Category: Fiction

Mistakenly Committed

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December is a new year of the Challenge. Only, not the year I thought it was. How embarrassing it is to discover not only an incomplete list of books but that I’ve been wrong about what year of the Challenge I’m on? It’s only now that I realize I am on year TEN of the project. When did that happen? W.T.F? I have been working on this reading list since 2006. So, yes, this list represents the tenth year. Here it is…in all its glory:

  1. Dragon Reborn by Robert Jordan (Dec –  maybe, since I bailed on Book #2)
  2. By a Spider’s Thread by Laura Lippman (Dec – maybe, since I still have In a Strange City to get through)
  3. Recognitions by  William Gaddis (Dec)
  4. Maus by Art Spiegelman (Dec)
  5. Lady Franklin’s Revenge by Ken McGoogan (Dec – maybe, since no local library has it)
  6. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao* by Junot Diaz (Dec)
  7. Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (Dec)
  8. Eugene Onegin by Alexander Pushkin (Dec)
  9. Shadow Rising by Robert Jordan (Jan – see Dragon Reborn)
  10. Maus II by Art Spiegelman (Jan)
  11. Wild Blue by Stephen Ambrose (Jan)
  12. Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore (Jan)
  13. Greater Nowheres by David Finkelstein/Jack London (Jan)
  14. Good Life by Ben Bradlee (Feb)
  15. Underworld by Don DeLillo (Feb)
  16. Her Name Was Lola by Russell Hoban (Feb)
  17. Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton ((Feb)
  18. Fires From Heaven by Robert Jordan (Feb)
  19. Finnegan’s Wake by James Joyce (Feb)
  20. At Home with the Glynns by Eric Kraft (Feb)
  21. Polish Officer by Alan Furst (Feb)
  22. Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan ((Mar)
  23. Chasing Monarchs by Robert Pyle (Mar)
  24. Murder on a Kibbutz by Batya Gur (Mar)
  25. Bebe’s By Golly Wow by Yolanda Joe (Mar)
  26. Lives of the Muse by Francine Prose (Mar)
  27. Broom of the System (David Wallace (Mar)
  28. Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Apr)
  29. Two Gardeners by Emily Wilson (Apr)
  30. Royal Flash by George Fraser (Apr)
  31. Fifties by David Halberstam (Apr)
  32. Binding Spell by Elizabeth Arthur (Apr)
  33. Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan (Apr)
  34. Path of Daggers by Robert Jordan (May)
  35. Flash for Freedom! by George Fraser (May)
  36. Murder in Amsterdam by Ian Buruma (May)
  37. Petra: lost city by Christian Auge (May)
  38. From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas Friedman (May)
  39. Jordan by E. Borgia (May)
  40. Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill (May)
  41. Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese (May)
  42. Flash at the Charge by George MacDonald Fraser (May)
  43. Castles in the Air by Judt Corbett (Jun)
  44. Battle Cry of Freedom by James McPherson (Jun)
  45. Thirty-three Teeth by Colin Cotterill (Jun)
  46. Millstone by Margaret Drabble (Jun)
  47. Winter’s Heart by Robert Jordan (Jun)
  48. Crossroads of Twilight by Robert Jordan (Jul)
  49. Disco for the Departed by Colin Cotterill (Jul)
  50. Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme (Jul)
  51. New Physics and Cosmology by Arthur Zajonc (Jul)
  52. Grifters by Jim Thompson (Jul)
  53. Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle (Jul)
  54. Snow Angels by James Thompson (Jul)Ararchy and Old Dogs by Colin Cotterill (Aug)
  55. Flashman’s Lady by George MacDonald Fraser (Aug)
  56. Possession by AS Byatt (Aug)
  57. In the Footsteps of Ghanghis Khan by John DeFrancis ((Aug)
  58. What Just Happened by James Gleick (aug)
  59. Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett (Aug)
  60. Curse of the Pogo Stick by Colin Cotterill (Sep)
  61. Flashman and the Redskins by George MacDonald Fraser (Sep)
  62. Queens’ Play by Dorothy Dunnett (Sep)
  63. Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (Sep)
  64. Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (Sep)
  65. Beautiful Struggle by Ta-Nehisi Coates (Sep)
  66. Then She Found Me by Elinor Lipman (Oct)
  67. Merry Misogynist by Colin Cotterill (Oct)
  68. Disorderly Knights by Dorothy Dunnett (Oct)
  69. Flashman and the Dragon by George MacDonald Fraser (Oct)
  70. Dark Hills Divide by Patrick Carman (Nov)
  71. Love Songs from a Shallow Grave by Collin Cotterill (Nov)
  72. Flashman and the Mountain of Light by George MacDonald Fraser (Nov)
  73. Pawn in Frankincense by Dorothy Dunnett (Nov)
  74. Andorra by Peter Cameron (Nov)

