Chatterbox's 75-book Challenge for 2010: The Second Installment

Since I was halfway through the challenge, with 250-plus posts, I reluctantly decided it was time to join the multiple-thread gang... So here it is. And here is the link to my old thread, for anyone who wants to see comments on the books I've already read:

My previous thread




I've pulled all my reading together in two big groups: one for fiction and the other for non-fiction. All the books I've listed that I want to read are new books, or relatively new ones, that I've had sitting around and staring at me reproachfully and that I want to read & get safely on to a shelf ASAP. I divided it (roughly) in half, although the catch-all 5 book category ended up being mostly fiction, and I seem to have been reading that more rapidly. I've given up trying to read these in any order whatsoever...

Best of the 75:

Provenance: How A Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo
Passionate Minds: The Great Love Affair of the Enlightenment by David Bodanis
The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid
The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor
The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin
Unlikely Allies: How a Merchant, a Playwright and a Spy Saved the American Revolution by Joel Richard Paul
The Book of William: How Shakespeare's First Folio Conquered the World by Paul Collins
If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr
The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli
Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw

The Story of Lucy Gault has been on my tbr pile for awhile. What did you like about this book? Should I move it up toward the top?

The Fiction List:

1. White Nights by Ann Cleeves ****1/2 STARTED 1/2/10, FINISHED 1/5/10
2. The Postmistress by Sarah Blake ***1/2 STARTED 1/5/10, FINISHED 1/8/10
3. The Lotus-Eaters by Tatjana Soli ****1/2 STARTED 3/22/10, FINISHED 3/24/10
4. The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald **** STARTED 3/1/10, FINISHED 3/5/10
5. The Man from Saigon by Marti Leimbach **** STARTED 3/6/10, FINISHED 3/13/10
6. Red Bones by Ann Cleeves ****1/2 STARTED 1/11/10, FINISHED 1/18/10
7. The Disappeared by M. R. Hall ***1/2 STARTED 1/8/10, FINISHED 1/10/10
8. Admission by Jean Hanff Korelitz *** STARTED 1/24/10, FINISHED 1/26/10
9. Memento Mori by Muriel Spark **** STARTED 1/14/10, FINISHED 1/15/10
10. The Master by Colm Toibin ****1/2 STARTED 2/7/10, FINISHED 2/9/10
11. The Lambs of London by Peter Ackroyd **** READ 2/26/10
12. The Story of Lucy Gault by William Trevor ****1/2 READ 1/22/10
13. The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid ***** READ 2/6/10
14. Passion by Jude Morgan ****1/2 STARTED 1/29/10, FINISHED 2/5/10
15. The Life You Want by Emily Barr *** 1/2 READ 3/1/10
16. If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr **** 1/2 STARTED 3/19/10, FINISHED 3/21/10
17. The Information Officer by Mark Mills **** 1/2 READ 2/19/10
18. Mud, Muck and Dead Things by Ann Granger **** STARTED 3/2/10, FINISHED 3/4/10
19. The Infinities by John Banville ****1/2 STARTED 2/21/10, FINISHED 2/23/10
20. Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves **** STARTED 2/19/10, FINISHED 2/20/10
21. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde **** STARTED 2/10/10, FINISHED 2/14/10
22. Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers **** STARTED 3/17/10, FINISHED 3/18/10
23. Money to Burn by James Grippando ***1/2 READ 2/26/10
24. The Other Family by Joanna Trollope **** STARTED 3/27/10, FINISHED 3/28/10
25. The Siege by Helen Dunmore
26. Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann
27. Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier **** 1/2 STARTED 4/13/10, FINISHED 4/14/10
28. An Empty Death by Laura Wilson **** STARTED 4/15/10, FINISHED 4/18/10
29. Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw **** 1/2 STARTED 4/2/10, FINISHED 4/7/10
30. Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson **** STARTED 4/11/10, FINISHED 4/12/10
31. The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk
32. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
33. The Nearest Exit by Olen Steinhauer
34. This Body of Death by Elizabeth George
35. Fugitive Pieces by Anne Michaels
36. Murder on the Cliffs by Joanna Challis
37. The Reluctant Hero by Michael Dobbs STARTED 4/17/10
38. Austerlitz by W.G. Sebald
39. Ordinary Thunderstorms by William Boyd

1. Passionate Minds by David Bodanis ***** STARTED 1/16/10, FINISHED 1/18/10
2. The Morland Hours by Katherine Swift ****1/2 STARTED 1/26/10, FINISHED 1/31/10
3. The Book of William by Paul Collins ***** STARTED 1/8/10, FINISHED 1/11/10
4. The Cello Suites by Eric Siblin ***** STARTED 1/1/10, FINISHED 1/2/10
5. On Moving: A Writer's Meditation on New Houses, Old Haunts, and Finding Home Again by Louise deSalvo **** STARTED 1/22/10, FINISHED 1/23/10
6. Americans in Paris by Charles Glass ***1/2 STARTED 1/19/10, FINISHED 1/21/10
7. The Last Empress by Hannah Pakula **** STARTED 2/3/10, FINISHED 2/19/10
8. Unlikely Allies by Joel Richard Paul **** 1/2 STARTED 2/24/10, FINISHED 3/3/10
9. Not Quite Paradise by Adele Barker ***1/2 STARTED 1/28/10, FINISHED 1/29/10
10. For All the Tea in China by Sarah Rose *** 1/2 STARTED 3/13/10, FINISHED 3/16/10
11. Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre **** STARTED 3/8/10, FINISHED 3/10/10
12. Anne Frank: the Book, the Life, the Afterlife by Francine Prose **** STARTED 3/19/10, FINISHED 3/20/10
13. Varsity Green by Mark Yost ****1/2 STARTED 3/16/10, FINISHED 3/17/10
14. Strange Days Indeed by Francis Wheen *** 1/2 STARTED 2/24/10, FINISHED 2/26/10
15. The Snow Tourist by Charlie English **** STARTED 2/10/10, FINISHED 2/13/10
16. The Big Short by Michael Lewis ****1/2 STARTED 4/17/10, FINISHED 4/18/10
17. How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in one question and twenty attempts at an answer by Sarah Bakewell
18. Tiepolo Pink by Roberto Calasso
19. Philanthrocapitalism by Matthew Bishop
20. Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India by William Dalrymple
21. The Average American: The Extraordinary Search for the Nation's Most Ordinary Citizen by Kevin O'Keefe
22. The Friendship: Wordsworth and Coleridge by Adam Sisman
23. Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt STARTED 4/18/10
24. Mrs. Adams in Winter by Michael O'Brien
25. Beauty Tips from Moose Jaw by Will Ferguson
26. Brother Gardeners by Andrea Wulf
27. Thucydides: the Reinvention of History by Donald Kagan **** STARTED 3/28/10, FINISHED 4/7/10
28. Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo ***** STARTED 4/12/10, FINISHED 4/14/10
29. The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them by Elif Batuman
30. Mr. Langshaw's Square Piano by Madeline Goold
31. The Ends of Life by Keith Thomas
32. Kingmakers by Karl Meyer & Shareen Brysac
33. A Mosque in Munich by Ian Johnson **** 1/2 STARTED 4/9/10, FINISHED 4/11/10
34. The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann**** STARTED 3/25/10, FINISHED 3/27/10
35. South from Barbary by Justin Marozzi
36. Everything is Broken by Emma Larkin

Linda, it depends on whether you like William Trevor or not. If you do, I think this is one of the best of his books that I have read yet. On the other hand, Trevor is a slow, quiet writer -- I think he's a bit like a Chopin nocturne! It's beautiful prose, fascinating ideas and intriguing characters; the plot is definitely there, but the most startling events take you by surprise as much by the way he underwrites them as by their nature.

Ta da ....found and starred you again.

Found you again!

Book du jour today is for my 1010 thread; cross-posting here in case it's of interest:

Finished The Song is You by Arthur Phillips. Despite a bumpy beginning and a plot that admittedly strains the bounds of credulity (sorry, but I don't think any 20-something singer is going to actively encourage the obsession of a 40-something guy to the extent imagined here -- perhaps a bit of wish fulfillment??) I ended up enjoying this. It's a combination of wit and whimsy, as Julian goes through his own version of a midlife crisis following the death of his young son and the breakup of his marriage. Encountering Cait, an Irish singer on the verge of making it big, suddenly jolts him back to life in a way -- his revival is mirrored by the seasons, by his relationship to music. While I enjoyed the description of someone's visceral connections to music and how we develop a soundtrack to our lives, I'm sure I didn't get all the many clever (and sometimes coy) side references and winks to the rock/pop/indie cognoscenti in here, but that's OK. It is possible to be too self-consciously witty and clever for one's own good, and that is this novel's biggest weakness. Nevertheless, despite being about the ways we become obsessed and the fact that only Julian really emerges as a 'real' character, I ended up enjoying this book. I don't think Phillips is brilliant, merely witty and observant, but sometimes that's the recipe for an entertaining novel. 4 stars.

#8: I already have that one in the BlackHole. I just need to find a copy.

I will be interested to see how you find some of the books TBR in your fiction list.

Interesting comments about Arthur Phillips and The Song is You. I am currently reading his first book, Prague. "Witty and observant" applies to his writing in this one as well. It was a little hard to get into, but I keep on reading in the hopes that I'll discover why it's called Prague when the first 3/4 of the book (where I am now) is set in Budapest!

I'm starring your thread. We seem to have similar tastes in reading, though you read much more than I do especially in the nonfiction area.

Donna, it's interesting to note yr comments re Prague . Friends of mine (journalists and various others) who lived in Budapest in the early/mid 90s figure they were models for this novel which they saw as mocking their expat life. The idea, if I recall correctly, was that those in Budapest always saw Prague as being a slightly cooler place to live -- Kafka's home, more intriguing history, livelier nightlife, etc. etc. At least, that that was Phillips's view of their thoughts!

I'm probably going to do some catching up on the NF side of the list, although I made read the Joanna Trollope novel over the weekend. We'll see... (I'm reading a bunch of stuff for the 1010 Challenge now, and Bleeding Heart Square for the off the shelf challenge.)

Ooh, I hope you do read The Other Family this weekend. I've been seeing some Joanna Trollope books on the shelves but haven't yet read one. Interested in hearing what you think of her book

Generally speaking, they are a notch above that classic genre, the Aga Saga... One of her best, IMO, is A Spanish Lover, and I noticed Marrying the Mistress is now a bargain paperback at Amazon, on sale for a whopping $2.26. Will try to bump this one to the top of my list!

From Amazon Vine, god bless 'em, just nabbed the upcoming Olen Steinhauer novel, The Nearest Exit and A Mosque in Munich. Oh, and I'm off to see an erstwhile colleague, whose book I read & reviewed for my 1010 Challenge, discuss his work at Strand next Tuesday. The reading life -- ahhh....

Hello! I have The Story of Lucy Gault around here somewhere, along with Cheating at Canasta, a collection of stories by William Trevor. I'm tempted to read Lucy Gault soon, maybe even this weekend...

I'll be interested to get your take on Map of the Invisible World, as I bought it in London last summer, but haven't read it yet.

#15: I loved The Story of Lucy Gault, the first Trevor I read. I hope you enjoy it, Darryl.

Will tee up Joanna Trollope for the weekend, followed by Tash Aw, in that case!

Today's book du jour (well, Thursday's) was the new historical novel set in the Moghul Empire by Indu Sundaresan, Shadow Princess. It was for the 1010 Challenge; it's good, and worth reading if you're interested in the period, but not as good as her two other books set in that era. (It covers roughly the same ground as John Shors' Beneath a Marble Sky but is much better and less over-the-top romance. Essentially the story of Shah Jahan's favorite daughter, Jahanara. Need to review for Amazon Vine.

Hey Suz : Congratulations on getting your book all wrapped up! Way to go! Whoohoo!

Ooh, flashy letters and butterflies!!! Tks, Caroline!!

Finished David Grann's The Devil and Sherlock Holmes. It's a collection of stories previously published (mostly in the New Yorker), all revolving around some kind of mystery, odd narrative, individual with an odd identity or other form of quasi-criminal behavior. It was obviously published to capitalize on the success of his last book, The Lost City of Z, last year. It is... OK. As you'd expect, any story in the New Yorker is well-written, impeccably structured, etc. etc. The problem? Cramming too many of them together in one book isn't a good idea, especially if the author's voice isn't remarkably compelling. Grann is a good writer, but not a great one; not someone whose prose I want to read just to marvel at it. So after reading two or three of these on similar/related topics, all of which seemed to deliver less than the premise (or get bogged down in too many details that would have been fascinating had I been reading them in a magazine), they would start to blur before my eyes. I'd suggest picking up a copy and skimming through to see if you find the stories interesting enough, but frankly, if you read the New Yorker, I'd argue in favor of waiting for a paperback edition or a library copy. This is a book you'll want to read in small pieces, and where you'll maybe want to skip some of the stories altogether. Kind of a 'meh' book, not for any obvious flaws, but more for what it isn't. I'm wavering between 3.5 and 4 stars, but since I was treated to a fancy dinner last night, I'm feeling generous and will make it 4 stars.

