. For me, it suffers from weak male characters who I don't really see as great matches for either heroine, though I suppose that was the point. But it leads to interesting thoughts about character and balance in personality and, as all her novels do, gives a lot of insight into the options available to women in Austen's class living in the early 1800s. Money, or the lack thereof, is pervasive in this book which also brings it down to earth a little more than some of the other novels. There isn't the fairy tale ending of finding both love and money as in Pride and Prejudice.

I'm looking forward to reading the other annotated editions that I have on the shelf. They have different annotators, so I'll be curious to see if they all measure up to Spacks.

Original Publication Date: 1811, 2013 for this edition
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 448 pages
Rating: 5 stars for the edition (I usually give the book 4.5, just when comparing to other Austen novels)
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased - Harvard/Belknap Press edition

That annotated edition sounds fascinating - all of them do, actually. Thanks for making me broke, Jennifer!

I agree with you on Sense and Sensibility and its male leads, but I never really thought about how the lack of love-and-money fairy tale ending was part of the point of the novel. That makes a lot of sense, and makes me appreciate the book more (although I'll never love it like I do P&P or Persuasion or Emma.

>140 jfetting: I know they are pricey, but I think they are worth it. They are really beautiful, high end books. The annotations definitely made me appreciate Sense and Sensibility more. I agree that it doesn't make it crack my top 3 (P&P, Emma, Persuasion - just like you!) but it opened up a perspective that I had only nominally considered. When you've read these books as many times as we have, new ideas are fun! I really wish they had an annotated edition of Mansfield Park, though, because it's my least favorite and I'd like some new perspective on it.

I want all those annotated editions SO MUCH! I have to assume they're eventually going to do one for Mansfield Park as well, right? It has to be a full set!

>142 christina_reads: I really hope they will complete the set, but it looks like the next one they are publishing is Wuthering Heights.

For my non-LT finds category, I read Book of Ages: The Life and Opinions of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore.

This is a wonderful biography of Jane Franklin who lived from 1712 to 1794 in Boston. She was married at 15 to a man who turned out to never amount to much and had 12 children, and outlived all but one of them. She was taught to read and write and loved reading, searching out books wherever she could get them, for her whole life. She lived through the Revolution and helped to raise her grandchildren and great grandchildren. And, oh yeah, she was the sister of Benjamin Franklin.

Jane and Benjamin were close though the ended up in very different walks of life. Lepore uses Benjamin Franklin's life to contrast with Jane's. They wrote each other letters throughout their adult lives; most of Franklin's to Jane survive, very few of Jane's to him (or anyone) survive.

I found this an interesting look at the life of a woman, a reader, in the 18th century. It's also an interesting discussion of what is important in history - the large personalities, like Franklin, or the every day people, like Jane Franklin. Lepore makes a good argument that Jane Franklin's history can be every bit as interesting and important to the knowledge of where our country has been. I have to say that she also did a fantastic job in this book of not letting Benjamin Franklin overwhelm his sister's voice. Even with the scanty source material, I felt like I had a good picture of Jane Franklin - her sorrows, her political views, and her sense of humor - by the time I was finished reading.

Loved this book - highly recommended.

Original Publication Date: 2013
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 442 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

For my miscellaneous category, I read The Land of Spices by Kate O'Brien.

This was a pleasant surprise. I started collecting books from a publisher called Virago Modern Classics who publish underappreciated books written by women. I bought this book not knowing anything about it except that it was a Virago with the classic green cover. When I read the book description, I was skeptical. Kate O'Brien was an Irish author in the mid 1900s and this book takes place in a convent. It explores the lives of two different people, the Reverend Mother, Helen, and Anna, a young girl growing up as a student at the convent school. I don't have a whole lot of interest in nuns or Catholicism so I wasn't sure this would be the book for me. Actually, though, this book explored the lives of these two, their troubled home lives, the conflicts between Irish and English nuns, politics of the church, and death with beautiful language and subtlety.

As a side note, this edition has a few long passages written in`French with no translation provided. I found that my limited high school French plus the context of the book were enough for me to understand the content, but you'd need some French or the patience to do a little translating for those passages.

Original Publication Date: 1941
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 285 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased used on ebay (VMC edition)

I'm finding that I'm not really following my categories very well this year. I've been reading quite a bit, but my priority has been reading off of my shelves and my categories don't fit what I want to read. Actually, the 1001 books challenge is what is really annoying me. I'm considering abandoning it or modifying it. There are many 1001 books that I'd like to read, but I'm feeling hemmed in by how I set it up. I think I may abandon reading one book per every 50 on the list and instead just up the number of books in each of my traditional categories. Many of the 1001 books that I'd like to read would fit into the categories I set up.

Regardless of how I continue with the challenge, I'll continue with this thread since I like the conversation over here. I already know that next year I will have a category for "current obsessions"!

Good idea to modify the challenge as you see fit and to accommodate obsessions in next year's challenge! I realized that my next year's challenge must include a "group reads and CATs" category.

"Current obsessions" is an excellent, or even essential, category! :)

>147 rabbitprincess: & >148 -Eva-: I think I'll leave the 1001 books challenge but not limit myself to it and take the pressure off of finishing it by focusing on my more traditional category challenge instead. Every year, my category desires seem to change a bit!

For my books by authors of my favorites category, I read Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym.
I love Pym's books. They just fit a certain mood. This is another quiet book about a friendship between Jane, a 40 year old clergyman's wife, and Prudence, a 29 year old woman in the midst of romances but not yet married. I particularly loved Jane - she was absent-minded in an amusing but believable way and just not quite what you expect a clergyman's wife to be in these books. Highly enjoyable.

Original Publication Date: 1953
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 222 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased/ off the shelf

>149 japaul22:
Me too! Especially if you, like me, prepare your challenge in August of the year before the challenge starts. :)

For my historical fiction category, I read The Secret River by Kate Grenville.

This is an excellent historical fiction novel about life in the early colonies of Australia, or New South Wales as it was called at the time. The book follows the life of William Thornhill who grows up in utter poverty in London at the end of the 18th century. He falls in love with and marries Sal, whose father works on the Thames and apprentices William as a waterman. Things start to turn the corner for William and he sees a way that his life could turn out ok. Unfortunately circumstances change and he ends up in Newgate for stealing, condemned to death. He is granted life, but shipped with his wife and son to Australia. This first part of the book was familiar and nothing new to me - I've read many historical fiction novels about the poor and down-trodden in London - but the life the family leads in New South Wales was a different story.

Thornhill fairly quickly buys his pardon and gets enough cash working on the water to have some options. The one he chooses is to break into the uncharted forest with his young family, staking his claim on a hundred acres of land with no regard for the native blacks who already live there. The struggle between him, the other white settlers, and the natives is dark and brutal. I certainly wasn't rooting for Thornhill or the other settlers. Grenville does a convincing job of portraying the mindset of Thornhill, how he could think it was his right to claim this land, without beating the reader over the head with "deep messages". I thought she also kept an eye on how his time in poverty and as a prisoner affected his need to own land and kept him always wanting more. The book is told from the perspective of the white settlers, but she manages to still show how well the native society functioned, even though it was so different from the white society and the settlers really didn't understand or value it at all.

Overall, I thought Grenville handled this time period with a lot of insight and depth. Though the subject matter was hard to read about, I highly recommend this book.

Original Publication Date: 2005
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 334 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

For my miscellaneous category, I read La Regenta or "The Regent's Wife" by Leopoldo Alas.

I came upon this book while trying to help the 1001 books to read before you die group to complete the list as a group. This was one of the books no one had claimed as read. When I looked into it, I found that it was a Spanish classic published in 1884 that is billed as the Spanish "Madame Bovary". Some of my favorite books are from this era - Anna Karenina, Middlemarch, Germinal, Madame Bovary, etc. so I thought this would be right up my alley. It was also translated by John Rutherford whose translations I've appreciated in the past. What I found, though, was a book that I adored at moments and hated to the point of dreading to pick it up and doing some skimming at other times.

The fictional setting of Vetusta, Spain is beautiful and the language drew me in for the first pages. And then the multitude of characters with multitudes of names for each person began. I've read lots of Russian literature where each person's name takes on different variations, but that was nothing compared to this. Also, Alas introduces many characters up front before they are part of the story, and I always have a hard time with that. In a book with dozens of main characters, I keep them straight best if they are introduced as they become part of the story. So I started off kind of confused, but I figured I had all 800 pages of the book to figure it out.

The premise was both familiar interesting. Ana is a young woman married to a quirky and bumbling older man who is bored. She is looking for fulfillment outside of her marriage and is torn between two men. One is the canon theologian, Don Fermin, who is her Catholic priest and confessor. The other is Don Alvaro, Mesia, who is the town's "Don Juan" - attractive, out-going, and a womanizer. Both men want Ana - Don Fermin being unable to differentiate between his love for Ana's pure religious soul and her beauty and Mesia seeing her mainly as a conquest, but a very desirable one as she seems so unattainable.