I’ll be reading some of these short stories in June. I’ll see how far I get:

Ann Packer:

  • “Babies”
  • “Mendocino”

Clifford Simak:

  • “Shadow Show”
  • “Answers, the”

Daniel Stolar:

  • “Marriage Lessons”
  • “Jack Landers is My Friend”

David Bezmozgis:

  • “Natasha”
  • “Tapka”

David Foster Wallace:

  • “the suffering channel”
  • “Mr. Squishy”

J.D. Salinger:

  • “For Esme”
  • “Perfect Day for Bananafish, a”

Joseph Epstein:

  • “Artie Glick in a Family Way”
  • “The Executor”

Laura Furman:

  • “Drinking with the Cook”
  • “Hagalund”

Laurie Colwin:

  • “Lone Pilgrim”
  • “The Achieve of”

Lorrie Moore:

  • “Four Calling Birds…”
  • “People like that…”

 

This Will Be the End

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This is the end of another year of the challenge. Here is everything, including what I didn’t quite finish.

FINISHED (Dec 2013 – Nov 2014):

  1. Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell*
  2. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  4. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  5. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
  6. Andorra by Peter Cameron
  7. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  8. Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen
  9. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler
  10. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  11. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  12. Baltimore Blues by Laura Lippman*
  13. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
  14. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  15. Biodegradable Soap by Amy Ephron
  16. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  17. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  18. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
  19. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall
  20. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  21. Butcher’s Hill by Laura Lippman
  22. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  23. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (DNF)
  24. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  25. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
  26. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
  27. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors compiled by Dith Pran
  28. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  29. Clean Eating 28-Day Plan by Rockridge Press (ER)
  30. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire*
  31. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney
  32. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (DNF)
  33. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  34. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  35. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
  36. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  37. Dervish is Digital by Pat Cadigan
  38. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  39. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  40. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
  41. Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
  42. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
  43. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  44. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  45. Fifty Year Silence by Miranda Mouillot (ER)
  46. First Man by Albert Camus
  47. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  48. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
  49. French Revolutions by Tim Moore*
  50. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  51. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
  52. Graduates in Wonderland by Jessica Pan & Rachel Kapelke-Dale (ER)
  53. Grass Dancer by Susan Power* (DNF)
  54. Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (DNF)
  55. Half Magic by Edward Eager*
  56. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  57. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
  58. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  59. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – (DNF)
  60. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  61. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  62. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  63. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  64. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  65. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  66. Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  67. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  68. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  69. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
  70. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  71. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks (JFF)
  72. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  73. Neighborhood Heroes by Morgan Rielly (ER)
  74. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  75. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  76. Oedipus by Sophocles
  77. Older, Faster, Stronger by Margaret Webb (JFF)
  78. Owl Service by Alan Garner*
  79. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  80. Partisan by Benjamin Cheever
  81. Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  82. Prepared for a Purpose by Antoinette Tuff (ER)
  83. Price of Silence by Liza Long (ER)
  84. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  85. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  86. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway
  87. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
  88. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  89. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  90. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet (JFF)
  91. Running for Mortals by John Bingham (JFF)
  92. Running for Women by Kara Goucher (JFF)
  93. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  94. Slumdog Millionaire by Vikram Swarup*
  95. Soul of All Living Creatures by Vint Virga (ER)
  96. Strength Training for Fat Loss by Nick Tumminello (ER)
  97. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  98. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (E-book)
  99. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  100. Toronto by Charles Way (JFF)
  101. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland (ER)
  102. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  103. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook (JFF)
  104. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  105. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

(* denotes an audio recording; JFF = Just for Fun; DNF = Did Not Finish; ER = Early Review for LibraryThing)

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
  • “Down There” by David Goodis
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
  • “Lukudi” by Adrianne Harun
  • “The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus” also by Adrianne Harun
  • “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

Any Four Women…

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Cornelisen, Ann. Any Four Women Could Rob the Bank of Italy. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1983.

Everyone knows men can rob the banks of anywhere. It’s a no-brainer that men have the smarts and brawn to pull it off. But, what about four women? What about the Bank of Italy? This is the story of what happens when four, plus two, bored, ex-patriot women get thinking about a sexist comment. Really, there are six women involved: Hermione, Martha, Eleanor Kendall, Lacey, Caroline Maffei, and Kate Pound. Of course, they succeed in robbing the Bank of Italy, but now there is another problem. What good is successfully robbing a bank when the crime is blamed on men? How do they get credit for it as women without giving themselves away?

