AnneDC's 2015 Books: Chapter 1

Happy New Year to all my LT friends. I'm excited about starting a new year and hope to be around the threads more than I was in 2014 (it would be hard to be around less than I was in 2014, I think). I'm finally back from Christmas travel and have a short window before work tomorrow, so I hope to at least get set up here.

I'm going to be trying to read more poetry this year, so I thought I'd start off my threads (as many here do) with a poem that feels appropriate to the moment of thread creation. Since we're just back from ten days in Connecticut and Vermont, complete with an evening sleigh ride through snowy woods the night before we headed home, I've had this old favorite in my head.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.



Currently Reading:



Forest Born - Shannon Hale
Betrayal - Harold Pinter
Moby-Duck - Donovan Hohn
Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
Cold Shoulder Road - Joan Aiken
The Smell of the Night - Andrea Camilleri
The Liar's Club - Mary Carr



Read in 2015
January
1. Heat Wave - Penelope Lively
2. Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie
3. The Door - Magda Szabo
4. A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro
5. Dreams of Gods and Monsters - Laini Taylor
6. Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine
7. The Three Arched Bridge - Ismail Kadare
8. The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens (audio)
9. The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers (audio)

February
10. A Golden Age - Tahmima Anam
11. Vile Bodies - Evelyn Waugh
12. The Eustace Diamonds - Anthony Trollope (audio)
13. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (audio)
14. Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
15. The Cuckoo Tree - Joan Aiken (aloud)
16. The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy
17. The Ambassadors - Henry James

March
18. A Spool of Blue Thread - Anne Tyler
19. Washington Square - Henry James
20. The City & the City - China Mieville
21. The Dancers Dancing - Éilís Ní Dhuibhne
22. Lawrence in Arabia - Scott Anderson (audio)
23. The Snack Thief - Andrea Camilleri
24. Daisy Miller - Henry James
25. Mansfield Park - Jane Austen
26. Pardonable Lies - Jacqueline Winspear (audio)
27. The Hound of the Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle (audio)
28. Canada - Richard Ford
29. Life on Mars: Poems - Tracy Smith

April
30. Euphoria - Lily King
31. To End All Wars - Adam Hochschild
32. Martin Van Buren - Ted Widmer
33. The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse - Louise Erdrich
34. Messenger of Truth - Jacqueline Winspear (audio)
35. Cal - Bernard MacLaverty
36. The Enchanted April - Elizabeth van Arnim
37. O Jerusalem - Laurie R. King
38. Etiquette and Espionage - Gail Carriger
39. Liza of Lambeth - W. Somerset Maugham
40. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories - Angela Carter

May
41. Justice Hall - Laurie R. King
42. A God in Every Stone - Khamila Shamsie
43. An Incomplete Revenge - Jacqueline Winspear
44. Cranford - Elizabeth Gaskell
45. Frenchmans Creek - Daphne du Maurier
46. Revelation - C. J. Sansom
47. How to be Both - Ali Smith
48. The Voice of the Violin - Andrea Camilleri
49. Curtsies and Conspiracies - Gail Carriger

June
50. The Bees - Laline Pauli
51. Master Georgie - Beryl Bainbridge
52. The Unmapped Sea - Maryrose Wood
53. Heartstone - C.J. Sansom
54. The Peppered Moth - Margaret Drabble
55. Outline - Rachel Cusk
56. Dido and Pa - Joan Aiken

July
57. Monster - Walter Dean Myers
58. Main Street - Sinclair Lewis
59. Echoes of an Angel - Aquanetta Gordon
60. Buddha Boy - Kathe Koja
61. March - Geraldine Brooks
62. The Explorer's Club -
63. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
64. William Henry Harrison - Gail Collins
65. London Fields - Martin Amis
66. Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mantel
67. Lavinia - Ursula LeGuin

August
68. The Lightning Thief - Rick Riordan
69. Courage Has No Color - Tanya Lee Stone
70. In the Heat of the Night - John Ball
71. The Last Picture Show - Larry McMurtry
72. Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie
73. Waistcoats and Weaponry - Gail Carriger
74. Excursion to Tindari - Andrea Camilleri
75. Death of a Salesman - Arthur Miller
76. 4:50 From Paddington - Agatha Christie
77. Dream City - Harry Jaffe and Tom Sherwood
78. A God in Ruins - Kate Atkinson
79. House Mother Normal - B.S. Johnson
80. Out of Africa - Isak Dinesen

September
81. A Clockwork Orange - Anthony Burgess
82. The Merry Misogynist - Colin Cotterill
83. Phineas Redux - Anthony Trollope
84. Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
85. The Sea of Monsters - Rick Riordan
86. The Forgotten Garden - Kate Morton
87. Can't We Talk About Something More Pleasant? - Roz Chast
88. Lila - Marilynne Robinson

October

89. The Pale Horse - Agatha Christie
90. Outlander - Diana Gabaldon
91. The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith
92. Is - Joan Aiken
93. The Redbreast - Jo Nesbø
94. Care of Wooden Floors - Will Wiles
95. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury (audio)
96. The Titan's Curse - Rick Riordan
97. Dear Life - Alice Munro
98. The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros
99. Conquered City - Victor Serge

November

100. The Game - Laurie R. King
101. Some Luck - Jane Smiley
102. The Violent Bear it Away - Flannery O'Connor
103. The Nature of the Beast - Louise Penny
104. Loitering With Intent - Muriel Spark
105. Manners and Mutiny - Gail Carriger
106. Our Man in Havana - Graham Greene
107. The Bean Trees - Barbara Kingsolver
108. Roseanna - Maj Sjöwall and Per Waloo
109. Restless - William Boyd
110. Betrayal - Harold Pinter
111. Forest Born - Shannon Hale
112. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
113. The Smell of the Night - Andrea Camilleri

December
114. Holidays on Ice: Stories - David Sedaris
115. Homer & Langley - E. L. Doctorow
116. Cold Shoulder Road - Joan Aiken
117. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
118. Adam Bede - George Eliot
119. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Books that came into the house in 2015:

January
✔The Door - Magda Szabo (NYRB subscription)
✔The Eustace Diamonds - Anthony Trollope (Audible credit)
✔The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers (Kindle and Audible, whispersync)
The Language of Bees - Laurie R. King (Audible 2 for 1 sale)
✔Lawrence in Arabia - Scott Anderson (Audible 2 for 1 sale)
✔Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine (Kindle)

February
✔Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh (Audible credit)
A Legacy - Sybille Bedford (NYRB subscription)
with your crooked heart - Helen Dunmore
Master Georgie - Beryl Bainbridge
✔A Spool of Blue Thread - Anne Tyler
Euphoria - Lily King
Arlington Park - Rachel Cusk
The Hollow Land - Jane Gardam
A True Novel - Minae Mizumura (Kindle)
The Partly Cloudy Patriot - Sarah Vowell (Kindle)

March
The Master - Colm Toibin
Madison's Gift - David O. Stewart
The Fifth Woman - Henning Mankell
Arctic Chill - Arnaldur Indriðason
Onward and Upward in the Garden - Katharine S. White (NYRB subscription)
✔Pardonable Lies - Jacqueline Winspear (Audible credit)

Books read from my TBR collection:

1. Heat Wave
2. Hercule Poirot's Christmas (Kindle)
3. A Pale View of Hills
4. Dreams of Gods and Monsters
5. The Three-Arched Bridge
6. The Pickwick Papers
7. A Golden Age
8. Vile Bodies
9 Brideshead Revisited (new audio but TBR print book)
10. Fingersmith
11. The Cuckoo Tree
12. The God of Small Things (reread)
13. The Ambassadors
14. The City & the City - China Mieville
15. The Dancers Dancing - Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

