Chatterbox Indulges Her Bibliomania -- The Thirteenth and Final Episode of 2011!

From the Epilogue to "Requiem", by Anna Akhmatova
March, 1940

Once more, the remembered hour draws near.
I see you, I feel you, and I hear:

you, they could barely carry into line,
and you, whom earth claimed before your time,

and you, who shook your lovely head of hair,
saying: ‘As if this were home, I’m here’.

I’d like to summon you all by name
But the lists are lost, un-found, again.

I’ve woven a great shroud for all, here,
out of poor words I chanced to overhear.

Remembering them always, everywhere,
unforgotten in each new terror’s care,

and if they shut my tormented lips, shut my
mouth where a hundred million people cry,

let them remember me, as well, today,
on the eve of my remembrance day.

And if ever in this my native country
they think to erect a statue to me,

I agree to that ceremonial honour,
but only on one condition – not there

beside the sea-shore, where I was born:
my last ties with it so long outworn,

nor in the Imperial Garden, by that dead tree
where an inconsolable shade looks for me,

but here, where I stood three hundred hours,
where no one ever opened the doors,

lest I forget in death’s blessed oblivion
the Black Maria’s screaming hum,

forget the terrible clang, the gates that hail
like a wounded beast, the old woman’s wail.

And from my eyelids, bronze, unmoving,
may snowflakes fall like tears, melting,

and the prison pigeons coo far from me,
and, on the Neva, ships sail silently.

I decided on this poem as I've been reading Molotov's Magic Lantern, by Rachel Polonsky, a kind of look-back at the 20th century and particularly the Stalinist era; she refers a lot to Akhmatova, and that sent me off to some of the collections of her poems, most of which I've not read in decades. Also on the reading list soon is Solomon Volkov's cultural history of St. Petersburg, which I also expect will touch on some of the same ground.

My final thread of the year...

Hopefully this new thread linkage system will make it easier for anyone who is curious to go back and see what I've read so far this year.

Here's a running tally of the total number of books I've read so far in 2011:




Last year's tally hit 506 books; you can see the highlights on my profile page, along with the highlights of this year to date. I am definitely not going to reach 500 this year!

And here's the new ticker for the fifth 75-book challenge of 2011. As always, I'll comment on everything I've read in these threads (one-stop shopping...) But you won't find the books for my 11 in 11 challenge on the list below. You can make your way over to that group and peruse my thread if you're curious...




The list starts below....
(The touchstones get all messed up; if I include book #9, all the other touchstones vanish; meanwhile, there is still no touchstone avail. for book #1.)

