VisibleGhost- Second Half

I've slowly built a 'Next100' collection. Supposedly, it's my TBR list to work on first. I am reading some of them. Progress! It is not static- some books will probably shuffle off as new shiny stuff I'm not yet aware of demands a place in the collection. I'm going to keep it at one hundred books. IOW, it's not going to become the Next125' collection. You can take a peek at the collection to see if this thread will bore you to tears or if it might be of some interest. I haven't categorized it yet although I know where most of it will fit.

Category One- Outward Odyssey: A People's History of Space

Category Two- Translations

Category Three- History of Science

Category Four- Futurism

Category Five- Historical Fiction

Category Six- Authors Who Suicided

Category Seven- Growing Things (Like veggies, not tumors or horns)

Category Eight- Elemental (Periodic Table)

I will be interested in seeing what you put in categories 1 and 3, VG.

Stasia, only six of the proposed twelve books in the Outward Odyssey series have been released.

Into That Silent Sea- Mercury and Gemini beginnings.
In the Shadow of the Moon- Finishes Gemini and takes Apollo to touchdown on moon.
Footprints in the Dust- Finishes Apollo
Homesteading Space- Skylab
Ambassadors From Earth- Non-Crewed Missions
To a Distant Day- Rocket Pioneers

All cover the Soviet programs also.

I've read Shadow, so next up is Footprints to finish Apollo.

Next history of science is- Cosmic Anger: Abdus Salam, The First Muslim Nobel Scientist

July- Books I'm working on.

Life and Fate- Six or seven weeks into this. Good but long.

The Scientist As Rebel- Essays, so no problem setting it down for periods of time.

Freefall- ER book I really need to finish.

Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees

Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works, LOA- Year-long project.

The Rational Optimist- Ridley is sticking to his thesis and using examples.

Living in the End Times- Instead of walking out the front door to collect the mail at the street, Slavoj is exiting the back door and walking clear around the world to retrieve the mail.

Cosmic anger sound fascinating and I very nearly bought Wildwood last weekend (I loved Waterlog) so I can't wait to see what you think.

clfisha, I'm enjoying Wildwood. Cosmic Anger is another one of those Oxford U books that they put out that no one else seems to get to. Another one in the same vein that has caught my eye is The Many Worlds of Hugh Evert III: Multiple Universes, Mutually Assured Destruction, and the Meltdown of a Nuclear Family. I find smart wacky people intriguing.

That title does sound intriuging! Although my brain usually melts as soon as someone tries to explain anything physics related.

51. The Rational Optimist: How Prosperity Evolves, Matt Ridley

In an age of plenty for a sizable portion of the population, why are there so many apocaholics? Heck, I'm one part of the time. Why is it of interest to imagine or predict hundreds of ways that humanity will meet its doom? There are bookshelves loaded with such books, it's a given in most movies, experts abound in bad news, and most individuals have a theory or two on what's going to get us. Are most humans natural pessimists or are the pessimisms justified? Maybe optimism doesn't sell.

Ridley, lately of Northern Rock infamy, is an unrepentant optimist. He's a descendant of Adam Smith and Hayek in this regard. Actually, Smith thought there was a limit to growth and equilibrium would be reached in a market economy. Their train of thought is wealth arises from exchange and specialization. Trade and expertise. Because there are no limits to ideas this process can go on for a long time and create immense wealth. The wealth attracts attention from others- power seekers, competitors, empires, governments, and priestly castes- and the process is interrupted or reversed for a time. Still, though exchange and specialization might be suppressed in one area it tends to pop up somewhere else. Back and forth it goes through time and generally ends up raising standards of living in the long run.

Hot showers, flushing toilets, media, vacations, travel, transportation, and cheap calories are some of the results. It's estimated that there are upwards of twelve billion consumer products available now. Does this make most of us happy? Hell no! As Paul Krugman, and others, have pointed out, we look at our two BMWs, then notice the neighbors have three, and boy, are we pissed. Ridley actually stays away from the happiness indexes and just focuses on the tangible physical goods and lifestyles we have now. Most of us didn't go to work this week picking cotton with an overseer lashing us with a whip when we had a bad hair moment which resulted in a lackadaisical cotton picking. He admits it still happens in some hellholes but it is not as common as it used to be.

Ridley covers several areas including, Malthusian traps, food, inventions, innovation and the two great pessimisms of today: Africa and climate change. He makes and sticks to his case in a clear easy to comprehend style. Most readers will probably find themselves arguing with him a time or two. If you're a dyed in the wool pessimist then you'll likely be arguing with him the whole book or flinging it across or at something or other. If that happens it won't be difficult to find a pessimistic book fix. Those keep on coming like clockwork.

