VioletBramble's 2014 Category Challenge Part 2

Hi! Welcome to Part 2 of my books within the Harry Potter books Category Challenge. I still need to add at least one more book to my Science Fiction and Animal categories, but otherwise I think my categories are sufficiently filled. I have 24 books left on my 2014 reading list.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard
A book of wizard fairy tales given to Hermione by Professor Dumbledore

Fairy Tales: new, old and retold:
1) These Children Who Come at You With Knives, and Other Fairy Tales: Stories
2) Goblinproofing One's Chicken Coop: And Other Practical Advice In Our Campaign Against the Fairy Kingdom
3) Delphine
4) Tender Morsels
5) Kissing the Witch
6) Goblin Secrets

Unfogging the Future by Cassandra Vablatsky
Divination text book

Science Fiction:
1) Distant Stars
2) Wild Seed
3) Doomsday Book

The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection by Quentin Trimble
Defense Against the Dark Arts text book

Fiction and Nonfiction books about epidemics, natural disasters, environmental disasters, war:
1) The Children's Blizzard
2) Fever 1793
3) In The Hot Zone: One Man, One Year, Twenty Wars- Kevin Sites
4) Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How it Changed America - John M Barry
5) The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People - Tim Flannery
6) The Weather Makers - Tim Flannery

Magical Theory by Adalbert Waffling
Charms text book

Books about magic, witchcraft, witches, wizards:
1) Hermione Granger Saves the World: Essays on the Feminist Heroine of Hogwarts
2) The Physic Book of Deliverance Dane
3) Witches Abroad
4) Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch
5) The Highland Witch
6) Witches' Bane

The Monster Book of Monsters
Hagrid's choice for Care of Magical Creatures text book

Horror, ghosts, monsters:
1) World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War
2) The Terror

Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them by Newt Scamander
Care of Magical Creatures text book

Books about animals and mythical creatures:
1) The Tale of Despereaux
2) The Plague Dogs
3) A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi by Phillida Spore
Herbology text book

Fiction and Nonfiction about food, herbs, herbal medicine, tea, plants:
1) Relish: My Life in the Kitchen
2) Herbal Teas: 101 Nourishing Blends for Health & Vitality
3) Teatime for the Firefly
4) Healing Magic: A Green Witch Guidebook to Conscious Living
5) The Signature of All Things
6) You: On A Diet
7) The Gift of Healing Herbs: Plant Medicines and Home Remedies for a Vibrantly Healthy Life
8) Thyme of Death
9) Rueful Death
10) Holly Blues

Magical Drafts and Potions by Arsenius Jigger
Potions text book

Books about potions and poisons:
1) A Beautiful Blue Death
2) Beeline to Trouble - Hannah Reed
3) The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
4) Firefly
5) Mockingjay
6) The Poisoner's Handbook
7) The Blackheath Poisonings
8) Poison: An Illustrated History
9) The Poisons of Caux: The Tasters Guild
10) The Poisons of Caux: The Shepherd of Weeds

Numerology and Gramatica
Numerology text book

Nonfiction books on science, math, writing, reading:
1) Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
2) On Writing
3) Field Notes on Science & Nature
4) The Drunkard's Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives

Home Life and Social Habits of British Muggles by Wilhelm Wigworthy
Muggle Studies text book

Fiction and Nonfiction set in Britain:
1) Dancers in Mourning
2) Hallowe'en Party
3) 1066: The Year of the Conquest
4) How to be a Woman

Asiatic Anti-Venoms
A library book Harry looks at in 5th year

Books with an Asian setting or by an Asian author:
1) Sputnik Sweetheart
2) A Geek in Japan: Discovering the Land of Manga, Anime, Zen, and the Tea Ceremony
3) The Lotus Eaters - Tatiana Soli
4) The Good Earth - Pearl S Buck
5) The Woman in the Dune - Kobo Abe

An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe
A book read by Hermione in year 4

Fiction and NonFiction with a European setting:
1) The Land of Green Plums
2) Flaw
3) Marina
4) Suite Francaise
5) An Age of License

Sonnets of a Sorcerer
Ron tells Harry about this book in year 5. Anyone who read the book was cursed to speak in limericks for the rest of their life.