Quotes I liked, “Neither was fit company for a normal person” (p 32)”In her irritation she muttered to Lacey that any four women could rob the Bank of Italy, take everything in the vaults, and the police would still go around looking for four men” (p 34), and “Certain processes in life were irreversible, including robbery” (p 109).

Pet peeve – lots of random typos.

Reason read: Cornelisen’s birth month is in November.

Author fact: Cornelisen was born in Cleveland, Ohio.

Book trivia: Cornelisen also wrote Torregreca: Life, Death and Miracles in a Southern Italian Village, which is also on my list.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ciao, Italia!” (p 47).

Andorra

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Cameron, Peter. Andorra. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997.

Andorra is like a fine wine. You can get through a whole bunch of it without realizing how much you have consumed. From the very beginning readers don’t know a lot about the narrator of Andorra. Little by little, page by page, we learn he is Alexander Fox, an American from San Fransisco, trying to escape a past tragedy. In his former life he was married, a father, and owner a bookstore. He has come to Andorra to figuratively and literally start over. He has arrived, thanks in part, to a novel by Rose Macaulay which takes place in Andorra but isn’t like the Andorra he has arrive in at all. By chapter four we finally learn his name and discover he is distrustful of Mrs. Dent (although Mr. Fox doesn’t know why). Soon after meeting Sophonsobia Doyle Quay and her daughter Jean, Mr. Fox’s life begins to change. Slowly, as if a snail from a shell, Mr. Fox reveals he has trouble with relationships, especially women. The Dents have a secret, but he has a larger one.

As an aside, Peter Cameron must have an interest in architecture. Words like porte cochere, loggia, pichet and dhurries are thrown around casually. Later in the story it is revealed that Alex was an architect. Ah ha!

Quotes I liked, “Because we never know if we will get where we are going, it is always a relief to arrive there” (p 7), “It was the joy that comes from feeling you are where you should be” (p 47),

Reason read: November is Imagination Month. I called it “Finding Neverland Month” – whatever that means.

Author fact: Cameron also wrote City of Your Final Destination, which is also on my list to read.

Book trivia: Andorra is short, only 219 pages long, but it packs a punch. I could see this turning into a movie.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Travel to Imaginary Places” (p 236).

All the King’s Men

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Warren, Robert Penn. All the King’s Men. Orlando: Harvest Book, 1946.

I have to admit, parts of All the King’s Men were difficult to read. Flashbacks within flashbacks sometimes had me a little lost. There was a lot of jumping between 1922, 1936 and 1939, all seemingly on a whim. Willie Stark is backwoods man trying to move past increasing corruption on his way up the political ladder. His story, loosely based on Louisiana governor, Huey Long, is told from the point of view of his aide, Jack Burden. Being a former journalist, Jack knows his way around incriminating information and he knows how to use it. Most of the story is about Jack struggling with the different relationships in his life. Morality plays a huge part in his development as a character. One of the biggest take-aways of the book is Warren’s descriptive language. I have never been to the deep south but I felt as if I had experienced Louisiana first hand.

Quotes I caught, “How life is strange and changeful, and the crystal is in the steel at the point of fracture, and the toad bears a jewel in its forehead, and the meaning of moments passes like the breeze that scarcely ruffles the leaf of the willow (p 27). What? Here’s another, “If the human race didn’t remember anything it would be perfectly happy” (p 60).

Reason read: everyone knows the U.S. holds its elections in November. Read in honor of Tuesday, November 4th as Election Day.

Author fact: Warren won three Pulitzer Prizes, the National Book Award, a National Medal for Literature and the Presidential Medal for Freedom. If that wasn’t enough, he was also the nation’s first poet laureate.

Book trivia: All the King’s Men was made into a movie starring Sean Penn, Jude Law, Kate Winslet, Anthony Hopkins, among others. More importantly, AtKM is on the American Library Association’s list of top banned and/or challenged books of the 20th century.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Politics of Fiction” (p 189) and again in Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Texas Two-Step (After a Bob Wills Song)” (p 225).

Slumdog Millionaire

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Swarup, Vikras. Slumdog Millionaire. Read by Christopher Simpson. Kingston, RI: BBC Audiobooks America, 2009.