#20: I think I will skip that one.

In response to request from Caroline, bumped The Other Family by Joanna Trollope up to the top of my reading list, and finished it this morning. Trollope tends to tackle what I would call domestic dramas: her characters confront some kind of crisis in their lives that forces them to re-examine all they had taken for granted. Her focus is the family, in all its myriad permutations. She has a keen eye for both the poignant and the absurd, yet never allows her narrative to topple over into sentimentality or banality. These are stories of messy lives and human frailties -- not literature a la Jane Austen, and yet not too far from the kind of people that Austen would probably find most intriguing if she were alive and writing today.

In this novel, Trollope is back in good form after two more disappointing (to me) recent novels. (Her last, Friday Nights, ended up as a 'DNF' or did not finish, for me.) Chrissie lives in London with her long-time partner, Richie Rossiter, an aging pop star that women of a certain age still swoon over, and their three daughters. She wears a wedding ring -- one that she bought for herself, since Richie doesn't want to divorce his first wife, Margaret, left behind in Newcastle when Richie headed south with Cassie in search of new horizons and new audiences. Left behind also was Richie's son, Scott, who becomes the focus of Margaret's life. Margaret also wears a wedding ring -- a real one -- but has no husband to go with it. And then Richie dies suddenly of a heart attack (this is where the book begins), leaving two unanticipated bequests to his old family and a large hole in the center of his new family; not only does this bring the two families together in a way that both resist and resent, but requires all of them to find a new way to exist. Without realizing it, all five have slipped into ruts of various kinds, and in an effortless way, Trollope points this out while allowing each to make the first tentative discoveries and take the first steps toward change.

It's a predictable kind of novel if you've read her books before, but still satisfying and an enjoyable weekend read. It's a solid 4-star book, extremely well-written. It sort of falls into the category of what the English call an "Aga saga" -- a women's novel revolving around relationships, often featuring Aga cookers and a restored rectory as a country house -- but is, I think, a notch above that. Nothing revolutionary, but a thumping good read.

Will pick up Map of the Invisible World next week, Darryl; I'm currently engrossed in Death of a Red Heroine for my 1010 challenge, and also want to finish the bio of Samuel Johnson that I started a few weeks ago.

#22: I enjoyed Death of a Red Heroine. Hope you do too Suzanne.

#22 Sounds intriguing - I've never read anything by Joanna Trollope, maybe I should give this one a go, unless there's another that you'd recommend more?

I'd go with A Spanish Lover first. It's not great literature -- I think of her books as comfort reads, in a way.

Stasia, yes, I'm loving Death of a Red Heroine. Although I'm halfway through now and curious about whether there is a good twist in the tale still to come. But I love the way he has combined details of life in China, the classical Chinese poetry, the characters of the detectives and the mystery.

I so relish the power I have over your reading rotations, Suz! LOL... ;-)

The Other Family sounds like a good read. Wish listed this and will look for it at the bookstore this weekend.

Have you read any of Qiu Xiaolong's other books? He has an Inspector Chen series that's quite fascinating.

This is the first book in that series, Caroline. Amusingly, I bought the first two or three of these in HK, and then they ended up in Mt. TBR as I flew back with a horrible cold that made it impossible to read.

No kidding... I didn't realize this was the first in the series.... which is further evidence that I rarely read series in order. Nice to know I'm getting back to the beginning .. haha.... I've read Red Mandarin Dress and The Mao Dress and really liked them.

I think there are now six in the series, and he has a book of short stories about Shanghai due out in the fall.

Another Inspector Chen series? Liz Williams has one set in a futuristic, fantastic Singapore, starting with Snake Agent, that's a lot of fun.

Unfortunately, Death of a Red Heroine is the only one of Xiaolong's books that my local library has, so I am not going to be reading the rest of the series any time soon.

#25 Nothing wrong with a good comfort read ;o)

I used to like Joanna Trollope but haven't read any for years...like 15 years. Might look for The Other Family!

So I went to see my erstwhile colleague, Hugh Pope, talk about Dining with Al-Qaeda tonight at Strand (very good discussion -- I think it will be available online at Strand's website as the chap next to me was videotaping away madly; you can check that out & decide whether you'd like the book.) Anyway, I ran amok in Strand:
Everything Flows by Vassily Grossman
Poets in a Landscape by Gilbert Highet
Dancing for Degas by Kathryn Wagner (a new and much-reduced historical novel)
Violence by Slavoj Zizek
Sons of the Conquerors by Hugh Pope, which I can recommend unreservedly to anyone with an interest in Central Asia, but which I had only read a library copy of
A Case of Two Cities
The Mao Case
Red Mandarin Dress
-- the latter three all Qiu Xiaolong Insp. Chen novels, as I MUST read the rest of the series now. All, of course, filed under X for Xiaolong, which is his first name... *eyes roll*

I will die broke but with a lot of books.

What a great haul.

"I will die broke but with a lot of books....This statement is true for most of us...I had a recent conversation with my daughter who wondered what I expect her to do with all the books she will need to sort through when I pass away. This lead me to seriously consider the fact that I may have to put something in my will stating specific people who should obtain this most precious asset...

I'm thinking about putting something in a will stating that certain people (in a specific order) will be allowed to claim a specific number of books from my library. I suspect a couple books will have to go certain individuals to ensure they live happily ever after (like my Hazlitt first editions), but I think that's a fair way to do it. I was lucky that no one wanted to fight with me over my grandfather's books when he died. I have about 200 or so of them here, including a virtually complete collection of century-old GA Henty books that he collected.

Wow on the Henty books! I know they are enjoying a resurgence in popularity among homeschoolers these days.

Congratulations for the haul from the Strand. I probably would do 2 times worse.

Great haul from the Strand!

You've just caused a book buying binge here. Again. I saw If the Dead Rise Not at Olymp & Hades (lovely book shop with a few very well chosen English titles) and remembered you reviewing something by Philip Kerr, so I bought it. But I've just read your review and now I need to get the earlier books, so have just bought the first 5 on Book Depository. Egads!!!!!! They look like I'll love them.

I will die broke but with a lot of books.

Think of all the money you saved by buying your books at Strand, though. I don't think I've ever purchased a book there that wasn't discounted by at least 20%.

I usually go to Strand with a list in hand, soon after it opens, and I'll do the same when I go there next week. Eight books is a good haul, I'm not sure that I can top that. Sometimes I find a dozen or more books there, other times I'm lucky to find three or four books that I really want.

I confess that only two of those were real impulse buys. After reading the first Insp. Chen book, I wanted the others for my own personal TBR mountain. The Highet book and Violence had been on my mental or physical wish lists for a while, and I'd hoped to pick up Hugh's Central Asia book at this event -- scored the only copy there. (I had read a library copy when it came out -- it is extremely good.) I more usually buy on Amazon now, where I can often save more than 20%, but there was the instant gratification element of finding stuff at Strand, plus the "wow, what might I find??" feeling of browsing in the stacks downstairs. Good thing I didn't get any more though, or, when added to the cat food, I never would have made it home!

I loved the stacks downstairs!! I wasn't reading as much when we lived in New York but I remember finding a copy of Siegfried Sassoon's memoirs there for a ridiculously cheap price. And the Barnes and Noble opposite was lovely too...

The Central Asia book looks good (probably repeating myself here...la la la)

Cushla, at the risk of adding to your book mountain after that Philip Kerr binge, yes, Sons of the Conquerors is excellent as I remember. And probably available relatively cheaply, as it's a few years old.

Just popped in to say I just finished reading Varsity Green thanks to your recommendation. Very interesting. Thanks!

Hi Suzanne! Drive-by hug

>37 Chatterbox:: that's a good idea, to specify things like that. I wouldn't want my collection of first edition E.F. Benson books to just get tossed. I also inherited some real oldies which have straggled down from 3x great grandfathers. You always hope someone would recognise an old book but spelling it would leave no doubt.

34- I've worked my way into a mood for some complete and utter secular pessimism so I've preordered Living in the End Times by Slavoj Žižek as I didn't think it would show up as an ER book.

>47 VisibleGhost: -- Ya think??! LOL... Yes, he redefines the meaning of the phrase 'curmudgeon'.

Migraine today, so no reading. Which is a pity, as I dipped into Tash Aw's book last night and ended up reading 3 chapters and want to continue. But it hurts.

#48: Sorry to hear about the migraine, Suz. I am struggling with a headache of my own right now (not a migraine) and do not think I am going to get today's reading finished either.

Migraine finally began to evaporate around 3:30 a.m. last night, so I'm struggling back to life.

Here's the summary for March: Read 40 books this month, which is on the high side for me. Of those, 14 were for this challenge, and I'm struck by how many were plain vanilla 4 star books -- I don't seem to have read much for this one that was either really bad or extraordinarily good.

Here's the summary for this challenge:

****1/2
Unlikely Allies by Joel Richard Paul
The Lotus-Eaters by Tatjana Soli
Varsity Green by Mark Yost

****
The Man from Saigon by Marti Leimbach
Operation Mincemeat by Ben Macintyre
Mud, Muck and Dead Things by Ann Granger
Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife by Francine Prose
The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald
If the Dead Rise Not by Philip Kerr
Dancing Backwards by Salley Vickers
The Devil and Sherlock Holmes by David Grann
The Other Family by Joanna Trollope

***1/2
For all the Tea in China by Sarah Rose
The Life You Want by Emily Barr

You read 40 books this month? Let's see...40 x 12 = 480 books. I think we've found a rival for Stasia!

I'm glad to hear that your migraine has gone away.

Suzanne..
Fioricet is a magic drug when I have a migrane. Have you tried this prescription?

Glad the migraine went...and glad those days have gone for me. But what is it with headaches lately? Can we blame El Nino for this? I know the air pressure has been nuts up here.

Linda, Fioricet with codeine keeps me functional. The problem is it's so bloody expensive -- hundreds a month -- and any insurance I could get treats it as non-formulary. The generic makes me too groggy -- I just a discussion with my neurologist about that and trying to find ways to deal. I suspect one reason for the frequency of headaches is that I argue to myself I'm not getting one, because I don't want to take my meds and feel too foggy-brained to function.

Of course, it may also be air pressure. I know that I can't fly without getting one.

Finished two books today; one for the 50-books (overflow) challenge and one for my off-the-shelf challenge. Nuttin' for this group, however...

#54: Finished two books today; one for the 50-books (overflow) challenge and one for my off-the-shelf challenge. Nuttin' for this group, however.

You could always post the books here, too. We would not mind :)

Yes, I post all the books I read here, whether I'm reading them for something else (like the Reading Globally theme reads, or March is Read a Novella month) or not -- I might even get to 75 this year! We would love to hear about everything you're reading, Suzanne.

Aha, this is how I will end up with surreal # of threads, I see...

1. OK -- for my Off the Shelf challenge I read the first book by Jude Morgan that a friend sent me. Now that I had dipped my toe in the water with two of her historical novels, I read this, which was more in the tradition of Georgette Heyer, but much more tongue in cheek. An Accomplished Woman is the Heyer-esque tale of Lydia Templeton, a 30-year-old "accomplished woman", who rejected the proposal of a neighbor and friend 9 years ago and remains unmarried. A family friend prevails upon her to escort a young heiress, Phoebe Rae, to Bath, where the latter must decide between two suitors and Lydia will confront her own decisions. Lydia is not a typical Heyeresque heroine; she's a bit of a law unto herself and displays a rather unlikely degree of independence of mind at all costs, but I suspect that the author is playing with the genre rather than acting out of ignorance by setting a modern heroine in Regency England. It's fun and frothy and a good antidote to work. 4 stars.

