Tag: book lust i

Thirty Nine Steps

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Buchan, John. The Thirty-Nine Steps. New York: Buccaneer Books, 1996.

Reason read: in honor of my birthday I wanted to read something fast and fun.

It’s May 1914 in London, England. Scottish expatriate Richard Hannay has a troublesome visitor. That’s the first thing I would say about The Thirty Nine Steps. An American stranger has come to him with a wild tale of espionage and knowledge of a planned assassination. Because he was in the know, according to this stranger, Mr. Scudder, he had to fake his own death. He has come to Hannay to hide himself and his little coded book of secrets. However, imagine Hannay’s surprise when that same man is found with a knife so thoroughly through the heart it skewered him to the floor! Needless to say, Hannay is now on the run…with the cipher of secrets. With Mr. Scudder dead on his floor, surely he will be the number one suspect. The rest of the short book is Hannay’s attempts to hide out in Scotland, a place he hasn’t seen since he was six years old, thirty one years ago. The key to the whole mystery is a reference to “39 steps” in Scudder’s little book.

Head scratching quotes, “He had about as much gift of gab as a hippopotamus and was not a great hand at valeting, but I knew I could count on his loyalty” (p 22)

Author fact: Buchan was a member of Parliament and Governor-General of Canada.

Book trivia: This is another super short book, only 126 pages long. Originally published in 1915 and made into a movie several times.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1910s” (p 174). But wait! There’s more! From Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Oxford – nonfiction” (p 171). It should be noted that Thirty-Nine Steps does not take place in Oxford, nor is it nonfiction.

As She Climbed Across the Table

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Lethem, Jonathan. As She Climbed Across the Table. Read by David Aaron Baker. Maryland: Books on Tape, 2007.

Reason read: February is Lethem’s birth month.

I love Jonathan Lethem’s voice. The style he writes in is so casual, so sly you feel like you need to reread the words to make sure you haven’t missed something important or at least clever. As She Climbed Across the Table is told from the perspective of Anthropology professor Philip. The story he tells you is at once heartbreaking and humorous. His girlfriend and colleague, particle physicist Alice Coombs has fallen in love with a void, a tiny black hole. The only problem with this? The void, named Lack for obvious reasons, has refused Alice’s attempts to lose herself in his depths. This “lack” of affection on Lack’s part only makes Alice desire him more. Why? Because it seems as if he (because it has to be a he for Alice to love) has a personality capable of rejection. He will devour car keys and other items of significance, but not Alice.

As an aside: When Alice repeatedly admits she loves Lack the way she used to love Philip, (but doesn’t anymore), I wanted Philip to be more rebellious. Here is he, allowing crazy, non-speaking, dopey Alice to live in the same apartment all the while refusing the advances of a beautiful and smart therapist who is practically throwing herself at him. Am I too cold blooded to think Philip should have developed more of a “screw you” spine?

Author Fact: This is not a fact per se…but, I ran into a photo of Jonathan Lethem and in it he looked sorta, kinda, somewhat like Mike Gordon from the band Phish. Not exactly like him, mind you. But, close enough to be his kid brother or something.

Audio trivia: David Aaron Baker does a great job with voice accents. The part when Philip is drunk is hilarious.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter “Jonathan Lethem: Too Good To Miss” (p 146).

If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now

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Loh, Sandra Tsing. If You Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now. New York: riverhead books, 1997.

Reason read: Loh’s birth month is in February.

Confessional: I finished this in a day. Not because it was my favorite book but because I was home sick.