Right away I knew I was going to like everything about Q&A (aka Slumdog Millionaire). I like the actor (Christopher Simpson) who reads the story. His accents are great. But, more importantly, I love the way Swarup captures 18 year old Ram Mohammed Thomas’s voice. There is something about the way you are drawn into his story immediately. Ram is a poor, uneducated orphan from the slums of Mumbai. How he ends up on a television game show is anyone’s guess, but just how he wins the billion rupee prize is unfathomable. How can someone like him, someone who never reads, nor has ever been to school, answer all twelve difficult questions correctly? The story begins with that question. Unable to pay Thomas his winnings the show’s producers search to uncover cheating, a scam, anything to get out of coming up with a billion rupees. The rest of the novel is unraveling the mystery. Each chapter is an answer to how Ram could use his life experiences to his advantage, answer the questions correctly and ultimately, win the show.

As an aside, I wish that I had read more reviews that didn’t make comparisons or even mention the movie version. In my opinion, the book is always going to be different from the movie. And really, how can you objectively read the book after seeing the movie? And another thing – if I were Swarup, I would be pissed if I went to sites like Good Reads and found six entries, all for the movie version, before my own written work. The site is called Good READS. If Swarup hadn’t written the book there wouldn’t have been a movie, a screenplay or a soundtrack! The mistake is retitling the book.

Reason read: the movie was released in November. How’s that for ironic?

Author fact: Slumdog Millionaire Q&A was Swarup’s first novel.

Book trivia: Slumdog Millionaire was made into a movie starring Dev Patel, but more importantly, it was originally published as Q & A.

Reason read: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Sojourns in South Asia: India” (p 214). I really wish Pearl had indexed the original title.

Grass Dancer

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Power, Susan. The Grass Dancer. Bookcassette Audio, 1998.

I have admitted as much, I am not a fan of magical realism. But, I think I found a way to combat my dislike – audio books. Listening to Grass Dancer is certainly easier than reading it!
As an aside, I have become spoiled by compact discs when it comes to audio books. I’m listening to The Grass Dancer on cassette and the hum and clicks in the audio is so distracting! Luckily, I am using this book as entertainment while I walk on the treadmill so it’s not too terrible. Ahem. Correction: I WAS using this book as entertainment. Last night my stereo ate the tape! Damaged it beyond repair. UGH! Embarrassing that I had to pay the owning library a $5 replacement fee.

Anyway, onto the review, such as it is. Since I only got halfway through the story this will be brief. Grass Dancer doesn’t have a plot. It doesn’t have a main character. It doesn’t have a linear timeline. At best, I would call it a mishmash of stories with interconnected characters, most from the same family. Grass Dancer as a whole is a shape shifter. With multiple points of view bouncing from first person to third and timelines that are all over the place (1981, 1964, 1935, and 1969 are important dates), it is hard to stay focused on the main purpose of the story. What I found most disheartening is that I would grow attached to a character (like Pumpkin) and then the story would move away from him or her. Most characters came back, but in impersonal ways. Wait until you read what happens to Pumpkin! This is not to say I didn’t enjoy Power’s writing. She inserted some surprises along the way that I wasn’t expecting and she stayed true to the cultures, legends and myths of the Sioux Indians which I appreciated.

Reason read: North Dakota become part of the union in November.

Author fact: This is Power’s first novel.

Book trivia: Susan Power actually reads the unabridged audio. I think this is the first time I’ve listened to an audio book actually read by the author. I think.

BookLust Twist: This was indexed in Book Lust twice. Once, in “American Indian Literature” (p 23) and again, in “Growing Writers” (p 107). It is also in More Book Lust in the chapter called “The Great Plains: the Dakotas” (p 106).

Butchers Hill

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Lippman, Laura. Butchers Hill. New York: Avon, 1998.

Tess Monaghan is back. This time she has her own “business” as a private investigator. It’s a bit hokey, but the business actually belongs to someone else and she does the “detecting” for a cut. Since it is a brand new venture for her, she is thrilled when she gets two cases on the same day – cases she considers “slam dunks”, especially since she has other people helping her with the leg work. Client #1 is Luther Beale of Butcher Hill. Six years earlier he went to prison for killing a kid vandalizing cars in his neighborhood. Now, newly released from prison Beale wants to make amends with the children who witnessed the death of their friend, even though he has always claimed self defense. Beale needs Tess to not only find these kids, but identify them first since they were anonymous minors at the time. Her second client is a woman with several different aliases. Although shrouded in mystery, Tess can tell she is a well-to-do black woman. This woman claims she looking for the daughter she put up for adoption thirteen years before. Of course, both cases turn out to be more complicated than they first appeared. The end of the story delivers a curve ball that somehow doesn’t smack of shock that it should. Instead, the surprise misses the mark and fails to make an impact.

Letdown: I was surprised Tess didn’t know what a “mule” was. Reason read: to continue the series started with Baltimore Blues…but not really. See BookLust Twist below for what I mean. I could also say that I am reading Butchers Hill because November is National Adoption Month.

