Jennifer's (japaul22) 2016 Acrostic Challenge

Hi everyone! It's my 6th year doing the Category Challenge and I'm excited to join you all again! Last year I figured out that my husband, my two sons, and my name all have the right amount of letters to form acrostic challenges for 2015-2018. This year it's my youngest son's turn, Isaac Charles Paul. He will turn 3 in February of 2016 and is my sweet little boy who loves to snuggle and is an amazingly calm and reasonable 2 (almost 3) year old. I've chosen my categories to fit an acrostic of his name. I'm going to try for 4 books per category which will give me 64 books. Since I typically read quite a bit more than that, I'll start an additional free reading category at the beginning of the year that I'll plan on having 20 books in. I'm hoping that using this free reading from the start will make me challenge myself to really stick to the intent of each of my categories rather than sort of stretching books to fit.

I'm planning to participate in several of the group reads planned for 2016 and to try the DeweyCAT for at least some of the months. My reading tends to be a mix of the classics, books off of the 1001 books to read before you die list, contemporary fiction by women, nonfiction (mainly historical biographies), and the occasional mystery.

Thanks for following my reading!

I n search of the truth (mysteries)
S eries Nexts
A gain and again (rereads)
A udiobooks
C lamoring for attention (off the shelf)
C oming to the table (joining group reads)
H ow things happened (nonfiction)
A uthors from Scandinavia
R andom 1001 books
L earning the library (dewey decimal challenge)
E ndless List (1001 books)
S hiny and new (new releases, 2015&2016)
P ast in the present (historical fiction)
A uthors who are new to me
U nique publishers (NYRB editions, viragos, folios, etc)
L ist of Women Writers

I n search of the truth (mysteries)

1. Where Monsters Dwell by Jorgen Brekke
2. Dreamless by Jorgen Brekke
3. The Dinner by Herman Koch
4.

Tana French new book

S eries Nexts

1. An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear
2. Trouble for Lucia by E.F. Benson
3. The Manticore by Robertson Davies
4. The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope

Mapp and Lucia
Palliser series
Maisie Dobbs
Kent Haruf trilogy

A gain and again (rereads)

1. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
2. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
3. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
4.

84 Charing Cross Road
Their Eyes Were Watching God

A udiobooks

1. Outliers by Malcom Gladwell
2. The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
3. The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
4. The Giver by Lois Lowry

C lamoring for attention (off the shelf)

1. Fludd by Hilary Mantel
2. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson
3. A Friend from England by Anita Brookner
4. Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard

C oming to the table (joining group reads)

1. The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
2. Fifth Business by Robertson Davies
3. The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett
4.

Game of Kings
Barbara Pym month
1001 books group reads

H ow things happened (nonfiction)

1. The Good Gut by Sonnenburg
2. Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford
3. The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
4. Evicted by Matthew Desmond

A uthors from Scandinavia

1. Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson
2. The Parson's Widow by Marja-Liisa Vartio
3. The Royal Physician's Visit by Per Olov Enquist
4.

House with the Blind Glass Windows

R andom 1001 books (using a random number generator to pick books that I've tagged as TBR in my spreadsheet)

1. Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski
2. Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf
3.
4.

Ashes and Diamonds
Jacob's Room
Fathers and Sons

L earning the library (DeweyCAT)

1. Words on the Move by John McWhorter (400s)
2. Longitude by Dava Sobel (500s)
3. Fashion Victims by Alison DAvid (600s)
4. The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee (600s)

E ndless List (1001 books)

1. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
2. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
3. Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
4. The Ambassadors by Henry James

S hiny and new (new releases, 2015&2016)

1. Gut by Guilia Enders
2. Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
3. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
4. Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas

P ast in the present (historical fiction)

1. Wolf Winter by Cecilia Eckback
2. Circling the Sun by Paula McLain
3. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
4. THe Known World by Edward P. Jones

Dorothy Dunnet
Margaret George

A uthors who are new to me

1. The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard
2. The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns
3. The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
4. The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat

Barbara Comyns
Helen Dunmore
Heather O'neill
Anita Desai
Sylvia Townsend Warner
Elizabeth Bowen
Doris Lessing

U nique publishers (NYRB editions, viragos, folios, etc)

1. Harriet Hume by Rebecca West - Virago
2. Stoner by John Williams - NYRB
3. The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West
4. Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood (hogarth shakespeare series)

L ist of Women Writers (books that are included in the book 500 Great Books by Women)

1. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
2. Out of Africa by Isak Denison
3.
4.

Free Reading

1. O Pioneers by Willa Cather
2. The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill Lepore
3. Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder
4. Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon, audiobook read by Irin Carmon, 5h9m
5. Lady Susan by Jane Austen
6. Marie Antoinette: A Journey by Antonia Fraser
7. Engineering Eden by Jordan Fisher Smith
8. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
9. The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
10. The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown
11. The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky
12. How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman
13. Ruby by Cynthia Bond
14. Christina, Queen of Sweden by Veronica Buckley
15. The Master by Colm Toibin
16. My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout
17. Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
18. The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney
19. Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend
20. The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith
21. Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell

Love it! Welcome back for another year.

Welcome back! Do you have a particular Dorothy Dunnett in mind for your historical fiction category? I was planning to read The Game of Kings sometime in 2016 if you wanted to share a read :)

That's such a cute set-up! Looking forward to following along.

Great to see you back again for another year. I love how you are using your family to help set your categories!

Creative use of your family. You've got some interesting categories I'll be watching.

Hi everyone! Thanks for stopping in!

>20 rabbitprincess: Game of Kings is the Dorothy Dunnett that I already own, so I would be interested in sharing that read. I've been looking for a new historical fiction author after reading all of Sharon Kay Penman's books and I've heard good things about Dunnett. Did you have a time in mind?

>24 japaul22: Hurray! Re timing, I was thinking maybe after or at the tail end of the Robertson Davies group read (i.e. June or later), to make sure I complete that one.

>25 rabbitprincess: Maybe September? That's often a stressful time at work for me when I like escapist reading which I'm hoping Dunnett will be. August would also work well.

>25 rabbitprincess: September sounds great!

Great! I've needed a nudge to get to this. Do you think I should mention on the group read thread to see if there is any other interest?

Sure, I can drop a note :)

Very creative use of family name (s)!

Looks like a fun challenge!

Very clever use of your little son's name. Too bad he's too young to follow along too!

What a great idea for categories! Can't wait to see how you fill them.

Oooohhh.... an acrostic challenge! How fun and with a wonderful personal touch to it!

Lovely idea!

Happy New Year! I think I might re-read The Sound and the Fury this year too. It'll be interesting to compare what we think of it now as 30-somethings compared to what we thought of it at 16/17.

>36 jfetting: Oooh that would be fun!

One other thing I'm planning to do this year is spend a little time each month reviewing my previous years' reading. I've cleaned up and printed out all of my LT threads (I've been here since 2009) and I've put them in binders. Each month I'm planning to look through all of that month's reviews for the previous years (in January look at Jan 2009, Jan 2010, Jan 2011, etc.). I think it will be interesting to see how my impressions of the books have changed or stayed the same and to see what I remember and what I've completely forgotten. I'm also excited to see how my writing and reviewing has morphed over the years. I think it will be a fun project.

>38 japaul22: - I hope you'll share some of your insights here!

>38 japaul22: What an interesting and ambitious project. Echoing katiekrug, please share what you think!

>38 japaul22: What a neat idea!

>38 japaul22: Sounds like fun!

Finally making my rounds and stopping by to drop my star, as usual. What a sweet set up, love your categories. Of course, I'm also expecting lots of BB.

Welcome, everyone!

My first book of the year goes in my 1001 books category. It is Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe.

This is an interesting and readable book that opens a window to Nigerian culture. The story follows Okonkwo, a member of the Umuofia clan who has brought himself up from a poor start to be one of the successful men of his community. This book has many layers. On one hand, it's Okonkwo's story, a universal one of a man trying to make a success of himself and what he has to do to get there. Okonkwo makes some, to say the least, questionable decisions in his quest to not be his father who he viewed as weak and lazy.

In another way, this is a look at what happens to a Nigerian community when white missionaries come and interfere with their way of life. I loved finally reading a book from this point of view instead of the books written by white men. Achebe is able to "tell it like it is" without lecturing or complaining, just showing what happens. What happens is damning enough.

And then this is also a book that incorporates the traditional myths and ways of life of a people that I really know nothing about. I loved the stories that were woven in to the narrative and found myself learning a lot about the customs and ways that the community interacted through Okonkwo's experiences.

All in all, I found this a pretty fascinating look into another culture. It was a bit out of my comfort zone since I have so little background on Nigeria to fall back on, but it was a great building block to more African reading as it comes along.

Original Publication Date: 1959
Author’s nationality: Nigerian
Original language: English
Length: 209 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback at library sale
Why I read this: 1001 books list and off the shelf

What a great book to start your 2016 reading with!

>44 japaul22:
Congrats on starting off strong - such a great book!

For my audiobooks category, I listened to Outliers by Malcom Gladwell, audiobook read by Malcolm Gladwell, 7h17m

After seeing all of Dan's (dchaikin) positive reviews of the Gladwell audiobooks, I thought I'd give this a try when I saw it was available through my library. I'm glad I did as I found the book very interesting and Gladwell's reading enjoyable.

The premise of Outliers is that those highly successful people that we think of as being special humans, "outliers", actually are the products of a series of lucky breaks, cultural inheritances, and being in the right place at the right time. Gladwell discusses how birthdays greatly influence the chance of making it in a early tracked sport like hockey or soccer. He looks at Bill Gates and how he was born in the right year, right place, and had the right community to allow for his success. He also shows that some people who we think of as being born with innate talent, like prominent musicians, actually work very hard to achieve their success.

All of his theories seemed anecdotal to me, so I'm not sure that they would all hold true across the board, but I think his point is valid. One thing I kept thinking, though, is that even though these highly successful people undoubtedly had a lot of help and luck along the way, it isn't as though every person who has that set of circumstances will succeed. He didn't convince that there isn't also something a little special or different about the people who achieve the greatest success. The easiest example for me to critique is the one about musicians who succeed by putting in 10,000 hours of practice. I think this is probably about right. I'm a professional musician and consider myself a "success" in that I did get a full time job playing french horn, something that isn't all that common. Looking back, I think I'd easily practiced 10,000 when I won the audition that got me my job. But, I can compare myself to other horn players whose practice habits I know intimately (often spending hours daily practicing next door to each other in college music buildings) and I know many people who put the same or more amount of hours as I did in to practicing the horn that did not end up getting a job playing horn. This is to point out that the formula may work backward, in that all professional musicians may have put in 10,000 hours of practice, but it isn't necessarily a prescription for success. Not every musician who puts in 10,000 hours of practice will also become a success.

Overall, I liked this book. It was well-read and gave me a lot to think about. I was engaged the whole time I was listening.

Original Publication Date: 2008
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 7h17m
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook from the library
Why I read this: available at the library

>47 japaul22: This is only tangentially relevant, but I'm so impressed that you are/were (?) a professional French horn player! I'm a trombonist myself, but strictly amateur. Sometimes I daydream about going pro, but I simply don't have the drive to put in those 10,000 hours of practice! :)

>47 japaul22: - I read one of Gladwell's books last year (What the Dog Saw) and have another on my TBR (Tipping Point), so I will probably get to this one also at some point in time. So I'm not exactly counting this as a book bullet - but close.

>48 christina_reads: I love hearing about people who make the time to keep playing their instruments in addition to their busy lives! I am a french horn player in the U.S. Marine Band in Washington DC.

>49 dudes22: I'm interested in all of Gladwell's books. They work really well on audio.

I really liked Outliers when I read it some years ago.

On a related note, in my book about the fifties today I read the chapter that was largely about Elvis Presley and the author was pretty persuasive that he was the right person in the right place at the right time.

>50 japaul22: Hey, I live in Arlington -- we're neighbors! I will have to come to a Marine Band performance sometime! :)

>52 christina_reads: That's so cool! I live in West Springfield. We play often at Schlesinger Hall on the campus of NOVA Alexandria - almost every Sunday at 2pm and our concerts are all free.

For my "clamoring for attention" (off the shelf) category, I read Fludd by Hilary Mantel.

I wasn't quite sure what to make of this book, except that I know I really enjoyed it. The book has a Barbara Pym flavor - set in 1950s England and focused on clergy, the church, and an unsatisfied woman. But then, of course, it has Mantel's own stamp. A man, Fludd, appears on the parsonage steps and Father Angwin, a priest trying to hide his lack of faith from his congregants, assumes he is the curate that the Bishop recently told him he'd be sending. As we get to know Fludd better, though, things are not as they seem. There's just a hint of the supernatural about him. Things and people seem to be shifting with his presence. His effect on one of the local nuns, Sister Philomena, is extreme, but others change in smaller ways.

In a note before the book begins, Mantel says the "the real Fludd (1574-1637) was a physician, scholar, and alchemist. In alchemy, everything has a literal and factual description, and in addition a description that is symbolic and fantastical." Mantel has incorporated these ideas of alchemy into her interesting and satisfying book.

Original Publication Date: 1989
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 181 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, off the shelf
Why I read this: looking for something short and different than War and Peace

And now back to my War and Peace reading . . .

Fludd sounds great.

Loved Things Fall Apart and like the sound of Fludd. "Barbara Pym Flavour" is high praise.

Thank you, I've taken a BB with Fludd.

For my "shiny and new" category, I read Gut: the inside story of our body's most underrated organ by Giulia Enders published in 2015.

This was a fun (yes, fun) and interesting look at the most current research about what goes on in our gut. Enders goes through all this information with humor and clarity, even when the subject could be confusing.

The most interesting parts to me were the speculation that the gut is a center that sort of runs the body, much like the brain, and that it probably is a contributor to anxiety and depression. It's not all "in our minds". Also, I'm of course interested in the new research about the role of our gut flora and probiotics and prebiotics.

The only thing I wish is that there had been more actual answers in this book, but the research needs to be done first. It seems to be a very new field of study. I think you can find more detail about probiotics and prebiotics in other books, but it is all so new that I think it's probably based on untested hypotheses. I also have The Good Gut, another book published in 2015, and I'll be interested to compare the two. It looks more like a plan to make use of the current research to influence your diet and health. I'm hoping the two books complement each other.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: German
Original language: German
Length: 259 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, library
Why I read this: interested in the topic

You got me with both of those!

We live just outside DC and got about 2 feet of snow over the past couple days. Crazy - and I'm from the Chicago area originally!

>60 japaul22: Wow! And great photos -- always loved climbing up on snowbanks when I was a kid :)

Gorgeous pictures. I live on the west coast so we don't get snow very often, but your pictures reminded me of my own childhood in Ottawa, where we had very long winters and lots of snow.

Beautiful photos Jennifer. Your snow looks so pristine. The snow here gets brown-grey so quickly. I'm getting ready to go out and have prepared myself for the giant corner slush puddles that are everywhere. When I walked to work Sunday at 6am the snow didn't seem any worse than other storms, but, there seems to be a longer than usual delay in getting the walkways clear this time.

>61 rabbitprincess:, >62 DeltaQueen50:, >63 VioletBramble: Thanks! My boys are having tons of fun. We are on snow day number 5 tomorrow, believe it or not. I'm going a little crazy . . .

For my series nexts category, I listened to An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear, audiobook read by Orlagh Cassidy, 9h18m

I really like the Maisie Dobbs mystery series. This was a good entry, the fifth in the series. It focuses on the hop-picking season and the gypsies. The mystery was good and I love the time period, post-WWI. It's about a decade after the end of the war now, but the country is still dealing with the ramifications of the war and so is Maisie. Maisie has laid many of her ghosts to rest now and isn't as much of a mess as she was in the last book. I liked this better. As always, I also enjoy the clothes descriptions.

I find these work very well on audio and like the reader, Orlagh Cassidy.

Original Publication Date: 2008
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 9h18m
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook, library
Why I read this: next in series, something light

Wonderful photos of the snow! I hate driving under winter conditions but I sure do like playing in it.

>66 lkernagh: thanks! We've had a lot of fun. And we got a lot of snow days, so the driving wasn't too bad - we just stayed home!

For my "how things happened" nonfiction category, I read The Good Gut: Taking Control of Your weight, your mood, and your long-term health by Justin Sonnenburg and Erica Sonnenburg.

As I was checking out Gut by Guilia Enders from the library, I happened upon this book as well. I can't review this book without comparing the two.

In The Good Gut, the Sonnenburgs take the existing research on the microbiota of the gut to try to create a lifestyle. They recommend feeding the gut with foods containing probiotics (mainly kefir, yogurt, or various fermented foods) and with high fiber foods like legumes, vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. They also recommend avoiding antibiotic overuse and not using harsh cleaners in the home. They spend a lot of the book also going through the current research.

To me, I much preferred Guilia Enders's book. The books cover a lot of the same research on the gut biome, but Enders covers more about the whole digestive system. Her advice is much more tempered, though she is ultimately recommending the same things. The Sonnenburgs feel the need to take the research and make a whole lifestyle out of it, though, and it just seemed to take things a bit farther than the actual research allows for at this point. And felt a little preachy. Also, their advice seemed common sense to me and not very new. I think most people know that current research suggests that the healthiest diet consists of lots of vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans (therefore a high fiber diet) and limited red meat and processed foods. It seems that that sort of eating also supports a healthy gut. Great, but I didn't really learn much new information.