Poetry:
1) If Birds Gather Your Hair For Nesting: Poems
2) Come, Thief: Poems
3) October Mourning: A Song for Matthew Shepard
4) Why the House is Made of Gingerbread
5) Gitanjali
6) How to Dance as the Roof Caves In
7) Goblin Market and Other Poems
8) June Fourth Elegies
9) The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam

Important Modern Magical Discoveries
A library book - which does not mention Nicholas Flamel

Unplanned reading that doesn't fit into my other categories:
1) 97 Orchard Street, New York: Stories of Immigrant Life
2) 97 Orchard: An Edible History of Five Immigrant Families in One New York Tenement
3) Trixie Belden and the Red Trailer Mystery
4) I See You Made An Effort
5) Beautiful Ruins
6) Where'd You Go Bernadette
7) You: Staying Young
8) The Maltese Falcon
9) This Cold Heaven
10) If Books Could Kill
11) Sacred Places of a Lifetime
12) The Ends of the Earth: An Anthology on the Finest Writing on the Arctic and Antarctic
13) R.O.D. Official Archive (Read or Die)
14) Booked to Die
15) The Lost City of Z

Planned reading for October:
GeoCAT- The Lost City of Z
Random CAT- Tender Morsels

Halloween reading:
The Highland Witch
Witches Abroad
Witches Bane
Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch
Kissing the Witch

Books bought in 2014:
1) The Dead in Their Vaulted Arches
2) Poet in New York - Federico Garcia Lorca
3) Swann's Way
4) The Poisoner's Handbook
5) How to be a Woman
6) How to Dance as the Roof Caves In: Poems
7) Travels with Charlie: In Search of America
8) Proust was a Neuroscientist
9) I See You Made an Effort: Compliments, Indignities, and Survival Stories from the Edge of 50
10) Plenty
11) The Gift of Healing Herbs
12) The Sibley Guide to Trees
13) Out of Africa
14) Given: Poems
15) The Magician King
16) Cooked
17) The Oh She Glows Cookbook
18) Stand on Zanzibar
19) Letters to a Young Poet
20) The Golem and the Jinni
21) Eating Wildly: Foraging for Life, Love and the Perfect Meal
22) The Storied Life of AJ Fikry
23) Gilded
24) The Glass Sentence
25) Oral Sadism and the Vegetarian Personality
26) Pioneer Girl: A Novel
27) Pioneer Girl An Annotated Autobiography pre-order
28) Tomboy: A Graphic Memoir pre-order
29) An Age of License - pre-order
30) The Mockingbird Next Door: Life With Harper Lee
31) Smila's Sense of Snow
32) Snow Falling on Cedars
33) Native Speaker
34) Tibet: Through the Red Box
35) All Four Stars
36) Sculptor's Daughter: A Childhood Memoir
37) 2 A.M. at the Cat's Pajamas
38) The Martian Chronicles
39) Doctor Who: The Silent Stars Go By
40) The Old Man and the Sea
41) Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
42) Read or Die: R.O.D. Official Archive
43) Escape From Mr Lemoncello's Library
44) The Crane Wife
45) The Fourteenth Goldfish
46) Counting by 7s
47) Mockingbird
48) Less THan Zero
49) The Best American Poetry 2014
50) State of Wonder
51) Clariel
52) Dorothy Parker: Complete Broadway 1918-1923
53) The Strange Library

Starred! Happy reading!

Yay, new thread!

Nice new digs, Kelly!

That's quite a list of bought books. I should probably do that myself (starting next year) to keep track of how good or bad I am. Happy new thread!

Happy new thread! I enjoyed seeing all the category names again :)

Happy new thread!! That is indeed a wonderful list of new books!

A nice new thread and I hope a return to full health!

And the final stretch!!! Glad to see you back with a vengeance. ;)

Hi everyone. Thanks for visiting my new thread.
Once again, I'm very far behind. I don't know what's happening to my time this year.

68) The Lost City of Z: A Tale of Deadly Obsession in the Amazon- David Grann
NonFiction, Exploration, GeoCAT - Amazon
Category: Important Modern Magical Discoveries
Pages: 400
Rating: 4 stars

Grann details the history of British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest(s) to find the legendary lost Amazon city of Z. Grann utilizes Fawcett's letters and journals to piece together all his attempts to find Z. Grann also discusses the numerous attempts by other explorers to find the missing Fawcett party -- or at least their remains and belongings. Finally, Grann himself, with the help of a trained guide, attempts to follow in Fawcett's footsteps to find the lost city. I was surprised by the revelation of what was probably Z at the end of the book.

69) Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett
Fiction, Series, Humor, Witches
Category: Magical Theory
Pages: 374
Rating: 4 stars

Book 12 in the Discworld series and the 3rd book in the Witches series. I haven't read any other books in the series and don't know the background of the characters in this book. One of the three witches suddenly becomes a fairy godmother. She has to stop a princess from marrying a prince. All of the witches travel to find the princess. Along the way they have many mishaps -- the new fairy godmother doesn't know how to use her wand yet -- and become entangled in the stories of many fairy tales that are playing out in nearby towns. This one was a lot of fun.

70) Aunt Dimity and the Village Witch - Nancy Atherton
Fiction, Series, Witches
Category: Magical Theory
Pages: 280
Rating: 4 stars

Another series that I haven't read previously. I bought this book because I had read about the Aunt Dimity books here on LT. (I'm still trying to find the Whirling Dervish book). I had no idea that Aunt Dimity is the spirit of a dead woman that inhabits a journal and is able to communicate in writing (like Tom Riddles diary) with Lori Shepard.
Amelia Thistle is newly arrived in Finch. She has moved to the town to discover diary pages that are hidden around the town. These diary pages tell the story of a woman, Mistress Meg, believed to once have been the town witch. Lori and the rest of the town help Amelia uncover the pages.
I enjoyed this one. Will look for more in this series.

71) Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins - Emma Donoghue
Fiction, Fairy tales
Category: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Pages: 228
Rating: 4 stars

My favorite book from my pile of October "witch" reads. Retellings/fractured fairy tales that are loosely interlinked. All the tales have female main characters -- including the stories that usually have a male main character (Rumplestiltskin) - and some have a lesbian element.

72) The Highland Witch - Susan Fletcher
Fiction, Witches, Scotland
Category: Magical Theory
Pages: 366
Rating: 3 stars

This book is set in 1692 in Scotland and depicts events leading up to the massacre at Glencoe. The main character, Corag, is a witch and herbalist in the Highlands. The story remained true to historical events. My favorite parts were sections that involved herb lore. The author could have used a good editor -- her prose is really lovely but she was often overly descriptive and I found myself jumping ahead to sections with actual action and less descriptions.

73) Witches' Bane - Susan Wittig Albert
Fiction, Mystery, Series, Witches, Herbology
Category: Magical Theory
Pages: 255
Rating: 4 stars

The second book in the China Bayles mystery series. This is another series that I haven't read before. ( I plan on reading #1 in the series in December.) China is an ex-lawyer who owns an herbal shop in Pecan Springs, Texas. The mystery involved the murder of a woman into the occult and poisonous plants. There was just the right mix of mystery and herb lore. I'll definitely read more in this series -- and not just because I have 4 more titles in the series sitting on my shelves.

74) Among the Goddesses: An Epic Libretto in Seven Dreams - Anne Finch
Fiction, Play, Performance art, Goddesses
Category: Important Modern Magical Discoveries
Pages: 87
Rating; 2.5 stars

This strange little book, part play, part performance art, is hard to describe. Lily is a young girl who leaves home because of incest. She meets Eve, moves in with her and helps her with her art. When Eve dies Lily travels to San Fransisco, planting small trees in Eve's honor. Along the way Lily is raped in a church yard and becomes pregnant. Seven goddesses appear to her, separately, and help her decide to have an abortion. In the preface the author writes: The theme of abortion had long seemed to me an epic one, focusing a terrain of crucial energies and reclaiming the spiritual implications of women's inherent power over life and death. I liked the idea behind the play but I didn't like the way it was set up and the repetitions were really annoying.

75) Tender Morsels - Margo Lanagan
Fiction, Fairy tales, Witches, RandomCAT
Category: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Pages: 435
Rating: 4 stars

A retelling of Snow White and Rose Red. This book is very dark and violent. There is incest, gang rape, a violent , greedy dwarf, boys that turn into bears and general human indifference to suffering. Every time I started a new section I would actually cringe fearing the horrible things that might happen in that section. Despite all the violence I did end up liking the book very much.

