mstrust's challenges and stuff

Okay, I think I have some good categories for this year.

Just The Facts- non-fiction
Exciting and New- new-to-me authors
The Geriatric Fan Club- ancient histories, fiction or plays
It's Grown Roots- books that have been on my shelves for a while
Brit Lit- because I'm gonna read it
It's A Small World- authors from exotic lands and cultures
Hoppin' The Rails- travel
What's That Noise?- mysteries
That Dame Ain't Nothin' But Trouble- noir
Just Stick Your Hand In- the grab bag category

I'll be starting January 1st. Books in bold have been or are being read.

Yay! A Noir category. I had one, before I changed it to be completely David Goodis. I did slip a few noir books into other categories to make up for it, though. I'll be watching for your picks and comments!

I've never read David Goodis but I'll have to look for him. I always appreciate recommendations. For my noir books I have some Raymond Chandler, Dorothy Hughes and Jim Thompson (my favorite) lined up. I'm looking forward to starting.

I'm going to start listing the books that I'll most likely read for each category. All of these are books I already own but as books are constantly coming through the door, there may be some slight variations. I'll be happy to try to match the reading of a certain book with someone if I can. I'll be reading In A Lonely Place with VictoriaPL and jonesi in late January and I'll be doing the Atwood group read in April.

JUST THE FACTS- NON-FICTION

1. The Wreck of the Medusa I loves me a shipwreck.
2. The Tragic Fate of the U.S.S. Indianapolis This is the ship Quint spoke of.
3. Cannibalism and the Common Law Because you want to know your legal rights.
4. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew- See review 1/13/10
6. Will in the World I love the Elizabethan period.
7. Marie Antoinette My first Fraser and it's about time.
8. Running With Scissors
9. The Man Who Mistook His Wife For His Hat See Review 8/31/10
10. The Great Stink
11.Patience and Fortitude See Review 8/4/10
12. Shoes, Bags and Tiaras See Review 4/15/10
13. Watching The English See Review 4/27/10
14. Controversy Creates Cash See Review 6/12/10
15. The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd See Review 7/30/10
16. Famous Jewelry Collectors See Review 8/2/10
17. Jamie at Home See Review 8/3/10
18. The Arrogance of the French See Review 11/17/10
19. Decorating with Books See review 12/7/10
20. A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans See Review 12/12/10

EXCITING AND NEW: NEW-TO-ME AUTHORS

1. Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work See Review 9/16/10
2. Going Postal Yep, never read Pratchett before. December read.
3. Cranford Or Gaskell. See review 1/5/10.
4. Mr. Timothy
5. Lest Darkness Fall See Review 2/1/10
6. The Tropic of Cancer Wasn't this the book Jerry held onto for all those years?
7. The Monster Club I'm such a huge fan of this campy movie! See review 1/8/10
8. Compulsion See Review 9/28/10
9. Waiting for Godot See Review 1/28/10
10.Good Omens See Review 3/1/10
11. Love's Shadow See Review 3/30/10. An ER.
12.8998416::Time Among The Dead An ER. See Review 4/29/10
13. A Touch of Dead See Review 6/11/10

THE GERIATRIC FAN CLUB: ANCIENT WRITINGS

1. Life and Leisure in Ancient Rome CURRENTLY READING
2. The Comedies of Terence
3. Libraries in the Ancient World
4. Medea and other plays by Euripedes See Review 11/9/10

IT'S GROWN ROOTS: BEEN ON MY SHELVES A LONG TIME

1. The Stories of John Cheever
2. I Am Legend See Review 10/9/10
3. Frankenstein See Review 10/7/10
4. Gone With The Wind Currently Reading
5. Wide Sargasso Sea See Review 1/22/10
6. Money
7. The Neverending Story A July group read. See Review 7/26/10
8. Tulip Fever
9. A City In Winter See Review 12/9/10

BRIT LIT

This is one of my categories that I know will expand later.

1. England, England
2. Popcorn Currently Reading
3. The Go-Between I read his The Hireling and loved it.
4. Neverwhere
5. Decline and Fall Why haven't I read this one yet???
6.The Professionals: Long Shot See Review 8/27/10
7. Worst Nightmares See Review 10/12/10
8. The Fourth Bear
9. The Arctic Incident Book II in the Artemis Fowl series. See Review 2/4/10
10. The Professionals:Where The Jungle Ends See Review 8/13/10
11. The Professionals: Long Shot See Review 8/27/10
12. The Professionals: Stake Out See Review 9/10/10
13. The Other Side See Review 10/16/10
14. The Eternity Code Book III of the Artemis Fowl series. See Review 11/24/10
15. The Sweet Dove Died See Review 12/27/10

IT'S A SMALL WORLD: AUTHORS FROM EXOTIC LANDS OR CULTURES

1. Man of Two Tribes The main character is half aborigine and solves crimes in the outback. See review 1/1/10.
2. Bonjour Tristesse See Review 8/10/10
3. Palace Walk
4. The Temple of the Golden Pavilion I read about Mishima's infamous actions and of course had to find one of his books.
5. If On A Winter's Night A Traveler...
6. The Bachelors of Broken Hill See Review 3/23/10.
7. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo See Review 7/8/10
8. Night See Review 8/14/10

HOPPIN' THE RAILS: TRAVEL

I love travel guides, travel essays, travel photography...

1. Travels with Alice
2. Cape Cod Stories See Review 9/6/10
3. Something To Declare by Julian Barnes Touchstones having trouble.
4. O Canada See Review 11/15/10
5.The Anglo Files See review 1/16/10
6. The Wordy Shipmates See Review 3/12/10
7. My Love Affair with England
8.Culture Smart! New Zealand See Review 3/28/10
9. Peaceful Los Angeles See Review 7/17/10
Touchstones aren't picking up most of these? Really?

WHAT'S THAT NOISE? :MYSTERIES

1. The Man In The QueueSee Review 6/9/10
2. The Singing Sands See Review 12/20/10
3. In The Woods See Review 10/23/10
4. Overture To Death My first Marsh. See Review 3/7/10
5. Brat Farrar See Review 3/20/10
6. The Dead of Jericho See Review 11/6/10
7. The Mysterious Affair at Styles See Review 9/14/10
8. Third Girl See Review 8/22/10
9. The Secret Adversary See Review 11/13/10
10. Malice Aforethought See Review 1/26/10
11. The Adventure of the Six NapoleonsSee Review 4/10/10
12. The Poisoned Chocolates Case See Review 5/27/10
13. The Murder on the Links See Review 12/5/10
14. Maigret and the Man on the Bench See Review 12/15/10

THAT DAME AIN'T NOTHING BUT TROUBLE: NOIR

1. Pop. 1280 See Review 6/18/10
2. In A Lonely Place See Review 1/20/10
3. Recoil
4. A Swell-Looking Babe See Review 2/6/10
5. The Getaway
6. The Big Sleep
7. The Black Dahlia
8. Wild Town
9. Blood's A Rover I won this for a noir contest on DailyLit.
10. I'll Bury My Dead

JUST STICK YOUR HAND IN: GRAB-BAG CATEGORY

This is for the books that fall outside my other categories. I'm sure this group will expand as the year goes on.

1. Selected poems of W.H. Auden
2. The Scary Stories Treasury
3.Alias Grace Group read for April. See Review 4/9/10.
4. Mommy Knows Worst- See review 1/6/10
5.The Other Side by R. Chetwynd-Hayes The touchstone for this is wrong. This is from the British horror author.
6. Look At My Striped Shirt! See Review 2/7/10
7. Homer and Langley See Review 2/10/10
8. How To Cure A Hangover See Review 2/9/10
9. The Haunting of Hill House See Review 2/16/10
10. Metropolitan Jewelry See Review 2/17/10
11. Extraordinary Pigeons See Review 3/2/10
12. Where to Find Gold & Gems in Nevada See Review 3/5/10
13. Life's Little Annoyances by Ian Urbina See Review 4/1/10
14. After The Fall See Review 4/12/10
15. The Areas of My Expertise See Review 5/8/10
16. Stuff White People Like See Review 5/20/10
17. Krapp's Last Tape See Review 5/20/10
18. The Professionals by Bob Rocca See Review 6/14/10
19. Bizarre Books See Review 6/8/10
20. Cake Wrecks See Review 6/22/10
21. Elizabeth Takes Off See Review 7/10/10
22. 2373583::Bad Bridesmaid See Review 8/1/10
23. Confessions of a French Baker See Review 8/1/10
24. 10322::We Thought You Would Be Prettier See Review 9/1/10
25. 6320::The Phantom Tollbooth See Review 9/19/10
26. The Scary Stories Treasury See Review 10/6/10
27.9082630::Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter See Review 11/2/10
28. 965852::Barrel Fever See Review 11/26/10
29. Other People's Love Letters See Review 12/6/10

Two noir titles I really enjoyed:

The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont
Parker: The Hunter adapted by Darwyn Cooke

Thank you, kristenn. I hadn't heard of either of those and I see they both have good reviews.

Okay, I'm gearing up for a busy year. At this point I believe I'll begin with Man of Two Tribes and What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew. I've recently made a big book order so I'll be adding more to my lists.

First book of the new year and it's a really good one-

1. Man of Two Tribes by Arthur Upfield. I've read one or two Australian authors but as I like big cities this is the first book I've read placed in the Plain and it's the first I've read from Upfield. This features Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte, known as Bony, a half Aborigine who always breaks the case. Bony isn't one of those superhero type detectives; he believes in hard work and perseverance.
Bony is sent out to the Nullarbor Plain to search for one missing murderess but instead finds a whole nest of murderers. I found this story gripping and so well done. I'm now a fan of Upfield. ****

I'm starting Cranford today.

2. Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell. Gaskell is one of the authors I've discovered through LT and Cranford is considered her best work. It's tempting to call Cranford charming, because it is in many parts, but it is also crude and sad in other sections, and it has quite a body count. At one point I wondered if anybody would escape death in the little village.
A young narrator, unnamed throughout most of the story, relates the goings-on of Cranford, a village populated by many middle-aged and elderly unmarried women (I hate the word 'spinster'). They have regular meetings to play cards, have tea and share local gossip. A particular favorite of mine was Miss Pole, who can start and carry on an argument with anyone about anything. I enjoyed this eventful book a lot. ****and a half.

I read Cranford for the first time just before Christmas and also enjoyed it quite a lot. I wanted to read the book before watching the encore presentation on Masterpiece Theater over the last 3 Sundays. Have you seen the TV adaptation? I was a bit disappointed with it.

I saw about half of part I and I have Part II taped but haven't watched it yet. I didn't know it was in three parts. What did you find disappointing?

>21 mstrust: Judi Dench is a great actress and I generally like her work, but I think she was miscast as Miss Matty. I would have preferred to see someone like Janine Duvitski (Jane in the series Waiting for God) or Josephine Tewson (Elizabeth in the series Keeping Up Appearances) in the role. Also, one of the male characters who died early in the book was still living in the TV version when Miss Matty encountered her financial problems. It seemed a rather important point in the book that, for whatever reason, men didn't manage to live very long in Cranford, and that seems like a substantial change rather than a minor alteration!

All 3 episodes are available to watch online for now, but I don't know how long they'll be left up.

I have to agree that when I saw Dench playing what started as a simpering character I thought it was strange casting. She normally has such a strong presence that I always expect her to slap somebody! But actors are always wanting to go against type so maybe she had fun. I haven't seen the part with the man still being alive yet. Yes, I can see Tewson as Matty, and wouldn't Hyacinth have made a great Deborah!

>23 mstrust: I hadn't thought of her as Deborah, but yes, she would have been great!