2. I'm still waiting for the LTER book I won in February, Inheritance, the second mystery novel by Simon Tolkien, the grandson of you-know-who. While waiting, I decided to read the first of his books, Final Witness published several years ago. It somehow managed to generate some suspense, because although I figured out whodunnit about two-thirds of the way through, I wasn't sure how or whether Tolkien's characters were going to resolve the matter. The plot is an old chestnut: middle aged man and wife drift apart; she is murdered. In this case, the main protagonists are her son, Thomas, and the old house that descended through her family and where her husband and his assistant (glamorous, with green eyes, no less) have always felt like outsiders. Anne, the mother, saves her son with her last actions; he witnesses her murder and tells the police that he'd seen the culprit before -- with Greta, the assistant, who rapidly becomes the new Lady Robinson... Did she or didn't she? If she did, can Thomas prove it? Or is he taking out his pain on his father and the latter's new wife? The best parts are the courtroom scenes and some of Thomas's investigations (as well as the first chapter, which really grabbed me). There are the usual weaknesses: some flimsy characters, the author's errors in titles (Thomas's mother is referred to as Lady Anne, although that title is reserved for the daughters of earls, dukes etc; she would have been known as Lady Robinson and never called Lady Anne), and a few heavy handed clues. Nonetheless, this managed to grab and hold my attention, so 4 stars. (I might have rounded it down to 3.5 but felt generous...)

3. Rounding out the light reading for the week was Long Time Coming by Robert Goddard. Goddard has been a favorite author of mine for decades, for the convoluted puzzles he concocts and uses as the basis for his plots that usually involve some kind of past mystery or crime that comes back to haunt people decades later. This time, Stephen Swan, a young man in his 20s in 1976, returns to England after working in the US to find a mysterious guest at his mother's B&B. It is his uncle, the improbably-named Eldritch Swan, who he had believed killed during WW2. In fact, Eldritch had been serving a life sentence in an Irish prison since 1940, for a crime he says he didn't commit but which he can't or won't disclose to Stephen. Then the inevitable happens, and Stephen and Eldritch must go back in time to find the answer to a current mystery that could put an early end to their lives. Goddard's success rate of late has been uneven (his best novels were written in the 80s and early 90s and include his debut, Past Caring, as well as Into the Blue and Hand in Glove), but this is a return to very good form on his part. The mystery involves the British secret service in Ireland in the war as well as a bunch of missing/forged Picassos, and various shady characters. Definitely a thumping good read, especially for those who love intricate plots. 4.5 stars, I think. Read for my 1010 challenge.

I'm looking for some good intricate mysteries, so I'll definitely look into Long Time Coming - thanks for the recommendation, Charlotte

Off to enjoy some sunshine today!

Erm, I'm not Charlotte, Caroline -- but you're welcome! And enjoy the sunshine -- it's gorgeous here today, too, and I've been up in Central Park, along with half the population of NYC.

>57 Chatterbox:: The Goddard sounds interesting; I've never heard of him. I'll add that to the list of books for my Mystery Glut while on vacation.

Tad, start with Past Caring or Hand in Glove; Great past/present narratives, mysteries in the past with contemporary consequences.

Oh, I get it now. 40 months so far this year, not for the month of March. Stasia's LT supremacy is safe.

Erm, nope -- 106 as of the end of March this year, 40 of which were for this challenge. But I still think Stasia's crown is safe!

Stasia is willing to give the crown to anyone!!

Holy Smackaroni!!! You're posting your reads in so many groups I can't even stalk you. I didn't know you were posting in Books Off the Shelf and the 50 challenge. I knew about the 1010 and the 75. I'm going on record by stating that somewhere in the genealogical record Stasia and yourself are related.

OK, I'll have to check the BOTS and the 50 challenges to see what else I can squeeze onto the old TBR lists, Charlene*.

* I'm just adding a name to see how many you can acquire in this thread. };)

#65: I'm going on record by stating that somewhere in the genealogical record Stasia and yourself are related.

Well my sister's name is 'Susan,' pretty close to Suzanne, wouldn't you say? Maybe they were switched at birth (which would be I must say, quite a trick, since my sister was born in Iran.) What do you think sisterkin, Suz?

Well, Stasia, I was born in NJ, but my sis-in-law did live in Iran for a while in the 70s, so who knows??? On the other hand, there is obviously a recessive gene for obsessive reading that both of us inherited from waaay back. Stasia, can you trace your lineage to 1600s/1700s New England?? :-)

The mother of a high school friend took to calling me "Gertrude", in belief that really was my name, for reasons unknown at the time. Now I realize she was probably a lush.

Now that I've finished watching the Poldark DVDs (a real marathon!) I can return to normally-scheduled reading activity, which has been abeyance for about a week now.

67: Chatterbox,

"there is obviously a recessive gene for obsessive reading that both of us inherited"

I long suspected that people, who consistently read at least a book a day, have a different genetic makeup from the rest of us. Now I'm convinced. :) But why is it a recessive gene?

Otherwise we would dominate and run the world, like people with brown eyes! :-)

Today's book: logged under 50-book challenge. Looking for shelving space for some of the books I've read so far this year, I stumbled across a copy of Other People's Rules by Julia Hamilton and decided that enough time had passed that I could re-read it. This is definitely a "thumping good read", the Brideshead-like story of what happens when a naive outsider becomes entranced by a dysfunctional Anglo-Catholic family and caught up in their machinations. In this case, the naive outsider is a young girl named Lucy Diamond, schoolmate of (Lady) Sarah Anworth, youngest daughter of Lord Gatehouse. She is seduced by the Anworth family and becomes a witness to dysfunction -- and perhaps to crime, when the teenage daughter of Lord Gateshead's closest neighbor, a pop star and his heiress wife, disappears. Frightened, she removes herself from the orbit of the Gateshead clan, only to find herself pulled back in decades later, now a noted divorce lawyer in London. But she's still an outsider, and when Katie's body is finally discovered, will her evidence bring about justice? This is an excellent and gripping read, with the first and third parts told in Lucy's voice and the middle section recounted in the third person. It all clicks; the plot is very carefully structured and compelling. Not great literature, but an excellent suspense novel. 4 stars.

Oops, sorry Suz ... not sure what I was thinking ... I will claim momentary brain freeze from lack of sugar. :-(

I wonder if I've already read Other People's Rules .. it sounds familiar, but I can't seem to remember any of it ...... so I guess I'll just have to get a copy and find out. Oh dear ... I hope this isn't the a sign of early Alzheimer's!

#67: can you trace your lineage to 1600s/1700s New England?

Actually, on my mother's side of the family, I can trace my lineage back even further than that. I have an aunt, who is Mormon, and has traced the family all the way back to its European roots. My mother's family has been in the States since before they were States - ancestors names on Plymouth Rock and all that.

On my father's side, I am only second-generation American. My grandfather's family emigrated from Belgium between the world wars.

Stacia, you'll have to send me your ancestors' surnames -- perhaps we are related!! After all, I'm tied to the Hemingway clan and the Tiffany family, although, alas, without the literary laurels or anything more than one slim gift box from the jewelry store to my credit! No Plymouth rock names here, but nearly every other ship that arrived in Mass. in the early 17th C, it turns out.

Caroline, no worries -- I will get you back, hehehe. And if you can't remember the plot of Other People's Rules, it is probably safe to re-read it: that is what I realized when I found the book on a shelf and thought, hmm, this sounds like a good mindless read for a sunny weekend. As indeed it was. Now that Monday morning is approaching, I'm wrapping up a bio of Machiavelli... :-)

#73: The only 3 I know for sure are 'Houck' (and I may have spelled that one wrong - that is the one on Plymouth Rock), 'Callendar,' who as I understand it was on of General Washington's aides and 'Henry,' because we are somehow distantly related to Patrick Henry. I will have to see if my mother has the complete genealogy.

We've got Carpenter, Redway, Titus, Palmer, Wilmarth, Stacy, Chase, Crane, Daggett, Sibley, Hawes, Belcher, Cowen and Bartlett, among others. My two fave names in the whole bunch of Puritans are "Thankful Withington" and "Obadiah Hawes".... *eyes roll*

#75: Gotta love those Puritan names, don't you? lol

Hi Suzanne - I've been enjoying your comments on everyone's threads and now have finally caught up on your own thread. Hope those headaches stay away for you.

>77 avatiakh: -- me too! they are evil nasty beasts. So far, so good.

Logged under my 1010 challenge: I read Machiavelli: Philosopher of Power by Ross King over the weekend. It's a very straightforward and accessible bio, one that emphasizes chronology and his life experiences with only occasional forays into his work. Anyone looking for more context on The Prince will find relatively little here (although some of the earlier chapters and the conclusion are interesting), but it's a vivid portrayal of the Italy that he inhabited, a place we now tend to see as fascinating, think of the art/architecture it produced, but too often forget was lawless, violent, and often terrifying as wars and disease (notably the newest arrival, syphilis) swept across it at frequent intervals. King also clearly identifies Machiavelli as the first humanist to write this kind of manual for rulers (we tend to forget this was a tradition going back to Thomas Aquinas, but good old Niccolo took a completely different perspective...) An excellent read for newcomers to Machiavelli, as it makes him human and not just the quasi-conspiratorial and sly manipulator he is perceived to be. I'm glad I read this; it will help me get back to Paul Strathern's The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior, which is about the ways that the lives of Machiavelli, Cesare Borgia and Leonardo da Vinci overlapped and affected each other. The latter was good, but dense, and I bogged down in it, so plan to give it another try later this year. Meanwhile, this relatively thin (but very accessible and readable) bio is 4 stars.

>78 Chatterbox: That one sounds most interesting, Charlotte Gertrude. I shall investigate!

#78: Another good recommendation from you, sisterkin. Into the BlackHole it goes!

I read The Artist, the Philosopher and the Warrior and found it really interesting, so I hope you do give it another shot, Suz. It dragged sometimes, but on the whole I liked it.

The other book du jour today was Too Much Happiness, Alice Munro's latest story collection -- to be logged for my 50 Challenge. Impressive, wonderful writing as usual, but in a few cases (notably the title story) more ambitious and not always as successful. Still, even a not-quite-up-to-par Munro story is typically miles better than most short stories by other authors; she's someone who has mastered her genre so well that she makes the hard stuff look downright easy. There are stories about child murderers and child manipulation, injury, death and desertion, and always present are Munro's key themes of dysfunction against the backdrop of the most ordinary of ordinary lives, and the physical landscape of southern Ontario. I could swear I know half a dozen of her characters myself. Some of these stories moved me more than others, but that's going to be a subjective experience, I think. I'm just amazed at what Munro can cram into two or three dozen pages and one or two characters. She's particularly good writing about young girls/women, and women "of a certain age", long past the point of being visible to the public as they simply appear old and grey. Munro, however, reminds us of their inner lives. 4.5 stars.

Suzanne

Despite your migranes, you are reading at a remarkable rate..and some wonderful books as well!

I'm trying to control the tbr pile, but I want to add all your recent reads...I'm sneaking out of here for now, but I know I'll return to add them...

I'm and OCB (obsessive compulsive bookaholic).

Some lighter fare, this time for my 1010 Challenge. Finished The Confessions of Catherine de Medici by C.W. Gortner today. It's an LT Early Reviewers book, so I'll have to pull together a review and post it, but probably not tonight as I've got a deadline for a column tomorrow and an early morning start. This is a compassionate/revisionist view of Catherine, who essentially reigned/ruled in 16th C. France at the time of the St. Bartholemew's Day Massacre of Paris's Protestant population. Many books about her, like The Devil's Queen by Jeanne Kalogridis focus on her early years, when she was trapped in a menage a trois with her husband's mistress, and is alleged to have dabbled in poisons and black magic. Gortner, in contrast, emphasizes the way in which her difficult upbringing shaped her, and her later de facto rulership of France at the time that Elizabeth Tudor ruled England, as Catherine attempts to steer an even course between the competing religious factions and keep the pernicious Guise clan out of power. It's an intriguing view of Catherine, but probably only of interest to those who are historical fiction afficionados. Definitely a better and less over the top read than Kalogridis: 4 stars.

Your recent book looks very interesting!

ooh ooh.... I like the sound of The Confessions of Catherine .... good job it's not on the Books Closeout sale or that'd be yet another book I'd have had to buy today. Off to the wish list it goes though.

CB, if you want, you can even smell like Catherine: her perfume is still made at Santa Maria Novella pharmacy "Officina Profumo-Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella", in Florence, and it's called "Acqua di Colonia".