This is the story of Bronwyn Peters and her boyfriend, Paul, trying to make it in the glamorous city of Los Angeles. Be prepared. This is a very dated (1990s) story and there will be times when you want to maybe slap the sh!t out of Sandra Loh. I grew weary of the plenitude of brand-name dropping that went on (Guess?, Porche, Sanyo, Motorola, Kohler, BMW, Berber, Dolce & Gabbana, Wamsutta, Crate and Barrel…to name a few), as well as hot-now celebrity names like David Lynch, Frank Zappa, Malcolm Forbes, and Madonna…
Confessional: there were definitely times I wanted to slap Bronwyn Peters. Despite listening to NPR and identifying with a Bohemian lifestyle, Bronwyn hungers for the lifestyle of $200 haircuts and Corian counters. She even convinces her struggling writer boyfriend to buy a condo in downtown Los Angeles after they come into a modest amount of money (clearly not enough for L.A. standards). They settle on a place they obviously cannot afford for long. Bronwyn knows full well they are out of their league and yet continues to plays the game to the hilt. Bronwyn’s one redeeming quality is her steadfast love for Paul. She stands by him through temptation and failure. In the end, If you Lived Here… is Loh’s platform for bringing to the forefront L.A.’s socio-economic class structure. She uses the riots as a backdrop to her commentary on attitudes, prejudices and the simple act of just wanting more.

Lines I liked: “Feeling like Bruce Willis is some sort of Dead Something action picture, Bronwyn gripped her flashlight” (p176), and “and because there was nothing else to do, she rolled over and stole her arms around her fellow, such as he was, because his was the body that was still there” (p 221).

Author fact: If you Lived Here You’d Be Home By Now is Loh’s first novel.

Book trivia: short, short, short!

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “California, Here We Come” (p 49).

Flashman and the Tiger

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman and the Tiger.

Reason read: to FINISH the series started in April in honor of Fraser’s birth month finally, right?). While the series might be ending for me there is one more book I will read in honor of GMF but it wasn’t written by him: Tom Brown’s School Days by Thomas Hughes. Fraser took the bully character from School Days and created the Flashman series. Clever.

The premise for Flashman and the Tiger is simple…sort of: This set of papers is actually made up of three different time frames with three different titles: “Road to Charing Cross” (1878 – 1883-1884), “Subtleties of Baccarat” (1890-1891) and “Flashman and the Tiger (1879 & 1894). This is the first time in the Flashman papers that there has been a change in pattern. Each of these sections is only a minor episode in Flashman’s career. In “Road to Charing Cross” Flashman has found himself, once again, in an adventure he didn’t count on. He goes to France for President “Sam” Grant, who can’t speak french. The plot thickens when he agrees to help a Times reporter by the name of Blowitz. Blowitz wants to be the first to scoop the story of the amendment of the San Stefano Treaty. For the history bluffs: Flashman is one of the first to ride the famed Orient Express, only he isn’t impressed. He prefers the steamship.
In “Subtleties of Baccarat” the Prince of Wales is accused of cheating at baccarat, a French card game. Flashy is caught in the middle when a group of five men ask that he confront the cheater for an explanation.
In “Flashman and the Tiger” confronts Tiger Jack, someone he met earlier (1879). At this point the year is 1894 and Flashy is now 72 years old. Tiger Jack is not out to get our man Harry directly. Instead, he is looking to ruin Flashman through the ruination of Flashman’s teenage granddaughter. For the history buffs in the crowd, Oscar Wilde makes an appearance at the end.

New to the series: Fraser presents the reader with Flashy’s vitae so far. It’s a nice recap of everything that has happened in the previous nine books.

Typical Flashy lines: “I’d come to France to skulk and fornicate in peace, not to travel; on the other hand, I’d never visited Vienna, which in those days was reckoned first among all the other capitals of Europe for immoral high jinks, and a day and a night of luxurious seclusion with Her Highness should make for an amusing journey” (p 58), and “So we talked cricket while waiting for the attempted murder of the Austrian Emperor” (p 133). One more: “You think twice about committing murder when you’re over seventy” (p 295). I would think so!

Author fact: George MacDonald Fraser died three years after the publication of Flashman on the March. Had he lived, I am quite sure Flashman would be in many more adventures.