3. Mommy Knows Worst by James Lileks. I love Lileks books as he is about the most sarcastic and witty author I know of. This book gathers parental advice from about 1915 on up to the early 60's and mercilessly makes fun of it. As Lileks himself says in the introduction, "This book is so unfair...for the most part they (the experts) got it right...But when they were wrong, they were brilliantly wrong. Incandescently wrong." Probably my favorite in the book is an old ad, maybe from the 40's, featuring an enraged father wielding a hairbrush as he chases a terrified little boy down the front porch. The ad copy has the boy saying," If he spanks me, I'm gonna run away from home!" The ad was for a children's laxative product! Maybe the parent was meant to show the picture to their own child and scare the crap out of them. *****

4. The Monster Club by R. Chetwynd-Hayes. "Monsters Rule OK! Sorry, but anyone who's a fan of the fantastic 1980 movie based on this book would get that. This is a collection of short stories, published in 1975, tied together by the story within the story.
A man, Donald, finds a starving man on the streets of London. He takes him home and makes him a meal but the starving man is actually a vampire who hasn't feed in weeks. As an apology for attacking Donald, the vampire takes him to an underground club where all the members are monsters-vampires, ghouls, vamgoos, werevamps, and mocks. Donald listens as various monsters tell about their experiences, most all ending badly, with humans, and invite Donald to share a meal in the club restaurant.
Now, I don't normally read horror, but Chetwynd-Hayes creates such sinister stories that, even when writing about a town of ghouls who bury a young man alive so that they can dig him up and eat him, don't have the "gross-out" factor. It's just good, imaginative writing and luckily he was an extremely prolific author. *****

I keep buying/adding more books to this challenge. I bring them home and look at which category they can fit into and by God, I will make them fit.
The newest additions are The Other Side, The Bachelors of Broken Hill, The Wordy Shipmates and My Love Affair with England.

5. What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew by Daniel Pool. I bought this at a bookstore in Chicago that specializes in travel/cultural books. I thought, from the title, that it would be a fun read. Not that it isn't fun, but it's much more detailed and researched than I expected. Really. If you've ever wondered about the different coins used in a Dickens novel or the rules for a card game played by the Bennetts, this book explains it. It also lists the many surprising items people were taxed for, like windows, hats and male servants and so explains why someone who had windows in every room was very wealthy. Also handy is that it translates the Victorian terms for illnesses into modern language. ****

I'll be starting The Anglo Files.

#28 When I began reading your description, I was thinking "mmm, no". By the time I got to the end, I'd changed my mind. Actually looks pretty interesting. Thanks for the recommendation.

Your welcome! It will continue to come in handy for explaining all those things that puzzle me when reading a book from that period. Also, it has an extended glossary in the back that makes finding a quick explanation easy.

6. The Anglo Files: A Field Guide to the British by Sarah Lyall. Lyall is an American who was a reporter for the New York Times when she met and married her English husband about a dozen years ago. They live in London, she works for British papers now and her children are English. In those years Lyall has researched the many ways the British and American minds differ on subjects such as education, the legal system, sex and money. She addresses the subjects that have become stereotypes, such as British food, dental care and their dislike for much of American life. She was present when the House of Lords lost their heredity rights.
This was one that I couldn't put down. I found the many, many footnotes to contain almost as much insight as the actual text. Lyall's goal isn't to make the reader laugh, although there is humor, but she's a reporter. She tells the reader, "This is what I saw, this is who I talked to and this is how the situation has changed." *****

>32 mstrust: That one's on my TBR shelves. Your review makes me want to find time to read it soon.

I'd had this one on my 'need-to-own' list for a long time before I finally found it and bought it. I think it's so well worth it.

I had to drop The Minotaur by Barbara Vine from my Crime section to make room for the group read of Brat Farrar in March.

I'm enjoying your reviews and have seen several that I want to add to my WL. What an eclectic collection already--fun!

Thanks for stopping by and I'm glad you're finding some good suggestions! You are so right-my reading choices do bounce all over the place.

#32 That sounds too interesting to let pass - I've added it to the wishlist and hope I can get to it soon!

Fun category names, and interesting books as well. I've added almost everything you've read so far to my list!

Love Brat Farrar. Her best book, I think. That or The Franchise Affair.

sjmccreary and Lisa- I'm happy to find others who share my eclectic taste and hopefully you'll like these books as much as I do. I've been lucky so far this year as nothing has sucked. Oh, but the year has just begun. ;)

cmbohn- I haven't read The Franchise Affair yet. I really liked Ms. Pym Disposes but I LOVED The Daughter of Time. It's so unlike any other mystery and it made me a Tey fan.

Weird. My mother had The Daughter of Time and I finally read it a few years ago and absolutely loved it. She also had Brat Farrar, but it had such a skeevy contemporary (mass market paperback) cover that I never made the connection. It looked like one of her Travis McGees. Now I need to track down a copy.

7. In A Lonely Place by Dorothy B. Hughes. So very noir that I pictured the whole story in black and white.
Dix Steele (how many pornstar wanna-bes are kicking themselves for not thinking up that name?) is a serial killer, and his best friend, Brum, is a cop. So the mystery isn't one of who did it or who will catch the killer as the reader already knows these things. Instead, Hughes keeps us guessing as to which of the three potential victims offered up will Dix choose next. It just boils down to who does he hate more?
Hughes does a commendable job of writing in the voice of a man, and a psychotic one at that. Dix's mind ricochets between anger, hunger and sleep deprivation with the occasional bouts of joy over tricking his cop friend to give him lots of police information. His version of falling in love, as he does with a neighbor, shows Dix in full stalker mode and gives the reader another scary aspect of his personality.
I'm glad I've finally discovered Hughes and I'll be reading more from her. ****

In a Lonely Place looks like a fun read. Putting it on the TBR mountain, thanks.

Ha! Loved his name too.
I enjoyed reading In A Lonely Place with you! We'll have to pick another Hughes book to read sometime.

Definitely! And let me know when you've read The Killer Inside Me and we'll have a chat about that as well.

8. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. This novel is narrated by a young Creole girl, Antoinette, whose father is missing and mother is ostracized by the natives. She has a a native nanny who seems to know too much and the family is poor. Antoinette describes the feelings of never belonging to either the rich white population or the poor islanders, of her lack of friends and her mother's strange behavior. As Antoinette grows and is eventually married off to an English stranger, we realize that she has become Mrs. Rochester, the madwoman locked in Thornfield Hall in Bronte's Jane Eyre.
It's difficult to know what to say about this book. The subject matter is ambitious and Rhys is able to confer such sympathy for Antoinette as she shows the girl's descent into madness. The reader is left unsure if Antoinette would have been mad no matter the situation, as her mother had been, or if it was brought on by heartbreak at the hands of her cold husband.
I wish I could gush about this novel but I found the writing too esoteric for my taste. There are plenty of sentences and paragraphs that read like poetry but made me struggle to understand what, if any, information was being conveyed. ***

>47 mstrust: Wide Sargasso Sea is in my to be read pile. I'll have to see if I have the same impressions you had. I've got two or three books in queue ahead of it, but I should get to it soon.

Do let me know what you thought. I'm sure there are plenty of others who click with this book better than I did.

Okay, so more books came in yesterday and I've made some additions. Watching the English has been added to the "Hoppin' the Rails" category and Waiting for Godot has been added to the "Exciting and New" category. I also acquired Half-Moon by Eoin Colfer but haven't added it in yet.

Half-Moon is a cute read and I've been waiting for a sequel thats never come. I also have The Daughter of Time on my TBR pile now I'm really looking forward to it.

susie- I'm waiting for another Colfer now, it's in the mail. Let me know what you think of The Daughter of Time when you're done.

I requested a copy of The Daughter of Time on bookmooch a month or so ago and I am still waiting for it to get here. I can't wait to read it! I have heard great things about it recently.

It's an amazing book because it makes you rethink everything you thought you knew about Richard III and English history.

9. Malice Aforethought by Francis Iles.
"It was not until several weeks after he had decided to murder his wife that Dr. Bickleigh took any active steps in the matter. Murder is a serious business." These are the first lines of the book, and yet knowing what little henpecked Dr. Bickleigh has decided to do doesn't keep the reader from saying, "Yea, kill her." Mrs. Bickleigh is so unlikeable to her husband, neighbors and the reader that we want to see our timid doctor accomplish his goal. Then he can marry his real love, young heiress Madeleine. But the doctor lets each bit of success go to his head and it turns out that some people really should have their egos restrained by a domineering spouse.
This is one of the best mysteries I've ever read, on par with Murder on the Orient Express. It doesn't matter that we know that Dr. Bickleigh is the murderer or that we see his plan step-by-step. The transformation in his and other characters is masterful and the ending is impossible to guess. *****

Glad to hear Malice Aforethought is so good. It's sitting on my TBR shelf, patiently waiting it's turn.

10. Waiting For Godot by Samuel Beckett. Hobos Vladimir and Estragon wait and wait, discuss suicide, religion and violence, meet the cruel Pozzo and his robotic slave Lucky, try on shoes and hats and eat vegetables.
While reading this I wondered why this play, first performed in 1952, hadn't been the catalyst to the new wave of British theater rather than Osborne's Look Back In Anger, which came four years later. Waiting For Godot was certainly a radical play for it's time, with surrealists bits of disjointed conversation, references to random violence, slavery and Vladimir's urinary problems. Then, at the back I saw the answer. This play had it's first run in Paris, in French, where Irishman Beckett had lived much of his life.
The characters are so well-defined that I could hear them speaking, and now I need to see it live. But done by professional actors, as I could see bad actors making a mess of this. ****and a half

Waiting for Godot and Malice Aforethought are two that I loved last year. And I hear that Mystery! on PBS did an excellent version of Malice Aforethought, but I haven't seen it yet.

cmbohn- my copy of Malice Aforethought features a Masterpiece Theater cover but it's from the early 80's. If that's the only version I'd still watch it, but I would think they've done a more recent version. Have to check Netflix.

Godot is notoriously difficult to do really well in performance. It is a delicate balance between humor and pathos that is very hard to maintain. I've seen it twice, and played Estragon in a college production (ages ago). It is definitely worth seeking out. The Beckett play I would love to see performed is Endgame, but I've never had the opportunity.

Yes, I could see that Waiting For Godot would really test an actor's skill. Some would play it too much for laughs, like sad clowns. I haven't read Endgame yet, but I will be reading more of Beckett.

11. Lest Darkness Fall by L. Sprague de Camp. 20th Century Archeologist Martin Padway suddenly finds himself transported back to Ancient Rome on the eve of the Dark Ages. He decides to try and head off the fall of Rome.
I found this book tiring. The writing isn't so great and I began to wonder if it had been meant for children, and maybe it was, as it was written in the late '30's, when science fiction was very popular with children. My problem was the almost complete lack of inner dialogue. Padway is caught in a sudden thunderstorm and POOF! he's now two thousand years back in time. There's really no exploration of how he feels about it, if he's frightened, worried, elated. He doesn't even set about trying to get back- instead, his first thought is to find a money exchanger! It's this lack of emotion in the characters that made reading this a real grind. **

12. Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident by Eoin Colfer. This is book two in the Artemis Fowl series. Briar Cudgeon, the humiliated former leader of LEPrecon, organizes the goblin community to overthrow The People and give him absolute power. Meanwhile, Artemis is sent messages that make him believe his father, a career criminal who has been missing for two years, is still alive and being held captive in the Arctic Circle.
There's so much going on here that it's constant action. Many of the characters from the last book reappear and Artemis is thirteen now and loses much of his arrogance now that he has a chance at seeing his father again. I think of these Artemis Fowl books as a pubescent James Bond in the land of Harry Potter. ****

13. A Swell-Looking Babe by Jim Thompson. The Oedipus Complex, Thompson-style.
Young college drop-out Bill "Dusty" Rhodes is working as a bellboy at the Manton Hotel until he can get his life situated so he can go back to school. But the money is good and the job is easy and Dusty has his sick old father to support. He loves his dad but doesn't understand where the old man spends all the money Dusty gives him. Then the swell-looking babe, a gray-haired older woman, checks into the hotel and Dusty can't stop thinking about how beautiful she is and how much she reminds him of his deceased mom.
Another hotel guest happens to be the local mob boss who Dusty owes a favor to and dad's lawyer, a wily little guy, keeps popping up.
Everybody wants something, and in Thompson's books you know they'll get what they deserve. I enjoy his books because Thompson could delve into taboo subjects, which was really his forte, in a way that fit in with the pulp writing of the time while still writing clearly enough to shock modern readers. In his novels he went back to the subject of insanity over and over again while giving each character their own reason for their insanity and their own warped perceptions. While this novel is good, The Killer Inside Me is Thompson's best. ****

I have one Jim Thompson on my tbr shelves, A Hell of a Woman. I probably should move it up a few steps on the ladder so it's closer to actually getting read.

You'll have to let me know how many times you read the last couple of paragraphs. Trust me, you will re-read the last paragraphs.

14. Look At My Striped Shirt! by The Phat Phree. This is a weird book that I could only put in my 'Just Stick Your Hand In' category. It's humorous essays supposedly written by the most annoying segments of the American population, like the couple who will fight to be the first off a plane, the convenience store clerk who hates his customers or the office coordinator who barely restrains her rage in a memo about stolen snacks. Pretty funny and accurate. *** and a half.