I still think the area of research surrounding the gut and its influence on the body as a whole and the potential of probiotics to cure illness and disease is exciting and fascinating, but its a relatively new field and this book takes the minimal current research and runs away with it.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 301 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library, hardback
Why I read this: interested in the topic

Great pictures! But, I'm kinda happy I'm in California right now... :)

Great snow pics. But I'm glad we just had about two inches!

I need to read some more Maisie Dobbs this year but I've got so many series going ...

>70 hailelib: I really like the audio books of the Maisie Dobbs series. Otherwise I don't think I'd ever get to them either!

For my rereads category, I read War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy.

How do you review one of the greatest books ever written? I don’t even know what to call this book. Is it a family drama, historical fiction, an analysis of war, a philosophical discussion? I guess it’s all of these things. I’ll say that I enjoyed it most as a family drama but also as an analysis of war and war’s ramifications for both the countries involved and the individuals both fighting and at home. I couldn’t engage with most of the philosophical discussion, especially the ending, because I just didn’t have enough background to understand it and found it sort of irrelevant to my experience. I found that the last part of the Epilogue was sort of a downer as it ended with a philosophical essay that I just couldn't interest myself in. It's hard to end a book that you've loved that way - especially when you've committed to over 1000 pages of reading time!

However, I really loved watching the main characters grow and change throughout this work. I think Tolstoy successfully creates characters that morph according to their experiences and I appreciated that. His characters, though, are not easy to identify with or like though by the end of this long book I found myself invested in them. The characters in this book sometimes get dwarfed by the surrounding times they live in, but in pondering the book as I write this review, it starts to become clear that I did end up knowing them as people. Tolstoy changes the tone of the book as the times get more serious and the characters grow up. When I think about the beginning of the book – all the shenanigans of the boys drinking too much and causing trouble, and innocent, fun-loving, and naïve Natasha and Sonya – it’s just such a stark contrast from where the book ends. It makes me realize how organically the characters grow and change throughout the book. There are some very memorable death scenes and thoughts about death that I found moving and profound.

I found the look at the war interesting and thought that it was pretty fascinating to actually use Napoleon as a character in the book, not just a figurehead. I do think the whole thing would have meant more to me if I lived in the country just 50 years after the events had taken place, as those reading War and Peace when it was published were. Thinking about reading a book like this with that sort of closeness and perspective really changes the magnitude of it. As it is, though, it is still a meaningful look at war and a few specific battles.

This was a reread for me, but except for the first 200 pages or so, I felt like I was reading it for the first time. I expect that I just wasn’t ready for it when I read it the first time in my 20s. Overall this is not quite a 5 star read for me, but is close. I think the extended sections on philosophy and my lack of knowledge of Napoleon and this battle for Moscow didn’t allow me to fully connect with the entire book. This doesn’t mean I didn’t love the book, though, just that I can’t call a book a five star favorite that had my eyes glazed over quite this much. However, reading a book this long and complex is an amazing experience. I’ve read it pretty much every day over the month of January and it feels odd to say goodbye to these characters and this time period. I actually could stand a few more hundred pages to explore a bit more of the characters and times. I suppose that says more than anything else – that I wish one of the longest books written was actually longer.

** I read the Constance Garnett translation, done in the early 1904. I very much enjoyed it and found the writing smooth and flowing.

Original Publication Date: 1869
Author’s nationality: Russian
Original language: Russian
Length: 1149 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: owned, paperback
Why I read this: reread with the category challenge

Great review of W&P! Like you, I do find the Garnett translation (which is my audiobook version) easier for me to follow. The Maud translation is my e-book version and some of the grammar choices made by the Maud sisters is a bit stilted and more formal. Or at least that is how I find it. ;-)

Thumbs up for your review of War and Peace!

>73 lkernagh: Thanks! I checked out the P&V translation from the library and read bits of both translations at the beginning. I had a lot of trouble comprehending the P&V and permanently switched to the Garnett. I read somewhere that she makes it a bit more British sounding than some other translations and that really worked for me!

>74 rabbitprincess: Thanks!

For my "shiny and new" category, I read Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff.

Fates and Furies is a look at two people, Lotto and Mathilde, who marry at the young age of 22 after knowing each other for about 2 weeks. The first half of the book is told from Lotto's point of view (though not in first person and with an interjecting omniscient narrator) and the second half give Mathilde's version of many of the same events.

It's clear in Lotto's half that this marriage and Mathilde herself are not being fully revealed. Lotto, as much as he reveres/loves Mathilde, is too blinded by himself to really know anyone else. So I was prepared for Mathilde's portion to have some big reveals but it went farther than I thought. I found her half of the book sometimes brilliant and sometimes just a bit too much to be believable.

I've seen this book described as a portrait of a marriage many places. In one sense it is that, especially as a look at how well even two people closely married to each other actually know each other. But to me the book was really about Mathilde. Even all through Lotto's narcissistic section, I was thinking and wondering about Mathilde. In that sense I think it was more about how a traumatic past can affect a person's life and interactions and how it effects others whether they know about it or not. It's also about truth and memory. I didn't find this book convincing as a study of marriage because it was so far outside of a normal marriage.

Overall I really liked this book. It is intriguing and layered and Groff writes with a lot of intensity and good flow. There were a few plot twists though, that really bothered me and felt over-worked or unnecessary. I think that Groff is definitely an author worth reading and I would recommend the book overall, but I have a few reservations. I'm curious to see at the end of the year if this end up on my "best of" list or moves to the "forgettable" column. Time will tell.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 400 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle, library book
Why I read this: getting a lot of buzz and I was curious

>72 japaul22: Great review of War and Peace! I'm about 1/3 of the way through it now, roughly on pace with the group read. I tend to enjoy the "small" moments (conversations between characters, their various jealousies and ambitions and romances) more than the "big" moments (the battle stuff, anything about Freemasonry).

>76 japaul22: - You definitely liked it more than I did. My biggest problem was that nobody seemed believable and the plot twists left me rolling my eyes quite a bit.

>77 christina_reads: I'll be interested to hear how you feel towards the end about the battles and philosophy sections. I started out feeling exactly like you, but by the end I was really enjoying the battle scenes. Never got on board with the philosophical essays, though!

>78 LittleTaiko: Yeah, I was remembering that you didn't really like Fates and Furies as I wrote my review. I agree that the characters were a bit much - almost too "one note" - which made them unrealistic. And I agree that some of the plot was ridiculous. I never bought in to the possibility that Mathilde's parents would have just cut her out of their lives no matter how strong their grief was even if they were sure she was guilty. I guess in the end, I liked it for the fact that I found it memorable and interesting to see the two versions of the same story. And I tend to like any book that explores memory or the idea of how well you can really know a person.

For my "past in the present" historical fiction category, I read Wolf Winter by Cecilia Ekback.

This book completely suited my reading need right now. It is a historical fiction/mystery set in 1700s Swedish Lapland. The setting is key here. Ekback creates the time period and way of life so convincingly that I was sucked in right away. The mystery is entangled with myth and magic. There's a bit of the conflict between natives, the Lapps, and the settlers. Also some conflict between the prevailing Lutheran church and the old beliefs.

The book has some weaknesses - a few of the story lines weren't tied up sufficiently for my taste and I thought some of the topics, especially the magic and mysticism, needed to be explored more deeply to be convincing. But, in the end, this book was just what I wanted it to be - a page turner with a great setting and some good historical detail.

I'm sure this won't make the list of "best books" I read this year, but it could definitely make the list of "most fun to read".

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: Swedish
Original language: English
Length: 368 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: needed something engaging and fast to read and I suspected this would fit.

>80 japaul22: I am glad to hear this is good. I have been wanting to read it since I saw it on the soon-to-be-released lists last year.

>82 japaul22: I really enjoyed it despite a few flaws with the ending.

>80 japaul22: I am also glad to hear Wolf Winter is good as it is on my pile to be read this year! :)

>83 DeltaQueen50: great! I'll be interested to hear your opinion!

For my "coming to the table" group reads category, I read The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf.

This is Woolf's first novel and wow does it show. After being blown away by To the Lighthouse and The Waves and enjoying Mrs. Dalloway and Orlando, I was completely bored by this novel.

The Voyage Out is the story of Rachel Vinrace, a young woman taking a trip from London to somewhere in South America. The boat is her father's, but her Aunt and Uncle, Helen and Ridley, are also traveling with them and she joins them on their vacation in South America. It's sort of a coming of age story, with Rachel starting out a lonely, sheltered girl.

Unfortunately there are a few big problems with this book. First of all, there are too many characters and they don't capture the attention enough to keep them all straight. I would never have guessed that Rachel was the main character until about 2/3 of the way into the book. That's a problem. The best part of the book was the brief appearance of the Dalloways who join the ship for a part of the journey. I can see why Woolf wrote a book about Mrs. Dalloway, because she stands out as the most memorable character even though she is in the book very briefly. Another large problem is the setting. Most of the book is set in an undisclosed location in South America and it just never felt convincing. It was distractingly "off".

There are certainly seeds of the voice that Woolf would later find present in this book, but overall I found it mundane and boring.

Original Publication Date: 1915
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 445 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: group read with 1001 books and I have a plan to read all of Woolf's novels

For my audiobooks category, I listened to The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith audiobook read by David Thorn, 7h14m

This mid-18th century novel was one of the most popular of its day. It started out promising for me. It's narrated by Dr. Primrose, a rather self-satisfied well-off clergyman with a lovely family. His views are sort of smug but funny at the same time. Then things start to go downhill for him and his family. It's sort of a Job story, where almost everything is taken from him - his money, his home, his daughter's virtue, etc. And then there's an improbably ending where everything turns out right.

I could see how it might have been popular when it was written. There are a lot of plot twists and Dr. Primrose stays true to his faith throughout all his trials. For me, though, a lot of it was just too silly and too allegorical.

Also, as an audiobook, I'm not sure it worked very well. I thought the main narrator, David Thorn, who was the voice of Dr. Primrose was excellent, but the other readers (it's an ensemble cast) all over-acted their parts to my taste.

Original Publication Date: 1766
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 7h14m
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook
Why I read this: 1001 books list and available at the library

I read The Vicar of Wakefield a few years ago and found it very funny, including the improbability of the ending. Sounds from your review that the narration wasn't light, witty or ridiculous enough.

>87 pamelad: Yes, I think you're right. The main narrator did a great job with Dr. Primrose's voice and I found him amusing, but the other characters sort of ruined it for me. I'm not sure I would have loved it in print either, though. I think I appreciate the humor, but it's just not my cup of tea.

For my "random 1001 books" category, I read Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski.

This was a very interesting look at Poland in the last days of WWII. Present are people to represent many of the different factions that have emerged from the war. There are those who want an independent Poland, those who are Communist and don't fear the Russian model (and perhaps occupation), those who are young nihilists who only know terror, and those too damaged by the war to care anymore.

The book deals with the nonsensical killing that is still happening. There is an accidental murder of the wrong people, the murder of a young man by his friends when he refuses to give them money towards their terrorist causes, and the assassination of a prominent Communist. All this murder in the last days of a war that already killed so many - it's dark and horrifying. Some of the characters realize it and some just don't know any other way to live anymore. I think the group of young people who grew into young adulthood during the war are the most hopeless case. It's sad to see them not knowing how to act besides as terrorists, but I think Andrzejewski's point is that it's a side effect of growing up during a war full of atrocities. Another important character was the man who was in a concentration camp and survives by becoming an orderly and beating the other prisoners. He justifies his actions by saying that acting one way in war to survive does not mean you'll still be a bad person when circumstances are different. It's a disturbing thing to think about.

The book has a lot of characters and is somewhat chaotic, reflecting the times, but I found it a great read. It opened up a lot of thoughts about what happens in a country that has been ravaged by war in the end days of the war. There wasn't any relief or happiness here as you might expect. It was all confusion and more killing and people so damaged they don't even know how to move on and don't trust that there is anything to move on to. For all that, it isn't a relentlessly depressing book to read. Andrzejewski tells his story in a matter-of-fact way and has some beautifully phrased sentiments - I found it thoughtful and enlightening.

Original Publication Date: 1948
Author’s nationality: Polish
Original language: Polish
Length: 239 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased second hand
Why I read this: 1001 books list random pick

For my Authors from Scandinavia category, I read Out Stealing Horses by Per Petterson.

This is a quiet but deep book about an older man who leaves his life and family behind to retire to a cabin in the country in Norway. A chance encounter with a neighbor who he knows from his childhood brings up all sorts of memories, mainly of his father and a summer they spent together in the country during 1948 when he was a teenager.

The book meanders through Trond's memories and his current thoughts about aging and craving solitude. I thought the writing was beautifully paced and a good mix of introspective and intriguing. In this book, I liked the things that the author left unexplained or only hinted at. I think it's a book I'll be thinking about for quite a while.

Original Publication Date: 2003
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 238 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf, Scandinavian authors

For my "next in series" category, I read Trouble for Lucia by E.F. Benson.

The last in the Mapp and Lucia series (right - there aren't any more?) and I've really enjoyed these. They are a bit ridiculous but the characters are so much fun. This one has plenty of Georgie, who I love best. I'll miss this series. Maybe I'll reread them someday.

Original Publication Date: 1939
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 231 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle
Why I read this: off the shelf, comfort read, complete the series

Molto buono! I love the Lucia books and had to search all over the place to replace the copies I'd given away. The urge to re-read them couldn't be ignored.

For my audiobooks category, I listened to The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach, read by Holter Graham, 15h56m.

I listened to this audiobook in 3 spurts over the last 9 months. The checkout from the library kept expiring and I wouldn't feel like renewing it. But then I'd still be thinking about it and check it out again. In the end, I ended up thinking this was a really good book.

The story revolves around the baseball team at a small upper midwestern college called Westish College. Henry Skrimshander is recruited by the baseball team leader, Mike Schwarz, to play shortstop for the team. Mike sees potential in Henry and he is right. Henry ends up being a once in a lifetime find and seems destined to be a Major League shortstop of the highest caliber. Towards the end of the season, things start to go wrong. Is it the pressure? Fear of success? Fear of failure?

Baseball is the backdrop for the relationships in this book. There is the obvious team dynamic. There is also the college roommate dynamic. Also, these characters are trying to figure out what they'll do next as they near the end of their college careers. Another element is the President of Westish College, Guert Affenlight. His 20-something daughter, Pella, has recently come back from a failed marriage and they try to rebuild their father/daughter relationship. Affenlight is also experiencing a sort of second youth, having a relationship with one of the students. There is a lot going on, but Harbach manages to keep it all tied together. In addition to the baseball backdrop, there is a constant thread of Melville, who supposedly lectured at Westish College. Affenlight is a Melville scholar and there are some subtle (very subtle) references to themes in Moby Dick throughout the book.

The book relies on some sort of unlikely plot turns which made me not love it, but I think it's going to end up being a really memorable book for me, surprisingly enough. Part of this may be that I loved the audio book reader, Holter Graham. I think he really increased my enjoyment of the book. This was Chad Harbach's first book and I will be interested to read what he writes next.

Original Publication Date: 2011
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 15h56m
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook
Why I read this: available at library, 1001 books

For those of you with kids or an interest in children's authors, my son's school had author Adam Rubin visit yesterday. He's written some great books for kids - our favorites are Dragons Love Tacos and Those Darn Squirrels. My 6 year old, William, was really excited about the visit. Rubin read his new book to them and told them a little about his career. William told me about the collaboration between the writer and illustrator which I thought was a neat thing for a kindergartener to learn about. The kids also helped Rubin create a new book during the assembly. Fun!

For my "list of women writers" category, I read I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, audiobook read by the author, 10h11m.

This was excellent. The honest, brutal, but somehow hopeful and occasionally humorous memoir of Angelou's childhood up to about age 17 is made even better by her reading. Anybody who likes memoirs or is interested in the experience of a black girl growing up in America in the 1940s should read (or listen) to this book. Angelou is great at being able to find the humor in her life, even during troubled moments, and I think hearing her read this brings that out. There isn't much levity here, but it isn't a gloomy book. I think that even non-audio book people would enjoy this on audio.

Original Publication Date: 1969
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 10h11m
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook from the library
Why I read this: 1001 books list

For my "how things happened" category, I read Beethoven: Anguish and Triumph by Jan Swafford

I've been reading this 1077 page biography of one of the most famous composers for the past 3 months. I barely know where to begin in reviewing this book.

As a professional classical musician, I knew a lot about Beethoven going in to this. I've played almost all of his symphonies (and extensively studied and listened to the few I haven't performed) and I've played all of his chamber music that uses the horn. He's also such a big name that I've picked up a lot of the facts of his life in various classes. I guess I wasn't sure how much I was going to learn that was new out of this book. In the end, I think it was beneficial to have everything gathered in to one book and it really clarified Beethoven's influence for me. I also enjoyed that Swafford placed Beethoven in his times. There is enough discussion of the Napoleonic wars and the impact on Vienna, where Beethoven lived, to solidly ground the book historically without losing focus on Beethoven. I also thought the portrait of Beethoven's character was well within the known facts and didn't over-romanticize his life, something that has often been done.

Some highlights of what I took away from this book:

- that Beethoven was grounded in the Aufklarung (Enlightenment) philosophy. Though he was adopted by the Romantics and his music definitely pushes out of the bounds of classical music, he didn't think of himself as a Romantic. ETA Hoffmann was a music critic who really embraced Beethoven's music and sort of adopted him into the Romantic trend. Beethoven's eccentric character and habits lent themselves well to the image of the tortured artist.

- There was a ton of censorship of all the arts in Vienna, but Beethoven largely escaped scrutiny because instrumental music was too hard to pin down to a philosophy. He had freedom to pursue his composition however he liked.