52. Life and Fate, Vasili Grossman

An epic in size, scope, and rendition. Grossman lived, worked, and played during the Stalin era. He understood it, was affected by it, and wrote of it with an eye on posterity. Some Soviet writers used satire and allegories to disguise their observations and criticisms of the State. Grossman tackles it head-on with a realist style. He uses archetypes for his main characters and then lets those character's inner conversations and interactions with others expose the different views that made up the lifestyles lived under Stalinism and Nazism. He doesn't play tricks with the language or wander into obscure symbolism. It does require a pretty close reading to keep up with all the names, including the patronymic.

Grossman is mostly compared to Tolstoy and Chekhov. I would say that is fair. There is a bit of short episodes for some of the characters and there is the huge overview of an entire country. Though the book was long, I never became bogged down or lost interest. I found myself ready to read a few pages most days. It deserves the kudos and appreciation it has received from many quarters. It's powerful, haunting, and illuminative.

#13: I look forward to getting my hands on that one some day.

53. Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy, Joseph E. Stiglitz

Some of the financial crisis books appearing about the crisis that began in late 2007 feature the firms and individuals that helped create or participated in the meltdown. There is a schadenfreude element that plays out describing the troubles. Stiglitz's book gives an overview of the Great Recession from an economic viewpoint. It doesn't focus on individuals or firms but takes a big picture look at the conditions that prevailed in the years leading up to problems.

Stiglitz argues that no economic foundations were overturned by the events that took place. Some 'denominations' of economics got their eyes blackened and have to reevaluate their tenets. He delves into the battles that struggle for supremacy in economic circles and how hard it is to move old theories into a new age with new conditions. Included are some of the problems between microeconomics theory and macroeconomic theory. They come to different conclusions. Similar to Newtonian physics and quantum physics. They don't mesh together neatly.

This is a worthwhile read if you are interested in the economic reasons for the crisis. If you are looking for narrative stories about the players (winners and losers) that unfolded during the crisis then this isn't such a book. Stiglitz presents his thoughts in a clear but nonscintillating manner which led to thought and even some disagreement on my part.

You know I wish my brain was wired to read more non fiction books the my wishlist wouldn't start up so.. however hard I try if I read too many I find myself finding other things to do. Oh well Life and Fate does sound interesting.

I know you are meant to reducing your TBR but I noticed you had a historical fiction category and if you fancy something odd and different you could try Elephantina by Andrew Drummond.. (1st man to dissect an Elephant!) might be hard to get hold outside the UK though :(

Elephantina sounds good. At the moment I'm mostly fiction. I'm at the short stories in Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works, LOA. I've read a Good Man is Hard to Find three or four times over the years. It always seem to read different each time I've read it. There's a lot in that violent little story. I'm also in weirdo freak-land with Geek Love by Katherine Dunn. I keep thinking- don't go there! But she does anyway. Repeatedly.

Hmm I am not sure what it says about me that I automatically added Geek Love to my wishlist after the 1st line of a review started "voluntary amputation, freak breeding, and a savior in the form of a flippered sociopath?" no I didnt finish the review either!

I have never heard of Flannery O'Connor but I am intrigued and I see someone has stuck the short storty on the internet. I definately need to read more southern gothic tales
http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html

(on a bizarre note wiki say the alternative UK title for " A Good Man is Hard to Find" was "The Artificial N*gger and Other Tales". The mind boggles really.)

Definitely want to read Life and Fate, and Grossman in general...

Chatterbox, you might pick up more of Grossman's reporter-ness in Life and Fate than I probably did as I've never been one. I recognized some of it though.

54. Geek Love, Katherine Dunn

I was ready for a walk on the wild side. This was beyond wild side. It was a trip into a bizzarro dimension. A struggling couple that own a carnival influence her pregnancies with drugs, insecticides, arsenic, and radioisotopes to have 'special' children. Yep, they turn out very special indeed. And thus we're off on one of the weirdest family sagas ever. I know authors are supposed to have active imaginations but Dunn's imagination in this book is beyond an over-active imagination. It's nuclear!

Dunn lights a fuse early in the book. It's a long fuse. Still, you know the book is going to blow up in your hands. It's just a matter of when. At the core it is revelations about humanness. Is your body you? Does alterations of a body change one's essence? Geek Love does have some tenderness, some humor (well, it's unconventional, out-there humor), and lots of gets-under-your-skin itchiness. The conclusion wasn't all I hoped for but the journey to get there was more than I hoped for.