1. The Innocent by Taylor Stevens, ***, STARTED 11/3/11, FINISHED 11/6/11 (fiction)
2. The Very Picture of You by Isabel Wolff, ***, STARTED 11/7/11, FINISHED 11/8/11 (fiction)
3. The Warlord's Son by Dan Fesperman, ****, STARTED 10/28/11, FINISHED 11/8/11 (fiction)
4. An Evil Eye by Jason Goodwin, ****, STARTED 11/8/11, FINISHED 11/9/11 (fiction)
5. The Chinese Shawl by Patricia Wentworth, ***, STARTED 11/9/11, FINISHED 11/10/11 (fiction)*
6. Breaking Silence by Linda Castillo, ****, STARTED 11/10/11, FINISHED 11/11/11 (fiction)
7. A Christmas Homecoming by Anne Perry, **1/2, READ 11/12/11 (fiction)
8. Kissing the Demons by Joe Plantagenet, ***, STARTED 11/13/11, FINISHED 11/14/11 (fiction)
9. The Roots of Betrayal by James Forrester, ***1/2, STARTED 11/13/11, FINISHED 11/17/11 (fiction)
10. Radio Shangri-la by Lisa Napoli, ***1/2, STARTED 11/5/11, FINISHED 11/17/11 (non-fiction)
11. A Murder in Tuscany by Christobel Kent, ***, STARTED 11/14/11, FINISHED 11/18/11 (fiction)
12. Where the Shadows Lie by Michael Ridpath, ****, STARTED 11/19/11, FINISHED 11/21/11 (fiction)
13. The Distant Hours by Kate Morton, ***1/2, STARTED 11/19/11, FINISHED 11/25/11 (fiction)
14. A Crimson Warning by Tasha Alexander, ***1/2, STARTED 11/25/11, FINISHED 11/28/11 (fiction)
15. I'm Gone by Jean Echenoz, ****, READ 11/28/11 (fiction)
16. How to Be a Rogue Trader by John Gapper, *****, READ 11/29/11 (non-fiction)
17. Too Early Lilac by E.M. Almedingen (no touchstone), ****, STARTED 11/27/11, FINISHED 11/29/11 (fiction)*
18. I am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley, ****, STARTED 11/28/11, FINISHED 11/30/11 (fiction)
19. Kill Me if You Can by James Patterson, **, READ 11/30/11 (fiction)
20. The Last Enchantment by Mary Stewart, ****, STARTED 11/30/11, FINISHED 12/2/11 (fiction)
21. The Favored Queen by Carolly Erickson, 1/2 star, STARTED 12/2/11, FINISHED 12/3/11 (fiction)
22. Death Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James, ****, STARTED 12/3/11, FINISHED 12/4/11 (fiction)
23. All That I Am by Anna Funder, ****, STARTED 12/4/11, FINISHED 12/5/11 (fiction)
24. Swann's Way by Marcel Proust, ****, STARTED 11/30/11, FINISHED 12/9/11 (fiction)
25. Need You Now by James Grippando, ***, STARTED 12/4/11, FINISHED 12/9/11 (fiction)
26. The Christmas Angel by Marcia Willett, ***, STARTED 12/5/11, FINISHED 12/6/11 (fiction)
27. Love Lies Bleeding by Jess McConkey, ***1/2, READ 12/10/11 (fiction)
28. The Litigators by John Grisham, ***, STARTED 12/9/11, FINISHED 12/10/11 (fiction)
29. Walking With the Comrades by Arundhati Roy, ***1/2, STARTED 11/3/11, FINISHED 12/12/11 (non-fiction)
30. Hand Me Down World by Lloyd Jones, ****, STARTED 12/8/11, FINISHED 12/13/11 (fiction)
31. Time's Legacy by Barbara Erskine **** STARTED 12/16/11, FINISHED 12/17/11 (fiction)
32. My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley, ***, STARTED 12/17/11, FINISHED 12/18/11 (non-fiction)
33. The Reckoning by Jane Casey, ***1/2, STARTED 12/17/11, FINISHED 12/19/11 (fiction)
34. Mr. Darcy's Daughters by Elizabeth Aston, ***1/2, STARTED 12/18/11, FINISHED 12/20/11 (fiction)
35. Daniel Stein, Interpreter by Ludmila Ulitskaya, ****, STARTED 12/17/11, FINISHED 12/21/11 (fiction)
36. Mr. Darcy's Dream by Elizabeth Aston, ***, STARTED 12/22/11, FINISHED 12/23/11 (fiction)
37. Lucky Break by Esther Freud, **1/2, STARTED 12/8/11, FINISHED 12/22/11 (fiction)
38. The Perfect Nazi: Uncovering My Grandfather's Secret Past by Martin Davidson, ***, STARTED 12/22/11, FINISHED 12/24/11 (non-fiction)
39. The Magic of Christmas by Trisha Ashley, ***1/2, STARTED 12/24/11, FINISHED 12/26/11
40. The Last Lie by Stephen White, ***1/2, STARTED 12/20/11, FINISHED 12/29/11
41. The Most Dangerous thing by Laura Lippman, ***1/2, STARTED 12/29/11, FINISHED 12/31/11
42. Poison Flower by Thomas Perry, ****, STARTED 12/30/11, FINISHED 12/31/11

* - re-read

Strange, you have TWO thirteenth threads, both continuations from the twelfth! Unlucky thirteen!
Here's the other one. But since you posted your book list on this one, I assume it's the one we should be following.

Yes, this is the right one! Was the extra thread an Xmas gift from LT??? At any rate, I will try to delete it so as not to confuse people...

Hi Suz - nice thread to end the year on.

And from my eyelids, bronze, unmoving,
may snowflakes fall like tears, melting,

and the prison pigeons coo far from me,
and, on the Neva, ships sail silently.

I need a razor blade...anyone got a noose lying around?...maybe some pills, only the ones I've got aren't gonna knock me out fast enough not to suffer anymore!

What, you want Edward Lear??

Sigh, philistine. OK:

There was a young lady of Niger
Who smiled as she rode on a tiger;
They returned from the ride
With the lady inside,
And the smile on the face of the tiger.

Well, it's been attributed to Lear, and to someone named William Monkhouse. Who knows? Not moi.

Ogden Nash: "Shake and shake
the ketchup bottle
first none'll come
then a lot'll."

Now *that* is poetry!

How about Spike Milligan:

From Sidney Zoo an alligator
Was put on board a flying freighter.
He ate the pilot and the navigator
And asked for more with mashed potater.

From Silly Verse for Kids, which sadly contains the only poems I've ever been able to commit to memory!

Sydney Zoo, please! :)

the posters name was richardderus
usually articulate, oftentimes he'd cuss
about Suz's splendid new verse
he offered her worse
and in the process created a fuss

>11 PaulCranswick: Ha!

Thanks, Paul!!!