Ana herself is torn as well. There is a part of her that desires health, happiness, and nature that she envisions with Don Alvaro, but for the majority of the book she is having what I would describe as religious ecstasies where she gets so wrapped up in religious fervor that she makes herself physically ill. Don Fermin eats this up and loves her all the more for her purity of spirit. There is a lot of exploration of how he feels that he possesses her soul as her spiritual adviser. I read this on my kindle, so I can tell you that 85% of the way into this 800 page novel Ana finally consummates her relationship with Mesia. To be honest, I could not quite decipher what happens at the end in a scene between Don Fermin and Ana. Alas leaves this scene very vague.

So overall, I'm not sure what to say. Most of the time reading this I didn't enjoy it much. There were so many diversions into religious philosophy, many digressions, and also time shifts that didn't make much sense. The action is delayed so long that it became almost meaningless to me. But, then again, there are passages of beautiful writing and insights and I think there is definitely something there worth the time.

If you're a fan of literature from this era or of Spanish literature I'd love to hear some other thoughts on the book so it might be worth a try, but overall I'd have to say pass on this classic.

Original Publication Date: 1884
Author’s nationality: Spanish
Original language: Spanish
Length: 800 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle

As an interesting note, I gather this is considered a staple of Spanish literature from the limited research I've done, but it's very rarely read in English. I think it was first translated in 1985 by Penguin Classics. I think mine is the first review in English on the LT book page.

For my "other books by authors of my favorites" category, I read True Deceiver by Tove Jansson.

As I was reading this book, I kept coming back to one word - enigmatic. Jansson's story of a brother and sister, Mats and Katri, inserting themselves into the home of Anna Aemelin is never straight forward. Even the narrator shifts from third person to first person from Katri's point of view throughout the novel. The setting is part of the story here - the small town is blanketed with snow and it's dark most of the day and night in this northern town. Katri wants something from Anna, but Anna is not just a victim here. She has her own needs and wants that she subtly takes from Katri and Mats.

I liked this book with it's interesting characters and relationships, but something about the enigmatic quality kept me at arm's length. I found it a good book, but not a great one.

Original Publication Date: 1982
Author’s nationality: Swedish/Finnish
Original language: Swedish
Length: 181 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased, NYRB edition

Finally catching up on your thread. I know we've discussed some of these books already on other threads, but it's fun to see the comments here.

>156 Nickelini: Hi there! Good to see you over here. I mainly check Club Read threads for people who I see in multiple groups, but I have found many people in this group whose reading I love to follow. It's a different reading scene and I like the comments and discussion that happen over here. I find it interesting that I post the same reviews but get different responses. I suppose that's true for most of us though, as I see many people posting in multiple groups.

Yes, the different responses are interesting, aren't they! But it means we have to follow every thread for every person we like! Oh, well.

For my mystery category, i read Maise Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear.
I’ve been doing some comfort reading after finishing La Regenta and thought I’d try a new mystery series. Since the Maisie Dobbs series also takes place during WWI, I thought it would fit with my reading this year nicely. The first book in this series has a mystery, but it is secondary to Maisie’s war experience as a nurse and her love of an army doctor, Simon. The book explores some of the aftermath of the war for the soldiers and women who participated as it takes place in 1929 with an extended flashback section that takes place before and during the war.

I really liked this initial book in the series – definitely enough to give the next book a try. I don’t feel I can make a judgment on the series as a whole, though, until I read a few more as I loved the WWI back story and assume subsequent books will be more mystery, less history. I did like some of Maisie’s methods though – especially her understanding of body language. Anyway, I’m looking forward to trying some more of this series.

Original Publication Date: 2003
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 292 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

And for my other books by authors of my favorites category, I read Lucia in London by E.F. Benson.
Another fun and charming installment in the Mapp and Lucia series. I love these slightly inane but lovable characters. Nothing much happens, but it’s just lots of fun. I’m very ready to see what happens when Mapp and Lucia meet in the next book.

Original Publication Date: 1927
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 240 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle

For my mystery/thriller category, I read The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith.

Excellent! I loved this first in a mystery series by Robert Galbraith, aka J.K. Rowling. I resisted, but after seeing so many positive reviews here, I decided to give it a try. Good mystery, good characters, good writing . . . what's not to like. I'll definitely be reading the next book as well.

Original Publication Date: 2013
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 561 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle from library

Oh, good to know. I have been waffling about picking up a copy of the Galbraith book. Maybe it will work in my favor that I have never read any of Rowlings books, I have just seen the movie adaptations of her famous Harry Potter series.

>160 japaul22:
It is quite a solid mystery, isn't it. I'm in line for book two at the library and am looking forward to seeing Cormoran Strike again.

I liked The Cuckoo's Calling quite a bit, despite never having been a big fan of the Harry Potter books. I liked her obvious knowledge of and reverence for the genre. A well-written detective novel is a wonderful thing to spend time with. I've got The Silkworm and am excited about reading it.

>161 lkernagh: I thought it was very enjoyable. I've read and loved the Harry Potter books, but only a few years ago - I'm not a super fan! I wasn't interested in Casual Vacancy, but after seeing really good reviews for The Silkworm (number 2 in the series) I thought I'd give it a try.

>162 -Eva-: Yep! I got Cuckoo's Calling from the library, but the Silkworm was on sale for kindle, so I just bought it. I'll probably wait a bit before reading it though.

>163 RidgewayGirl: AGreed! It didn't really push the boundaries, but I really enjoyed it.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read #1027 Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann translated by John E. Woods.

Buddenbrooks was written by Thomas Mann when he was only 25 years old, but this reads as the work of a much older and more experienced writer. Buddenbrooks explores four generations of the Buddenbrooks family, a family that has everything going for it at the beginning of the book and declines through the 731 pages of this novel. The 19th century German family experiences business set backs, divorces, ill health, and death, all of which contribute to their demise. The family values itself very highly and refuses initially to see the problems occurring, instead relying on their pride in family to carry them along.

I loved this book. The detail of characterization and the exploration of family history were fantastic. I also loved the themes of entitlement vs. work ethic - sometimes both hard work and a sense of entitlement being balanced in one character, sometimes in contrasting characters. I haven't read much German literature, but I've read a lot of family epics from this general era. This differed in the specifics of money that were always present and the decline of all parts of the family - no one in the family is really successful here. Despite the decline of the family, and the multiple deaths (which by the way are written very convincingly - hit a little too close to home for me), it isn't an unrelentingly dark novel. I found it very readable and captivating. Definitely a 5 star read.

Original Publication Date: 1900
Author’s nationality: German
Original language: English
Length: 731 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

>152 japaul22: It's an hit, I read a travel book last year about Australia, it gives me the incentive to want to read about Australia. I don't know a thing about the land or its history. This seems like a good way to do that.

>165 japaul22: This one has been on my WL for years now, great review :)

Yes!!! Buddenbrooks is SO GOOD. I loved everything about it

>167 jfetting: Yep, it was a great book. Have you read any other Thomas Mann? Everything else sounds daunting.

I haven't. I keep meaning to, and then pick up something else. I think Death in Venice is supposed to be manageable.

>168 japaul22: If you're looking for something less daunting, try Felix Krull or Königliche Hoheit. I wouldn't know about the quality of the translations, but in German they're actually quite funny. The dry kind of humour.

>169 jfetting: and >170 MissWatson: I'll keep all of those in mind. Thanks for the suggestions!

OK, I'm officially switching up my 1001 books challenge. Instead of continuing with trying to read one book out of every 50 on the list, I'm just going to try to read 13 more books of the list at any number. I'm really annoyed with the challenge I set up and am avoiding reading from the list because of it even though I have a lot of books on my shelf that I actually want to read from the list.

If I change that, I just have 6 books left to finish my traditional challenge and 13 to finish the 1001 books challenge which should be easy in the 4 months I have left.

For my "new releases" category, I read The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt.

The Blazing World is one of the 2014 Booker prize nominees that jumped out at me as something I would like to read. The premise is that a woman artist, Harriet "Harry" Burden, in her 60s who feels that her artwork has been under-appreciated because of her gender, creates 3 works of art and finds a different man to claim each of the exhibits as his own. After all three are exhibited and critiqued she plans to reveal herself as the artist behind them. Unfortunately, the last artist she chooses betrays her and refuses to admit that the work was hers. Many people believe him and the whole project is ruined for her.

The book is put together with different voices in Harriet's life trying to tell her story after her death. We get points of view from both of Harry's adult children, her second husband, her best friend, art critics, and others. This is very effective as a major theme of the book is perception. You see from the various points of view all of the ways the events are perceived. Also, Harriet leaves behind extensive journals where she discusses her life, her artwork, and her reading - she is esoteric, conceited, and vulnerable all at once. She reads philosophy and quotes it extensively. Luckily, the fictional editor of the book provides footnotes for the references Harriet makes.