I remember back when Geek Love was the "it" book of the season. You've made me want to give it a closer look. I may have to read it. I do have to tell you that your influence on my TBR is entirely pernicious.

RidgewayGirl, I vaguely remember Geek Love being a bestseller. I found my copy in a used bookstore three or four years ago and it's been sitting on the TBR shelf ever since waiting for me to read it. I'm not sure why I picked it up to read now. Some of my books sit on shelves for years and others are started the day I bring them home.

I found this blurb while looking around after finishing Geek Love. I do that sometimes to see what others had to say about a book. " if Flannery O'Connor had consumed vast quantities of LSD, she may have written like this' -Literary Review. My copy has a collection of blurbs in the front of the book but doesn't have that one. It was a coincidence that I happened to be reading O'Connor and Dunn at the same time. Still, I wouldn't have come up with that blurb on my own.

55. Cosmic Anger: Abdus Salam-The First Muslim Nobel Scientist, Gordon Fraser

Abdus Salem was born in British India. He went to college in England and while there partition occurred turning his homeland into Pakistan. He and his family belonged to the Ahmadi sect of Islam. Pakistan eventually cracked down on the Ahmadis and the sect was declared heretical by the government. Passports of the Ahmadis reflected this heretical status and Salam and others of the Ahmadis were forbidden to enter Saudi Arabia for religious reasons. Abdus Salam maintained ties with Pakistan but ended up in the end being a person without a homeland.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics in 1979 for his work on the electroweak force. Many Muslims still do not acknowledge his win as going to a Muslim because of the heretic status. Salam never stopped trying to bridge differences between intractable groups. He founded the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy as a place for students and researchers to come together from places that did not usually interact. He was a tireless diplomat and an advocate for giving science a place in modern Islam.

The cosmic anger comes from his sense of the inequalities of the world. There are talented people born into third world countries that have no outlets or resources to contribute to the scientific or academic world. He spent a lot of his life trying to give some of these people an opportunity.

The biography mainly covers his academic and professional life. There is very little of his personal life. He did marry a woman from his traditional tribal area and also married a molecular biophysics researcher from England. This is mentioned in passing but no details emerge. Abdus Salam spent his career in particle physics but remained religiously devout. That is not the usual in physics.

Fraser's book has a little subcontinent history, some history of science, the surface layer of Salam's life, and a bit of religion history. It is not a definitive biography but rather a quick look at a part of the second half of the twentieth century and one man's place in it.

56. Coyote Tales From the Indian Pueblos, Evelyn Dahl Reed

Coyote- trickster, greedy, sneaky, braggart, villain, victim, sometimes winner, and sometimes loser. What's not to love? This slim little volume collects short little tales from the New Mexico Pueblos of Isleta, Acoma, Zuni, Jemez, Taos, Laguna, Santo Domingo, Cochiti, San Juan, and Santa Clara. Most are around a page long. These are collected in book form but they work much better in the old oral storyteller traditions. There is enough here to catch a glimpse of underlying Pueblo beliefs but just a glimpse. This collection also has some whimsical illustrations by Glen Strock. Personally, I like the longer more involved Coyote folklore more than the short form. There is a bibliography included that lists several volumes featuring Native American Coyote tales.

23 Sounds interesting although the base human side of me of liked to see more of his personal life. I never understood the 2+ marriage thing ;-) Among the Believers: An Islamist Journey touched on the Ahmadis faith in Pakistan it's sad to see so little has changed.

24 Can you recommend a more involved book. I know next to nothing about Pueblo beliefs.

#25- I tried to think of a readable book about Pueblo belief but I can't think of one. There is an in depth two volume set, Pueblo Indian Religion, that I've skimmed but not absorbed. One of the problems with many of the books out there is that they get mixed in with New Age and Cosmic Hippy outlooks. IOW, non-natives are using parts of the beliefs in non-traditional ways and then writing books. And then there are the non-Pueblo tribes in the surrounding areas like the Navajo, Apaches, Utes, and others. They share some beliefs but differ in many ways. It gets confusing.