- As a performer Beethoven was an amazing improviser his improvisation skills greatly influenced his compositional technique, especially in his piano music. His other over-riding compositional style was to come up with a whole idea and create the entire multi-movements works to serve the whole.

- The main genres he influenced (has been virtually unsurpassed in even to this day) are the symphonies, string quartets, and piano sonatas.

- He used instruments in new ways, stretching the capabilities particularly of the string bass, horn, and vocalists. Also the string quartet as a whole.

- I knew, of course, that he lost his hearing, but I didn't realize how much of his life he was plagued with chronic stomach pain. He was basically never healthy as an adult.

- Interesting sections on the tuning of pianos and the perceived character of different keys. Also the different pianos available at the time.

- fascinating information on publishing and how impossible it was for a composer to ensure both quality of publication and get compensation for his compositions

Overall, I wouldn't say this is a book for a non-musician. There is a lot of technical language in the description of Beethoven's major works (Swafford details all of Beethoven's major works). Swafford does a good job of explaining himself and has a good appendix that gives a little music theory refresher and discussion of forms but I still think it would be confusing to anyone without at least a little music knowledge or at least a good grasp on listening to Beethoven's music. It would be fairly easy to skip the musical analysis (or skim) and read the rest as a biography. That would make it closer to 600 or 700 pages.

I'm glad a took the time to read this even though it was a big commitment.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 1077 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased hard cover
Why I read this: interested in the topic

For my unique publishers category, I read Harriet Hume by Rebecca West
This was an odd book. It is subtitled "A London Fantasy" and has a weird element of the supernatural in it and I really couldn't figure out the point. Or maybe a more accurate way to say it is I didn't like the way West got to the point.

Harriet Hume is a beautiful young musician living on her own in London. Arthur Condorex is a rising star in London politics. He loves Harriet's beauty and quirky ways until Harriet takes things too far and reveals that she can read minds and knows what Condorex is thinking. They meet each other in 4 or 5 different instances over a matter of about a decade. Each time the power gradually shifts from Condorex to Harriet. Condorex is a jerk - demeaning Harriet and full of himself so it's good to see him get what's coming to him, but I never really saw Harriet come into her own the way I think I was intended to.

In the end, the fantasy element was just too odd for me to connect to this book. I'm left thinking that the wonderful Return of the Soldier is where I should have stopped in reading Rebecca West's books. I've also read her The Thinking Reed which I found pretentious.

Original Publication Date: 1929
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 288 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased Virago edition
Why I read this: 1001 books list, virago on the shelf

>96 japaul22:
Sounds really fascinating. A little over my head, I think, so perhaps not on the wishlist... :)

For my unique publishers category, I read Stoner by John Williams.

I loved this book by American author John Williams. It's a book about the rather ordinary life of William Stoner. Stoner grew up on a poor farm in Missouri and his parents scrape together enough funds to send him to the University of Missouri. There he develops a love for learning and a Professor sets him on the road to teaching at the University. He has an unhappy marriage and a sometimes satisfying teaching career. Though his life is unremarkable, I found his character immensely interesting and satisfyingly written. The writing in this book is clean and straightforward, quiet but captivating. I loved it and will read more of Williams's works.

Original Publication Date: 1965
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 288 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased NYRB edition
Why I read this: good LT reviews

For my "shiny & new" new releases category, I read Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates.

I'm hesitating on how to write this review. It's an important topic. Coates is writing a letter to his teenage son about his experience living as a black man in America. It's a topic I legitimately do care about and want to understand more deeply. This book, though, just didn't work for me. To be honest, I didn't really understand the core of what he was getting at. The prose is beautiful and and the emotions are raw and honest, but the beautiful prose seemed to mask the message.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 176 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: lots of buzz

>96 japaul22: That sounds like a very interesting read, though probably beyond my ability to appreciate, as I am a non-musician. My daughter might like it, though. She plays violin and piano and is hoping to study music at university after she finishes high school. We visited Beethoven's home on our recent trip to Germany. We've also got Bach: Music in the Castle of Heaven on our shelves, waiting to be read. I'm hoping that one is more accessible to non-musicians.

>101 mathgirl40: I don't think you need tons of music background to appreciate the Beethoven book (I think your daughter would find it interesting and accessible) but some would help. Although it would be easy enough to skip or skim the detailed music discussion and still get a lot out of the book.

For my "how things happened" nonfiction category, I read The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan.

This was a very popular book around here a few years ago and I can see why. It tells the story of the men and women who lived through the Dust Bowl in 1930s. This era is one of the most shocking eras of human destruction of the world we live in. Settlers were encouraged to move to this land that had previously only been inhabited by nomadic Indian tribes, bison, and a few ranchers. The settlers moved in, tore up all the grasses, and planted wheat. For a few years there was a boom. Lots of rain and soaring grain prices made it seem like a great idea, but then the inevitable dry years came and grain prices bottomed out with the Great Depression. The combination of grasses that had held the soil in place for centuries was no longer there and the wheat fields that replaced them lay fallow. The relentless wind moved millions of tons of topsoil all around the country in horrific dust storms.

The book is written in narrative nonfiction style, following the lives of several families in Texas and the the Oklahoma panhandle. It was effective to explore the people who stayed through the decade of dust storms since most people are more familiar with the "Okies" who fled west. Overall, I wished that the book had focused a bit more on the science and ecology of the situation rather than the human interest stories, but it did make for engaging reading.

I was pretty horrified, but not surprised, by the the disaster that humans caused. Much of the area was replanted with grasses, a process that is still being worked on. The discouraging thing is that Egan mentions briefly that the main solution, though, has been to tap into the vast underground aquifer known as Lake Ogallala. It is the nation's largest source of fresh water and it's being drawn down 8 times faster than nature can refill it to irrigate these grasslands and the remaining farms. Seems like we could be creating an ecological disaster just as bad as the dust storms in the 30s if we aren't careful.

Original Publication Date: 2006
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 330 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library book sale, paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf

For my "authors from Scandinavia" category, I read The Parson's Widow by Marja-Liisa Vartio.

This book by Finnish author Marja-Liisa Vartio was not easy to love, but in the end I think it's a solid contribution to Scandinavian literature. The novel explores a few people in a rural area of Finland and is probably set somewhere in the first half of the 20th century. The narrative centers around the parson's widow, Adele, and her maid, Alma. The other main characters are Adele's sisters' in law - Elsa and Teodolinda - and their husbands. Adele and Alma are both hard to like. Adele is whining and a bit mentally unhinged; Alma thinks everyone is out to get her and feels under-appreciated. The two women replay the same conversations over and over, fussing about the details, but actually revealing some important events. There is a lot going on under the surface of this quiet town: family inheritance squabbles, drug abuse, infidelity, and rape. It's all told in the quiet-on-the-surface manner that I've come to expect from Scandinavian literature.

I appreciated this book and may try reading it again some day, but I had a hard time connecting to it. The characters are intentionally hard people to like and the book dwells in dialogue so the reader only gets the characters' perspectives which makes it hard to escape their annoying habits and perceptions. I'm glad I read it though and think it deserves to be more widely read. There are interesting themes and it has a creative way of exploring the characters.

Original Publication Date: 1967
Author’s nationality: Finnish
Original language: Finnish
Length: 256 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: off the shelf, interest in scandinavian literature

For my "past in the Present" category, I read Circling the Sun by Paula McLain.

Circling the Sun is historical fiction about Beryl Markham. Markham led a fascinating life which I read about first in her autobiography, West With the Night (highly recommended, by the way). Markham grew up with her father in Kenya. She led a free childhood, mixing with the environment and the natives that lived near/on her father's farm. She was the first certified woman horse trainer and had great success racing horses. She also was one of the first aviators, and was the first person to cross the Atlantic from west to east. Markham was a trail-blazer and as such her life was never easy, especially socially. McLain's book dwells often in her suppositions of what it must have been like for Markham to be an outsider, even in Kenya - a place full of outsiders.

What I liked about this book was that it was just what I was expecting - a fun, adventurous, romp through a great setting. McLain does a good job invoking the spirit of Africa most of the time. The book reads so easily, just propelling you along. It isn't particularly deep and I'm not sure it does perfect credit to Markham. I felt too much time was devoted to her various illicit romances and that took away from the spirit of Beryl Markham's achievements. I think, though, that I needed to keep reminding myself that this book covered Beryl's life from childhood through age 28. She was so young and I think it is possible that discovering romance (and making mistakes) was a large part of her life in this stage as it is for many people.

Karen Blixen (Isak Denison) and Denys Finch Hatton of Out of Africa fame are of course also central to the book as they were central to Beryl Markham's life during this period. I'll read Out of Africa next. All in all, I thought this was a fun book. Not high art, but entertainment, pure and simple.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 359 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: borrowed
Why I read this: for fun

>105 japaul22: - I've been thinking of reading this later in the year for one of my Bingo/Pup blocks. Sounds like I'd like it.

For my free reading category, I read O Pioneers by Willa Cather.

I loved this book that invokes the pioneer spirit of the American midwest. It has a fantastic lead woman, Alexandra Bergson. In the first section of the book, Alexandra's father dies and he leaves the family farm to his capable daughter instead of his sons. To their credit, they see the reason for this and the strength of Alexandra and follow her lead on how to run the farm with great success. As they succeed in farming the land, though, their personal lives begin to suffer. The book delves in to the family dynamics and also the community. Alexandra also has to decide if her farming success is enough for her to feel she's led a full life.

The best part of this book is how it describes the setting. The Nebraska plains come to life with Cather's beautiful writing. She also describes the various immigrant groups settling the plains with humor and insight. I loved it.

Original Publication Date: 1919
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 128 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle freebie
Why I read this: remembered I wanted to read it after reading The Worst Hard Time

>107I wholeheartedly agree with you. The language in her books just opens vistas for the reader.

Just stopping in to catch up on your thread.

For my audiobooks category, I listened to The Giver by Lois Lowry read by Ron Rifkin.

*spoilers abound in this review*
I really loved this YA dystopian novel until the end. Jonas is part of a community that seems sort of perfect at first but is slowly revealed to be stifling in its insistence on "sameness". Jonas is chosen to receive and hold the memories of the community so that they are there to be drawn on in emergency by the ruling council, but so that the average citizen doesn't remember color, emotion, etc.

I liked all of the book quite a bit, but I thought the ending was very weak. It ended at what could have been the most interesting part. So I'd give this book 4 stars for 80% of the book but only 2 stars for the last 20%.

Original Publication Date: 1993
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 4h47m
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook
Why I read this: had heard good things

For my "coming to the table" (group reads) category, I read Fifth Business by Robertson Davies.

This was my first foray into Robertson Davies's writing and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I chose the Deptford Trilogy because it happened to be sitting on my shelf but if I'd done a little more research I might have tried a different trilogy first simply because I have an aversion to magic/magicians and a large part of this book is set in a magic show. Luckily, despite my irrational aversion to books involving magic, I still thought this was a fantastic book. And actually, the magic ends up being a rather small part of the plot overall.

This is the first person account of Dunstan Ramsay and his interactions with people in his small town in Canada as they grow up and grow out of their humble beginnings. Ramsay is a small-time intellectual, at least at first, and has an interest in saints, writing several books on the topic. He also has an interest in the Dempster family that he develops as a child. He ends up caring for the mentally challenged Mrs. Dempster and happening upon her son, Paul, who ran away as a child and joined a magic show.

Ramsay is central to all of these lives, at least in his own mind. As a first person account, of course, you never really know what everyone else thinks of him.

This is the first book in a trilogy and I'm definitely looking forward to reading the next two.

Original Publication Date: 1970
Author’s nationality: Canadian
Original language: English
Length: 259 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: used paperback
Why I read this: group read in the category challenge and off the shelf

For my "list of women writers" category, I read Out of Africa by Isak Denison.

Meh. This is a perfect example of a book that just wasn't what I wanted it to be. I knew that the book did not get personal as the movie does and that Denison's interesting love life was not part of this book, but I didn't expect that all of the author's personality would be stripped from this "memoir". Instead, this is Denison's musings on Africa. As such, I suppose it is interesting as a capsule of European views of Africa at the time, but I didn't like the tone that the Africans were described in (very belittling) or all the hunting and killing of the wildlife so that the Europeans could have their farms and livestock. It just put a bad taste in my mouth.

I will admit that some of the writing is beautiful and it is interesting from a historical perspective, but, overall, I was just bored and sort of annoyed. I would have just set this aside after the first chapter but I wanted to complete it since it's on the 1001 books to read before you die list.

Original Publication Date: 1937
Author’s nationality: Danish
Original language: English (she then rewrote it in Danish)
Length: 416 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle library book
Why I read this: 1001 books list

>111 japaul22:
I just started that one, so I'm only glancing at your review - very happy to spot the 4-star rating!

>113 -Eva-: can't wait to hear what you think!

>112 japaul22: I forgave her because it was South Africa in the thirties and, by the standards of the time, Dinesen was probably a humane and compassionate employer. I enjoyed the book for its descriptions of the people and the landscape and because Dinesen clearly loved the farm. I haven't seen the film.

Recommending West with the Night, Beryl Markham's autobiography. Markham flew all over Africa in her small plane and, in 1936, was the first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic from east to west.

ETA There are elephant hunting safaris. Off putting.

>115 pamelad: I read West With the Night several years ago and loved it, despite the hunting safaris. Not sure why I couldn't get on board with Out of Africa - I may have just not been in the right mood.

For my "in search of the truth" mystery category I read Where Monsters Dwell by Jorgen Brekke.

Yes! I loved this mystery - only downside is that there is only one more in the series that has been translated. It was a great mix of time periods and countries (takes place in Norway and the US) and it sounded like it would be too much but ended up being great and tying together nicely. I'll definitely keep on with this series.

Original Publication Date: 2011 (2015 for the translation)
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 357 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: gift
Why I read this: off the shelf, needed a mystery

For my authors who are new to me category, I read The Light Years by Elizabeth Jane Howard.

This is the first in a series of five books referred to as the Cazalet Chronicles. It introduces the large Cazalet family - three brothers and their wives and children and a sister - and takes places right on the brink of WWII.

I'm excited to have started this series and can tell I'm going to love it. I love a family epic with a historical background. The characters are interesting and memorable; different enough to be interesting but similar enough to understand that they are all a family. The children are great and I can't wait to see how they grow up.

I will say that the writing and ideas aren't as complex as, say, Trollope's series or The Forsyte Saga. I thought that this writing could best be compared to really good TV (not an insult). It's very straightforward and nothing shocking happened, but I immediately cared about the characters and compulsively read the book. I imagine things get more complex in later books but hope that the writing stays as clear and elegant as it has begun.

I'll take a break before starting the next one, but I'm excited to continue on with the series over the next year or two.

Original Publication Date: 1990
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 554 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased set of paperbacks
Why I read this: intrigued by LT reviews (sibyx and I think pamalad from a few years ago)

Loved the whole series. Happy reading!

I also loved the Cazalet Chronicles and was surprised that a 5th volume was added in 2013, some 18 years after the fourth volume. I have this 5th volume on my shelves but haven't read it yet.

>119 pamelad: I think you were the first person whose review of the series caught my eye. So thank you!

>120 DeltaQueen50: In reading up on the series, I noticed that the last book was published much after the first four. I heard from someone else that it's rather different in tone - a bit more serious/dark.

For my free reading category I read The Story of America: Essays on Origins by Jill Lepore.

Well, despite liking Jill Lepore's writing in the past, I didn't really like this collection of essays all that much. There were a few interesting essays - I liked the one on Inaugural addresses, Thomas Paine, Edgar Allen Poe, and Longfellow - and I do like generally how Lepore writes. However, one thing that turned me off in several different essays was how she made fun of fellow current writers for shoddy research. I found the tone of these moments sort of petty and unprofessional. I think she could have made her point in these sections without calling out fellow authors by name. It just left a bad taste in my mouth. Also, with quite a few of them, I didn't get the point she was going for until too late in the essay. This could easily have been my fault as a reader since I don't read a lot of essays or magazine articles, but several didn't grab me or left me feeling a little confused as to the intent. I'll keep reading Lepore's work, but this collection left me cold.

Original Publication Date: published as a collection in 2012
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 432 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library
Why I read this: usually like Lepore's writing

For my "in search of the truth" mystery category, I read Dreamless by Jorgen Brekke.

This is the second in a new detective series by Norwegian author Jorgen Brekke. Like his first in the series, Brekke parallels a current mystery with a historical mystery that is connected. I love this idea and I think it works very well. In this one, the historical aspect involves a Norwegian folk ballad that promises to make the listener fall asleep soundly enough to dream.

While I love the parallel mysteries and will continue with this series as they are written and translated, I didn't love this one as much as the first. The author is still finding his way with characterization, and the personal story of the main detective, Odd Singsaker, is a bit weak still. Also, I hate books where a dog dies and this one had that. That's just a personal issue that always turns me off.

Anyway, still looking forward to continuing the series as it becomes available.

Original Publication Date: 2012, 2015 translation
Author’s nationality: Norwegian
Original language: Norwegian
Length: 311 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library
Why I read this: for fun

For my free reading category, I read Pioneer Girl: the Annotated Autobiography by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

Pioneer Girl is the previously unpublished autobiography that Laura Ingalls Wilder wrote first, before her famous Little House on the Prairie series. It was intended for an adult audience. She wrote it in her 60s and her adult daughter, Rose Wilder Lane, who was an established writer edited in for her and sent it around to publishers. The book was not accepted by any publishers, though it was suggested that the childhood material was strong and she might turn it into a children's book. The rejected manuscript became the source material for Wilder to create her seven book children's series. This book is heavily annotated with information about the people she mentions, additional information about prairie life, corrections to dates or chronology that she misremembered, and lots of comparisons to the series she created - pointing out where she fictionalized and where she stuck to hard facts.