You would assume from the description that a major theme of this book is going to be sexism in the art world. This is part of the book, certainly, but it is approached more as Harriet's perception of sexism. I would say that the theme is closer to exploring how the artist is part of the work of art. As such, gender, sexual orientation, race, and personality of the artist all factor in to a work of art. Part of Harriet's experiment with her art work was to demonstrate this, though I'm not sure if she intended that from the start. This theme really got me thinking about how much the name attached to a work of art influences my experience of the art itself. I think it's a great degree, personally.

Hustvedt does a great job of humanizing these philosophical themes, though. In fact, in some ways, when I finished this book I felt it was more about aging, death, and relationships with the art world as a back drop. As often happens with books with multiple narrators, there were some that I liked more than others and times where I felt the book got a bit bogged down and lost its focus. Overall, though, I thought this was a smart book with some important themes that manages to keep a human touch. That's not an easy balance to manage and why I think this was a worthy Booker nomination.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 351 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library book

>172 japaul22:
Sounds like a good (and doable) plan - not fun when we challenge ourselves into a corner. :)

For my miscellaneous category, I read Alberta and Freedom by Cora Sandel.

After loving the first book (Alberta and Jacob)in this semi-autobiographical trilogy by Norwegian Nobel prize winner, Cora Sandel, I have to say I was a bit disappointed in this book. I still loved the writing and thought that Sandel does a fantastic job creating a sense of place, this time Paris as a struggling young adult. But while I found Alberta's shyness and lack of direction understandable and sort of endearing when she was 17, I had less patience for it when she's in her early 20s. Alberta is in Paris now, just kind of hanging around. She's barely working - just writing an article here and there - and subsisting in mice-infested apartments with little to no food to eat. And she just can't seem to get her act together to even attempt a career.

I will finish the trilogy, but I wasn't thrilled with this book. The writing is great enough, though, to keep me going. I also think I read that she goes back to Norway in the third book and one of my favorite things about the first book in the series was the excellent description of Norway.

Original Publication Date: 1931
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 241 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased

For my Off the TBR list category, I read Swimming Home by Deborah Levy.

Swimming Home was an odd reading experience for me. It takes place over one week in France as Jozef and Isabel take their 14 year old daughter, Nina, and their friends Laura and Mitchell to a vacation home. Their marriage is already rocky and when they arrive at the vacation home to find the beautiful, naked, and crazy Kitty swimming in the pool you know things are not going to turn out well.

The writing in this book is good - kind of dreamy but still powerful descriptions - but I felt that there were so many loose ends still when the book ended that I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. Some of the characters (especially Laura and Mitchell) seemed superfluous, as if Levy started the book thinking they'd be important and then just changed directions. But she did succeed in entangling the lives and thoughts of Jozef, Kitty, and Nina with a lot of artistry. I wonder if the book would have been better either as a short story or as a longer novel.

Original Publication Date: 2012
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 176 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle library book

>176 japaul22:
I've had her debut novel(la), Beautiful Mutants on Mt. TBR since forever and I was hoping to get to it this year - I think I'll pluck it off the shelf so I don't forget again.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield.

This is a short story that I listened to as an audiobook, a medium I'm pretty new to and still experimenting with. It's an interesting story about a garden party that is about to happen when the family finds out that the father of a poor neighboring family has been killed in an accident. The family reacts differently to the news - Laura wanting to cancel the party and the rest feeling that she is overreacting.

I found it good but probably not very memorable.

3 stars

For my nonfiction category, I read My Life in Middlemarch by Rebecca Mead.

I'm still not sure exactly what this books was - memoir, literary analysis, biography of George Eliot? - but in the end it really didn't matter. This book was like having a conversation with a good friend about a book you both love. Rebecca Mead analyzes her favorite book, Middlemarch, through several techniques: using traditional literary analysis, exploring the work by discovering George Eliot's life and influences, and connecting the book to Mead's own life experiences.

This was a really interesting mix of analysis and the tone hit the perfect mix of scholarly and conversational. It could easily have gotten a pretentious feel, but luckily didn't. I loved revisiting Middlemarch (one of my favorites) through Rebecca Mead's eyes.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: British (transplanted to NYC)
Original language: English
Length: 306 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle library book

For my off the TBR list category, I read Heartstone by C.J. Sansom.

This is the 5th book in the Matthew Shardlake mystery series set in Tudor England. Lawyer Matthew Shardlake gets mixed up with the Court of Wards, one of the most corrupt branches of law, at the behest of Queen Catharine Parr. The Court of Wards controls wealthy orphans who are purchased by guardians. I loved the historical aspects of the law that were explored here. There are several intersecting mysteries, some of which have more plausible outcomes than others, but I loved the historical setting of this one. It's set in one of the wars with France in 1544-46. It also includes the sinking of the Mary Rose, one of England's war ships.

As always with these books, I think the historical fiction aspect is stronger than the actual mystery, and despite reservations about some of the conclusions to the mysteries, I really love this series. I hope there end up being more!

Original Publication Date: 2011
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 642 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased for kindle

For my new releases category, I read Jane Austen Cover to Cover by Margaret C. Sullivan.

I loved browsing through this illustrated coffee table book that shows highlights of publications of Jane Austen's work from when they first were printed until the modern day. I say browsing, because you could certainly read it that way, but I actually read it cover to cover. The author gives information on publishing techniques, some light literary criticism, and history of how Jane Austen's works have been received in different eras. Interspersed are quotes from all the novels.

The main show, of course, is the pictures of the covers 100s of different publications with commentary on how the cover was chosen and how it reflects the times it was published in. Some of the commentary gets delightfully snarky - oh those 1960s and 1970s publications! - and I found it really entertaining. She also covers translations of Austen's work and a little about the movies and television productions that have been made. This is a book that Austen collectors will love to own.

The only problem with this book is that now I want to collect ALL of these editions - especially the cheesy ones!

Nickelini - special mention to you because I thought of you a lot while I was reading this book since it combines cover analysis and Jane Austen!

This was a book that I received through the Early Reviewers program.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 223 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: owned, Early Reviewers program

Oh, yeah, you're right-- totally my thing. Especially since she gets "delightfully snarky". Hmmmm, Austen, book covers, delightful snark. I'm getting a copy of this asap. Thanks for pointing it out because I hadn't heard of it.

ETA: your touchstone goes to a different book--the Pulp! the Classics edition of P&P. Which is one of my very favourite covers.

>182 Nickelini: Thanks for telling me about the touchstone - I've fixed it.

One thing that I should have put in my review is that I actually didn't love the cover of this book! It's all in different shades of blue and while I normally like blue, I just don't love these shades. Not a big deal, but kind of ironic!

#183 - That's funny. And I agree! It's a horrible colour. Looks like bedroom wallpaper from the 1980s--of they type I wouldn't have even liked in the 1980s. I wonder if the author had any input--they usually don't. Love to hear what she says about it.

>181 japaul22: Ha! I got this book for Early Reviewers too, and I also read it cover to cover. :) I'm definitely coveting some of those Austen editions now...and I AM in the market for a new copy of Sense and Sensibility...

For my new releases category, I read The Secret Place by Tana French.

Loved it! In this mystery, Tana French explores the lives and friendships of teenage girls with a lot of insight and expertise. I liked the mystery, liked the characters, and loved the writing. Hope she keeps up the series.

>186 japaul22:
Ooh, I haven't gotten to that one yet - hopefully soon!

>186 japaul22: Yay- my library hold on that one just came through : ) I remember being intrigued by Conway in his small appearance in Broken Harbor and I'm looking forward to a story with Frank Mackey again.

>188 aliciamay: Can't wait to hear how you like it!

For my 1001 books challenge I listened to The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark.
audiobook, 3h59m, read by Nadia May

My second audiobook try for the year. First a review of the book, which I loved. This is the story of Miss Jean Brodie, a progressive teacher at a traditional school for girls in the 1930s. Her class is identified as the "Brodie set" and defined by their teacher's progressive attitude towards what is important in education - more of a real life approach vs. book learning. Miss Brodie always says she's "in her prime" and the girls try desperately to figure out what that means throughout the book. In their early years, there's innocent discussions of sex and Miss Brodie's love life and as the girls grow into their teenage years their understanding grows and their own experiences widen. I thought the book was an amusing and entertaining look at the teacher/student relationship and had some great personalities - especially Miss Jean Brodie. I'll definitely look for more books by Muriel Spark.

As far as the audiobook experience, I thought this reader, Nadia May, was great. I think I could get the hang of listening to audiobooks, but it's definitely a different way of experiencing a book. In some ways, I think I get a bit more out of it because hearing the words can make them stick, especially with the inflection a good reader brings. But I don't like not being able to flip back to reread passages or double check something I don't quite remember. I also have to really try to not tune out the words. I'm so used to tuning out extraneous noise (having kids, playing in a band!) that I have to work at not spacing out. I think I'll keep trying it occasionally though. I especially like it when I'm busy and don't have as much time to sit and read as I'd like.