Book #41 for THIS challenge! Finished Thucydides: The Reinvention of History by Donald Kagan. It's an interesting book and downright compelling in parts, when Kagan very ably shows the ways in which Thucydides cherry-picked his facts, glossing over some and puffing up others, to put together what is now seen as the definitive account of the Peloponnesian War and a model of disinterested, accurate historical reportage. In fact, Kagan argues, to his contemporaries, this would have been seen as a very provocative work indeed. What is most interesting about this book is the ruminations it prompts: how much of our history is not only written from the victor's point of view, but written with the explicit intent of forcing us to look at long-held assumptions in new ways? And, a century or two (or millennia) later, how will our heirs, who may have access only to a limited number of texts, end up with partial views or misconceptions about events and players and their motivations? It's a topic that Thucydides -- along with Herodotus, one of the very earliest of historians -- couldn't have been expected to consider, and yet Kagan shows the consequences of this revisionist approach by him on modern scholarship. It's a revisionist reading of a revisionist historian.

That said... It's not going to be a great read for anyone who isn't already intrigued by the goings on in ancient Greece. Kagan builds his case by re-examining all the details of various turning points in the conflict, then analyzing how Thucydides tackled them. I think the best way to read this book would be alongside Thucydides itself, as you discover the chronicles of the Peloponnesian war for the first time. Otherwise, you risk knowing too much or too little about the war itself, and a big chunk of this book could end up feeling dreary.

4 stars.

That said... It's not going to be a great read for anyone who isn't already intrigued by the toings and goings of ancient Greece.

Nice review. I saw this at Strand yesterday, and started to get it, as I knew you were reading it, but held off. Since I don't know much about ancient Greek history, I'm glad that I didn't get it.

>88 Chatterbox: This one sounds more like an historiographer's playground than a general-interest book. Valuable, but not scintillating.

Thanks for the review!

Yes, it's odd -- it assumes a certain amount of knowledge but at the same time would probably feel repetitive to people with more than a certain amount of knowledge. I'm not sure where the balance is. I had read some Thucydides and other Greek historians, like Plutarch, but back in my 20s. At times, I had to go back a few pages and re-read parts that my eyes had glazed over while reading the first time around. And yet other bits were really compelling. I think, frankly, this would have made a fascinating 50-page book that was more focused.

Sidenote -- I'm becoming illiterate. toings and goings? I think I muddled up the idea of goings on and going to and fro in my brain. Early onset Alzheimer's or just writer's fatigue? Sigh. Edited the comments to fix this.

ETA: Richard, you're very right. I did find it interesting, as I have a bit of a historiography bent. And yet I ended up finding it more valuable for the thoughts it triggered rather than what Kagan said. Especially since we're now in the midst of our own Peloponnesian conflict, a multi-decade "war on terror". Will the causes and events become similarly blurred over the coming centuries? What historians' works will survive?

You could have fooled me. I thought toings was a legitimate word...but I see that Firefox has put a squiggly red line underneath it as I'm typing this. No problem; you're far more intelligent than a web browser.

*snort*

WILL the "War on Terror" be remembered? Who remembers the Babylonians's side trips through totalitarianism? If as much survives of our culture as of the Old Kingdom of Egypt, I'd be very surprised. We ain't carvin' no books on temple walls.

Can I put that tribute on my CV? "Suzanne is far more intelligent than a web browser..." Heck, it could even go on my author bio as a testimonial... :-D

ETA: My browser has trouble with the Peloponnesians... *eyes roll*

Can I put that tribute on my CV? "Suzanne is far more intelligent than a web browser..." Heck, it could even go on my author bio as a testimonial... :-D

Absolutely! However, I think you'd want someone just a bit more recognizable to write that.

ETA: My browser has trouble with the Peloponnesians... *eyes roll*

See? I told you!

"Will the causes and events become similarly blurred over the coming centuries? What historians' works will survive?"

This is why you should freeze your head just before your demise. It's cheaper than freezing the whole body and when future generations revive you- so you can find out the answers you asked- you will get to attach your head to the body of your choice.

Actually, I find it intriguing to speculate on how much of the digital data produced now will survive for hundreds or thousands of years. So far, it's not looking so good. A lot of stuff is disappearing before it hits its teens. Well, some of it should probably disappear (like my posts) but I really do wonder how much is going to evaporate in the ether.

Hmmm, much of the time I actually wouldn't mind a new head. One that doesn't get migraines, for instance.

But yes, as I typed that I was thinking about digital data. I've read a lot recently about the transition to digital data and what is lost en route. It's interesting that now we're hyper conscious of the potential to lose records (pre 14th century, when the Florentine humanists started digging around in old monastery libraries, it didn't much register) we are deliberately entrusting many of them to unproven formats. Robert Darnton has written some interesting stuff on that, most recently in The Case for Books.

And now for book #42, Map of the Invisible World by Tash Aw, bumped to the top of the TBR stack in this challenge at the request of Darryl, I believe.

I can't regret moving it up the list, as it's really a remarkable, if not flawless, novel by this Malaysian/English writer. He has captured the feel of SE Asia -- the odors, the sounds, the quality of the light, even the texture of the air -- in a way that few other authors I've read have managed to accomplish as well as an incredible sense of the time and era in which the book is set: the turbulent mid-1960s in Indonesia described by its then-president, Sukarno, as "the year of living dangerously." For young Adam, adopted as a child by a Dutch man who has relinquished his former nationality to become part of the newly-independent Indonesia, it is indeed a dangerous place: the novel begins when soldiers show up at the front door of the home they share on a remote island in the archipelago, and take his father away. Adam flees to Jakarta, in search of a woman he has never met but who seems to mean a lot to Karl, his father: American anthropologist Margaret Bates, who now works at the university in the country's capital. His quest to recover his father is caught up in his own mind with his lingering need in his own mind to know what happened to his older brother, Johan, adopted by a wealthy couple who left him behind in the orphanage. More dangerously, the quest is hijacked by Margaret's young assistant, Din, who insists that he must discover his true identity as an Indonesian revolutionary in order to be truly free of a "Past Life" Adam only vaguely remembers.

The story darts around in time and place, moving from Adam's struggles to those of Margaret to come to grips with the protective instincts she feels for Adam and her sense that her lifelong ability to "read" and understand the Indonesians around her is deserting her as the violence and anger escalates; there are also glimpses of the new life that Johan is living with his adoptive family in Malaysia, as he, too, struggles with the memory of the day he was forced to abandon his younger brother. At its heart, this is a story about relationships at a time when the hard realities of politics disrupts them; as Sukarno tells Margaret, "the time for gifts has passed". He is referring to gifts between nations; the struggles of the novel's main characters is to ensure that isn't true of the kind of gifts that individuals exchange between themselves, regardless of their nation of origin, color of their skin, religion or other identity.

It's a complex, crowded novel, jammed with ideas about identity, about parent-child relationships, about violence and injustice. But the caliber of the writing makes what otherwise would be a rambling, perhaps even incoherent novel not only digestible but gripping and fascinating. Highly recommended: 4.5 stars.

the caliber of the writing makes what otherwise would be a rambling, perhaps even incoherent novel not only digestible but gripping and fascinating. Highly recommended

Good enough for me. Wishlisted.

Great review, Suzanne! And I'm glad that you enjoyed it. I'll probably read it in May or June.

Richard, if you're able to go there, Strand had Map of the Invisible World for sale. I can't remember if it was on the first floor on in the basement, though.

I also noticed two Archipelago books in the 50% off section in the basement: Yalo by Elias Khoury, and The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker. Fortunately I already have both of these books.

I kind of liked "toings and goings". Goes with fromings and comings.

NONONONO

I am NOT LISTENING

NO ONE SAID THE "S" WORD

*flees, clutching depleted wallet*

Heh. Don't think about how much money you spend there, focus on how much you'll save by buying books there!

The basement is a dangerous place.

>102 richardderus:
STRAND STRAND STRAND STRAND STRAND STRAND
(hehehehe)
(that was an evil chortle, in case no one recognized it...)

*ring ring*

Hello? Oh, hi, Satan, thanks for calling back so quickly! Uh huh...really? That must've sucked...so anyway, I just wanted to let you know about the latest Hell-escaping demons...yeah, I know, again...no, no, not imps, demons...uh huh...yep! "Darryl" and "Suzanne"...no, that's a male's name...uh huh...hey, humans, go know...oh, you're welcome! Love to Persephone.

*click*

STRAND STRAND STRAND STRAND STRAND STRAND

I assume that this is sung to the legendary "Spam" song by Monty Python's Flying Circus?

97- Your thread is going to end up going all over the place subject-wise. But, it's your fault for reading and commenting in so many areas. ;) Re: Darnton- He's been commenting and reporting on the Google Books case for a couple of years now in the NYRB. Some of it is online and some not. There has been several articles and several debates in the letters section. It has been a dense complicated story that is getting even more complicated. The latest is the illustrators and photographers wanting a slice of the pie. And the permission granters. If you gained permission to use lyrics, poems, and even graphs in a book then all those permission holders want a slice every book sale those appear in.

So now- authors, publishers, agents, heirs, photographers, translators, graphic artists, illustrators, composers, and permission granters are all on the compensation list or at least trying to get on there. It gives me a headache just trying to follow it superficially. Accountants are never going to run out of work.

>107 VisibleGhost:, Ghost, yes, a lot of Darnton's NYRB pieces are collected in that book, which makes it jumpy to read. What I found interesting were some of his thoughts on how technology doesn't really "preserve" a work. Yes, there are problems with preserving manuscripts and printed books, but we simply have no way to know yet what digital technology may have in the way of vulnerabilities -- and yet we're destroying the dead tree books to make way for digital versions. I admit I love my Kindle, but...

As for GoogleBooks *eyes roll back in head*... I know when I write stories, I automatically sell all rights; with respect to my book contract, there is NO WAY I could keep track of what I earn and how. I'm going to be a prisoner of Random House accountants.

ETA: I admit that my thread and my reading are all over the map. So, sadly, is my brain...

>106 kidzdoc:, Darryl, yes it could be. Or we could twist some devilish theme music out of Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, just to rile the guy with the direct line to Satan still further??

I never heard of the Strand until Stasia lately hyperventilated when I told her I did not know about this store. She promptly sent the link to me...which I opened and promptly closed because I knew it would be dangerous...Since I recently ordered a lot of books from bookcloseouts...

But, I did keep the link and will check it again..and again.

#109: Stasia is still hyperventilating over that :)

Suzanne, I did not have to add your recent reads to the BlackHole because they were already there.

So glad that I won't be responsible for further massive additions to the Black Hole...

Linda, I'm with Stasia on this. A bibliomaniac unfamiliar with Strand?? *shudders*

The book du jour is for my 1010 challenge: the biography of Samuel Johnson by David Nokes, one of a few volumes that were published on the tercentenary of his birth last year. It's an excellent bio, although very dense; a few times I had to put it down for a couple of days. Still, Nokes doesn't get bogged down in trivia, like Johnson's myriad health problems or the witticisms painstakingly chronicled by Boswell; rather, he moves in a straightforward, chronological fashion through Johnson's life, examining from every possible angle the major events of his life, his almost perennial struggles to escape poverty and pursue his literary projects, including the great Dictionary for which he is known. But there's also an extensive discussion of his many other works, from the Rambler essays to the lives of the poets, his final major work, as well as the literary exchanges with figures like Hester Thrale. Nokes, who died last year, does an excellent job. Recommended to anyone who is curious about Johnson and his circle, which included actor David Garrick and writer Oliver Goldsmith, as well as Frank Barber, the freed slave who ended up as the major heir of this conservative thinker's estate. A great picture of 18th century London here as well. 4.5 stars.

Also recommended to anyone interested in Johnson is Henry Hitchings' marvellous book about the making of the dictionary, Defining the World. That's a 5-star book, simply because it's less dense and makes for easier reading.

... and one more, for my 50 book Challenge (the overflow...)
Finished a re-read of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. The decision to re-read the first book in the trilogy was prompted by the fact that I went to see the Swedish movie based on the book a few weeks ago, and wanted to see how closely it resembled the book. (The answer is: very.) I still prefer the book, however, as it's more nuanced and there aren't even the small losses (done to reduce the level of complexity and to be able to pull together a 2 1/2 hour film out of the material) that the film contains. Having now read all three books, it's interesting to revisit the first book and pick up hints/clues/signals that didn't really register the first time around. Still a 5-star read for me!

#112: I will look for that one. I read Adam Sisman's Boswell's Presumptuous Task several years ago and am interested in Dr. Johnson because of it. Thanks for the recommendation, Suz.

#113: I will be re-reading the first two over the summer in preparation for reading number three. Book one was a 5-star read for me the first go round, too. We will see how I feel about it on my re-read. Hopefully it will still be a 5-star read!

Boy...I must be a mouth-breathing knuckledragger...I Pearl-Ruled that bad boy Larsson on p30 or so, still in the bookstore. Dragging, dreary, dismal. But y'all're telling me, with straight faces, that this was a 5-star read for each of you.