I loved the Little House on the Prairie books as a child and read them multiple times so I knew this book would be right up my alley. It's so interesting to see how Wilder grew as a writer. This book is choppy; the sentences are short and there are no transitions between scenes. However, the stories are still fascinating and the characterization fairly strong, especially of Laura herself. Her personality shines through her writing even though you can sense that she's trying to make it less a memoir about herself and more a retelling of her family's experience in blazing a trail west and their pioneer spirit. Also already present is her palpable love of the land. Some of her setting descriptions are beautiful and capture the setting perfectly.

I absolutely loved reading this and highly recommend it to Laura Ingalls Wilder fans.

Original Publication Date: 2011
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 427 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: gift
Why I read this: interested in the topic

>118 japaul22: BB taken for The Light Years!

>125 christina_reads: I think you'll like it!

For my "series nexts" category, I read The Manticore by Robertson Davies.

This is the second book in Davies's Deptford Trilogy. Again, there is a first person narrator, this time David Staunton, the son of Boy Staunton, a prominent character in the first book. While I still liked the writing and the story, I didn't like this narrator as much as I liked Dunstan Ramsey's voice in Fifth Business. David is attending therapy in Switzerland to come to terms with his family life, his father's death, and his drinking. He sees a Jungian therapist and there's a bit too much dream interpretation and personality analysis for my taste. Plus David is not an easy person to like which can be an issue in a first person narration. Overall, though, it was a good and well-written book and I'll continue by reading the next book in the series in the next month or so. I'm curious to see if it is another first person narration and who the narrator will be.

Original Publication Date: 1972
Author’s nationality: Canadian
Original language: English
Length: 253 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased used
Why I read this: continue the series

For my "shiny and new" category (books published in 2015 or 2016) I read Louisa: The Extraordinary Life of Mrs. Adams by Louisa Thomas.

I very much enjoyed this highly readable biography of Louisa Adams. Louisa Adams was the wife of John Quincy Adams. The two met in London where Louisa's American father had settled and started a family with a British woman. John Quincy Adams was moving around to various European diplomatic positions. His parents were not excited about the match, thinking Louisa not "american" enough with her British mother and upbringing. Also, Louisa's life was viewed as too easy to prepare her for the realities of being an American wife and mother with expectations of hard work and running the family. John and Louisa got married anyway and began married life at the Prussian Court. John Quincy Adams' work would also take them to Russia during the Napoleonic wars and Louisa had a dramatic lone journey from St. Petersburg to Paris during Napoleon's escape from exile and return to France (this was my favorite part of the book). Later, Louisa would navigate Washington society and help pave her husband's way to the White House.

Throughout the book, Louisa is portrayed by herself and others as weak and ill and needing to be taken care of, but time after time when push comes to shove she rises to the occasion and handles danger and tragedy with skill and grace. Louisa didn't have a remarkable life on her own, she mainly followed in her husband's footsteps, but the book is interesting nonetheless for its portrayal of this woman's varied life experience, an intimate look at a marriage, and for its discovery of historical events through Louisa's life experience. And Louisa was certainly an intelligent accomplished woman who did a lot of writing on her own (journals, letters, and memoirs).

Thomas succeeds in keeping the focus unvaryingly on Louisa Adams, no small feat with a husband who was President and in-laws like John and Abigail Adams. I was really impressed that the book was so interesting and kept my attention despite the fact that Louisa wasn't a radical thinker or trailblazer.

I think this is a biography that both people who have an interest in early American history and people who enjoy biographies about women would enjoy. I would give this 5 stars for readability and 4 for content, so 4.5 it is!

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 459 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased hardcover on sale
Why I read this: grabbed my eye

>128 japaul22: Aw, I like that the Louisa Adams biography was written by someone named Louisa :) Glad it was such a great read for you and that the author was able to keep the focus on her actual subject.

>129 rabbitprincess: I thought that was kind of funny too. I wonder if the author was drawn to the subject in some way because of their shared name. And it's amazing how many biographies of women I've read that end up being all about the famous husbands. It was refreshing to have an author stick to her subject.

For my free reading category, I read Notorious RBG by Irin Carmon, audiobook read by Irin Carmon, 5h9m

I loved this unapologetically adulatory audiobook about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, my favorite Supreme Court justice. Ginsburg has arguably done more than anyone to advance women's rights in the US and her story is admirable and inspiring.

This book works very well in audio format - I really enjoyed listening to it.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 5h9m
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook from library
Why I read this: happened upon it at the library

>131 japaul22: - My book club is reading that soon - can't wait!!!

For my unique publishers category, I read The Edwardians by Vita Sackville-West, published by virago modern classics.

This was just as good as I had hoped. Set in the era between the death of Queen Victoria and the start of WWI, The Edwardians is about Sebastian, a 19 year old English Duke and heir of Chevron, a large estate. Sebastian loves Chevron, his home, and many of the traditions that go along with it, but at the same time he's hesitant to settle down and follow all the rules and conventions of his upper class set. He bristles at the reality that misbehavior can go on, as long as it isn't admitted or seen. He discovers himself through five different lovers: and older society woman, a middle class bourgeois woman, a servant's daughter, a bohemian free-spirit, and the traditional society boring woman. In the end it is more the influence of an older male friend who helps him choose his path. All of his struggles are contrasted with his sister Viola, who bucks tradition and strikes out on her own without all the personal drama.

I'd say this book lacks a little in the way of development, but it captures the struggles of the youthful upper class in this era very well and I really enjoyed reading it and I think it deserves to be more widely read.

Original Publication Date: 1930
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 259 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: for fun

>133 japaul22: I loved The Edwardians! No surprise, Vita Sackville-West is one of my favourite writers.

The Edwardians is the only book by her that I've heard of. Have you read any others? I really enjoyed her writing.

I have read several and have several more on the shelf waiting. I've enjoyed everything I've read, she has a way with words. Even enjoyed her gardening books - she was a gifted gardener.

>136 VivienneR: I think I remember reading somewhere that her family home in England is still visited for its gardens.

For my "past in the present" historical fiction category, I read Burial Rites by Hannah Kent.

I liked this debut novel by Australian author Hannah Kent. The book is historical fiction about the last person executed in Iceland in the 1800s. Her name was Agnes Magnusdottir. She was abandoned by her mother early in her childhood and grew up working on various farms in the northern settlements of Iceland. As an adult she lands at the farm of Natan Ketilsson, a hard man who emotionally abuses Agnes and another servant, Sigga, living on the farm. Agnes, Sigga, and Frederik, a nearby farmer who wants to marry Sigga, conspire to murder Natan and a friend of his who happens to be staying in the croft and then burn the home down. Or so the official story goes. When Agnes is placed with the family of a low-level district official while awaiting her execution, her version of events comes out. Agnes is allowed to choose a priest to aid her in preparing for death. She tells the priest much of her story and slowly gains the trust of the family she is living with, sharing the rest of the story with them.

There are many things I really liked about this book. The story is compelling and the writing was good. I thought it captured the Icelandic atmosphere well and had a lot of interesting historical details about the way of life in Iceland in the 1800s. The narration switches between first person from Agnes's point of view and third person, which worked well. There were a few things that could have been better, though. I wish the author had come up with a more clever way of revealing Agnes's life story than having her just tell it to the priest and family. I also couldn't help comparing this to the brilliant Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and wishing that Hannah Kent had worked some ambiguity into the story. But, that being said, I still very much enjoyed this debut novel and would like to read more by Hannah Kent.

Original Publication Date: 2014
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 352 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: for fun

>124 japaul22: Thanks for the recommendation! I'm a huge fan of the Laura Ingalls Wilder books. I'm eternally grateful to a family friend who gave me the entire set of Little House books when I was a child. These books have been read many times over since then.

I'm glad that you're enjoying the Deptford trilogy. I just started World of Wonders.

For my "series nexts" category, I read The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope.

Ahhhh. I love Trollope. Every time I start one of his books I wonder why I waited so long. This is the fifth in the Palliser series and spends a lot of time with my favorite, Lady Glencora Palliser (now Duchess) and Plantegenet Palliser (Duke of Omnium). The Duke of Omnium is made Prime Minister and the political part of the book revolves around this appointment and what he and Glencora can make of it.

The other story going on is of Emily Wharton, a young, wealthy woman who marries the man of her choice against her family's wishes. She chooses Ferdinand Lopez over the childhood friend who has been courting her his whole life, Arthur Fletcher. This choice leads to a disastrous and unhappy marriage. Emily's father has a good head on his shoulder and refuses to hand over his daughter's fortune to Lopez, who would certainly have lost it to gambling on the stock market. After Emily's husband dies, she is faced with another choice, whether to embrace happiness with Arthur who is still waiting patiently for her, or to wallow in her bad choices and punish herself for life.

I loved this installment in the series, though the story surrounding Emily's second chance at marriage dragged on a bit too long for my taste. I love Lady Glencora, though, so I was happy to read a book that she featured in so strongly. As always in Trollope, characters from previous novels appear - I was thrilled with Lady Eustace's appearance and with the slight reference to Frank and Mary Gresham who I loved in Doctor Thorne.

Original Publication Date: 1876
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 704 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased oxford classics seriens
Why I read this: reading the series

For my authors who are new to me category, I read The Vet's Daughter by Barbara Comyns.

This is an odd little book that I loved. It's about Alice, the 17 year old daughter of a mean, abusive, drunk veterinarian. At the beginning of the book her mother is dying. There are odd animals all over the house, adding to the dark and weird vibe in the house. After her death her father takes up with a woman of loose morals and questionable merit. She moves into the house, relegating Alice to an even lower and more precarious position in her father's house. Fortunately (???), Alice meets a veterinary assistant working with her father, who takes and interest in her and seems to want to marry her. He arranges a way for her to get out of the house by going to be a companion for his solitary and deranged mother.

On top of all of this, Alice seems to have some special powers to make herself levitate. At first, of course, the reader will assume this is just a dream she is having, but later in the book it becomes clear that this is actually happening. This power has major consequences for Alice and those around her.

I thought this book was extremely clever and well written. I'd like to read more of Comyns's work if it's all as odd and interesting as this was.

Original Publication Date: 1959
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 133 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased nyrb edition
Why I read this: for fun

>137 japaul22: If you are interested, have a look at http://www.nationaltrust.org.uk/sissinghurst-castle-garden.

Beautiful! I'd love to go there some day!

>136 VivienneR:, >137 japaul22: I was an avid gardener in the 1990s, and knew Vita Sackville-West well. In the 2000s when I started learning about Bloomsbury, I was surprised to see her name crop up. I had no idea that the gardening goddess did anything else.

That's interesting that you heard of her first as a gardener. Since I have no aptitude or interest in gardening, it's not surprising that I heard of her first for her connection to Virginia Woolf.

For my free reading category, I read Lady Susan by Jane Austen.

I'm hoping to see the new movie, Love and Friendship, based on Austen's juvenile work, Lady Susan, so I thought I'd give it a reread. It's an epistolary novel and it's not particularly complete, ending sort of abruptly, but still great fun. Lady Susan is much more scheming and loose with her morals than the typical Austen character and it's fun to see this side of Austen.

Even in this early work, you can see the beginnings of Austen's genius. I imagine the movie could be lots of fun.

Original Publication Date: 1974
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 110 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased Collector's Library edition
Why I read this: to reacquaint before seeing the movie

>146 japaul22: Saw the movie on the weekend and I loved it. Even if the story and acting hadn't been good, I would have been happy to just look at the sets and costumes for an hour and a half on a rainy Saturday afternoon! It's just yummy. And I'm buying it when it comes out on DVD.

>147 Nickelini: glad to know it's good. I'm really trying to carve out a time to see it, but I'm not sure how long it will be in theaters and this week I'm very busy at work.

>148 japaul22: Well, if you can't see it in the theatre, I think it's on DVD soon. Amazon.ca has a "Love and Friendship" coming June 24th, but no information whatsoever (other than price), so I can only assume. US Amazon has Love & Friendship on preorder for $14.99, but no date, and when I click on it I get all sorts of info that is gibberish to me.

My conclusion is that it will be on DVD soon.

I think I read somewhere that it was produced by Amazon, so I imagine it will be available soon - probably even streaming.

>150 japaul22: Maybe that explains the gibberish -- I don't think we have Amazon streaming in Canada, so I wouldn't recognize what they're going on about.

Saw a trailer for Love and Friendship, so am now eagerly awaiting its release some time in July. Downloaded Lady Susan in the meantime.

As well as The Vet's Daughter, I've read Our Spoons Came from Woolworths and the weird and funny Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. Much preferred the second.

Library sale!!!! I'm doing terribly on keeping my "books acquired" and "books read from the shelf" even, but oh well!

The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri
The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith
Helen of Troy by Margaret George
The Black Moth by Georgette Heyer
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
A Friend from England by Anita Brookner
The Road Home by Rose Tremain
The Golden Child by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Virginia Woolf Reader
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Officers and Gentlemen by Evelyn Waugh
Miss Pym Disposes by Josephine Tey
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
The Way to Paradise by Mario Vargas Llosa
Scandinavian Folk and Fairy Tales

Nice haul! I love library sales.

Way to go with the book sale!

>153 japaul22: Woo hoo library sales!

For my "clamoring for attention" off the shelf category, I read Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson.

I'm too busy to want to write reviews right now, but I loved this book. Robinson's prose is always beautiful but also meaningful. This is a story of sisters and family, drifting apart and coming together. Fantastic.

Original Publication Date: 1980
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 219 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased at library sale
Why I read this: last work of fiction that I hadn't read by Robinson

She's basically the best.

>158 jfetting: Agreed. I've read all of her novels now but none of her essays. Have you read any of those?

For my "authors who are new to me" category, I read The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing.

An exciting and interesting plot, vividly described setting, and a depth of understanding about severe culture clash without a hint of know-it-all attitude - what more could I want?

I loved this book. Lessing has written a novel that reads like a page turner but has the depth of a slow, studied book. The story of Mary Turner is revealed after we read of her murder on the first page of the book. Her childhood, her marriage, her experience of isolated farm life, and her complete ignorance of the native people of Southern Rhodesia, all combine to lead to her death in a complex and compelling way.

This book manages to be a look at marriage, a look at a white woman's available paths in Rhodesia, and a study of the interactions of the various races and socio-economic levels in Rhodesia all at the same time. And it remains readable and memorable while doing it.

I particularly loved that Lessing doesn't pretend to know more about the native Africans in her book than she actually does. Their emotions and lives are not at all described from their own point of view, only through the lens of the white people around them and a bit through their actions. I appreciated that she didn't try to enlighten those reading her book on "what Africans are like" - something that drove me crazy and seemed so demeaning to African culture in a book I read recently, Out of Africa.

I highly recommend this.

Original Publication Date: 1950
Author’s nationality: British raised in Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)
Original language: English
Length: 238 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: caught my eye, 1001 books

>160 japaul22: Putting it on the wishlist. After avoiding Doris Lessing for no good reason, I read the Children of Violence series a few years ago, and can recommend it as well. Semi-autobiographical.

>159 japaul22: I really enjoy her books of essays. I've read When I Was a Child I Read Books, which is about lots of things, and The Givenness of Things, which is pretty theological and political. Highly recommended, but I find that I need to take my time with her essays. Not exactly books you read in one go, you know?

For my free reading category, I read Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser, audio book read by Donata Peters.

Having loved several of Antonia Fraser's other biographies, I snapped up this audiobook when I saw it available at my library. It did not disappoint. I'm finding it hard to review, though. Even after 20 hours and 31 minutes of listening, I don't feel like I really know who Marie Antoinette was. I think because she has been so popularized and dramatized and caricatured, it's hard to look past all of that. This book covers everything, though, and dispels many of the myths. I now think of her first as a mother and then about her Austrian family and connections. This book is a complete history and goes into great detail about the politics of the time and the factors leading up to her trial and execution. I thought the earlier parts about her childhood, early marriage, and early motherhood were the best parts. I think the focus got a little lost from specifically Marie Antoinette's life after the royal family tried to escape and then was taken prisoner. I think this book does show, though, that Marie Antoinette was not the vapid party girl that popular media sometimes portrays her as.

As with all of Antonia Fraser's work, recommended.

Original Publication Date: 2006
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 20h31m
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: audiobook, library
Why I read this: for fun

>127 japaul22:
Not as good as Fifth Business for sure! But, considering that it's pretty much a psychoanalysis journal, it was quite readable. :) World of Wonders is an odd cookie as well, but you'll find out what happened to Boy Staunton in Fifth Business.

>164 -Eva-: I started World of wonders and had to set it aside. I really didn't like all the magic or the terrible people that Magnus meets as a child. I will probably come back to it sometime, but I just wasn't in the mood.

>165 japaul22:
It continues to be odd, but not quite as creepy as the first parts.

For my free reading category, I read most of Engineering Eden by Jordan Fisher Smith.

This book has some promise in that it is about an interesting topic, but I'm abandoning it after reading 149 of its 336 pages.