Nice reads! :) Happy Halloween, btw.

>27 VioletBramble: I was surprised by the end too! It was very good.

>31 VioletBramble: We visited Glencoe last year and your reading this book has reminded me that I want to find a non-fiction book about the events.

>36 rabbitprincess: -- The Glencoe Massacre appears in the last 50 or so pages. Unless you're also into herblore I'd suggest another book about Glencoe. I visited Glencoe over 20 years ago. I don't really remember it though.

Recap for October:

Books read in 2014: 75
Books read in Oct : 8
Books off the shelf 2014: 68
Fiction: 40
NonFiction: 26
Poetry: 8
Graphic novel: 2
Male author: 37
Female author: 41
Pages read in 2014: 21,596
Books bought in 2014: 51

Planned reading for November:

GeoCAT:
The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People

Random CAT:
The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What it Means for Life on Earth

Other reading:

The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam
Wild Seed
The Plague Dogs
Goblin Secrets

Pics of my Halloween Potions Lab: (it goes with my challenge theme)

>40 VioletBramble: - That is awesome!

Thanks Lori

Wow, that's really beautiful!

Love it! And what was in the "Dragon's Blood"?

I love the potions lab! Snape would feel right at home ;)

Will be interested to hear your thoughts on your RandomCAT selection.

>43 LauraBrook: Thanks Laura

>44 mstrust: Thanks. Why, there's dragons blood in the dragons blood. No, just red food coloring. Right after I made it I remembered that dragons blood is supposed to be green, but, I was too lazy to start over again. By the time I made that one I had already made a bunch with stuff like cooking oil, liquid soap and glitter, pieces of metal and hair. I was out of ideas.

>45 rabbitprincess: Thanks rabbitprincess. I haven't even started my RandomCAT book yet. I'm hoping it's a quick read.

Wow, where has the time gone. I don't know why I haven't been here in awhile. I'm hanging out in my apartment today thanks to the frigid weather that has suddenly taken over seemingly all of North America. I'll have to go out later for my Herbal Medicine class. I've been making some herbal meds today. I made some elderberry elixir that has my apartment smelling of vanilla and brandy. Yum.

76) The Selected Poems of Osip Mandelstam - Osip Mandelstam
Translated by Clarence Brown and W.S. Merwin
Poetry
Category: Sonnets of a Sorcerer
Pages: 167
Rating: 3.5 stars

Osip Mandelstam was a Russian poet who published between 1910-1938. He was an instigator of the Russian Revolution, was exiled by Stalin and died in a Siberian labor camp.
This is the first time I had read anything by Mandelstam. I found the poems in this collection to be mainly just okay with a handful of very good poems. Reading some of reviews of this book it appears that one of the translators, W.S. Merwin, has translated the poems into the style of his own poetry and not into the style typically utilized by Mandelstam. Possibly that is why this collection is not as impressive as I anticipated.

96

A hush that evening in the organ forest.
Then singing for us: Schubert, cradle songs,
the noise of a mill, and the voice of a storm
where the music had blue eyes and was drunk and laughing.

Brown and green is the world of the old song,
and young forever. There the maddened king
of the forest shakes the whispering crowns
of the nightingale lindens.

With darkness he returns, and his terrible strength
is wild in that song, like a black wine.
He is the Double, an empty ghost
peering mindlessly through a cold window.

286 (The Stalin Epigram)

Our lives no longer feel ground under them.
At ten paces you can't hear our words.

But whenever there's a snatch of talk
it turns to the Kremlin mountaineer,

the ten thick worms of his fingers,
his words like measures of weight,

the huge laughing cockroaches on his top lip,
the glitter of his boot-rims.

Ringed with a scum of chicken-necked bosses
he toys with the tributes of half-men.

One whistles, another meows, a third snivels.
He pokes out his finger and he alone goes boom.

He forges decrees in a line like horseshoes,
One for the groin, one for the forehead, temple, eye.

He rolls the executions on his tongue like berries.
He wishes he could hug them like big friends from home.

