Benita's Big Bad Book Pile - 2015

Once again I will attempt to rid my shelves of books that have been sitting around for a very long time. My goal for this year is 40 books off my shelf. The books I will be reading will be anything purchased or added to my list before December 31, 2014. The eligible books can also be recorded books. I will add titles to this posting when I finish them and a short review below as I get time to write it. I will be joining in the Hillerman/Johnson mystery challenge and the British Author Challenge this year and hope to use both of these Challenges to get some books off of my shelves. I will use this first spot to index my ROOTS for the year.

1. Eragon by Christopher Paolini - recorded book - January 3,2015
2. Consequences by Penelope Lively - recorded book - January 4, 2015
3. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively - January 14, 2015
4. Photography by Penelope Lively - January 19, 2014
5. Widow Clicquot: The Story of a Champagne Empire and the Woman Who Ruled It by Tilar Mazzeo - recorded book January 22, 2015
6. Cold Dish by Craig Johnson - January 27, 2015
7. Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed - recorded book - February 12, 2015
8. Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart - February 18, 2015
9. Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski - recorded book - February 20, 2015
10. Night Watch by Sarah Waters - February 22, 2015
11. The Increment by David Ignatius - recorded book - March 5, 2015
12. Passion of the Purple Plumeria by Lauren Willig - recorded book - March 15, 2015
13. Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla by Lauren Willig - recorded book - March 20, 2015
14. Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters - recorded book - March 29, 2015
15. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier - April 8, 2015
16. Death Without Company by Craig Johnson - April 12, 2015
17. Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh - recorded book - April 21, 2015
18. Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides - April 26, 2015
19. Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann - recorded book - April 26, 2015
20. A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz - May 1, 2015
21. Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall by Winston Graham - May 10, 2015
22. Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig - recorded book - May 17,2015
23. Red Queen by Margaret Drabble - May 17, 2015
24. Troy by Adele Geras - May 29, 2015
25. News From Paraguay by Lily Tuck - recorded book - May 29, 2015
30. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn - May 30, 2015
31. Iron King by Julie Kagawa - June 4, 2015
32. Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa - June 6,2015
33. A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel -June 7, 2015
34. Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa - June 13, 2015
35. Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa - June 19, 2015
36. Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson - recorded book - June 22, 2015
37. Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross -June 25,2015
38. Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark - July 7, 2015
39. A Kim Jong-Il Production by Paul Fischer - July 11, 2015
40. House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni - recorded book - July 11, 2015
41. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas - July 11, 2015
42. Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas - July 15, 2015
43. Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas - July 20, 2015
44. Boneshaker by Cherie Priest - July 27, 2015
45. Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins - recorded book - July 29, 2015
46. I Am Half Sick Of Shadows by Alan Bradley - recorded book - July 29, 2015
47. Swan Peak by James Lee Burke - recorded book - August 8, 2015
48. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz - recorded book - August 9, 2015
49. Doll Bones by Holly Black - recorded book - August 11, 2015
50. Another Man's Moccasins by Craig Johnson - August 14, 2015
51. Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas - August 17, 2015
52. Girl in the Clockwork Collar by Kady Cross - August 22, 2015.
53. Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns - recorded book - August 29,2015
54. Demelza: A Novel of Cornwall 1788-1790 by Winston Graham - September 5, 2015
55. Girl With the Iron Touch by Kady Cross - September 19, 2015
56. Fairest by Marissa Meyer - September 24, 2015
57. Girl With the Windup Heart by Kady Cross - September 26, 2015
58. Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach - September 26, 2015
59. Treasury of Egyptian Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Monsters & Mortals by Donna Jo Napoli - October 1, 2015 (National Geographic Kids)
60. The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr - recorded book - October 4, 2015
61. Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa October 6, 2015
62. King's Curse by Philippa Gregory - October 11, 2015.
63. Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie - October 17,2015
64. Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas: A Biography by Mari Sandoz - October 24, 2015
65. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg - October 31, 205
66. Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst - recorded book - November 7,2015.
67. Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff - November 9, 2015.
68. Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks - November 12, 2015
69. Ghostwritten by David Mitchell - November 25, 2015
70. Divergent by Veronica Roth - November 29, 2015
71. Age of Shiva by Manil Suri - recorded book - December 6, 2016
72. Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff - December 13, 2015
73. Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity by Katherine Boo - December 14, 2015
74. Eldest by Christopher Paolini - recorded book - December 19, 2015
75. Ancillary Mercy by Ann Leckie - December 23, 2016.
76. Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater - recorded book - December 31, 2015.

Welcome back and happy ROOTing!

Welcome back and good luck!

You go girl!

Good to see you again, just dropping by to star your thread. How did you like Eragon?

Good luck with your rooting!

Welcome back!

I started the year with recorded books that I listened to during the long road trip back to Alabama. Eragon by (at the time) teenage author Christopher Paolini was a grand adventure story that was rollicking good fun. This novel contains all the standard fantasy creatures and characters, but they are all painted in an appealing way. I am not going to say that this novel is fresh or told with a twist as that is not true, but it is fun and the writing sparkles. It is a YA version Anne MacCaffrey's Dragon Riders of Pern series and in many ways is their equal. That is not a bad thing.

This was a recorded book and the narrator was very good. His talent added to the experience and made driving a pleasure. I will certainly try to work the recorded versions of this trilogy into my future reading list.

Here are my thoughts about Consequences by Penelope Lively which I listened to while driving from Kansas to Alabama.

This novel covers the second half of twentieth century British life and is told through the eyes of three generations of women who were each single mothers. Each of these women made choices and created a life for themselves in the same but different ways. While the author writes beautifully this novel is disjointed and seems unconnected. It doesn't have emotional resonance or depth and as a reader I was never sure what point the author was trying to make. I could never find any hook for this novel and as a result it made pleasant listening but never made me care about any of the three women. It also suffered from an identity crises. What is it? As a romance novel it falls flat on its face, as historical fiction it lacks deep ties to events. It excels as a character study but those make for boring reading unless there is some kind of emotional attachment to those characters and that lack of attachment is the major flaw of this book. I think it is a book that tries too hard to be insightful and fails. The title is another problem. It is an odd choice, as I could never see the connection between it and the lives of the women. The bottom line is that it is well written but plotless and pointless. Had I not been trapped in the car for hours during a long road trip I would not have stayed with this book to the end.

Welcome back and Happy ROOTing, Benita.

I finished Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively and LOVED it. I gave it a rare 4.5 stars and put it on my Best Books for 2015 list. I will be recommending this book to all of my reader friends.

There is lots in this book. It is a rare combination of graceful literary technique and edge of your chair adventure as the author manages to tackle hefty meaning-of-life questions and keep the crackling tension of continued existence in war so strong that the reader can't put the book down. The impending sense of doom and closure permeates the novel and it is done in such a way that the reader is drawn immediately into that world.

The novel is set in a hospital room where a garrulous old woman lays dying. She has a rich story to tell and tells it to the reader in her mind. At the end of every chapter the events depicted in that chapter are also reflected on by other characters in the story. This literary device might be jarring and interrupt the flow of the plot for some readers, but I liked it. It provided added insight as to how and why the protagonist reacted the way she did in some situations, creating sympathy for her.

This book had enough action in it to remind me of the Bartle Bull books in the White Rhino Hotel series and enough philosophical heft to provide hours of deep thoughts for any reader.

Sounds like a great read! Will add this to my list!

I finished reading Photograph by Penelope Lively last night. This book was for the British Author Challenge started by Paul Cranswick in answer to Mark Freburg's American Author Challenge. This is my third book by Lively this month and since it is the last one of hers that I have on my shelves, it will be my last. This is a book about memory. The author tells the story of an adulterous affair through the many different eyes and lives of the people involved. It starts with the cuckolded husband finding an envelope with a photograph in it marked "destroy." The photograph shows the lovers innocuously holding hands while at a group picnic. This discovery, long after the wife has died, leads the husband to start asking questions because his honor has been offended. In the course of the rest of the novel his single-minded pursuit of answers leads to alterations in many lives. It also questions the truth of memory or the memory of truth. Exploring memory and personal history is a theme with this author and this title continues that exploration. It is a book that will provide fodder for many a book discussion group far into the future but not necessarily provide reading enjoyment for the reader as did Moon Tiger.