It's about the differing opinions about how much human intervention is useful/needed/beneficial when running our National Parks. I'm interested in this topic and think the book has something useful to say, but it feels completely unorganized. The problem in reviewing this is that it's an uncorrected proof that I got from the Early Reviewers program, and I'm hoping that some of this may be fixed in the final draft. There are LOTS of typos, incorrect word choices, etc, many more than I've seen in any other uncorrected proof. But the bigger issue is that I think it still needs a good editor to organize the book. There are way too many scientists, ecologists, and lawyers introduced without advancing the discussion. Half way through the book there are still new people being introduced without any clear position being framed. And ostensibly a trial about a bear attack at Yellowstone is the catalyst for the discussion over our role in running the National Parks, but after a brief introduction to the case, it has been completely lost sight of.

I'm just bored and not willing to put more time into a book that is so convoluted.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 336 pages
Rating: 2 stars (because the topic has redeeming qualities despite the writing)
Format/Where I acquired the book: ER
Why I read this:

For my off the shelf category, I read A Friend from England by Anita Brookner.

This is the second book I've read by Anita Brookner and I've loved them both. Brookner is fantastic at writing a character's inner life. This book is about Rachel, a single, independent, working, woman who takes up with the Livingstone family. Oscar and Dorrie are an older couple and their grown daughter, Heather, is sort of matched up with Rachel as a friend, though neither seems to care about the other much at all. When Heather gets married, Rachel becomes more and more critical of Heather's choices and adamant about Heather's duties as a daughter. Rachel's criticisms of Heather reveal more and more about her own personality and desires as this first person narrative unfolds.

I really loved the writing, the subtlety, and the insight present in this novel. I will pick up any Brookner novel I see from now on.

Original Publication Date: 1987
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 203 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback/library sale
Why I read this: off the shelf, caught my eye

For my historical fiction category, I read The Known World by Edward P. Jones.

The Known World is a complex look at slavery, set in a fictional county in Virginia in the 1830s. Jones's book goes deeper than the typical Southern white wealthy family owning hundreds of black slaves longing for freedom. In fact, several of the main characters here are free blacks who own slaves. Throughout the book, there is gray area on race - expectations of character, behavior, and wealth are turned on its head. There were lots of times, especially as I was settling into the characters, that I couldn't remember if the characters were black or white without thinking about it - not necessarily typical for a book set in this time period and location, where race meant everything. In addition to the moral complexities, Jones plays with time in a way I really enjoyed. The novel is basically linear, except that he'll insert quick glimpses into a character's future and even the future of his/her descendants.

So, what is the book about? Henry Townsend is a former slave whose father worked to free himself, his wife, and then his son from the wealthiest man in Manchester County, William Robbins. Robbins sees some promise in Henry and mentors him. Robbins has a complex relationship with his slaves, taking a mistress from his slaves and freeing her and their mixed race (considered black at the time) children. Henry marries Caldonia, another free black woman, who studied with the same black (though she could pass for white) teacher, Fern Elston. Henry dies young after amassing a fairly large farm and large number of slaves, to his parents' dismay. Caldonia is left to run the farm with Henry's first slave and overseer, Moses. There are many other stories being explored simultaneously and they all weave together to create a rich texture and complex novel.

I thought this book was fantastic and important both for the craft of the writing and the topic. I can see it becoming part of the southern American canon with Toni Morrison and Faulkner.

Original Publication Date: 2003
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 388 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback/library sale
Why I read this: off the shelf

For my "random 1001 books" category, I read Jacob's Room by Virginia Woolf.

Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's third novel and her first experimental novel. I didn't connect to it the same way I did to her later novels, but in the end I find myself intrigued by it.

Woolf chooses Jacob as her central character, a young man who you expect from the beginning will be the perfect age to die in WWI. Instead of letting the reader into his growth from childhood to young adulthood, Woolf holds the reader at arms length in favor of showing brief exterior experiences. Characters flit in and out of the book and Jacob goes through a string of women love interests. He starts the book as a young child, goes to school, and travels, but everything is shown in brief vignettes. There isn't much interior development of Jacob's feelings.

But Woolf's beautiful writing is expressive enough to carry the book. I love how she can capture the most mundane moment and make it seem unique. This book in particular is very visual. It does however, lack the structure that her later books have that keep things moving forward.

This is definitely a book to ponder and reread. Despite not having a satisfying connection to it the whole time I was reading it, I'm interested enough to count it as an enjoyable reading experience.

Original Publication Date: 1922
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 247 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, purchased
Why I read this: 1001 books, Virginia Woolf project

For my "learning the library" category (books for the Dewey Decimal challenge), I read Words on the Move by John McWhorter.

Columbia University English professor and linguist John McWhorter has written an amusing and educational book about the English language. He explores how it has changed and is changing to bring comfort to those of us (like me) who tend to get bent out of shape about bad speaking or writing habits. The book is both entertaining and intellectual. It really made me think and had a philosophical tone in some sections. At the same time, it was funny. McWhorter has written sixteen books and I'll definitely be willing to pick any of them up when I come across them.

Recommended for English language nerds.

This was an Early Reviewers book.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 244 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, Early Reviewers program
Why I read this: off the shelf, ER book

For my "off the shelf category", I read Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard
This is the second book in the Cazalet Chronicles and I enjoyed it even more than the first. The series is getting more interesting as the characters grow up and develop. The series focuses on one extended family, the Cazalets, and their life on the homefront during WWII. I liked how this one used the three teenage girls, Louise, Polly, and Clary to dig in to the emotions of living through WWII on the homefront. I also liked that Howard alternates their limited knowledge with omniscient sections about the entire family.

The writing is less intense than other war books because of the homefront perspective (there are no fighting scenes) and because a lot is told from the perspective of children. I like it though. I'm definitely hooked.

Original Publication Date: 1991
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 591 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, purchased
Why I read this: fun

>172 japaul22: Loved that series.

For my "authors who are new to me" category, I read The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat.

This is a fabulous book about the 1937 Parsley Massacre on the border of the Dominican Republic and Haiti. It happened close to the beginning of Trujillo's reign and was a massacre of Haitians living and working in the Dominican Republic. It's called the Parsley Massacre because parsley is a word that is pronounced differently between the Spanish and the Kreyol languages and was used to tell who belonged to what country.

That is the historical background, but what makes this book great is the fantastic characters and the voice of Amabelle, the Haitian worker who escapes the massacre with her body but leaves her happiness behind. I thought the whole book was done so well - the writing, the characters, the setting, the pace - everything. I was afraid that a book with such a dark topic would be overwhelmingly sad to read, but Danticat has a way of making the sadness not seem dreary. I'll definitely read more of her books.

Original Publication Date: 1998
Author’s nationality: Haitian-American
Original language: English
Length: 321 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: paperback, purchased at library sale
Why I read this: off the shelf

I was really impressed with The Farming of the Bones when I read it last year. Edwidge Danticat is definitely an author I want to follow up on!

For my "endless list" 1001 books category, I read The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith.

Very satisfying thriller-type book (thriller is too dramatic but I can't think of a better word) about a young man who murders a friend and takes over his personality. I thought the writing and the story were both good and it suited my mood for a page turner. I'd like to read more by Highsmith. Not sure if I'll continue with her other Ripley books right away, but probably some day.

Original Publication Date: 1955
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 273 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: used paperback
Why I read this: fun, 1001 books

For my "how things happened" nonfiction category, I read Evicted by Matthew Desmond.

This book is deservedly getting a lot of press for bringing to light the epidemic of evictions in our American cities. At heart, it's a condemnation of the availability of affordable housing and of the voucher system of housing the poor that is simply too small of a program.

As expected, this was hard to read. Nobody here comes off very well. The landlords, the tenants, the courts, or the millions of Americans (myself included) who don't even know this problem exists. I admit to thinking that most of the poor in this country were housed in public housing and if they weren't eligible for that, they had dilapidated rental units in cities. But I never really thought about evictions or thought about the percentage of salary or benefits that were being spent on rent by the poor for seriously sub-par housing. I do think, though, that giving the poor housing is not the only thing they are lacking. For example, many of the people have addictions or mental issues or a lack of education. All of these things are conditions that people with a more stable circle of support can get help with, but for the poor in this cycle, there is no one to help them out. I'm not sure that the suggested solution of expanding the housing voucher program will really help some of the people living in poverty. They seem to need medical care and support as well.

Having lived in several cities, I'm not really a fan of mass public housing. I've seen what the neighborhoods turn in to and I don't think anyone should have to live in those conditions. I've lived in a mixed income co-op in DC and it was a great situation. There, there were multiple tiers of income and the units have to maintain a certain percentage of units at each level. It was in a very nice area of the city, with million dollar homes all around, but in the two blocks of co-op there was a huge mix of people. I would like to see a lot more of this, but the problem is that there are SO MANY poor to house that I feel that these projects barely make a dent. I also assume that anyone with prior evictions, convictions, etc. don't make the cut to live in a place like this.

This is an important book for all Americans to read, but expect to feel sickened while you read. Not an easy topic.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 432 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: lots of buzz and interested in the topic

I've been lurking right along with all your reading, Jennifer, but realized I should probably occasionally make myself known :) I'll be better about that. Thanks for tracking me down over at the 75ers. I've kind of let my Category Challenge thread languish, though I do try to keep the lists updated...

I have Evicted on my library WL and expect I'll get to it sometime this year.

I listened to the Highsmith last year and enjoyed it. So creepy! I then re-watched the movie (with Matt Damon and Jude Law) but it wasn't very good...

And Darryl (kidzdoc) and I were going to read The Farming of the Bones together a couple of months ago, but the stars never aligned... It's still on my "read soon" list!

>178 katiekrug: Thanks for de-lurking, Katie! I remember the movie of The Talented Mr. Ripley being pretty awful so I was glad the book was good. Hope you get to The Farming of Bones - I really liked it.

For my free reading category, I read Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell - audiobook.

I know I was supposed to like this, but I just didn't. I enjoyed the 80s throwback references, but beyond that I thought it was too sappy and teen angst-y. I know it was a YA novel, but still.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 8h56m pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook
Why I read this: buzz

>180 japaul22: - I liked E&P, but I think I gave it more credit than it deserved because it was better than a lot of the YA I had tried up until then...

>181 katiekrug: I haven't really read any YA since being a YA, except Hunger Games which I really liked. Probably just not worth my time to read YA when there are so many other books I'd like to get to.

Yeah, I've pretty much given up on it. People rave about a lot of it, and somehow most of the merit passes me by. Too many other books out there!

I have both Burial Rites and The Edwardians on my shelves - I had forgotten that Burial Rites was set in Iceland, thanks for the reminder. I'm going to Iceland next month and this will be a good one to bring with me I think. I have two more of Vita's books, No Signposts in the Sea and All Passion Spent, also unread - definitely need to

Nice to hear about Comyns as well - I have a couple of others by her on my shelves - The Skin Chairs and Our Spoons Came From Woolworth's.

>184 LisaMorr: A trip to Iceland sounds fun! And Burial Rites would be a good travel book because it's interesting but not difficult to read. I found it easy to dip in and out of. And you are reminding me that I really want to get to more Comyns!

For my free reading category, I read The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson.

I absolutely loved this novel that takes place leading up to WWI. It was one of those books that I just devoured and that clicked for me. Is it predictable? Absolutely - you'll know exactly what should happen and it will. Is it a bit sappy? Yep, and I loved every minute of it.

There's a single woman, Beatrice, who comes to a small town as a teacher, determined to remain single and independent with her meager salary. Of course she meets two eligible men who are cousins that spend lots of time with their Aunt and Uncle - the Aunt is progressive and big-hearted and the Uncle has an inside government job leading up to the war. Beatrice falls in love with the right cousin, who of course thought he was in love with someone else until he meets her. There are lots of side characters that bring different aspects of the war into the story and the whole thing just fits together so well.

Why read another novel about WWI, especially when I've admitted it's rather predictable? I loved the characters and flow of the novel and think it's really well done. Comfort reading, but not to be scoffed at.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 496 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: loved Major Pettigrew's Last Stand and this is the author's second book

>184 LisaMorr:
How exciting! One of the most interesting places I've been, nature-wise. Have a great trip!!

>187 -Eva-: Thanks - I can't wait!

>186 japaul22: - I've been eyeing that one... Glad it was a winner for you!

>186 japaul22: I'm waiting for my hold to come in at the library. Glad to hear your opinion!

For my free reading category, I read The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

I loved this emotionally charged nonfiction account of the 1936 Olympic men's rowing team that won gold in Berlin. This is narrative nonfiction at its best. These young men came of age out west (they all went to U of Washington) during the Depression. Many of them had hard lives before ever getting in a boat. The author does a great job of explaining the physical and mental demands of rowing. And it's always inspiring to read about teamwork and overcoming the odds. I had a tear in my eye for quite a bit of this book and really loved it.

This would make good Olympic reading before Brazil.

Original Publication Date: 2013
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 392 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: borrowed from mom
Why I read this: caught my eye, olympics coming up

>191 japaul22: - Loved that book! Even knowing how it ends, I was still on edge during the races.

Agreed! He wrote about the races very well. I'll watch rowing this year with much better insight.

For my "learning the library" DeweyCAT category, I listened to Longitude by Dava Sobel, audiobook read by Kate Reading, 4h20m

I liked this interesting audiobook about the search for a way to find longitude. I had never thought about the challenges as opposed to finding latitude, so this was interesting. It also ends up being about the history of timekeeping. Very interesting and a good subject for an audiobook.

Original Publication Date: 2005
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 4h20m
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library audiobook
Why I read this: LT review and available at the library

>191 japaul22: - A couple of people have recommended this book to me. I really should try to get to it soon.

>195 dudes22: It's really great, I think you'll like it!

So I'll be going on our annual concert tour around the Southeast US for the entire month of October - going to places in the Carolinas, Georgia, Alabama, and lot of time in Florida. Obviously I need to start planning what books I'll bring! Sometimes I like to bring at least a few books that are set in the region or by authors from the region where we're traveling. Does anyone have any favorite books or authors from the southeast US that they'd recommend to me? Bonus points if you think it's a book that makes for good discussion since my roommate is also a reader (yay!) and we might read one or two of the same books on tour. Thanks!

I find Pat Conroy's books (South Carolina) eminently readable. Not high literature, but there's stuff to talk about in them. I especially liked Beach Music.

A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash takes place in the mountains of North Carolina and was a good but sad read.

Lots of people didn't like it, but I thought A Man in Full (set in Atlanta mostly) was compelling, and gave a lot of insight into the "New South."

Tons more, I'm sure, but those are what come immediately to mind.

Have a wonderful tour!

These you may know from the films made from them:
Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil (Georgia)
Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (Alabama)
The Orchid Thief and Big Trouble (Florida)

I like John Hart's novels Down River and Iron House (North Carolina).
I know you like Austen but didn't know if that extended to ChickLit. If so, I like Garden Spells and The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen (North Carolina)

You didn't mention these states but I thought I would include these:
Slow Dancing on Dinosaur Bones (Kentucky)
The Quiet Game (Mississippi)
John Grisham's Jake Brigance novels A Time to Kill and Sycamore Row (Mississppi)
Stone Angel (Louisiana)

I know I am missing some. I'm going to kick myself when I get home and look at my Southern shelf at the ones I've left off!

>198 katiekrug: great suggestions - I've not read any of these. I'm making a big list of possibilities.

>199 VictoriaPL: Thanks! I haven't read any of your suggestions either, except for John Grisham. I always meant to read Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil and I'll definitely look into the others.

>197 japaul22: I am from the South and love Southern literature. I recommend the following authors:

William Faulkner Mississippi
Carson McCullers Georgia
Clyde Edgerton North Carolina
Brian Panowich Georgia
Tom Franklin Alabama & Mississippi
Ron Rash South Carolina
Colleen Oakley Georgia
Wendell Berry Kentucky but I think he's worth mentioning.
Dorothy Allison South Carolina
Zora Neale Hurston Florida
Maya Angelou Arkansas and North Carolina among other places are mentioned in her memoirs
Elmore Leonard He is from Louisiana and sets his crime thrillers in different states across the South.
Flannery O'Connor Georgia
Carl Hiaasen Florida
Kaye Gibbons North Carolina
Jill McCorkle North Carolina
William Styron Virginia
Olive Ann Burns Georgia
Jim Grimsley non-fiction
Patti Callahan Henry South Carolina
Joshilyn Jackson Alabama
Sue Monk Kidd South Carolina
Robert Morgan Gap Creek and sequel are set in North Carolina
Barbara Kingsolver She sets some of her books where she lives now in Appalachia and the Appalachian region extends into the NW part on North Carolina. I think her books like Prodigal Summer and Flight Behavior are accurate portrayals.
Ernest J. Gaines Louisiana
Thomas Wolfe North Carolina
Eudora Welty Mississippi
Erskine Caldwell Georgia
Lee Smith North Carolina
Charles Frazier North Carolina
Margaret Mitchell Georgia
Walker Percy Louisiana
Jesmyn Ward Mississippi
Harper Lee Alabama
Lalita Tademy She's a Californian but her books are set in the South.
Larry Brown Mississippi
Sarah Dessen North Carolina
Frank Yerby Georgia
Reynolds Price North Carolina
Tayari Jones Georgia
Anne Rivers Siddons Georgia & South Carolina
Ravi Howard Alabama
Karen White South Carolina
Karin Gillespie South Carolina
Ann Hite North Carolina
Edward Wilson He has novels like Anthill set in Alabama.
Terry Kay Georgia

For discussion, I would stick with the works with older publication dates. I think the older works and classics have more fodder for discussion. A lot of the current Southern lit is light reading, beach reads with beach settings (usually South Carolina beaches), or noir, Southern grit, crime type of books.