Original Publication Date: 1961
Author’s nationality: Scottish
Original language: English
Length: 3h59m
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook

I do like Nadia May as a reader for audiobooks. She also does a great job reading Momento Mori by Sparks.

>191 lkernagh: Thanks for the tip! I thought she was very good.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read Misericordia or Compassion by Benito Perez Galdos.

This is an odd but touching Spanish Realist novel from 1897 that looks at the plight of the poor. Benina is the main character and is the loyal servant of a Dona Paca who has squandered her money and now lives in utter poverty. Benina remains loyal to her and takes care of her by begging on the streets and also keeping her spirits up. In order to not shame Dona Paca, Benina lies about where the money comes from, inventing the story that she has a job working for a Priest, Don Remualdo. Benina takes in several other people, seemingly a magnet for the unfortunate. Every pesata she comes upon is used to make others happy, though she does always reserve a small percentage for her personal stash. Towards the end of the book, the fictional Don Remualdo actually shows up at Dona Paca's home and shares that she has inherited an annuity from a distant relative. Dona Paca immediately falls into her old spending ways and also throws Benina aside.

The book explores poverty, compassion, and loyalty through some great characters. I did feel that I would have gotten more out of it if I had a better background in Spanish culture and history. Also, I get the feeling that the dialects the different characters use were important in the original Spanish and probably didn't translate very well. I did enjoy it overall, though.

Original Publication Date: 1897
Author’s nationality: Spanish
Original language: Spanish
Length: 250 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle purchase

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is a great book and the movie, starring a young Maggie Smith, is also great.

Ooh, Maggie Smith! I'll have to find that.

>195 japaul22: Maggie Smith, you said ? I second that; I was already hit last year by this one, great review :)

>193 japaul22: That looks like a very interesting book!

For my 1001 books category, I listened to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson
audiobook read by Martin Jarvis

Another audio book and this one worked really well. The horror story aspect of this book made it fun to listen to - kind of like sitting around a campfire hearing a ghost story. I also liked this reader, Martin Jarvis.

As for the book, what can I say? Though the "science" behind the transformation of Dr. Jekyll is very 1800s, the tale itself is a lot of fun - well-paced and suspenseful - even if you know the ending from the beginning. I enjoyed it!

Original Publication Date: 1886
Author’s nationality: Scottish
Original language: English
Length: audiobook, 2h56m
Rating: 4 stars for both the book and the reading
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook from the library

I read that earlier this year and enjoyed it. Quite different from what I was expecting since my total knowledge of the story came from Looney Tunes and the Jekyll & Hyde musical.

>199 LittleTaiko: I knew the basic story, but didn't realize that there was a potion/medicine involved. Made me wonder if it was partially an allegory for addiction. Opium was all the rage back then, right?

>200 japaul22: - That's a good point - the highs and lows of the potion do echo the effects of addiction.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read Paradise of the Blind by Duong Thu Huong
This is a first person narration by a young Vietnamese girl, Hang, living in the 1980s who is an "exported worker" to a Russian textile factory. She is called by her Uncle, who used to be a local leader in the Vietnamese communist party, to visit him. On her train ride there, she revisits her life in flashbacks. She remembers her relationship with her mother from childhood through the present. Her mother (the sister of the uncle I mentioned) had a relationship with a young man who was not approved of by her communist brother and they were never married, though he is Hang's father. She also has an Aunt Tam, her father's sister, who is single and lavishes all of her earnings on Hang, the only descendant of her family.

Apparently, Huong's books were all banned in Vietnam for their political content and were first translated into English in 1993. Huong was even imprisoned in the 1990s for her outspokenness. Because I knew these things before reading the book, I was expecting it to be more politically damning than it was (I was thinking of Wild Swans by Jung Chang). Instead, I found this to be a book about the life of one typical family. It was definitely impacted by political upheaval and that comes through, but it wasn't the focus of the book. I actually found more insight into the daily life of the Vietnamese through the excellent descriptions of food and cultural celebrations and traditions.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, though it wasn't quite as memorable or radical as I hoped it might be.

Original Publication Date: 1988 in Vietnamese, 1993 in English
Author’s nationality: Vietnamese
Original language: Vietnamese
Length: 270 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library book

>198 japaul22:
I only read an abridged version as a child, so the "real" version is on Mt. TBR.

For my new releases category, I read A King's Ransom by Sharon Kay Penman
This is the last in the series of books describing the Angevin/Plantagenet dynasty, from King Stephen and Queen Maud through Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, and ending with Richard the Lionheart's death and King John's ascension to the throne.

I love all of Penman's books, but this was a favorite among all of them. This book explores Richard's life after the Crusade to the the Holy Land. He is taken prisoner by the German Holy Roman Emperor and this imprisonment colors the rest of his life. This book still has many battles, but statecraft is also an integral part. Richard's speech to the Imperial Diet to affect his release is impressive and his work at getting back his empire from Philippe, King of France, is a combination of warfare and intelligence. I also loved the side story of his sister, Joanna, and her marriage to Raimond, Count of Toulouse. It was a sad book because pretty much every dies (Eleanor's long life means that she witnesses the deaths of almost all of her 10 children), but I still loved this series.

I hope that Penman starts a new series as I find her books a great combination of well researched history and fantastic characterization. I'm sad to be done reading these!

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 688 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle library book

For my nonfiction category, I listened to Mrs. Robinson's Disgrace: The Private Diary of a Victorian Lady by Kate Summerscale
audiobook read by Wanda McCaddon

My first foray into nonfiction audiobooks was a success. I knew of Kate Summerscale from her book, The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher. This book is about a Victorian woman, Isabella Robinson, and how her private diary was used by her husband to prosecute a divorce.

The Robinsons, Henry and Isabella, are an upper middle class family. Isabella meets Edward Lane and writes in her diary about how attracted she is to him. They take evening walks together and have several encounters that are vaguely but romantically described and may imply that they actually have sex. Or maybe not. But probably.

So when Isabella gets sick, her husband Henry reads the diary and then decides to use it to attain a divorce. In the end, the divorce is not granted (well, not this trial of it - they later get a divorce based on a subsequent affair) but the book becomes about so much more than this one couple's experience. Summerscale uses their loveless marriage to explore women's issues such as the comical beliefs (at least from this remove) around sexual appetites and what they mean - usually that if you have any interest in sex you're insane or have some sort of uterine disease. This is certainly the belief about women, but extends to men at least a bit as well. Summerscale also details the changing divorce laws. The Robinsons were one of the first couples heard in a new divorce court which loosened the rules for granting a divorce and made is much less expensive. By the way, no one cared that Henry had been cheating on Isabella for basically their whole marriage, even fathering several illegitimate children. Also, much of the diary was published in the newspapers leading to discussions of journaling in the Victorian era, both in fiction and in the life of everyday women. Imagine, though, having your private journal which may or may not have been entirely true but certainly involved real people that you saw on a daily basis published for all to see. Isabella used her diary as her defense though. Instead of trying to prove that she didn't have an affair, she tried to claim insanity through her diary. Her sexual yearnings were proof in the Victorian era that she was insane.

Overall, I found this book very entertaining but it made me glad I wasn't a Victorian era woman.

Original Publication Date: 2012
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 7h27m
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audio book

For my TBR off the shelf category, I read A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman
I've been reading this book off and on for the last two months, and I can safely say that Tuchman thoroughly presents the 14th century through great research and a readable writing style. As in most very long nonfiction books, I must admit that there were sections that I personally found kind of boring, but most likely everyone who reads this will find something to love and something to skim and it will probably be different for everyone.

Tuchman covers a lot in this book. My favorite parts were actually the more general sections where she talks about everyday life for varying classes of people. I also like where she wrote about the Black Death and its effects on population and the mindset of the people. I was interested in reading about the schism in the church, with one Pope in Rome and one Pope in Avignon. I was also interested in the general information about warfare and chivalry (the Hundred Years War between France and England takes place during this time plus some Crusades), though I get bored reading about specific battles and sieges. I also thought it was great that she chose one nobleman, Enguerrand VII de Coucy, to follow throughout the book. Enguerrand was integral in the politics and warfare of the era and was well respected as a intelligent, moderating force amidst a lot of craziness. Actually, literal craziness, as several of the Kings of France were mad in the 14th century.

As always with books that cover these sorts of events, I personally am not very interested in reading about battles or in really understanding the politics of the day in any depth. But that's just my personal taste. This book is both broad and focused and I think that everyone will find something in it to satisfy themself.

Original Publication Date: 1978
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 784 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased, off the shelf

And that book finishes my traditional category challenge. I still have 9 books left to finish my 1001 books challenge which I think I'll be able to do if I can manage to stay at all on task. We'll see . . .