A secondary concern in the novel is the question of beauty. None of the men in the book loved the woman involved. They simply wanted to posses her because she as beautiful. They wanted to glow in the reflected glory of her presence. She did not have the mental strength to sustain these kinds of relationships and they destroyed her.

This book did not capture my reading imagination as did Moon Tiger. In rating the three books I have read by this author I rate this title right in the middle with Moon Tiger being outstanding and Consequences a distance third.

Hello & good luck this year! Already 4 done!
An interesting note re >8 benitastrnad: I taught at the correspondence high school that Paolini went to and, while I was working there, he visited! Very humble and nice kid :)

I finished listening to Widow Clicquot by Tilar J. Mazzeo. I found the book by accident several years ago, and used it as the basis for several door prize/gifts for a charity to which I belong. I put the book and a bottle of Champagne in a box as a door prize. A few months ago, I found that the recorded version of this book was on sale from the publisher for $4.99, so I purchased it. My real life book discussion group does a biography book talk each January, and this was a biography so I plunked it into the CD player in the car and started listening. The author spends a great deal of time throughout the book lamenting the fact that there is so little information about the Widow Clicquot that it gets tiresome. Even so, she managed to write a 250 page book with another 50 pages, or so, of end notes and index. Not bad for no information on a person. That said, the book may be thin on personal biographical information about this powerful woman entrepreneur but it more than makes up for this lack with information about the company that the Widow Clicquot ran for 45 years. The book is chock full of information about wine making and the wine industry. In my opinion, the author is much too apologetic about this book. I wanted to shout - "Have some confidence in your book and your subject." Other than that it was a good biography.

An aside - This was a recorded book so the narrator pronounced the names with the french pronunciation. The center of the champagne industry is the French city of Reims. The author pronounced it as Ross throughout the book. I wonder if this is correct. I thought the pronunciation would make it sound more like reams or rem. Because I was following along in the book this difference threw me and bothers me. I will have to make a point to find out from a French speaker exactly how this is pronounced as it will be something I wonder about for some time.

Because I had a hard time putting this novel down at night, I finished reading Cold Dish by Craig Johnson. This is the first in the Walt Longmire series of mysteries and I enjoyed it. Johnson nails the setting, putting the reader right there in Wyoming with the kind of people who live and work in that rugged place. He is also very good at creating characters that grab and hold on the reader. These are people you want to sit down and talk to on a cold night with a fire roaring. The author also manages to pack a fair amount of history into this mystery novel. I will definitely be reading more in this series.

What I didn't like - why are men so stupid about women and always, always going for the wrong ones. And why are women policemen always portrayed as foul-mouthed butches? Aside from the usual complaints about needing an editor I don't have anything much to complain about in this Western.

I finished listening to Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed. If you liked Eat, Pray, Love you will like this book. I didn't so I didn't like this one. Why does every whinny, spoiled, sex obsessed, twenty-something think it is their God given right to write a memoir about how they discovered the meaning of life through some kind of travel quest?

There is so much I would like to say about this ill prepared, incredibly lucky, woman who is obsessed with her own good looks, and uses this asset with abandon and then turns around and complains about it. However, I think anybody reading this will get my drift.

If you want a hiking book read Bill Byrson's "A Walk in the Woods" or a real hiking/travel book like "Walking Down the Wild." If you want to read about a spoiled, sex- obsessed twenty-something, who didn't have the sense to purchase the right equipment, let alone the right size of hiking boots, read this one. Or better yet - skip the book and go see the movie and give your money to a big assed corporation for producing more schlock.

Cold Dish Sounds very interesting. Is it a cozy Mystery Book and the Reader is following some detective like the Agatha Christie Novels or rather a bit more into the Crime novel with detailed description of murder/dead Body etc.?

PS sorry for mistakes, I'm still getting used to the new tablet...

#18
Cold Dish is a police procedural. It is about Walt Longmire, sheriff of the fictional Absaroka county in Wyoming. In the rural U. S. the law enforcement is the county Sheriff. The Sheriff is elected so if the people don't like the job he is doing they can vote him out at the end of his term. Absaroka County is in the high plains of Wyoming and a Cheyenne Indian reservation is in the area, so the Sheriff and the Reservation Police (not under the Sheriff's jurisdiction) are the law enforcement in the area. Longmire has a daughter and a wife who died previously to the starting point of the story in this book. There are dead bodies but not as much of a description of the dead bodies as found in some of the Scandinavian Noir thrillers, like Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. There is lots of history. For instance in this book the history of the Sharpe's Rifle is discussed in one chapter. Cheyenne (native american Indian tribe) mysticism is also a main theme of the novel. Tribal beliefs and current culture is also part of the series.

Basically, these are detective stories set in the American West, so there are also elements of the American Western blended into the detective stories. Instead of horses, the Sheriff drives a big SUV. etc, etc. They are not like an Agatha Christie mystery, but they are not like Henning Mankill either. I don't like mysteries to be too dark and bloody, and for me this one walked that fine line between thrills and too much blood.

Thanks for the detailed description. Sounds interesting,I will check if they have it in our local library.

>17 benitastrnad: lol! While I did enjoy Wild: From Lost to Found... very much, I also completely agree w/ your depiction! She's spoiled, ill-prepared, sex-obsessed, vain, etc. etc. And a terribly annoying narrator. But I enjoyed it anyway for what it was ;) I think for me, it was just so nice to imagine myself on such a journey... and kind of thinking "if this girl can do it, I definitely could...." :) Sorry you didn't enjoy it though!

I think I have Bryson's Walk in the Woods.. will hopefully have a chance to read it soon :)

I finished reading Empress of Fashion: A Life of Diana Vreeland by Amanda Mackenzie Stuart. This is a fairly standard biography of a very interesting woman who had a big impact on the fashion world. It was surprising to learn that Diana Vreeland didn't think of herself as anything special. She said that she worked because she needed the money, but that what she had done any woman could do. She had an amazing life and lived all of it to the fullest. I didn't know much about the life of this remarkable woman and this book helped me to learn much about her and the fashion world of 1950 - 1970. I was also interested in her life after she was fired from Vogue and became the art director for the Metropolitan Museum of Art and its costume collection. All of that controversy has played out in the last twenty years with questions of authenticity and historical correctness intersecting with popularity and the need to have the public like the exhibits. I doubt I will read another biography of Vreeland, but it was good to read about this remarkable woman and her contributions to the world of fashion.

I was pleasantly surprised by the recorded version of the YA fantasy title Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski. I expected this one to be a schlocky YA dystopian romance on the same lines as the Matched series and it wasn't even though it should have been. It has all the standard tropes for a same-old, same-old romance novel; master-slave relationship, thwarted romance, nobel self-sacrificing man, and prideful female, etc. etc. Somehow this book managed to transcend that and be an exciting engaging novel that provided me with 8 hours of listening enjoyment.

I wanted very much to like Night Watch by Sarah Waters because I am very much interested in how people lived on the homefront during both WWI and WWII. But I ended up slogging my through this book. I would put this title in the same box as Penelope Lively's Consequences - the boring box. I appreciate Waters attempt to do something different with the structure of the novel - moving from present to past rather than the more common past to present timeline, but it just doesn't work because the writing is not up to the task. As I said earlier this novel is short on plot and long on structure and innovative structure alone cannot carry a novel. In the end the reader has to care about the characters and I just didn't have a feeling for caring for any of them. I only finished the book because I felt that to make an objective judgement and therefore be able to participate in the discussion about Waters and her work I should read the whole thing. I did, but didn't enjoy the experience.

I still have Fingersmith in my library and someday I will read it. However, I will not be putting it anywhere near the top of the TBR stack anytime soon. I don't think it is fair to judge a novelist by one book, especially when they have a body of work from which to choose, but I can only hope that other works done by Waters will hold my interest better than this one. I learned from reading three Lively books in one month that a writer with a fair number of works will not display an even quality throughout. For that reason I will reserve final judgement on Waters as an author, but from where I currently stand I think this is an author who is getting publicity for their work based on the outre nature of her subjects and not on the quality of the novel. I also think that there is little new explored in this novel regarding the theme of homosexuality and for me other authors I have read have reached me with a more powerful message on this same subject than Waters managed to do

>24 benitastrnad: eww, sounds unpleasant! I have heard that Fingersmith is better, but I myself have not yet read either. I think I have 1 or the other on my shelves though.... :) Hope your next ROOT is better!