Book trivia: This is the 10th book in the Flashman series and the last one I will read for the challenge. The series continues with Flashman on the March.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93).

Pale Fire

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Nabokov, Vladimir. Pale Fire. New York: Everyman’s Library, 1992.

Reason read: Nabokov’s wife, Vera, was born in January. This was read in her honor as it was dedicated to her.

Pale Fire is a parody and a commentary wrapped in suspense. There are two central characters, poet John Francis Shade and self-appointed editor of Shade, Charles Kinbote. Right away there is a foreboding air about Kinbote. Something about him doesn’t seem right. He asserts only one line is missing from the poem, the last one – line 1000. How does he know this after being Shade’s neighbor for only five months (from February 5th, 1959 to July 21, 1959)? He admits that twenty years earlier he tried to translate Shade. The word tried implies he was unsuccessful. Why was that? When Kinbote first moved next door he wasn’t invited into the Shade household. He was reduced to spying through the hedges and trees; an “orgy of spying” he admits (p 68).
But, the poem nor Kinbote’s relationship are the real focus of Pale Fire. Kinbote’s commentary allows him to tell a fantastic story of an assassin from the fictional land of Zembla set out to kill a fictional king. I agreed with New York Times critic George Cloyne in that Pale Fire can’t be read straight through with any satisfaction. It’s a tale to be dipped into from time to time. Despite it being only 289 pages long it took me forever to finish.

As an aside, I had to laugh when Kinbote was talking about the instructional notes he was finding all around his rental cottage. The houses on Monhegan have similar notes, especially if the owners are particular about the rules of their house!

Quote I liked (but confused me): “There is a very loud amusement park right in front of my present lodgings” (p 9). Literally or does that mean something else?
Another quote I liked, “A thousand years ago five minutes were Equal to forty ounces of fine sand” (p 28 Canto 1, line 120).

Book trivia: The footnote to the introduction warns that reading the introduction before the text would ruin the story. I took the advice to heart and read the introduction last.

Author fact: in 1919 Nabokov and his family were forced into exile. Just like the king of Zembla.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “100 Good Reads, Decade by Decade: 1960s” (p 178) and from the chapter “The Postmodern Condition” (p 190). Also, in Book Lust To Go in the chapter “Cavorting Through the Caribbean” (p 53), although it doesn’t make sense. It is worth noting Pale Fire has nothing to do with the Caribbean and shouldn’t have been included in this chapter.

December Missed

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Woops! December left us without me writing about the reading. Not sure how that happened (other than to say “life”), but anyway – here’s what was accomplished for December:

  • Beth Shaw’s Yoga Fit by Beth Shaw (an Early Review book for LibraryThing)
  • Cod by Mark Kurlansky
  • Flashman and the Angel of the Lord by George MacDonald Fraser
  • How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn
  • The Man Who Was Taller Than God by Harold Adams
  • Ringed Castle by Dorothy Dunnett

Here’s a belated look at January 2016 (already started, as you will see):

  1. Flashman and the Tiger by George MacDonald Fraser (the LAST book in the series on my list)
  2. Always a Body to Trade by K.C. Constantine (already read in honor of January being National Mystery month. Read this in a day)
  3. Blue Light by Walter Mosley (already read in honor of Mosley’s birth month. Another quick read)
  4. Checkmate by Dorothy Dunnett (the LAST book in the Lymond Series). It bears noting I am also consulting The Prophecies by Nostradamus (translated by Richard Sieburth) while reading Checkmate.
  5. Bless Me, Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya (an audio book in honor of New Mexico becoming a state in January)
  6. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (in honor of Nabokov’s wife, Vera. Pale Fire is dedicated to her and her birthday is in January)
  7. Up, into the Singing Mountain by Richard Llewellyn (to continue the series started last month).

I have been chosen to review a book about the photography of Dickey Chapelle but since it hasn’t arrived yet I can’t put it on the list. I was also chosen to review Liar by Rob Roberge, but I don’t expect that one until February.

