Category: Early Review

Luck of the Irish List

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A pulse check of a different kind. A first of the month kind of thing.

I decided to break up the list for this month, just for something different to look at. Starting with the books that haven’t been read:

STILL TO GO:

  1. Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
  2. Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
  3. Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
  4. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  5. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
  6. Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
  7. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist
  8. Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
  9. Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
  10. Burning the Days by James Salter
  11. Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
  12. Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
  13. Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
  14. Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
  15. Deafening by Frances Itani
  16. Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
  17. Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
  18. Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope
  19. Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
  20. Fixer by Joe Sacco
  21. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
  22. Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
  23. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  24. Going Wild by Robert Winkler
  25. Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
  26. Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
  27. Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  28. Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
  29. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
  30. House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
  31. Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
  32. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
  33. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  34. Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
  35. Panther Soup by John Grimlette
  36. Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
  37. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
  38. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  39. Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
  40. Southpaw by Mark Harris
  41. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
  42. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  43. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
  44. What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
  45. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
  46. Working Poor by David Shipler

THIS MONTH’S LIST (MARCH):

  1. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
  2. Fanny by Edmund White
  3. Flamboya Tree by Clara Olink Kelly
  4. Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
  5. Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
  6. Widow for One Year by John Irving

FINISHED:

  1. Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carrol
  2. ADDED: After Visiting Friends by Michael Hainey
  3. Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak
  4. Apples Are From Kazakhstan by Christopher Robbins
  5. Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year. no, sorry – two years ago)
  6. Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter
  7. Bellwether by Connie Willis
  8. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
  9. Billy by Albert French
  10. Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
  11. Breakfast with Scot by Michael Drowning
  12. Brush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan
  13. Brushed by Feathers by Frances Wood
  14. Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes
  15. Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert
  16. City of Thieves by David Benioff
  17. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
  18. Descending the Dragon by Jon Bowermaster
  19. The Evolution of Jane by Catherine Schine
  20. Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear
  21. Final Solution by Michael Chabon
  22. Galton Case by Ross MacDonald
  23. Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
  24. Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws
  25. Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
  26. Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan
  27. Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
  28. Her by Christa Parravani
  29. Idle Days in Patagonia by William Hudson
  30. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
  31. Lives of the Painters, vol 2, 3 & 4 by Giorgio Vasari
  32. Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
  33. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
  34. Of Human Bondage by William Maugham
  35. Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam
  36. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
  37. Rosalind Franklin: Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
  38. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
  39. Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
  40. Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
  41. Tatiana by Dorothy Jones
  42. Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova
  43. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
  44. Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
  45. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
  46. Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin
  47. Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer
  48. Women of the Raj by Margaret MacMillan

After Visiting Friends

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Hainey, Michael. After Visiting Friends: a Son’s Story. New York: Scribner, 2013.

Like any good reporter, Michael Hainey (who actually works for GQ) wants the truth, especially when the truth as he knows it is full of strange inconsistencies; even more so when the truth involves the details surrounding the tragic death of his own father,
Michael was only six years old when his father, respected newspaper man Bob Hainey, died of an apparent heart attack “after visiting friends.” What friends, Michael has always wondered. Even more curious – friends and family are tight lipped about that night and the details in different newspapers don’t add up. Pretty ironic for a newspaper man’s obituary. Was it really a heart attack when another reputable paper called it a cerebral hemorrhage?
Growing up, no wanted to talk to Michael about that night, no matter how many times he asked. As an adult Michael decided to write a book about his father and in doing so provided people with the opening to start talking. Little by little Michael finally uncovers the truth. What he discovers is not earth shattering for the rest of the world. These things happen all the time. But, back then there was a different kind of fierce loyalty between friends, family, and even newspaper men.
Throughout Michael’s investigation he is forced to consider and examine his relationships with family. His grandmother, with whom he has always felt a special bond; his brother, now a family man himself; his mother who has always kept a stiff upper lip and refused to show weakness; and lastly, his father, the hero he wanted to be like who turned out to be human after all.

It is fair to say that I couldn’t put this down. How terrible is it to have a haunting that lasts your entire childhood? What is worse is the truth; forcing yourself to not only be responsible for uncovering it but accepting it as well.