Author fact: Lippman won the Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original for Butchers Hill.

Book trivia: Butcher’s Hill is third in the Tess Monaghan series. I skipped book #2, Charm City.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Ms. Mystery” (p 171). Funny thing is, Pearl doesn’t mention specific titles except #3 and #8. The first book in the series, Baltimore Blues is mentioned in Book Lust To Go in the chapter “Baltimore.”

As an aside, what would have been really cool is instead of listing the same book in several different chapters (like To Kill a Mockingbird) list out all the books within a series. Less repetition, more information.

Another note: I had been calling this book Butcher’s Hill as opposed to Butchers Hill. Big difference.

 

Great Hunt

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Jordan, Robert. The Great Hunt. New York: Tom Doherty Associates, 1990.

Full disclosure – I don’t know why I am reading any more books from this series. I have a problem with repetition and in the preface Jordan writes the phrase, “the man who called himself Bors” no less than 23 times. I get it. He wants you to know the guy’s name isn’t really Bors. As a result of the preface, I expected nothing less in the rest of the book. There is a lot of repetition between the first and second book to “catch you up” if you didn’t read the first one. However, truth be told, very little changes in the next installment of the Wheel of Time series. Everything is still over-the-top dramatic (“eyes more dead than death” p xiv). Rand al’Thor is still the reluctant hero. Trollocs are still terrible. Egwene is still conflicted and childlike. They still have this weird romance thing lingering. Probably the more interesting thing about them at this point is that they go on different journeys. Still, it wasn’t enough to keep me glued to the page.
And another thing! Can I just say how annoyed I am by the sheer number of groups, nations, societies and the like? Good grief! You have aielmen, arad doman, caemyl, cairhien, children of the light, darkfriends, dai shan, dreadlords, far dareis mai, eyeless, forsaken, fades, gaiden, goaban, hardan, hundred companions, lurks, manetheren, marath’damane, mydraal, halfmen, questioners, shadowmen, sea folk, taraboners, tinkers, tree killers, trollocs, tuatha’an, warders, watchers over the waves, white cloaks, women’s circle, and wisdom. Let’s not forget about the aes sedai who can be red, brown or blue, or the ajah who can be blue, red, white, green, brown, yellow or gray (where’s the purple, orange or pink?).

Can I admit that I think the Wheel of Time “logo” looks a lot like a Mickey Mouse head?

Reason read: to continue the series started with Eye of the World in October.

Book trivia: The Great Hunt is 757 pages long.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter “Science Fiction, Fantasy, and Horror” (p 214).

Picture of Dorian Gray

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Wilde, Oscar. The Picture of Dorian Gray. New York: Viking, 2000.

Nancy Pearl included this in her chapter “Horror for Sissies” in More Book Lust. But, when I really think about it, it’s more horrible than any slasher film out there. Dorian Gray is a beautiful young man in Victorian England. His beauty and youth have taken him places and afforded him many luxuries. During a sitting with a painter he rashly wishes he could remain young and beautiful all his life. This wish is granted but subsequently his personality sours and his morality rots away. With each passing cruel remark and act, the portrait grows older and uglier while Dorian’s human exterior remains handsome and pure. Soon, Dorian cannot separate himself from the image that he sees on the canvas. The more hideous the portrait, the more violent his actions against humanity. It’s a downward spiral with tragic results.
Wilde has a lot to say about Victorian society norms, but his tongue-in-cheek humor and wit thread through the evil demise of Dorian Gray with delightful frequency.

Strung-together words I liked, “Music was not articulate” (p 30) and “Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity” (p 49). Funny! Here are two more lines I liked, “He was late on principle, his principle being that punctuality is the thief of time” (p 60), and “There was an exquisite poison in the air” (p 63).

Reason read: Halloween. Duh. Also, Basil (the artist who paints Dorian) wants to include Dorian’s portrait in a show scheduled for October. By this time Dorian’s canvas image has begun to deteriorate so Dorian is loathe to show it to anyone.

Author fact: Oscar Wilde had such a tragic end to his story.

Book trivia: If you can, find The Whole Story version of The Picture of Dorian Gray because it is really unique. First of all, it’s the complete, unabridged text as it was originally published so you aren’t missing out on Wilde’s artistic endeavor but the annotated extras make the story really come alive.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Horror for Sissies” (p 119).