On a personal note: December ended with writing to 12 complete strangers. I am really hoping one or two of them become pen pals.

Always a Body to Trade

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Constantine, K.C. Always a Body to Trade. Boston: David R. Godine Publisher, 1983.

Reason read: January is national mystery month.

Someone has killed a nameless woman. Brutally shot her right in the face. It’s up to Chief of Police Mario Balzic to solve her murder only he has two problems: not much to go on in the way of clues, witnesses or suspects and a new mayor who is a little too eager, a little too young and more than a little too green to understand how crimes are solved. He wants this case put to bed yesterday.
The title of the book comes from the idea that in the ways of crime there is one rule: always have a body to trade; meaning there is an accomplice on who to rat if you get caught.

My only “issue” with Always a Body… was that I found it hard to believe the some of the things Balzic would say and do as being professional. I can’t see the chief of police readily admitting to a deputy warden that he had been drinking the night before and probably too much so. Another huge red flag was the fact that Balzic never followed up on leads. He always took them at face value…which made the ending completely predictable.

Like most mysteries, Always a Body… was laden with characters. I tracked 31 people before I gave up.

Author fact: According the back flap of Always a Body To Trade Constantine “belongs to the world Mario Balzic works in.”

Book trivia: Here is another irksome thing: Always a Body to Trade is part of a series. It’s actually the 6th book and the very first book, The Rocksburg Railroad Murders, is on my list. I’ve read them out of order…again.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “I Love A Mystery” (p 121)

Flashman and the Angel of the Lord

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman and the Angel of the Lord. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1995.

Reason read: this continues the series started last April in honor of Fraser’s birth month.

If you have been keeping track, the Flashman papers are now in the years 1858 to 1859. Flashman is thirty six years old and back in America where old enemies remember him and new enemies are out to blackmail him. He’s not back by choice, though. Someone from his past had an old score to settle. So here’s Harry, knee deep in the conflicts of slavery…again. This time he’s working with “the angel of the Lord,” John Brown of Harper’s Ferry fame. Yes, THAT John Brown.
Interestingly enough, Fraser decided to scale back the sex scenes for this particular installment. In addition to not having many opportunities to shag the lady next door, Flashman appears to be growing up some. To some he doesn’t appear to be as cowardly or as shallow…He still tries to get out of getting out of the October 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry but as usual, is unsuccessful.

For some reason I decided to keep track of the aliases of Flashman this time around:

  • Bully Waterman
  • Grattan Nugent-Hare
  • Beauchamp Millward Comber
  • Joshua

A line that made me laugh: “It’s a shame those books on etiquette don’t have a chapter to cover encounters with murderous lunatics whom you’d hoped never to meet again” (p 38).

Book trivia: this is the tenth Flashy book and penultimate Fraser book on my list. Are you keeping track?

Author fact: What haven’t I told you about George MacDonald Fraser? Have I mentioned he died in January of 2008? Well he did.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93).

Cod

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Kurlansky, Mark. Cod: a Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.

Reason read: Mark Kurlansky was born in December.

This is a book about all things cod. Really. Beyond the historical and ecological significance of the fish there is etymology and art and music and of course, recipes. Don’t get too excited – they’re really old recipes that do not sound appetizing! As an aside, I have a student worker who is just amazed someone could write an entire book not just about fish in general, but a specific fish at that. Here’s my reply: It’s a concise book, but did you know that color of a cod fish depends on the local conditions? Also, the colder the water, the smaller the fish because cod grow faster in warmer waters. Better yet, there are fascinating tidbits not related to cod. For example, all English towns that end in “wich”  were at one time salt producers. And did you know Clarence Birdseye of Brooklyn, New York held over 250 patents before his death and not all were related to the process of freezing food? But, back to the cod:  let’s not forget about the historical significance this fish had on the American Revolution! Interesting, right? So, in the end one can safely say Cod is not just about the historical significance of one little fish, it’s about a way of life .