The reason I opted for the Akhmatova is that I've been reading Molotov's Magic Lantern, which is a somewhat frustrating book to read, but also extremely fascinating. Polonsky, a longtime student of Russia and of philosophy, ends up living in Moscow, in a flat just below that once occupied by Molotov (of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and Molotov cocktail fame) from the 1930s onward. Starting in his apartment, surrounded by what is left of his once-massive library, she makes a voyage through books, through time and through space, investigating Russian history and the role played by its literary figures and exiles, some of whom were condemned to that fate by Molotov himself. (Although his wife was also one of the Terror's victims.) Her scope stretches from the Decembrist revolutionaries of 1825 to Khodorovsky, the oligarch that Putin has kept behind bars for years on what are probably trumped-up charges, although the bulk of her writing concerns Molotov's own era, from the Revolution to the collapse of Stalinism. This book doesn't hold up well against such titanic achievements as Anne Applebaum's Gulag or The Whisperers by Orlando Figes, but it's not intended to be of the same ilk at all. Polonsky uses a trip to a former health spa community where Dostoevsky once lived to ruminate on the latter's books and role in Russian letters and culture; she visits the town in Siberia where the Decembrists made the most of their near-permanent exile; she goes to the banya and to the dacha she and her husband rent. It's rambling and ruminative and occasional frustrating, but full of fascinating insights and it sent me scurrying to look for other books (like Akhmatova's poetry) almost constantly. For me, the merits outweighed the frustrations, so it was a 4.3 star book, and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in Russian literary/cultural/political history. For my 11 in 11 challenge. A good book to read to prepare the way for Volkov's cultural history of St. Petersburg, which is coming up on my TBR list.

Btw, the poem was composed in part as a tribute to her son, who was arrested and exiled on at least three separate occasions. The Terror eventually led to them becoming estranged.

Much more banal but still entertaining was mystery #2 by Jane Casey featuring DC Maeve Kerrigan, a young detective in London -- The Reckoning. This time, she's investigating the revenge-style murders of pedophiles, an inquiry that leads in an unexpected direction and to a new set of crimes altogether. There are no real "gasp" moments of revelation in this book, but Casey delivers an adequate level of suspense and her characters are interesting enough, if formulaic. 3.3 stars.

And then there was the quirky My Dog Tulip by J.R. Ackerley. At first, I found this book endearing, as Ackerley explains the bond between Tulip and himself; ultimately, I got bored and fed up with lots of discussion of Tulip's bodily functions, from faeces to going into heat. There's still some charm here, but it wears thin quickly. This felt like a great essay that became an OK book, which some will like better than I did because Ackerley has a knack for the intriguing phrase and off-kilter perspective. I'd only recommend it to dog lovers who are fed up with the tried and true sentimental tales of bonding with dogs who die. 2.9 stars.

Phew, finally got the long overdue checks from the folks for whom I'm writing a daily comment thing. As of now, the amt owing since August was enough to pay 2 months' of rent AND my massive overdue Con Ed bill. (The latter has duly been paid...)

YAY! That must feel a lot better.

I am so glad you didn't care for Tulip. I cannot understand the appeal. I love dogs, as you know, but I'm very very picky about writing about them. But you know that too. It should have been an essay?

Lucy, it could have been an essay. Should it have been? Meh. Dunno. Should he have kept his pen and his dog to himself? Possibly...

Quick book update:

Daniel Stein, Interpreter by Ludmila Ulitskaya turned out to be a far more compelling book than I had feared, but it's certainly not anything that resembles a "real" novel; in one of her own letters included in this fact-based fiction, the author herself describes it as a collage. The story is based on a real individual: a young Jewish man who survived the Holocaust by interpreting for the Germans in part of Belorussia, risking his life to warn Jews of their fate. After 1945, he becomes a Catholic priest and monk and heads for Israel, where he -- in Ulitskaya's writings -- takes a decidedly unique view of the world and religion, attempting to unify under the umbrella of Judeo-Christian principles and trying to get people to understand how they are tied together by faith rather than how theological debating points divide them. There is a lot of food for thought buried here, with Brother Daniel serving as a counterweight to those whom he encounters and who opt to take narrower and more rigid views of faith, views that drive them into violence in the Israel of the 70s and 80s just as happened with the Germans during the years of WW2. This won't be a book for all readers, but I found it hard to put down, and kept reading from one "documentary" entry to the next, from a diary segment to a letter to a speech, to a memo, to another three letters, etc. What was most interesting to me was that I have also been watching the latest "Frontline" series from PBS, about how the first Christians saw being a Christian as compatible with their identity as Jews; of the contrasting traditions brought by Paul (who preached to the "Gentile" world of the Greek communities) and James of Jerusalem, Jesus' brother. That program really was very timely, as it provided more context for some of the issues that arose in this 'novel'. Recommended to the intellectually curious, who aren't dogmatic about what a novel "should" be. 4.2 stars.

At the other end of the froth spectrum, I finished Mr. Darcy's Daughters by Elizabeth Aston. If it were possible to forget that this was a novel about the Darcy daughters (yup, five of them, with some who are just as silly as the silliest Bennet sister!), this would have been even more fun to read as Aston really does a good job of capturing characters and a sense of time and place within the confines of a historical romance. These are akin to Georgette Heyer's books, albeit with a more modern flavor, and without the extra polish. Frankly, I would really have enjoyed reading this had it not been for the explicit Austen link, which inevitably promises more than it will ever be possible to deliver. 3.5 stars.