The Increment by David Ignatius

Read this novel and weep - is the sentence that I would use to describe this novel. It is about how things can go wrong and will, and then what needs to be done to fix it. Or not.

I have heard much about this book and had owned a copy of it since 2012. Somehow I kept putting it on the back-burner. If you have done the same thing, or like to read spy novel thrillers, my advice is move this book up on your reading list. It is a great spy novel and follows in the tradition of the masters of the genre such as Len Deighton and John Le Carre. The story is fairly standard but the heroes are full of flaws. How each of them handles their own shortcomings is part of the story. In that respect it reminded me of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. It does take half of the novel to set the story up but from then on it moves rapidly. I have heard rumors that this book is on several U.S. governmental agency reading lists but I doubt the veracity of those reports. However, the author spares no intelligence agency for its shortsighted fawning political proclivities and his admonitions to do better in the future. In that sense this title is almost non-fiction.

Listened to the recorded version of Passion of the Purple Plumeria by Lauren Willig on the way home for Spring Break. This series always makes the trip between Alabama and Kansas easier. The miles just float by. I know it is light entertainment, but it is refreshing and fun and the miles just float by. I am always amazed at how well done this series is and the narrator is perfect for it. The only drawback is that a person has to be well versed in the vicissitudes of the Regency Romance in order to laugh along with the author.

>>27 benitastrnad: I have that one for later in the year. Glad to hear it's still a good series.

I finished listening to Mark of the Midnight Manzanilla by Lauren Willig on the way back to Alabama. This is a much more workmanlike novel than was the Plumeria novel, but still lots of fun. I find these novels so entertaining and look forward to reading/listening to more of them. They are clever and full of puns both literary and figurative. The author does a good job of returning to and revisiting characters written about in previous novels. In short, these are great ways to pass the miles.

My latest book-off-the-pile, was a recorded book The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters. I discovered this book while cleaning out my trunk in order to pile junk in it to take back to Alabama from my home in Kansas. I had purchased this book a year or more ago in a truck stop in Salina, Ks. I did so because of the warbling that Mark did about this book and the subsequent books in the series. I had read the reviews of the book, but didn't think that it was going to be anything new in the dystopian world of apocalyptic literature. To my surprise it was. It really is a book about how people face inevitable diversity. Some of them "break bad," some of them are in denial, some of them continue to do right simply because they believe it is the right thing to do. The hero of this story does the latter. He tracks down a double murderer and then his world falls apart as the underlying structures of society are pulled out from under him. I want to listen to the next books in this series and suspect that I will have to either purchase or ILL them as there is little chance that many people are going to read this gem of a novel. They are missing out on a treat.

I finished reading Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier and think this is a really fine novel. It has everything - a little suspense, a heroine who irritates you but still manages to garner your sympathy, evil people, murder, and mysterious Cornwall. This was very well written and the whole time I was reading it I wondered why Hollywood hasn't remade it. They remake very movie under the sun, except maybe Gone With the Wind, but not this one. I wonder why as it is certainly movie remake worthy. I will be reading more of Du Maurier in the future. (I read this as part of the British Author Challenge put together by Paul. However, it is the second time I have retrieved it from the library stacks. The first time was in 2011.) Had I know the book was this well written I would have read it sooner.

>31 benitastrnad: There's an English TV version from 1997 with Charles Dance as Maxim de Winter whom I found way more creepy than Olivier.

>31 benitastrnad: I love Rebecca! I've been thinking of reading it again, maybe later this year. I love the Hitchcock movie, too, but didn't know about the 1997 one. I'm going to look for it.

I finished the second Walt Longmire mystery Death Without Company by Craig Johnson. This was a classic Western cloaked as a mystery. Many of the myths of the Old West are alive and well in this novel, including Native American mysticism. It is peppered throughout this novel, just as it was in the first in this series.

I liked this novel better than the first one. Vic, the foul mouthed deputy was toned down, the connection between Henry and Walt was made clearer to the reader, old relationships explored and new ones introduced. In addition some new characters were added that brought depth and fleshed out the office situation.

The plot was not what this novel was about. In fact, it is one of the few mysteries that I figured out early on. What drives this story is the slow development of old mysteries that everybody knows about in the small town but no one will talk about. Small towns can be good at hiding secrets and the town in the story is no exception.

The story centers around an often forgotten immigrant group that was important to the development of the West - the Basques. It also makes a point of letting the world in on a secret - old people have lived full and passionate lives and have stories to tell and stories to hide. One thing that the author also points out, at several different places in the story, is that of the elected nature of the office of Sheriff. He does not want the reader to forget that the Sheriff is responsible to the people. Not to the mayor, or anybody else, but to the people. They vote for him, or not, and this is responsibility to the people is a very Western idea that is not found in most mystery/detective or police procedural novels.

Listened to the recorded version of Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. This book was touted as being excellent for book discussion groups, however, I found the plot so contrived and downright silly in places, that I wanted to throw it against the wall. Problem #1 - the heroine is so stupid. I get it that she came out of the foster child system from birth, but if you are smart enough and gifted enough to make enough money to pay rent and buy food in San Francisco you can't be that stupid. Problem #2 - how do you get away with running a business that pays rent and buys food in San Francisco and never file a tax form, or get a birth certificate for your child? This would never happen in the real world, but it does make for good fiction. That said - I did want to find out how things resolved in the end, so the author was able to keep me reading long enough to do that. Even so, this wouldn't be my first pick for a book group. Or even my second. Or third. It would be in the maybe list.

>31 benitastrnad: oh I really enjoyed that book! Glad you liked it!

I read Hellhound on His Trail: The Stalking of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the International Hunt for His Assassin by Hampton Sides. My real life book club read this one for our monthly selection. It was originally to have been read for the March meeting to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Selma Voting Rights March, but we didn't meet that month. I still didn't have it completed by the time we met in April. The book started slow, with lots of little threads that didn't seem connected. Then once the threads started to come together it took off, and was a real page turner and a great example of the narrative non-fiction form. It didn't hurt that it was such a compulsive story with so many fascinating characters. Even the ladies in the book club liked it. This will be one of my best books of the year.

Three Bags Full by Leonie Swann is a mystery translated from the German original. I had purchased the book years ago, (it is one that has been in my collection for a long time) and this last fall purchased the recorded version when I found it on sale for $5.00. Even thought the narrator did a good job the book just didn't hold my interest like I expected it would. It is a murder mystery set in Ireland with a flock of sheep as the detectives and narrators. Because the sheep tell the story, parts of it are hard to follow and don't make much sense to me. George, the shepherd of the flock, is found one morning, dead, with a spade stuck into him. The sheep liked George who was kind to them, and they set out to find out how killed him. This is the first in a series of books about this flock, and was a best seller in Europe. However, I doubt I will read another of this series. It just didn't pique my interest enough.

A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz I Finished reading this book during lunch today. It took far too long to read this snarky tale and the snarkiness of it is one of the reasons. This is basically a retelling of the dark and grim Grimm's fairy tales written by a Lemony Snickett wannabe. I suspect, that like many twisted fairy tales, it is only funny if you know the original versions. That is it's great attraction and its great failing. This is a book that might work for some children but didn't work for me. It lacked the humor and the salty originality that was in the Lemony Snickett books and made them such a hit. The snarkiness was over-the-top and just didn't add salt or spice to the old fairy tales. That said, I know this series is popular among older children and YA's so I won't trash it too much. It just wasn't the kind of book I like.

>38 benitastrnad: Some years ago I also read Three Bags Full. While I Liked the idea of Sheep as detectives, the book really didn't hold up all the hype for me. I really did not like the ending, although at parts I found it quite entertaining. However, I could never so far persuade myself to read the following book.

Congrats! You're halfway done!