For an outsider to experience some of the oral traditions and dance, there are events open to all like The Gathering of Nations. One can mix and mingle and observe. It's still much to take in. It is attended by more peoples than the Pueblos. They have some online video and such.

http://www.gatheringofnations.com/front.htm

57. Every Man Dies Alone, Hans Fallada

There are plenty of reviews that cover the plot and story fictionalized in Every Man Dies Alone so I'm going to comment on the writing/translation style. Fallada wrote the book at a feverish pace: it was written in twenty four days or so. He had completed a non-fiction piece on the case so he was familiar with the main characters and fairly unimpressed with their resistance efforts. I get the impression that the translator of the book into English from German, Michael Hofmann, was a deliberate, conscientious translator with a flair for capturing the mood of Fallada. The combination of frenzied writing and careful translation may have enhanced the original book.

The two principal characters are doomed and powerless against the powerful Nazi machine. It could have been bleak as hell but somehow it is and isn't. At times it has a noirish feel. At times it has some wicked black humor. Then there are some tragicomic moments. From there, the inane bureaucracy of the times is explored. Inept secondary characters with weird sad stories of their own are beautifully drawn. There is introspection and musing on hopeless situations. All these styles mesh into a book that is a powerful example of what literature can be.

Fallada stretches out several threads of plot and then condenses them with near brutal precision. The chapter, The Fateful Monday, is a good example of this. Some of the minor characters go from near success to great failure in quick time. Many do not see the doom approaching them including some of the Nazis. Fallada doesn't get polemical and keeps his writing voice on a even keel. Thus, he shows how life can be under a regime when one side has all the power and individuals try to survive a day at a time.

Another good review for this title. It's moving up the wishlist now.

27 That one has been on my wishlist for a while... think it's just moved up!

and thanks for the link, I have only dipped my toe in, so to speak, but its fascinating so far.

AHS-Wolfy, the many favorable mentions of Every Man on LT is what moved the book up my TBR list. Enjoy.

clfisha, the artwork and jewelry are worth checking out also.

I liked your review of Every Man Dies Alone. I keep hearing good things about it and since I have a copy, I'd better get reading.

Thanks RidgewayGirl, here's hoping you savor the reading of Every Man Dies Alone.

58. Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, Mary Roach

I'm fairly certain Mary Roach was born without an embarrassment gene. There is no bodily function she refuses to think about, research, and write up. If, in the future, you find yourself in need of arcane information like the cling factor of dingleberries on human butt hairs, call Mary. I'm sure she has read the relevant papers and interviewed the authors of such papers. I can imagine scenes from around Mary's childhood dining table. She is waxing eloquent on the color, smell, gooeyness, elasticity, lumpiness, stringability, and other various properties of snot. Her long-suffering mother sighs with yet another forlorn sense of hopelessness, " Honey, polite young ladies do not talk of snot at the dinner table." Such conversations leave her mother with the certitude of belief that her real daughter was switched in the hospital for this child now living in her home. She thinks of discrete genetic testing even now.

The human body evolved on Earth, in gravity, and in an atmosphere that reduces radiation. Take humans away from Earth and they do poorly outside their familiar conditions. A few days or weeks aren't too bad but the longer a person lives in space the more chance there is of problems arising. Some of them, like bone density loss, get troublesome. Packing for Mars does a good job in explaining the frailties of humans in space and some of the difficulties in trying to live there. She uses a breezy humorous style to cover this field. Her unlimited curiosity takes the reader done many roads that aren't thought of on a daily basis. It's a strange interesting trip.

Funny review!

Hi ronincats, I didn't know you were still lurking around here. You scared me- popping up like that. ;)

33 ha that review made me. I have only read May Roach's Stiff and I must read more, Packing for Mars sounds more of an intresting topic than the other too books. I doubt it will give me fun buriel ideas though.. unless I can afford to be shot into space ;)

59. The Scientist As Rebel, Freeman Dyson

The Scientist As Rebel is a collection of some of Freeman J. Dyson's book reviews, short essays, and speeches. While science is the main subject, Freeman is such a polymath that many other areas are touched on. Poetry, history, literature, biography, and politics are some of the areas touched upon. Dyson is never strident and shows a toleration for religion that many scientists do not. He never gives religionists a free pass but does concede that humans and religion form a tight bond. Dyson comes across as a person one could sit down and have fascinating conversations with for hours without tempers flaring even when controversial subjects are broached. At his core he is a humanist writ large. He has been friends with a vast and varied assortment of personalities throughout his now long life. It was quite a pleasure to spend some time with him via this book.

Reread-
60. Parable of the Sower, Octavia E. Butler

The title refers to the biblical parable of Saint Luke. The book also has some parallels to The Book of Job. Fifteen year-old Lauren Olamina is living in near-future southern California where society is crumbling and disintegrating day by day. Her father is a preacher and community leader but she can't bring herself to believe what he believes. She writes her thoughts in diaries and slowly a nascent religion comes into being. She calls her book Earthseed: The Books of the Living. Each chapter starts with a verse from Earthseed. It's a stark religion with no empty promises. Stark but beautiful.