Congrats on finishing!!

Congratulations!! Will have to keep an eye out for A Distant Mirror. It sounds like a good dipping-into book.

Congrsts on completing your challenge!

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Thanks, everyone! I'll feel more worthy of the congrats when I finish the 1001 books challenge I set up as well. I have a lot of reading left to do!

Woo hoo!!

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The Waves by Virginia Woolf

In The Waves, Virginia Woolf has created a masterpiece. From the elegant prose to the innovative structure (yes, innovative even at a distance of almost 85 years) to the philosophy life and death, this book is a revelation. I found it both unsettling and oddly comforting.

Woolf uses the friendship of six people, three men and three women, to discover both the living world and death. The book is written in an almost poetic style, sticking largely to interior speak. There is very little direct interaction between the friends. There are nine sections, presented chronologically that range from early childhood through school, middle age, and the end of life. The writing is odd – it’s hard to figure out if you’re supposed to believe these people are really thinking these poetic words or is it almost what the brain sees and processes before we’d actually put language to it? In the end it doesn’t matter because it’s beautiful and different and therefore more impactful.

I read the paperback book with a pencil in hand – underlining passages, writing questions, and making connections – something I’ve not done since college but that made a big difference in my reading. This is a book that deserves to be analyzed and I intend to do some research on it after I let it settle and form some of my own opinions. It is also a book to be reread and I’m sure it will mean something different to me over the decades to come.

On a personal note, many of you know that my dad died very quickly and unexpectedly this year way too young – only 63. I think this book meant something much different to me after that experience than it would have before. The whole last section of Bernard’s musing on his life and inevitable death really struck me as a gradual personal acceptance of death and separation from earthly matters. That is, until the last paragraph.

I’m obviously pretty blown away by this book. It’s been a while since I read something both challenging to read and personal at the same time. I think it’s impressive that Woolf was able to do both – stretch a reader’s boundaries in language and form but still make a personal book that can be deeply connected to.

Fascinating.

Original Publication Date: 1931
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 297 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, purchased

Congratulations on finding such a personally relevant book!

Congrats on finishing your category challenge, and I know you can finish your 1001 challenge goal as well! :)

Congrats on completing your Category Challenge, and good luck on your ongoing 1001 Challenge.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read Evelina by Frances Burney

I loved this! Many Austen fans will probably recognize Fanny Burney's name as often suggested as a precursor to and influence on Jane Austen's writing. That's the reason I picked up this book and I found tons of obvious influences on Jane Austen in plot, characters, and style. I was really excited to find that I liked the book on it's own merit just as much as for the glimpse into Austen's influences.

This is the story of Evelina, a girl who was raised by the kindly Rev. Villars after her mother dies in childbirth and her father refuses to claim her as his own. She goes to London with some family friends after being brought up in the country and there every man she meets seems to fall in love with the beautiful and good Evelina. Evelina has a bit of the naivety of a Catherine Morland - she's always getting into situations that she doesn't know how to handle. There is a wide cast of characters - some legitimately funny, some annoying, some stuck up, some very proper. There are misunderstandings that lead to most of the drama and some of these go on a bit too long (Austen was a much better editor!), but I had a lot of fun reading this.

I definitely recommend that any Austen fan give this book a try. I'm not saying it's as good as Austen, but it was fascinating to read a book that I imagine Austen loved. And I really enjoyed it in it's own right as well.

Original Publication Date: 1778
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 512 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle

>219 japaul22: - Sold! That one is definitely going on the wishlist.

Yes, you make Evelina sound like a worthwhile read.

For my 1001 books challenge, I listened to The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
audiobook, 3h59m, read by Tony Jay

This was really silly. It's an example of an early gothic novel so I suppose if you're really into the genre it might be interesting, but I was not into it. The only thing it had going for it was that it's really short, as opposed to The Mysteries of Udolpho which I didn't even finish reading. I sometimes like modern day gothic books, but the originals are not for me!

Original Publication Date: 1764
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 3h59m
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audio book from the library

Great review of Evelina! Like you, I enjoyed it in its own right, as well as for its connection to Austen. And I agree that The Castle of Otranto is pretty ridiculous, but that just made it fun for me. :)

>223 christina_reads: Glad to find another Evelina fan. And I'm glad you enjoyed The Castle of Otranto, it was just too over the top for me!

Congratulations on finishing your challenge! I'll have to keep Evelina in mind, as I do like Austen.

Even though I finished my goal of 4 books per category, I'm going to keep adding to categories as I finish books. For my nonfiction category, I read A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III by Janice Hadlow.

With A Royal Experiment, Janice Hadlow has written a scholarly and readable book of social history revolving around the family life of King George III. To me, as an American, King George III is known as the King during the American Revolution - unfairly taxing us and then presiding over a (thankfully) horribly run war. Hadlow almost ignores the politics of the time and instead has written a tightly focused book about George's family values and his vision for the moral compass that the royal family should provide to the people of England.

George's wife, Charlotte, is at the center of this book focused on family. George and Charlotte made the best of their arranged marriage from the start. George treating Charlotte with kindness and respect, never following the family tradition of multiple mistresses and infidelities, though also tacitly insisting upon Charlotte’s submission to his vision of family life. Charlotte made the best of this and seemed to be on board with his vision. George III thought that this dedicated family life was what the public needed to see to continue support of the royalty, and he seems to have been right. George was an involved and caring father when his children were young, often getting down on the floor to play with their fifteen (yes, fifteen) children. Charlotte subscribed to the thinking on education and child-rearing of the day, at least when her children were young, providing them with progressive governesses who used the newest teaching methods and gave plenty of time for exercise and play. These were based on the influential writings of Rousseau.

This seemingly idyllic childhood did not last into a contented adulthood, though. The sons did not follow their father’s moral compass, having many liaisons with women. Some of this may have resulted from George’s treatment of his sons, packing all of them off to foreign courts or military jobs, many before they were ready. His first-born and heir, he kept close but gave him no role or responsibility. He led a life full of women, gambling, and drinking, probably initially from boredom.

As bad as the brothers had it, the sisters’ adult lives were very sad. They were kept by George almost as pets, to keep him content and happy. Especially once George’s madness started, they were trapped in a closed circle where they had almost no outside visitors and no prospects of marriage. After George and Charlotte’s efforts to create a new vision of happy royal marriage, they did not give their daughters any opportunity to create family lives for themselves as adults. A few managed to get married in their 40s, when their father was incapacitated and unable to oppose, but none had living children of their own.

George’s recurring madness, a disease still not understood, had profound effects on his family. Charlotte in particular carried on George’s wishes, thwarting her daughters’ marriage plans and earning their bitterness. They seemed to respect her, but find little in her to love. They closed their family circle even more tightly when George became ill, and I am sure being shut up together for decades did not help their relationship.

This is Janice Hadlow’s first book and I was so impressed with both the scholarship and the writing. This is a period that I find fascinating and I loved that she was able to create a social history that revolved around royalty, staying focused on her theme and not making unneeded tangents into political details of the day. On a personal note, it just happened that this tied in to some of my recent fiction reading, which was a bonus. Fanny Burney, author of Evelina that I just read, features prominently in this book. She was a part of the Queen’s circle for years, living with the family and journaling her experiences. She came to love the Queen despite the repressive closed circle and her view of the Queen opened up a side of Charlotte’s personality that may have otherwise been hard to know. Also, Horace Walpole was an advisor to King George so it was interesting to see his name having just read The Castle of Otranto.

I found this book very readable and actually read it straight through, ignoring the fiction I am reading. I almost never do that with nonfiction. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in this period of 18th century history.

This is a book I received through the Early Reviewers program.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 682 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: ER book

I haven't read very many of the classic gothic stories out there, except for Frankenstien and Wuthering Heights. I do have The Mysteries of Udolpho that I hope to get around to reading at some point, but I think I will pass on The Castle of Otranto for now.

Lori - if you want to try the gothic works, I'd actually recommend Castle of Otranto over The Mysteries of Udolpho. They have the similar style, but C of O is about 900 (yes, 900!) pages shorter than M of U!

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The New York Trilogy by Paul Auster.

The New York Trilogy is a collection of novellas originally published separately and later collected into this one volume. All three can stand on their own, but they definitely share themes and the last story sort of ties in to the first two. These are all hard to describe. In a simple way, they are detective stories, but they are also much more than that. There is something modern in the writing style of all three, though I don't know the correct literary terms to describe his brand of modernism. The primary link between the three novellas to me was that the main detective becomes obsessed with the case, actually the person, that he is working on. Auster also inserts himself into his writing, but from a distance. In the first novella, he actually uses his name, has a Scandinavian wife, and is a writer. All true. It's not the important part of the book, but it lends to this modern fiction feel in a weird way. There are many questions of identity that lead to madness and confusion over what is true.