I wanted to get Poldark: A Novel of Cornwall by Winston Graham finished before the new BBC movie version is broadcast on PBS in late June. I finished it today. I enjoyed this novel and find it amazing that so much can be packed into 344 pages. This author had a darn good editor. The author has made it abundantly clear that it was not a good thing to live back in England of the 18th century. Rural Cornwall was a place of poverty and a place of beauty and the author has done a good job of depicting both of these aspects of Cornwall.

I listened to another of the Pink Carnation series. The Orchid Affair by Lauren Willig was another triumph. I don't know how she does it, but these books always manage to make me smile. They also make me glad that I read all those Regency Romances way back when. They familiarized me with every trope and plot twist possible. You would think that would make me easily bored by this series but it only serves to make them that much more fun to read. In the case of this particular book, I am also glad that I read Scaramouche, as a large portion of the plot of this book is taken straight from Sabatini.

On the same day, I also finished reading The Red Queen by Margaret Drabble. I read this one for Paul Cranswick's British Author Challenge. I enjoyed this book vey much, which was a surprise because many of the people reading her books this month have not liked them. I thought this was an excellent book. The author uses a plot device that I am not quite sure works all the way through the book, but on the whole the book was very interesting.

The first half of the book is set in Korea in the last half of the 1700's. The second half of the book is set in modern times. It is this half of the book that doesn't work as well as I would have liked. The book is chocked full of Korean history and all of the characters are engaging enough that on the whole the book kept my interest for the full 360 pages.

Moving right along, Benita!

Troy by Adele Geras is the young adult novel that I have kept on my desk at work for reading at lunch and whenever I forgot to bring a book from home with me. For that reason it took me about a year to get it read because reading in fits and starts is a slow process. Troy is a young adult novel/retelling of the Iliad by Homer. The author puts some modern spins to the basic story, but other than that it is a retelling of the story of the Trojan War told from the point-of-view of three servant girls. Marpessa, Xanthe, and Polyxena, are servants in the palace and each tells part of the story of the Trojan War. The emphasis here is on the women in the story and that too is a fresh spin on the Iliad. The writing is good, but overall the retelling was not strong enough to make me want to read the sequel. However, this book is a good way to introduce the stories of the Trojan War to young adults and could be used successfully in the classroom.

The dust jacket for this book is simply beautiful. It is embossed gold on a black background. To bad the inside doesn't live up to the beautiful cover.

News From Paraguay by Lily Tuck is a historical novel set in Paraguay in the 1850's. It is a wonderful picture of a colonial country that had many advantages and in the end was devastated by a dictatorship. The novel is filled with characters, but the major flaw is that we never learn what motivates the two central characters - Franco and Ella. Is it greed or love that brings about their downfall? I think it is neither. It is simple stubbornness and ego. Franco simply can't conceive of a world without him at the center and of course he is the kind of man who thinks his limited understanding is all the knowledge needed by all people who surround him. He thinks his country is lucky to have him and the reality is far different. Ella is the trophy wife who simply floats through life on his arm. On one level she knows what is going on but does nothing to stop it or to influence Franco. As long as she has champagne and her horse, life is good.

I am not sure why this book was rated so highly and won a National Book Award. It is about an exotic place and about a history that is unfamiliar to most, but I did not think it was an outstanding work of literature.

I learned what all the hyperbole was about regarding Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn by finally getting it read. As thrillers go it was average. I thought that the author did a good job of taking two essentially despicable characters and formulating a good story around them. That people continued to read the book all the way to the end after learning that both main characters were scumbags is a mark of good writing. Clearly a book that relies on plot rather than character to keep the reader interested.

>48 benitastrnad: yes, nicely summed up :)

I have run across another YA fantasy series that has grabbed me. The series is the Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa. I am about 30 pages from the end of book 1 Iron King and fascinated by it. I received an ARC from the publisher at ALA and was sort of put off by the publisher - Harlequin Teen. That alone put me off from reading it, even though I had purchased the entire series for the library, but me? Read a Harlequin Teen book? I don't think so! Folks, I was wrong. This series is good. Not great - and I would rate Girl of Fire and Thorns series as better - so far. But the Iron King is a really good book. It is a sort of mashup containing elements of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell and American Gods along with a healthy dose of steampunk and romance. Don't let the romance dissuade you. It is there and provides some tension for the story but is only one element. Sure there are the cliches found in romance novels and there is some just plain bad writing, but the plot is very well done with plenty of action and intrigue. This one might be a good series to listen to as well, since it is available on Audible. I can totally see this being read on long cross country trips. This is pure escapism. Perfect for reading on that beautiful chaise lounge and I just checked out book 2 Iron Daughter from the library. There are five books in this series and I will be reading it until I get tired of the series.

>50 benitastrnad: hmmmm sounds really interesting! I might have to check that out.... :)

Ok put it on my shortlist reading list for the library....

Finished Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa over the weekend. I am just buzzing through these books. (I am 2/3's done with book 3 already.) I don't think this is great literature and there are certainly cliches aplenty in them - but they are great escapism.

I finished reading A Place of Greater Safety by Hilary Mantel over the weekend. I started reading this novel in November and my reading slowed tremendously over the spring semester. That is not due to the quality of the book. The problem with historical fiction is that the reader knows how the story is going to end. In the case of books by Mantel, that ending is going to go badly. This novel is about three friends in the French Revolution. (That should be a big hint about the end right there.) Danton, Robespierre, and Desmoulins all attended school together and all three became lawyers and then Republican heroes. In the end the Terror got them. The novel is a bit difficult to read. At times it is written in first person, third person, as a play, correspondence between friends, and other formats. The author literally threw every style of writing into this novel to the extent that the reader may wonder - what the heck is going on! The pace of the book is relentless. It moves on - all the time. The wonder is that the author creates people that the reader cares about while shattering every preconceived notion that I learned in school about these leaders of the French Revolution. I slowed my reading when I got to about 15- pages from the end, as I knew how the story was going to end. Nevertheless, this was a very good book. It is one of my favorites of this year.

Finished Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa. The saga continues at a very nice pace so I will keep going with this series.

I think I have those books too, Benita. But just the first two, I think.

Just before the weekend started I finished the last of the Iron Fey series Iron Knight by Julie Kagawa. There are more books about the world of Faery that Kagawa created but technically they are part of another series. I have the first two in that series and will be reading them as this series was quite good. Lots of adventure, a little romance, and a unique way of dragging in all the parts of the myths and legends about everything fey and fairy into the series. These are escapist reading and a good way to escape at that.

I listened to Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. This was a good book, but not a great one. Therefore, the number of awards it was nominated for and the number it one, mainly the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, was a surprise. The content of the novel was not the problem for me. The style, or format, was. The major character of the book took on several different personas in the course of the novel and the jumps between them were not clearly defined. This may have been a problem of listening to a recording instead of reading the novel, as the way it was written and divided might have been visual cues as to what was happening. Whichever it was, I found the novel hard to follow, but the content was so intriguing that I just kept listening anyway.

The novel is set in the North Korea in the present day. It involves government sanctioned kidnapping, imprisonment, torture, and some great creative storytelling by the author and the characters within the novel. The hero is an orphan, maybe. He is an ordinary fisherman, maybe. He is a government trained military enforcer, maybe. He is a famous military hero, maybe and husband to a famous North Korean actress, maybe. It is really hard to find any distinction between fact and fiction and therein is the tale of the novel. When an entire country is based on fiction, then life itself is a work of fiction.

As a follow-up to this novel I am now reading Kim Jong-Il Production just to find out if what the author has proposed in the novel is indeed the truth, and so far the non-fiction work indicates that the truth is as strange as fiction.

Girl in the Steel Corset by Kady Cross is another production by Harlequin Teen. The library has the books in this series and the covers of them intrigued me enough to make me take a second look at them whenever I passed them on the shelves. I soon found myself pulling the books out to look at them. Finally, in December, I checked out this book and read it while at work. It turned out to be a fun read. It is steampunk and takes lots of time to define the various aspects of the genre. It describes in detail clothing and mechanical apparati that are commonly found in other steampunk novels. It took me aback and then I realized that the book was published in 2011 so steampunk was newer and less defined at that point. It is clear that this novel, and I presume the rest of the series, is aimed at teens. But it is also clear that this novel is more in line with the traditional Harlequin romance novel than the Iron Fey series done by the same publisher. This series has more of the typical romance novel tropes present than did Iron Fey series. I enjoyed reading this novel and will pick up the next one in the series and read it at work.