15. How To Cure A Hangover by Andrew Irving. 220 pages on how to deal with a pounding head. Irving is a doctor who studies the effects of alcohol on health, so there's a lot of info on how the body reacts to drink by gender, size, and type of alcohol. There are many 'hair of the dog' and non-alcoholic pick-me-up recipes that have science behind them (a combination of fat, protein and sugar really does help) and Irving ends with a final piece of advice for those who still have hangovers if all else fails-go to AA. ****

16. Homer and Langley by E.L. Doctorow. A fictionalized account of Homer and Langley Collyer, two infamous brothers who turned their Fifth Avenue mansion into a junk-filled health hazard. I remember reading a little about the Collyers as a kid; they were in some book my parents had that listed eccentrics.
It was an unusual step for Doctorow to bring the brothers into modern times, at least into the 1970's, as I believe they actually died in the 1940's. Maybe he thought they died too young, or maybe he wanted to show them as modern-day hoarders. Though the hoarding problem was Langley's and became more pronounced as the book goes on, the story is focused on the bond between the brothers, their views of the world and Homer's attempts to form relationships.

***SPOILER***
I was also waiting to see how Doctorow would handle their deaths, as poor Homer did starve to death after Langley was crushed under a pile of his belongings. Doctorow's ending is sudden and sad.
*******
This was my first Doctorow. ****

I just finished Homer and Langley as well and really enjoyed it. It was also my first book by Doctorow. When reading it I didn't realize the real life brothers died as early as they did. I liked how Doctorow brought them up to a more modern time period. I thought bringing in the hippies was an interesting idea. I also found the ending quite abrubt and was a bit confused as to how they actually died until I did some research on the real life brothers.

****SPOILER****

Yes, when I read the ending I thought it might not satisfy a reader who didn't know anything about the real brothers. If you knew what actually happened it makes more sense, because what else could he say.
I also thought the hippies were an interesting idea and I was surprised that he had Langley hoarding computers and electronic keyboards.

Yeah! The giant VNSA book sale in Phoenix is finally here! I've just returned and here's what I got-and I'll be going back tomorrow.

Australia: Journey Through A Timeless Land
The Tour Guide of The British Museum
The World's Best- no touchstone
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat
A Tour Guide to Prague
A Passion For Books
Grendel
Orchid Fever
Flashman and the Angel of the Lord
No Fond Return of Love
Quartet in Autumn
An Unsuitable attachment
The Sweet Dove Died
Quantum of Solace
Behind the Scenes at the Museum
The Continental Op
A Taste For Death

Now where am I going to put all these?

Yep, I ask myself that every time I return from the library book sale. I haven't found an answer beyond reshelving my book shelves so as to fit more books in sideways and along the top and doubleshelved.

But complaining about too many fantastic books to read is like complaining about an over-full wine cellar, too many flowers blooming in the garden or too many good friends.

#73 - I like the way you think RidgewayGirl!

Me too! Also you've reminded me that I need wine.

So here is today's haul and it will give me the fun of squeezing/pushing/balancing this lot in. *giggle*

The Great Stink
Sir Harry Hotspur of Humblethwaite
The Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans
Alec Guinness: My Name Escapes Me
Krapp's Last Tape and other dramatic pieces
The English Drama: 900-1642
Miss Zukas and the Library Murders
Booked To Die
Wodehouse: Four Plays
Three Doors to Death
The Black Tower
Northanger Abbey A nicer copy than mine.
High Fidelity
Culture Smart: New Zealand
Rumpole and the Reign of Terror
Personality
The Royal Hunt of the Sun
The Trunk Murderess
Treasures of the Library: Trinity College Dublin
A Spot of Bother
Zombies of the Gene Pool
She Walks These Hills
Tales of the Alhambra
The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
Into the Wild
Ciao, America!
Travels with Alice
Paris to the Moon
Year of Wonders
The Sea
Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France
Interpreter of Maladies
Cape Cod Stories
Demonology
Almost French
Shakespeare's Britain
Victoria & Albert Museum: A Hundred Highlights
The Royal Pavilion Brighton
Metropolitan Jewelry

I just checked out She Walks These Hills, but I haven't started it yet.

>76 mstrust: Looks like you got a lot of good books!

A very nice haul. Have you considered any shelving possibilities in your bathroom? The hall closet?

The Trunk Murderess is an interesting book, especially since you are in Phoenix. It told me that even newish boomtowns have a history.

cmbohn- I know I won't be getting to She Walks These Hills soon, but when I do we'll compare notes.

thornton- yes, even I was surprised at this year's haul. I usually end up with about 30 books but this year was 60, including the 4 or 5 my husband found for himself.

RidgewayGirl- Good idea! I recently had to clear out the library closet and put my Will Durant's in there. Can't put anything in the bathroom because I take hot showers. My solution was to re-arrange the art, travel and American history sections. I ended up with just one book (on extreme topiaries) that couldn't possibly be squeezed in so it ended up in the closet. I'm looking for some sturdy curio shelves for the guest room that I can at least put paperbacks on.
I am looking forward to The Trunk Murderess. I don't really care for Bommersbach as she seems to do nothing but yell and complain in the local media, but she did have a long correspondence with Judd so I'll give it a shot.

Nice haul! I just started The Black Tower.

jonesli- I've never read P.D. James but I had to try one after seeing the Youtube vid of her running circles around a suit from the BBC during an interview. She's 90 years old and razor sharp.

17. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson. Dr. Montague, wanting to find concrete evidence of ghosts, rents Hill House for the summer. Set miles from the local town, the house has the reputation for being haunted and even for causing two deaths. The doctor invites several people to stay in the house with him, watching for activity and taking notes to be included in his book. One of the guests is Eleanor, a young woman who has no one and no home. It doesn't take long before the house seems to know who would make the easiest prey.
The more I read of Jackson's work the more I like her. She writes such sinister stories that I wonder why she isn't held in the same regard as Poe or Stoker. This book is really chilling. ****

***SPOILER***
How scary is it? I was on my couch reading, and I was at the point when Eleanor really loses it and goes running around the house chasing the voices, when a phone company employee threw a phone book into my front door. I think I jumped two feet. LOL.

18. Metropolitan Jewelry by Sophie McConnell. This book was put out by the Metropolitan Museum of Art and since I collect art books, gem and jewelry books and visited the museum last year, I'm pretty lucky to have grabbed this one over the weekend.
The book covers not only the actual jewelry owned by the museum but also paintings throughout history that feature amazing jewelry, such as works by Holbein, Manet and panels from ancient Egypt. My favorite pieces were a 1919 diamond, platinum and tortoise shell haircomb by Tiffany and a 1550 French gold and enamel ring that features a portrait of Alexander the Great in blue glass. ****

I just finished The Haunting of Hill House too! It was so moody and perfectly paced. It was so scary I had to stop reading it in bed last night and finish it in the morning!

Jackson's had quite a talent. And I like that much of the mood is built so subtly that "creepy" is a perfect word for it.
I read We Have Always Lived In The Castle last year and have Come Along With Me on my shelves but I don't know when I'll get to it.

Wow, it's been a long time! The problem was with:

19. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett. Agnes Nutter was a prolific and accurate witch who wrote a book of predictions three hundred years ago. Her book has descended down in her family and everyone has taken a crack at deciphering her meaning. Some of the predictions seem to say that the world will come to an end. Meanwhile, the son of Satan is born, an angel and a demon work together to head off the Apocalypse and the Four Horseman roam around England. Oh, and there's a semi-mad Witchfinder and a group of kids causing trouble as they plot to rule the world.

I had trouble getting into this book. The first hundred pages are filled with introductions to characters, of which there are LOTS, and setting up the story for what will come later. To me it read like lots and lots of short vignettes that didn't start to take shape into a plot until that 100 page mark when things really started rolling. Still, I could see where this book would have many fans who love it. There is some witty dialogue. This is one that is not a favorite for me but might be much better for others. ***

So I've just come home from Vegas and here's some souvenirs to find places for. At this point I'm desperate for space. *I know, I can hear the world's smallest violin playing.*

Night
Jane and the Genius of the Place
Who the Hell is Pansy O'Hara?
The Areas of My Expertise
Essays by Michel De Montaigne
The Deportees and other stories
Where To Find Gold and Gems in Nevada
The Arsonist's Guide to Writer's Homes in New England
Extraordinary Pigeons
Woman's Day Cookbook

No violins here. We all understand in the most personal way. Enjoy the beautiful new additions to your home.

For me, the next big temptation comes in the form of the Friends of the Library book sale, coming up in less than two months. I can hold off until then. I think.

Our Friends of the Library sale is in four days.

I'm doomed.

Oooh, I love our Friends of the Library sale. It's in April. I spent some times re-arranging bookshelves today to try and squeeze in the new ones and it really didn't make much of a difference.

20. Extraordinary Pigeons by Stephen Green-Armytage. I just love finding books that cover unusual or weird subjects; ones that I know I will never see again if I don't grab them. This is one of those books.
I'm not a bird person and we have pigeons that drive us crazy by nesting on our roof, and I know they are basically rats with wings. But the pigeons in this book are works of art. There are fantails who puff up their chests and spread their feathers like a tiny turkey. Hooded pigeons have their feathers curving around their bodies and look like a woman in a fur coat, and frillbacks have tightly curling feathers that makes them resemble poodles. The photography here is excellent, along the lines of Monkey Portraits. ****

21. Where to Find Gold & Gems in Nevada by James Klein. Not surprised that there's no touchstone for this one as it seems to be old and self-published. I picked it up on my last trip to Vegas as my husband and I have talked for some time about doing some prospecting for opals in eastern Nevada. We may go do it next month so this book may come in handy. Otherwise, it seems a bit dry with the information arranged strangely. ***

22. Overture to Death by Ngaio Marsh. The little English village of Chipping has decided to put on a play starring the local rector and the two harpy spinsters who are fighting over him. When one of the women is murdered in view of the whole village, Inspector Alleyn of Scotland Yard is sent in.
This was my first Marsh and I found that it lived up to her reputation as a rival/contemporary of Christie. Her characters are layered and the mystery unusual. I think this one could have benefited by being about 50 pages shorter, but I enjoyed it to the end. ****

I'm going to have to find some Ngaio Marsh I didn't realize they were similar to Christie.Thanks for the review.

Yes, very similar as far as time period, settings, type of character. Hope you like her too.

23. The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell. Vowell does extensive research on the Puritans and the birth of America as we now know it. She has studied the legal documents and personal letters of the men who established the first English villages in North America, and the ways they nearly annihilated the native tribes.
I happen to like history and have studied this time period, so I do recommend this book highly for the history buff. Vowell has an interesting, dry wit that keeps things moving at a good pace. However, I'd guess that someone who doesn't like history, especially someone put off by Puritan history which can be pretty annoying with all the "God said so" and punishment for individuality, wouldn't bother to get far into this book. Vowell isn't an impartial bystander as she's part Native American, but this book is heavily researched and she's able to put an identity to some of those scary Puritan leaders. ****

24. Brat Farrar by Josephine Tey. Brat is a young man and orphan who's been roaming the world. Returning to England after several years in America working with horses, Brat is persuaded to pass himself off as Patrick Ashby, the missing heir to an extensive horse property. Welcomed back by the shocked Ashby family, Brat begins to wonder what really happened to Patrick.
This was for the group read but I owned the book already and needed to get around to it. I've been a fan of Tey's since reading A Daughter of Time and that one is still my favorite so far, but this is a good one too. Really, the mystery comes very near the end of the book unless you count the question of whether Brat will get away with his ruse or if his guilty conscience will cause him to confess. The majority of the book is in seeing how each family member reacts to the return of their brother and how Brat reacts to having a family for the first time in his life. ***and a half.

25. The Bachelors of Broken Hill by Arthur Upfield. Someone is murdering the men of the prosperous Australian town of Broken Hill. Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte is sent on a special assignment to find out how and why the targets are all elderly, sloppy bachelors.

This is just my second Bony mystery and I see an enormous difference in the Inspector between this book, which is early in the series, and Man of Two Tribes which I read a few months ago. In this early book Bony is surprisingly arrogant. He reminded me quite a bit of Hercule Poirot in his assurance that all was right now that he was on the case. The MOTT was written a few years later and shows a humble and quiet Inspector. I want to read more Bony mysteries to see if the change is explained somewhere.
The mystery here is difficult to guess as the police keep changing their minds about the gender of the suspect. ****

I finally got around to reading A Hell of a Woman and going back to message 66, I ended up reading the ending 4 times. 1st time I read it I didn't have a clue what was going on so read it again and still didn't twig. It wasn't until I started looking at others comments about reading the double narrative separately that the penny dropped so had to read each of those again. Seeing as yours was the only one on LT I've added my comments to the reviews as well as to my 1010 Category Challenge thread.