November the End List

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This is the final month for the Challenge year. I don’t have much to say beyond that. Here are the books:

  1. In a Strange City Butcher’s Hill by Laura Lippman (to continue the series started in September) Note: Butcher’s Hill was supposed to be read in October but it took over a month for it to arrive.
  2. ADDED: All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren
  3. Andorra by Peter Cameron
  4. Any Four Women Can Rob the Bank of Italy by Ann Cornelisen
  5. Beaufort by Ron Leshem
  6. Cradle of Gold by Christopher Heaney
  7. Grass Dancer by Susan Power*
  8. ADDED: Great Hunt by Robert Jordan (to continue the series started in October, because I forgot to mention the rest of the series)
  9. You Get What You Pay For by Larry Beinhart- MAYBE

*Planned as audio books

FINISHED (Dec 2013 – Oct 2014):

  1. Absolute Zero by Helen Cresswell*
  2. After the Dance by Edwidge Danticat
  3. Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow*
  4. Alice I Have Been by Melanie Benjamin*
  5. Angels Weep by Wilbur Smith
  6. Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz by Mordecai Richler.
  7. Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
  8. Art Student’s War by Brad Leithauser
  9. Baltimore Blues* by Laura Lippman
  10. Beirut Blues by Hanan al-Shaykh
  11. Benjamin Franklin: an American Life by Walter Isaacson
  12. ADDED: Biodegradable Soap by Amy Ephron
  13. Bring Me a Unicorn by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  14. Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks*
  15. Black Lamb and Gray Falcon by Rebecca West (DNF)
  16. Bluebird Canyon by Dan McCall
  17. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Brown
  18. Cabin Fever by Elizabeth Jolley
  19. Captain Sir Richard Burton by Edward Rice (DNF)
  20. Careless Love by Peter Gurlnink
  21. Caroline’s Daughters by Alice Adams
  22. Charlotte Gray by Sebastian Faulks
  23. Children of Cambodia’s Killing Fields: Memoirs of Survivors compiled by Dith Pran
  24. Civil Action by Jonathan Harr
  25. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire*
  26. Culture of Disbelief by Stephen Carter (DNF)
  27. Dancer and the Thief by Antonio Skarmeta
  28. Dancer with Bruised Knees by Lynne McFall
  29. Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes (DNF)
  30. Day the Falls Stood Still by Cathy Marie Buchanan*
  31. Dervish is Digital by Pat Cadigan
  32. Earthly Possessions by Anne Tyler
  33. Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
  34. Eye of the World by Robert Jordan
  35. ADDED: Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
  36. Faith Fox by Jane Gardam
  37. Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith*
  38. Feast of Love by Charles Baxter
  39. First Man by Albert Camus
  40. Flower and the Nettle by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  41. Fordlandia by Greg Gandin
  42. French Revolutions* by Tim Moore.
  43. Georges’ Wife by Elizabeth Jolley
  44. Gesture Life by Chang-rae Lee
  45. Half Magic* by Edward Eager
  46. Herzog by Saul Bellow
  47. History Man by Malcolm Bradbury
  48. Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  49. House of Morgan by Ron Chernow – attempted
  50. Illumination Night by Alice Hoffman
  51. In the Graveyard of Empires by Scott Jones*
  52. Inside Passage by Michael Modzelewski
  53. Inspector Ghote Breaks an Egg by H.R.F. Keating
  54. It Looked Like Forever by Mark Harris
  55. Last Train to Memphis by Peter Guralink
  56. Last Tycoon by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  57. Leopard Hunts in the Darkness by Wilbur Smith
  58. Life in the Air Ocean by Sylvia Foley
  59. Long Way From Home by Frederick Busch
  60. Lotus Eaters by Tatjani Soli
  61. Lulu in Hollywood by Louise Brooks
  62. Men of Men by Wilbur Smith
  63. Neighborhood Heroes by Morgan Rielly
  64. Now Read This II by Nancy Pearl
  65. Ocean of Words by Ha Jin
  66. Oedipus by Sophocles
  67. Owl Service by Alan Garner*
  68. Palladian Days by Sally Gable*
  69. Partisan by Benjamin Cheever
  70. ADDED: Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
  71. Price of Silence by Liza Long
  72. Professor and the Housekeeper by Yoko Ogawa
  73. Racing Weight by Matt Fitzgerald
  74. Raw Silk by Janet Burroway
  75. Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro*
  76. Rose Cafe by John Hanson Mitchell
  77. Rose of Martinique by Andrea Stuart
  78. Run or Die by Kilian Jornet
  79. Running for Mortals by John Bingham
  80. Seeing in the Dark by Timothy Ferris
  81. Soul of All Living Creatures by Vint Virga
  82. Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff
  83. Thousand Ways to Please a Husband by Weaver/LeCron (E-book)
  84. Thrush Green by Miss Read*
  85. Toronto by Charles Way
  86. Transcriptionist by Amy Rowland
  87. War Within and Without by Anne Morrow Lindbergh
  88. Wildwater Walking Club by Claire Cook.
  89. Winners and Losers by Martin Quigley
  90. Zero Days by Barbara Egbert