And I second the others that have been mentioned so far.

Edited to correct spelling of a last name.

>201 Tara1Reads: Wow! Fantastic list for me to ponder. Thanks!

For my 1001 books category, I read Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol.

I went into this book with a little trepidation. I love some Russian novels (Anna Karenina, Crime and Punishment) but have also found in some cases that I just feel so remote from the culture that I don't feel I know what is going on (Life and Fate, Dr. Zhivago). Hearing that Dead Souls is sort of a parody of different Russian classes and bureaucracy I wasn't sure I'd get it. But it ends up that Gogol's writing has a universal element to it and I felt I knew what he was getting at with his portraits of different types of Russian people. Certainly, if you've ever been to a DMV in the US this book will feel familiar to you!

Basically, we follow Chichikov who is trying to "get rich quick". He comes up with a plan to cheaply buy up all the deceased peasants he can find. Because censuses were taken so infrequently, landowners paid taxes on their muzhiks even after they had died. Chichikov offers to take them off their hands and plans to use the deeds to mortgage these deceased peasants later on. He meets a large cast of characters while trying to achieve this and a lot of the depictions and interactions are amusing. I loved the descriptions of food and over-eating and the muddled layers of bureaucracy.

The book is unfinished. My edition, translated by Pevear and Volokhonsky, has the complete first volume and the incomplete second volume. Even unfinished, this is worth reading and certainly gives a complete idea. Definitely recommended for readers venturing into the world of Russian novels.

Original Publication Date: 1842
Author’s nationality: Russian
Original language: Russian
Length: 393
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: interested in Russian writing

For my free reading category, I read The Wine of Solitude by Irene Nemirovsky.

Meh. I was excited to read another book by Nemirovsky after loving Suite Francaise but this left me annoyed and bored. This is supposedly the most autobiographical work about Nemirovsky's childhood/teenage years. Basically, she hates her mother and then tries to steal her mother's boyfriend away. I'm glad I read Suite Francaise before this because I doubt I would have picked it up.

Original Publication Date: 1935
Author’s nationality: Russian living in France
Original language: French
Length: 248 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: loved her other book

>202 japaul22: No problem! I hope you find some things you like.

So my 6 year old son is home with me this week (I'm off work) and we decided to make a project of counting all the books in our house. This involved a lot of diagrams, counting, and adding and our grand total was 1137! I know that's peanuts to a lot of you, but I was surprised how fast they add up, especially the childrens books. Anyway, it was fun to do together!

>206 japaul22: What a lovely project! How often did you stop to read a book? That's what always happens when I attempt to rearrange mine.

>207 MissWatson: We were very focused on counting, but I did come across many that I'd forgotten about that are right at his current reading level. He's more of a math kid than a reading kid, so I'm hoping this will keep his book excitement level up!

That sounds like a great project! I hope he likes the books you stumbled upon :)

>209 rabbitprincess: It was really fun! We read Jake Bakes a Cake tonight which we discovered in his room.

For my "again and again" rereads category, I read The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner.

This is probably the fourth time I've read The Sound and the Fury. I read it the first time the summer before starting junior year of high school - I must have been 16? I already considered myself a "reader" but this was the first book that completely dumbfounded me. I vividly remember being on a family vacation and trying to read it by the pool - not even being able to figure out a basic plot timeline or why in the world Quentin seemed to be both male and female!! It ended up being the book I was assigned to read and do a week of presentations to our honors English class with a group. We spent the whole year on it and I developed a deep love for the book and for the process of decoding a complicated book.

I periodically like to reread it and this time it was a beautiful edition that Folio Society recently printed that has the color coded type for the first section. The first section is Benjy's version of events. He is a 33 year old man with a mental disability who can't talk. His section moves frequently back and forth in time and this book uses 14 different colored inks to delineate the 14 different memories/time periods he comes in and out of. The colored ink is effective (and beautiful), but I'd definitely recommend reading in natural, bright light or some are hard to differentiate.

Every time I read this, I read it a little differently. This time I was particularly struck by the way Faulkner silences Caddy and her daughter Quentin, giving the male brothers their say and not giving her a chance to tell her side of the story. This is effective because it reflects her life, but it still makes me mad. I also noticed, probably because of the colored ink, that though all three brothers spend a lot of time mentally in the past, Benjy can completely immerse himself in each incident. Quentin, on the other hand, mingles past and present and various past events simultaneously, creating an even harder reading experience than Benjy's chapter. And Jason . . . oh Jason. Such a jerk, but actually a little funny too, in a brutal sort of way. "Once a bitch, always a bitch, I say".

In addition to the colored ink, this book has excellent end notes that help describe the plot and themes. Highly recommended!

Original Publication Date: 1929
Author’s nationality: American (Southern!)
Original language: English
Length: 512 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased Folio edition hardback
Why I read this: been waiting for a time when I'd be home to read (can't carry this book around in my bag!)

>211 japaul22: I've never had the courage to tackle that one, but if I ever do, I'll know which edition to use! I appreciate your obvious affection for the book and enjoyed the story of your history with it.

>212 VictoriaPL: Thanks! I hope you try it some day. Don't be afraid to figure out the plot before hand with some sort of plot summary. Usually I think that detracts from a book, but for this one I think it only helps. The plot is less important than each character's reaction to it (which is why it's a fantastic book to reread!).

>211 japaul22: I did try The Sound and the Fury once but I was too young or too thick to fully understand what I was reading and I have never ventured to pick up another of his books. Like Victoria, I appreciate how appealing you make this book sound, but I think Faulkner and I are destined to be strangers.

>211 japaul22:
I read that one at University and would probably have despaired without the support of professor and fellow students! I enjoyed it immensely then, but might not try it again...

>214 DeltaQueen50: Well, we can't read everything! I have a lot of Faulkner left to explore, but I always hesitate to pick up his books because of the challenge they present. I'm usually glad I did, though.

>215 -Eva-: Have you read anything else by Faulkner? I've read a couple, but without the studying that went along with The Sound and the Fury, they haven't meant as much to me.

For my free reading category, I read How to be a Tudor by Ruth Goodman

This was a fun look at the day of a person living in the Tudor England. As someone who reads a lot of both nonfiction and historical fiction set in the Tudor period, I enjoyed this. Goodman goes through the day chronologically. Some parts were more interesting to me than others - I particularly liked the food discussions. Goodman is obviously knowledgeable and has lived in the manner of Tudors herself at different points in her life.

Recommended if you're interested in the time period or like hearing about the lives of normal people in other eras.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 289 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library hardback
Why I read this: Meredith's review, available at the library

For my "in search of the truth" category, I read The Dinner by Herman Koch

Excellent summer read! I was convinced to read this by several reviews here. I was not disappointed. I'll not give away any plot, but this is a page-turner, psychological thriller about parenting and family.

One thing I'll say (don't click on this if you haven't read it yet and intend to) the story might have been a bit more interesting to me if Paul, the father, hadn't had a serious mental condition. I would have been more interested in the morals involved if all four parents involved had been previously "normal" and sane people and then had made different choices about how to handle their sons' actions. It wouldn't be the violent thriller that it was, but it would have been more interesting psychologically to me. Though Claire certainly was the most interesting character in the book to me and she sort of fits that bill.

Anyway, I really liked this. Couldn't put it down.

Original Publication Date: 2009
Author’s nationality: Dutch
Original language: Dutch
Length: 320 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: intrigued by reviews

>216 japaul22:
No, I've not been brave enough to take on another Faulkner. I need the moral support of a class, I think. :)

>218 japaul22: I guess I should hide this since I'm responding to something in your spoiler. I see what you mean, but what I liked about the book was how Paul seemed reasonable and normal in the beginning and then you slowly realize that he's not. Really not

I can't wait for the next Koch. I think there's one coming out in the next six months.

>220 Nickelini: Yes, in that way his treatment of Paul was effective and made it more of a thriller.

>218 japaul22: - I've seen both pro and cons about this book and just can't make up my mind whether to read it or not.

For my free reading category, I read Ruby by Cynthia Bond.

This was a painful book to read. Cynthia Bond's first book is a well-crafted, layered book but is built around a topic that will turn your stomach to read about.

Ruby arrives back in her hometown of Liberty, Texas in middle age and descends from a put-together woman fresh off the train from New York into utter madness. As the book moves on we find out the sources of her madness, repeated rape and abuse starting in her very early childhood. The people in Liberty have a strong belief in both church and the supernatural and these beliefs are woven into the story, both as threads of good and evil. I suppose, at it's heart, this book is a love story between Ruby and her childhood friend, Ephram, who ends up leaving his domineering sister to take care of Ruby and take on some of her troubles. For me, though, the women in this book were abused so terribly (literally all of them are) that I just didn't have room in me to see a love story on top of it.

This is one of those books that makes me curious to see what I think of it down the road. I thought the writing was good (though a bit over-done in some sections) but the topic is so hard to read about.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 368 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: LT reviews and shortlist for the Bailey prize

>222 dudes22: I felt the same way, but I'm glad that I gave in and read it. It's definitely one that is fun to talk about, whether you love it or hate it.

For anyone who read Fates and Furies and also listens to podcasts, I just listened to a very interesting podcast discussion of the book on Slate's Audio book club from Dec 8, 2015. Great discussion! They were pretty on the fence about whether they liked it, as many people here were.

For my free reading category, I read Christina, Queen of Sweden by Veronica Buckley.

This is a biography of the eccentric 17th century Queen of Sweden, Christina. Christina was the only child of King Gustav and gained the throne at age 5. She started actually ruling at age 18 and abdicated in favor of her cousin, Karl Gustav, who many wanted her to marry, at age 28. She was an odd woman - educated and considered sort of manly, she often wore men's clothing and was very active. Her sexuality was always suspect, but she seems to have been more asexual than anything. It's always hard to tell at this sort of distance what the truth is vs. what cultural sensibilities of the time implied.

She was ensconced in the Lutheran country of Sweden and made the highly politcal (though she probably didn't view it that way) decision to convert to Catholicism after her abdication. She lived most of her life after leaving Sweden in sunny, warm, Catholic, Rome. Pretty much as opposite from Sweden as she could get.

I enjoyed this book, but I think it could have been better. I was a bit bored at times, even though this woman led an eccentric and exciting life. She was constantly making bad decision politically and personally. I'm a little ambivalent about recommending it, but if you like historical biographies, it's probably worth the time. I'm always interesting in reading about women who wielded power in these eras.

Original Publication Date: 2005
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 416 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: interested in Scandinavian history

For my "endless list" 1001 books, I read The Ambassadors by Henry James.

I have a love/hate relationship with Henry James, in that I like his characters and the situations he puts them in, but his writing style can really turn me off. Way too much work to figure out all the odd syntax and dozens of commas in really long sentences. Despite this, The Ambassadors really worked for me.

The story is fairly simple. An American, Strether, travels to Europe to attempt to convince a young man, Chad Newsome, to give up his European lifestyle and return to America to run his family's business. Strether is involved with Chad's mother, probably going to marry her. When he gets to Europe he meets the wonderful Miss Gostrey who sort of takes him on as a project and tries to help him along the way. He also discovers that Chad is involved with an older woman, Madame de Vionnet, who is married. The thing is that once Strether sees Chad in Europe, he realizes that his lifestyle really suits him and sees a marked improvement in Chad's style and personality. So he's not so sure he wants to convince Chad to go back to Woollett, MA, even for all the money the business would bring. He also thinks Madame de Vionnet is pretty awesome. So he waffles. This leads Mrs. Newsome to send her formidable daughter, Sarah Pocock, to bring Chad back herself.

The whole thing is very clever and subtle. There is a lot of dialogue where the characters sort of talk around what they mean and things are left very vague, but I thought that was sort of true to life. I think often people have "conversations" where they are really just putting forward their own point of view and not necessarily listening, and certainly not being influenced by, the other person. I thought the dialogue was fantastic.

There were certainly long descriptive passages where my eyes were glazing over, but all in all, I really enjoyed this. It must have caught me at just the right time because it does take quite a bit of concentration to read Henry James. Definitely recommended to "classics-lovers".

Original Publication Date: 1903
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 495 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library paperback
Why I read this: wanted a Henry James to pair with The Master, biographical fiction about Henry James

For my free reading category, I read The Master by Colm Toibin

The Master is excellent biographical fiction about American author, Henry James, living and writing in Europe. Toibin focuses on the middle of James's career 1895-1899 including many flashbacks about his personal life and writing. During this time he settled in Rye, England, purchasing a house, and had already written Daisy Miller and The Portrait of a Lady. He was yet to write The Ambassadors, The Wings of the Dove, and the Golden Bowl.

Toibin seems to really capture James's personality in this book. Rather than a discovery of James through his known travels, correspondence, etc, Toibin uses these facts in the background to create a real character study. He subtly reveals James's habits of observation and how they were used to create his work. He also illuminates the personality traits of this fussy, particular, sensitive man in a way that made me feel fondness rather than annoyance, a great feat on Toibin's part as these are characteristics that drive me crazy!

Reading this book in tandem with The Ambassadors was a great experience for me. I really identified with Toibin's take on Henry James and could see how James's personality and writing style converged. This book may make me a bit more patient with James's wordiness (or not, but I hope so) and definitely will make me more appreciate the power of his characterization and observation. I do think James has a knack for creating seeming mundane situations that take on great importance in a character's life. I like that.

Toibin created excellent biographical fiction in which you can hear James's voice and witness his character all the way through the book, with no shift to an omniscient perspective or intrusion by the author. I thought it was a wise choice to present this book in third person limited. I got immersed in James without having to get too personal if it was in first person. Henry James does not seem to be the sort of person who could have given away his thoughts, even in his own head, so first person would have been too revealing.

Really excellent book.

Original Publication Date: 2004
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 338 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library sale, hardback
Why I read this: to pair with a Henry James novel, 1001 books

For my free reading category, I read My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout.

I think I'm done with Elizabeth Strout. I've not liked either of the books I've read by her (this and Olive Kitteridge). I have no idea what the point of this book was. A woman who had a tough childhood gets put in the hospital for a couple months. Her husband and children never come to visit so her mom who she hasn't seen in years comes for five days. They have a weird, pretty much implausible, relationship. The mom leaves abruptly when the daughter is told she might need emergency surgery. Also, Lucy, the first person narrator, keeps insisting this book isn't about her marriage, but it sure was.

So in addition to the implausible "plot", if you can call it that, there are all of these cheesy, obvious "emotional moments" or "big ideas". Like
At our small wedding reception she said to a friend of hers, "This is Lucy." She added, almost playfully, "Lucy comes from nothing." I took no offense, and really, I take none now. But I think: No one in this world comes from nothing.
Or
I have said before: It interests me how we find ways to feel superior to another person, another group of people. It happens everywhere, and all the time. Whatever we call it, I think it's the lowest part of who we are, this need to find someone else to put down.

Not impressed.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 189 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library
Why I read this: lots of buzz, Booker list

>229 japaul22: I too finished My Name is Lucy Barton recently, though I haven't posted a review yet. I was relieved to see your thoughts here, as I've read so many glowing reviews that I was wondering if I were the only person who didn't think it was fantastic. I didn't dislike it as much as you seem to have, but I wasn't particularly impressed either.

>230 mathgirl40: I wrote the review immediately upon finishing the book, so it may have been a bit harsher than it needed to be, but I really didn't get much out of it. Glad I wasn't the only one - then I feel like I just didn't read it "right"!

For my Authors from Scandinavia category, I read The Royal Physician's Visit by Per Olov Enquist.

This was a very interesting historical fiction novel about 18th century Denmark. King Christian is not quite right in the head and married off to young Caroline Mathilde, sister to King George III of England. Because of his madness, there is a power vacuum around him and a German doctor, Struensee, who is brought in to tend to his illness, ends up taking the reins. Struensee is an avid believer in the Enlightenment movement. The King ends up trusting him and signing hundreds of documents changing the government to reflect Enlightenment principles. Struensee also ends up having an affair, and a child, with the young Queen. This all happens over the course of a few years. Of course, no one who isn't the King can wield that much power alone without repercussions. Struensee sees it coming, but isn't able to stop it.

I always like good historical fiction and this qualifies. I particularly liked the tone of this book. It's written in terse, reporter-like sentences. The short sentences give a lot of forward momentum and also opportunities for brief and often wry observations. The tone stays rather cold through all the heated politics and the rather steamy affair. I really liked the contrast between the dramatic events and, for lack of a better term, cold writing. I imagine it might not be for everyone, but it worked for me.

Original Publication Date: 1999
Author’s nationality: Swedish
Original language: Swedish
Length: 312 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: interested in Scandinavian literature and historical fiction

>229 japaul22: - Yeah, I don't see why it has so much love. I thought it was okay, but felt that the whole book was rather vague.

>232 japaul22:
I meant to pick up a copy of this one last time I was in Sweden, but I forgot. Putting it back on the list.... Thanks for the reminder.

I've set up a wee thread for our shared read! https://www.librarything.com/topic/231015

Thanks!

For my free reading category, I read Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi.

The hype surrounding this book is well-deserved. Gyasi's debut novel is epic - tracing a family divided by slavery from the 18th century up to the present. Her technique is to chose a family member from each generation as the focus, exploring how the history of the time impacts the family. The book begins on the African Gold Coast (present-day Ghana) in the 18th century. Two half-sisters (same mother), Effia and Esi, who never meet have very different fates. Effia is sold in marriage to a white slave-trader. After his death she moves back to her village. Her descendants stay in Ghana until the recent generations, dealing with white colonization and their tribal lives. Esi is captured an sold as a slave to America. Her descendants are slaves and then live the lives of African-Americans, experiencing escape from slavery, recapture into slavery, the life of a convict coal-miner, the Northern migration to Harlem, etc. It's amazing to me that such an all-encompassing book never feels rushed or too "on-the surface".