Death does funny things to us. While reading After Visiting Friends I found myself thinking Hainey was unraveling and revealing my innermost thoughts. I, too, lost my father to a cerebral hemorrhage. I, too, have looked for my father in the faces of strangers, in the eyes of other men on the street. I, too, expect to see him anywhere and everywhere. “You never accept the truth that they are dead. You can’t. You won’t” (p 129). Exactly. I hated Hainey for pointing out the obvious, that if ever I met my father on the street I would not fall to my knees grateful for his return, his life restored. Instead, hurtful and pitiful, I would casting a blaming eye and ask why he left.

January ’13 was…

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When I look back on January 2013 I have a sense of relief. All things considered this month was better than the last. In the grand scheme of things January treated me kind. No major meltdowns. No minor catastrophes to speak of. I started training for Just ‘Cause in the quiet way. Four to five miles a day and I didn’t stress about the numbers. If I didn’t make five or even four I didn’t have a hissy fit or beat myself or moi up. I cut me & myself some slack; gave us a break. I know that as the months wear on this won’t always be the case, but for now it was nice to go easy on me, myself & moi. The running was a different matter. Just as relaxed a schedule but not so easy going on. The run is a little over six weeks away and I’ve done next to nil in order to train. New Guinea has been awesome in that I’m working on speed intervals on level five. Let me repeat that. Level five. Nothing to write home about. I used to operate at level nine. Enough said. On with the books! I am pretty proud of the list.

  • Lives of the Painters, Architects and Sculptors by Giorgio Vasari ~ in honor of National Art Month way back in October. This finally completes the series!
  • Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak ~ in honor of Female Domination Day in Greece.
  • Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray ~ in honor of January being the first month I read something from the first chapter of a Lust book. I admit I didn’t finish this one.
  • Of Human Bondage by William Somerset Maugham ~ in honor of Maugham’s birth month. I also didn’t finish this one.
  • Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron ~ Happy new year. Read something to make me happy.
  • Idle Days in Patagonia by W. H. Hudson ~ in honor of January being the best time to visit Patagonia.
  • The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll ~ in honor of Lewis birth and death month.
  • Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson ~ in honor of the month all Creatures Great and Small aired.
  • Tatiana by Dorothy Jones ~ in honor of January being the month Alaska became a state.

On audio I listened to:

  • Final Solution by Michael Chabon ~ in honor of January being Adopt a Rescued Bird month.
  • No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith ~ in honor of Female Mystery Month
  • City of Thieves by David Benioff ~ last minute add-on. This was addicting!

For the Early Review program with LibraryThing:

  • Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws (started in Dec)
  • Her by Christa Parravani

For Fun:

  • Leave Your Sleep the poetry book for children by Natalie Merchant

Resolutions and Pulse Checks

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So. January is over. Another month gone by. Another dozen or so books read. I’m frustrating myself because I keep adding books to the list. Like I mentioned earlier these additions come from another list created before this one. *Sigh* I am up to 95 titles (from the 81 I originally started with) and “down” (meaning read) 35. Such an odd exchange, but there it is. Tomorrow I will post the month of January in detail.

  1. Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
  2. ADDED: Adventures of Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  3. Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
  4. ADDED: Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak
  5. Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
  6. ADDED: Apples Are From Kazakhstan by Christopher Robbins
  7. Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year)
  8. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  9. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
  10. Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
  11. Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter
  12. ADDED: Bellwether by Connie Willis
  13. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist
  14. Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
  15. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
  16. ADDED: Billy by Albert French
  17. Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
  18. Breakfast with Scot by Michael Drowning
  19. Brush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan
  20. Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
  21. Burning the Days by James Salter
  22. Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes
  23. Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
  24. Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
  25. Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
  26. Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert
  27. ADDED: City of Thieves by David Benioff
  28. Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
  29. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
  30. Deafening by Frances Itani
  31. Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
  32. ADDED: Descending the Dragon by Jon Bowermaster
  33. Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
  34. Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope
  35. Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
  36. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
  37. Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear
  38. Fanny by Edmund White
  39. Final Solution by Michael Chabon
  40. Fixer by Joe Sacco
  41. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
  42. Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
  43. Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
  44. Galton Case by Ross MacDonald
  45. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  46. Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
  47. Going Wild by Robert Winkler
  48. Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
  49. ADDED via LibraryThing’s Early Review: Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws
  50. Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
  51. Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan
  52. Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
  53. Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
  54. Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  55. ADDED via LibraryThing Early Review: Her by Christa P
  56. Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
  57. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
  58. House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
  59. ADDED: Idle Days in Patagonia by William Hudson
  60. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
  61. Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
  62. Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
  63. Lives of the Painters, vol 2, 3 & 4 by Giorgio Vasari
  64. Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
  65. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
  66. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
  67. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  68. ADDED: Of Human Bondage by William Maugham
  69. Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
  70. Panther Soup by John Grimlette
  71. ADDED: Playing for Keeps by David Halberstam (only because someone gave it to me as a gift and it’s on my list)
  72. Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
  73. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
  74. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
  75. Rosalind Franklin: Dark Lady of DNA by Brenda Maddox
  76. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  77. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
  78. Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
  79. Southpaw by Mark Harris
  80. ADDED: Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers
  81. ADDED: Tatiana by Dorothy Jones
  82. Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova
  83. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
  84. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
  85. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  86. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
  87. Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
  88. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
  89. Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin
  90. What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
  91. Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer
  92. Widow for One Year by John Irving
  93. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
  94. ADDED: Women of the Raj by Margaret MacMillan
  95. Working Poor by David Shipler