OH dear. I own Tulip and have never, now probably will never indulge. Maybe I can bring myself to get rid of it!
D. Stein sounds like something I could read and MD'sDs too. The Austen link wouldn't really bother me. I thought I'd drop out of lurk to say that I am moving along with The Novel in the Viola now and then. I am reading it as a well-written, modern Mary Stewart/Dorothy Eden sort of book, and that works for me. Thank you!

Merry Christmas, Suzanne!

Merry Christmas, Suzanne!

Merry Christmas Suzanne!

Happy Holidays Suzanne.
Kelly aka violetbramble has just done a similar review for Tulip. I'm not interested twice over!
I finally finished The Novel in the Viola, it took me most of the month to get through as I didn't enjoy it that much, just light entertainment. I think my disappointment was mainly caused by how much I liked her first book.
Anyway looking forward to a better and brighter New Year for all of us.

Wow, thanks for all the cool Xmas gifs!! (biblio-themed, as well!!!)

Books du jour:
Lucky Break by Esther Freud is an ER book that never arrived, so I borrowed it from the library. Talk about underwhelming... The author is obviously enamored with the theater world, and assumes that her readers will find a hodge podge of details and anecdotes of a group of characters trying to make it as actors as compelling as she does. This means that she's blind to the fact that the book itself is a desultory effort to craft an actual narrative. This never really engaged my attention as a story, and if I stop to think about it, I spotted massive holes in the "plot" wide enough to drive a Hummer through. Things happen, without either preparation or follow up; fortunes of individuals rise and fall. Ultimately, I found I really didn't care. Not badly written, and with some amusing vignettes, but still not recommended. 2.4 stars.

So, for something light and amusing, I turned to another Elizabeth Aston novel, Mr. Darcy's Dream. Alas, it wasn't quite as good as the previous offering in this series; again, perfectly readable as light, Georgette Heyer-style fiction that is best viewed as only incidental to the Austen novels that inspired it. In this case, that's pretty easy as Aston leaves Austen's characters largely out of the plots and concentrates on the next generation. This time around, that's Georgianna Darcy's daughter and the daughter of Charles Bingley and Jane Bennet. 3.25 stars, adequate; fluff reading, good if you like the series but avoid it if you don't.

I'm dipping into several heavier non-fiction reads, so am trying to offset that with fluff...

There was a dear lady, Suzanne
Who read more than most anyone can.
Aims to buy the best bookshop in Fowey
A hope she shares in line with this boy
Perhaps they could go halves as a retirement plan?

Suz, happy christmas and a very prosperous new year (very very if you are to put the downpayment on the bookshop!) . 2011 has been a pleasure getting to know so many new friends on LT, yourself of course included. In awe of your reading prowess and the obvious passion you have for books generally. Best wishes always.

glitter-graphics.com

Suzanne - hope you have a wonderful 2012. Wishing you the best of health and a successful, prosperous year.

Merry Christmas Suzanne!

Merry Christmas, Suz!!

Merry Christmas and a happy and healthy new year, Suzanne.

mistletoe smooches!

De-lurking to wish you a wonderful holiday weekend, Suzanne!

I'm looking forward to opening my LT presents tomorrow morning. If I didn't have a party to go to tonight, I'd probably be opening them alot sooner.

And thanks for recommending The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I just finished it and loved it and saw I had it on my wishlist as a recommendation from your thread.

Wishing you all the very best Suzanne!

Gorgeous pics & lovely holiday wishes, Chelle, Linda, Ilana, Richard, Pat & Judy! And I love the limerick, Paul. Hmm, I'm counting on you to come up with the down payment, and i'll put the sweat equity into Bookends when we're ready to make our move...

I'll try to drop by some more threads later, but as a holiday present, the lovely folks at Time Warner have managed to bugger up my phone and Internet again. (Oddly, the cable television is still working beautifully....)

Pat, I'm waiting until tomorrow morning to open my book!

The upside is you've got tv? Sorry to hear about the troubles Suz. Wish you best of luck in future.

Merry Christmas, Suz! I hope that 2012 is a better year for you, and I look forward to seeing you on Monday.

Merry merry wishes being sent your way from the north country, Suz.

Well, Ilana, I have to make shortbread for tomorrow, so TV entertains me during the finicky process of cutting them out. I went a whole year without TV at all, and am realizing now that I missed very little at all. On the other hand, having a DVR means that I can pick and choose what I want to see and fast forward through the annoying commercials. I'll decide whether to cut it or keep it next year after my "bundle" rate expires. That's assuming that Time Warner can keep my business that long. If I didn't need a reliable incoming phone line (in this brownstone, cell phone signals are vvv bad, and people often can't hear me clearly) I'd ditch the landline entirely. But even then, I still need high-speed Internet. Sigh.