Two lines I liked, “Fishermen were keeping their secrets, while explorers were telling the world” (p 28) and “Finally, in 1902, seven years after the death of Huxley, the British government began to concede that there was such a thing as overfishing” (p 144). Imagine that.

Confessional: Mark Kurlansky prompted me to Google/YouTube the song “Saltfish” by Mighty Sparrow. I learned something new!

Author fact: Kurlansky has experience working on commercial fishing boats. Cool.

Book trivia: the physical book is one of those “feels good to hold” books and it includes great photographs & illustrations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust and Book Lust To Go. In the chapter “Mark Kurlansky: Too Good To Miss” (p 141) in Book Lust and again in the chapter “Newfoundland” (p 154) in Book Lust To Go.

Flashman and the Mountain of Light

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman and the Mountain of Light. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.

Reason read: Some of you might remember, way back in April I started the Flashman series in honor of Fraser’s April birth month. It seems so long ago…

Harry Flashman is back again! It almost seems like he won’t go away. The year is 1845 and this time Flashy is a spy for Her Majesty’s Secret Service! When we last left Flashy he was in Singapore. I have to admit, the start to Flashman and the Mountain of Light was a little slow this time around. It took me two chapters before I really got into it. If you are looking for Fraser’s trademark sex and violence, Flashman and the Mountain of Light does not disappoint. It just takes a little longer to get to. For the historians out there, Fraser covers the Sutlej Crisis and of course, the Mountain of Light or Koh-i-Noor, one of the largest diamonds in the world.

Confessional: this wasn’t my favorite. In fact, I didn’t even finish it.

Favorite line: “Optimism run mad, if you ask me, but then I’ve never been shipwrecked much, and philosophy in the face of tribulation aint my line” (p 105).

Author fact: According to the back flap of Flashman and the Mountain of Light Fraser helped with the screenplay for Lester’s The Three Musketeers. Sounds about right.

Book trivia: This is the ninth book in the Flashman series. I only have two more after this one.

BookLust Twist: Say it with me: from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93). You would think I would have this information memorized by now.

Then She Found Me

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Lipman, Elinor. Then She Found Me. Read by Mia Barron. BBC Audiobooks America, 2007.

Reason read: Lipman celebrates a birthday in October. Read in her honor.

In a nutshell: April Epner is a very single high school Latin teacher. All her life she has known she was adopted as a newborn. She had a good relationship with her Holocaust survivor parents and never really questioned her birth parents. What she didn’t know until she was in her 30s is that her biological mother is none other than Bernice Graverman, star of her own over-the-top talk show: Bernice G! When Bernice takes over April’s life by storm with her gaudy jewelry, loud outfits, glitzy lifestyle and overly aggressive matchmaking schemes April barely questions Bernice’s authenticity as her biological mother. I found that really odd. Instead, April allows Bernice to constantly call her at work, butt into her personal life, and wreak havoc – all for the sake of being the mom Bernice says she always knew she could. The entire time I was reading Then She Found Me I wanted to know why April & Bernice didn’t apply for DNA testing. HLA & PCR tests were both available in the 90s. It definitely comes up when April’s biological father comes back into the picture.

As an aside, this was the first time I didn’t care for the audio. I don’t know if it was the narrator (Mia Barron), as she was overly dramatic and made me dislike all female characters, or the possibility the book wasn’t meant to be read aloud because the dialogue was just so…what’s the word?…dramatic? Also, Jack’s New Hampshire (?) accent was terrible! Think exaggerated John F. Kennedy.

Author fact: According to the inside cover of Then She Found Me Lipman lived in western Massachusetts at the time of publication. No wonder she mentioned such places as Northampton & the gates of Smith College with ease. According to her website she mostly lives in New York now.