I'm finally catching up on all the threads from when I was on vacation and had to smile at the posts about how you all talk about the Friends of the Library Sale (singular). Maybe because RI is so small but I do Friends of the Library Sales (plural). There are 5 or 6 that I hit every spring ( all within about a 20 minute drive) and some have another one in the fall and then there's the Pet Refuge Sale which has even more books than the libraries it seems. And I usually come home with 2 big cloth bags full of books - from each one. I have no where to put more books - I've rearranged over and over and use the closet shelves that I can't reach. But will I let that stop me - h*ll no!

Thanks for stopping by, Wolfy and Dude-

Wolfy, I think it's because we think, "He can't really mean what he seems to be saying." Or maybe that you're hoping he doesn't mean what he seems to be saying. Thompson liked to shock his readers and sometimes I imagine him saying to himself, "How can I make sure nobody uses my books to read themselves to sleep?"

Dude, We have a major book sale in Phoenix every February at the state fairgrounds. People come from all over the country and it lasts two days. Then the library has it's big sale twice a year in a warehouse downtown. Also, 2 minutes down the street from me is a used bookstore that does a $2 hardcover sale several times a year. And I got to the Strand in New York late last year and shipped two boxes of books home.
Like you, I'm to the point where I walk in the house with new books and have to re-arrange half my library to fit them in. Actually, I'm to the point where books are being stacking lying down so I can fit more on the shelves.

That sale in Phoenix is ginormous. Do you spend the entire day? The local FOL booksale is much, much smaller and it still takes me 4-5 hours to do it justice.

Normally I go just on Sunday and spend about 4 hours there. This year I went for an hour on Saturday and 3 hours on Sunday. At the FOL sale last spring I went for 2 days and lost track of time. I left when I couldn't carry anymore and I was hungry.

26. Culture Smart! New Zealand by Sue Butler. This book series has very little in the way of photos and maps but instead focuses on the society of NZ. It tells about the almost side by side English/Maori culture here, the feelings towards nearby Aussies, work, leisure and even table manners. At first I missed having lots of color photos, as NZ is a very green country, but the info on what the people are like gives more of an idea about a country. ****

27. Love's Shadow by Ada Leverson. Hyacinth is young, beautiful and popular with her London social set. So why does she fall in love with Cecil, who is in love with Eugenia, on older, plain widow? And why does Eugenia want to marry Cecil's uncle, since she admits she doesn't love him any more than she loves Cecil? And how does Hyacinth's friend Edith stand her arrogant prig of a husband, Bruce? Actually, it seems that no one can stand Bruce.

I had never heard of Leverson but the blurb on the back cover of Oscar Wilde calling her the wittiest woman in the world convinced me that I had to try this and I wasn't disappointed. This book moves quickly with short chapters and characters all bumping into each other and gossiping about what each has seen and heard and showing the ridiculous lengths people will go to attract their 'ideal' and the unhappiness that success can bring. Here's a brief dialogue between husband and wife:

Bruce: "Odd. Very odd you should get it into your head that I should have any idea of leaving you. Is that why you're looking so cheerful-laughing so much?"
Edith: "Am I laughing? I thought I was only smiling."
****

28. Life's Little Annoyances by Ian Urbina. Urbina is a reporter for the New York Times who had a problem with one of his roommates eating his ice cream while he was at work. The solution was simple: add a thick layer of salt that blended in so that the culprit not only found the stolen ice cream disgusting but ended up outing herself as the thief. This book is a quick read of the ingenious ways people have gotten even, or just made themselves annoying, with telemarketers, banks charging fees for nothing and people having loud phone conversations. Amusing. ***

29. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood. Sixteen year old Grace Marks may or may not have helped commit the murders of her employer and his housekeeper. That she was there, that her kerchief was used to strangle one of the victims and that unknowing witnesses spoke to her after the crimes are all facts, but even a decade later Grace swears that she remembers little of what happened that day. Dr. Simon Jordan is sent to figure out if Grace is telling the truth, and their daily meetings to discuss the crime leads to more confusion and unhappiness for Dr. Jordan than for Grace.
This story is based on an actual double murder that happened in the 1840's. Atwood has gathered as much information as possible and pieced together the rest while adding in some original characters. This is one of my best reads so far this year and I enjoyed it every bit as much as I enjoyed The Blind Assassin last year. Although the book title gives away some of the mystery, it ended so differently than I expected and really kept me guessing. *****

30. Sherlock Holmes: The Adventure of the Six Napoleons by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Why is someone so intent on smashing all the busts of Napoleon Bonaparte in London, even to the point of killing to break them? Oh, Mr. Holmes knows why.

Not one of the best but it's Sherlock Holmes and that ain't bad. ***

31. After The Fall by Arthur Miller. Quentin is a lawyer at a big firm. He has friends, a wife, daughter and a Communist past he is still trying to come to terms with. He constantly flashbacks to his childhood to hear his parents bickering and flashes forward to listen to his current lover discuss her fear of Nazis. In between we see Quentin's first marriage end, the disintegration of his second marriage to a famous singer, and the fear he and his friends feel when the firm demands that someone names the former Communists among them.
When I began reading this I was aware that Miller had caught a tremendous amount of heat for this play. I can see why. It is self-serving and egotistical in monumental proportions. He might as well have gone ahead and given the characters their real names: Quentin is Miller whining endlessly about truth, Maggie is Marilyn Monroe as the "quite stupid, silly kid." And the later lover, calm Holga, is Miller's then wife, Ingeborg Morath, the only female in the play that Miller doesn't portray as impossible to please. If Miller had simply written a play that had a little bit in common with his own life it wouldn't have mattered, but that he chose to write so transparently about his marriage, break-up and death of Marilyn so immediately after her death comes off as exploitation. ***

32. Shoes, Bags and Tiaras by V&A Publishing. Put out by the Victoria and Albert Museum, this book covers the changes in these accessories over hundreds of years, bringing them up to modern times and famous designers. Excellent photos include an exquisitely beaded clutch that may have belonged to Marie Antoinette, a yellow topaz and glass tiara by Lalique and some of the ugliest shoes I've ever seen, designed by Ferragamo in the 1930's.
I read this on Dailylit but can't find it on Amazon, so that must have something to do with why the touchstone doesn't exist. ****

Just came back from the library book sale and here's the haul:

If I'd Killed Him When I met Him
Buried for Pleasure
The Selected Short Stories of Edith Wharton
The Careful Use of Compliments
Difficulties With Girls
Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
The Moving Toyshop
Bimbos of the Death Sun
The Children of Men
Arthur and George
The Jewel That Was Ours
Suite Francaise

Now to start working them into the categories and the shelves!

Aren't book sales fun? Mine was this weekend too and I came home with twenty-nine books. I did get the hardcovers all rearranged so that I can even fit in a few more (if one defines "a few more" to mean pretty much one large or two very small), but the paperbacks are still in stacks.

Arthur and George is a great book and you'll think about Arther Conan Doyle differently afterward.

I'm glad you liked Arthur and George. I had meant to have that one a long time ago.
I spent much less time in the sale than usual because my husband stayed out in the car and slept! Luckily we have four major book sales in Phoenix now. I think the next one is in September.

33. Watching the English by Kate Fox. If you've ever wondered how and why the English are the English, Fox has too. She's an English social anthropologist who has lived in America and traveled all over the world. This book covers all aspects of English behavior-from child rearing, dating, money, table manners, sub-cultures, sex and grief.
I originally had this book in my "Hoppin' The Rails" (travel) category, but once I started it I realized that it had little to do with travel, although Fox does interview tourists from different countries about their views of the English. At over 400 pages, this book is a thorough and at times funny guide to English behavior, though it isn't meant solely for the foreigner as this book was a bestseller in England. The biggest surprise for me was the seemingly unrelenting pervasiveness of the social class structure even now. Apparently a person can't speak, eat, buy underwear or walk a dog without giving away their economic and education level. Which is a bit scary. *****

I read Watching the English while living there and kinda found it to be a book that was primarily written to poke fun at the middle class (a designation that includes pretty much most people, and certainly includes the author). I really don't think that there was anything serious about it, although I liked the idea that the way you take your tea can indicate your class. I like working class tea. Watching the English was a British version of Things White People Like.

Really? It kinda frightened me that a person wasn't suppose to better themselves. I also lived there but it was many years ago and I was too young to take much notice of the class system ( or maybe I was unaware that it existed).
She is an actual anthropologist though and didn't seem to be joking about a lot of the things, like the ways the lower classes will put themselves into debt over a wedding.
Is it a case of the truth hurts, or do you think she made things up to be funny?

34. Time Among the Dead by Tom Rayfiel.
I requested this book because the synopsis was interesting. An old man, William of Upton, writes in his daily journal about his past and present life and the future.
However, the use of words such as "alas" and phrases like "would that I..." confused me as to the period this was suppose to be set in as I was thinking medieval until I noticed it said late-Victorian on the book flap. I just got the impression that the author, with his flowery language, really likes medieval fantasy.
I didn't hate the book, but I remained very conscious that I was reading a book. *

I think it's less that you shouldn't better yourself (although I think that the US is almost unique in the expectation that each generation will do better financially than the one before), than a connection to one's roots. Here we have ethnic connections, there it's a class thing. People can be upper class and poor or working class and wealthy--it's less money than the group you identify with.

I don't think that she made things up; I just think that she phrased things and emphasized things to fit with how a certain group of people sees things. We do the same thing with those reality shows about New Jersey or housewives--poke fun at certain groups we feel ourselves to be a wee bit better than (although I could be wrong-I haven't seen the shows, just bits of commercials). I just felt she was being unkind, but I may have been too sensitive.

Now I get it. I'm glad someone else is familiar with the book and the country; it's nice to find someone to discuss it with. All that information!

Wow, I'm reading so slowly lately. Am I set on pause?

35. The Areas of My Expertise by John Hodgman. Hodgman is a regular on The Daily Show so that sold me first of all. This book is a collection of things Hodgman "knows", such as a broken glass filled snowball is called "The College Boy" and that a secret to successful business negotiations include showing the other party that you have a gun. There is an extensive chapter on the history of hobos (my pick of the available hobo names is Ol' Barb Stab-You-Quick) and an interesting give and take the author witnessed between a Christian lecturer and a member of The Church of Satan. ***and a half.

36. Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander. This came in the mail so I dropped everything to read it. Speaking as a white person, it's pretty funny and quite accurate. I do like coffee, San Francisco, bakeries and standing still at concerts. ***and a half.

That book was well-targeted, wasn't it? I did get kinda bored with it partway through and think it's the kind of book best kept in the car, to read a few segments periodically, rather than read the whole thing at once.

I do want to read the Hodgman book.

It's also great for when you wake up in the middle of the night and want something you don't have to focus on too intently!

37. Krapp's Last Tape by Samuel Beckett. I bought this after enjoying Waiting For Godot. I actually read along while listening to the audio performance by the late Colin Redgrave on BBC Radio 3. I think Redgrave's performance made this play a bit clearer for me, as the play is entirely the deeply intimate and sometimes disjointed musings and regrets of old Krapp as he listens to his audio diary from thirty years before. What starts out as a cheerful exercise in nostalgia soon reveals the opportunities Krapp realizes he missed. ***

38. The Poisoned Chocolates Case by Anthony Berkeley. Members of an exclusive club, The Crimes Circle, meet to discuss famous murders each week. But when a recent murder remains unsolved the circle makes it their goal to uncover the murderer and the motive. Each member has a night to speak and prove their theory. Of course, each theory points to a different criminal and vastly different motives.

This book is from the 20's, British and lots of fun. Berkeley also wrote Malice Aforethought, another murder novel that has that dry British humor throughout. The characters here are arrogant, snide, overly eager or just rude, such as the girl at the perfume company who keeps slamming her window to get rid of potential customers. This is a good one. ****and a half.