77) The Plague Dogs - Richard Adams
Fiction, Animal research
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Pages: 389
Rating: 2.5 stars

Two dogs, Snitter and Rowf, escape from a research lab where they have been the subjects of horrific animal experimentation. I loved the two dogs and the fox who helps them figure out how to survive in the wild. The story is heart breaking.
I really wanted to like this book, although I knew going in it would be a sad book. My problem was mainly that I didn't like Adam's writing style in this book and found the pace plodding. It didn't help that the print in my edition is very small and hurt my eyes.

78) Goblin Secrets - William Alexander
Fiction, Fantasy, Steampunk, YA
Category: The Tales of Beedle the Bard
Pages: 223
Rating: 3 stars

This book is sort of a steampunk mash-up of Babba Yaga and Oliver Twist. Rownie lives with a group of other orphans in the house of Graba the witch. She has giant mechanical chicken legs. Graba and Rownie are both looking for Rownie's older brother, Rowan, who disappeared a year before the story takes place. It's believed that he disappeared while putting on a play with some goblins. In this world - Zombay- only goblins are allowed to put on masks or pretend to be something that they are not. Rownie joins the goblins in order to look for his brother and get away from Graba. Graba does not want to lose Rownie-- possibly due to some power that he and his brother possess -- and she sends her spies after him. This is the first book in a planned series. In the end none of the problems are solved, maybe to continue in the next book. However; the sad truth of what happened to Rowan is discovered.
A good, not great, YA book with fairly decent world building and an interesting system of magic. I might look for more in this series.

79) The Future Eaters: An Ecological History of the Australasian Lands and People - Tim Flannery
NonFiction, Geography, History, GeoCAT
Category: The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection
Pages: 432
Rating: 4 stars

An incredibly interesting book about how continental drift, regional geology and climate have shaped the countries of Australasia ( Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, New Guinea), their peoples, flora and fauna. There are sections about how the use of fire allows the people of Australia to derive nutrients from their otherwise nutrient-poor soil.

I remember being on vacation with our family a long long time ago and the condo we were staying in had a supply of reading material on hand. One of the books was The Plague Dogs and I have to say the opening chapter freaked out my young animal loving teenage mind to no end. To this day, I will not pick up that book to read it. Amazing how some books leave such an imprint on our minds.

>51 lkernagh: -Lori, I'm sorry that you were traumatized by The Plague Dogs. I'm so glad I didn't try to read this when I was younger. Although, I guess there's never really a good time to read certain subject matter. Why would someone leave that book in a vacation condo? Maybe they discovered, like you, what horrible vacation reading it was and just left the book there.

Why would someone leave that book in a vacation condo?

If I remember correctly, there was a odd selection of paperbacks on hand so maybe it was a reject holiday book that didn't make the trip home with its owner.

>53 lkernagh: - I've certainly left my share of completed or dud books behind in hotel rooms so I wouldn't have to carry them home. A hotel I stayed in at the Jersey shore had 3 bookcases full of left-behind books in the lobby. They were there for the taking. I thought that was a great idea.

80) Wild Seed - Octavia E Butler
SciFi
Category: Unfogging the Future
Pages: 279
Rating: 4 stars

The story of two immortals and their attempts to find others with the same abilities. Anyanwu is a woman who lives in a small African village in the year 1690. She has lived for hundred of years. She is able to heal herself and others. She can change her appearance and change genders and species by completely altering her DNA. Doro finds her one day in her garden. Doro, once a human boy, is a spirit being who takes over human bodies. He kills indiscriminately. He collects people with special abilities into colonies around the world. He breeds them like animals in order to create beings with better powers and possibly other immortals. Doro has come to believe that he is a God, and his people believe it too. He lures Anyanwu to New York with promises that she will be his wife and bear him many special children. He then marries her to one of his sons, Isaac, and breeds her with them both. Doro is never able to "tame" Anyanwu or get her to revere him the way the others do. Isaac tells Anyanwu that she is the only one - because of their shared longevity- who can reach the remaining human part of Doro before it is extinguished forever. When Isaac dies Anyanwu runs away from Doro, and certain death, by becoming a dolphin. Doro eventually finds her living as a human with a new family. He immediately starts his breeding program with her new people. Disgusted by him, and her own inability to reach him, Anyanwu makes a drastic decision. With this act she is finally able to reach the small fragment of humanity inside Doro.
This was a slow read, and the subject matter could be emotionally draining at times. But, I just kept going back to the book to see how it would all turn out. I'm ambivalent about the ending. However; Butler is one of my favorite SciFi authors and this one is up there with her best. Recommended.