Je ne comprends pas.

#115: What can I say, Richard? Tastes differ. I still love you any way.

It's an intricate plot that takes time to develop; dunno what it was that grabbed me the first time, but it's a great story about a puzzle and an investigation, with some truly unique characters. Very individual voice. The second book is just as strong; the third is slightly weaker, I think because there are limitations on what he can have one of his main characters do. (Trying to avoid spoilers here...)

For this challenge, I'm about to start an ARC of Ian Johnson's new book, A Mosque in Munich so that I can keep up with my Amazon Vine reviewing obligations... Then probably Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I've heard a lot of divergent opinions on that one, so I'll be curious to see if I like it or not. Those will be my next two reads for this challenge, although over the weekend I'll have to read The End of Wall Street by Roger Lowenstein, just to be protective. Oh, and my galleys are coming back to me AGAIN for another perusal. There is a limit to the number of time's one can read one's own deathless prose before being carted off to the loony bin.

#117: There is a limit to the number of time's one can read one's own deathless prose before being carted off to the loony bin.

Let us hope you have not reached that limit!

>116 alcottacre: And I count on that, Stasia.

>117 Chatterbox: I've found that limit is three. After three times, there is no power on EARTH that could cause one to revisit this droning drivel without xanax or a pistol pointed at the beloved's head.

As for Larsson...I guess that'll remain one of my blind spots.

Richard, in that case, I'm way over the limit and should be locked up for droning and drivelling. This will be the fifth or sixth complete read-through since the MS was completed last November.

EEEAAARRRGH! Everyone stand back, Suzanne's a-gonna blow any second now!

Just think, we're all going to be reading your prose very very soon!!

Thanks for posting all your books on here. I'd missed your Off the Shelf Challenge thread - time to go discover another group on LT...

>121 richardderus:, Yes, Richard, and in the best sci-fi tradition, it will be all GREEN SLIME. So be afraid, be very afraid.

The package is sitting in my mailbox; I can't force myself to go downstairs and get it. Also have a biggish freelance piece due Monday. And I started the Ian Johnson book last night, and it's very good. Plus, I need to go and say goodbye to the waterlilies at MoMA. Sigh.

I truly sympathize. Go look at waterlilies to feed your soul, to paraphrase the old maxim. The galleys will, *sigh*, be there no matter when you get back.

I am with Richard. Water Lilies beat galleys any day.

I just love it when my projects cross-fertilize. Was doing the final interview for this feature, with a private banker. He was talking about legacy issues, and I thought to ask him if any of his clients are interested in genealogy (since that's the next book project.) Turns out they include major shareholders in Ancestry.com, so he's going to help me set up a bunch of meetings when I head to Salt Lake City at the end of the month!!

And yes, water lilies and recreational reading will take my mind off the meeting I have to have re promoting book #1 in 2 weeks' time...

I thought to ask him... Turns out...

It pays to be curious! :-)

Adding Defining the World - thanks!

#126: Woot!!

>126 Chatterbox: Salt Lake City...such an amazing location...then there's that Tabernacle! *delicate shudder*

I'm not much of a crime fiction fan but all three of Steig Larsson's books hooked me right from the get go. Yes 4.5-5 stars.

Richard's going to stop talking to me! First Stieg Larsson, and now Salt Lake City...

>131 Chatterbox: ...hmmm? Did someone hear something...?

>126 Chatterbox:: I've been interested in genealogy for a while. Never been to the Genealogy Center out in Salt Lake City, though I've used their regional center here in NJ. Ancestry.com is fairly amazing, though it's also fairly expensive; I found a lot of relatives there. Unfortunately, eventually you hit the wall of how uninformative the early censuses were and, absent family or church records, it becomes a bit hard to track anything.

I'll be interested to see your take on Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I've also heard a ton of very divergent reviews...enough to make me uncertain enough to just try it myself once I get through my current backlog of obligations.

Well, since I was out of cat-food and Chatterbox-food, I had to leave the house/home office today. Which of course meant that I had to go to Strand.

This week's loot:
Dreams in a Time of War by Ngugi Wa Thiong'o
Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt
Mrs Adams in Winter by Michael O'Brien
The Big Short by Michael Lewis
and two books from the half-price paperback bin:
Child 44 by Tom Rob Smith
Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris (simply because I'm tired of folks blathering on about it and me not knowing what's going on.

Also added to my Kindle this week:
The Man Who Ate His Boots by Anthony Brandt
Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
The Book of Lost Books by Stuart Kelly
The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin (about which a friend has been raving.)

I am going to need another threescore years and ten. Especially since I am going to see waterlilies and the Cartier-Bresson exhibitions at MoMA. I also adore that kind of documentary photography.

Nice Strand haul, Suzanne!

I'd like to hear about the Cartier-Bresson exhibition at MoMA.

The book du jour was logged for my 1010 challenge: A Murderous Procession by Ariana Franklin. This is the fourth in a series of 12th century mysteries by veteran author Ariana Franklin (who also has written under the name of Diana Norman). Her main character is Sicilian-born Adelia Aguilar, a trained physician who is sent to Henry II's England in response to the latter's request for someone with the skills to cure illness and investigate mysterious deaths. Over the eight or so years covered in the previous books, Adelia has built a new life for herself and her young daughter, when Henry announces he wants her to travel back to Sicily, this time in the train of his daughter, Princess Joanna, who is going to marry the king. But an old enemy is also in the ranks of the large procession, and won't stop at anything to exact his revenge on her, even if it means taking the lives of others. This is a historically fascinating read, as the journey and Adelia's adventures take her through not only Norman France but south to Aquitaine and then to the Languedoc, just as the Cathars are beginning to be persecuted for heresy, before reaching its climax in Palermo. This meets my test of being a "thumping good read", and while the first book in this series is excellent, I found myself enjoying this one more, simply because of the fascinating backdrop of Joanna's real-life journey to Sicily. I wouldn't recommend reading this without having read previous books, however, as too many plot and character details will be obscure. 4.5 stars.

To anyone interested in historical fiction, I'd also recommend Diana Franklin's trilogy following the life and adventures of Makepeace, a budding revolutionary in Boston in the 1770s, who fishes a British nobleman out of the harbor and... but read the books. They follow the adventures of Makepeace and those close to her across two continents and several decades, ending in the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France. They start with A Catch of Consequence.

#134: I am jealous of your haul!

#136: I still have not read book 3 yet. I did not even know there was a book 4, so I appreciate you bringing it to my attention. I will also take a look at the Diana Franklin books. Thanks for the recommendations, Suz.

Book # 3 is Grave Goods, Stacia.

When am I going to find the time to read all these books AND do my work AND have some kind of orderly home AND not be seen as hopelessly eccentric?

I posted on my Facebook page about my reading for March, and got a lot of concerned comments by friends worried I'm becoming weird/odd...

#138: We love you here on LT and completely understand your 'oddity' (which, of course, is not odd here). Who needs Facebook? lol

I have Grave Goods coming to me through PBS - it has been on my wishlist there for quite a while and I am finally going to have my hands on it in the next couple of weeks.

Well, you bunch of enablers, just put in a big order on Amazon France.
I will be getting (eventually; they are bloody slow):

L'auberge des pauvres by Tahar ben Jelloun
Le canapé rouge by Michele Lesbre
Quelque chose à cacher by Dominique Barberis
Allah n'est pas obligé by Ahmadou Kourouma
Le dernier frère by Natacha Appanah
Une ombre, sans doute by Michel Quint

#140: I am peaceful in the knowledge that I did not ennable a single one of those books :)

Wow you are buying even faster than you're reading... I had The Big Short in my hands yedsterday and nearly bought it but stopped - but you can count that one as research for for book tour!

Really looking forward to seeing your thoughts on the Tony Judt one. I read an interview with him in somewhere - the IHT I think - last weekend and how he'll eventually be down to blinking an eyelid. Very sad, and made me want to hurry up and read Post-War, but it's SO big.

According to Wikipedia, Tony Judt has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease. a progressive neuromuscular disorder that slowly robs the affected person's ability to voluntarily use his muscles. The entry indicates that Judt is now paralyzed from the neck down. He wrote a powerful article in The New York Review of Books about his condition, which I missed the first time around:

Night

Thanks Darryl - he talked about that article in the interview I read, but I hadn't seen it.

#140, Somewhere I missed that you read French too, but I loved Le dernier frère in English translation and it will probably be even better in the original French.

Ugh, re ALS... A family friend died of this three years ago; a high school friend is now 8 years post-diagnosis, and another friend's sister was diagnosed last fall -- she has two young children, both under 10. A horrible disease. I'd rather have Alzheimer's.

#140 : Nothin' to do with me ..... like Stasia, my soul is an enable-free zone in the case of your latest purchase.

I think Rebecca may be the only direct enabler in these purchases, but the rest of you are all indirect contributors by encouraging my book mania!! :-)

The books du jour:

#43 for this challenge was The Mosque in Munich by Ian Johnson. This was an advance copy received via the Amazon.com Vine program, so I owe them the first review. I'll just say that it's a provocative and meticulous look at an unknown episode of history -- the growth of political Islam in western Europe, specifically a mosque in Munich that grew out of a group of former Soviet Muslim recruits to Germany's armed forces in WW2, then was encouraged by the Americans and Germans for their own purposes. I sometimes got bogged down in the details, but the narrative was fascinating and will be interesting to anyone remotely interested in Cold War history or the rise of minority groups in western Europe in the postwar era. Recommended; 4.5 stars.

For my 50-book challenge, another non-fiction read with Cold War connections. It's Kati Marton's memoir about her parents' experiences in Hungary in the 1950s, Enemies of the People. This was a 5 star story, but the writing was vapid, to be put it mildly, which made for a big contrast with the story of two Hungarian journalists working for the Associated Press who are reckless and run afoul of Hungary's secret police. Luckily, their eventual arrest and trial comes in the early period of de-Stalinization and in the aftermath of the 1956 Hungarian uprising, they are able to leave the country. The story is told by Marton, their daughter (a journalist, ex-wife of Peter Jennings and now married to diplomat Richard Holbrooke), and it's a compelling introduction for anyone interested in this period of history. Marton got the AVO secret files on her parents, and uses those as the basis for the story of a time that she remembers living through as a very young girl. I had read The File by Timothy Garton Ash for my off-the-shelf challenge at the beginning of the year, which covers similar ground: he examines his Stasi file and uses it as the basis for a fascinating voyage into the ideas of betrayal, friendship, loyalty, courage, etc. Marton's account is more pedestrian and sometimes annoyingly banal, littered with far too many examples of telling the reader instead of showing them (yes, you've told me what you felt about this seven times already, I found myself muttering on one occasion.) Still, her life was more at stake than that of Garton Ash and the betrayals she uncovers and recalls more personal. Recommended; I suspect a lot of people with an interest in the period will find it fascinating and won't be bugged by the fact the writing doesn't live up to the story. I'm wavering between 3.5 and 4 stars. Timothy Garton Ash's book, on the other hand, I have given 5 stars.

#149: I think I will look for the Garton Ash book and skip the Marton book. Thanks for the mention, Suz.

The Mosque in Munich sounds really good.

Blah to vapid writing about a great story in Enemies of the People. I really, really liked The File last year - have you read Stasiland? I liked that one too but there was a bit much of the author in the book for my liking.

#148, Now, Suzanne, I can only see two books I directly recommended on those lists, and if I were to start to count up the books I have acquired because of you . . . I think you are picking on me, just like Darryl was doing a week or so ago . . .

#149 Thanks for the warning about Enemies of the People, which I've been eying in the bookstore; I may take your recommendation and look for the Garton-Ash instead.

To sum up the Garton-Ash vs. Marton issue: if you want an Oprah style personal story about good vs. evil, and something that focuses most on people, you'll prefer the Marton book. If you're more interested in the ideas of betrayal, etc (what is justice for those informers? what damage did they wreak, etc.), with a still-vivid look at some of the characters, then you want the Garton-Ash book. I definitely preferred the latter because it didn't leave me wanting more.

Yes, I've read Stasiland and while it was interesting to read, I'd agree with Cushla that it's often too much memoir. I always feel guilty saying that, but honestly, there are some people whose lives just aren't worth a book in their own right. Perhaps it would have clicked had the author been an incredible writer, but she wasn't (or else the translation let her down.) I got the feeling sometimes reading that that here was one of hundreds or thousands of E. European citizens with probably similar kinds of stories, and she was representative of that. So the memoirish elements didn't work for me.