I didn't get to finish Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark but I was more than half finished with it when it was recalled by the library. It was an excellent dry work of diplomatic history with lots of food for thought about the real causes of the war. According to the author the naval arms race was not one of them.

A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Unbelievable True Story of North Korea and the Most Audacious Kidnapping in History by Paul FischerThis work of narrative non-fiction is part of the very small body of knowledge that people in the west have of that most reclusive nation of North Korea. Using the lens of the film industry in North and South Korea the author uses what little information is available to tell the story of Shin Sang-Ok and Choi Eun Hee and North Korea's leader in the later part of the Twentieth Century Kim Jong-Il. The fact that North Korea used political kidnapping for reasons known only to them is well known and documented by the Japanese government among others. These kidnappings appeared to be random except for the kidnapping of the South Korean movie director Shin Sang-Ok and his estranged wife Choi Eun Hee. These two were specifically targeted because of what they could do for the North Korean propaganda machine. For eight years they produced movies for the Kim Jong-Il government before they were able to escape back to the West and tell their story. This very readable book tells about their lives and along the way sheds some light on the functioning of the North Korean regime.

I read this book after reading the Pulitzer Prize winning Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson. That work of fiction might lead readers to believe that kidnapping as a political means was also fiction. It wasn't and "A Kim Jong-Il Production" does much to clarify points made in the earlier book. I rated this book as average because there was nothing outstanding about the writing. It is a fairly standard work of narrative non-fiction, but in interest level and subject matter I would give this a five star rating and recommend it to non-fiction readers everywhere.

Technically this book isn't old enough to be "off my shelves" it was stored in a box under the bed until I pulled it out to read it this summer, so I think this qualifies as being from "off my shelves."

>60 benitastrnad: Sounds like a great read, going on my wish list! And in my house, any book over 30 days old is a root regardless of its location!

#61
That is funny. I'm not a stickler but when I have to get down on hands and knees and go under the bed for a book - I am calling it a ROOT, regardless of my rules. Thanks for the encouragement.

I listened to the recorded version of House of Tomorrow by Peter Bognanni. This book was on the Alex Award list in 2011 and it caught my eye then. Last winter the recorded version was on the Tantor sale list for $5.00. I couldn't resist and ordered it. It did not disappoint. The story is about a boy, Sebastian, who has been home schooled and raised according to the strict principles of his grandmother. The grandmother was a disciple of Buckminster Fuller and she and her grandson live in the first geodesic dome home built in Iowa. The grandmother has a stroke and Sebastian finds himself kicked out of the house for a short time. Fortunately, he has made a friend when a family came to tour the house. Jared, is the recipient of a transplanted heart, and is a punk rock fan. Jared turns Sebastian on to the world of punk rock and Sebastian finds friendship and resolution through his involvement with this misfit family. This was a book with lots of life's lessons that was not pedantic.

My biggest question about this book is why was it published as an adult novel? It is clearly a young adult novel and should have been marketed as such. Both of the major characters are under the age of 16 and the entire book is about typical teenage angst topics. Even the fact that the protagonist has to deal with the aging and end-of-life-care of his grandmother is typical of teens of today. I contrast that with the other book I read this last weekend that was published as a YA novel that had no major characters under the age of 18. It was not a YA novel and yet was marketed as such. I think this causes real problems with the genre. Parents and teachers simply can't trust the YA label anymore. And neither can readers.

I have now finished all three of the published books in the Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas. These are Book 1- Throne of Glass. Book 2 Crown of Midnight, and Book 3 Heir of Fire. I am currently reading the published prequel Assassin's Blade. These three books are a great good read and I enjoyed them very much. I started them because, even though they were on my radar, I hadn't made room for them on my reading schedule. However, a sign posted in the window of the coffee shop at Barnes & Noble changed my reading order, and I hurriedly rushed to get Throne of Glass off of the shelves at McLure. On Saturday, July 25, there is going to be a book discussion about Throne of Glass at Barnes & Noble and I want to see how it goes. To do that, and participate, I needed to have read the book. Of course, I couldn't stop with book 1, I had to keep going with the rest of the series. The series itself reminds me of the Graceling series, and of the Girl of Fire and Thorns series. I am ranking this series quite highly because they are action packed fun and full of suspense. Everything doesn't always go the heroine's way, but the big things come out right.

My biggest gripe with this series is that it is classed as YA literature and it shouldn't be. None of the main characters in the series is under the age of 18. The theme and content of the series is all adult. It should have been published by somebody like TOR and classed as adult literature. Period.

A strange thing happened with Crown of Midnight. The McLure copy has been lost for a year and the public library copy was checked out, so I requested a copy from one of the branch libraries at 4:00 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. (The library closes at 6 on Saturday) I was told it would be at the library on Monday. It was. However when I went to pick it up I could only have it for one week because there were 4 holds on the title. It makes me wonder what happened in the space of 2 days that made the title so popular. It was a good book, but I find it hard to believe that it got to be that popular that fast.

I finally gave up on Boneshaker by Cherie Priest. I have been trying to read this book for almost a year and it just wasn't happening. That was a disappointment as I wanted to like this book. It is set in Seattle, and major events in the book take place in areas of the present Seattle that are still there. But it just wasn't happening. Zombies are not my thing, and I just couldn't get into the story. I quit about half way through the book, but read enough of it to be able to count it as a ROOT in good conscious.

>64 benitastrnad: So now I have to go and find the books by Sarah Maas in Dutch. Thank you for the BB. ;-))

Edit: only two are translated! Maybe number three is on its way.

#66
I am about half done with the Throne of Glass prequel - Assassin's Blade. This is a book of four novella's that were written prior to the publishing of the books. It is not as good as the Throne of Glass series, but it does provide the back story for the novels. I am leaving on vacation and will probably finish it after I return.

Enjoy your holiday!

>67 benitastrnad: Yay, happy vacation!

I listened to the recorded version of Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins and thought it was alright. It was a little on the long side and filled with too much teen angst that was silly but it kept me interested enough to keep listening. At least some YA author is writing something besides dystopian fantasy that is worth reading.

I listened to another delightful edition in thee Flavia De Luce mystery books. This one was I Am Half Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley. It was a Christmas story and used the old trope of an acting company getting snowed in - doing a show and then the leading lady is murdered. What makes these books different is Flavia and her inquisitive mind and her interest in Chemistry. What a snotty little twerp she is, but telling the story from her point-of-view is a masterstroke.

>71 benitastrnad: that one is also on my shelves... but must find time to start w/ the 1st in the series one of these days... ;)

I listened to Swan Peak by James Lee Burke on this cross country odyssey. I picked this title because even though it is a Dave Robicheaux novel it is set in Montana. Burke lives 6 months of the year in Montana and has another detective series that is set in that state, but he is most famous for the Louisiana novels that feature Dave Robicheaux. It surprised me to find Robicheaux in Montana, but Burke made the setting and the Louisiana characters work together. The author even manages to work fly fishing and country western music into the story, along with a whole host of stock plot devices. However, he did manage to leave out the kitchen sink. I like Burke's mysteries and this one was no exception to the expectations I have for this author. It was well done.

I listened to all 25 hours of the biography Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child by Bob Spitz while driving to and from Montana to Alabama. This was a very comprehensive biography that covered all of the life of Julia Child - from birth to death. I learned so much about this woman from this book. There were things I liked about her and things I didn't like. I guess that is true about most people - even the famous ones. I had read her autobiography when it came out and thought it was a remarkable piece about a short period of time in Julia's life, given the limits of its stated scope. This biography added to my knowledge of her entire life and was not restricted as was the autobiography. One important piece of information contained in this book was the fact that Julia Child came from a wealthy family so as a child of privilege, money was something that she did not have to worry about. I also learned that she was notoriously outspoken and even though she was almost radically left wing politically, she was also homophobic. She was one of the first television personalities and her impact on American Culture was unprecedented. Even with all her foibles laid bare she was a person I would like to have known and this biography, while not entirely sympathetic, made her real. Now I need to go read that biography of Jim Hensen.