This is a novel about deep connections and family and how the past affects the future, even without explicit knowledge of events. It could have gotten cheesy and deserving of eye-rolls in the hands of a lesser writer, but Gyasi uses fantastic subtlety while weaving these lives together. I'd actually love to reread this, because I was so enamored by the plot and characters that I'm sure I missed some of the connections and details. As with any book that switches point of view so often, there were certain stories that worked better than others. I favored the beginning stories over the most current and I also connected more to the American line of the family, probably because of familiarity with the cultural context. But I was amazed that she drew me in to each unique story and did this seamlessly, without losing the flow of the novel.

Highly recommended.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: Ghanaian
Original language: English
Length: 320 pages
Rating: 5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: it's gotten great reviews

For the August DeweyCAT (600s) I read Fashion Victims: the Dangers of Dress Past and Present by Alison Matthews David.

This is an interesting and fun look at how fashion has endangered our lives. David focuses on mainly the 1800s through the early 1900s, telling stories of dangerous dyes, flammable fabrics, and poisonous methods of construction.

The writing was interesting (not fabulous) but the illustrations are fantastic. This is a beautiful book with glossy pages and huge color prints, photos, and drawings. Without the illustrations, the book would be sort of boring, but instead it ends up being a fascinating read.

Of course, the author doesn't let us off the hook either. The final section gives several examples of our our clothing is still endangering our lives and especially the lives of those who make it.

Original Publication Date: 2015
Author’s nationality: Canadian
Original language: English
Length: 221 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: gift
Why I read this: for fun and off the shelf

Slowly inching my way up the library list for that one!

>237 japaul22: - Yay! Another fan of Homegoing! Glad it was a winner for you, too.

For my free reading category, I read The Glorious Heresies by Lisa McInerney.

This is a book I won from the ER program. I requested it without knowing what is was about because it won the 2016 Baileys prize, which I like to follow.

Not knowing anything about the book worked well in this instance, because I probably wouldn't have picked it up if I'd known the topic. And, honestly, even if I had picked it up, I probably would have abandoned it about a third of the way through if I hadn't felt obligated to keep going because it was a free book. In the end, I'm glad I stuck with it.

Basically, this is a book about damaged people behaving badly and perpetuating a cycle of drug use, abuse, murder, and crime. I really have no stomach for books with excessive drug use and prostitution, especially when it points out how hopeless the characters' lives are. These people legitimately have no one stable to turn to and it's just so bleak and depressing. I'd just rather not read about it. So, I really wanted to put this book down. But, I had to admit to myself that McInerney's writing was excellent and she was getting some subtle but meaningful connections into this book. I kept going, and I'm glad I did. Despite the circumstances in the book, it has a dark humor and writing good enough to make me very invested in the lives of these characters by the end of the book. That's impressive considering how much I was not liking it in the middle.

If you don't mind a story with a lot of troubled lives at the center, I think this book is very worth reading. Really, the writing and crafting of the book are excellent, I just didn't have the stomach for it to be able to say that it's a great book for me.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 389 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: ER win
Why I read this: off the shelf

For my Learning the Library Category I read The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

In this interesting study, Mukherjee focuses on the history of the scientific study of the gene, the morals/ethics involved in each step of discovery, and the science of how genes work. In that order of prevalence. For me, that really worked. I am more interested in the people studying the science and how their discoveries were received (or not) by the scientific community and the public. I thought the book was a bit weak on actually explaining what a gene does and how it works. It's in there, but a bit buried in all the stories and culture. Or, maybe, I just glazed a bit when it came to the hard science.

Either way, I found this book readable and informative and think many will enjoy it.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 608 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle book
Why I read this: interested in the topic

>242 japaul22: Thanks for the review! That one is on my list. It will be good to know what to expect.

I'm back and forth on whether I should read it - I loved his cancer book, but genetics is what I did for years. I don't know if I will enjoy it or be made furious.

I can't imagine there's anything in it you don't know. It seemed to me that it was sort of a history of the researching of the gene. Even I was a bit bored for the first 100 or so pages with Darwin and Mendel where I felt like I knew it already.

Although I would be really curious to hear your reaction!

I suppose it would depend on how well he wrote it. And if he respected the same people i respect and had contempt for the people I also have contempt for - like if he gets all "James Watson is a MAGICAL GENIUS" when James Watson is actually a racist, sexist, pervy old man who is a shitty driver and almost ran me over with his green Jag, I would probably hate the book.

I'll probably read it. If nothing else, I can give it a detailed and terrible review if I hate it.

Well, now you have to read it, because I want to hear all the insider gossip!

For my joining group reads category, I read The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett.

Dorothy Dunnett is well-known in historical fiction circles for her well-written historical fiction. In The Game of Kings she has taken the backdrop of 16th century Scotland and created a fictional hero, Francis Crawford of Lymond. Lymond is a fantastic, complex character - it's hard to tell even half way through the book if he's good or bad at heart. The women in the book are great - good character development and clever dialogue. There is a ton of action that is really well written. You can see the fighting as you read. She also manages to write some really funny scenes.

So, lots of great parts, but for me it didn't quite add up to the standard of Sharon Kay Penman or Margaret George. There was just a bit too much reliance on action scenes and I thought the plot was a bit unnecessarily convoluted.

I can see why people love these books, and by the end I sort of wanted to read the next in the series even with my misgivings. We'll see, maybe I'll give another one a try sometime but I'm not planning on it right now.

Original Publication Date: 1961
Author’s nationality: Scottish
Original language: English
Length: 543 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: kindle book purchased
Why I read this: looking for another historical fiction series

For my free reading category, I read Enchanted Islands by Allison Amend.

I found this newly published novel compulsively readable. It's one of those books that you can just fly through - the writing is nice but not complex and the story is interesting but also palatable and slightly predictable. Fun writing, though maybe not "great" writing.

This novel is very loosely based on the memoirs of Frances Conway who lived on the Galapagos Islands with her husband during WWII. It's more than just the story of surviving on an almost uninhabited island, though. In fact I'd say this is more the story of Frances's friendship with childhood friend, Rosalie. The book begins in early 1900s in Duluth, MN and explores the childhood friendship of these two girls. They run away to Chicago together and have a fight that splits them up after their adolescence. They ended up meeting each other again by chance in San Francisco just before Frances leaves for the Galapagos. She has been sent there by the U.S. government to spy on the German inhabitants of the island. She marries Ainslie Conway as part of this mission and part of the book focuses on how they learn to exist together.

All of that together sounds like it might read in a disjointed manner, but Amend does a good job of keeping the flow of the narrative and the pacing. And somehow keeping the theme of the female friendship at the core, even when the two aren't around each other.

I wanted to read this book because I've been to the Galapagos Islands and think it's a fascinating place. I wished that there was a bit more time spent on describing the island and how they lived on it. But all in all, this was fun to read.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 301 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library hardback
Why I read this: story caught my eye (actually ear) in a podcast

>248 japaul22: Yes, I'm really enjoying the characterization of the women! Thumbs-up for your review.

For my free reading category, I read The Last Painting of Sara de Vos by Dominic Smith.

I thoroughly enjoyed this account of a fictional (though based on a conglomeration of historical figures) woman painter in the 1600s - the Dutch Golden Age of painting. Dominic Smith weaves together the little known life of Sara de Vos with a modern day story of the relationship between a woman art forger/historian and the man who owns the work she forges (Sara de Vos's painting).

Usually in these sorts of novels I get annoyed with the modern-day part and just want to read the historical part, but I actually enjoyed both parts equally here. I also though Smith hit just the right note in describing the paintings without being overly wordy or pretentious. He also cleverly works noting light patterns and the visual world of a painters into the story without interrupting the flow of the book or being overly obvious.

I really enjoyed this. Thanks to the LT members who have recommended it!

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: Australian
Original language: English
Length: 304 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: LT review piqued my interest

Well, I'm off on a 31 day concert tour of the Southeastern U.S. with the Marine Band starting tomorrow. I'm freaking out a little about not seeing my two little boys for an entire month, but I know we'll all be fine. They will be seeing lots of both of their grandmas and have lots of fun fall activities lined up. Probably the hardest job falls to my husband, carrying a large load this month!

Most importantly to you all, I've settled on the books I'm bringing. I will of course have my kindle and expect to have several library books come in to read on it. You would think I should read a ton (we have lots of bus time), but I've found in years past that it's hard to concentrate. There are always distractions on tour. So I'm trying to bring engaging books that can stand interruptions.

In paperback I'm bringing:
Hag-seed by Margaret Atwood (an ER win)
Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston (a reread)
84 Charing Cross Road (a reread), The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street, and Q's Legacy by Helene Hanff
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
Confusion (the 3rd book in Elizabeth Jane Howard's Cazelet series)
The House with the Blind Glass Windows by Herbjorg Wassmo
School for Love by Olivia Manning
Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

On my kindle I'm most likely to read:
Wrapped in Rainbows, a bio of Zora Neale Hurston
Romantic Outlaws a new double bio of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley
the new Harry Potter book
Eligible by Curtis Sittenfield
The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope to finish out the Palliser series

In reality, I will only read 6-8 of these, but one must have choices on a month-long trip!

I hope you have a good time on your trip even if you will miss your boys. Can you skype (or facetime, etc)with them while you're gone? I don't know much about it, but have done it once with a niece who was at college.

I think you've got a nice group of books. Before there were e-readers, I used to pack 10-12 books for a weeks vacation and there was a "take-it, leave-it" shelf at the resort and I would trade with friends who were there. Which weighs down your suitcase for sure. I still tend to pack 4-5 books when we go, but at least that's less. I prefer an actual book on the plane and on the beach.

Do you do a month-long trip often - like every year?

Great selection of books! I'll be interested to hear what you think of Hag-Seed especially. I think cbl_tn was the one who put it on my to-read list. :)

And it makes perfect sense to pack books to suit any possible reading mood. When I travel these days I tend to pack three smaller books, and I bring my iPad, which has some Project Gutenberg e-books on it and a couple of magazines I subscribe to. And I store audiobooks on my phone in case I have a quiet moment. (I've learned the hard way that I can't do audiobooks on planes -- the white noise makes it impossible for me to hear anything properly.) These are supplemented by books I buy on the trip, because you can bet that I have carefully mapped out all the bookstores in whatever place we're visiting ;)

Have a great trip!

>253 dudes22: We will definitely facetime as much as we can. My concert schedule doesn't line up great with their school schedule, but we'll make it work! The Marine Band does an annual concert tour to a different region of the U.S. every October. I don't have to go every year, though. We always leave a band at home in DC to cover White House commitments, funeral at Arlington Cemetery, etc. and I've done that the last few years.

>254 rabbitprincess: I'm loving Hag-Seed so far. Should be done in the next day or two. And I'm hoping to run into a few bookstores, but I don't know of any at the moment that are in walking distance of any of our hotels. Hopefully I'll be surprised.

When we go on vacation, I usually ask at the desk for the nearest bookstore and the nearest fabric store.

>252 japaul22: Can't wait to meet you in Mauldin, SC!! Ridgewaygirl was able to get tickets so we'll be there!

Excellent! Looking forward to it. The best time to catch me is to come up to the stage either at intermission or after the concert.

Ugh, a month away from home! If you have to do it, you are lucky to have Angle of Repose with you. I predict you will love it.

Well, we've had a few snags because we were supposed to be playing on the coast of Georgia and Florida during Hurricane Matthew. We had several concerts cancelled by our sponsors and had to do some rerouting which resulted in long days on the bus. Good news is that I got a lot of reading done. I'm going to do mini-reviews of these because I do not have the mental fortitude to do more! :-)

#75 Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood
Loved this new book that I received from the Early Reviewers program. I've read many of Atwood's books, mainly the early ones, and loved them, so I had high expectations for this book. Overall, I'd say it doesn't disappoint. It's a somehow humorous retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest. As such, it's a much more "male" book than I'm used to reading from Atwood. The main character is a male stage director whose power is stripped from him, just as Prospero's is. He isolates himself and plots his revenge. The opportunity comes when he lands a job directing an English and literacy program in a correctional facility and chooses to put on Shakespeare plays as the curriculum. The book is funny and I really enjoyed it, but I never would have guessed that Atwood had written it if I hadn't known it upfront. That's not bad, but just a word of a warning.

#76 Mrs. Bridge by Evan s. Connell
I loved this forgotten (except on LT!) American classic from the 1950s. It's the story of Mrs. Bridge, a typical suburban housewife in the American midwest. Through short vignettes, Connell explores the boredom, naivete, and close-mindedness of life in this circumstance. It's not all bleak though. There's humor and insight and I really liked it. I'll definitely read the companion book, Mr. Bridge.

#77 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
This was a reread for me that I chose now because I'm also reading a biography of Zora Neale Hurston. I loved it as much as the first time. It's a beautiful but sad love story that I loved because it shines through the struggles of being black in the south in the early 1900s. The struggles are obvious, but the point seems to be that in any walk of life the yearning for love and real human connection is really what is primary in life and possible in even the hardest of circumstances.

>237 japaul22: Thanks for your review of Homegoing, this sounds great and goes straight onto my list. I hope you enjoy your trip!

>260 japaul22:
The Tempest is one of my favorite Shakespeare plays and I have been looking to pick up an Atwood, so BB for me! :) (I read Handmaid's a few decades ago, but I may have been to young to appreciate it, so that one is a standing entry on the to-read list.

I'm home from a fun tour with great concerts and audiences. It was fun, but I'm very happy to be back to my family and our "normal" routine. I read four more books that I haven't reviewed yet, so here are some mini-reviews just to say I read them.

#78 Wrapped in Rainbows by Valerie Boyd
This is a bio of Zora Neale Hurston that I paired with my reread of Their Eyes Were Watching God. Fun because I was in Florida, her home state, while reading this. I found it interesting that Hurston led a much more cosmopolitan life than I'd realized and also had no idea she'd done so much work in the field of anthropology - documenting black southern lives.

#79 Confusion by Elizabeth Jane Howard
The third in the author's Cazalet series. Loved it - completely hooked at this point. Also made great tour reading because these are well-written but do have a sort "soap opera" feel, in the best sense.

#80 Eligible by Curtis Sittenfeld
Yes! I really liked this modern day retelling of Pride and Prejudice. My standards are low for these, and certainly the romance angle just didn't work as well as the original. But I thought it was cute and fun.

#81 The Wicked Boy by Kate Summerscale
The latest of Summerscale's nonfiction reexamining of a Victorian era crime. This one was much weaker than the other two I've read. I found it sort of meandering and wasn't sure what the point was. Read The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher instead.

The Trespasser by Tana French

I love Tana French's mystery series, but this new installment didn't work as well for me. Don't get me wrong, it's still well-written and interesting, but this one stays in the head of the investigator to a fault. I sort of lost the actual mystery in all the wondering about which versions were true and which were lies. So, read it if you love the series, but I wouldn't start here.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: Irish
Original language: English
Length: 464 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: love the series and it came in at the library

>260 japaul22: Nice to see another positive review of Hag-Seed. It's on my wishlist.

I'd also reread Their Eyes Were Watching God last year. I'd first read it about 25 years ago, and I loved it just as much the second time around.

>265 mathgirl40: I'll look forward to your thoughts on Hag-Seed. And glad to know another fan of Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

This was ok. Good story, characters all felt right, but I didn't like the play format as I didn't think it fleshed out the story enough. All plot, no depth. Harry Potter fans will likely enjoy this, though. Any excuse to get more of these characters!

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 320 pages
Rating: 3 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: felt I must

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead
This brand new book has gotten a lot of buzz and deservedly so. The Underground Railroad follows Cora, a slave who runs away from a particularly cruel master, on her journey away from enslavement. She uses a literal underground railroad that takes her to several different stops. Each stop shows a different aspect of slavery and race relations, all ending in cruelty and suppression. Cora's journey is gruesome, particularly because there is nothing in this book that hasn't happened in one form or another.

While I thought the format was interesting and the mixing of true history with this sort of science fiction-y element of a literal train and places that had real names (for example South Carolina) but that didn't reflect a true moment in time was ingenious, at the same time it held me at arms length from the book. I thought it would have been stronger if Whitehead could also have made Cora and some of the other characters into stronger, more whole characters. Instead, I felt that they were all vehicles for his point. I wanted to know Cora more deeply and I think almost got there, but not quite.

Definitely worth a read, but maybe not as great as some of the talk around it has made it seem.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 306 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library hardback
Why I read this: wanted to see what all the hype was about

After reading The Underground Railroad, I pondered the fact that this year I've read quite a few books about slavery in America and elsewhere, the impact of slavery, and the black American experience. I didn't do this intentionally, but it's made for a powerful and challenging reading year. I would highly recommend all of these books as they all tackle different aspects of the topic. I've starred my absolute favorites, but really, they were all great.

*I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
*The Known World by Edward P. Jones
*Ruby by Cynthia Bond (published 2016)
*Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi (published 2016)
*Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston
Wrapped in rainbows (a biography of Zora Neale Hurston)
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat (set in Haiti)
Evicted by Michael Desmond (certainly not exclusively a problem for African Americans, but definitely a focus of the book) (published in 2016)
The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead (published in 2016)

I'd love other suggestions on and around this topic.

I enjoyed your review as it but into words how I felt about the book too.