2014 Summary

2014 Favorites

1. Transatlantic - Colum McCann
2. We Need to Talk About Kevin - Lionel Shriver
3. Out Stealing Horses - Per Petterson
4. Miss Buncle’s Book - D. E. Stevenson
5. The Lowland - Jhumpa Lahiri
6. The Undertaking - Audrey Magee
7. Empire Falls - Richard Russo
8. The Secret Place - Tana French
9. Montana 1948 - Larry Watson
10. The Daughters of Mars - Thomas Keneally

Favorite Classic: The Last Chronicle of Barset - Anthony Trollope
Book I was Surprised to like: American Pastoral - Philip Roth
Favorite New Series: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Favorite Nonfiction: The Graves are Walking: The Great Famine and the Saga of the Irish People - John Kelly
Favorite Short Story Collection: Lost in the City - Edward P. Jones
Favorite Rereads:
All the King’s Men - Robert Penn Warren
Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
Understood Betsy - Dorothy Canfield Fisher

Favorite new-to-me children's book
Why the Whales Came
Moon Over Manifest
Becoming Naomi Leon
Favorite new-to-me YA book: The Fault in our Stars

Read 134 Books
17 nonfiction
2 poetry
10 short stories
32 children/young adult

Series completed:
Game of Thrones
Dublin Murder Squad
Three Pines
Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place

Orange/Baileys Women's Prize
We Need to Talk About Kevin
A Girl is a Half-Formed Thing
The Lowland
The Undertaking
Burial Rites
Americanah
The Goldfinch

1001 Books
1. The Sea
2. The Mill on the Floss
3. The Last Chronicle of Barset
4. Blood Meridian
5. Regeneration
6. The Optimist’s Daughter
7. The Things They Carried
8. Don Quixote
9. Phineas Finn
10. The Maltese Falcon
11. The Summer Book
12. Giovanni’s Room
13. The House of Mirth
14. Frankenstein
15. Walden
16. Disgrace
17. Far From the Madding Crowd
18. The Story of Lucy Gault
19. American Pastoral
20. Black Water

1001 rereads
Rebecca
Candide
The Nose
Jazz
The Turn of the Screw
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
A Christmas Carol

2015 Reading Goals
2015 Reading Goals

I didn’t quite complete two 75s last year, and I’m not sure whether this is the “new normal” or what, since my reading seems to have declined a little each year. I’m going to make my goal 100 books for the year.

I was amazingly successful reading from my own shelves last year, and purchased relatively few new books, so I don’t feel an especial need to set goals around that. I definitely read more books from my shelves than I added to them, and that seems like a healthy balance to aim for in general. Between the American Author Challenge II and the British Author Challenge, I feel pretty confident that I will make another big dent in that TBR stack. My Kindle on the other hand…a different story. I’m sure I should either read more of my Kindle titles or download fewer, but I refuse to worry about it.

My other goals are mostly built into my 2015 Categories, which are:

Read
15 Books Published in the 21st century, one for each year
14 Poems
13 NYRB Classics (I have a subscription, and an additional goal is to read at least 6 of them the month they come in)
12 books for the American Author Challenge (all these books I already have)

✔January: Carson McCullers - A Member of the Wedding
✔February: Henry James - The Ambassadors or Washington Square and Daisy Miller
✔March: Richard Ford - The Sportswriter or ✔Canada
✔April: Louise Erdrich - The Painted Drum or ✔The Last Report of the Miracles at Little No Horse
✔May: Sinclair Lewis - ✔Main Street or Babbitt
June: Wallace Stegner - Angle of Repose
✔July: Ursula K. LeGuin - The Left Hand of Darkness? ✔Lavinia
✔ August: Larry McMurty - Lonesome Dove
✔ September: Flannery O'Connor - The Violent Bear it Away A Good Man is Hard to Find or Everything that Rises Must Converge
✔ October: Ray Bradbury - Something Wicked This Way Comes Dandelion Wine
✔ November: Barbara Kingsolver - High Tide in Tucson or reread The Bean Trees
✔ December: E.L. Doctorow - Homer and Langley City of God or The March

11 books for British Author Challenge: Female Authors

✔Penelope Lively - Heat Wave
✔Sarah Waters - Fingersmith
✔Daphne Du Maurier - Frenchman's Creek
✔Angela Carter - Nights at the Circus ✔The Bloody Chamber
✔Margaret Drabble - The Red Queen ✔The Peppered Moth
✔Beryl Bainbridge - Master Georgie
Virginia Woolf - Mrs. Dalloway or To the Lighthouse
Iris Murdoch - The Bell
Andrea Levy - The Long Song
Helen Dunmore - The Betrayal
Muriel Spark - Loitering With Intent
Hilary Mantel - A Place of Greater Safety or Beyond Black

✔10 books for British Author Challenge: Male Authors

✔Kazuo Ishiguro: A Pale View of Hills
✔Evelyn Waugh: ✔Vile Bodies and Brideshead Revisited
✔China Mieville - The City and the City
✔W. Somerset Maugham - Of Human Bondage ✔Liza of Lambeth
✔Martin Amis - London Fields
✔Anthony Burgess - A Clockwork Orange
✔B.S. Johnson - Alberto Angelo ✔ House Mother Normal
✔Graham Greene: Our Man in Havana Brighton Rock or The Power and the Glory
Salman Rushdie - The Satanic Verses or Joseph Anton
✔David Mitchell - Cloud Atlas
✔William Boyd: Restless
P.G. Wodehouse - Right Ho, Jeeves

✔9 Crimes and Mysteries
8 Presidential Biographies (Van Buren to Lincoln)
7 works by women writing before 1915
6 books related to World War I
✔5 books set in states not on my 2014 list
4 books by Nobel authors previously unread
✔3 books set in countries not visited in 2013 or 2014
2 books by Emile Zola
1 book not in English

Orange/Baileys Women's Fiction Prize: I usually try to read all 6 of the shortlisted books before the winner is announced, at least one previous winner (I have Larry’s Party, Fugitive Pieces, The Road Home, On Beauty, and The Idea of Perfection waiting on my shelves) and a few more from various years.

Reading Globally quarterly themes:
January - March: The Indian Subcontinent
Books on hand for this:
✔ A Golden Age - Tahmima Anam
The Good Muslim - Tahmima Anam
A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy
The White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
The Satanic Verses - Salman Rushdie
Joseph Anton - Salman Rushdie
Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid
Interpreter of Maladies - Jhumpa Hahiri
Brick Lane - Monica Ali
Anil's Ghost - Michael Ondaatje
Brixton Beach - Roma Tearne

April - June: Iberian peninsula
July - Sept: Nobel Prize winners who didn't write in English
Oct - Dec: Women authors who didn't write in English

And, of course, I plan to participate actively in the monthly TIOLI challenge.

And maybe write a few reviews. I don't think I posted a single one last year so there is nowhere to go but up!

35 books purchased in 2014. 4 of those I read in the same year--so 31 added to the Teetering TBR Tower. Plus, I got 8 books as gifts and picked up at least 3 for free, only 2 of which I read in 2014. But, I read 44 print books that I already owned at the beginning of the year. I guess that means I subtracted 4 books from the TBR grand total. However, I’ve completely lost track of how many books are actually in there. But still, progress.