Book du jour: The Perfect Nazi by Martin Davidson wasn't quite as interesting as the premise suggested. Long after his German grandfather's death, Davidson, a British historian, decides to ask some tough questions about what he did in WW2, and comes up with the ugly answer -- he was in the SS. But what role did he fill? His mother assures Davidson that Bruno had nothing to do with the camps and "all that" but he knows she has spent much of her life running away from the ugliness of the Nazi regime, he's not sure he can trust her. (She was a v. young child in those year, born in late '37 and thus the same age as my mother.) So he decides to see what he can find out. Now, the problem here is that Bruno is long dead as are those who knew him personally by the time Davidson undertakes this project, so that while some of the revelations are surprising and even astonishing, such as Bruno's early involvement in the SA in the 1920s that makes clear he wasn't accidentally involved in the regime in the war against his will, there's not enough first-hand insight to make this click. The author is reduced to speculating what Bruno might have been up to on Kristallnacht, for instance. And he fills the gap by drawing on very well-known histories of the era, so that anyone who has read Richard Evans's excellent but weighty trilogy on the Third Reich, or Klemperer's diary, will feel the urge to just page through big chunks of the book. Alas, this doesn't end up offering new perspectives on how this kind of evil could occur, or does Davidson go into enough detail about how the family members respond to his discoveries to make it work -- there are just too many holes in the narrative for it to work well. 3.3 stars, recommended to those who have done less reading about this period in time and have an aversion to reading weighty historical tomes.

Oh well, on to more important things:

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! to those of you who are celebrating.

I'll see some of you on Boxing Day, for a while at least; looking forward to it.

Merry Christmas, Suz!

Merry Christmas, Suz, and all the best for the new year!

Shortbread, YUM! How I love shortbread. I've baked many many types of cookies in my life, but somehow never made shortbread. Something I'll have to remedy to soon.

I pay a fortune for my TV services, just so I can get HBO (I need to get a special package which includes that channel). It doesn't make much sense considering how little television I watch, so I just had them cut back a whole bunch of other channels until such time as I decide I can't live without the book tube again.

Hope you have a very nice Christmas Suz!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas, Suz ... looking forward to seeing you tomorrow.

Merry Christmas!

Suzanne, thanks so much for the Christmas Swap books. I had to restrain myself from buying No Great Mischief in B&N last week knowing it was on my WL but it's been on my mind since I've seen it favorably discussed on the LT threads lately. I had forgotten about From the Land of Green Ghosts: A Burmese Odyssey but I'm glad you didn't! And, I'm thinking The Memory Palace was the bonus book which I'm very happy to have.

If we weren't having company later today, and I didn't need to clean up the house, I would spend the afternoon happily flipping through all three books trying to figure out what to read first.

Big happy face!!!

Suz... hope you're doing better. My head was fine today, just heart ache instead. Wish I could decide which one is better/worse. But hey, there'll always be books.



HAPPY BOXING DAY!

Love the boxing kitten, Ilana -- I just hope none of the resident felines spot this and get some ideas. Also hope that all the aches have subsided.

Thankfully, the worst of the Xmas migraine had left in disgust by the time I got to my Xmas dinner, and I was mostly back on my feet -- though exhausted -- on Boxing Day. Had a lovely brunch with the assembled NYC meetup gang, but bailed very quickly on the Strand, as it was heaving with people and I was lugging my overnight bag complete with laptop. (The latter had come in very useful the previous night, to settle disputes over who wrote "Autumn in NY" and other similar golden oldies...)

THANK YOU! to Pat (phebj) for the lovely (and massive) bio of Deng Xiaoping by Ezra Vogel, which was my gift in Mark's Xmas swap!!

No, I haven't read it yet... :-)

What I have read:
The Magic of Christmas by Trisha Ashley is very annoying, as it's really just a rehash of another of her books, Sweet Nothings, reshaped to appear as a Christmas book. Lack of disclosure by Amazon.co.uk didn't help... Hence a 3.4 star rating, as it wasn't one of Ashley's best. In her better novels, her characters are tart, wry, witty and slightly subversive; occasionally she slips up and they become ditzy. This is one of the latter. If you're interested in trying her work, I'd suggest Singled Out, The Urge to Jump or Every Woman for herself. some of her later books -- this among them -- have been far too sugary for my taste.

A More Perfect Heaven by Dava Sobel is the story of Copernicus and his discovery of which revolves around which -- the sun vs. the planets (and specifically Earth) in the early 16th century. She does a creditable job of this, even though it's not as detailed as her Galileo book, simply because we know less about Copernicus himself. The upside of that state of affairs, for this reader, was the fact that this gives Sobel an opportunity to flesh out the narrative by writing more about his times (the conflict with the Teutonic Knights; the emergence of Luther) and a chance to take a big risk, by imagining what might have happened when the young Rheticus arrives chez Copernicus from a hotbed of Lutherans, and tries to persuade Mr. C. to publish his work. Sobel writes this as a play within a book, and while I imagine a lot of folks will roll their eyes, I loved the result. It livened up what was becoming a bit of a slog (hey, I'm no mathematician and no astronomer) and was unexpectedly funny, giving Sobel a chance to show what she thought of characters like the bishop that Copernicus served. There's a lot of meat here, and it's an interesting book, though probably more for those of a scientific cast of mind. 4.1 stars, for my 11 in 11 challenge.