Just wanted to share the Scottish legos that showed up on my facebook scroll today

Yay, Scottish Lego! :D

>56 VioletBramble: So cool! :)

>56 VioletBramble: I love the Scottish Legos!

Octavia Butler is an author I have yet to try, but I am sure her name will come up next year when I host the Girl Power Month for the SFFFCat. She seems like quite an innovator in Sci-Fi.

Ha! I never would have thought of highland dancers made out of Lego. Lego rocks!

More Scottish fun: To celebrate Book Week Scotland some Scottish steel workers recreated the photo Lunch Atop a Skyscraper, with books instead of lunch.

>61 VioletBramble: I love that picture even though my hands get sweaty and I feel a little dizzy. I am definitely not one for heights.

>61 VioletBramble: Amazing photo, Kelly! :) I love it.

>62 DeltaQueen50: Part of me is with you when I realize it's not CGI. o_0 I don't mind heights, but woah! I'd be afraid I'd get too absorbed in my book and lose my balance.

>59 DeltaQueen50:- I love Octavia Butler. I hope a lot of people discover her for Girl Power month. I've only read 4 of her books, so far. They've all dealt with issues of slavery and self-determination in some way and are incredibly thought provoking. Also, it's refreshing to read books with a black female protagonist.

>62 DeltaQueen50: >63 saraslibrary: - I would never want to be up that high on just a steel girder. I sometimes get dizzy on escalators.

>61 VioletBramble: Wow, that's a fantastic photo, Kelly! Thanks for sharing!

>56 VioletBramble: & >61 VioletBramble:
Those are brilliant!!

81) The Weather Makers: How Man is Changing the Climate and What It Means For Life on Earth - Tim Flannery
NonFiction, Climate change, Environment, RandomCAT
Category: The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self Protection
Pages: 384
Rating: 4.5 stars

Fossil fuels - oil, coal, and gas - are all that remains of organisms that, many millions of years ago, drew carbon from the atmosphere. When we burn wood, we release carbon that has been out of atmospheric circulation for a few decades, but when we burn fossil fuels, we release carbon that has been out of circulation for eons. Digging up the dead in this way is a particularly bad thing for the living to do.

A comprehensive and easily accessible book covering climate change and all it's complexities. I had no idea how complex climate change is -- water temperatures, plankton blooms, changes in migratory patterns, the Gulf Stream and el Niño. I'm shocked by the number of peoples in the Arctic and on Pacific Island atolls that are about to lose their nations as conditions worsen and the land (actually ice or coral reefs) and food sources disappear. Sadly I am not surprised to learn of the bullying by Australia and the US of their neighbors and other nations. I was shocked though, that an Australian politician publicly stated that it would be easier to evacuate all the Pacific Island atolls than it would be to require that Australia decrease carbon emissions. Flannery also covers potential solutions that might lower the carbon in the atmosphere -- wind power, solar power, current and tidal power, utilization of different fuels for cars and cargo ships, legal action against corporations and governments that don't comply with set carbon emission levels and, unfortunately, increased use of nuclear power.
This is the third book I've read by Flannery. Like the others this book is easy to read, yet without the feeling that it was dumbed down for a general audience. It's one of those books that I want to push on everyone and tell them to read it, right now. Highly recommended.

November Recap:

Books read in 2014: 81
Books read in Nov: 6
Books off the Shelf 2014: 74
Fiction: 43
NonFiction: 27
Poetry: 9
Graphic novel: 2
Male author: 42
Female author: 42 *** first time ever that my male-female author ratio is even ***
Pages read in 2014: 23,470 (1874 in Nov)
Books bought in 2014: 52 (only 1 in Nov!!)

Planned reading for December:

GeoCAT:
A Guide to the Birds of East Africa

RandomCAT:
The Poisons of Caux: The Tasters Guild
The Poisons of Caux: The Shepherd of Weeds

MysteryCAT: - any of which might also fulfill the RandomCAT
Thyme of Death
Rueful Death
Wormwood
Holly Blues
The Jasmine Moon Murder
Dragonwell Dead

Connie Willis Group Read:
Doomsday Book

Big aaaaawww for that picture.