Books acquired in 2014 (and not yet read)

January
The Human Comedy - Honore de Balzac (NYRB subscription)
The Grass is Singing - Doris Lessing (Kindle sale)

February
The Republic of Love - Carol Shields (Kindle sale)
On Being Blue: A Philosophical Inquiry - William H. Gass (NYRB subscription)
The Shetland Bus: A WWII Epic of Escape, Survival, and Adventure - David Howarth (Kindle sale)

March
A Murder Is Announced: A Miss Marple Mystery - Agatha Christie (Kindle DD)
Beautiful Ruins - Jess Walter (Kindle DD)
Hawaii: A Novel - James Michener (Kindle DD)
No Country for Old Men - Cormac McCarthy (Kindle DD)
Invisible Cities - Italo Calvino (Kindle DD)
The Nonexistent Knight - - Italo Calvino (Kindle DD)
Marcovaldo - Italo Calvino (Kindle DD)
Italian Folktales - Italo Calvino (Kindle DD)
City of Thieves - David Benoit (Kindle DD)
Bellefleur Joyce Carol Oates (Kindle DD)
Death on the Nile - Agatha Christie (Kindle DD)
4:50 from Paddington- Agatha Christie (Kindle DD)
A Pocket Full of Rye - Agatha Christie (Kindle DD)
Cards on the Table - Agatha Christie (Kindle DD)
Turn Around Bright Eyes: The Rituals of Love and Karaoke - Rob Sheffield

April
Miss Buncle Married - D. E. Stevenson (Kindle DD)
The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy
One of Ours - Willa Cather
Why Read Moby Dick? - Nathaniel Philbrick
Someone - Alice McDermott
Hild - Nicola Griffith
Still Life With Breadcrumbs - Anna Quindlan
The Signature of All Things - Elizabeth Gilbert
The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 - Christopher Clark
All Our Names - Dinaw Mengestu
Angel - Elizabeth Taylor
The Flamethrowers - Rachel Kushner
Love - Toni Morrison
Ghana Must Go
Bastard Out of Carolina
The Impossible Lives of Greta Wells
The Lake – Banana Yoshimoto (Kindle)
English Creek - Ivan Doig (Kindle)
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis - Lydia Davis (Kindle)
College Unbound - Jeffrey J. Selingo (Kindle)
The Rosie Project: A Novel - Graeme Simsion (Kindle)
The Boleyn Inheritance - Philippa Gregory (Kindle)
Shakespeare's Montaigne (NYRB Classics)

May
Inés of My Soul: A Novel - Isabel Allende (Kindle)
Fear: A Novel of World War I - Gabriel Chevallier (NYRB Classics)

June
Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales - Ray Bradbury (Kindle)
The Golem and the Jinni - Helene Wecker (Kindle)
Sun On Fire -Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson (Kindle)
The Merry Misogynist - Colin Cotterill (Kindle)
The Professor and the Siren (NYRB Classics)

July
Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 - David Kynaston (Kindle)
The Glass Room - Simon Mawer (Kindle)
The Innocents Abroad - Mark Twain (Kindle)
Thomas Jefferson (Eminent Lives) - Christopher Hitchens (Kindle)
So Much for That: A Novel - Lionel Shriver (Kindle)
A Brief History of Thought: A Philosophical Guide to Living - Luc Ferry (Kindle)
Truth & Beauty - Ann Patchett (Kindle)
Portrait in Sepia - Isabel Allende (Kindle)
The Dovekeepers: A Novel - Alice Hoffman (Kindle)
The Mad and the Bad (NYRB Classics)

August
The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol (Kindle)
The Burning of the World (NYRB Classics)

September
Totempole (NYRB Classics)
The Cuckoo's Calling - Robert Galbraith

October
How to Build a Girl - Caitlin Moran (Kindle)
Journey by Moonlight - Antal Szerb (NYRB Classics)

November
Main Street - Sinclair Lewis (Kindle)
In the Heart of the Heart of the Country - William Gass (NYRB Classics)

December
✔The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens (Audible)
Ancillary Justice - Ann Leckie (Kindle)
The Narrow Road to the Deep North - Richard Flanagan (Thingaversary)
Conspiracy of Faith Jussi Adler-Olssen (Thingaversary)
Some Desperate Glory - (Thingaversary)
Tristana - Benito Perez Galdos (NYRB Classics)

Christmas Haul (gifts):
✔The City and the City - China Mieville
The Unwinding - George Packer
Station Eleven - Emily St. John Mandel
Being Mortal - Atul Gawande
All the Light We Cannot See - Anthony Doerr
The Paying Guests - Sarah Waters
Nora Webster - Colm Toibin
The Bone Clocks - David Mitchell

I like to keep tabs on how I'm doing versus books on my shelves, so here's are some lists carried over from my 2014 thread:

Books acquired in 2013 and not yet read

The Chip-Chip Gatherers - Shivadhar Srivinasa Naipaul
The Toilers of the Sea - Victor Hugo
How Music Works - David Byrne
Plutocrats - Chrystia Freeland
The Belly of Paris - Emile Zola
Nana - Emile Zola
Pere Goriot - Honore de Balzac
Proud Beggars - Albert Cossery
Irretrievable - Theodor Fontane
Wish Her Safe at Home - Stephen Benatar
A Game of Hide and Seek - Elizabeth Taylor
The Slaves of Solitude - Patrick Hamilton
Ilustrado - Miguel Syjuco
The Gift of Rain - Tae Twan Eng
The Famine Ships - Edward Laxton
Gabriela Clove and Cinnamon - Jorge Amado
Stone Upon Stone - Wiesław Myśliwski
Fighting for Life - Josephine Baker
Autobiography of a Corpse - Sigizmund Krzhizhanovsky
The Skin - Curzio Malaparte
In Love - Alfred Hayes
The Bridge of Beyond - Simone Schwarz-Bart
Transit - Anna Seghers
Pitch Dark - Renata Adler
The invention of Morel - Adolfo Bioy Casares
The Crisis of the European Mind - Paul Hazard
Turtle Diary - Russell Hoban
The Enchanted April - Elizabeth von Armin
Founding Rivals - Chris DeRose
The History of Love - Nicole Krauss
The Book of Salt - Monique Truong
Pale Fire - Vladimir Nabokov
The Towers of Trebizond - Rose Macauley
The Enigma of Arrival - V.S. Naipaul
Last Friends - Jane Gardam

Gift Books:
Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Hawthorn and Child - Keith Ridgeway
The Magician's Assistant - Ann Patchett
And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

After This - Alice McDermott (free)

Books Acquired in 2012 and not yet read

The Grief of Others - Leah Hager Cohen
Afterimage - Helen Humphreys
Brixton Beach - Roma Tearne
Astonishing Splashes of Colour - Clair Morrall
Black Water Rising - Attica Locke
Blackberry Wine - Joanne Harris
The Book of Lies - Mary Horlock
An Atlas of Impossible Longing - Anuradha Roy
Beyond Black - Hilary Mantel
On the Floor - Aifric Campbell
Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Katherine Boo
The Way the Crow Flies - Ann-Marie MacDonald
Conquered City - Victor Serge
Slynx -Tatyana Tolstaya
New Grub Street - George Gissing
Audition - Ryu Murakami
Twenty-Five Books that Shaped America - Thomas Foster
The Power and the Glory - Graham Greene
The Ark Sakura - Kobo Abe
In the Miso Soup - Ryu Murakami
An Equal Stillness - Francesca Kay
Broken April - Ismail Kadare
Silence in the Garden - William Trevor
The Bigamist's Daughter - Alice McDermott
In Praise of the Stepmother - Mario Vargas Llosa
The Yates Reader - William Butler Yeats (partially read)
✔A Golden Age - Tahmima Aman
The Good Muslim - Tahmima Aman
Lyrics Alley - Leila Aboulela
The White Woman on the Green Bicycle - Monique Roffey
The Wife - Meg Wolitzer
White Ghost Girls - Alice Greenway
The Emperor of all Maladies - Siddhartha Mukherjee
Moth Smoke - Mohsin Hamid
Moby-Duck: The True Story of 28,800 Bath Toys Lost at Sea and of the Beachcombers, Oceanographers, Environmentalists, and Fools, Including the Author, Who Went in Search of Them - Donovan Hohn
The Outsourced Self: Intimate Life in Market Times - Arlie Hochschild
When the Emperor Was Divine - Julie Otsuka
Molly Fox's Birthday - Deirdre Madden
Ten Thousand Saints - Eleanor Henderson
Emily Alone - Stewart O'Nan
Trapeze - Simon Mawer
Man Gone Down - Michael Thomas
Pure - Andrew Miller
Capital - John Lanchester
The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It - Timothy Noah
✔Heat Wave - Penelope Lively
Quicksand - Junichiro Tanizaki
Brown Girl, Brownstones - Paule Marshall
Cane - Jean Toomer
The Lifetime Reading Plan - Clifton Fadiman
The Zookeeper's Wife - Diane Ackerman
The Great War and Modern Memory - Paul Fussell
An Episode of Sparrows - Rumor Godden
Frost in May – Antonia White
The New York Stories of Edith Wharton
A Month in the Country – J. L. Carr
War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes
Rouse Up O Young Men of the New Age - Kenzaburo Oe
Too Much Happiness - Alice Munro (stories – partly completed) Ready Player One - Ernest Cline
Katherine - Anya Seton
Tree of Smoke - Denis Johnson
A Peoples History of the United States - Howard Zinn
Team of Rivals - Doris Kearns Goodwin
We Wish to Inform You that Tomorrow We Will be Killed with our Families - Philip Gourevitch
Mary Queen of Scots - Antonia Fraser
River of Doubt - Candice Millard
Testament of Youth - Vera Brittain
Narcopolis - Jeet Thayil
To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf
Everything Flows - Vasiliy Grossman
The Night Watch – Sarah Waters
The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry -
American Salvage - Bonnie Jo Campbell
Season of Migration to the North - Tayeb Salih
Runaway Horses - Yukio Mishima
Selected Poems - William Carlos Williams (partly completed)
College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be - Andrew Delbanco
The Road Not Taken - Robert Frost (partly completed)
What's the Matter with White People? Why We Long for a Golden Age That Never Was - Joan Walsh
The Dream of the Celt - Mario Vargas Llosa
Sweet Tooth – Ian McEwan
The Casual Vacancy (gift)
Arcadia ((gift)
Dear Life (gift)
Why Nations Fail (gift)
Canada (gift)
Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (gift)
Iron Curtain (gift)
Why Does the World Exist? (gift)
Joseph Anton (gift)