I think she wasn't even that - wasn't she Australian and had gone over and got a job? She got right up my nose!

Duh, you're right -- you can tell how memorable this book was for me... *eyes roll* But I think it was about the ordinary experiences, all seen through this woman's eyes, however. It was as if she was speaking for all these other people, and yet didn't really have enough to say to justify doing so. I read it a few years ago, and my reaction was "meh" to the book's contents and wanting occasionally to shake her. I know the book didn't make me care about the people or the stories, and given the topic, that made me rather irritable.

For betrayal & the Stasi, have you seen the movie "The Lives of Others"? I got it from Netflix and thought it was excellent.

A friend has urged me to watch it, and it's sitting in my queue right now, Rebecca. But I just got vol. 2 of Kenneth Branagh in the Wallender series from the UK (oh, to have a multi-region DVD player is a godsend) so that MUST take priority. Oh, and work and reading...

#44 for this Challenge: The book du jour was Major Pettigrew's Last Stand. I'd call it charming, endearing and well-written; not one of the best books I've read this year, but certainly one I can see myself re-reading in the years to come when I have a yearning for a 'comfort read'. It's the story of Major Ernest Pettigrew (referred to consistently in the way he views himself, as "the Major") and Jasmina Ali, the owner of the village shop. Both are leaving their middle age, both are widowed and they are drawn together by the events following the death of the Major's brother. At its heart, this is a story of tradition -- both the Major and Mrs. Ali cherish some aspects of tradition (the Major, his father's Churchill guns and good manners; Mrs. Ali, great books and values like respect for others). But in both cases, they'll have to contend with the uglier side of traditional family and societal values coming from both sides of the English/second-generation SE Asian immigrant communities in England -- plans to redevelop the village as a haven for displaced gentry make a mockery of the Major's cherished view of an organic community that welcomes everyone, while Mrs. Ali's family turns out to be as intolerant in their own way as those who deride them as Pakis. Some of the characters are thin or stereotypical; the saving grace are the touches of wit and humor and the insights into the character of the Major. I liked this, but it's not a memorable book, and I'd recommend it with that caveat. 4 stars.

Suz : I second Rebecca's recommendation of The Lives of Others. That was an amazing and powerful movie.

I liked your review of Major Pettigrew's Last Stand - definitely one for my wish list.

Also went to MoMA today to visit the Monet waterlilies before they are tucked away once more, and went to see the Henri Cartier-Bresson exhibit. I was blown away by the latter -- a mammoth retrospective, absolutely brilliant. I love this genre of photography, where photojournalism meets art, and he "saw" the world around him in fascinating ways. Standouts to me were his portraits, but also his documentary photographs from China, Russia and Indonesia. Bought the catalog, and will be going back when it's not a weekend and is less crowded, to peruse this at leisure. Highly recommended.

Now to bed with an incipient migraine. First in 10 days though, so I can't really complain. Although of course I will if I wake up tomorrow and it's still here...

Sorry to hear about your migraine, Suzanne. Feel better soon.

Thanks for your comments about the Cartier-Bresson exhibit. I definitely want to see it, along with the Picasso exhibit at MoMA. I'll have to look to see when they end.

I already have Major Pettigrew home from the library.

I hope the migraine goes away soon, Suz!

I didn't even try to get into the Picasso exhibit, esp. since I will be down in Philly next week. I'll save that for the next trip. It's here through almost until Labor Day; the Cartier-Bresson only until the end of June. I'd like to make two more weekday trips to really look at those photos.

Headache receding slightly; good bless fioricet with codeine. Idiot people outside talking woke me up (I live near a subway station; people love to hang out outside, littering and talking loudly off and on through the evening.)

Ho hum, another Monday morning looms. This week will be scary -- the galleys, two columns and a big story due for Barron's. Plus my Utah trip to organize.

#163: I am glad the headache eased up for you some.

I hope the scary week goes by quickly for you. I wish I could help!

Phew! Finally caught up on your thread, with faaaar too many books to add to the wishlist - pah!

Glad the headache's retreating - hope it disappeared entirely!

4 stars is 4 stars even if it comes with a caveat. I'm going to give Major Pettigrew's Last Stand a go Suzanne.

Tui, thanks for the cute/funny image! (I'm trying to imagine one of my cats staying put for a picture like that, but my imagination just isn't that good...) The headache is still lurking, but thankfully mostly in the background, which should mean that I can meet all my deadlines. I'm realizing that I may not get to Philly for Picasso, after all, what with deadlines and galleys.

The book du jour is for my 1010 challenge: The Captive Queen by Alison Weir, a historical novel focusing on Eleanor of Aquitaine. I admit I had hoped for great things, which is why I ordered this from the UK rather than waiting for its US publication date later this year. After all, Weir has written two rather good historical novels as well as some lively biographies (most recently The Lady in the Tower, about Anne Boleyn's fall from power). Those bios included one about Eleanor, a fascinating 12th C. queen of both France and England, mother to Richard (the Lionheart) and the evil King John. But while this novel grew on me as it progressed, it didn't grab me from the outset, perhaps because it opened very abruptly with Eleanor meeting her future second husband at the French court, alongside her husband, instantly falling in lust and then into bed with him. It felt almost like a one-night stand with a novel's character -- what am I doing with this character who I hardly know at all, following her into her fantasies and bedroom romps?? Ultimately, the book evolved into an intriguing look at the marriage of Henry II and Eleanor (it begins with their meeting and ends with his death) in which Eleanor is first a captive in a rhetorical sense (limited by the mores of her time and by her passion for Henry) and then literally, after their sons rebel against their father. But ultimately, having read a lot about Eleanor over the years, there was little that was new or to make this novel feel fresh in the same way that Weir's previous fictional outings shed new light on their well-known subjects (Lady Jane Grey and the young Elizabeth Tudor). Weir says in her author's note that she hoped to expand on the themes in "The Lion in Winter" to cover the couple's entire marriage, but ended up reminding me what a good film that was rather than making me think what a good book this was. Perhaps it would have worked had Weir taken the same approach that she did in Innocent Traitor and used the perspective of many of those around the couple to comment on their marriage?

Despite all these caveats (and I admit there are a lot of them), the second half of the book was strong enough for this to be a four-star book; I think the disappointment is partly because my expectations were very high. Weir can write fiction better than most historical novelists, but compared to a 5-star bravura performance in Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, which immerses the reader in the time and place, this falls short. Recommended to historical fiction afficionados only; this would be a reasonably good introduction to Eleanor, although I'd still suggest reading the Angevin series by Sharon Penman, staring with When Christ and his Saints Slept in preference. That series starts with Henry II's mother, Matilda, and the English civil war that was the backdrop to Ellis Peters's famous Cadfael mysteries.

#168: I will skip the Weir book I think, Suzanne. I am hoping to get the Penman books read over the summer.

Stasia, if you read those, you won't need/want to read this. Alas, because it COULD have been an excellent substitute/addition for a rather long series. (Penman is currently working on book #4 in that series, to focus on Richard I.)

And one more... A Darker God by Barbara Cleverly, the third in the Laetitia Talbot series of mysteries, which will go into my 50-book challenge. This is the third in the series to be published, but the second book (and by far the weakest) was the first chronologically -- Bright Hair About the Bone -- can easily be missed. This volume, however, is not only the best in the series but a worthy companion to the best in Cleverly's mysteries featuring Joe Sandilands. Both series are set in the 1920s, in the aftermath of WW1. In this case, Laetitiia is an aspiring archaelogist who, along with her love interest, William Gunning, has finished her investigations (both detective and archaeological) in Crete and has returned to Athens. There her mentor is staging a production of Aeschylus's "Agammemnon", but when the king's body is wheeled on the stage, it's not the dummy that Laetitia has carefully prepared, but a real corpse... The plot and the solution to the crime is nicely complex, ranging from the global tragedy of postwar Greek/Turkish ethnic cleansing to marital conflicts, and some intriguing characters, as well as the possible discovery of a tomb connected to Alexander the Great. Not literature, but a very good read. 4 stars, recommended for those who like character-driven mysteries.

Now that sounds good...can barely remember Agamemnon from uni days though...but just the kind of mystery I enjoy.

I'd suggest kicking off with The Tomb of Zeus, which isn't as good but still definitely readable, so you're familiar with the characters, then move straight on to this one. There are some fun opening chapters, including a preface set in Agammemnon's palace from the POV of the watchman appointed by the queen to watch for the signal fires that will tell him of her husband's return -- and we know what happened to him when he did!

I will have to look for the Laetitia Talbot series. Someone has mentioned the Sandilands series before, but my local library does not have any of Cleverly's books in either series.

The headache is back and the Philly trip to see Picasso (or rather, the exhibit of his paintings) is off. No way I can do that and meet my deadlines with stories & galleys and still stay sane. Have posted warning signs around my home signaling grumpy person alert. Given that this is Brooklyn, I expect them to produce rolled eyes and raucous laughter, however.

ETA: Stasia, if you join Paperback Swap, you can probably find the Cleverly books. I have at least one --- The Last Kashmiri Rose -- of the Sandilands series posted there; same moniker.

#175: OK, ordered it. Hope it comes from you!

You may be able to order it directly from me via PBS if you go to my page and search there. as if now, no PBS e-mails, but I dunno how fast they are at passing on the requests.

#177: I do not know how to find you! I sent a Buddy Request for Chatterbox. I hope that is you.

It is, and you are now my official "PBS Buddy"!

#179: I just ordered it from you!

Good thing PBS isn't Europe. My TBR list exploded when I discovered Book Mooch (actually the combo of LT and Mooch).

Hope your headache's gone soon - I used to get migraines but only every few years, and they were miserable.

I'm really enjoying the first Phillip Kerr book - March Violets - started it within 5 minutes of opening it yesterday! Thanks for the rec.

I am definitely not a fan of BookMooch. Have mooched 6 books -- and received only two. It's not a "first in, first out" system, but relies instead on networks. So it's less equitable. I'll probably opt out and just stick with PBS where, while you CAN select from your buddies, having an extensive buddy list is not required in order to get books you want or to get rid of yours. I've got points I could use to Mooch books, but if people don't respond or don't bother mailing them after three months, it's a singularly pointless exercise, and rather frustrating.

I have never had a problem with Bookmooch. When I put my books up they get picked up quickly. I have mooched a lot of books and only had one person not send the book to me. Granted, I do have problems finding books that I want sometimes.

I've used PBS since last August, exactly 8 mos as of today. 97 books requested (all received) and 99 sent. I've used BookMooch for 3 months, I've mooched 6 books and received only two of them, while I've had only 5 requests for my books. (The same books are listed on both sites.) Comparing apples to apples, since joining BookMooch, I've had 51 PBS requests for books vs 5 from BookMooch people; I've requested 25 books, all of which have arrived (100%, vs 33.3% for BookMooch). I've just canceled two BookMooch requests that people agreed to in January and still haven't mailed. Identical books posted on both sites. Just my experience, of course, but while I think it's a great idea, it certainly isn't working nearly as well for me on either side of the transaction as PBS.

Maybe it is because we use them differently. I just throw about 20 or so books on my wishlist up there, and when I get an email that one is available I snag it. I do not use it as a major part of my book collecting. I have plenty of books to read, so I am not in a hurry to get them most of the time. If I do want something special to read right away I will check to see if it available, but I never expect it to be there.

I have never used PBS, so I can't comment on them.

I've never used BookMooch but have been very satisfied with PBS. I've belonged since January of 2009 and recently got a new bookcase just for the books I've gotten from PBS (I just haven't counted them to have an exact number.)

>185 jmaloney17: Alas, thus far not a single book on my BookMooch list has become available. At least not on BookMooch -- only on PBS (the wish lists are also identical). I agree that everyone will use the sites differently, but I do use BookMooch and PBS the same way (same lists available as wished for items & available to request/mooch). I can often find a book on PBS that isn't available on BookMooch, but the only times the reverse has been true has been for a foreign-language book. (Although that is one of the ones that still hasn't arrived!) Oh well...

I like the idea of these sites -- primarily as a way for me to get rid of books that I don't envisage ever re-reading. The priority is for me to unload them; using them to acquire books comes a distant fourth or fifth, after buying them, getting Kindle books, getting ARCs and borrowing.

Bonnie, wow, that's a lot of books! You can get a snapshot of your activity on the site itself -- that's what I did. :-) I was surprised at how many I had requested; several were from comments in LT threads that made a book by an unknown author sound interesting. (I got The Doomsday Book by Connie Willis from PBS that way, for instance, after seeing it recommended.) It's a risk-free way to try new authors!