I know I would sit down and listen if Frosty was reading a book!

82) The Poisons of Caux: The Tasters Guild - Susannah Appelbaum
YA, Botany, Series, Fantasy, RandomCAT
Category: Magical Drafts and Potions
Pages: 384
Rating: 3 stars

The second book in the series. In the world of these books an evil king and queen - the Deadly Nightshades - have taken over Caux, imprisoning Good King Verdigris, and inviting people to poison each other. The Deadly Nightshades love poison. Poisoning has become so popular that there is a Taster's Guild to teach people to detect poisons. Everyone who's anyone has their own taster. As the second book starts the Nightshades have been defeated by Ivy Manx and her friends.
Ivy Manx is an 11 year old healer and botanist. People believe that she is the Noble Child, prophesied to heal the Good King. Ivy and her friend, former taster Rowan, must travel to an alternate world to rescue the King and her mother. Unfortunately, the minions of the Deadly Nightshades, including Ivy's own father, Vidal Verjouce, head of the Taster's Guild, are out to keep her from completing her quest. They have managed to poison Ivy with scourge bracken, a horrible weed that forces her to live her life in the shadows. She finds her mother and the King (her great-grandfather) but is unable to save them. The King gives her 2 stones to bring back to Caux to plant. Ivy is kidnapped by her own former taster just as she reaches Caux.
I enjoy the world of these books. There is no real system of magic but tapestries come to life and travel to other worlds through doorways or book pages is possible. Most of the magic is plant related. The plant and herb lore is my favorite part of these books

83) A Guide to the Birds of East Africa- Nicholas Drayson
Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them
Pages: 208
Rating: 3.5 stars

Mr Malik loves watching birds. He never misses the Tuesday morning guided bird walk. He is secretly in love with the bird walk guide, Rose Mbikwa. He is working up the courage to ask her to his clubs annual ball. One Tuesday a new man joins the bird walk. His name is Harry Khan. Khan and Mr.Malik went to school together. Khan made Mr Malik miserable at school. Khan would also like to take Rose Mbikwa to the ball. The two men decide, with the help of other members of the club, in order to save the lady the discomfort of having to choose between the two, to have a contest. The winner of the contest will get to ask Rose to the ball. The contest involves bird watching. Whoever identifies the highest number of bird species within a week gets to ask Rose to the dance. Who identifies the most birds? Who will accompany Rose to the ball?
I bought this book after Richard raved about it over on the 75 thread. It's a cute book with lovely descriptions of various parts of Kenya.

84) Thyme of Death (#1)- Susan Wittig Albert
Category: One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
Mystery, Cozy, December MysteryCAT, Texas. Herbs
Pages: 320
Rating: 3 stars
85) Rueful Death (#5)- Susan Wittig Albert
Category: One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
Pages: 304
Rating: 2.5 stars

Books 1 and 5 in the China Bayles mystery series. The first is set in China's herb shop, Thyme & Seasons, and involves the murder of a children's television show host. The 5th takes place in a nunnery that grows garlic. Enjoyed the first book and the mystery was pretty good. The 5th book was boring in many places.

Happy Winter Solstice!! (Happy Summer Solstice to those in the southern hemisphere!)

Happy Winter Solstice! :) I totally forgot about those on the southern hemisphere. Thanks for the reminder. :)

Well, I completely missed the whole Winter Solstice thing so lets see if I can at least get the next holiday right. ;-)

Stopping by to wish you a Merry Christmas and best wishes for 2015!

Wishing you all the best for the holiday season.

Merry Christmas and happy holidays! All the best in 2015.

A belated Merry Christmas, and wish for an outstanding 2015!

>76 saraslibrary: Hi Sara! I wish I was celebrating summer solstice. It's my favorite day of the year.

>77 lkernagh: Hi Lori. Thank you. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. Happy New Year!

>78 DeltaQueen50: Thank you Judy. Happy Holidays!

>79 rabbitprincess: Hi rabbitprincess. Thank you. Hope you're enjoying your vacation. Happy New Year!

>80 LauraBrook: Hi Laura! I hope you and your mother have a happy, healthy and way less stressful year in 2015.