Unread Books on my Kindle at the opening of 2015

2012 downloads
Undaunted Courage
✔Cranford
✔The Pickwick Papers
The Scarlet Letter
Botchan
Longitude
Galileo’s Daughter
Mornings in Jenin
Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure
The Architecture of the Ozarks
Alone: The Classic Polar Adventure
The Fall of the Roman Empire
Black Like Me
The Best American Noir of the Century
Petrostate
The Siege of Washington
At the Sign of the Sugared Plum
How to Live: Or A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
The ask and the Answer
Monsters of Men
The Mapping of Love and Death
Rebels Rising
Boardwalk of Dreams
The Rage Against God
The Mosquito Coast
The Food Revolution
On the Cold Coasts
The Secret Piano
The Greenhouse
Thirst
The King of Kahel
The Solitude of Thomas Cave
Black Seconds
The Water’s Edge
Bad Intentions
Maps and Legends
Postcards from Nam
A Kiss Before Dying
The File on H
Lovely Green Eyes
A Discovery of Witches
A Gay and Melancholy Sound
The Master of Verona
Miss Peregrine's Home for Particular Children - Ransom Riggs -
These Old Shades
Under the Dome – Stephen King
Waging Heavy Peace
The Bronze Bow
The Nine
Lost Memory of Skin
Faith: A Novel
Swimming Home
Grand Sophy
Restless – William Boyd
The Ascent of George Washington
Bruno's Dream
The Philosopher's Pupil
Possessing the Secret of Joy
A House Divided
The Confessions of Nat Turner
Sons
The Mother: A Novel
The Man Who Loved Children: A Novel
The Italian Girl
The Alexandria Quartet
Pearl of China: A Novel
Old Town
On Gold Mountain
Wonder Boys
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind: Creating Currents of Electricity and Hope
The World According to Monsanto: Pollution, Corruption, and the Control of the World's Food Supply
Shifu, You'll Do Anything For a Laugh
The Republic of Wine
The Cement Garden - Ian McEwan
The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War
The Chaperone

2013 downloads
A History of the World in Six Glasses
Man's Search for Meaning - Viktor Frankl
If I Stay - Gayle Forman
The Siege of Krishnapur - J. G. Farrell
Cold: Adventures in the World's Frozen Places - Bill Streever
The Snow Child - Eowyn Ivey
Child 44 - Tom Rob Smith
House of Evidence – Viktor Arnar Ingolfsson
We Die Alone: A WWII Epic of Escape and Endurance – David Howarth
The Devil's Star: A Novel – Jo Nesbo
The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of Three Sisters – Juliet Barker
The Whistling Season – Ivan Doig
The Sheltering Sky – Paul Bowles
Prep: A Novel – Curtis Sittenfeld
Kira-Kira – Cynthia Kadohata
Bad Samaritans - Ha-Joon Chang,
Daughters of the River Huong - Uyen Nicole Duong
Care of Wooden Floors – Will Wiles
Burmese Days – George Orwell
The Magician's Assistant – Ann Patchett
The Professor and the Madman – Simon Winchester
Londoners: The Days and Nights of London Now--As Told by Those Who Love It, Hate It, Live It, Left It, and Long for It – Craig Taylor
Five Little Pigs – Agatha Christie
Strong Poison - Dorothy Sayers
The Birth House – Ami McKay
The Complete Stories – Flannery O'Connor
The Violent Bear It Away: A Novel – Flannery O'Connor
The Light Between Oceans: A Novel – M. L. Stedman
Nemesis – Jo Nesbo
The Blue Book: A Novel – A. L. Kennedy
The House at Sea's End – Elly Griffiths
People Who Eat Darkness: The True Story of a Young Woman Who Vanished from the Streets of Tokyo--and the Evil That Swallowed Her Up – Richard Lloyd Parry
Black Boy – Richard Wright
Blunt Instrument – Georgette Heyer
The Gathering Storm - Winston Churchill
Sleeping Murder – Agatha Christie
✔Etiquette & Espionage - Gail Carriger
Footsteps in the Dark – Georgette Heyer
The Son – Philipp Meyer
The White Tiger: A Novel – Aravind Adiga
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty
The Alchemist - Coelho
Eleven Minutes - Paulo Coelho
Brida – Coelho

Finally, I can never pass up this annual meme. Responses are titles of books I read in 2014.

Describe yourself: The Optimist’s Daughter
Describe how you feel: Bewilderment
Describe where you currently live: House of Mirth
If you could go anywhere, where would you go: TransAtlantic
Your favorite form of transportation: Howl’s Moving Castle
Your best friend is: The Jewel in the Crown
You and your friends are: The Smartest Kids in the World
What’s the weather like: A Cold Day for Murder
You fear: The Great Influenza
What is the best advice you have to give: Not the End of the World
Thought for the day: Of Love and Other Demons
How I would like to die: Private Peaceful
My soul’s present condition: The year of magical thinking

Welcome back!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Anne!

Happy new year, Anne. I'm looking forward to seeing what you read this year. I know I'll end up with some great ideas for books from you - I'm trying to be good and use the library more but we will see how that goes...

Welcome back Anne and Happy New Year! I look forward to following your reading this year. Starred!

Welcome back, Anne! I look forward to seeing your reading plans for the year.

I love that poem by Robert Frost, which reminds me of JFK.

Hi Anne! I too read less than I intended last year and missed being on LT. Here's looking forward to seeing you on the boards more in 2015.

Anne it is not possible to err by starting anything with Robert Frost.

Lovely to see you back again.

Happy New Year Anne! Thanks for sharing the lovely poem.

HAPPY NEW YEAR, ANNE! It's great to see you here and I love the poem and the illustration. Hope you're enjoying *Pickwick*!

Yay! Glad you're back, Anne!

Glad to see you back! Starred & following... as you are an all-too-fertile source of book bullets!

Happy New Year, Anne!

Welcome back, Anne and Happy New Year!

Happy New Year, Anne!

Anne, it's good to see you posting in this brand-new year. You are in my top five similar libraries so I like to keep close tabs on what you are reading.

I'm excited to follow along with your readings in 2015, Anne!

Hi, Anne! Can't wait to see what you get up to in the new year.