Jan ’13 is…

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Holy crap I am late with the list. “I’m late, I’m late” said the White Rabbit! Okay, okay! I just finished The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland so sue me.
January 2013 is another year of hope and of promise. Kisa and I are going to see Trey Anastasio at the Palace in a few weeks. I officially started training for the 5th Just ‘Cause Walk and, and. And! I am training to run a 10k in March. Yay me. But, here are the books…before I get too carried away.

  • Rabbit Hill (speaking of rabbits) by Robert Lawson in honor of when All Creatures Great & Small first aired. Get it? Creatures = rabbits. This is a kids book so I’m hoping to fly through it.
  • The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith in honor of January being Female Mystery month. I’m listening to this on cd. It’s the first one in the series so expect to see Alexander McCall Smith on my book list for the next 4 or 5 months.
  • Lives of the Painters, Sculptors Vol 4 by Giorgio Vasari ~ this (finally, finally) ends the series started in October in honor of Art Appreciation month
  • Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery ~ in honor of the first month of the year I’m reading something from the first chapter of More Book Lust.
  • Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet by Eleanor Cameron ~ in honor of the a Happy New Year. Another kids book to lighten the mood.
  • Ancient Athens on 5 Drachmas a Day by Philip Matyszak ~ Okay, get this – Female Domination Day in Greece happens in January, hence reading something Greek.
  • Tatiana by Dorothy M. Jones ~ in honor of Alaska becoming a state in January. Mo one locally has this book in their library so I had to ILL it. It might have to come from Alaska. How fitting.
  • Final Solution by Michael Chabon ~ in honor of January being Adopt a Rescued Bird month. This is another book I will listen to in the car or while working out.

For the LibraryThing Early Review program I am just finishing up Gold Coast Madam by Rose Laws. I also received notification of a January Early Review book but as always I won’t mention it by title until it’s in my hot little hands (or in this case, cold little hands since it’s 6 degrees outside).

Gold Coast Madam

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Laws, Rose and Dianna Harris. Gold Coast Madam. Chicago: Lake Claremont Press, 2012.

I honestly couldn’t tell you if I liked reading this book or not. There were times when I thought it wildly entertaining while other times I found myself distracted by questioning Laws and her motives for wanting to publish her story.
The most sincere chapters were in the beginning. There is no denying Laws had a difficult childhood. She learned at a very early age that some men will do anything for sex and, for the most part, get away with it. When she was still a child her father was caught having sex with someone other than her mother. As a result he and his mistress were beaten but that didn’t stop them for continuing their illicit activities. When Rose’s mother wanted Rose to get married and have children Rose’s early strategy was to pick a guy to date for a month until one got her pregnant. That lucky sperm donor would become her husband. Way to pick a soul mate! Unfortunately, she latched herself to someone who wanted nothing more than to keep her pregnant. Rose was pregnant eight times in as many years. When she admitted to aborting one of the children her husband beat her senseless.
From here the story goes downhill. Oddly enough Rose was never able to succeed at a legitimate business to support herself and her five children. For some reason the only thing she excelled at was prostituting herself and the $400 an hour call girls she employed. She calls herself a “hanky-panky entrepreneur” and coyly suggests she had all of Chicago in the palm of her hand. Everyone from high ranking officials to members of the Chicago mob were at her beck and call. Every time she got into trouble it was always the fault or screw up of someone else. One claim I couldn’t wrap my brain around was that she didn’t involve her children in the “hanky-panky” business but that seems improbable. Kids are really smart and at one point they were living in the hourly rate motel used for hookups. How could they not know what was going on?
Like I said, I’m not sure what I think about this book. It’s conversational style makes it a very easy if not skeptical read.