39. Bizarre Books by Russell Ash and Brian Lake. I love books about books and this one can be finished off in just an hour or two, depending on how often you feel the need to read off some these book titles to other people. There are some great ones:
Handbook for the Limbless,1922
Old Dykes I Have Known, 1996
The Big Problem of Small Organs, 1966
Grow Your Own Hair, 1944

There is a 1920 memoir by a country rector who bemoans the awfulness of his parish and its people in "Five Years in Hell in a Country Parish", and a book that lists every wedding present received by Princess Anne in 1973. They include a bar of soap, novelty handcuffs, a packet of seeds and nine postage stamps.****

40. The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey. The introduction to Tey's sleuth,Inspector Alan Grant, whom I loved so much in Daughter of Time. In this book, Tey's first published, Grant must figure out who stabbed an apparently friendless man in the line for a popular London musical.
While I felt it dragged on a little, I can see how this book launched Tey's career. The ending really was unforeseeable so the mystery is there until the end. I'll continue with the other Grant mysteries. ***

41. A Touch of Dead by Charlaine Harris. This book was passed to me by my older sister, who is not a reader. That I know of, she had read two books in her life, and then Sookie Stackhouse and the HBO TrueBlood series came along and for the first time in her life she was anxiously waiting for a book release and asking for books for Christmas. So when she finished this one she brought it to me because she wanted me to love it too. That's sweet.
I hadn't read any of Harris' books but figured there must be some fantastic writing for her to have turned someone like my sister into a reader, so I looked forward to this.
It's appalling. Halfway through the first story I began to wonder if this series had actually been intended for children. The sentences are so short and the vocabulary so narrow that I felt like I was reading something just slightly more advanced than a school primer. The characters are one-dimensional, like stick figures, with descriptions that are little more than, "This vampire is tall, blonde and hot." By the second story I was sure that it was written by a child. A thirteen year-old had to be meeting publisher's deadlines in between orthodontics appointments and homework assignments. Nope, there's a picture of a grown woman on the backflap. Which just leaves me more confused than ever- what could possible have made this awful writer a best-seller? I just don't get it. I'm sending my sister a copy of Shirley Jackson. *

42. Controversy Creates Cash by Eric Bischoff. I think I picked this one up at a library sale. I don't watch wrestling and thought I might not know most of the people he would have worked with, but everyone knows Hulk Hogan, Macho Man and Steve Austin. Actually, 90% of this book is about Bischoff's business dealings as he went from being an ad salesman to running Ted Turner owned WCW in a matter of just a few years. He discusses what was going on inside the Turner building around 1995-1999 when Turner was losing control of his company, which executives came and went in the fight for power and how a multi-million dollar company was shut down because it didn't fit with the new owners' image. I would guess that for a wrestling fan this wouldn't have enough gossip about wrestlers, but if you've wondered about the atmosphere inside a huge conglomerate as it's crumbling, this is very readable. ***

43. The Professionals by Bob Rocca. At over 600 pages, this book covers practically everything that went into the making of the "The Professionals", the cult British special agent show from the late 70's-early 80's. Planned as a knock-off to the American "Starsky & Hutch", "The Professionals" featured the gorgeous Bodie and Doyle fighting, running, getting into car chases all over London. And then they'd get bawled out by their grouchy Scottish boss, Cowley. Lots of fun. Look up any of the hundreds of clips on Youtube.
From the quotes in this book it's obvious that the British film crews don't have to suck up like American crews and actors. This book is filled with directors naming actors who didn't meet expectations and crew members talking about which directors they hated working with. *****

44. Pop. 1280 by Jim Thompson. Nick Corey is the lazy and cowardly high sheriff of a little southern town. He believes that he's kept in office because the town likes that he doesn't get into anyone's business, even the crooks. It isn't until Nick starts seeing that he's expected to do his job or he'll be unemployed that he starts forming plans about the local pimps, the wife-beating husband of his mistress, the morals of his other mistress, the patronizing sheriff of the next county and the mean wife who tricked Nick into marrying her. Turns out that Nick wasn't stupid, he just needed to be motivated into action.
Thompson was on fire when he wrote this one. Sheriff Nick is like Sheriff Lou Ford's lost brother and it's delightful to watch Nick praise the Lord after all his evil deeds. *****

129 - That made me smile! I am one is rather stumped by the popularity of this series, but hey, to each his - or her - own!

I remember being very unhappy with the ending of The Man in the Queue. It just came out of nowhere. But I loved The Poisoned Chocolates Case. Some real classics on here!

Yes, there was no way for the reader to work out The Man in the Queue. The culprit didn't figure into the story enough but I was happy to just go along with it when I would have been complaining if another author had done that to me. Tey has a lot of leeway with me!

Glad to hear from others who don't get the whole Sookie thing.

It was ages ago that you recommended The Bachelors of Broken Hill, but I'm just dropping in to tell you that I found it in a used book shop. It was definitely worth reading - highly entertaining, with some very odd characters. Bony was perhaps the oddest of all. Great descriptions of Broken Hill.

Some great mystery classics on your reading list. Before the Fact is another good Berkeley/Iles.

I'm a Sharyn McCrumb's fan, and see that you've picked up If I'd Killed Him when I Met Him. Happy reading.

I'm glad you found that one- I agree, Bony is a memorable character. I wish I could see the old television series from Australia.
I hadn't heard of Before the Fact so now I can look for it. Iles has become a favorite. What a snarky sense of humor.
I have three McCrumbs on my shelf and haven't gotten to them yet. The titles alone earn them space.

45. Cake Wrecks by Jen Yates. I got this last night at a Cake Wrecks signing at Changing Hands bookstore in Tempe. The author and her husband created and run the immensely popular CakeWrecks website that shows how bad, I mean bad, professional cakes can be. The horrible wedding cakes are traumatic enough but for me it's the baby shower cakes that make my skin crawl. Who would want to slice into a cake shaped like a pregnant belly or a sleeping baby?
The event was fun, with the Yates giving a slide show of never-seen cake wrecks, judging a cupcake wreck contest and signing the book. Plus, there was cake! *****

I just took a peek at that website. Amazing.

Glad I could bring more into the fold.

My husband is addicted to the Cake Wrecks website.

It is a lot of fun. For some reason I love the cupcakes that were decorated with bloody band aids.
BTW, the Yates are just as funny in person.

46. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. What can I say about this book that hasn't been said by thousands of other readers already? It's two mysteries in one: Mikael Blomkvist is a discredited financial journalist who takes on a pointless murder investigation only because his new employer promises information about Blomkvist' enemy that will vindicate the journalist. For nearly a year Blomkvist, with the help of unethical computer genius Lisbeth Salander, pieces together the day 16 year-old Harriet was murdered.
Though it took me quite a while to finish this (almost 650 pages and I'm a slow reader) there were days when I didn't want to put it down. I became so hooked with the whole Harriet thing that I really didn't care as much when her mystery was solved and things switched back to the financial world, but I won't complain. Parts of this story can make your skin crawl, so that made Lisbeth and her golf club a little unbelievable, but maybe that's just me. I'm trying not to give too much away for anyone who hasn't read it yet, so I'll just say that this is a complex and very original story. ****

Got my daughter Cake Wrecks for her birthday. She really wanted to go to the local signing, but we just couldn't make it.

I sent my sister a copy too!

47. Elizabeth Takes Off by Elizabeth Taylor. No, I wasn't searching for diet tips, but I thought a book written by Taylor herself about her appearance was worth a look. I love old Hollywood glamour. I honestly wasn't aware she had written a diet book (this came out in 1987) but apparently this was popular. I do remember when Taylor was quite heavy and Joan Rivers would impersonate her standing in front of a microwave screeching, "Hurry!"
This book is half autobiography and half weight loss menus and tips. It's actually broken in half like that so you could just read Taylor's life section if you want. Anyway, it's interesting to see how she speaks of Richard Burton and Michael Todd, avoids saying too much about the marriage scandals (Eddie Fisher just sort of fades away) and recounts her eating habits all along the way. Oh, and she still seems pretty mad at Rivers. ***

I remember some of Joan Rivers routines about Elizabeth Taylor, they were pretty mean. I have to admit I laughed, but I did think they were a little overdone.

48. Peaceful Los Angeles by Laura Randall. This is an ER. I regretfully had to move away from my home of SoCal 15 years ago. I have fond memories of the music scene and nightclubs and restaurants and working at a production studio off Sunset. This little book reminded me of some places, like the Huntington Library, where my husband and I went often when we were dating. Many of the places didn't exist when I lived there so this would be handy for taking on a visit. The only drawback to this book is that the pictures are small and b&w, which doesn't work well for all the locations. Overall, this book uncovers some really hidden spots and gives good info about the best times to visit. ****

#145, 146 I seem to recall some of Joan Rivers Elizabeth Taylor routines also, and I thought that they were pretty harsh. No matter what her weight she's always been beautiful imo. Now I think Joan may be fodder for routines about her plastic surgeries lol!

I didn't know about this book, I may check it out.

I agree, Taylor was always beautiful. There are many pics in the book of her at her heaviest and still her eyes are stunning.
Did you see the Comedy Central Joan Rivers Roast? Many of the comedians were ruthless about her surgery!

49. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. I remember seeing this movie years and years ago and I've just put it on my Netflix list to see it again.
It really seemed like this was a two-parter book as the climax happens about 250 pages in and much of the rest, while interesting and full of good characters, is anti-climactic. Or maybe that's just me. Anyway, I really liked fat Bastion reading in the attic and Atreyu as the hero, as appose to the jerk that Bastion becomes later. There are some aspects of this book that might have been an influence on J.K. Rowling (I have no idea). ***and a half.

50. The Trunk Murderess: Winnie Ruth Judd by Jana Bommersbach. In 1931, two traveling trunks were brought from Phoenix to L.A. on a train. By the time they were unloaded in L.A. they were leaking blood. The police opened the trunks and found the bodies of two young women inside, one of them having been cut into pieces. The owner of the trunks, Winnie Ruth Judd, had been aboard the train but vanished when she saw the police present. After a manhunt she was found and taken back to Phoenix to face murder charges. The victims had been her friends and former roommates in Phoenix and Judd admitted to killing them but not to the dismemberment. After several trials, Judd ended up spending nearly 40 years in custody.
I bought this at a book sale, having no knowledge about the case. To be honest, I probably wouldn't have if I'd noticed who the author is. Bommersbach is our local conspiracy theorist here in Phoenix. She has been in the local media for years screeching that the police or some other government office has instituted a cover-up of whatever she's angry about at that minute. So, I guess it shouldn't be a surprise that Bommersbach would treat Judd with such obvious hero worship, as here is a woman who was sentenced to death but "beat" the state by appeal after appeal, escaping from custody seven times, until finally she was so old that she was released. She had served about three times the sentence as anyone else would have for a comparable crime.
Bommersbach spends the book asking the reader to suspend their intelligence and believe as she does that Judd was simply an unlucky scapegoat and that the true criminals were her prominent sometime-boyfriend and the police department, the prosecuting attorneys, the media and the witnesses, all who conspired together and held their tongues for 40 years so that a popular, married businessman wouldn't get into trouble. Bommersbach sees Judd as a fragile, helpless woman whom everyone who comes into contact with loves and completely dismisses the many instances that are on record where Judd shows a violent temper or incoherently rambles or just seems unaware of what's going on. When a witness' testimony doesn't match with Bommersbach's theory, she simply dismisses the testimony as wrong and often gives quotes without attributing them to a speaker or source. To be fair, Judd's life was a rollercoaster ride so the story is very interesting and I would like to read more about the case, but from an author who is impartial. **and a half.

I remember reading The Trunk Murderess a long time ago, when I lived in Phoenix and being deeply affected by it. Less by the story itself than by the concept that Phoenix had a history. That and the story of the escaped German POWs who got hold of a map and smuggled a boat out expecting to float down one of those blue lines right to the Pacific.

I agree, one of the interesting aspects of this book was the bits of Phoenix history included. It's the same with being from Southern California- The west has so little tangible history in the way of buildings or historical sites.

51. Bad Bridesmaid by Siri Agrell. It looked like a funny, light read, and it is, but there's a little meat to this too. Agrell is a columnist for the Canadian National Post, and in the midst of a year long bridesmaid commitment to her friends' engagement, which including hosting/attending numerous bridal showers, fittings, shopping trips, etc., Agrell began to loose her patience. Being a journalist for a national paper gave her the opportunity to vent in an article about the pains of being a bridesmaid. The bride read the article and Agrell was fired from the wedding and the friendship.
The book has bridesmaids recounting the many ways accepting the position made life difficult-from being chewed-out in public by the bride over their make-up to being stuck with restaurant tabs for parties they didn't host. ***and a half.