Karen O.

Hello Jim, Katherine, Roni, Cushla, Beth, Darryl, Rachel, Peggy, Katie, Suzanne, Amber, Lori, Nora, Donna, Valerie and Karen! Thank you so much for visiting and I'm sorry about the delayed response. It seems I'm very slowly getting my thread set up. Rather than reply here, I am off to visit all your threads.

And then I will be back with some actual book comments, and maybe a February book list.

Hi Anne - Great to see your thread taking shape. You had a month of great reading, it looks like. I especially want to hear about the Szabo, Lively and Kadare books.

Hi Beth--I will be back with a January report. I did enjoy all three of those books, but I have more to say.

Hi Anne!

Hi Anne! Looking forward to your thoughts on the books you've read so far. I really enjoyed Dreams of Gods and Monsters.

>29 brenpike: Hi Brenda!

>30 bell7: and hi, Mary. I put the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series in my favorites list for 2014 even before getting to the third book. (I actually read Daughter of Smoke and Bone twice in 2014 because it became a family read during a summer car trip and we had to start back at the beginning. It's rare that a book captures the attention of my husband, 20 year old daughter, 18 year old son, 11 year old daughter, and myself, but we were all hooked. Then we had to stop reading because the kids went back to college and forbade us to read the next one without them.)

February book plans

Currently Reading:
✔A Golden Age – Tahmima Anam
To End All Wars – Adam Hochschild
The Cuckoo Tree – Joan Aiken
✔The Eustace Diamonds – Anthony Trollope

Planned:
Fingersmith - Sarah Waters
✔Vile Bodies – Evelyn Waugh
The Ambassadors – Henry James

Other Possibilities:
Martin Van Buren – Ted Widmer
Man Gone Down - Michael Thomas
All Our Names – Dinaw Mengestu
Pitch Dark – Renata Adler
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
2666 - Robert Bolano

Looks like we're on the same page(s) this month! I've just finished Vile Bodies and am inching along in Fingersmith. I went with James' Washington Square for the AAC and was happy with my choice.

From your Feb book plans, one of my favorite authors. . . Adam Hoschild. To End All Wars was eye-opening for me and I still think about it often. I also really enjoyed The God of Small Things when it was a club choice several years ago.

Nice to catch up with you . . . Your reading often matches my own so your library is a great place to look for new material or to reflect on past reads. Thanks!

>33 brenpike: Hi Brenda. I just finished up Vile Bodies today and will start Fingersmith sometime, maybe not today. It's been on my list for a long time. I'm not very far into the Hochschild but I am loving it so far--so interesting. I also loved King Leopold's Ghost but I'm really enjoying reading about World War I from a different perspective. I've read, and loved The God of Small Things Before so this would be a reread, but it seems to be a love/hate kind of book around here and I don't remember enough about it to know why, so I thought it would be worth a reread.
I may yet read Washington Square instead of The Ambassadors, since there are a few too many chunksters on my list for a short month, but we'll see.

>34 AnneDC: - Anne, what did you think of Vile Bodies? I've just read the first chapter.

Anne, so delighted to "see" you! I love "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" … and that you've opened your first 2015 thread with it. Beautiful photo, too. So peaceful.

>35 katiekrug: Katie, I found it a quick and entertaining read, downright snarky in tone. Parts of it were absolutely hilarious. I haven't read much Waugh--just Brideshead Revisited, but this struck me very differently from Brideshead. How's the first chapter going for you, or, I guess, the second chapter?

>36 lit_chick: Hi Nancy--glad you found me after my long hiatus. Stopping by Woods is one of the few poems I actually know by heart, and it pleases me to see it every time I update my thread.

Just "Hi," Anne. It's a treat to have you here.

>37 AnneDC: - Well, the first chapter was so odd, I didn't know quite what to make of it! But I'm now about 120 pages in, and it's quite fun and rather silly.

BTW, I also know "Stopping By Woods" by heart, because my father tipped me off that it can be recited to the tune of "Hernando's Hideaway" from Gypsy (I think it's Gypsy....). It's my party trick ;-)

January Summary

Books Read:

1. Heat Wave - Penelope Lively 4.2
2. Hercule Poirot's Christmas - Agatha Christie 3.5
3. The Door - Magda Szabo 4.2
4. A Pale View of Hills - Kazuo Ishiguro 3.8
5. Dreams of Gods and Monsters - Laini Taylor 4.7
6. Ella Enchanted - Gail Carson Levine 5.0
7. The Three Arched Bridge - Ismail Kadare 4
8. The Pickwick Papers - Charles Dickens (audio) 3.8
9. The Member of the Wedding - Carson McCullers (audio) 4.5

9 books
0 nonfiction
1 children’s lit
2 rereads
2 Translated: 2 (Hungarian, Albanian)

Format:
Audio: 3
Kindle: 2
Print: 4

Source:
New: 2
OTS: 7 (2014: 3, older: 4)
Library: 0

Authors:
6 female/3 male
5 living/4 dead Kadare, Levine, Taylor, Ishiguro, Lively
4 British/3 American/1 Hungarian/ 1 Albanian

New-to-me authors: 1 (Magda Szabo)

Publication dates of books
19th century: 1
1900-1925: 0
1925-1950: 2
1950-1975: 0
1975-1999: 5
2000-2015: 1

Settings of books:
English countryside: 3
London: 1
US: 1(Georgia)
Hungary: 1
Japan: 1(partly)
Albania: 1
Other worlds: 2

>38 LizzieD: Peggy it is a treat to be here. I am going to try to keep up. It could be a full-time job though.

>39 katiekrug: The Pajama Game, I believe (we did this musical in high school so I know it well). To be perfectly honest I don't really want to think about Hernando's Hideaway or I will never get it out of my head. Darn, too late.

Yes, The Pajama Game! And oops! Sorry for the ear worm....

>39 katiekrug: Quite fun and rather silly probably covers a fair bit of Evelyn Waugh's work. I have finished A Handful of Dust which is similarly snarky but probably is a touch more barbed and occasionally shocking.

Have a great Sunday, Anne.

1. Heat Wave – Penelope Lively



Rating: 4.2 stars

Why I read now: From my TBR collection, British Author Challenge January, TIOLI # 11 Read a book with a weather phenomenon related word in the title

I discovered Penelope Lively relatively recently when I read How it All Began, which made my favorites list for 2012. Since then I’ve read the Booker-winning Moon Tiger and City of the Mind, and now Heat Wave. What I find fascinating about Lively’s writing is the common themes that run through what are very different stories. I love Lively's interesting take on time, memory, the past, history, and aging. I come to each of her books wondering how these themes will surface this time.

Heat Wave takes place during an unusually hot summer in which Pauline (a retired copy editor now working freelance) relocates from London to her country home, World’s End, where she and her daughter’s family will spend the summer in adjoining cottages. Son-in-law Maurice, a “maverick young author of books on quirky aspects of history that flattered the reader by being simultaneously scholarly and inviting,” is currently writing a book on the history of tourism. Maurice’s subject overlaps nicely with Lively’s themes and provides a vehicle for Lively, via Pauline, to highlight paradoxes of historic preservation and contemporary nostalgia for the past.

But the subject of the book is interior and intimate: marriage, infidelity, the relationship between parent and child, relationships in general. The oppressive weather heightens the drama. Will Pauline watch history repeat itself in her daughter's marriage? The ending is a surprise—(unless, of course, one is a devotee of Chekhov—but that’s all I’ll say.)

I learned about more Penelope Lively works through the British Author Challenge and although I've knocked this one off the TBR pile, the wish list has grown by even more.

2. Hercule Poirot’s Christmas – Agatha Christie


Rating: 3.5
Why I read now: It was on my Kindle. TIOLI challenge # 7: Read a book which is at least the 15th book in a series. It fits into one of my 2015 categories.