Just a quick update, as I'm tired... Finally read the Great Gatsby, which has been sitting on my bookshelf for decades, literally. I can't believe I have never read it and I really liked it; Fitzgerald captured an era without being held captive by it. I found myself intrigued by comparing Gatsby's fiestas to the parties I've attended in the Hamptons, and laughing at some of the parallels, but also was moved by descriptive passages that didn't really move me in the film. I was also intrigued by Fitzgerald's theme of midwesterners finding themselves almost corrupted by the East Coast, an idea that Nick Carraway tosses out toward the end of the novel. Definitely recommended, 4.4 stars. For my 11 in 11 challenge.

47> The Great Gatsby is such an amazing book. I always liked Fitzgerald but his other books are "yeah but" books - filled with great writing that never comes together and fascinating characters that somehow fizzle out. (I'm looking at you Tender is the Night!)

Seeing Gatsby's world through Nick's cool compassionate eyes is why the book works so well I think.

I think it's one the Fitzgerald book where he underplays his talent - doesn't wear us out with razzle dazzle. Gatsby is such a complex character and Scott leaves us wanting more - a lovely effect.

And the view of 1920's New York is worth the visit also.

Glad you got your nose into it.

Nick Carraway is Huck Finn's great grandson - but don't tell anyone.

LOL! Nick is, in his own way, just as knowing as Huck Finn, but keeps his own counsel to a far greater degree. One of the elements I found fascinating in this book is his role as narrator. He is the quintessential spectator: an observer of the follies of others. He despises them to different degrees, and ends up judging them all, including Jordan. The only people he doesn't actually judge/despise seem to be folks like Henry Gatz or Myrtle's husband, who are of limited intellect and achievement. All of which raises some interesting questions about his reliability as a narrator and his own judgments and how others in the story might view him. Wouldn't it be interesting to see the story told from Jordan's perspective? I'm surprised that no one has tried to write that...

Well, there you go! A new project.

It would be cool, wouldn't it? And rather do-able...

OK, onto more mundane matters. For those who may be interested, The Handmaid's Tale is today's Kindle book deal -- only $1.39, I think. Knock yourselves out... (and remember, those with computers but no devices still get to read it online...) They are offering some decent books at anywhere from 99 cents to $2 in these deals.

Caught up at last, Suzanne, and wishing you all the best for the coming year!

So glad you loved Gatsby -- and you are definitely on to something with the narrator question - it's a bit of a Pandora's box, for once you open it to question the demons come out to play.

I'd buy it at that price if it was available here even though I own it in paperback already. They started a daily deal here in November.

Thanks for letting us know about the Kindle version of The Handmaid's Tale, Suz; I just purchased it.

Just a quick book update, before I resume reading for the year-end readathon.

Very pleased to have finished another 11 in 11 book, Rock the Casbah by Robin Wright. This was very timely, being an overview and analysis of the "counter-jihad" in the Middle East that has unfolded this year; the author was very prescient in starting work on the book before the evidence supporting her theory was as apparent. That said, the book itself is very uneven. Much of it is a rehash of the events of the first few months of 2011, some background on cultural trends (new comedians, playwrights, etc. in the Islamic world; rap music and the Internet; women today) and then a couple of caveats in wrapup chapters that could have been interesting but felt rather perfunctory. Anyone who hasn't been following the news will find this fascinating and insightful; for me it was 3.5 stars. Recommended to anyone not familiar with the region who wants an overview of the reality vs the headlines or the propaganda.

The Last Lie by Stephen White was another in the series of mysteries featuring Boulder, Colo-based shrink Alan Gregory and his family and circle. This time, something happens at a new neighbor's housewarming party that involves law enforcement -- but what? Nobody wants to tell Alan, not even his wife, who works at the DA's office. This took a LONG time to get going, and involved a lot of talking about stuff among the characters, but the final third of the book was lively and fast paced enough to engage my attention. Recommended if you've read others in the series, though this isn't the best. 3.4 stars.

Started reading a book I've had on my shelves for eons, Crowded with Genius, by James Buchan, about Edinburgh during the Enlightenment, and am absolutely loving it, based on the first two chapters.

Suzanne, do you have any wisdom about the scholarly reliability of Stephen Ambrose? I'm tempted by Undaunted Courage, but I don't want to waste time, Kindle space, or even $2 if it's not dependable.
I do wish you a 2012 in which your well-being is greatly improved! Seems like you've dealt with enough and are due some smooth sailing.