The book du jour is Les âmes grises, by Philippe Claudel. I think it kept the original title in translation in the UK, but in the US it appears to be published as By a Slow River. It's a rambling novel, a first-person rumination by a former criminal investigator, thinking back to the events of February 1917, in the town of "V". From a ridge above the town, it's possible to look out toward the trenches where the First World War is being bloodily fought, but the novel's focus is on the tragedies that occur behind the front lines. The town's residents can hear the guns, see the puffs of smoke, see the soldiers tramping to and from the front lines, but the deaths they must deal with prove still less easy to accomodate. Ostensibly, the novel revolves around the murder of a young girl, Belle; but who is the real culprit? And who is the real victim? The final pages pack an astonishing punch. It's a bleak little book, in its own way a tribute to the bleakness that was left by WW1 itself -- the sense of emptiness and numbness replacing hope and other active emotions. Claudel captures that brilliantly. His prose is opaque and repays careful scrutiny in French; I'd suggest tackling this in English to get the full flavor of his ideas and the impeccable character sketches which recur throughout. The original title refers to the comment by one character to the narrator that souls are neither black nor white, but always grey; to me, it also conveys the sense of a winter of the soul. This is book #52 for my 1010 Challenge (which is separate from this 75-Book Challenge.) 4.5 stars.

If anyone is interested in reading other stuff about the fallout from WW1 in France, specifically, I can recommend either The Englishman's Daughter by Ben Macintyre (whose Operation Mincemeat I read and reviewed for this challenge), a non-fiction book to which I'd give 4 stars, and the 5-star Un long dimanche de fiancailles by Sebastien Japrisot, aka A very Long Engagement. The book is MUCH better than the film.

"Grey Souls" is a complete downer of a title...I wouldn't give it a try. Bleaaargh. I have, however, wishlisted By A Slow River.

ROTFL! May your reaction be more of a fluffy mildly grey storm cloud, and not a dark angry grey hurricane cloud...

I have to say it is not a warm & fuzzy novel. Indeed, I'm going to find myself some brain candy to offset the impact of this story. My own deathless prose (I'm about 1/3 of the way through the bloody galleys on the final pass) is just making it worse.

Well, in all fairness, your non-fic topic isn't exactly "The Mystery of the Fuffy Bundy Rabbix That Got Losted But His Mommy Founded Him". Nothing about any of the players in the financial crisis is in any way cheery. Greed, misfeasance, bad corporate governance, greed, lax oversight, arrogance, and greed will bring a lad/y down every time.

Definitely not fluffy bunny material. On the other hand, the ninth complete read-through of the same text of even the most gripping potboiler, one word at a time, in less than three months, would be just as enervating. I think I've discovered an insomnia cure, which doesn't augur well for sales.

#188: I am adding that one to the BlackHole, where Ben MacIntyre's books currently reside as well.

I'm posting in a sleep-deprived fog but was just trying to find you and your wishlist on BookMooch (to see if I have any of the books you want!) What's your ID?

I suspect the BookMooch experience varies hugely based on where you live. It was fantastic for me, especially when I first joined in I think 2007, before a lot of wallets tightened in the US. And most of the mooching I did was with people in the UK or Australia, I think. I've given away 97 books (mostly international) and received a whopping 134. I'm not using it much at the moment, and slowed right down last year when I discovered the hidden (to me) treasures of Wellington's second hand bookshops, but still like it.

All those WW1 books sound good, when I have the stomach for another one after Vera Brittain.

I think I've discovered an insomnia cure, which doesn't augur well for sales.

LOL

And thank GOODNESS authors are the worst judges of their own work's sales. I smell bestseller...!

Your words must have flown to the ears of the literary pantheon -- just heard the BBC wants to interview me about the book!

Congratulations, Suz!

>196 Chatterbox: YAAY!!!

*mojo-ing major UK sales*

Wow, that's fantastic!!! Congratulations. He he, we'll all get to see you in real life!

hear me, you mean -- this will be radio, thankfully...
I have to go in next week for a meeting with the publicists and stuff... *eyes roll in horror*

#200: Just think: we will be able to say "We knew you when . . ." Hopefully your eyes will be back to normal by next week.

#200: Maybe Wichard Quest will want to talk to you next! (That would be cool. He followed us round cheap European hotels in 2003 and now I follow him on Twitter.)

Won't be doing the interview until late June/early July, to coincide with publication, so you'll just have to hold yr collective breaths until then!! :-)

In the meantime, the book du jour was a 5-star whopper.

It's #45 for this challenge, Provenance: How a Con Man and a Forger Rewrote the History of Modern Art by Laney Salisbury & Aly Sujo. All I can say is "wow" -- it's not often that a non-fiction work about the art market, even one that involves forgeries, reads as if it was a thriller. And yet the main protagonist in this, con man John Drewe is ultimately described as "Hannibal Lecter with a ballpoint pen and paintbrush." The story revolves around Drewe and his forger, the hapless John Myatt. Drewe astutely concludes that it's one thing to forge a painting; getting that painting accepted as the real McCoy has more to do with the paperwork behind it -- the provenance -- than anything else. And so begins his career of forging provenances... Each chapter caused my jaw to drop another notch as increasingly surreal twists and turns (all true, all documented) follow each other. Theft, deception, even arson and accidental deaths; domestic violence -- these are the backdrop to a tale that revolves around the creation of works of art. This is a truly remarkable and fascinating book; highly recommended. Even if you don't care a fig for the works of art themselves, this will make you ponder our human willingness to believe something that we WANT to believe, and fuel intense discussions about what a fake really is. Just -- wow. On to my list of top reads of the year it goes!

Maybe if you brought some cookies in with you to your meeting, they'll fawn all over you and give you the royal treatment as you so rightly deserve. Don't forget us little peeps when you become famous and go on international book tours and are interviewed on Charlie Rose.

Love your review of Provenance .... definitely one for my wish list.

Provenance sounds a lot better than The Forger's Spell, which was such a disappointment. Onto the wishlist with it!

The only flaw is that (amazingly) there are no pictures... I don't know whether that's because of the weirdness of who owns a copyright on a forgery, or...??

But the story was so fast-paced that I just didn't care.

As I'm in the UK PBS isn't an option for me - I joined Read it Swap it a few months ago and get turned down a lot, and Bookmooch just a few weeks ago - and have had some good finds from both. It makes the post exciting. But I expect a lot of the books I really want to read are still things I'm going to have to buy or borrow from the library. I think with either site I really need to list some more books to be able to swap or clock up some points.

>206 Chatterbox: ...a book about art with no illos.

What is the world coming to, I ask you.

... and one more book to log under yesterday's/today's reading.

#46 for this challenge was Remarkable Creatures by Tracy Chevalier. I am, at best, only mildly interested in fossils, but this story of two early 19th century women who hunted fossils on the Dorset coast. Both are outcasts by society -- Mary Anning is the child of a poor local cabinetmaker with the "eye": she can see fossils that no one else can find, including "monsters" that will eventually be recognized as dinosaurs, unsettling religious authorities who believe that all life created by God must still be in existence. Meanwhile, Elizabeth Philpot is a solicitor's daughter who, unmarried in her mid-20s, is exiled to the coastal resort along with her two other unmarried sisters -- it's the cheapest place for them to live on their annual income. The story of the friendship between the two -- both outcasts, pulled together by their shared passion for the fossils in the Dorset cliffs, but divided by their social class and by their feelings for the same man -- and the way both find a way to carve out an independent existence in a world that refuses to recognize that they have value if they aren't wives and mothers. Chevalier made me feel as if I was in their skin, particularly that of Elizabeth. The story is told in both their voices, in alternate chapters, and it's an intriguing one of natural history and sometimes harsh social realities. Highly recommended, 4.5 stars.

#203: Adding that one to the BlackHole - and the local library has it! Woot!

#209: I have that one home from the library now. I hope I enjoy it as much as you did, Suzanne.

>209 Chatterbox: I have only read one Chevalier book and wasn't crazy about it but this sounds very intriguing Suzanne. I'm going to look for it.

>209 Chatterbox: I love Tracy Chevalier's imagination! She sees stories that others pass by...and I have liked all the ones I've read.

Oh goodie! I just scored an advance copy of Alan Furst's new book Spies of the Balkans from Amazon Vine; also got a copy of Emma Larkin's upcoming book about Burma. I'll be able to ask for two more next week, and am really perplexed about what to request. Options include the new Amelia Peabody novel by Elizabeth Peters, A River in the Sky, The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell (although I'm one of the only people who couldn't get through Cloud Atlas , or some really mindless stuff by Phillip Margolin, Emily Giffin and Elin Hildebrand. (Hmm, touchstones wimped out on me here.) What to do??

Now back to the galleys. Three more chapters to scan...

I've got Remarkable Creatures in my TBR Tower already - I love Chevalier's books.

>213 Chatterbox: Are you already a Peabodian, Suzanne? If not, give a miss to the Peters, or be prepared to lose your budget to the procurement of about 17 books to fill in the gaps. As to not liking the book, I snort derisively at the mere notion of not liking Emerson and Peabody.

Richard, I've read almost all her others, so the financial impact would be minimal. But not all of her books are brilliant; sometimes I find Amelia's arch tone a bit wearing. Or I could just be getting cynical in my old age... I'm tempted to request it, nevertheless.

This was actually the first Chevalier novel I've read; I have The Lady and the Unicorn on my Kindle TBR after a friend nagged me into getting it, so I may need to bump that one up the list and read it soon.

Ah. Then I, in that position, would request the Peters. No, they're not all brilliant books, and if read one after another that tone is so irritating I felt I'd produce a brain-pearl any minute, but the arc...twenty-five years now!...is satisfyingly realistic and the backdrop of a changing Egypt very interesting to me.

I think Girl With A Pearl Earring was Chevalier's finest moment. I liked The Lady and the Unicorn just fine. But "Pearl Earring" is just a wonderful book.

Nyah nyah, naysayers! ;-P

I agree with Richard. Girl with a Pearl Earring is I think, Chevalier's best book. It was the first one I read, and it compelled me to read all the others she wrote.

I have never read anything by Chevalier, so Remarkable Creatures will be the first. Maybe I should try Girl with a Pearl Earring after that.

I am DONE with re-reading the book MS! Now I can resume normally scheduled reading activity... :-)

Woot!

Oh yeah, I forgot, one book a day was slow.

I will look for Remarkable Creatures. I read a kids' book about Mary Anning when I was about 8 or 9 and had forgotten it till I heard Chevalier interviewed. Now I'm trying to remember its name!

So, we just jumped from talking about the BBC in 10 weeks to poss doing Katie Couric tonight. No kidding. All thanks to good 'ole Goldman Sachs.

ETA -- Phew, off that hook. Would have had to be ready by 5, and that ain't happening. On the other hand, I will be doing a phone in with Bloomberg TV on Monday. :-)

I hope your little feet aren't hamster wheeling it so much that you can't enjoy all of this.

Chatterbox-on-a-hamster-wheel does, indeed, pretty much cover today. The Bloomberg thing is now off, since they would have wanted me live on camera after all, and we can't do that bec. it would diss everyone else... Where is all this coming from?? I'm going to have to send the SEC a thank-you note.

Happily, I have managed a bit of reading today and will update y'all shortly.

Suz, you are famous! I hope all this exposure gets your book off to a flying start! (even though I think you hate it)

Hang on, why can't you do the bloomberg thingy?
Oh this is so cool!! (I know it won't be fun but think of all the extra books you can buy from the extra books you sell...)

Stasia, you're right, I hate it. I'd love the book to succeed; I have zero interest in being another Michael Lewis to accomplish that. I foresee a culture clash with publishers, one I will be doomed to lose.
Can't do Bloomberg bec. they want to do it live on camera; if I do that after nixing CBS News today, I will burn other bridges, the publicist opines, which will hurt me when they need to get me on these shows in two months or so. I'm writing my online column on the whole GS fiasco and may be able to do something tied to that for Bloomberg or someone else later next week.
All this upheaval means that my weekend reading will be The Big Short and The End of Wall Street. Then must muster my persuasive skills to persuade book editor to agree to a two page afterword/epilogue to cover this stuff.
Isn't there a pause button I could hit??

C'est chouette -- merci!
That's exactly how Jasper looks, except he is black & white, not a tabby!

I am glad you liked it. You need to post a picture of Jasper!

Not sure my technical skills are up to it! all my photos are high-res, and I think I need to reduce them in order to post. Sigh, I'm such a technophobe.