Drinking with Men

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Schaap, Rosie. Drinking with Men: a Memoir. New York: Riverhead Books, 2013.

One of the very first things you will notice about Drinking with Men is that it is 100% unapologetic. Schaap makes some pretty decent arguments for finding a bar to call your own…even if you are a single woman (stereotypes be damned). Then all of a sudden it hits you, Schaap can really write. She is funny, sarcastic, and above all, a great storyteller. In most cases the introduction to anything is an invitation to yawn. I am not ashamed to say most of the time I skip an introduction to everything. Not this time. Schaap’s introduction is almost a warning, as if to say “Hang on because I am about to tell it like it is. I. Like. To. Drink.” and she tells it with such ease that you keep reading and keep reading. You don’t realize you have let dinner burn, the cats have moved out and your husband has ordered and finished the pepperoni pizza all on his own.

I try not to dabble with discrepancies but when reading about her friend Ed I couldn’t help but notice she intermittently called him Al. Was that something I failed to find the explanation for or what? Truth be known I didn’t go back to see what I missed. I just kept reading.

Favorite lines: I have a few but I’m not sure if they’ll remain in the finished publication so I’ll refrain from exposing them. Weak, I know.

Reason read: Early review program for LibraryThing.

I am hijacking this review for a second: Now seems like a good time to add that I have decided to change how and when I read Early Review/LibraryThing books. Because their arrival to my doorstep is extremely unpredictable I am no longer going to confine myself to reading them within the month received. It just doesn’t work. What if I get a book on December 21st? the old system would have me trying to choke it down in nine days. Because it came in December I was of the mindset it needed to be read in December. Enough of that. Despite it’s arrival date I will take as long as I need to finish it. One rule stays true though – if there is a expected publish date I have to finish at least two weeks before.

Pulse Check

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This is the list for Year Seven of the Book Lust Challenge. I’ll update it at the end of each month, just to keep myself honest.

  1. Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
  2. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  3. Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
  4. Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
  5. Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year)
  6. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  7. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
  8. Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
  9. Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter
  10. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist
  11. Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
  12. Big Mouth and Ugly Girl by Joyce Carol Oates
  13. Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
  14. Breakfast with Scot by Michael Drowning
  15. Brush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan
  16. Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
  17. Burning the Days by James Salter
  18. Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes
  19. Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
  20. Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
  21. Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
  22. Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert
  23. Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
  24. Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
  25. Deafening by Frances Itani
  26. Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
  27. Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
  28. Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope
  29. Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
  30. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
  31. Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear
  32. Fanny by Edmund White
  33. Final Solution by Michael Chabon
  34. Fixer by Joe Sacco
  35. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
  36. Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
  37. Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
  38. Galton Case by Ross MacDonald ~ reading right now
  39. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  40. Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
  41. Going Wild by Robert Winkler
  42. Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
  43. Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
  44. Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan
  45. Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
  46. Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
  47. Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  48. Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
  49. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
  50. House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
  51. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
  52. Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
  53. Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
  54. Lives of the Painters (vol 2, 3 & 4) by Giorgio Vasari
  55. Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
  56. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
  57. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
  58. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  59. Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
  60. Panther Soup by John Grimlette
  61. Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
  62. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
  63. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
  64. Rosalind Franklin by Brenda Maddox
  65. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  66. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
  67. Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
  68. Southpaw by Mark Harris
  69. Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova ~ reading right now
  70. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
  71. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
  72. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  73. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
  74. Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
  75. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
  76. Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin
  77. What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
  78. Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer
  79. Widow for One Year by John Irving
  80. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
  81. Working Poor by David Shipler

December 12 is…

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December is a mixed bag. Kisa and I aren’t traveling anywhere (I think we did enough of that over the summer). We’ll get the tree today. I’ll spend the weekend humming Christmas tunes and decorating the crap out of the house. Not much else is planned except a lot of books, books, books. For starters I am reading a lot of continuations:

  • Brush with Death by Elizabeth Duncan ~ a final book in the continuation of the series I started last month.
  • The Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan ~ this finishing the Good Thief series I started in October.
  • Lives of the Painters… by Giorgio Vasari ~ this is the third (and penultimate) book in the series started in October
  • Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers ~ this continues the series started with The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club…

Confession: a bunch of these books aren’t “series” per se. But, because they continue a story (same characters, continuation of plot) I wanted to read them in order, especially Chris Ewan.