I’ve come late to the mystery/crime genre, and in skipping from Nancy Drew to Scandinavian crime with several decades in between, have managed to miss most of the classics of the genre from Miss Marple to Lord Peter Wimsey to Maigret to Sam Spade to Sherlock Holmes. Never mind, there is always time. So now I’ve read a few Agatha Christie mysteries, including two featuring Hercule Poirot. This was an enjoyable read, certainly a page-turner. I have not much else to say since I hardly consider myself an expert.

Hi Anne - I have a small corner of my shelf with Lively books yet to read, and I am happy that Heat Wave is one of them. She hasn't disappointed me yet.

Heat Wave sounds interesting! I added Moon Tiger to my Kindle, finally, after eyeballing most of last month, while others were actually reading it...

Like you, I'm finding it hard to keep up with all the LT threads...

3. The Door – Magda Szabo



Rating: 4.2

Why I read now: This was my NYRB Classic subscription book for January—and I have a goal to read at least some of these books as they come in. I was also able to wedge it into TIOLI #10: Read a book by someone whose name ends in I, O, or U. Alas, it doesn’t count for my “Another Country” challenge as I already read something set in Hungary since I started tracking this.

This book was published in 1987 but only translated into English in 2006. It seems little of the author's work is available in English.

The quasi-autobiographical narrator of The Door is a writer whose works have been suppressed under Communist governments but who is now able to write again and is beginning to win acclaim. She and her husband need a housekeeper. Enter Emerence. Once Emerence decides she is willing to work for them (“I don’t wash just anyone’s dirty linen”) the two women settle into a volatile intense relationship that drives the novel. Actually, Emerence drives the novel. I can’t think of any way to describe Emerence here—well, a few words come to mind—prickly, opinionated, obsessively private, judgmental, tireless, loyal, illiterate, kind, insane?--but her character is at the center of what ends up being a tragic novel. The narrator invites us in early on with the confession “I killed Emerence.” Judge for yourself.

>42 katiekrug: There are worse things than ear worms.

>43 PaulCranswick: Thanks, Paul. I might have A Handful of Dust around here somewhere too. These author challenges are amazing for clearing out the TBR stacks--a benefit that didn't initially occur to me.

>46 BLBera: She hasn't disappointed me yet, either, Beth. I'm glad you have a few more Livelys to look forward to.

>47 Chatterbox: Hi Suzanne. I should track down Moon Tiger for my Kindle so I could look at it again--I read a library copy and it's one I'd like to glance back at, or even reread. I will never keep up with LT threads--my only consolation is that I'm doing better than last year.

4. A Pale View of Hills


Rating: 3.9
Why I read now: Long-term resident of my TBR pile, British Author Challenge

Wait, what? It’s not that often that I come to the end of a book and have no idea what’s happened. This was one of those books.

The Remains of the Day is a book that I loved when I read it many years ago (I'm long overdue for a reread), but I’ve yet to find another Ishiguro book that I’ve loved as much.

A Pale View of Hills was Ishiguro’s first novel. Etsuko is a widow living alone in the English countryside. During a visit from her adult daughter, she thinks back to her life as a young woman in post-war Japan and recalls her mysterious friend Sachiko. These reminiscences are not exactly what they seem, however. Much is left out of this story and I’m certain that this was the author’s intention—however, there was a bit too much left out for it to be a fully satisfying read for me. In Remains of the Day we see Ishiguro’s ability to reveal by omission—but here I’m just left wanting answers. Still, this novel is beautifully evocative and well worth reading, especially if you like Isiguro’s other work. Or if you like books that leave much to reader interpretation.

5. Dreams of Gods and Monsters – Laini Taylor



Rating: 4.7 (for series as a whole)
Why I read this now: Because I had to finish the trilogy. Actually, I was forbidden to read this book in August, when I wanted to, because my kids wanted us to read it together, so I had to wait until Christmas break.

I really loved this series. I started reading it last January and was immediately captivated by the heroine, Karou, and by Laini Taylor’s imaginative world-building and beautiful writing. It didn’t hurt that the audio rendition is amazing.

These books sucked in my whole family—from my 18-year-old son to my 11-year-old daughter to my husband (my older daughter and I are easy targets and we love many books, so I am always more impressed when the whole family embraces a story).

I found this a refreshingly original fantasy, with well-developed and interesting characters, lots of action, surprising plot twists, moral complexity, and satisfying tying-up of most loose ends. There does, however, seem to be ample material for a follow-up trilogy. Either that or Taylor bit off a little more than she could chew in the final book.



6. Ella Enchanted – Gail Carson Levine



Rating: 5.0
Why I read this now: This was a reread. I read it at the request of my college-age daughter who wanted to participate in the mother-daughter book group I have going on with her sister. This was her pick for the month.

I adore this retelling of the Cinderella story. When I first read it years ago it struck me as fresh and funny and a very creative explanation for why Cinderella is such a doormat (she’s been given the gift of perfect obedience, of course). Ella takes charge of her own destiny, saves Prince Charming’s life, has opinions about the politics of the realm, summons the strength of character to break the curse, and only then lives happily ever after. Reading it again, I still love it. I had forgotten how much the movie version deviates from the book.

Great reviews, all, Anne! Busy reader, as always : ). Love what you have to say about Lively: I love Lively's interesting take on time, memory, the past, history, and aging. I come to each of her books wondering how these themes will surface this time. I've only read Moon Tiger but I have How It All Began on my list, and I've just now added Heat Wave.

Lots of good readings for the month of January, Anne. Hopefully February is even better!

I've only seen the movie version of Ella Enchanted. I loved The Remains of the Day and officially consider myself an Ishiguro fangirl..ha! :)

Hi Anne - You have some interesting comments here. I will definitely look for Ella Enchanted for Scout when she is a little older.

I'm not sure about the Taylor book; I'm not generally a big fan of fantasy. However, your comments about the enthusiasm of your entire family is making me look at this again.

I'm not a big Ishiguro fan - but at some point I do want to read Remains of the Day.

Thanks for all the great comments. It's so nice to have you back.

>44 AnneDC: Great review! I've only read Moon Tiger and loved it, so I'm looking forward to more lively.

>48 AnneDC: So your copy arrived in one piece! :-) I just ordered it yesterday from the Book Depository, so I'll probably read it soon. I think I was originally intrigued, because I had just read The Radiant Way and was looking for other female friendship novels. Your comments lead me to believe it's not exactly what I though it was, but fascinating just the same.

>52 lit_chick: Hi, Nancy, I am so out of the habit of posting reviews--I think it's been 18 months since I had a word to say about any of my reading. It's kind of satisfying! I hope you enjoy How it All Began.

>53 jolerie: Valerie, I liked the movie of Ella Enchated just fine--it was fun. But I loved the book. And now I'm wondering how I would feel about the book if I had seen the movie first. Hmmm.

>54 BLBera: Beth, I'm not one who would urge fantasy reads on non-fans. And in the spirit of full disclosure, all my family members appreciate fantasy. (Also, musicals, which is maybe even a little bit more surprising.) On the other hand, everyone should read Remains of the Day.

>55 DorsVenabili: Kerri--Yes, no empty shredded envelope for me! I'm not sure I would describe The Door as a friendship novel (I'm not sure the characters would, either), although it is definitely a story about a complicated relationship between two women. Now I am wondering about The Radiant Way--I could work that one into the British Author Challenge.

I've finished up with The Eustace Diamonds and have moved immediately on to Brideshead Revisited. Hurrah for audiobooks and awesome narrators!

I do love musicals but maybe I'll read Remains of the Day and put the fantasy on the "maybe some day" list.

I just requested Ella Enchanted from my library--sounds like just what I need right now. Thanks for the review!

Karen O.

18 months since I had a word to say about any of my reading.

Well I am pleased that you are slowly but surely making up for lost time. xx

Anne, I've also listened to both The Eustace Diamonds and Brideshead Revisited on audio. Fabulous reads by Simon Vance and Jeremy Irons.

Hi Anne, I've just come over to star your thread. Enjoyed your review of Heat Wave. Penelope Lively is an author I discovered last year and I'm eager to read more of her books.