OK, the books du jour, from the sublime to the ridiculous:

1. For my 1010 Challenge, I re-read Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's one of those rare books that is even better the second time when, knowing what happens, I could rediscover all of Ishiguro's careful writing and the elegant way in which he unfolds the prosaic horror of his imagined universe, one in which the narrator, Kathy H., and her friends are literally cloned in order to produce organs for "normal" people who need them. Their lives will be artificially curtailed by this -- they will go from their special schools, isolated from the rest of society, into working as carers for their elders and peers, and then beginning making donations before they 'complete'. What makes this both more and less chilling simultaneously, and a touch of genius on Ishiguro's part, is the first person narration (a feature of many of his novels, which rarely works better than it does here.) We see/hear the story of Kathy's life through her own eyes, as she looks back over its course, and for the first third or half of the book, the fact that her fate is to be a donor is only slowly and obliquely revealed -- at once accepted as normal and yet not discussed. She is looking back at her formative years at Hailsham; at first, the reader might see it as simply a kind of boarding school until realizing, through Kathy's offhand comments, that the students have lived there their entire lives; that they have no contact with the outside world, and that their "guardians" appear to play the role of parents, encouraging them to form a tight-knit unit and training them to hold themselves apart. Ultimately, it's a love story, but I defy anyone to read this and not stop to think afterward about the meaning of their own life.
It's a disturbing vision and a brilliant book; an impeccable novel. 5 stars.

2. The Wild Zone by Joy Fielding belongs in my 50-book "overflow" challenge. I first read Fielding's "woman in peril" suspense novels as escapist reads back when she was just another Canadian writer trying to make her name, and she spun some good yarns. So when I had a chance to borrow this one, I did. Oh dear. Her ration used to be one bad book for every three good books; it's now about 1 good book to every 7 or 8 real stinkers, and this was a stinker. I did finish it, but mostly out of horrified fascination. The tissue-thin plot revolves around a woman being abused by her husband; she meets three men in a bar and manipulates them into ridding her of her abuser. The violent end is abrupt and so absurd I was tempted to burst out laughing if it hadn't been that (a) the author was serious and (b) there were dead bodies involved. I did read until the end, which gets it to 1.5 stars, but I'd advise looking for something else. A contender for worst book of the year, IMO. (If you want to try one of her better books, which I'd put at somewhere around 3.5 to 4 stars, try See Jane Run.

Am now reading some Paul Theroux travel narratives to wash the taste of that one out of my mouth!

I am sooooo glad it is the weekend...

#232: I liked Never Let Me Go when I read it last year, but not enough for a re-read this soon, I don't think.

I am passing The Wild Zone by!

Nice review of Never Let Me Go, Suzanne. I have it, and I'll definitely get to it this summer.

Can you hook me up with the person who lent you The Bone Thief? I would love to be a reviewer of Jefferson Bass books. I am also going to let my friend at my husband's slot car club borrow all my Jefferson Bass books, as she and her daughter are interested. She has fallen down some steps and for the last few weeks has had her arm in a sling. She is so down and in quite a bit of pain. I hate seeing her like this, so whatever I can do to help. She knows they are my babies so I know they will come home eventually. They were only sitting on a shelf anyway. If you would be interested in letting your book go farther, I would let her and her daughter borrow it, but only at your say so. I am truly loving what I am reading so far!

Deirdra, it was my agent who gave it to me -- I think someone had just sent it to him. He only represents non-fiction authors, so I'm not really sure how he got it, and I don't think he gets them routinely; just that he knows I read a lot of mysteries & thrillers. I haven't read this myself, and would like to sometime in May -- if you wouldn't mind sending it back to me to read when you've had the chance, I can let your friend have it after I am done?

Chatter, that works for me. I'll get the woman's address so you can send it right to her if you want and I'll PM you when I get it. I am starting her and her daughter off with all that I have so that should keep them busy with Jefferson Bass for a while. I am on Chapter 20 or so after just two days reading on and off.

Suzanne,

Great review of Never Let Me Go which is waiting on my shelf; soon, hopefully, soon. *sigh*

Darryl/Bonnie -- I'm amazed that neither of you has read this yet!!

Deirdra, that would be great.

Finished the Paul Theroux book that I was reading, but too tired to update anything tonight. It will have to wait for tomorrow. :-)

So, here's the mega update of the last few days' worth of reading, in no particular order.

1. #47 for this challenge, An Empty Death by Laura Wilson. This is the second of what may (or may not!) become a longer series of mysteries featuring D.I. Ted Stratton in 1940s London. The first, Stratton's War, was published under the title of The Innocent Spy and was set in the early years of World War II, with Stratton investigating a murder that may be linked to espionage and other nasty stuff. While I generally like Wilson's idiosyncratic books, the first wasn't a great read for me, and I'd delayed picking up the second one as a result. But it's actually much better -- set later in the war, after the Normandy landings, but while rocket attacks on London were continuing. The book opens with Stratton saving a woman from a bombed building after an attack, something that will have momentous consequences for him. Simultaneously, deaths are taking place at a London hospital. The plot has relatively little to do with the war; that is the backdrop against which people struggle to get by in their daily lives, and build something meaningful. Particularly intriguing in this book is the look at the world through the eyes of a villain -- I found myself shivering at what Wilson hints at him doing (there's relatively little explicit violence here) and yet still being fascinated and ultimately somewhat sympathetic toward his yearnings to play the role of a doctor. To me, the biggest villain, unveiled in an amazing and convincing twist at the end, was far less sympathetic. It's a convincing mystery, and a rollercoaster suspense ride (with the insight into the imposter doctor's thinking particularly eerie and compelling) that I'd recommend. 4 stars.

2. #48 for this challenge: The Big Short by Michael Lewis. Lewis ends up turning the initial limitations his book into an advantage -- this is a tightly-focused look at the subprime lending market in the United States through the eyes of a handful of the players who caught on to what is now clear was its stupidity and risk. Lewis avoids the well known players like John Paulson; he hones in on some lesser-known people and moves from one to the other in a fluid and even witty way. He gets big kudos for explaining complex concepts in an understandable way. While he never gets to the heart of WHY Wall Street behaved in this way -- to me, the biggest question of all -- he does drill down into the "what happened" in at least this one part of the subprime market. If Too Big to Fail is the definitive chronicle of the whole collapse, and Fool's Gold: The Inside Story of JP Morgan by Gillian Tett is the best story yet about how good ideas get twisted, this is the most accessible book on the subprime angle. His theme throughout is the self-doubt and bemusement of those who ended up making the trade of a lifetime and short selling subprime securities -- why, they wondered, did this opportunity exist at all? What were they missing? Particularly eerie are the later chapters where Lewis discusses how the value of their short bets remained unchanged even as the value of the securities underpinning them was declining -- a surreal phenomenon. One major flaw: there is NO INDEX. I could live without footnotes (although frankly, there is enough data here that I wanted to know what sources he was relying on), but to not have an index for a book this complex is just thoughtless. That loses the book a half-star. No bibliography, no footnotes, no index?? "Trust me," says Lewis. Yeah, that's what Wall Street said. 4.5 stars, barely.

3. A re-read for my 50-book challenge: Paint, Gold and Blood by Michael Gilbert. Gilbert is another one of those overlooked writers. He has a very individual style, but a lively imagination and specialized in novels featuring ordinary but very clever people caught up in all kinds of skulduggery, from frauds to espionage. This was the first book I read of his, and it prompted me to go out and find everything else he wrote (which I've now done, including some short stories being published posthumously which aren't up to par). This story appears to be a choppy one at first, with Peter, on holiday, nearly losing his life to some Iranian art thieves in France; we then see how he and his schoolfriend outwit a schoolmaster embezzling funds and then jump to the main plot, where Peter and Stewart, now out of school, are 20-somethings trying to carve out a place for themselves. The art thieves re-emerge, there is all kinds of plotting and counter-plotting. A great yarn, and a "sentimental 5-star" book, although I suspect many other readers wouldn't rate it as highly. I'd suggest starting with some of his other books -- the Petrella procedurals (Petrella at Q), the spy short stories featuring Calder, Behrens and Rasselas the Persian deerhound (Mr. Calder and Mr. Behrens), The Queen Against Karl Mullen, set in the apartheid era and where there are villains on all sides; or a few others that are particularly good: Etruscan Net, The Long Journey Home and Smallbone Deceased.

4. For my off-the-shelf challenge, I read The Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, in which Paul Theroux revisits, 33 years later, the railway trip around the European/Asian landmass that made him famous. (The route goes from London across to the Balkans and Turkey, then through places like Baku to the 'stans, on to India, Sri Lanka, SE Asia, Japan and then back via the trans-Siberian. In many ways, this is a much better book than The Great Railway Bazaar; I particularly relished his thoughtful musings about the passage of time, and the greater awareness of the people and places he visits now. At the outset, he seems conscious of travel writing's flaws: "little better than a license to bore, travel writing is the lowest form of literary self-indulgence: dishonest complaining, creative mendacity, pointless heroics, and chronic posturing." Theroux is rarely a bore, except when he gets into curmudgeon mode; still, I found parts of this tedious (his anti-Singapore tirade, even though I may agree with a lot of it, I found self-indulgent; also the occasional self-congratulatory pat on the head; the endless digressions into the various ways prostitutes tried to lure him, which became extraordinarily dull.) But there are also some excellent bits: his thoughts about which parts of the world have dramatically changed and which haven't; at first he relishes the latter from a romantic POV, only to realize that the reason they haven't is bad news for the locals. I thought he nailed the bleak feeling in Cambodia, vs the upbeat buzz in Vietnam and the placidity of Laos, for instance; his observations on Burma and Sri Lanka were intriguing. I also enjoyed his occasional encounters with literary figures from Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul to Haruki Murakami in Tokyo. Worth reading, although be prepared to skip over parts if you start to find it tedious -- this should have been a shorter and more tightly-focused book. 4 stars.

I'm now going to read more mysteries (yum!) and some travel books by people who actually live in the places they write about rather than breezing through them like Theroux.

Oh my, I go on vacation for a week and come back to many, many great messages on your thread and wonderful books. I really liked Never Let Me Go. It is a haunting book. Your review is great!

Hi! *waves* Just catching up . . .

Lots of good reading here!

So many books, so little time...

Unless, that is, one is Stasia, and can clone oneself... :-)

Wait... Stasia can clone herself now?

I strongly suspect her of doing so... Either that, or instead of a gainfully-employed wife and mother of two, she is really a cyborg that can go without sleep in order to read. In either case, I would like lessons in how to manage this!

OK, off to re-read the SEC's complaint against Goldman. Yippee yahoo.

Nice reviews, Suzanne! The Theroux is tempting, but I think I'll pass on it.

#244: No she cannot, although she really wishes she could!

I am adding The Ghost Train to the BlackHole. I read The Great Railway Bazaar last year.

Then you will enjoy reading this as a sequel -- he revisits some of the original places, but can't get into some countries he went to before (Iran, Afghanistan) and gets to go places he couldn't before (like Cambodia).

Argh, my laptop has decided to give up the ghost. I do have the new Mac, still in its box, but don't have time to get it all set up. My desktop has myriad functionality problems, including Outlook/calendar/speakers/iPod syncing etc. etc. *bash head against brick wall*

Guess I will have to start a new thread tomorrow. It has only taken me a month to fill up this one, vs nearly three months for the last one. Guess I am living up to my moniker...

#248:It has only taken me a month to fill up this one

It generally does not even take me 2 weeks to fill up a thread and I do not have your moniker! If people would just leave me alone, I could get through with one thread for the year, I bet :)

>248 Chatterbox: Tech hell! ONOZ! My heartiest sympathy.

>249 alcottacre: If people would just leave me alone, I could get through with one thread for the year, I bet *snort* And you'd be very upset, too...don't try to kid us! All those friends sitting at a different table in the lunchroom of life...!

Plus, I can't see it happening this lifetime. Too many good books to poach off your lists.

#250: All those friends sitting at a different table in the lunchroom of life

You have a valid point, Richard. I guess I could come visit everybody in the Kitchen though. That is what it is there for, right?

>251 alcottacre: And we'd all ignore you there, too! Nyah nyah!

*smooch*

#252: What did you say, Richard? I could not hear you . . .

*smooch right back at you*

Adding a smooch to both of you!
Stasia, don't even contemplate leaving the group. You are the official mascot....

#254: I was not contemplating leaving the group - only having 1 thread for the year, just like I did in '08.

Stasia....dream on...dream on!

Wow, I wondered why I had 8 new messages!! :-)

OK, time to shift the Richard/Stasia debate (and everything else) over here