For the honor of all things December:

  • The Wholeness of a Broken Heart by Katie Singer ~ in honor of Hanukkah
  • Women of the Raj by Margaret Macmillan ~ in honor of December being a really good time to visit India
  • The Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova ~ in honor of the coldest day in Russia (12/31/76)
  • Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegman ~ in honor of Iowa becoming a state in December

For the Early Review Program for LibraryThing I’m back to nonfiction: Drinking with Men by Rosie Schaap (I remembered her last name by thinking Schnapps). This looks really interesting because it isn’t someone’s sob story memoir about being an trapped and pathetic alcoholic.

And, lastly audio – I am planning to drive to work to the tune of Ross Macdonald’s The Galton Case.

So, there is it. Ten books. Ambitious of me, I know. The way I look at it I have ten days of vacation coming up with barely anything to do. I want to spend a great deal of time reading if nothing else.

November ’12 was…

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I don’t know what makes me feel this way, but November arrived and left before I knew it.  It felt like it was one of those elusive party-goers who pops in for a quick hello and is gone before anyone else knows. Something I would do. We had a fit of snow to add insult to New Jersey/New York injury. My neighborhood survived just fine but mother nature had it in for my old stomping grounds in the worst way.

My routine of reading during my lunch break hasn’t changed. I’ve come to look forward to camping out in the stacks, listening to students pass my study carrel. It gives me perspective. This month I seemed to read nothing but really short, easy to read books.

  • Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan ~ a continuation of the series I started last month. I think I read this over a weekend.
  • Lives of the Painters, Sculptors and Architects, Vol 2 by Giorgio Vasari ~ a continuation of the series I started last month.
  • Breakfast with Scot by Michael Downing ~ in honor of national adoption month. This was cute. I was able to read it in one day.
  • Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes ~ in honor of Camus being born in the month of November. I took my time with this but still managed to finish it in two weeks.
  • Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff ~ in honor of national Alzheimer’s month. Read over a weekend, I was glued to the words because almost a year ago I lost my uncle to dementia. This really hit home.
  • Before the Knife: Memories of an African Childhood by Carolyn Slaughter ~ in honor of November being a good time to visit Africa. Or so they say. Another quick, weekend read.
  • Edward Lear in Albania: Journals of a landscape Painter in the Balkansby Edward Lear ~ in honor of November being the best time to get to Albania (which I never thought of doing). This took me three weeks to get through.
  • The Cold Light of Mourning by Elizabeth Duncan ~ in honor of Dylan Thomas living in Wales. Don’t ask. It’s a long story. Read in four days.
  • The Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin ~ in honor of November being a good time to visit Africa (yeah, yeah I read two books for the same reason). This was really short. I was  able to read it over four lunch breaks.
  • Corregidora by Gayl Jones ~ in honor of Jones’s birth month. Another short (but difficult) read. Read this in one day.
  • The Akhenaten Adventure by P.B. Kerr ~ in honor of November being Fantasy convention month. Read this over two lunch breaks. Really cute.

For audio books I listened to:

  • Churchill, a Life by Martin Gilbert ~ in honor of Churchill being born in the month of November. A few trips to the eastern part of the state allowed me to finish this sooner than I thought.
  • The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers ~ for the fun of it. This was hard to listen to simply because of the heavy dialogue.
  • Complications: a Surgeon’s Notes on an Imperfect Science by Atul Gawande ~ in honor of National Health Month. This was only six cds long so it was a great way to finish out the month.

What else was November about? I got to see a pretty exciting Patriots game thanks to my husband. I also got to stay home alone and read for an entire Sunday thanks to another Patriots game. Staying local for Thanksgiving definitely allowed for more reading time, too.