>58 BLBera: I hope you get to The Remains of the Day one day soon, Beth. The movie is also wonderful.

>59 klobrien2: Karen, I hope you enjoy it! An easy and satisfying read, IMO.

>60 PaulCranswick: Very slowly Paul but I'm still in sight of commenting on every book read for the year.

>61 lit_chick: I agree, Nancy, fabulous listens--and I forgot to mention that I am truly on an awesome audiobook roll, as before The Eustace Diamonds I listened to Susan Sarandon narrating Carson McCullers' A Member of the Wedding. Really a treat!

>62 souloftherose: Welcome, Heather! It sounds like we're both recent discoverers of Penelope Lively.

This weekend has not quite turned out as we expected. We've just come back from a weekend trip to Vermont to visit my son who is a freshman in college. We were planning to go skiing with him--but were a little daunted by projected below zero temperatures. Then, Wednesday, he mentioned that he was sick, but still planned to ski with us. However he sounded dreadful and my husband and I both separately suggested he go to the health clinic and see a doctor (which he did not do). On Friday he put his odds of skiing at 50%, which I interpreted as meaning he was feeling a little better, and my husband interpreted as meaning he was feeling a lot worse.

When we arrived Friday night, he was so sick he was up all night, feverish and coughing, and we spent most of Saturday in the ER. Pneumonia, dehydration, and a fever of 104! After two bags of IV fluid and some antibiotics, he is feeling much better, but really--you think they are old enough to go off on their own and yet they can still surprise you with a lack of common sense. Thank goodness we happened to be there.

Now back home, expecting to be snowed in tomorrow.

>64 AnneDC: my husband interpreted as meaning he was feeling a lot worse
Hmm, kindred spirits?

Where in Vermont? My nephew’s at UVM.

Hi Anne - Scary story about your son. I wish him a speedy recovery -- and maybe a visit to the clinic a little sooner next time?? You can only hope...

I would love to hear Susan Sarandon read A Member of the Wedding. Do you know if she's done other audiobooks?

Oh dear. I'm glad that you were able to get your son into the infirmary. Blessings all around! I wish him a speedy recovery too.
Meanwhile, you're doing such a great deal of good reading. I'll have to read/reread The Remains of the Day - I'm not sure whether I read it or merely saw it.....
And, Katie, Katie, Katie.
Whose woods! These are! I think I know!!
His house! Is in! The village though!!!
Oh dear. Oh dear.

Every parent's nightmare . . . Glad your son is on the mend!

>64 AnneDC: What a good thing you went to visit! Glad he is feeling better now.

Goodness, so sorry to hear about your son, Anne, but so glad you and your husband were there. Take care.

>64 AnneDC: Oh, my goodness! Sorry to read about your son's illness, but glad he's doing better.

Oh my...I can imagine how scary that must have been for you guys. Good timing that you guys were there for him! Hope he recovers soon.

>65 qebo: Yes, kindred spirits. Eric is at UVM too--what year is your nephew, Katherine? And what is he studying?

>66 BLBera: Exactly--that is why the clinic is there, as I've pointed out more than once. Just confirming my suspicion that 18-year-old boys are not really qualified to live on their own.

I don't know of any others Susan Sarandon has narrated but it probably wouldn't be that hard to find out (hurray for Google)

>67 LizzieD: Oh no Peggy don't get me started with that silly song again...
I'm a little afraid to reread The Remains of the Day because it might not be as good as I remember.

>67 LizzieD: >68 brenpike: >69 souloftherose: >70 lit_chick: >71 DorsVenabili: >72 jolerie: Hi and thanks Brenda, Heather, Nancy, Kerri,and Valerie. He was much improved by the time we left town, so a relief all around. We were ambivalent about traveling this weekend, but it was definitely a good thing we went up. The deciding factor was that he was sounding a little homesick, which is unusual. He has had a tough first year health-wise--mono and strep first semester, and now this.

7. The Three-Arched Bridge – Ismail Kadare

Rating: 4.0

Why I read this now: TBR pile, Albania setting helps complete a 2014 challenge category, TIOLI title starts with T

Told in the form of a chronicle kept by a monk in 1377, this is an account of events that took place during construction of a bridge over the river Ujana e Keqe "Wild waters". The book bears obvious similarities to Ivo Andric’s The Bridge Over the Drina but it is condensed in every way. It is shorter in page count and in scope—in Andric’s epic the bridge itself is witness to history, whereas Kadare casts his story as the recorded observations of one mortal man, which confines it to one time period. Kadare creates an ominous atmosphere, and brings in the clash of empires, superstition and folklore, change and resistance to the new. Though set in 1377, the story could represent any era of tumultuous change.

>73 AnneDC: He's a senior, studying business and computer science, works part time for a company that does web design.

mono and strep
Sheesh. What a way to start college.

8. The Pickwick Papers – Charles Dickens

Rating: 3.8

Why I read now: I’m slowly catching up on Dickens books that I know a surprising amount about from other references, but have never got around to reading. (So far I've checked off A Tale of Two Cities, Great Expectations, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Our Mutual Friend and a re-read of Bleak House)

I have always been familiar with Mr. Pickwick because the Pickwick Club and its members feature in a chapter of Little Women, where I encountered them over and over again. (Now that I’ve read the actual book, the Pickwick Club seems a strange choice for a group of 19th century New England girls to emulate, but I suppose it is partly a testament to Dickens’ widespread popularity at the time.)

This was Dicken’s first novel, and not my favorite Dickens novel by a long stretch, but that’s perfectly okay. In fact, it’s a stretch to call it a novel, as it’s more a loosely connected series of adventures and stories. Structurally it reminded me very much of Don Quixote, and it seems this was Dickens’ intention. In addition to the structure, there is also the dynamic duo of Pickwick and his trusty sidekick Sam Weller, who call to mind the interplay between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. (I also found myself thinking often of Bertie Wooster and Jeeves from time to time.)

There is a largely comedic element to Pickwick, but it wouldn’t be Dickens without a dash of social commentary, here a look at debtors’ prison and the situation of the poor, plus the requisite jabs at lawyers.

I listened to this via audiobook (narrator: David Timson) and was highly entertained. It’s possible that I would have found the print version more of a slog, due to its meandering nature, but I love listening to Dickens read aloud.

9. The Member of the Wedding – Carson McCullers

Rating: 4.7

Why I read now: American Author Challenge, January. I read McCullers The Heart is a Lonely Hunter a couple of years ago and gave it 5 stars; this has been high on my TBR for some time. When I saw an audio version narrated by Susan Sarandon, I pounced.

This is a coming-of-age story, Southern gothic style. In it McCullers expertly captures the moments of childhood giving way to adolescence in a small Southern town. 12-year-old Frankie is part the child she was the summer before, and yet already changing into someone new. She is dissatisfied with everything and everyone, looking both for belonging and for escape—and finds both in her brother’s impending wedding. With no sense of the preposterousness of her plans, she imagines that after the wedding she will accompany her brother Jarvis and bride Janice on their honeymoon and onward to parts unknown. She adopts a new name to go with her imagined new life—F. Jasmine (which simultaneously casts off the childish Frankie, connects her to the Ja- names of the idealized newlyweds, and adds an exotic flair all her own). The book itself is divided into three parts that reflect the changes in the main character: Frankie becomes F. Jasmine who settles into the sadder and maybe wiser Frances.

I think I started to read this as a teenager, but I don’t really recall more than the beginning and may not have finished it. Reading it now, especially as a parent, maybe especially as the mother of an almost 12-year-old girl, I get a vivid sense of Frankie on the terrifying brink of something—the combination of her innocent fearlessness and her eagerness to seek out new experiences struck me as dead-on accurate.

Finally, Susan Sarandon’s narration of this story was perfect and probably has added to the way this novella continues to haunt me.

I am completely caught up with reviews for January! And it's not even March yet.