I finished reading Another Man's Moccasins by Craig Johnson and finally found a Walt Longmire that was interesting, intelligent, and kept my attention. I think it took Johnson three books to get people to read the Longmire series and to do that he had to create a stock action figure that fit the mold of modern detective. Finally, in this book Longmire develops a personality and a reason to like him as a person rather than as a simple knight in shining armor who rescues people. I am still disappointed in the sidekick character and find him little more than a Tonto type, but now that I have read this book I have hopes that the sidekick's character will develop and I will come to understand him and then like him much the same as has happened with Longmire. I just have to wonder how many people gave the series a chance to develop before they bailed out on it? I can now say with honesty that this is a good series and feel like I can recommend it with the caveat that the reader has to let the series develop.

This book develops the back story of Longmire, and does it in a way that ties together the past and the present for Walt, Henry, and another Vietnam Veteran, Virgil White Buffalo. The book flip flops between Vietnam and modern day Wyoming with each of the men in the story playing a part in solving a modern day murder.

Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas contains the back story of Caleana Sardothian. It is a series of short stories and the quality of them is average at best. If you have read the series, starting with Throne of Glass, don't bother with reading this book as you will already know the stories. Because a good reader will have put the pieces of this puzzle together already, these stories are long and rather boring. Add to that the problem that Celaena basically comes across as a spoiled, prideful, head-strong, stubborn, and reckless person. All of this combined makes this a prequal only a dedicated fan of the series could manage to tolerate through to the end. In addition, Celaena seems to be the best assassin because she is the most beautiful and so very young. It seems to be another case of a young woman relying on her youth and beauty instead of her brains and brawn. This is not my idea of a heroine. My personal research showed that these short stories were originally published on-line and were gathered from there to make this book. I think a lack of editing and an inability to hone in on the character of Celaena makes these stories superflueous to understanding the series the author created. These short stories do add to an understanding of the mythical world the author created but they do not increase my understanding of what drives the character.

Girl in the Clockwork Collar by Kady Cross is the second in the Steampunk Chronicles series. It was my at work book, meaning that I kept it at work and did not take it home to read, so at 400 pages and under that set of constraints, it read fast. This series is not great literature but they are fun reads. They are romances masquerading as steampunk, but they are fun. I will pick up book three in the series when I get back to work tomorrow.

Finished listening to Cold Sassy Tree by Olive Ann Burns. This is a pean to small town life in the Turn-of-the-Century American South. As such it overlooks all of the faults of that life - like the circumstances of others not of "our class." Repeated comments about the commonness of others and an obliviousness to that kind of statement left me feeling cold and annoyed with some of the characters in the novel.

On-the-other-hand, there was much to admire in the major character of Rucker Blakeslee. He was a true entrepreneur and a man who lived life on his own terms. He also proved to have the same feet of clay that many men have - they remarry with no thought of others, only of themselves and their needs and desires, leaving family members to deal with the results.

This is a nice sweet story that does not conceal warts - it simply ignores them.

You are reading some nice books, Benita.

I finished the second Poldark novel by Winston Graham - Demelza. This series has managed to make a time and place come alive. They are set on the coast of Cornwall among the mining communities of the time. This novel is at the same time a view of the economic times and the personal times of the major characters. Ross's life is consumed with setting up his business and Demelza's with family and village life. Both find their lives filled with triumphs and tragedies.

If you want to know what life in 18th century Britain was like these novels will provide that window.

I finished Girl With the Iron Touch by Kady Cross over the weekend. The plot of these books is still simplistic with all the tropes of a romance novel, but the writing for this series gets better with each installment. This is a rarity in the book world, as usually each installment in a series is of lesser quality than the first books. This series is an exception. The characterization is getting deeper and richer providing the reader with some people that they like and care about and making them want to see how the characters grow and change as they explore and find their way in their world. The world the author has created is also getting deeper and richer with each addition of the series. This is not great literature but the series is rollicking good fun with women doing unusual things and being unusual people. In short, this is a good effort and a surprise for the third book in a series.

I read Fairest by Marissa Meyer. This is book four in the Lunar Chronicles. As I understand it, this was not a novel that was originally planned for the series. It developed because the next novel had too many back story holes in it and the author needed to tell a smaller, but essential story before she finished was is to be the last book in the series. As a back story, this novella succeeds. As a stand-alone it does not. It is poorly constructed and simply does not pack the punch of the previous novels in the series. I would not tell people to NOT read this novella, but do think it needs to be read for what it is - a backstory outline - not a fully realized and constructed novel of the caliber that this author has done for readers in the past.

Finished a title in a series and with it the series. Girl With the Windup Heart by Kady Cross. This is a bang-up ending to the four book Steampunk Chronicles series. Part romance novel, in keeping with its publishers roots, and all steampunk, it brings action and romance in plenty to its readers and fans. The author managed to provide a satisfactory ending to the series and still leaves the door open for more installments and adventures for the group of extraordinary heroes should she choose to do so. That is no mean feat in the world of publishing today. It is also remarkable that the author's writing has shown some growth from the beginning to the end of this series. Make no mistake - this book, and this series, is not great literature, but they are great good fun to read. That is a good thing. An added bonus is the covers of the series, and the vivid descriptions of the clothing worn by the heroines in the stories. These should provide inspiration aplenty to Cosplay artists around the world.

>83 benitastrnad: I saw that cover, so pretty... I didn't realize it was the end of a series!

#84
I am not absolutely sure it is the end of a series. The author leaves plenty of openings for stories - should she decide to do so. But so far there have been no new novels in the series. Time will tell.

I finished Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach over the weekend. This book was a selection for my real life book discussion group. It is not one I would have continued to read had it not been for that fact.

While it is nice at times, to not have to wade through a weighty tome full of scientific notation, this is light-weight science. It might be entertaining, but it is light weight. It is fun to read, but all fluff and no substance. It goes for sensationalism. As such it is provocative but does not provide any in-depth kind of study or enlightenment. It is more social than scientific. I think I feel a little cheated because I thought Roach was a science writer and instead find out she is more in the area of social commentary. I have two more of her books on my shelves and hope that they are better than this one.

>85 benitastrnad: right, sorry, you indicated that :) I really meant, I had no idea it was part of a series at all! I thought it was a standalone... :}

>86 benitastrnad: sorry you didn't enjoy that one! I have a few of Roach's other books on my shelves too... I also wonder if her other writing is more scientific or more social commentary ... :)

>86 benitastrnad: Interesting, Stiff is on my wish list on the basis of having read Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by the same author, which I enjoyed. I think it helped that I had an idea from a friend's recommendation of what I was getting, and so could enjoy it for what it was. I could be wrong, but I think her background might be journalism.

Treasury of Egyptian Mythology: Classic Stories of Gods, Goddesses, Monsters & Mortals part of a series by the National Geographic Kids publishers and written by Donna Jo Napoli. This is a beautiful book that is guaranteed to catch the eye. The illustrations are amazing. Even though this book is aimed at children and young adults it will catch the eye of anybody who is interested in ancient Egypt and its religion and mythologies. This title is part of a series commissioned by the National Geographic society about the old myths from ancient civilizations. As such I would expect a beautiful book and this one does not disappoint. The narrative is done by Donna Jo Napoli, who is a recognized authority on folktales and fairy tales for children and young adults. She has many tellings and retellings of folk and fairy tales to her credit. This book is a work of non-fiction which is not exactly her forte and it shows. While the illustrations are exceptional the narrative is a bit rough in places. It appears that the author was trying to make the origin stories into one cohesive narrative that flowed naturally from one gods origins to another. In places that technique worked and in other places the transitions were rough. However, as an introduction for its intended audience this is an excellent choice.

This was my office book that I took with me to lunch so it really didn't take 6 months to read. I only read a page or two and sometimes neglected it for long periods of time while I read books like "The Steampunk Chronicles." It really is a fast read.