I am astounded by all that goes into weddings these days. The planning, the expectations, the stress not to mention the money! I think most couples must have a hard time living up to the expectations that these kind of lavish, over-planned weddings put upon them.

Sounds like an interesting book looking at weddings from a slightly different angle, I will be on the look-out for this book.

Delta- very true. I've been a bridesmaid three times and thankfully never dealt with a horrible bride in that situation (though I did have to were an ugly, biased-skirted lavender nightmare once).
However, as a make-up artist I met plenty of loud, demanding brides. Including one who cussed out her groom just hours before the wedding.

I was a bridesmaid in a wedding in which the bride's future mother in law wanted the wedding date changed two weeks beforehand because her daughter's cheerleading team had some sort of competition. The bride was graceful and easy, although I did have to wear ill-fitting orange taffeta with lace trim.

Photographs of ugly bridesmaid dresses - there's probably a book there!

Delta- I was actually glad to see something addressed in the book that I've always suspected-that brides pick the ugliest dresses for their bridesmaids to make themselves look better in comparison, lol.

Ridgeway- That dress sounds like a nightmare. And I'll bet the bride wanted plenty of pictures of her bridesmaids.
Which reminds me of when I was searching for my wedding dress and having trouble finding the length I wanted. My boss, who was really a sweet person, said, "You can wear mine!" She went on to describe it as having fringe, lace, rhinestones and a diagonal skirt. All I could say was, "Thanks, I'll think about it," and then never mention dress shopping in front of her again.

52. Confessions of a French Baker by Peter Mayle and Gerard Auzet. Mayle is the author of the Year in Provence series and has been a customer of Auzet's bread shop in the French town of Cavaillon for years. Auzet's family have been bread bakers for over a hundred years and once a week he teaches a class in his kitchen. He approached Mayle with the idea of creating a book of recipes and reminders aimed towards the home baker and this little book is the result. At just under 100 pages, the recipes are easy to understand and the tips are useful, such as how to tell if a loaf is baked all the way through or knowing if the dough has risen completely. The history of the croissant is interesting and so is Mayle's observations of professional bread-making. ****

>160 mstrust: I love Peter Mayle's books, and I love books about cooking and cookbooks. Confessions of a French Baker sounds right up my alley!

53. Famous Jewelery Collectors by Stephano Papi & Alexandra Rhodes. I love the sight of jewelry made with gems the size of ice cubes. Love it! This book features beautiful photographs of the jewels by themselves but also many photos of them being worn by their owners so there's a better idea of their actually size. Each bio of the collector is pretty in-depth and most pieces have had their provenance tracked so the background of both the person and piece is very good.
There are AMAZING pieces- diamond necklaces, ruby bracelets, pearl and diamond tiaras. I wanted to lick some pages.
On a side note- there are some very pretty women who were great collectors. But I also was surprised by several royal women whom I would have sworn were men. *giggle* *****

54. Jamie at Home by Jamie Oliver. I'm a pretty big fan of Oliver's and have been for many years. He's about the only celebrity chef I really like, though I've recently gotten hooked on the Rachel Allen:Bake! show. Anyway, I do actually use Oliver's recipes on a regular basis and this book has several I'm going to try out, especially a beautiful meringue and chocolate dessert.
This book is sectioned off by ingredients, such as an all mushroom section or all leeks. In each section are instructions for growing that fruit or vegetable at home, as Oliver is encouraging self-sufficiency. He also has a section about his opinions on hunting and the treatment of chickens in factories. It's a large book, about 400 pages, and has really creative recipes.*****

55. Patience and Fortitude by Nicholas Basbanes. Oh, the thrill of finally finishing this book! My heart is leaping!!
And that is not to imply that I didn't enjoy this book; it is, in fact, a wonderful book. But I spent 8 months dipping in and out, reading 10 or 20 pages here and there between other books and it had begun to feel like a permanent fixture on my coffee table so I finally got on with it.
Basbanes travels all over the world to see libraries, collections, book people and anything else that makes the literary world go round. I found some parts especially interesting, such as the history of many of the independent bookstores around Manhattan and the controversy over the San Francisco library. Basbanes has the best job in the world. *****

56. Popcorn by Ben Elton. Bruce Delamitri is an Oliver Stone-esque movie director. His films are bloody, full of sexy murderers and rock soundtracks. As Bruce wins the Oscar for his latest, Ordinary Americans, a real mass-murdering couple, Wayne and Scout, are killing their way across the country. They're copying the murders from Bruce's films as Wayne is a big fan of Bruce's work. Such a fan that they continue their killing spree all the way to Hollywood,break into Bruce's house on Oscar night and wait for him to return home, because Wayne believes that Bruce can manipulate the media well enough to keep the couple from having to pay for their crimes.
This book was nothing like what I expected. Elton is a famous stand-up and comedy writer responsible for two of the funniest shows on British t.v. (The Young Ones and Blackadder), and the blurbs on the back from friend Emma Thompson and others calling this book "funny" and "a comedy" are completely out of place. This is a satire on the media of Hollywood and how Americans tend to think that fame, no matter how it's attained, is worthy. But it's far from funny, and that isn't a criticism. Much of the violence is actually chilling and it's rampant; Wayne and Scout are truly psychopaths. Elton was obviously influenced by the movie "Natural Born Killers", and combines that with an eerie premonition, considering this was published in 1996, of reality t.v., where people who only have a talent for being horrible can be famous.
I have just two criticisms: that the blurbs referring to this as a comedic book should be dropped, and that Elton is just so English that he doesn't have a grasp on American English. The book is set in America and all the characters are American but the language is British. Still, doesn't affect the plot. ***

57. Bonjour Tristesse by Francoise Sagan. Seventeen year-old Cecile, her father Raymond and his current girlfriend Elsa are spending the summer in a Mediterranean coastal village. Cecile's mother died several years before and ever since, Raymond has had a string of brief romances. Cecile adores her father and isn't bothered at all by his selfish manipulations of the women he moves in and out of her life and even makes excuses for his behavior until he shows a preference for old friend Anne's company rather than her own.

It's hard to believe that Sagan was just eighteen years old when she wrote this. There is a maturity in both the writing and subject that I would never expect to see in a teenager or even someone ten years older. The story of Cecile's change from a child's reverence for a father who charmingly mistreats women, including Cecile, to a woman who has experienced real remorse and sadness is powerful and so very infused with the sophistication of France of the 1950's. Highly recommended. *****

58. The Professionals:Where The Jungle Ends by Ken Blake. CI5 agents Bodie, Doyle and their boss, Mr. Cowley, track international assassins, crime bosses and terrorists throughout London and the countryside. This book incorporates the plots of the first four episodes of the t.v. show.

For Americans, I'll explain that the t.v. series "The Professionals" was England's answer to "Starsky and Hutch", except they didn't have the uproar over violence on t.v. there so The Pros got a bit more graphic. Lots of fun though. It was hugely popular in the U.K., Germany and Australia. Anyway, nerd that I am, I recently found the complete set (all 15!) of near-perfect paperbacks. Hey, don't look at me like that- some of you are reading Star Trek novels. ****

59. Night by Elie Wiesel. Wiesel was not yet fifteen when the Transylvanian village he and his family lived in was evacuated during WWII. His family was taken to German concentration camps, separated, and he and his father were in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Wiesel describes the horrors of starvation, beatings and fear of being next for selection.
This is a slim book but it's packed with Wiesel's experience. He is more honest with the reader than most would be, such as admitting to being angry at his starved father for moving slowly and therefore earning a beating by the foreman. Wiesel describes the conditions of the camps, the sight of the crematories, the forced runs of starving people in the snow, but this book was written many years after the war and he is able to describe events with the clear eye of a journalist.
Obviously, this is not one to read when you're feeling down. I hesitated a bit, thinking, "Do I really want to read about this?" but I'm glad I did as it's a remarkable account of what really happened. *****

60. Third Girl by Agatha Christie. It's the mid-sixties and girls have become so independent these days. Young Norma has a flashy boyfriend her father and stepmother don't approve of, but as Norma is rarely under their roof, there isn't a lot they can do about it. Norma has moved into a London flat with two other girls, oh, and she has bouts of forgetfulness where she ends up in possession of a weapon of some kind or other and can't recall what has occurred. Must be all those drugs.

Christie has created a complex mystery here for Poirot, along with mystery writing friend Mrs. Oliver, to figure out. It's difficult for two reasons: no one is sure if there has been a crime committed until well into the story and this is one of the few books in which Christie doesn't give the reader pertinent information until the crime is solved. Still a good read, but hearing Poirot talking about mods or rockers and counter-culture drugs is sort of...weird?
***

61. The Professionals: Long Shot by Ken Blake. In this second book of the series, Bodie, Doyle and Cowley are stopping a mad environmentalist from poisoning London's water supply, take out a KGB agent who is blackmailing a government official caught in a sex scandal and enjoy the brief career of popular character Shotgun Tommy, a mysterious and tragic CI5 agent. ****

62. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks. Sacks is a professor of clinical neurology (or was. This was published in 1985) and recounts the many ways in which the brain can send wrong signals and create odd behavior. Chapters include a study of Sacks' Tourette's patients and another where he attempts to treat people who have lost the ability to recognize faces, even those of their wife and children, but can tell them by their voices.

Sacks' accounts involve many disorders I'd never heard of and wouldn't believe at all if this was a work of fiction. This book shows how a slight malfunction of a tiny part of the brain can leave someone without a concept of "left". At times Sacks refers extensively to doctors and books that only another neurologist would have read, but the actual case studies are what most non-doctors would be interested in. ***

63. We Thought You Would Be Prettier by Laurie Notaro. Notaro lived and had a weekly column in the local paper here in Phoenix before moving on to writing books. Good for her, because her writing was often the best to be found in the newspaper, but her work was buried in supplement pages. She's very funny and often moves into the outlandish in her essays. In this book she recounts events that might have occurred on his first book tour across America, taking an art class that employed a past-prime nude model and the problems with living across the street from the neighborhood Cat Lady. ****

Patience and Fortitude by Nicholas Basbanes sounds wonderful.

re: Oliver Sacks - he wrote an article in the New Yorker in the last week or two in which he describes his own neurological problem, a not-quite-as-severe inability to recognize people. Did he talk about that at all in The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat?

auntmarge- That sounds like an interesting article. I get The New Yorker often, but not that issue. No, he didn't discuss it in the book, but my copy is about 12 years old and he seems to add postscripts to all the chapters when something new has developed. He did write about a doctor with that problem in the book (it's the patient who grabbed his wife's head because it looked like his hat).
How strange that the doctor who studies such a rare disorder would then develop it.

64. Cape Cod Stories Edited by John Miller and Tim Smith. This is a collection of short stories, book excerpts, essays and poetry about the islands off Massachusetts. Included are Melville, Poe, Plath, Mailer, Paul Theroux, Vonnegut... My favorites are a short story by John Cheever called "The Chaste Clarissa" about a summer regular on the cape who spends his vacation trying to seduce a taciturn young wife whose husband is away, and the essay "Provincetown Diary" by Louise Rafkin, who won a place in the town's writing residence program.
This seemed like the perfect book for an end-of-summer read. ***

65. The Professionals:Stake Out by Ken Blake. In this third book of the series, Bodie, Doyle and Cowley prove a cop killer guilty, diffuse a South African political group attempting to bomb London and end a German terrorist group attacking a vicar's country estate. The A-Squad is just a lot of fun. ****

I've made my list for the books I'll be reading for fall/Halloween. This is my favorite time of year and I like to get in the mood by reading chillers and pretending I'm somewhere with brisk Autumn weather instead of 90 degrees on Halloween. So here's my list. I have no particular order and I may not get to all of them but I'm going to try. If you see something you're also going to read, let me know and we'll try to read together.
Howl's Moving Castle
Compulsion-about the Leopold & Loeb murder. Currently Reading
Worst Nightmares
I Am Legend
The Phantom Tollbooth Finished
In The Woods
In A Glass Darkly
Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work- a collection of short stories about dysfunctional people. Scary! Finished
Frankenstein
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
The Other Sideby British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes
The Woman in White
Neverwhere
The Scary Stories Treasury
Cannibalism and the Law- non-fiction

I'll also try to squeeze in some re-reads of my favorites: The Devil and Daniel Webster, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (I went here last year for the Legends Night and visited Irving's gravesite) and The Graveyard Book.