How funny -- I just snaffled all three of those Kindle discount books! I remember getting a freebie hardcover of Undaunted Courage when it first came out and starting to read it -- I'm not able to opine on the scholarly element, but what deterred me was the writing style, which I found a bit turgid. I'm interested in the subject, so figured for $2 and no shelf space required, I'd be willing to try again (and got the others, too...) I suspect if there were real issues re scholarship, they would show up in Amazon ratings/reviews; I just noted that the ratings were v. high and suspect that if you dug into the reviews, you'd probably spot it if people felt they were controversial.

Hi Suz!

I'm so sorry I fell behind, but really happy to read you loved The Great Gatsby, which is among my favourite books of all time. In fact, I'll be searching for a special and beautiful edition to keep. I'm not sure why the publishers haven't thought to re-edit it and offer an updated quality version? In any case, you seem to be in the perfect position to write the story seen from a different perspective. A fiction project for you, yay! I'll be among the first to read it too if you go ahead with it.

Are the Kindle deals only for U. S. residents and how can I find the deals section? I've looked all over the Kindle store and can't find it, unless I'm blind.

Want to wish you a Happy New Year filled with lots of great new discoveries and fun projects! I'll be seeing you in our new group!

See you in 2012

Ilana, if you go to the main page for "Kindle eBooks" in the "Kindle Store" on Amazon, the top left column is labeled Browse; on my page, the first item is "Kindle Book Deals", and underneath that is Kindle Daily deals (the first item). Go to Amazon.com, not Amazon.ca. They do note that there are "territorial restrictions" -- in other words, crossborder publishing agreements may limit what is available -- but I'd imagine that a reasonable # of these would be available for you folks. Since the UK site has these too, perhaps Amazon.ca has them? I would follow Kindle/Amazon on Facebook, or sign up for the daily deals e-mail (that's how I find these.)

A quick book update: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman is an acceptable psychological "thriller" - not that many thrills or chills, and not all that suspenseful, but it's interesting enough to read. About a group of five teens/preteens in the 1970s, and their parents; each group and its members is involved in different ways in a death, which continues to haunt some of them in different ways in the decades to come -- but what is the truth of that death? It's told by a collective "we", looking into the past, with occasional segues into the perspectives of some of the individuals. The collective voice irritated me, as it never became clear which individual was really telling the story and as none of the five young candidates ever really was completely convincing. Still, an adequate enough book. 3.5 stars.

Am about to finish Invisible Man for my 11 in 11 challenge, and only need about an hour to wrap up reading another thriller. The real question is whether I will manage to get to the end of Crowded with Genius by midnight and thus get it into my 11 in 11 tally!

Thanks Suz. I've have no choice but to go to Amazon.com anyway, since there is no Kindle store on the Canadian site. But yes, I'll sign up to Facebook/emails, thanks for the suggestion.

You know, I may have forgotten to post about this here since I posted it all over on my thread, but I read and really enjoyed King Lear, the first Shakespeare play I've ever completed. I read it as preparation for the excellent audio performance by John Gielgud, Kenneth Branagh et al, so I'd know who was saying what lines, and as I was reading, referred to SparkNotes, which was really helpful. An interesting discussion ensued on my thread, and now I'm really looking forward to 1. Listening to that performance and 2. Reading/listening to more of his plays. Something that probably wouldn't have happened were it not for the discussion we had here where you and others encouraged me to just jump in. Many thanks.

Great, Ilana -- I'm glad it worked out so well! Mind you, Lear is unquestionably one of Shakespeare's best plays, so you may find some of the others a bit anti-climactic... Who did Branagh play in your audio version? I saw him play Edgar waaay back in the mists of time (the year after his Henry V film arrived in cinemas) and it was fab. Emma Thompson played the fool, which was creative casting. One of my fave plays is "Julius Caesar" -- you might try that, as the link to historical events will make it straightforward to follow.

Admit I'm a bit fed up this evening. A friend of mine had mentioned vaguely doing something this evening & said he would call me yesterday eve. Needless to say, no call. Not answering his phone. Now it's too late for me to make alternate plans, and I truly loathe being on my own for new year's even more than I hate big new year's parties. So am feeling glum & sorry for myself. So I'll go off and read and come back next year!

Oh, should have added this:

Finished Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, the journey of a young unnamed African-American man from a southern college for black students to New York and Harlem, and his myriad encounters with those -- black and white -- who challenge his sense of identity at every turn. With each new situation - some chilling, some hilarious, some just bizarre -- the narrator's sense of identity is rattled once again as his "visibility" is challenged. This is definitely a book I need to re-read, as I'm sure there is a lot that I simply missed or eluded me; I'm sure there were plenty of metaphors. A great argument in favor of a tutored read, but I'll have to let some time elapse before I'm ready to return to this -- while the writing is fabulous & authentic and fascinating, the way the subject matter is presented is often disturbing, and not always in a way I find convincing or useful in grasping the author's intent. Not an easy book, on many levels, and not just for the obvious reason that it's a chronicle of racism. 4 stars for now, with upward revision possible in the future. For my 11 in 11 challenge. Off to finish my remaining book for that challenge!