I'd recommend this book to anyone interested in detective stories who likes a modern twist. I've had a hard time describing them, but I imagine that the layered themes and interconnections within the detective framework would appeal to many readers.

Original Publication Date: 1985-6 for individual novellas, 1987 for the collection
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 371 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale

>228 japaul22: - Wow, that is a huge difference in page count!

>230 lkernagh: yep! I almost always finish books that I start, but I could not finish Mysteries of Udolpho. And I wanted to like it so badly, knowing that Jane Austen featured it in Northanger Abbey.

Ok, I looked up the page counts and I exaggerated a little. Udolpho is about 730 pages and Otranto about 120. Still a big difference!!

The New York Trilogy sounds really good - excellent review! I had no idea what it was about but I think I need to read it soon.

>232 jfetting: I think you'd like it, and it's on the 1001 books list.

So I went to the library book sale yesterday and came away with the following books:

The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving
The Norton Book of Women’s Lives edited by Phyllis Rose
Silence by Shusaku Endo
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick
The Known World by Edward P. Jones
Light in August by William Faulkner
As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
Will in the World: How Shakespeare became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt

And then I came home to find an Early Reviewers book in the mail - The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter.

A good day for my book shelves!

Great haul! I'll be interested to hear what you think of The Great Influenza, as it's on my TBR list.

Silence is AMAZING. All of Shusaku Endo is amazing but Silence is really, really great.

>234 japaul22:

Some good books there. I liked the 'flu' one when I read it.

The bookshelves in my reading/piano room are now up and I'm really excited. They are a work in progress as I keep moving books around to see what I like best in terms of both looks and organization. Also, I obviously need more books - too many empty spaces!

They look great! And since there is space, you now need to find a few more books for here and there.

#238 - Fabulous!

>238 japaul22: Haha I was just going to comment that you could squeeze a few more books on there! Have fun organizing the books (and getting more to fill those spaces).

Yep, the plan is to fill them to the point that it's only books and all the pictures/knick knacks need to be relocated.

Love the bookshelves!

So pretty! And I envy you because you have an excuse to buy more books!

Nice shelves and room for lots more books!

That is a very nice book haul! And at first glance I thought your reading room picture was from a magazine. When you've fully filled up your shelves, I think the reading lady picture still needs to remain in your reading room.

Thanks, everyone! I'm definitely looking forward to filling the shelves.

>246 aliciamay: The prints will definitely stay in the room somewhere when I get to the point that I need the shelves for books. They are favorites of mine. My grandparents owned an antique print shop and these are "Gibson girl" prints from the early 1900s. The one on the left has a caption that says "A word to the wise. Have a book in case you are bored" and the one on the right says "She looks for relief among some of the old ones.". Those are books scattered on the floor all around her. Love them!

Your shelves are beautiful. And just think of all the fun you are going to have filling them up!

I've added Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by Anne Fadiman to my completed nonfiction category.

Thanks to all of the LT readers who brought this to my attention - I know this is a favorite for many around here and now it is for me as well. This is a slim book of personal essays on the love of reading, words, and books. Every book lover should read (and own) this book. There are eighteen essays included. I loved "Marrying Libraries" about the merging of Fadiman and her husband's books; "The Joy of Sesquipedalians" about the love of obscure words; "Never do that to a book" about the differences in how readers treat their books; "Inset a Carrot" about compulsive proofreading; "My Ancestral Castles" about family inheritances of books and love of reading; and "Secondhand Prose" about the magic of used books.

Fadiman beautifully weaves personal family experience as the daughter of book lovers, wife of a writer and book lover, and mother of children who she hopes will continue their love of books, together with history and anecdotes in these essays.

Highly recommended for anyone who loves to love books.

Original Publication Date: 1998 for the collection
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 162 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback

If you hadn't noticed, I'm going to just keep adding to the categories I have as I complete books. I still have a few 1001 books to go as well.

So to add to my "other books by authors of my favorites" category, I read The Custom of the Country by Edith Wharton.

In this book, Wharton explores the world of a discontented, bored woman who always wants more than she has. Undine Spragg is born in the small town of Apex, but has her parents wrapped around her finger enough to make them move to a fashionable New York hotel. She uses her father's dwindling funds and her beauty to break in to New York society, marrying Ralph Marvell, a member of one of New York's elite families. Unfortunately, on their honeymoon they find out how ill suited they are to each other. Undine wants to be in the most exciting society and Ralph wants quiet to write and be with Undine. Undine gets pregnant and they go back to New York. What follows is a string of divorces, marriages, and horrible people acting horribly. Undine always thinks she knows what she wants and then finds "the grass is greener" somewhere else as soon as she gets it. She is a really terrible person; always demanding, never giving, and totally clueless about herself or others.

So why did I love this book, even though I was unable to sympathize with the central character at all? Wharton has a great way with words. She has a large vocabulary and I always learn some new words, but she manages to not sound pretentious. I also think her characters are believable, at least a few of them in every book. We all know the type of Undine Spragg - always reaching for higher society and getting into crushing debt along the way without even caring, and using people as she goes. It's a familiar story in these days of excess.

This is the third book I've read by Wharton and again I liked it very much. I'll definitely keep reading her novels.

Original Publication Date: 1913
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 480 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle

I just read Custom of the Country last month and was totally blown away. This was my first Edith Wharton and now I am looking forward to reading more by her. Undine Spragg was a terrible person, but most interesting to read about!

>251 DeltaQueen50: I think your review was the one that spurred me to read this now. I've been meaning to get to it for a while. I've also read House of Mirth and Age of Innocence both of which are fantastic and I highly recommend.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The Quiet American by Graham Greene.

I know this book is liked by many around here, but I just didn't enjoy it. It is a look at Vietnam in the 1950s, with different factions competing for political power and plenty of foreign journalists around to muddy the waters. The book is told from Fowler's point of view, a British journalist. While exploring the war and politics, there is also a central story of Fowler and Pyle's (an youthful, naive American) competition for a young Vietnamese girl, Phuong. We find out at the beginning that Pyle has been murdered and Fowler's memories gradually uncover his story.

While I appreciated how politics and anti-war philosophy were woven together with a personal story, I just really didn't like the characters and hated the whole love triangle aspect. I found Pyle unbelievable and one-dimensional and Phuong, as well, had no personality and seemed like a stereotype.

To be fair, this was the first audiobook I've listened to where I really hated the reader, Joseph Porter, and that definitely colored my view of the book. I will definitely not listen to another audiobook read by him - he had a horrible natural speaking voice and then he tried to do American accents and French accents and it was just terrible.

There are many readers around here who I respect who have a great liking for this novel, so don't let my experience put you off, but I really can't say I enjoyed this book. I am still willing to try other Graham Greene novels at some point, though.

Original Publication Date: 1955
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 6h41m
Rating: 2.5 stars for the book, 1 star for the reader
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook

>238 japaul22:
So nice!! Filling the shelves is half the fun. :)

For my 1001 books challenge, I read #185, Felicia's Journey by William Trevor.

I read my first book by William Trevor back in May of this year, when I picked up and loved The Story of Lucy Gault. I immediately bought a few more of Trevor's books and I picked up Felicia's Journey hoping I'd love it as much. While I didn't think it was quite as perfect as The Story of Lucy Gault, I still found the writing beautiful and characters deeply drawn. Trevor's writing has an old-fashioned feel in the very best sense of the phrase. When I picked this up I knew nothing about it - not even the genre - and I think that's the way to read it, so I'm not going to give any plot details away. I think that on the whole, the plot here actually was a little weak, but the writing is so great that it didn't even bother me.

So there's my cryptic review. Sorry for the lack of info, but I loved seeing these characters unfold and wondering if what I thought was going on was really going on.

Original Publication Date: 1994
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 217 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: owned/purchased

#181-185 Jennifer and Christina -- I had to kill time waiting for my daughter last night, and found a big bookstore to browse in, and they had a stack of Jane Austen Cover to Cover. I couldn't resist, of course. Not sure I'm actually going to read this cover to cover, as you both did, but it sure is fun to look at. Thanks for pointing it out to me.

>256 Nickelini: Yay! Glad you got it! I'm sure it would be fun to browse through as well.

I loved The Story of Lucy Gault as well. I'll look for Felicia's Journey.

For my 1001 books challenge, I read The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.
Another audiobook, this time with a reader I like, Christopher Hurt. As soon as I started listening to this I remembered that I had read it, but it was still fun to listen to it again. I particularly like the comparisons of how the Martians viewed humans to how humans view animals. Overall, considering when it was written, I think it was done well, but it's not really my thing, so I'm still only giving it three stars.

Original Publication Date: 1897
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 5h54m
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook

For my nonfiction category, I read Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare by Stephen Greenblatt.