66. The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie. Wealthy old Mrs. Ingelthorp is discovered having seizures in her bed one night and dies quickly as her family and houseguests watch. So the mystery is who killed her and how. Was it her much younger and detested new husband or one of her stepchildren wanting their inheritance? Poirot, with help from young Hastings and Inspector Japp, searches for the killer.
As this was the first by Christie, or at least the first published, I expected to find the author less accomplished, maybe a little rougher. I was pleasantly surprised to be wrong. Christie is full of twists,strong characters and humor here and we are introduced to her Poirot and Hastings, a young man who has yet to begin his career in law. There is one big difference in this early Poirot compared to the later version- though described as old many times, this Poirot runs, leaps, gestures wildly. He's a bit hyperactive and it's funny. *****

I'll begin my fall reading tomorrow, probably starting with Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work.

As I didn't get to it this year, I'll have to add The Mysterious Affair at Styles to my reading list for next year, it sounds excellent.

Now I know I have read too many books this year!! The Mysterious Affair at Styles sounded so familiar and so I checked back on my thread, and sure enough, it was the first book that I read this year. My face is red ...

Oh, that's funny! Don't feel too bad though- I've opened up a book and started reading only to realize that it was too familiar.
Isn't it nice to know that you don't have to hunt that one down?

What I am most happy about is that I blamed my slip on reading too many books and not on the dreaded "Senior Moment"!

67. Why The Devil Chose New England For His Work by Jason Brown. A collection of short stories taking place in Vaughn, Maine, a town so small that everyone knows everyone else and all their business. There's a real sense of community and the names of the townspeople weave into the various stories.
You won't find happy endings or even much happiness at all in these stories. They involve detachments from families,through death,trauma, generation gaps or sometimes just from not fitting in. The title story is unusual as it has a more sinister feel with a skanky pre-teen boy who knows a lot more about people than seems possible.
Though the stories here can be rather grim, the writing is fantastic. I'll definitely read more by Brown. *****

Next up- The Phantom Tollbooth, a book which is apparently a classic in other countries but I'd never heard of it before LT.

I haven't heard of The Phantom Tollbooth either but the premise looks good and it appears to be well rated on LT. I will be interested to learn what you think of it!

Will you read Swallows and Amazons next?

Thanks, Lori. One of the things I love about LT is discovering new authors and books almost every day.

Ridgeway- No, that's another one I was unaware of (new discovery!) but to be honest I thought because The Phantom Tollbooth had a witch (which) in it that it would be a little spooky and therefore put it with my Fall reading. I'll get back into that pile when I'm done with this one. Haven't decided what will be next yet.

68. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster. Young Milo is bored and boring. Nothing holds his interest until the day he comes home and finds that a big package has come for him. It's a toy tollbooth. Having nothing better to do, Milo puts the tollbooth together, gets into his small electric car and pays the fare. He finds himself transported to a world of wordplay, where a people eat their words and jumping to conclusions can take up their whole day. The only way to set things right is for Milo to go on a quest to save the princesses, Rhyme and Reason.

What a fun book. It's creative and funny and so original. This may have been written for children in 1961, but it's not a childish book. An adult, particularly if you like authors such as Roald Dahl, would be very happy with this book.
I made two assumptions about this book before reading it; that it would be a little creepy because of the description of having a witch and the word "phantom" in the title. So I made it part of my Autumn list. It isn't creepy at all.
Secondly, that it was a British book because I'd never heard of it and the person recommending it was English. It's author is American and I have no idea why it isn't known as well as Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. It deserves to be. *****

Next up- Compulsion by Meyer Levin.

We read The Phantom Tollbooth a long time ago in my junior high school Language Arts class -- I still recall some of the illustrations of the way people and words interacted. I wonder if the copy I'm remembering was in a textbook, or was actually a book that I could try to get a copy of. Thanks for piquing my interest!

Glad to bring back memories! My copy is from Random House. I think you must have had a teacher who really knew how to hold a kid's attention.

69. Compulsion by Meyer Levin. Two eighteen year-old boys, Judd Steiner and Artie Strauss, are both brilliant, having graduated from the University of Chicago already. They are the sons of millionaires and live a life of luxury as neighbors in a wealthy section of Chicago. Artie is one of the most popular boys on campus and has a reputation with the girls. Many see his relationship with Judd as one of pity for the small, weird boy who no one else likes.
When the young son of another neighbor, also a millionaire, is found stuffed in a drainage pipe, Artie can't stop himself from taking part in the investigation. He leads newspaper reporters to the clues, even blurts out how he would have done it. He knows everything because he and Judd committed the murder. The arrest and trial of the two boys reveals their bizarre relationship and the fact that they murdered for no other reason than to have the experience and get away with it.

This is an account of the Leopold and Loeb murder case of the 1920's, when two wealthy boys murdered another local boy. They were defended by Clarence Darrow, represented here as the character of Jonathan Wilk. There is much delving into the sick minds of the murderers, a lot of psychology, philosophy and some surprisingly graphic language and images, considering this book was written in 1956. I like that Levin wrote from the perspective of Sid Silver, a classmate of the killers and cub reporter to one of the major newspapers. The book has a tone of both sympathy for the waste of three lives while giving the honest facts of the callousness of the behavior of the murderers. ****and a half.

70. The Scary Stories Treasury by Alvin Schwartz. Schwartz is a folklorist who has gathered creepy tales from all over the world, including many that I remember from my own childhood. Who didn't sing "The Hearse Song" and tell "Give Me Back My Toe"? Or it's entirely possible that I hung with a morbid crowd at the babysitter's house.
This is three books in one collection and the illustrations are just as creepy as the stories. ****

71. Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. Young scientist Frankenstein creates, then abandons his hideous creation, who then follows him all over the world to exact revenge.
What could I possibly say about Frankenstein that hasn't been said over the two hundred years since its publication? It's a sad story of doomed lives and misery, a warning to science to be responsible, and at times, a horror story.
My only question is: couldn't Frankenstein see that he was building a grotesque monster before he brought it to life? ****

72. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. As far as he can tell, Robert Neville is the last living person on earth. He has found ways to survive the plague that swept the earth, either turning everyone into a vampire or infecting them with the virus that makes them gather outside his fortress home each night waiting for a chance to get him. He spends his days stringing up garlic, foraging for supplies, getting drunk and researching why the plague happened. Eventually, loneliness makes him take chances.

This one is so easy to get lost in. Written nearly sixty years ago, it hardly feels like an old story. Robert's struggles would be about the same now if there were no one to answer a cell phone or e-mail. ****and a half.

I've been lucky to have a string of really good reads lately.

73. Worst Nightmares by Shane Briant. Booker Award-winning author Dermot Nolan has a bad case of writer's block and he's also spent his large advance for a book he hasn't even started. Then a homeless man gives Nolan his manuscript, a work about a man with a therapy website where strangers tell him their biggest fear, or worst nightmare, hoping to be cured of their phobia. Instead, the therapist uses the information to deliver horrifying deaths.
Reading the manuscript, Nolan becomes more confused over whether it's fiction or the diary of an actual serial killer. Either way, he decides to have it published as his own work, and of course, that links him even tighter to its true author.

I believe this is Briant's first book and it has some very interesting parts. I found the passages about how the victims had developed their phobias to be the best parts of the book. I grew tired of Nolan reaching for a drink and screaming at his wife.
Also, I knew what the outcome of it all would be 100 pages in, so there's that.
I'm afraid that I couldn't really enjoy this book because I dislike books or movies that are about torture. Murder, fine. I like a good murder mystery, but I don't like torture. But I've been a fan of Briant's acting for so many years that I will try his other book if it comes my way. He really made a niche for himself in the 70's playing characters with angelic faces who turned out to be monsters. He was superb as a beautiful serial killer in "Straight On Til Morning" with Rita Tushingham. I know that has nothing to do with his writing, but that's my reasoning. : ) ***

The Phantom Tollbooth was a favorite of mine as a kid. Mom read it to us and I reread it many times. Juster also "wrote" a delightful little book called The Dot and the Line which was made in to an Oscar winning short film. You can find it on Youtube....there's a copy at this link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGh97__-uLA

Thanks for the link- what a cute film! I'd never heard of it, but I will be looking for more of Juster's work. He's an excellent writer.

74. The Other Side by R. Chetwynd-Hayes. This is a collection of four stories placed between 1850 to 2000, all taking place in the English manor of Clavering Grange, then later, after the house has been destroyed, its grounds. The stories are linked together by place, but also, each has a young woman used as a conduit to something evil.
To say that Chetwynd-Hayes writes about ghosts and vampires, or an evil presence, doesn't do him justice. These stories are full of the unexpected. It's a shame the cover art is so cheesy. ****

75. In The Woods by Tana French. Detective Ryan of the Irish Murder Squad is sent, along with his partner Cassie Maddox, to investigate the murder of a twelve year-old girl in the Dublin suburb Ryan had left twenty years ago. Ryan has spent those years trying to create a life for himself, but has failed in many ways. He used to know the woods where the little girl was found, as he and his two best friends had played there every day, until one day when the friends vanished and Ryan was found with bloody shoes and no memory of what had happened.

My description can't do this book justice. The plot is complex yet easy to follow and the story of Detective Ryan, whether talking about his childhood, work or relationships, was so interesting that I wanted to do nothing but read. I'm actually reading this along with a friend and we had a plan of checking in with each other every five chapters, but now I'll have to admit that I cheated and finished early. *****

I though In the Woods was astonishingly good, but then discovered that the next book, The Likeness, is even better. Enjoy!

Oooh, the first twenty pages or so of The Likeness was included in my copy of In The Woods. I'll be getting that one too.

In the Woods is now on the wishlist. Thanks mstrust.

You're welcome, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

76. Queen Victoria: Demon Hunter by A.E. Moorat. Young Victoria lives in a world where succubus and werewolves exist and that's bad enough, because they occasionally attempt to kill the princess. But when she ascends to the throne, the perverted Lord Quimby just happens to discover how to bring the dead back to life and begins to form a zombie army.

A fun book where Queen Victoria gets to fight the bad guys who are attempting to keep her from her beloved Albert. It should have taken me just a few days to finish but I was sidetracked by 5 days in Vegas for Halloween. Lots of eating, shopping and caught an excellent Alice Cooper impersonator on Freemont St. Only downside was that my husband became so sick that we had to stay an extra day because he couldn't travel.
Anyway, for the book: ***and a half.

77. The Dead of Jericho by Colin Dexter. Inspector Morse meets an attractive woman at a party and his hopes are raised, but he quickly figures out that the woman is unavailable and so lets it go. A few months later he learns of her suicide and takes over the investigation, as he still wonders what might have been with this woman. Morse and Sergeant Lewis find that her death was far from a typical suicide and that her copy of Oedipus was very important to her.

This was my first Inspector Morse and I like him. He's a grumpy, snapping alcoholic who basically hates himself but he's very likable to the reader. This would have been quite the mystery to me if I hadn't seen the episode of this book from the t.v. series. Still, enjoyable and I'll read more. ***and a half.

I read my first Morse book last year and wasn't too impressed with that particular version of him so haven't picked up another one since. I bought the boxset so I'll get to another eventually and your review at least gives me hope that they will get better. Thanks.

Glad to give hope! I have another on the shelf, The Jewel That Was Ours, so I'll get to that when I can. I think Morse can be refreshing in between flashier detectives such as Poirot. Morse seems to get things wrong and then get them wrong again and bark at everyone out of frustration.

78. Medea and Other Plays by Euripides. After betraying her father and homeland, murdering her brother and helping Jason steal the golden fleece, Medea is abandoned with her two boys by Jason, who marries the local princess. Understandably, Medea is enraged, but her reaction to Jason's betrayal is extreme and crazy.

Medea is Euripides' most famous play, an ode to horrible mothers who hate more than love. Euripides is hard on women as a whole and rather more gentle on the man who trades in his family for social standing, but the play is still fascinating more than two thousand years later. The other plays included are "Helen", "Electra" and "Hippolytus". ***

79. The Secret Adversary by Agatha Christie. Tommy and Tuppence, two young friends who are down on their luck after WWI, decide to hire themselves out as adventurers. They mean to do anything, within reason, for pay. Right away they are hired to find a survivor of the Lusitania, a girl who's been missing for several years. Their job leads them into an international spy ring.

This was Christie's second book and the introduction of Tommy and Tuppence, her youngest sleuths. They're likable and witty and this story really does lead the reader to the wrong conclusions, so the twist is there. Lots of action and chases here. ***and a half.

80. O Canada by Jan Morris. Travel writer Morris visits the various cities and provinces of Canada and gives her impression of the locals and Canadians in general.