Poetry:

  • “Aftermath” ~ a poem by Siegfried Sassoon
  • “Romance” ~ a poem by W.J. Turner
  • “Kubla Khan” ~ a poem by Samuel T. Coleridge

Short Stories:

  • “The Huckabuck Family” by Carl Sandburg
  • “How to Revitalize the Snake in Your Life” by Hannah Tinti
  • “Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
  • “Thirty Year Old Women Do Not Always Come Home” by Mark Winegardner
  • “Birdland” by Michael Knight
  • “Killer Inside Me” by Jim Thompson
  • “Down There” by David Goodis
  • “Crossing the Craton” by John McPhee.
  • “Lukudi” by Adrianne Harun
  • “The Eighth Sleeper of Ephesus” also by Adrianne Harun
  • “Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius” by Jorge Luis Borges

For next year:

  • Hall of a Thousand Columns by Tim Mackintosh-Smith.

Biodegradable Soap

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Ephron, Amy. Biodegradable Soap. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1991.

This is such a short, snarky little story about a community in suburban Los Angeles. Claudia Weiss is becoming more and more obsessed with recycling and the environment while her husband leaves her for a younger, more self-centered actress. Claudia’s friends gossip and have affairs of their own. One friend starts up an affair with her personal trainer and gets caught. Interspersed in the story are different current events: the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, the war in Iraq, the Exxon-Valdez spill… It’s truly an odd book.

Quote worth quoting, “That was what he liked about Lara – she was completely self-obsessed and he didn’t think she’d ever had an altruistic thought in her life” (p 45).

Reason read: Ehpron’s birth month is in October.

Author fact: Ephron has her own website here.

Book trivia: This is a quick, quick, quick read. 159 pages…but not really. Each “chapter” is short and choppy; only 1-2 pages long. If you were to squish the pages it’s only — pages long.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 6).

Half Magic

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Eager, Edward. Half Magic. Performed by The Worlds Take Wing Repertory Company. New York: Listening Library, 1999.

I read a whole bunch of reviews of Half Magic that began with the sentence, “I loved this book as a child…” and it got me thinking, do the reviewers love it now, as adults? And, if they do, do they love it for purely nostalgic reasons? I know there are songs I could never like or listen to if they weren’t intrinsically entangled with my memories of past great times (like the song “Rain Maker”).

Anyway – Half Magic is about four siblings, three sisters and a brother, who stumble upon a magic talisman. This talisman, much like a nickel in size and shape, grants wishes…sort of. Every wish is exactly halved. “Desert isle” becomes just “desert” which is how the children end up in the Sahara rather than on a deserted island like they had originally wished. A talking cat becomes a mumbling cat, a barely understood cat. The more the children learn about the talisman’s capabilities, the more trouble they get into even though they vow their wishes are to be used for good intentions. If you want to listen to the audio version it would be in your best interest to get the “Worlds Take Wing Repertory Company” version. Instead of having one actor read the story, an entire cast of characters each take a part. The children are adorable.

Phrase I like, “terrible good intentions.”

Reason read: Eager died in October and it’s Halloween time – another reason to read about magic.

Author fact: Eager died young – in his 50s.

Book trivia: Half Magic was originally written in 1954 and remains Eager’s most popular book.

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “Fantasy for Young and Old” (p 83).

Eyre Affair

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Fforde, Jasper. The Eyre Affair. New York: Penguin Books, 2003.

Reason read: Reason #1 – I was home-home and had finished the two books I brought with me. I was thinking Robert Jordan’s 800+ page behemoth would take much longer, but obviously I forgot I would be in the backseat for 5.5 hours, then on a boat for another hour, and then stuck in a very relaxing vacation on a very relaxing island with lots of time to read…
Reason #2 – October is Crime Prevention Month and since Thursday is a cop, more or less, I thought this would be appropriate. More or less.