Oh Suz, I'm really sorry that your erstwhile plans fell through.

The casting for King Lear features Sir John Gielgud as Lear, Branagh as Edmond, and Emma Thompson as Cordelia.

Here's a more detailed list: Directed by Glyn Dearman; Starring Sir John Gielgud (Lear), Kenneth Branagh (Edmund), Emma Thompson (Cordelia), Derek Jacobi (France), Bob Hoskins (Oswald), Judi Dench (Goneril), Michael Williams (Fool), and Richard Briers (Gloucester)

Talk about an all-star cast! I fell on this blog called Shakespeare Teacher which featured the top ten best Shakespeare audio productions, which then goes on to list 20 of them! I wishlisted all the ones I could find on Audible, as you can imagine. My libraries' selection sucks, though they do have Lear—which incidentally was listed in the top spot—so I guess that makes up for lack of the rest. Sort of.

Aaarrrgggh how annoying, it's horrible when that happens. Hope you found some good New Year reading anyway!

My FINAL book of the year.....

I gave up on finishing Crowded with Genius; there was still about 1/2 the book to read and it required more concentration than I have at my disposal while grumpy. So I'm bumping it to my 12 in 12 list, and a January TIOLI category!

Instead, I finished up Poison Flower, the new novel by Thomas Perry featuring Jane Whitefield. This started off as an absolutely fabulous series, with Jane as a half-Seneca Indian who spends her life helping innocent people in jeopardy vanish from people who want them dead. The previous book, Runner was kinda meh, however. This time around, Perry addressed the flaws in that and threw in some new issues for Jane to deal with: this time, while helping her runner, she finally runs out of luck and is captured by the bad guys, who plan to auction her off to the highest bidder, who in turn will want her to disgorge details of the new lives of all the people she has helped. Now, this is not for the faint of heart. There's some rather nasty violence at the beginning, and it is kind of a guy's hard-boiled book at heart, despite the fact that the protagonist is female. But I find Jane Whitefield intriguing, and the plotting and planning that she does fun to follow. There's also some real suspense. This is also far better than Perry's last book, The Informant, in which the body count got so high that I gave up. In any event -- don't start with this book, because you'll miss out the better ones in the series, but if you start with Vanishing Act and read your way through the six or seven others, it's worth reading on to this one. These are suspense/thrillers rather than mysteries, though -- not for folks who prefer cozy mysteries.

And that's all folks!! Come and join me "next year" on the new thread here, in the new group...

#56, 57 I on the other hand loved Undaunted Courage and couldn't put it down, so I guess I liked the writing style although it's probably 15 years since I read it. Can't speak to the scholarly element, but Ambrose wrote this before he got into trouble about whatever he got into trouble about and I don't remember any concerns about it when I read it.

#56, 57, 66 - Jim (Magicians_Nephew), who is a great reader of history, says he's had no trouble with Ambrose's accuracy.

A quick note on Ambrose, whom I looked up on Wikipedia:

The plagiarism controversy focused on The Wild Blue, and involved points where he used footnotes to cite another work, but didn't use quotation marks to identify the fact that sentences were not his own creation. He used an excuse that has become sadly familiar -- that the phrases probably had become stuck in his own mind, and when he was writing about the episodes, those were the words that came to mind. I know when you're working with reference materials that it's very easy to accidentally repeat phrases, etc. But that just means you have to be more vigilant. If I'm at a point where I'm relying heavily for the information in only one or two external sources, I make sure I change words that might lead someone to say I lifted content (even if I didn't). If my source material uses the phrase "deeply disappointing", I'll make sure I say something like "far from the outcome observers had been hoping for" -- well, hopefully something more evocative, but you get the point.

From wikipedia:

"A Forbes investigation of his work found cases of plagiarism involving passages in at least six books, with a similar pattern going all the way back to his doctoral thesis. The History News Network lists seven of Ambrose's works--The Wild Blue, Undaunted Courage, Nothing Like It In the World, Nixon: Ruin and Recovery, Citizen Soldiers, The Supreme Commander, and Crazy Horse and Custer--that copied twelve authors."

I'll still make an effort to read at least two of these books. Wikipedia mentions some other exaggerations of Ambrose's in the article.

Thank you for the Ambrose research. I decided that I don't have enough time left to dip knowingly into a book with stylistic and plagiaristic problems. I guess I'll just have to miss the good. On the other hand, the one that interested me was Undaunted Courage, and I have a copy of the Louis/Clark journals.
I'm also happy to read about a new, better Jane Whitefield. I don't think I've read all 5 or 6, but I certainly did enjoy the ones I did read.

How in the world do you find time to read as many books as you do!? My hat is off to you!