I hated this book. But even worse, Morris seems to have hated writing this book, originally a series of articles for a Toronto newspaper. From the beginning to the end, she gives the impression that she thinks she is doing the country a favor to be there. She often makes statements to the effect of "Why would anybody live here?" while her introduction assures the reader that Canada isn't as boring as it used to be. What she never realizes is that Canada isn't boring; she is. Morris' essays are like taking a two week vacation with your grumpy xenophobic grandmother. She dislikes most of the people and places, makes ample references to how awful America is, and to her homeland politics. She wants to discuss churches, private schools and prime ministers. Her idea of a perfect weekend in Toronto is reading all the newspapers.
All of this might have been amusing if: 1. she was a good writer who could create a sense of wonder and movement to her writing. Instead, she seems to travel in a bubble, barely conscious of what's going on outside her own discomfort, and 2. she were Canadian. Morris is Welsh and lives in Wales, not Canada, which gives her unforgiving attitude the sound of just another tourist grumbling that things aren't the way they are at home. *

I really liked Hav, another book by Jan Morris. Too bad this one wasn't good. I do hate that unthinking "aren't Americans terrible?" and "aren't Canadians boring?" thing.

I saw on your thread that you liked Hav. Maybe she's does "good book, bad book". Or more likely I just didn't click with her. Oh well...

81. The Arrogance of the French by Richard Z. Chesnoff. American journalist Chesnoff has lived and worked in France for twenty years. This book is about the history and politics of France, especially as it concerns the U.S. Chesnoff details the three hundred year old relationship between France, Britain and the U.S., from the Revolution up to the time that sparked this book, France's refusal to back the U.S. in the Middle East. He details the decades of France's sales of arms and nuclear equipment to dictators such as Saddam Hussein and finishes with a list of French owned companies, some that surprised me (the Jerry Springer show?) just in case you wanted to boycott them.
He also goes into the French education system, and how it results in the attitude referred to in the title.

Though some aspects of this book were out of date quickly after it's 2005 publication, due to the French elections, the history lesson is thorough and Chesnoff gives plenty of his personal experiences in what it's actually like to be an American Jewish man living in a small French village.
If you adore A Year in Provence or are a hardcore Francophile, you might want to stay away from this book, as it paints a very different picture. ****

Amused to read your review of O Canada. I feel the same way about The Happy Isles of Oceania, in which a grumpy Paul Theroux can find nothing good to say about Australia.

Oh, but Paul Theroux is always grumpy. I may have to read another of Jan Morris's books to see if she only dislikes N. America. I have a book she wrote about Oxford around here somewhere.

With all the travel books I read, you'd think I would have read a book by Theroux by now. I haven't, though I do have his Kingdom by the Sea on the shelf and it will be part of my challenge next year.

The book about Oxford would be intriguing as that's somewhere I long to visit. But I'm in no hurry to try Morris again. It's just that some writers really show their age in their writing, and maybe she's always been aloof, I don't know because this is all I've read of hers. But her lack of interest in most of the people she encountered, in finding out how they live, really seemed that she was an grumbling elderly person who didn't really want to travel but was being dragged along.

And I'm not someone who wants to hear that everything is great and perfect during a trip; I welcome the ugly truth. On a related note, an even worse grumbler by far is the woman who wrote The Clumsiest People in Europe. It's an actual Victorian travel guide written by the most hate-filled woman possible and it's hysterical!

82. The Eternity Code by Eoin Colfer. This is Book 3 in the Artemis Fowl series, about an Irish boy who has discovered the people below the earth: fairies, elves, dwarves. Rather than being awed by magical people, Artemis comes from a family of criminals and happens to be a genius, so he finds ways to use the magic for his own means, usually something rotten.
In this book, Artemis is determined to change his ways after one more scheme: to crush a Chicago businessman who owns one of the largest electronic companies in the world.
I thought this one relied too heavily on gadgets. Artemis has always been like a little James Bond, but I would have liked to see more of his brain power. Still, we see his maturity go up a notch or two here. ***

83. Barrel Fever by David Sedaris. A book of short stories and essays that cover all kinds of subjects. It includes his most famous essay, "The SantaLand Diaries", about Sedaris' stint as a Christmas elf at the Herald Square Macy's. His short stories include the very funny "Glen's Homophobia Newsletter Vol. 3, No. 2", written by a young man who can apply the word "homophobia" to about anything, including his boyfriend. The title story is about a guy who finds the angry letters his mother had written, but not mailed, to he and his sisters after her death.

I had read Sedaris' other books and thought that all of his writing was humorous, and some of these stories are very funny, but others deal with death, obsession and poverty. Sedaris moves from one subject to the next with an ease that seems effortless. Recommended. ****and a half.

84. The Gallery of Regrettable Food by James Lileks. Does the sound of pancakes made with 7-Up and filled with cottage cheese sound tempting? How about Veal Ring Salad, a dish of meat and God knows what else, suspended in gelatin? Lileks has gathered the worst of cookbooks from the 40's-70's, complete with gut-wrenching photos. This is a re-read for me and it still makes me laugh. *****

85. The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie. Poirot receives a brief message from wealthy M. Renauld, begging the detective to come to his home in France. Poirot, along with sidekick Hastings, arrives too late;the man has been murdered during a robbery at his home. Things only get more confused when the body of a tramp is also discovered and a beautiful neighbor turns out to be more than a friend of the dead man.

This, the third book by Christie, has an usual aspect concerning Hastings near the end. I'll say no more about that.
I'm following along with an A.C. group on another book site that is starting from the beginning of her works, and so I'm reading the early ones that introduce her famous detectives. I'll be dipping in and out all this coming year, depending on if I've already read the book for that month. ***and a half.

86. Other People's Love Letters. Exactly as the title describes, this is a book of love/anguish letters collected from as far back as 100 years ago. Some are very brief and get to the point, others are long, passionate, reprimanding and cover about every other emotion that can enliven or thwart a relationship. Some favorites are the e-mail that begins:

"Ken, I would definitely advise you to cultivate your courting skills. Months of emailing do not a relationship make."

Or the 1939 letter from a young wife telling her new husband that his idea for a children's clothing store is "swell" but "the idea of having midgets as clerks isn't so very practical." And as proof of how love has changed a life, one note includes the info that "...I haven't gave the finger to anyone driving since I met you..." Sweet. ***

87. Decorating with Books by Marie Proeller Hueston. Put out by "House Beautiful", this is a book about books, one of my favorite categories of books. There are lots and lots of photos of real homes (most appear to be the homes of the very wealthy in New York and Europe) of book collectors. Book porn!!!

There is also much advice about decorating the home with books, such as grouping, lighting and caring for books. ****

@87 This one has been on my wishlist forever. Glad to hear it's worth the wait!

Okay, I'm a little doubtful that any of us (that includes you, mstrust) have the shelf space to group our books attractively on the shelf, along with a vase, with room left for artful backlighting. There may be the rare exception (the newbie?), but aren't all your books crammed up, down and sideways onto more shelves than a decorator would prefer? In my house, it's less Decorating with Books than it is Home Insulation with Books or Challenge Your Dwelling's Structural Integrity with Books.

But who doesn't want to look at book porn?

>Victoria, yes this is a good one. Course I'm eventually going to break down and buy The Most Beautiful Libraries in the World. Love good photos of vast libraries!

>Kay, yes I experience the frustration of too little space every time I need to shelve a new book and I've had to start laying books in stacks in my British fiction section and give a closet over to the stacks.

How do I cope? Tell the husband I need another bookcase! I'm claiming the living room inch by inch with my evil plan.
Because I put my books according to fiction/non-fiction, and then into sub-categories such as author nationality and genre for fiction and subject for non-fiction, I'm able to squeeze in a few objects on the shelves that aren't full. I have a globe in my travel section, a shark jaw and a photo of Niagra Falls in my sea/shipwreck section and my "money from around the world" and stamps are with reference books. It helps to have an entire bedroom made into a library. There are some old photos on my profile page but those are maybe three years old and don't show the three bookcases downstairs.

BTW, the two books you mentioned would be quite handy. I think I can squeeze them in.

@224, Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!

88. A City In Winter by Mark Helprin. The story of a ten year old girl, raised in the forest, who travels alone to the city to claim her kingdom. Her parents and grandparents, the rulers of the kingdom, had been murdered by the Usurper when the girl was a baby and she has been raised in secret by a tutor. When she is put to work in the castle that should be hers, she finds that rebels have been waiting for her return.

An unusual book. It begins with the now grown little girl writing to her unborn child, so we know she survives. Also, the story is about a specific episode in her life, the uprising of her rebellion forces. There is just enough background to let the reader understand the story, but there are plenty of unanswered questions at the end.
It's an imaginative story with spots of humor and spots of dry writing. The only real quibble I have is that it's described and begins as a children's fantasy, then halfway through it becomes a Christian lesson. **and a half.

89. A Treasury of Foolishly Forgotten Americans by Michael Farquhar. A book of bios on Americans who did amazing, terrible or revolutionary things, yet have sunk into obscurity.
Being a fan of pirate history, I knew a lot about Anne Bonny, who really isn't obscure in those books, and I'd read of the famous miser Hetty Green and the Quaker preacher Mary Dyer, but most of these people were new to me. And it's probably no surprise that many are women, like Sarah Winnemucca, who confronted President Hayes about the treatment of her Paiute tribe or Louise Boyd, who financed her own explorations in the Arctic and whose knowledge and mapping of Greenland was put to use by the U.S. during WWII.
Others are William Dawes, the other Midnight Rider with Paul Revere, and Stephen Pleasonton, a clerk who used his own initiative to save the Constitution from destruction when the British burned the original White House.
Good research and good choices of Americans we really should be familiar with. ****

90. Maigret and the Man on the Bench by Georges Simenon.

Maigret is called to see the body of a man stabbed in the back in a narrow Parisian alleyway. The man seems utterly unremarkable, so why would anyone bother to stab him? Maigret's digging uncovers a timid husband who was too afraid to tell his wife he had long ago lost his job, a bratty daughter who has little regard for her parents and an elderly brothel keeper.

This was my first Simenon and I really liked going with Maigret and his team of young inspectors all over Paris. They can't spot a cafe or brassiere without needing a little drink and where to lunch is planned with care. I have just one complaint and I've had to knock half a star off because of it.

SPOILER____

The whole affair wraps up with a person who isn't even a character in the book. Really. I went back wondering if it had been a very minor character that I had forgotten about, but nope. Not there. Just a name at the end. Weird.

_________

I'll read more from Simenon, and I'll have a lot of choices as he wrote over two hundred books. ***and a half.

91. Travels with Alice by Calvin Trillin. Trillin recounts his travels all over the world with his wife Alice and their two daughters and various friends. The essays are often about food, but also about culture, language and Trillin's obsession with "babyfoot" across Italy. I especially liked the essay about his need to verify the authenticity of American-style fast food at the Champs-Elysees by dragging four children around the neighborhood and forcing them to eat and critique burger after burger. ****

11 in 11 Challenge:

here

92. The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey. Inspector Alan Grant is suffering from shot nerves and so takes himself off to the wilds of Scotland to stay with old friends. Of course, even in his poor condition, crime will find him. On the outset of his extended holiday Grant finds that a young man on the train has died. He seems too young and healthy to just die in a fall and the image of his face haunts Grant and gives him something to think about other than his newly acquired claustrophobia.

The mystery here takes a back seat to the inner dialogue of Grant, who desperately needs a break from his work. He travels to remote parts of Scotland and meets interesting characters like Wee Archie, the local annoying revolutionary and Yohgurt the surly train porter. Recommended. ****

93. The Sweet Dove Died by Barbara Pym. Nearing fifty, elegant Leonora has never been married and she likes it that way. She lives in London and has been left enough money that she doesn't need or want to work, and her friends and suitors know better than to expect anything more than good taste and a perfect appearance from her. Then she meets two men: antique dealer Humphrey, who is her own age and very interested, and his nephew James, who is half Leonora's age and bisexual. Suddenly, Leonora is in love and uncomfortable with it.

This is the third I've read from Pym and maybe because it was written in 1978, it's less innocent, more worldly than those written earlier. And it's so interesting to see the slow changes that happen to a woman who resents that she's aging, that the looks she had always prided herself on may be fading and that her growing dependence on someone should bring her the unhappiness she had always worked so hard to avoid.
I choose this as my last book for 2010 because I knew I wouldn't be disappointed by Pym. ****