Have you read Kindred by Octavia Butler? I read it earlier this year and found it had a much stronger impact on me than The Underground Railroad.

I read Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison in high school, and it has stuck with me; same for Beloved by Toni Morrison.

This year, I read The Other Wes Moore by Wes Moore and $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America by Kathryn Edin - both are non-fiction and what you noted about Evicted would also hold true for the latter - not *just* an African American issue but one that affects many of them profoundly.

>269 japaul22: I would add Someone Knows My Name by Lawrence Hill to your list about Slavery and the Black American Experience.

>270 LittleTaiko: I've not read Kindred, and actually I've never read anything at all by Octavia Butler. Thanks for the suggestion!

>271 katiekrug: I think I read Invisible Man but I don't remember it and should probably reread it. I love Beloved, but there are many more Toni Morrison books that I haven't read yet. And I haven't read either of the non-fiction books.

>272 DeltaQueen50: Someone recommended that on my other thread, too, and I'm definitely going to add it to the TBR list. Thanks!

I don't know if you've already read it, and what your tolerance is for books that will probably make you shocked and angry, but The New Jim Crow should be required reading everywhere.

>274 jfetting: I did read that one and I've recommended it to so many people. It was one of those books that really opened my eyes and changed my view of drug laws. I've been glad to see some small steps towards progress, though.

The Duke's Children by Anthony Trollope
For those of you reading or planning to read the Palliser series, I'll say that I loved this book and you won't be disappointed if you love Trollope. But I can't review this without revealing a major spoiler that happens at the beginning of the book. So skip the rest if you've not yet read this.

***************

OK, so, I knew this, but my favorite, Lady Glencora, dies at the very beginning of this book. Boo. So right off the bat I was sure that I wouldn't like this book as much as some of the others. Also, Phineas Finn isn't in it at all except for the briefest of appearances. Another negative. Instead, this is the story of Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke, attempting to parent his newly adult children on his own. He has two sons and a daughter and all are giving him trouble. His eldest son, Silverbridge, wants to switch political parties away from the traditional family party, loses 70,000 pounds horse racing, and decides he wants to marry an American, Isabel Boncassen, instead of Lady Mabel Grex who his father prefers. His younger son Gerald gets kicked out of school and also racks up some gambling debts. His daughter, Mary, wants to marry the nameless and penniless Gerald Tregear.

Most of the plot revolves around a rather complex love "triangle", though it's more of a pentagon. Lady Mabel Grex and Gerald Tregear had an early, youthful love but the practically put it aside since neither has money. Lady Mabel clearly still is in love with Tregear, though he moves on to Mary Palliser who he both loves and has a lot of money potentially. Silverbridge first proposes to Lady Mabel who tries playing games and refuses him (intending to take him as her most palatable option besides Tregear in the end). When Silverbridge is refused, he meets Isabel and falls in love with her. This does not sit well with Lady Mabel.

In the end I was a tiny bit unsatisfied with this book as the end of the Palliser series. I didn't care as much about the characters and I didn't see the big picture themes as clearly as I have in other Trollope novels. I still loved the book and loved the series as a whole, but I didn't think this was the strongest of the set.

Nevertheless, I'm sad to see the Palliser novels finish. Good thing Trollope wrote about a million books so I have plenty more options!

Original Publication Date: 1879
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 704 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased hardback set
Why I read this: to finish the series

>276 japaul22: I read the first & last paragraphs of your message, as I'm about to read this one, too. Did you know that Trollope had to cut out quite a bit (about 25% maybe?) when the publisher complained it was too long? I'm wondering if that contributed to the lack of character development you noticed. There is a "restored" version, but as far as I know it's only in a Folio edition ($$$$$$).

>277 kac522: I didn't know that he had make extensive cuts. That's interesting. I think there was still sufficient character development, I'm just not sure that I was personally as interested in the story line or found it new compared to his other works. It felt a bit like a footnote, which I suppose in a way it was as the last book in the series. However, I felt the last of the Barsetshire novels wasn't this way at all.

>278 japaul22: Here's a link to an article in the Guardian from last year about the restored version:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/mar/02/lost-volume-anthony-trollope-dukes...

>279 kac522: That is so interesting! I had heard about that folio edition, but somehow I missed that there was restored text and that was why it is so special. I would definitely be interested in reading that. Maybe some day . . .

And a PSA for anyone who shops on Amazon. THey are having a book sale - $10 off if you spend $25 on books (not ebooks). Use the code HOLIDAYBOOK.

Happy Thanksgiving!

>280 japaul22: think they'll come out with a Folio paperback? probably not...

It's disappointing that he did not end this series on a strong note - The Last Chronicle of Barset was practically perfect in every way. I opened it one day, read the table of contents and found out that Lady Glencora (who is also my favorite in the series) dies, and shut the book right back up. I keep meaning to read it, but I'm not ready for her to be dead.

>281 kac522: I like the folio paperback idea! ;-)

>282 jfetting: It's certainly not bad, but I didn't think it was as great as The Last Chronicle of Barset - there weren't enough characters who came back to make final appearances. You do have to read it though!

I have a question for all of you audio book listeners out there who use audible. I'm thinking of getting a 3-month membership for a friend of mine for Christmas. It seems like that means she'll basically get 3 books from me. She can pick one per month for the price of the membership and she gets to keep them, right? So if it takes longer than a month to actually listen to it, she won't lose it? Is audible the best option for this? Best selection? Thanks for any info!

Does her local library offer audiobooks? You could offer to help her set up Overdrive or whatever app they use on her device and then she would think of you every time she downloads a book. And it would just cost you a little effort.

The reason I suggest this is I considered joining Audible when it became impossible to buy books on CDs through Amazon. I thought the cost was too high. I'm using my own library's Overdrive now. The choice is limited but the price is right!

I use Audible and think the selection is excellent. And yes, once she "purchases" a book - either with a credit or for discounted member pricing - it is hers, even if she cancels her membership.

I also use Audible and I do love it, very easy to use and as Katie says the selection is fantastic. It can be a little pricey but there are sales and deals and those monthly credits can be used on the really expensive books.

Awesome - thanks for the feedback everyone!

Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner

This is a sweeping novel of a man's quest to uncover the lives and marriage of his grandparents, Susan and Oliver, through his grandmother's letters. Susan grows up in an educated, artistic Eastern family and marries Oliver, who sees his fate as tied to the potential of the West. The move around a lot, searching for engineering work for Oliver, and Susan keeps up with her illustrating and writing, often bringing in more money than Oliver. She becomes close to another man that works with them, Frank, and their relationship brings on the crux of the book.

Susan and Oliver's marriage is the focus of the book, but the lifestyle of those trying to tame the West in the late 1800s is also a major part of the book. I loved the setting and the exploration of one woman's life as she both loves being West and fights against it.

I very much enjoyed this book, but I can't say I unreservedly loved it. Susan's story is framed by her grandson's story and his use of her life to explore some of his own issues. The problem was that I found him a bit annoying and also didn't totally trust his version of events surrounding his grandmother's life. I think this was intentional on Stegner's part and is part of the beauty of the novel, but unfortunately it also bothered me a bit.

Despite my reservations, I really did enjoy this and definitely recommend it. I suspect this book will grow on me even more as I ponder it.

Original Publication Date: 1971
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 639 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: on the shelf

Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

Another book by Wharton that I absolutely loved. This one revolves around Susy and Nick Lansing who meet in New York as the poor friends of the very wealthy. They devise a plan to marry and live off the gifts and housing offers of their friends which they think will get them comfortably through at least a year of marriage. The caveat is that they can feel free to divorce when either of them finds a more suitable, i.e. wealthy, partner.

Well, of course they find themselves falling in love when they have a fight over how low they will sink morally to keep their wealthy friends happy and generous with them. They separate and each find the potential next wealthy spouse. Will they find their way back to each other in the end?

I loved the characters and thought the moral complexities were interesting. The end is a little weak, as I'm not sure they will really be content on Nick's meager writing earnings and I wonder if Susy will be able to stop "managing" to find them more money. But I loved reading this and never wanted to put it down. Wharton is an excellent writer. Her language is formal and vocabulary is extensive, but it doesn't feel off-putting or stilted to me. I always find the moral ambiguities in her books intriguing as well.

Original Publication Date: 1922
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 298 pages
Rating: 4.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library hardcover
Why I read this: caught my eye and hadn't read a book off the 1001 books list in a while

>290 japaul22: New Wharton for me--have added it to my wishlist. Thanks!

>291 kac522: The book jacket says that this was published soon after Age of Innocence and got good reviews. It sounds like it got sort of overshadowed by her other books, though, and was out of print for a while. I really enjoyed - I've loved all of her books that I've read so far.

>290 japaul22: - I really do need to read something by her. I'm fairly sure I read Age of Innocence years ago when the movie came out, but am not positive. This one sounds quite intriguing - must add to my wishlist.

>293 LittleTaiko: Wharton has become one of my favorite authors. I'd start with Age of Innocence or House of Mirth

#88 Romantic Outlaws: the Extraordinary lives Mary Wollstonecraft and her Daughter Mary Shelley by Charlotte Gordon

I really enjoyed this dual biography of Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley. I knew Mary Wollstonecraft as the author of The Vindication of the Rights of Women and an early feminist, but I didn't know the extent of her political writings or how her lifestyle reflected her views of the need for feminine independence. Mary Shelley I really only knew about Frankenstein and that she was married to Percy Shelley, the poet.

This book beautifully illuminates both of their lives and the influence that Mary Wollstonecraft still had on Mary Shelley through her writing and reputation, despite the fact that she died a few days after giving birth to Shelley. Gordon alternates chapters in the women's lives so that you see them growing up in parallel. I both loved and hated this. It succeeds in that it keeps the focus on how Wollstonecraft's life influenced Shelley despite the lack of physical presence. But it also was confusing sometimes to keep the two lives straight, especially as some people are obviously present in both lives. In the end, I think I have it mostly straight in my mind and I think the format was an interesting and effective choice.

Original Publication Date: 2016
Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 672 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: library kindle
Why I read this: new biography that caught my eye

Taking the afternoon playing catch-up on all the threads in the group and have enjoyed getting caught up with all of your reading

>295 japaul22: Sounds like a very interesting perspective on these 2 women; they seem like women whose lives should be more familiar to us. I'm not sure I would have the stamina, though, to sort through 672 pages worth of confusion. Well done!

>297 kac522: I read this on my kindle so I got the page count off of amazon. I'm assuming many of those 672 pages are the notes and index. It was a long book to read, but actually it was very readable as long as you remember which Mary you're reading about in each chapter!

>294 japaul22: - Thanks for the suggestions, I definitely own House of Mirth so will start there.

The Door by Magda Szabo

The Door is a novel by Hungarian author Magda Szabo only recently translated into English and published now by NYRB. In The Door, a woman author looks back on her younger self and her relationship with Emerence, an older woman who she hires to clean and manage her household. What she gets is much more. Emerence runs the household impeccably (and to her own tastes) and the two women end up with a troubled but deep relationship, much like a mother/daughter one. Emerence is rarely forthcoming about her childhood and war experience (the book takes place on the other side of WWII and as it is moving out of Communism). She goes as far as never opening her door to anyone in her community. What is she hiding in there? Despite her oddities, Emerence is respected in her community as she effectively runs the neighborhood: sweeping snow, delivering food to invalids, cleaning multiple homes. She also cares for the animals, immediately forging a deeper connection with the narrator's dog than the narrator does. The dog, Viola, was my favorite character. When Emerence falls ill as the narrator's writing career is taking off, their relationship is both damaged and deepened.

I loved the troubled and confusing relationship between these two women and the symbolism present in the book. I also ended up doing some quick research on Hungarian history to figure out the placement of this book in history. Reading translated books is often a challenge for me. There is often, and was in this book as well, a certain feeling of being an outsider while reading. Some of the customs and historical references leave me a bit confused, not in an obvious way, but just enough to make me realize that I would read this is a different, probably deeper, way if I was actually Hungarian. But I like stretching my reading experience and found this book interesting and rewarding.

Original Publication Date: 1987, translated in 2006 by Len Rix
Author’s nationality: Hungarian
Original language: Hungarian
Length: 262 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased nyrb
Why I read this: love to buy and read nyrb books

The Duchess of Bloomsbury Street by Helene Hanff

This is a follow up to the practically perfect 84 Charing Cross Road. Helene finally makes it to London and this is her travel journal.

Unfortunately, I found it extremely boring and rather pointless.

Just read 84 Charing Cross Road and leave it at that.

Original Publication Date: 1973
Author’s nationality: American
Original language: English
Length: 144 pages
Rating: 2 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: to follow up 84 Charing Cross Road

Monsieur Proust's Library by Anka Muhlstein

In an effort to get my mind in the right place to start reading Proust, I picked up this slim volume that focuses on reading and readers in In Search of Lost Time. Muhlstein focuses on authors who influenced Proust (Racine, Balzac, the Goncourts), the fictional author Bergotte, and the way his characters read and understand their reading. This was a great place to start for me as I now have some themes to grab on to that were presented in a very interesting and easy to read manner.

Recommended for anyone reading Proust.

Original Publication Date: 2012
Author’s nationality: French
Original language: English
Length: 132 pages
Rating: 4 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased
Why I read this: to prepare for Proust

Human Acts by Han Kang

This is a beautifully written but horrific book that takes place during a student uprising in 1980 South Korea and the aftermath.

I appreciated it and definitely recommend it, but I'll admit that it was a little beyond me. I felt that I didn't have enough background in the history or culture to really get it and that it would mean much more to someone who had lived through these events.

As always with a book like this, I'm glad I read it because it opened my eyes to some events I didn't even know about but for the same reason it kept me at arm's length.

Author’s nationality: South Korean
Original language: Korean
Length: 212 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: ER win
Why I read this: ER

Have a wonderful Christmas!

>304 DeltaQueen50: Merry Christmas to you as well!

Less Than Angels by Barbara Pym

Another comforting and pleasant novel by Barbara Pym, and I do mean that as a compliment. This one is a bit less complex than some of her others, but I still enjoyed it. The story revolves around a group of anthropologists in various stages of their careers and the love entanglements that they get in to. I liked that there were various ages and stages of life represented here and some rather complex relationships. Overall, though, the characters were a bit flat compared to her other books.

Author’s nationality: British
Original language: English
Length: 223 pages
Rating: 3.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: purchased paperback
Why I read this: needed a comfort read

Dear Mr. M by Herman Koch
I loved Koch's The Dinner when I read it earlier this year so I was excited to win this book through the Early Reviewers program. While I think it was an ok book, it didn't grab me like The Dinner did.

This book explores the relationship between a real-life event of a teacher having an affair with a student and then going missing after visiting her and her new boyfriend at a secluded cabin with the same event as told by author, Mr. M, in a fictional thriller. I think the premise here was interesting, but the execution was lacking.

I felt mainly that there were too many points of view and timelines being explored. It felt very unfocused. There was the voice of an anonymous adult who is obviously connected with the student/teacher affair (I thought this voice should have been the only voice), Mr. M's point of view, and the exploration of the students' relationships told in a sort of omniscient voice. It was all just too much. And it never got creepy enough - always just on the edge. It was a 400 page novel and on page 294 I seriously thought about abandoning it - not a good sign for a supposed thriller/page turner!

I'd skip this and read The Dinner instead.

Original publication date: 2016
Author’s nationality: Dutch
Original language: Dutch
Length: 400 pages
Rating: 2.5 stars
Format/Where I acquired the book: ER win
Why I read this: ER

I think I've wrapped up my 2016 reading as it's very unlikely I'll finish either of the books I'm reading in the next two days.

2016 was a good but not a standout year for me. My favorites this year were all great, but none are books that I think would make an "all-time favorite" list.

I read 94 books. I've tracked books by women, books in translation, and decade of publication below. I also reread 3 books which were all extremely satisfying. I think 3-4 rereads a year is a good number for me so I want to remember to make time for that.

Favorites

Fiction:
War and Peace (reread)
Out Stealing Horses by Per Peterson
Stoner by John Williams
finishing The Pallisers by Anthony Trollope
The Vet’s Daughter by Barbara Comyns
The Grass is Singing by Doris Lessing
The Summer Before the War by Helen Simonson
The Dinner by Herman Koch
The Ambassadors by Henry James
Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
Glimpses of the Moon by Edith Wharton

Nonfiction:
Gut by Guilia Enders
The Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan
Pioneer Girl by Laura Ingalls Wilder
The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown

Least Favorite Fiction:
The Voyage Out by Virginia Woolf
The Vicar of Wakefield by Oliver Goldsmith
Harriet Hume by Rebecca West
Out of Africa by Isak Denison
My Name is Lucy Barton by Elizabeth Strout

Books in translation:
German
Russian - 2
Polish
Norwegian - 3
Finnish
French
Dutch -2
Swedish
Hungarian
Korean

Books published by decade
1760
1790
1840
1860
1870 - 2
1900
1910 - 2
1920 - 5
1930 -4
1940
1950 - 6
1960 – 4
1970 - 4
1980 - 4
1990 - 6
2000 - 10
2010 - 21
2016 - 21

Percentage of books by women
57/94, 61%

New-to-me authors
59/94, 63%

Nonfiction:
26/94, 28%

3 Rereads:
War and Peace
The Sound and the Fury
Their Eyes Were Watching God

In 2017, you can find me
http://www.librarything.com/topic/243969
and
http://www.librarything.com/topic/238923

Okay then. I will eventually read the Koch, but will wait for the paperback .

See you on your 2017 thread!