Greenblatt has written a biography of Shakespeare, a man of whom there is little known besides his work, by using his plays to delve into his psyche. This is an interesting and appealing idea, but for me it didn't work very well. In some ways I found the book very interesting. I learned a lot about the general time period - education, religion for the common person, the life of actors/playwrights, etc. - and I enjoyed that. There is also a lot of analysis of the plays spattered throughout the book that I found interesting and entertaining. The problem for me was that I didn't really buy that you can analyze Shakespeare's plays to discover his personality or decipher his life decisions. It seems to me that Shakespeare wrote on so many topics from so many different points of view, that you could find multiple examples to back up any personality trait or life decision that Shakespeare made. In the end, I felt that it could have been true, but maybe not, and I don't feel that I have a clearer picture of Shakespeare than I started with after finishing this book.

I also think this book was a little above my knowledge level of Shakespeare. I think it will mean more to someone very familiar with his plays. I would say I'm only conversant about roughly 6 or 7 of his plays. To someone who has a deeper knowledge of his work, this book would probably be more meaningful and interesting.

I don't want to come off too negative here, because I actually did like this even though I wasn't totally convinced by the premise. There is still a lot of good information and it opens up some curiosity about what Shakespeare might have been like and what his motivations were. Shakespeare buffs should definitely give this a try.

Original Publication Date: 2004
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 430 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: hardcover/purchased at library sale

For my 1001 books challenge, I read Thank you, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, an audiobook by LA Theatre Works, 1h30m

This was my first introduction to Bertie Wooster and Jeeves and it was a lot of fun. I can definitely see myself reading or listening to more of these when I need some British humor. The audio book was done as a staged reading, with different actors for each part. It worked very well.

Original Publication Date: 1934
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 1h30m
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audio book from the library

And with that, I've officially finished my double challenge! I read at least 4 books in each of 10 categories and read 26 books for my 1001 books challenge. That brings my total to 201 books read off of the "1001 books to read before you die" list. I didn't stick to my original thought of how to choose those 26 books, but I decided that the number was more important to me than the method that I set up at the beginning of the year.

I will continue to log my reading here until the end of the year, just filling in books in whichever category they fit best.

Congratulations! Enjoy the free reading.

That's an impressive number of books. Congratulations!

>263 RidgewayGirl:, >264 MissWatson: Thanks!

To add to my new releases category, I read In the Kingdom of Ice: The Grand and Terrible Polar Voyage of the U.S.S. Jeannette by Hampton Sides.

I LOVE these polar exploration books! This is a new book that describes the attempt by De Long and a crew of about 30 men who try to reach the North Pole by boat in the 1880s. De Long was backed by Gordon Bennett, the wealthy and eccentric owner of the New York Herald who is a story in himself. They were operating on the popular assumption that warm water currents running from the Pacific Ocean to the Arctic would create a passageway through the ice and lead into open waters of the Polar Sea. Obviously, we know now, thanks to their unsuccessful voyage, that this is not possible.

De Long's crew is filled with memorable and admirable men (and only a few "problem children") who fight through some extremely tough conditions. I don't want to give away the course of their travels because that's most of the fun of reading this book. I will say though, that there are adventures on sea, ice pack, and land. As always with polar exploration books, the conditions these men endure are unbelievable and admittedly their preparation was not good, though considering the information at hand I think they did what they could.

Hampton Sides does a great job of keeping the story moving along and especially of describing the geography and terrain. John Muir makes an appearance as part of a team sent to try to locate the Jeannette. I love reading about these remote areas of the earth and definitely recommend this book to anyone who loves the polar exploration books. It's not quite as good as The Last Place on Earth or Endurance, but it gets 5 stars from me none the less for keeping me riveted to the very last page.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 480 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle book from library

Congratulations on completing your challenge.

Congrats on completing your challenge(s)!

Woo hoo! Congrats! Also great to see the review of In the Kingdom of Ice. It's on my TBR, so maybe I'll get to it in about ten years ;)

Congratulations!

These library sales are killing me! I vowed I would not attend this one, but somehow I ended up there while running errands. I bought these books today.

The Foundling by Georgette Heyer
Brooklyn by Colm Toibin
Plainsong by Kent Haruf
A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey
Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn
The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud
Invisible by Paul Auster
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
Like Water for Chocolate by Laura Esquivel
Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson
Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks

>270 japaul22: Ooh, lots of good ones there! Georgette Heyer is always great, Ella Minnow Pea was charming and clever, and I really loved The End of the Affair.

I'm looking forward to your review of The Emperor's Children.

>270 japaul22: Don't think of it as money you spent on books - think of it as money you saved on books! You got some good ones there.

Congratulations on finishing your challenge! Ooh, some good books on that list. Hope you enjoy Plainsong as it was one I really liked. I was sorry to see that he passed away this week.

>271 christina_reads: Good to know I got a few that come recommended!

>272 jfetting: Good or bad? This is one of the few I got that I hadn't heard of.

>273 DeltaQueen50: Not worried about the $18, worried about the spiraling out of control TBR pile!!

>274 LittleTaiko: Thanks!

For my miscellaneous category, I read Mapp and Lucia by E.F. Benson.

I've been looking forward to the big meeting of Mapp and Lucia and I wasn't disappointed. These books are just fun - ridiculous - but fun. I especially liked the contrast between Major Benjy and Georgie. Hilarious.

When is that new BBC series coming out in the US? I'm ready!

Original Publication Date: 1931
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 277 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle, owned

I can't wait for the series either! I follow Mark Gatiss on Twitter and he just posted some photos from it and it looks amazing.

As for The Emperor's Children, I'm not saying a word until you finish it. Then I'll say lots.

Having 'detoured' to my first library book sale, I totally understand the attraction of these sales. I recognize over half of the titles you purchases. Great book sale haul!

Congrats on finishing the challenge!! And, yey for free reading!

In the spirit of welcoming the new year fresh, I'm considering joining a trend I've seen on a few LT threads and donating a few books off of my TBR shelf to the library. There are a few books sitting there that just seem like "old news" at this point and I'm not sure I really need to keep them. But, I can't get rid of a book I haven't read without asking first if anyone around here thinks it is worth keeping and maybe getting to at some point. These are the books on the chopping block.

Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
Caleb's Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
On Chesil Beach by Ian McEwan
The Tiger's Wife by Tea Obrecht
Half a Life by V.S. Naipaul

So I'm looking for "yes, that was terrible, get rid of it" or "keep it, it's worth seeing what you think".

I do have the shelf space, so this isn't desperate yet . . .

I would read On Chesil Beach. It's short, and then you can give it away. While I was reading it I was thinking "hmm, not sure I see any point to this," but then I got to the end and thought "oh yeah, that's very good."

I would donate On Chesil Beach. Yes, that was terrible, get rid of it.

I've never read Half a Life but the two books I've read of Naipaul's I wasn't super into, so you can probably get rid of that too.

So between Jennifer and I we cancel each other out and are no help at all! Although I recommend it, if you're not in the mood to read On Chesil Beach, you're life won't suffer for giving it a miss.

I am rarely of any help to anybody.

#284 - oh, so untrue! You've helped me out tons. Don't ask for examples, just trust me. Now go read something good.

Your disagreeing opinion about On Chesil Beach means it stays on the shelf for a while longer. Maybe I'll read it just to see who I agree with!

I think the Naipaul is out. I think that when I got it (at a library sale, I'm sure it was only a $1) I thought it was on the 1001 books list. Actually, that's probably why I bought On Chesil Beach also.

I really liked On Chesil Beach, but how you'll feel about it depends on what you think of British sexual repression, 1950s-style.

Half a Life is worth reading if you liked A Bend in the River. If you didn't like that, or didn't read it, you can probably skip Half a Life. On the other hand, A Bend in the River is worth reading.

So many opinions about On Chesil Beach - I love it!

Kay, I own A Bend in the River but haven't read it yet. I will definitely keep and read that one at some point because it's on the 1001 books list which I like reading from. Still not decided on Half a Life.

Catching up on threads and adding my congratulations for a completed challenge!

For my mystery category, I read Birds of a Feather by Jacqueline Winspear.

To continue my lighter reading in the crazy month of December, I read the second book in the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. This series is set in post-WWI England which is probably what I like best about it. I also like the characters and the mysteries are ok, though not very hard to figure out, at least in these first two. I'll definitely continue with the series when I need something lighter.

Original Publication Date: 2004
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 336 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle, library book

>280 japaul22: - I was not a fan of The Tiger's Wife so would vote for getting rid of it.

For my 1001 books category, I read The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
audiobook, 4h42m, read by Satya Babha

This short novel is present as a monologue. Changez, a Pakistani, relates his time in America to an American visiting Lahore while they sit at a cafe. He tells of his time as a student at Princeton and his high-powered job in NYC after graduation. He also tells intimate details of his love life with an American woman named Erica, still suffering from the grief of losing her childhood friend and boyfriend. Changez's story takes place surrounding 9/11 and we hear about his growing disillusionment with America and his homesickness for his Pakistan.