Book trivia: Then She Found Me was made into a movie starring Bette Midler. I keep saying I haven’t seen it, but I think I actually have…if there is a scene where Bette is being so mean to her daughter that the daughter has no choice but to disconnect (the healthiest thing for both of them). I remember the last scene of the movie is a wedding…same as the book.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the chapter called “Elinor Lipman: Too Good To Miss” (p 146).

Flashman and the Dragon

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman and the Dragon. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1986.

Reason read: this is the eighth book in the Flashman series. Hard to believe I started this in April in honor of Fraser’s birth month!

To bring all you historians up to speed: So far in the series Flashman has seen action in four military campaigns: the First Afghan War, Crimea, the Indian Mutiny and the Sioux War of 1879. With Flashman and the Dragon Harry gets himself involved in the Taiping Rebellion. Another worthy note: for this particular installment of papers, George MacDonald Fraser himself acts as editor, admitting he confines his corrections to spelling, while “checking the accuracy of Flashman’s narrative and inserting footnotes wherever necessary.”
Fans of Flashman’s sexual conquests will not be disappointed. As usual, Harry works his charms on a number of different women, the most important being the favored Imperial Yi Concubine, Lady Yehonala (who later became Empress Tzu-hsi). She ends up saving his life (much like my favorite tart, Szu-Zhan, from earlier in the story). “Get ’em weeping, and you’re halfway to climbing all over them” (p 11).

A small word of warning for the faint of heart: there is a lot of detailed violence and torture in this Flashman installment. It’s almost as if Fraser was getting bored with Flashman as just a cowardly womanizer. The action needed to be ramped up a little.

Book trivia: The cover to Flashman and the Dragon is interesting. A nearly naked woman holding a fan is cradled in the arms of a gentleman (not Flashy). The man’s face is partially obscured by the woman’s fan.

Author fact: Fraser has also written a series of short stories, The General Danced at Dawn and McAuslan in the Rough.

BookLust Twist: Are you tired of me saying, “from Book Lust in the chapter called “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93)”? We only have three more after this one.

Flashman and the Redskins

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Fraser, George MacDonald. Flashman and the Redskins. New York: Plume, 1983.

Reason read: Flashman and the Redskins continues the series I started in April in honor of Fraser’s birth month.

Flashman and the Redskins circles back to where Flash for Freedom left off. Harry Flashman is up to his old tricks again. If you think I’m joking just know that sex is mentioned on the very first page. That’s Flashy for you! But, in Flashman and the Redskins he takes it a bit further. To get out of yet another jam Flashman is forced to take up with Susie, a madame of a New Orleans brothel (surprise, surprise), but to further complicate things, he ends up marrying her to ensure safe passage across the west to California. It’s on this journey that Flashman encounters the “redskins” and ends up marrying an Apache Indian too. Never a dull moment for 28 year old Harry. The multiple marriages set the stage for the rest of Flashman’s story with a twist at the end.
Fast forward and Flash is back in the States, this time with his real wife, Elspeth. To give you some perspective, the events in Royal Flash happened twenty eight years earlier. Remember Otto von Bismarck? This time Flashman is up against an even craftier opponent…a woman he has wronged (it was bound to happen sometime).

The charming way Flashman looks at women: “…she looked like a bellydancer who’s gone in for banking” (p 337).

Best line, “But life aint a bed of roses, and you must just pluck the thorns out of your rump and get on” (p 442).

As an aside, earlier this year someone decided Washington D.C.’s professional football team’s name needed to be changed. Suddenly the word “redskin” wasn’t political correct. I have to wonder if someone will try to ban this book on the same premise?

Author fact: What can I tell you about Mr. Fraser this time? According to Flashman and the Redskins Fraser also wrote The Pyrates (another Flashy book; after The Great Game but before Lady). This book is not listed in Book Lust. Hmmm…

Book trivia: for some reason the pagination is weird. The pages skip from xii to 15 immediately and I don’t think any are missing. Odd. Another piece of trivia: my copy included a map of the U.S. from Minnesota to Idaho called “Flashman’s West.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in the obvious chapter “George MacDonald Fraser: Too Good To Miss” (p 93). Where else?