Corregidora

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Jones, Gayl. Corregidora. New York: Random House, 1975.
Jones, Gayl. Corregidora. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992

The story of Ursa Corregidora is kick-you-in-the-teeth powerful. When we first meet Ursa Corregidora she is a 25 year old blues singer with a jealous husband. When Ursa disregards Mutt’s jealousy and continues performing in the bars he throws her down a flight of stairs causing her to lose her month-old pregnancy. After a hysterectomy Ursa repeatedly revisits her past, reliving generations and generations of slavery and rape. She has been brought up to believe that a woman’s worth lies in her ability to reproduce. Without a womb she is haunted by her ancestors. Physically, she is nursed back to health by her boss and soon his caring takes on a sexual element, one that Ursa has a hard time understanding or enjoying. And speaking of sex, there is a lot of it in Corregidora. Be forewarned, the language is necessarily harsh. This is a short but very powerful book. Read it again and again and again.

Two lines that made me catch my breath: “And what if I’d thrown Mutt Thomas down those stairs instead, and done away with the source of his sex, or inspiration, or whatever the hell it is for a man, what would he feel now?” (p 41) and “You don’t treat love that way” (p 46).

Reason read: Gayl Jones was born in the month of November.
Reason read again: As part of the Early Review program with LibraryThing, I requested to read this book again.

Author fact: Corregidora is Gayl Jones’s first book.

Book trivia: There is little information about Jones anywhere on Corregidora. There isn’t a photograph or “about the author” statement. It’s as if she wanted the work to stand for itself.
Book trivia part II: this was republished as part of the Celebrating Black Women Writers series.

BookLust Twist: From Book Lust in the chapter called “African American Fiction: She Say” (p 13).

November ’12 is…

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November is Thanksgiving. My mom’s birthday. A wedding somewhere out there. The days are getting shorter and the nights are getting colder. Soon it will be time to crank up the woodstove. November is also a football game (Go Pats!) and maybe some music. It promises to be a good month for books, too. I have a couple of really short ones to buzz through:

  • Lives of the Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, Vol 2. by Giorgio Vasari ~ continuing the series started in October in honor of art month. As with Vol.1 I won’t read any bio that has a mistake in it.

    • I’m excited about this volume because Da Vinci is in it.

  • The Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan ~ a continuation of the series started in October to honor the Amsterdam marathon. This should be a really quick read.
  • Camus: a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes ~ in honor of Albert Camus’s birth month
  • Edward Lear in Albania: journals of a landscape painter by Edward Lear ~ in honor of November being a good time to visit Albania.

    • I guess so.

  • Before the Knife: Memories of an African Childhood by Carolyn Slaughter ~in honor of November being a good time to take a safari in Africa. Truth be told, this won’t inspire me to travel anywhere near the dark continent.

    • I can tell already.

For audio – I’m plan to listen to Martin Gilbert’s biography of Winston Churchill, Winston Churchill, a Life and Dorothy Sayer’s The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club.

For the Early Review program on LibraryThing I will finish Clay by Melissa Harrison. I have to admit I’m not wild about the story. I love the way Harrison describes the landscape around her but not a fan of her character development.

What else about November? Can I say I will be thrilled, thrilled to not have to listen to Scott Brown and Elizabeth Warren bash each other over the head anymore? As a woman I have never felt more “targeted” than in this particular election. That would go for Obama and Romney as well. Grrrr.

October ’12 was…

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October 2012 was started out to sea. We landed on Monhegan sandwiched between the bustling start of Trap Day and the slowing end of tourist season. As a nod to the death of summer we readied our psyches to the coming winter. The island had shed its summer greens and stood cloaked in red rust brown and burnt yellow hues. Hiking the trails was at once magical and sobering. It was easy to curl up with a good book every night and read for at least two hours straight (something I never get to do at home unless it’s an off day). And speaking of the books, here they are:

  • Persian Boy by Mary Renault ~ a continuation of the series about Alexander the Great. I started this in September to keep the story going.
  • Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley ~ in honor of Halloween (duh). Probably one of my favorite books of the month. I read this in three days.
  • The Outermost House: a year of life on the great beach of Cape Cod by Henry Beston ~ in honor of October being Animal Month. The best book for me to read on an island; finished it in three days.
  • Lives of the Painters, Vol. 1 by Giorgio Vasari ~ in honor of October being Art Appreciation month. This was just ridiculous to read. There were a lot of errors according to the translator. I ended up skipping every biography that had a contradiction or error in it.As a result, finished it in two weeks.
  • Hackers edited by Jack Dann ~ in honor of October being Computer Awareness month. This was cool to read. I read three stories a night and finished it in four days.
  • The Dialect of Sex: the Case For Feminist Revolution by Shulamith Firestone ~ in honor of breast cancer awareness month and strong women everywhere. I didn’t completely finish this, but I got the gist of it.
  • The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam by Chris Ewan ~ in honor of the Amsterdam marathon taking place in October. I read this in four and a half days. Easy and very entertaining!
  • The Clerkenwell Tales by Peter Ackroyd ~in honor of Ackroyd’s birth month. This was short, a little over 200 pages, but I took my time reading it – almost three weeks!