The monologue aspect of the novel annoyed me in some ways. Changez is supposedly having a conversation with this American, but the only way the American's comments are recorded are through Changez's reactions to them. The ending is also extremely ambiguous and ends abruptly. I also thought the relationship between Erica and Changez was kind of annoying and almost disruptive to what I thought was the main point - one Pakistani's experience living in NYC during and after 9/11.

However, listening to this on audio really saved the book for me. The reader, Satya Bhabha, was excellent and made the monologue format work for me where I'm not sure it would have in print. This is the first example in my limited audiobook experience of a book that I'm fairly certain I liked more in audio than I would have as a physical book.

Original Publication Date: 2007
Author’s nationality: Pakistani
Original language: English (I think?)
Length: 191 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars for the book, 5 stars for the audio
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook, library

For my "other books by authors of my favorites" category, I read A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley.

Reading this book produced many conflicting reactions for me. I was predisposed to like it after loving Smiley's book, The Greenlanders. I knew this would be very different but I immediately found that I still loved her writing style. Her language is restrained but beautiful at the same time and descriptive without being flowery. The premise of this novel is sort of a King Lear retelling. An Iowa farmer who has amassed 1000 acres of farm land decides to divide the farm between his three daughters during his lifetime. His youngest daughter rejects the idea and he, in turn, cuts her out of the deal. At the same time this is happening, a neighboring farmer's son who disappeared to avoid being drafted to the Vietnam war returns to the town. He comes with ideas of organic farming and ends up shaking up his own family (in a prodigal son sort of way) and also shaking up several marriages in the neighboring farms.

Up to this point, I was very interested and engaged, but though I knew everything was going down hill, I was not prepared for the nasty turn that some (actually most) of the characters would take. A little over half way through the book, I was so sickened by the characters who were either despicable people or horribly damaged people that I did not want to pick up the book. I really don't like reading books where everyone is miserable and also are bad people. But I kept going and in the end I'm glad I finished it. There isn't much redemption for any of the characters and there's no way to wrap up neatly what happens in this book, but I appreciated the writing and character development (even though I didn't like the characters) and it did leave me thinking. It's certainly a memorable book, though it's not really leaving me wanting to rush out and read more of Jane Smiley's work.

I'm edging on the high side with my star rating because I think that down the road my opinion will improve. We shall see.

Original Publication Date: 1991
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 371 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: off the shelf

Yes, exactly. The characters were horrible, eventually, but it was so beautifully written!

I've decided to abandon The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter. This was an ER book, so I read 165 of the 350 pages, almost half, but I just can't waste any more of my hard-earned reading time! Hunter has too many stories lines going on - a present-day archivist, Jane, who flashes back to the time she was babysitting and lost the child in the woods. Then Jane is also working on discovering more about a woman from a 1880s mental institution who disappeared in the same woods. But tied up in that story is the man and his family who started the museum she was working at before it closed. Oh, and the man whose child she lost writes a book and lectures at the closing museum and she slaps him even though he doesn't even remember her. Sound confusing and melodramatic? Yep. And then, to top it off, the story is narrated by a group of ghosts/spirits who don't know who they are or why they are there except that I guess they think Jane can help them somehow. Sometimes they try to be funny which does not work.

I need to be more careful in selecting ER books.

ER books can be difficult to pick, especially as the new books do not have any LT ratings and the summary is usually a publisher's blurb. The Hunter book does sounds like a bit of a mess.

For my nonfiction category, I read In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick.

Philbrick tells the tale of the encounter that started it all for Herman Melville and Moby Dick, but actually the sinking of the Essex by an 85 foot sperm whale is not necessarily the focus of this book. Philbrick also details life on Nantucket, the center of whaling for America. This was kind of odd to me to begin with since the boats go all the way around the tip of South America to get to the Pacific, where most of the sperm whales could be found. He also gruesomely lays out just how these men went about killing and butchering the sperm whales for their oil. And if that isn't enough to kill your appetite, just wait until the men in their small whale boats trying to sail through the vast Pacific with little to no navigational equipment start eating each other. Yep.

This book is a page turner as most of these adventure/disaster stories are, but I didn't find as much in it to admire as some other books of this type that I've read. I didn't find the sailors as compelling or their leadership much to admire. I also could not believe that all of the survivors ended up going back out as sailors (almost all on whalers) almost immediately upon their return.

This was a fun page turner, but I think there are books with more substance in the genre. Still recommended, nonetheless.

Original Publication Date: 2000
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 293 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: off the shelf/library sale

I read the junior version of this book, Revenge of the Whale and really enjoyed it. The survival part of the story really got me. If I had the original book handy I would have read it.

I did like it too, it just paled in comparison to In the Kingdom of Ice, a book about a polar exploration disaster that I recently read.

I made a note of the junior version for when my son is older because i think its something he'll like. I told him the story, minus the cannibalism (he's not quite 5), and he kept asking questions til I had filled in almost all the details.

For my new releases category, I read Lila by Marilynne Robinson
No review for this one because I'm sick and have too much going on, but this is another beautiful book by Marilynne Robinson. If you've loved her other books, you'll love this too.

Original Publication Date: 2024
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 261 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle, purchased

Ok, it's official - I'm calling this challenge complete! I finished both goals that I set and I've calculated my stats for the year. It's possible I might finish one more book (I'm in progress on the short, fast book A Shilling for Candles by Jacqueline Tey) but it wouldn't make a huge difference in my end of the year stats anyway.

Thanks to everyone for following my reading and for all the great comments/discussions. I'll be participating again in 2015. http://www.librarything.com/topic/181548

Year-end stats:
Books read: 83
30,622 pages read this year; 86 pages per day; average book length 414 pages
# of different authors: 74
Male/female ratio: 28/46, 62% women authors
New-to-me authors: 55
Nonfiction/fiction: 18/65
Format: audio - 9, kindle–owned - 18, kindle-library – 8, books off the shelf – 45, library books - 4

Best fiction:
Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks
The Greenlanders by Jane Smiley
Mapp and Lucia series
Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor

Best new releases:
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt

Best Classics:
Alberta and Jacob by Cora Sandel
Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann
The Waves by Virginia Woolf
Growth of the Soil by Knut Hamsun
Evelina by Frances Burney

Rereads that I loved again:
Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray
Sense and Sensibility: an annotated Edition by Jane Austen and Patricia Meyer Spacks

Proud I read these challenging (and long) books:
Life and Fate by Vassily Grossman
Brontes: Wild Genius on the Moors by Juliet Barker
A Distant Mirror by Barbara Tuchman

Best mysteries:
Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey
Maisie Dobbs series (read books 1 and 2)
The Secret Place by Tana French

Best nonfiction:
Margaret Fuller: A New American Life by Megan Marshall
Book of Ages: The Life and Times of Jane Franklin by Jill Lepore
A Royal Experiment: The Private Life of King George III by Janice Hadlow

Best disaster book:
In the Kingdom of Ice by Hampton Sides

Books about books:
My Life in MIddlmarch by Rebecca Mead
Ex Libris by Anne Fadiman

Best audiobook:
The Reluctant Fundamentalist

Sad to see end:
Sharon Kay Penman series – I’ve finished all her historical fiction

Outside of comfort zone but appreciated:
Roots of Heaven by Romain Gary (elephants, elephants, and more elephants)
Land of Spices by Kate O’brien (I loved a book about nuns???)

Book I’m most likely to reread again and again
84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Ahhhh – best “comfort read”:
Jane and Prudence by Barbara Pym

Worsts:
Oranges are not the only fruit by Jeanette Winterson
The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole
The Quiet American by Graham Greene

So bad it was abandoned:
The World Before Us by Aislinn Hunter

Oh, that is sad about the Penman books. But now you get to reread them!

Nice statistics!

Great stats! I'm considering taking a look at Mapp and Lucia because there is a new adaptation being shown on the BBC (first episode aired today). Glad to see them make your best fiction list!

Congrats on completing your challenge!

Great wrap-up! As one who has re-read, and enjoyed each time, 84, Charring Cross Road, I think that is a perfect book for re-reads. I have also made a note of your Ahhhh – best “comfort read”. I never seem to have enough of those waiting in the wings when I need them.

Congratulations on finishing!!

Congratulations on completing your challenge. See you next year!

>301 japaul22: So many great books on that list! I loved Brat Farrar. Congrats on finishing your challenge!

#84 A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey
So I did finish one more book, but this is definitely the last of the year. Normally I love Tey's Golden Age mysteries, but this one was a little weak. The mystery was kind of unsatisfying and there was more 1920s slang than I remember in her other books. Still fun for fans of her work, but don't start here!

Looks like you had an excellent year of reading! I'm looking forward to following your 2015 thread.

Great wrap-up! See you on the 2015 challenge!

Congrats on finishing both of your challenges! You have read some excellent, and very long, books this year! I hope 2025 is also a successful reading year and I look forward to reading more of your insightful reviews.

Happy New Year!