I listened to the recorded version of The Chess Machine by Robert Lohr and ended Pear Ruling it after 4 discs. It simply was not interesting and didn't like the narrator. The main drawback to listening to a book is that the narrator DOES make a difference in the perception of the book. In this case I found the narrator to have a smug toneless tone, and that made none of the characters sympathetic to the listener. I started this novel six months ago. Got bored with it and set it aside in favor of other recorded books thinking I would get back it later. It never called to me, so I have sent the recorded version to the used book store. At some point in time I might read this book, but not now.

A pity, Benita! It's a shame that a narrator can be so important to a book. Better luck next time.

I finished reading and A number 1 Sci/Fi novel - Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie. If you haven't started reading this series it is not too late to start. They are very good. I really really like this series and look forward to reading the next one when it comes out in November.

This was one of those books were nothing happens and then WHAM! everything happens at once. This time Breq is on what most people would see as a diplomatic as well as a personal mission, but this soon turns deadly when an important person is killed by accident and there is an attempted murder. Add to that a space station that is being mismanaged when it is the home of the sister of Breq's murdered friend and ship captain. The intricacies of diplomacy are featured in this novel but in the end there is plenty of action and Sevraiden and Breq once again have to trust and rely on each other.

Finished reading Book 6 in the Iron Fey series Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa. This was a very surprising novel for this series and for the publisher. It was much darker than the previous novels in the series and the plot was very surprising with some unexpected twists and turns. This shows how much the author has grown as a writer while doing this series.

The brother and the son of the Iron Queen come together in this novel in an uneasy alliance that explodes at the end. Ethan remains a sympathetic character but Kierran becomes more explosive and unstable as the story goes on. This provides plenty of opportunity for writer to take the story in directions that unexpected and unanticipated on the part of the reader. I can't wait for the last book in this series to come out as it promises to be a corker.

The problem with historical fiction is that the reader knows how the story is going to end. King's Curse by Philippa Gregory is the last book in Gregory's Cousins War series and it follows the life of Margaret, Countess of Salisbury, the last living Plantagenet to its inevitable conclusion in the yard of the Tower of London. While charting the life of Margaret it also provides a chronicle of the development of the tyrannical rule of Henry VIII. Like the others in this series, this was a good book. The author creates a character that grows from a young woman to an old woman because she kept a so careful watch on her emotions and her speech. I cared about her and I knew what her eventual end was. For that reason I skipped the end of the book where she has to endure the torture, execution, and exile of her sons. The problem was that it was not a good time in my life in which to be reading something so depressing. For those whose real life isn't filled with conspiracies and nastiness of that sort this is a great series to read.

>94 benitastrnad: I have several of those books in that series to read. They are going to be on my 2016 Roots list!

>92 benitastrnad: aahh! I have that from the library but I haven't read Ancillary Justice yet! Thought I'd ... erm, get to it faster ;P

#96
Don't delay. This is a good series and the third book is to come out late this year. I don't know the exact date.

#95
If you like historical fiction you will like this series. I just couldn't do justice to the last one as I am in need of comfort reads right now, and that one was not comfortable because I knew how it was going to end.

>97 benitastrnad: I know, I saw! That's actually why I decided to get the 2nd from the library to push myself to read the first ;)

Crazy Horse, The Strange Man of the Oglalas: A Biography by Mari Sandoz. This biography of the Oglala Sioux known as Crazy Horse is a biography ahead of its time. It was published in 1942 from source material collected in the 1920's and 30's by the Nebraska Sand Hills native author Mari Sandoz and a friend of hers. It was panned when it was published by the critics, my guess is, because it was not done in the accepted writing style of the time. I think that if this book were published today it would find a wide audience, due to its depiction of the Indian side the story of the Sioux Wars.

It is clear that the author's sympathies are with Crazy Horse and the Native Americans, as a reading of the source material indicates a majority of the sources for the narrative are from Native American sources. The use of this type of material would have been unusual and probably suspect back in 1942, hence the poor reception of this work at that time. Subsequent reviews and interpretations of the source material has been much more sympathetic to the viewpoint of the Native Americas regarding the events that took place in the Sioux Wars. There has also been a greater acceptance of the role inter-tribal politics played in the affairs of the Sioux Wars over time. Back in the 1870's the Native Americans were seen as one hegemonious group with one hegemonious agenda. That viewpoint is severely contested today - with good reason - and inter-tribal politics has ben given a greater place in the history of the times. This later view probably gives us a better picture of what was going on at the time. Readers, amateur historians, and historians of today should be thankful for writers like Sandoz who took the time to gather this primary information and preserve it for people today.

This biography reads like a work of narrative oral history. That takes some work to become accustom to, but it is worth it. It is a very thorough and satisfying biography of a very important figure in America History.

Another book that has been on my shelves for a long time is now read and gone. Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Hoeg was one of the first of the Scandi Crime megahits and as such it garnered my interest when it came out, but I am only now getting it read because I managed to convince the others in my real life book discussion group to read it with me. That was because I had two copies of it in my possession and that made it easier for the others to get the copies from the library.

If you like to read novels with ambiguous and unresolved plots and endings that make you go umhh? this is the novel for you. In addition, this novel has a heroine that is not easy to like and a full cast of secondary characters that are deeply flawed and equally unlikeable. To add to the readers puzzlement just when a character seems to be on the heroine's side they pull a switch-a-roo and are really working for the bad guys. All this makes for a great plot that keeps on kicking the reader in the head for making assumptions and thinking that they know where the plot of the novel is going. The author sends up a big red spotlight and shouts wrong - go back! to the reader in the form of unexpected plot twists and turns.

The only problem with this novel is the style. It is very prosaic and introspective, at times bordering on the boring, but in the end the socio/cultural message comes through strong and clear as does the more expected action/thriller/murder mystery. All of this makes for an interesting novel that could leave the reader cold as the snow, ice, and water that Smilla walks on and wandering and wondering into the long night but just manages to make them wonder instead. This is a novel to think about on those long winter nights.

>100 benitastrnad: That makes me want to pick up my copy, Benita. I must have it somewhere.

Finished listening to Foreign Correspondent by Alan Furst. This was another in his work-horse series about the years leading up to World War II. What Furst does so well is to create atmosphere and he does that again with this book. This book is about how people get dragged into being spies and what motivates them to do so. Furst also writes about obscure parts of World War II and brings in events about which many Americans are unfamiliar. In this novel, that obscure history is the communist and partisan movements in Italy. How they started and why there was such a strong movement against the Germans and Moussalini in Italy.

I finished reading Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff. I have been trying to get this book read for years (ever since the movie came out) and finally got to it. This novel was published in 1954 and is still very much relevant and useful in the classroom. This was a wonderful book for Young Adults. There is so much history and culture in this novel, that I decided that my school teacher sister is correct about Sutcliff and her value in the classroom. The writing is excellent and the journey that Marcus and Esca take is ably told. This novel will really explain to people interested in Roman history how the Legions functioned and worked. There is also much in it about why Hadrian's Wall was necessary and how it was garrisoned. The ending of this book managed to make me cry. I am going to continue to read this trilogy.

I finished reading Oaxaca Journal by Oliver Sacks. I have had this book checked out from the library for 6 months and it was time to get it off the shelves. Besides, an escape to another place was just what I needed and wanted in a book. Travel books are great ways to get me out of my own box and this title was not an ordinary travel book. It concentrated less on the place and more on the reasons why the author was there. In this case it was as a hobbyist who wanted to further his knowledge about a certain phylum of plants and he ended up learning a great deal about the place and the people in the two weeks he was on the expedition. The author was Oliver Sacks, who is a well known best-selling author, whose work centers around his psychiatric practice and the things he has learned about psychiatry. This was a departure from his normal writing because, while it is non-fiction, it is a travel book and therefore, an unexpected work from Sacks normal subject. It was a book of travel essays about Sacks trip to Oaxaca taken in 2000. Sacks is an inveterate journal writer and he kept a journal of his trip to Oaxaca and used this as the basis for this short pithy book for the National Geographic Society's Directions series. I have read several of the titles in this series and have enjoyed them all, but I thought this entry in the series was very well done. The series features well known authors (mostly well known) writing about places that they visit or where they are expatriates. Sacks went to Oaxaca as part of a pteridological expedition. Turns out Sacks was an active member of the American Fern Society and Oaxaca is a habitat that provides a favorable environment for a huge number of ferns, both rare and common species. This provides the background for an uncommon travel book that I enjoyed reading because it talks about everything from botany to Mayan history and math. I will keep looking for more of the titles in this series as each of them has provided me with insights and pleasurable reading.