The audio book I chose for October was The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell. This took forever to listen to! I felt like I was constantly plugged into the story. I listened to it on the drive home from Maine, to and from work everyday. even while I was working out, while I cooking. It was a great story, worth every hour between the earphones. Can’t wait to read other Mankell stories!

For LibraryThing’s Early Review program I read Thomas Jefferson’s Creme Brulee: How a Founding Father and His Slave Introduced French Cuisine to America by Thomas J. Craughwell. While I thought I would enjoy this book (TJ is one of my favorite past presidents and I’m wild about food) it fell a little flat for me. I stopped reading on page 200. I also started reading Clay by Melissa Harrison. It was refreshing to get a first-time fiction from LibraryThing!

One thing that I failed to mention about October (and this is related to the books) is that I am back to requesting books from other libraries! Yay yay yay! This was halted in June of 2011 because we were switching ILSs and at the time I figured it would be a good opportunity to read what was on my own shelf and in my own library. Now, nearly 17 months later I am back to having hundreds of libraries to order from. Thank gawd!

We ended October with a freak storm people were calling Frankenstorm in honor of being so close to Halloween. Although we prepared like hell we saw little damage, thankfully. My thoughts and prayers go out to those in New Jersey and New York. It’s sad to see my old haunts get battered around so…

Anniversary of Crazy

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November marks the seventh anniversary of the crazy idea I would read everything indexed in Book Lust by Nancy Pearl. Subsequently that idea mushroomed into reading everything indexed in More Book Lust and most recently, Book Lust To Go as well. Let’s do a little math, shall we? In six years I have read 583 books. That is approximately 97 books a year. If I continue at that rate I will finish the Lust Challenge when I am 93 years old, give or take a year or two…..

I had this conversation with someone a few days ago and without warning the thought that I might not finish this challenge depressed me. Not because of my own mortality but because of all the interesting books I will miss. I had a horrible thought – what if I spent a considerable time slogging through something I found only mildly interesting while I missed out on something completely riveting? What a not nice thought. I shared this ugly-ugly and my companion stridently changed the subject. What if you were to consider November a “new” year and you list out the books you are planning to read? This, of course, would not include LibraryThing and the Early Review program. It would not include the “strays” (as I’ve taken to calling them). Those are the books picked up for no other reason than a good suggestion or an intriguing cover. Accountability. I like it. It gives me structure. So, without further ado, here is the conservative list for Year Seven 11/2012 – 11/2013 in alphabetical order, of course:

  1. Abide By Me by Elizabeth Strout
  2. Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
  3. Among the Missing by Dan Chaon
  4. Apollo: the epic journey to the moon by David West Reynolds
  5. Arctic Grail by Pierre Berton (I started this last year)
  6. Ariel by Sylvia Plath
  7. At Home in the Heart of Appalachia by John O’Brien
  8. Beautiful Swimmers by William Warner
  9. Before the Knife by Carolyn Slaughter
  10. Beneath the Lion’s Gaze by Maaza Mengist
  11. Beyond the Bogota by Gary Leech
  12. Brass Go-Between by Oliver Bleeck
  13. Breakfast with Scot by Michael Drowning
  14. Burma Chronicles by Guy Delise
  15. Burning the Days by James Salter
  16. Camus, a Romance by Elizabeth Hawes
  17. Cardboard Crown by Martin Boyd
  18. Cat Who Ate Danish Modern by Lillian Jackson Braun
  19. Child that Books Built by Francis Spufford
  20. Churchill, a life by Martin Gilbert
  21. Conspiracy and Other Stories by Jaan Kross
  22. Deafening by Frances Itani
  23. Death in Verona by Roy Harley Lewis
  24. Diamond Classics by Mike Shannon
  25. Dining with Al-Qaeda by Hugh Pope
  26. Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
  27. Domestic Manners of the Americans by Fanny Trollope
  28. Edward Lear in Albania by Edward Lear
  29. Fanny by Edmund White
  30. Final Solution by Michael Chabon
  31. Fixer by Joe Sacco
  32. Footnotes in Gaza by Joe Sacco
  33. Full Cupboard of Life by Alexander McCall Smith
  34. Gabriel Garcia Marquez by Gerald Martin
  35. Gentlemen Prefer Blondes by Anita Loos
  36. Girl in Landscape by Jonathan Lethem
  37. Going Wild by Robert Winkler
  38. Golden Spruce by John Vaillant
  39. Good Thief’s Guide to Paris by Chris Ewan
  40. Good Thief’s Guide to Vegas by Chris Ewan
  41. Good-bye Chunk Rice by Craig Thompson
  42. Grand Ambition by Lisa Michaels
  43. Guardians by Geoffrey Kabaservice
  44. Hole in the Earth by Robert Bausch
  45. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow
  46. House on the Lagoon by Rosario Ferre
  47. Joy of Cooking by Irma Rombauer
  48. Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith
  49. Light Infantry Ball by Hamilton Basso
  50. Lives of the Painters (vol 2, 3 & 4) by Giorgio Vasari
  51. Mortality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
  52. No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
  53. Nobody Knows My Name by James Baldwin
  54. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  55. Old Friends by Tracy Kidder
  56. Panther Soup by John Grimlette
  57. Points Unknown edited by David Roberts
  58. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson
  59. Return of the Dancing Master by Henning Mankell
  60. Rosalind Franklin by Brenda Maddox
  61. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  62. Scar Tissue by Michael Ignatieff
  63. Scramble for Africa by Thomas Pakenham
  64. Southpaw by Mark Harris
  65. Tattered Cloak by Nina Berberova
  66. Tea Time for the Traditionally Built by Alexander McCall Smith
  67. Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
  68. Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
  69. Time, Love, Memory by Jonathan Weiner
  70. Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club by Dorothy Sayers
  71. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackery
  72. Viceroy of Ouidah by Bruce Chatwin
  73. What you Owe Me by Bebe Moore Campbell
  74. Widow for One Year by John Irving
  75. Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken
  76. Working Poor by David Shipler

I’ll update this list May 1st, at the halfway mark. I haven’t spelled out which books I will listen to on CD. This also doesn’t reflect when I’ll read them either. All I know is that I will continue to read whenever and wherever I can. Standing in line at the grocery store, trapped in the backseat of a moving vehicle, before bed, in the bath, while my kisa watches hours of football, with a glass of wine, during storms, by candlelight and sunlight, on vacation, while I’m sick, or waiting for the pasta water to boil. I will skip the books that bore me to tears. I will start books early and finish them late. This is my new year’s resolution.

Clay

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Harrison, Melissa. Clay.New York: Bloomsbury, 2013.

Clay is centered around the lives of four different people only the story starts out like a lukewarm party with lots of dull people. The characters were listless and unmemorable. I felt like a party goer who was more interested in the decor of the party than the people attending it.By page 100 I still hadn’t connected with anyone nor could I tell anyone what it was really about. At the center of the story is TC, a nine-turning-ten year old lonely boy. On the surface he is looking for a companion, someone to share his “me against the world” attitude. Deep down he is searching for his father, always fantasizing about ways to get him to come home after divorcing his mom. Other characters include Jamal, TC’s mother’s boyfriend; Jozef, the Polish immigrant working two jobs; Denny, Jozef’s boss at the furniture shop and Musa, Jozef’s boss at the takeaway; Sophia, the elderly widow across the park; her daughter Linda; granddaughter Daisy, son Michael, and son-in-law Steven. All these characters circle around each other without real rhyme or reason other than proximity. For example, TC and Jozef forge a misfit friendship and Daisy and grandmother Sophie write misunderstood letters to one another.
The best part of Harrison’s writing is her descriptive passages about nature. She captures birds, trees, flowers beautifully. Wildlife comes alive and breathes life into the rest of the story. Because the plot lacked a hook I found I could put Clay down for days at a time and not miss the people I had met. I wasn’t breathlessly interested in seeing what happened next. My curiosity was mild, bordering on disinterested.

Reason read: This was received and reviewed as part of LibraryThing’s Early Review program.

Author Fact: Clay is Melissa Harrison’s first novel.

Book Trivia: Clay will be published in 2013.