Inflating a Dog

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Kraft, Eric. Inflating a Dog: the Story of Ella’s Lunch Launch. New York: Picador Press, 2002.

Reason read: in honor of Kraft’s birthday I started the “series” in February. It is now September and I have reached the final book on my list.

For Inflating a Dog we jump back in time to Peter Leroy’s childhood. His mother, desperately wanting to invent something or be in some kind of business for herself, buys a decrepit clam boat so she can start a floating “elegant excursions” cruise. The only problem is this, the boat leaks. Peter must secretly bail out the boat every evening to keep the old clam boat (and his mother’s dreams) afloat. But Inflating a Dog is also about Peter coming of age and lusting after Patti, his partner in crime.
True to Kraft’s sense of humor, nothing is as it seems. Men walk chickens on leashes and women can sell sandwiches with pastel breads.

Quotes I liked, “Do you want anything? She asked. At thirteen? I wanted everything” (p 20) and “If you are taking notes, jot this down: never buy a boat while you are under the beguiling influence of moonlight” (p 77).

Author fact: at the time of publication Kraft lived with his wife in New York City.

Book trivia: like many of the other Kraft books this one includes photographs and illustrations.

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust in two different chapters, “Eric Kraft: Too Good to Miss” (p 141) of course, and “Sons and Mothers” (p 160 & 161). As an aside, the index misses the 2nd mention of Inflating a Dog on page 161.

The Book Lust Mistakes

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I have (so far) spent ten years with Book Lust and over that course of time I found numerous oddities. I don’t know what made me do it, but here is a list of all the errors or weird things I discovered:

Within the Table of Contents:

  1. The chapter “Eric Kraft: Too Good To Miss” (p 140) is completely missing from the TOC.

Within the text:

  1. The title Moving On does not include an author (page 203). Larry McMurtry’s name doesn’t appear on the page at all.

Within the Index (these are the book, short story and poem titles not included in the index but are mentioned in Book Lust somewhere):

  1. “Ado”
  2. Alice, Let’s Eat
  3. American Practical Navigator
  4. American Fried
  5. The Achieve Of, the Mastery Of, the Thing
  6. “At the Rialto”
  7. “Blind Heron”
  8. “Blue Garden”
  9. Bonny’s Boy
  10. Burn Marks
  11. Bonobo: the Forgotten Ape
  12. “By a Swimming Pool…”
  13. A Bridge Too Far
  14. “Brown Wasps”
  15. Caged Owl
  16. Caddie Woodlawn
  17. Choose Your Own Adventure
  18. A Child’s Life
  19. The Citadel
  20. Casket and the Sword
  21. Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1950s
  22. “Corn-pone Opinions”
  23. Collected Fictions
  24. Cruddy
  25. Crazy Creek
  26. “Days of Pie and Coffee”
  27. “Devil Baby at Hull House”
  28. “Crack Up”
  29. “Dear Derrida”
  30. Dog Next Door
  31. Dream Gold
  32. “Drug Store in Winter”
  33. End and the Beginning
  34. “Ethics of Living Jim Crow”
  35. Ethel and Ernest
  36. Eva Luna
  37. “Exorcist of Notre-Dame”
  38. Freedom at Midnight
  39. Fredericksburg to Meridan
  40. “Forgetfulness”
  41. “Funeral II”
  42. “Golden Retrievals”
  43. “Golden Angel Pancake House”
  44. Ginger Pie
  45. Good Times are Killing Me
  46. Green Eyes
  47. “Goodbye, Place I Lived Nearly 23 Years”
  48. Hitty
  49. “House of Blue Light”
  50. In Between Sheets
  51. In the Gloaming
  52. “Introduction to Poetry”
  53. Julius Knipl, Real Estate Photographer
  54. Jew of New York
  55. Jimmy Corrigan: the Smartest Kid…
  56. Kid From Tomkinsville
  57. “Law of Acceleration”
  58. Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
  59. “Letters from a Birmingham Jail”
  60. Little White Horse
  61. M16
  62. Maus
  63. Maus II
  64. Moffats
  65. Minnow on the Say
  66. Old Yeller
  67. Only Bread, Only Light
  68. Now Read This
  69. Now Read This II
  70. Pendragon Cycle
  71. Red River to Appomattox
  72. Saturdays
  73. Sea is Blue
  74. “Sex Ex Machina”
  75. Second Common Reader
  76. “Stickeen”
  77. “Strip Poker”
  78. Terre des Hommes
  79. Third Helpings
  80. “Tortures”
  81. “Try to Praise the Mutilated World”
  82. “True Love”
  83. Tumbling
  84. War Babies
  85. “Two Tramps in Mud Time”
  86. Wait for Marcy
  87. Ulysseys
  88. Wetware
  89. Wheels Within Wheels
  90. “Workshop”
  91. Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet

Within the Index (these are the authors not included in the index):

  1. Lynda Barry
  2. Eleanor Cameron
  3. A.J. Cronin
  4. Gardener Dozois
  5. Kristin Waterford Duisberg (note: last name was missing – indexed under Kristin Waterford)
  6. Eleanor Estes
  7. Rachel Field
  8. Robert Frost
  9. Phoebe Gloeckner
  10. Slavomir Rawicz
  11. Keith Robertson
  12. Art Spiegelman

Pagination errors in index:

  1. Asimov, Isaac
  2. The Brothers K
  3. Death Comes for the Archbishop
  4. Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
  5. Paul Eddy
  6. Educating Esme
  7. Grand Sophy
  8. Robert Heinlein
  9. The Hobbit
  10. I Don’t Know How She Does It
  11. In the Fall
  12. Inflating a Dog
  13. Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius
  14. Kazuo Ishiguro
  15. Lord of the Rings
  16. Alice McDermott
  17. Moo
  18. Larry McMurtry
  19. Midnight’s Children
  20. Alice Munro
  21. Pride and Prejudice
  22. Remains of the Day
  23. Salman Rushdie
  24. That Eye, the Sky
  25. The Trial
  26. Timbuktu
  27. Vietnam
  28. Winter’s Heart
  29. Dean Young

Title Errors:

  1. Shockwave Runner should be Shockwave Rider
  2. The Eye, That Sky should be That Eye, the Sky
  3. Too Late Boyhood Blues should be Too Late American Boyhood Blues
  4. Twelve Days of Christmas should be Hillary Knight’s Twelve Days of Christmas

Interesting omission: The name of the series has been indexed but not the individual titles within the series. The only reason why I bring this up is because Pearl does list the individual titles in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

  1. The Pendragon Cycle:
    1. Taliesin
    2. Merlin
    3. Arthur
    4. Pendragon
    5. Grail
  2. The Complete Sherlock Holmes:
    1. A Study in Scarlet
    2. Sign of Four
    3. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
    4. Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes
    5. Return of Sherlock Holmes
    6. Hound of the Baskervilles
    7. Valley of Fear
    8. Last Bow
    9. Case Book of Sherlock Holmes
  3. Irish R.M.:
    1. Some Experiences of an Irish R.M.
    2. Further Experiences of an Irish R.M.
    3. In Mr. Knox’s Country
  4. Sea of Fertility:
    1. Spring Snow
    2. Runaway Horses
    3. Temple of Dawn
    4. Decay of the Angel

Interesting oversight in reverse. This time the individual titles are indexed but not the name of the series:

  1. The Years of Lyndon Johnson

Of course, this is not a comprehensive list. I am not done with Book Lust (not in the least) so there is a possibility other mistakes will crop up. I just felt like posting this now. If there are any additions in the future I will be sure to mark them.