>78 AnneDC: Well that's more than I can say.

Fab reviews, Anne, of both The Pickwick Papers and The Member of the Wedding. I've taken a bullet for the second one, going to look for the audio by Sarandon. Thanks for that : ).

Anne - Great reviews. I have The Three Arched Bridge somewhere. I should look for it soon. Sometimes, I just need an extra nudge to get to some of my stacks.

I haven't listened to any Dickens, but I suspect you are right about audiobooks being a good way to experience him. I read Pickwick Papers years ago, also inspired by Little Women. Funny how one book leads to another...

A Member of the Wedding is, I think, my favorite McCullers, but I am a sucker for good coming-of-age stories.

Congrats on being caught up, and on some great reads so far this year.

I hope your son is on the mend.

My dad sent me this in an e-mail.

>75 qebo: He sounds like a busy guy--that's great that he's already working on web design. Yes, not the smoothest transition to living away from home.
>80 lit_chick: Always happy to oblige with a bullet!
>81 BLBera: Funny that you also were inspired to read Pickwick by Little Women. I often think about how to formalize the way that one book leads to another by making it into some kind of challenge, for example spending a year just following connections like that from one book to another, and using it to guide my book choices.

Of course I am already behind on February reviews.

>82 AnneDC: - LOL! That is so perfect!

Hi Anne - That would be a great year of reading. I'm trying to think of how it would work...

Haha..poor BBQ!

>82 AnneDC: oh, that's hysterical! :)

Hello Anne!

>73 AnneDC: AnneDC: I am sure that you will find The remains of the Day just as wonderful second time around. Have you seen the movie? Like the book, it is very beautifully nuanced.

Some terrific reviews already - did you mention The Radiant Way - I loved it when I read it some years back. Had a bit of a thing for Margaret Drabble and worked my way through most of her novels. Not sure whether some of her work may seem a little dated in their social context. Must see if I can pick up something of hers to re-read.

I think many men are little boys when it comes to their health - they either suffer on without going for proper treatment, or they think they are dying and insist on ambulance to nearest ER.

Anyway, I am looking forward to travelling through bookland with you this year....

>81 BLBera: & >83 AnneDC: I loved Pickwick and I do suspect that it would lend itself admirably to an audio format - I would be interested to see what the narrator made of Sam Weller's strangled vowels.

Love the BBQ - and that's definitely how I feel about snow that lasts more than a day. We may be getting more here in SE NC, alas.
If memory serves, Dickens was hired to write *Pickwick* initially to tie together drawings that were already done, and only in the latter part of the book did he let his own creativity take charge. It's not my favorite either, but I do think it's sui generis.
I have loved Drabble and have a lot yet to read. I think I like her even better than Byatt.

>82 AnneDC: Perfect!

>82 AnneDC: I'm with the grill/bbq. I've had enough winter to last me the rest of my life, I think.

YES to the BBQ. I haven't seen the ground in more than a month now. There are snowbanks out there that are taller than I am. It's just -- wearying!

I should sample some more Dickens one day soon. I finally got around to Bleak House in 2012, and then A Tale of Two Cities last year. Maybe Nicholas Nickleby?

>84 lkernagh: Yes and since I posted that we've had another snow day and an ice storm.

>85 BLBera: Beth I'm often thinking about how it would work. I'm not sure whether it's a question of planning in advance to create and follow a book trail or whether it's simply documenting it after the fact. (one of the reasons I like to explain "why I read this now" is to capture those kinds of connections). I think I already do kind of follow up on those book connections--the trouble is it sometimes takes me years. Also one book can lead off in 12 different directions.

>86 jolerie: >87 drneutron: >91 kidzdoc: >92 thornton37814: Valerie and Jim and Darryl and Lori, I feel like that BBQ at the moment--covered with snow and scowling.

>88 PrueGallagher: Hi Prue! Nice to see you! I've never read Margaret Drabble but hope to rectify that this year with Paul's British Author challenge. Interesting point about men and health--I was attributing my son's behavior to the fact that he thinks he's an adult but he isn't really, but you are suggesting that this is just the way it's going to be for him.

>89 PaulCranswick: Paul, the narrator did full justice to Sam Weller (and his estimable father) I believe. I find listening to Dickens (with a decent narrator) adds an element that I probably couldn't supply on my own.

>90 LizzieD: Peggy I can't believe how long our snow is lasting, or how cold it's been. Today's been another day of hazardous weather conditions. I'm looking forward to reading some Drabble this year.

>93 Chatterbox: Suzanne, Nicholas Nickleby is still on my list of books to get to.

My very optimistic reading plans for March.

✔Washington Square – Henry James

Canada – Richard Ford (reading)

✔The Snack Thief - Andrea Camillieri

✔A Spool of Blue Thread – Anne Tyler

Moth Smoke – Mohsin Hamid

✔The City & the City – China Mieville

Euphoria – Lily King

Anil’s Ghost – Michael Ondaatje

Mansfield Park – Jane Austen (reading)

Daisy Miller – Henry James (reading)

To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918 – Adam Hochschild switched for Lawrence in Arabia audiobook ✔

An Atlas of Impossible Longing – Anuradha Roy

A Legacy - Sybille Bedford

Pardonable Lies – Jacqueline Winspear (reading)

The Narrow Road to the Deep North – Richard Flanagan

✔The Dancers Dancing - Éilís Ní Dhuibhne

A Game of Hide and Seek – Elizabeth Taylor

Life on Mars: Poems - Tracy K. Smith

Frenchman’s Creek – Daphne du Maurier

Dido and Pa – Joan Aiken (reading)

Looks like an awesome list, even if you don't get to all of them. There is nothing wrong with giving yourself lots of options! ;)

Following up on the BBQ comments: my local Stop & Shop is no longer selling ice melt, in spite of the fact that we just got six more inches of snow last night, and are in for more this week. Oh no. Instead, where once they sold ice melt, they are selling -- BBQs and charcoal. Because we're all going to run out and grill in the blizzards. Yup....

>95 AnneDC: Good luck!

Oh, I've been curious about Canada, and I've still not gotten to The Narrow Road either. Fabulous list, as always, Anne.

I look forward to your comments on your March reads, Anne. I loved Anil's Ghost; it was my favorite Ondaatje.

Long time away! Thanks everyone for stopping in. I finished three books yesterday so I thought I'd stop in and update my thread.

Now I am reading Canada for the American Authors Challenge, while continuing the Henry James theme with a reread of Daisy Miller. Together they about average to a normal sized book.

And I am throughly enjoying rereading Mansfield Park and following along with the tutored read. When I cracked open my copy of Mansfield Park, some ticket stubs fell out from a bus trip from Stansted Airport to Victoria Station, April 2010. It was the year we were living in London and I had taken my son to ski in the French Alps during his spring break--and the Icelandic volcano erupted and we couldn't get back. We ended up reaching Stansted by means of a chartered coach across France and onto a ferry. It's amazing how many memories a small scrap of paper can recall! Plus, now I know that I last read Mansfield Park in 2010.

>96 jolerie: Thanks Valerie. The only problem with my long lists of options is that I do sometimes end up feeling oppressed by them.

>97 Chatterbox: That would be hilarious, Suzanne, if it wasn't so annoying. We had one last (fingers crossed) blast of wintry mix on Friday, to coincide with the spring equinox. But the weekend has been lovely and truly springlike.

>98 thornton37814: Thanks Lori!

>99 lit_chick: So far I am enjoying Canada but I am not very far along. I've never read Richard Ford before although I have Independence Day around here somewhere. I've always thought I should read The Sportswriter first. I keep planning to read The Narrow Road to the Deep North but still haven't gotten to it. March may not be its month, either.

>100 BLBera: I knew there was someone who recommended Anil's Ghost and maybe it was you, Beth. That one also fits into the first quarter theme for Reading Globally so I am still hoping I can squeeze it into March.

Nice to see you back Anne. Have a lovely Easter. xx

Happy Easter, Anne!