So. Picture this: the year is 1985. The Crimean War is still raging and Great Britain is in a reverse time warp. Instead of being behind the times they are way ahead of them. England is a futuristic place where time travel is an everyday occurrence, the most common thing to clone is the resurrected Dodo bird (everyone has them as pets), and visitations to the pages of literature is child’s play. Thursday Next is a Special Operative in literary detection where not much is supposed to happen (it’s supposed to be a desk job after all). Most crimes in involve Byronic forgeries and protests over Shakespeare’s authenticity. That is until a minor character from a Dickens novel is found murdered outside the novel, changing the plot forever. That’s just for starters. When Jane Eyre herself is plucked from Bronte’s original manuscript and the kidnapper threatens to alter Great Britain’s most beloved story, Thursday rises to the challenge to rescue Jane. It’s no small task for the kidnapper is a former professor who once tried to seduce Thursday and seems to have godlike powers. To make matters worse, Thursday’s mind is not 100% on the case as she is distracted by a heartbreaking secret in the form of an ex-lover she can neither escape nor forget.
Fforde writes with cunning intention. Every chapter is riddled with wordplay, puns, literary allusions and trivia. With a names like Thursday Next, Hades Acheron, and Jack Schitt, you can just imagine the possibilities. Even the twins Jeff and Geoff got a giggle out of me. Because I am not up on pop culture I am sure some references went over my head.
One of my favorite scenes is when Thursday and the before mentioned ex-lover attend a performance of Shakespeare’s Richard III. Only this adaptation is more like The Rocky Horror Picture Show than serious theater in the round. The audience participation is hilarious. Another great moment is when Thursday’s uncle is showing Thursday his latest inventions. The bookworms are the best.
My only gripe is when Thursday is first asked to join the hunt to stop her former professor from destroying an original manuscript. Rule #1 is to never think or say the professor’s real name. If you do he can detect your whereabouts, your whole game plan right down to your very next move. After the first attempt to capture him goes horrible awry Rule #1 is abandoned and no one abides by it anymore. It doesn’t seem to matter anymore. Odd.

Favorite line, “The worms were busy reading a copy of Mansfield Park and were discussing where Sir Thomas got his name from” (p 152).

Author fact: Fforde has one of the most entertaining websites I have seen in a long time. Visit it here.

Book trivia: This is Fforde’s first novel.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapters called “Action Heroines” (p 6), “Companion Reads” (p 64), and “First Novels” (p 88). Also, from More Book Lust only in the chapter called “Brontes Forever” (p 35). As an aside, Pearl suggested reading The Eyre Affair with Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (for obvious reasons), but I already read Jane Eyre and The Eyre Affair for different reasons so it was pointless to read them again with Wide Sargasso Sea.

I have to say, one of the drawbacks to reading anything in Book Lust is that it is going to be old news. I always feel late to the party when I see a best seller with over 500 reviews on LibraryThing. It makes me wonder what I could possibly say that hasn’t already been said.

Partisan

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Cheever, Benjamin. The Partisan. New York: Atheneum, 1993.

Right away Cheever wants you to laugh out loud. How could you not with an opening like this? “That was the summer I worked for the Westchester Commons. I was in love with Amy Snodgrass Rose. Amy was in love with David Hitchens. David was in love with Gloria Thomas. I was in Westchester. Amy was in Washington State. David was in Montreal. Gloria had gone to Paris. The sex was very safe” (p 1). I know I was thinking, “oh the poor schmuck” until I got to last sentence. At least the guy has a sense of humor. It’s even funnier when you find out the person speaking, the main protagonist Nelson, is a virgin.
So the gist of the story is this: Nelson narrates the story about his life with “Uncle”, “Aunt” and sister Narcissus in Westchester, New York. Nelson is 20 years old, and as I mentioned, in love obsessed with Amy. “Uncle” really isn’t Nelson and Nar’s uncle. Jonas Collingwood and his wife Elspeth, took over raising Nelson and Nar after their adoptive father died. Jonas is a revered author on the verge stardom when a newspaper article hints his last book was a thinly veiled autobiography of his time in wartime Italy. He receives a huge advance to write a real memoir but what ensues is a comedy of errors and tragedies. Cheever has a dark side to him and while most of the story is relatively funny (Nelson is someone I would love to hang out with), there are moments is subtle uncomfortableness. My favorite scenes involve the car.

I should add that it took me only three days to read this book. It would have taken only two had I been a little more serious about reading. Cheever packs a strong story in a tight little package.

Likes I liked (other than the beginning), “I want the kind of love you don’t have to hear” (p 3), (Don’t we all?) and “Really, there ought to be a law about facial expressions” (p 223).

Reason read: Ben Cheever’s birth month is in October.

Author fact: Benjamin Cheever is the same age as my mom, older by mere days.

Book trivia: I feel bad for The Partisan. Every decent review of it mentions Cheever’s first novel The Plagiarist. It’s another one of those situations where you think, “crap! I’m reading the wrong book!”

BookLust Twist: from More Book Lust in the chapter called “All in the Family: Writer Dynasties” (p 5).