I was slow to the party with Ghostwritten by David Mitchell, a book I have been calling the interminable novel. I use that word lightly but also seriously. I read the novel because it was for Paul's BAC back in October when he featured Mitchell as one of the authors so it has taken me almost two months to read a 430 page novel. This is novel is David Mitchell's first novel (published in 2000) and therefore the first of his trademark "puzzle novels." I think that because it is so experimental it is very hard to read. It definitely is a puzzle and I think that some of the puzzles don't get solved until the next book, which is - I think - Cloud Atlas.

The novel is constructed in nine parts that don't seem to be connected. All of the "seemingly" unconnected parts of the novel makes this a very disjointed read, and while, at times, I like novels to make me think, on some levels this one just doesn't quite work. I am happy that I read "Cloud Atlas" first because that is the better novel of these two and because I loved "Cloud Atlas" and "Thousand Autumns of Jacob De Zoet" so much I kept going with the reading even if the reading wasn't easy. I figured that eventually with "Ghostwritten" there would be a reward. There might have been but the whole novel seemed flat to me. There were some surprises in this novel, but overall those were not enough for me to think this novel was anything outstanding. Thank goodness the publisher thought that Mitchell showed promise and stayed with him, because that promise was hard to see in this first novel. The commercial reviews of this novel were positive and all talked about the gorgeous prose and convoluted plot lines. I think they should have mentioned that the novel is dense and very hard to read. I would bet that few readers actually read it from cover to cover. I almost didn't and can't say that I am better for having stuck with it to the end. I can say that the publisher should get kudos for publishing this novel and subsequent titles because the author showed "future" promise. The key here being that word future - most publishers would have given up on an author if this was their first book.

As an interesting aside - the novel has characters, symbols, and events in it that reappear in "Cloud Atlas." I finally found out why the comet was in "Cloud Atlas."

>105 benitastrnad: That is one book I want to have, Benita. I've ordered is for my thingaversary, so I'm waiting for it to arrive. It is in re-print now.

My Thanksgiving book this year was Divergent by Veronica Roth. This is the first in a series set in a future dystopian city/world of Chicago. I liked the plot premise but didn't think that the author did a very good job of delivering an exciting novel. Like many YA novels this one is poorly edited and therefore long and rambling. I plan on reading the rest of the series but won't hurry to do so. There are other series that provide me with quality plots and characters to read first.

I finished listening to Age of Shiva by Manil Suri. I am not sure what to make of this book. On the one hand it is the story of a woman who wanted only to be a mother and wife and ran into the ambitions of her father and family. They wanted her to be one of the "new" Indians, an educated career-oriented woman who was not bound by the traditions and restrictions of the society around her. However, it was clear that she did not want that. She wanted to be a traditional Indian mother and wife and did everything she could to circumvent and subvert their ambitions. It was also the story of a woman who became so involved with her son that, if it wasn't an incestuous relationship, it bordered on incest, to the point where it interfered with her ability to live life as well as that of her son's. The inability of the main character to see that she had done anything wrong in the many relationships in her life grated and frankly made her unsympathetic and hard for the reader to like. The prose was very good and, since I listened to the recorded version of the book, the narrator added to the experience by making it easier to get into the lives of the characters. (The narration was very well done and was probably the reason why I finished the book.)

The strong point of the book was the history of modern India, told from the point-of-view of an upper middle income Indian woman and the humor. There were passages that were simply laugh-out-loud funny. These were unexpected and very well done. The way the author weaved historical events into the story was also well done and the placement of these in the novel were strategic and important the outcome of the story. This is a writer who shows promise and I do have another of his novels on my shelves that I plan on reading. I think that perhaps the novel was simply to ambitious for the abilities of the writer at this point in his career. It is also possible that it would resonate better with an Indian audience who could identify with the lifestyle of the main character than could I.

The Lantern Bearers by Rosemary Sutcliff is the third book in her Roman Britain series. I still have book 2 in the series to read, but McLure did not have book 2 so I skipped it for now. That is part of the beauty of this old series (this book was published in the early 60's) - the trilogy doesn't follow each book immediately but puts the focus on different points in time that are important to the development of the history of Britain.

The major characters of this book are still the Flavian family but this time it is at the end of the Roman Empire. The Legions are called back to Rome and Aquila makes the decision to desert and stay in Britain rather than go with his Legion to Rome. It is the beginning of a long hard journey that brings the reader to the struggle to preserve Britain for the British rather than surrender all of it to the migrating and invading Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, as well as the Vikings.

This is a sad book as it is clearly about endings and how hard decisions are made that affect a person for the rest of their life. Historically it is about the rise of Ambrosias and Artos. The King Arthur of legend and fame.

This book won the Carnegie medal for children's literature when it was published and it is very deserving of that hono.

I think you earned a Congratulations quite some time ago! Am I right? Your goal was 40 and you've read 73 so far?
Congrats!!

Thanks for the congrats. I have made a concentrated effort to read books from my shelves this year and to finish up series that I started a long time ago. Concentrating on that has paid off, as I think I cleared some room on shelves and might make the 75 book goal this year. (for the first time.)

>111 benitastrnad: Apparently! That's quite the pay off for your concentration :)
I hope next year, I am as successful as you have been :)

Good luck on your 75-book goal too!

>110 avanders: Did I miss that too?

I finally finished reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo. This was a book that I should have read for my real life book discussion group and I just couldn't get into it. I think that goes to show that sometimes the mood of the reader does affect how you like the book, if you pick it out off the shelf, or even if you read it. The second time I picked up this book I found it interesting enough to read. However, I am not sure what point the author was trying to make. If she was pointing out that the daily grind of just surviving makes everything hard for the residents of one Mumbai slum, I don't think that she hit it strong enough because it was not that plain in the reading. If she was point out how miserable these peoples lives are and something should be done about it, she didn't make it sympathetic enough. If she was trying to point out how corrupt the "Indian Democracy" is, she may have made that point. However, again, if that was the point then she wasn't strong enough in her indictment of that government or the way it forces people to conduct their lives. In the end, I thought that this was a good book, but I have trouble understanding why it was so highly touted. I think there are other books out there that make the above mentioned points much better and with more accuracy.

I listened to Eldest by Christopher Paolini while driving home to Kansas for my Christmas break. The recorded version of this book was very well done with a reader who did a great job of bringing to life was is a standard swords and sorcerers fantasy novel for children and YA's. No new plot twists in this novel, but it was a very pleasant way to pass the miles.

I zipped through the last book in the Ancillary Justice series by Ann Leckie. Ancillary Mercy is space opera at its best. It took me four days to read this novel. I should have been writing Christmas letters and instead I spent my time reading this novel and drinking coffee, which caused me to be late getting the letters done. It was worth it, as this is an excellent series. I had thought that this would be the end of this series, but was surprised to find that the author left plenty of room to bring out stories about other characters in the novel, at some future point. That is good, because I am not done reading about Breq, her crew, and various others hangers-on, and can't wait for their next adventure.

I listened to Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater for my last book of the year. This book has been on my reading list ever since a colleague, who has since retired, highly recommended it. My colleauge was correct - this is a very good YA novel. It is full of action, relationships, characters that the reader cares about, and living in a small community. It also has villians aplenty and danger, so it provides action in the right places. At its heart, this is a story about a girl and her horse, but it is also a romance novel and a sort of fantasy novel. The base for the novel is the girl and horse story, but there is also a base in old folk and fairy tales about keplian, kelpies, and water horses of that ilk. The author doesn't dwell on the folk tales but uses them as the base for this novel, only touching on these legends when needed. This subtle hand makes for a great story with just enough mystery and fantasy to make it stand out from the standard girl and her horse story. The recorded version was very well done. The book was written with two voices alternating chapters and the recorded version followed that lead using two different readers. This greatly enhanced the listening experience making this a very satisfying novel. Had I listened to it earlier in the year, it might have made my list of top recorded books. As it is, this is a novel I will recommend to others.