86) Holly Blues - Susan Wittig Albert
Mystery, Cozy, MysteryCAT, Series
Category: One Thousand Magical Herbs and Fungi
Pages: 290
Rating: 3.5 stars

The 18th book in the China Bayles mystery series. McQuaid's (Chinas husband) ex-wife comes to town unexpectedly at Christmas She's being stalked and places the entire family in danger. And she might have murdered her sister. And her parents. The mystery was good.

87) Doomsday Book - Connie Willis
Fiction, Time travel, Plague, Group read
Category: Unfogging the Future
Pages:445
Rating: 5 stars

This is a re-read for me. I've lost track of how many times I've read this book. My favorite book in Willis' time traveling Oxford historians series. History student Kivrin is accidentally sent back in time to the year of the Black Death. Meanwhile, a deadly virus is causing havoc in current day (2052) Oxford preventing the staff from rescuing Kivrin. Kivrin watches as everyone in the tiny English village that has taken her in succumbs to the plague despite her best efforts to help.
I love this book and cry, every time, while reading the last 40 pages. I enjoy this entire "series" but this one is by far my favorite. Highly recommended.

Almost finished with the challenge. I need to finish The Poisons of Caux: the Shepherd of Weeds. I'll probably also get to the graphic novel An Age of License before the year ends.

I received only one book for Solstice/Christmas: Vegetable Literacy: Cooking and Gardening with Twelve Families from the Edible Plant Kingdom with over 300 Deliciously Simple Recipes by Deborah Madison. I also got $40 in B&N gift cards so some other books may join this small list.
I did receive a bunch of Doctor Who merchandise -- Doctor Who season 1 DVDs, Tardis slippers, a Tardis tea infuser and a K-9 action figure. I was excited to use the tea infuser but then I noticed it was made in China. I'm just going to place it on the shelf with the other Tardis's. (Tardi?)

>86 VioletBramble: I think I've enjoyed all the books in that series that I've read, but I've only read about three of them. Maybe I'll get around to some others one of these days. I know there is at least one downstairs in a TBR box.

Aw, a K-9 action figure! Adorable!

>89 thornton37814: I've now read all the titles I own in that series. I enjoyed them but I'm not sure I'd continue with the series. At least not for now.

>90 rabbitprincess:. K-9's eyes light up red and it says affirmative master. It freaked out one of my sister's dogs.

88) The Poisons of Caux: The Shepherd of Weeds - Susannah Appelbaum
Category: Magical Drafts and Potions
Series, Fiction, Fantasy, YA
Pages: 464
Rating: 3 stars

The final book in the trilogy. Ivy Manx - the chosen one, the nobel child, the shepherd of weeds - battles her father, the evil
master of the Taster's Guild, Vidal Verjouce to rescue Caux. She defeats him using an army of scarecrows and birds. The ending of this series felt really rushed to me. I guess fleshing the battles out more would have added more pages to this already pretty large ( for a children's book) book.

I read Doomsday Book for the first time this year and it will probably be a highlight of 2014. I can certainly see why it's a favourite of yours.

Happy New Year!

I'm hoping to get to Doomsday Book this year, and since I've only heard excellent things about it, I'm really looking forward to it!

>93 paruline: - glad to hear that Doomsday Book was one of your best 2014 reads. It's one of a about half a dozen books that i'm constantly trying to get other people to read.

>94 LauraBrook: - I hope you enjoy it Laura. I think you'll really like the book, based on your library

89) An Age of License - Lucy Knisley
Graphic novel, travel, Europe
Category: An Appraisal of Magical Education in Europe
Pages: 194
Rating 4 stars

Knisley's graphic memoir of a short European trip to Norway, Sweden, Germany and France. The trip was mainly free --air fare covered by a Norwegian comic convention, and she stayed with a new love interest, friends and her mother. She came off a even more "daughter of privilege" in this book than in her others. Not as good as her others, but still enjoyable.

Recap for 2014:

Books read in 2014: 89
Books read i Dec: 8
Books off the shelf 2014: 81
Fiction: 50
NonFiction: 27
Poetry: 9
Graphic novel: 3
Male author: 43
Female author: 49
Pages read 2014: 26,079
Books bought in 2014: 53