Lauren is beset with one calamity after another. She has an iron-strong determination to not only survive but create something from a position of powerlessness. Survival takes most of her energy but as time progresses she also takes baby steps in forming Earthseed. She's as tough a protagonist as they come. When most people would have given up in sheer exhaustion she determinedly forges ahead. Butler knows how to write tough women. There is nothing florid or fancy about Butler's writing. It is simple, concise, and clear. It is powerful and unforgettable. It's also a reminder that most societies are balanced on an edge of progression or regression.

61. Footprints in the Dust: The Epic Voyages of Apollo, 1969-1975, Edited by Colin Burgess

The follow-up to In the Shadow of the Moon. Instead of a co-authored book by Francis French and Colin Burgess, this one is more of an anthology with several writers. It is a step down in quality from Shadow. Some chapters were fairly pedestrian but others did manage to unearth some obscure factoids. Footprints covers Apollo 12 through Apollo 17 and touches on the Skylab flights which were boosted into orbit with the leftover Apollo equipment.

62. Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea, Barbara Demick

Imagine. You are a North Korean household. You are given two framed in glass portraits. One is of Kim Il-sung, the other is of Kim Jong-il, your dear leaders. They have to be hung on on wall with no other hangings in competition. No family portraits or other artwork are allowed on the same wall. You are given a special white cloth that can only be used to dust the dear leader's portraits. Inspectors can enter your abode to make sure the portraits are being revered and cared for properly. Neighbors and relatives are encouraged to report indifference or ignoring of the portraits. Your holidays mainly consist of the two dear leader's birthdays when they give your children candy and sweets and adoration and thanks should be directed to them and them alone.

We have nothing to envy in this world is a line from a school song that is sung in earlier education classes. Accompanied by accordions. It seems accordions are great instruments to rally little kids, factory workers, and field workers to put their all into their labors. Who will notice the hardships of life when accordions are blaring out motivational and ideological songs?

Totalitarian regimes all have their individual markers that identify their brand of totalitarianism. North Korea's is a blend of racial purity, diefication of the leaders, intimidation, and constant unrelenting propaganda. North Korea watchers have been predicting the downfall of the regime for twenty-five years. It's still around and it still has a firm grip on power. Twenty-three million people live their lives as well as they can there. Some are convinced they live in the best place in the world and others are not quite so sure. Some are convinced the emperor has no clothes but are well aware of what happens to those say so out loud.

#39: I need to get to the Burgess books. Thanks for the reminder, VG. Too bad about the step down in quality for Footprints.

Stasia, I'm not sure if you have read A Man on the Moon by Andrew Chaikin. If not, it's the Apollo book to start with. An excellent overview of the Apollo program.

VG - thanks of the link here. I'm on post one, so I'll catch up here slowly.

@38 Now I usually steer away from anything religous but you have intrigued me with this one. Never read Octavia E. Butler either.

@40 Sadly I have always wanted to go there but there is just something wrong about holidaying in an extreme dictatorship. Great review btw, I think the only thing I have read on North Korea was Guy Delisle Pyongyang: Journey in North Korea which was okish. Interesting that European animators farm out the work to North Korea though.

44- Octavia E. Butler is a favorite author of mine. I was sad when she passed a few years ago at too early an age. I think all her books but one are in print.

63. The Dream Machine: The Untold History of the Notorious V-22 Osprey, Richard Whittle

Whittle started reporting on the V-22 in 1984. He finished this book in 2009 and the story is still playing out. He compared covering the Osprey to those that cover abortion issues. There is little neutrality involved. No matter what kind of article he wrote he was inundated with complaints from opposing sides. Many thought the tiltrotor (takes off like a helicopter, levels out and flies like an airplane) was the worst concept in aviation history. Others thought it the most practical idea in short-flight aviation history. Rarely did the two sides meet. Many weren't opposed to the V-22 itself but were opposed to the costs involved developing the aircraft.

It got development costs approved in 1981 after the Desert One fiasco in Iran in 1979 that showed the liabilities of helicopters in missions with great distances involved. Helicopters are slow and not exactly smooth rides. The first proposal was approved with the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines initially deciding to take some. The Marines wanted it the most. The Army eventually bowed out of the program. The author takes us through the procurement battles and procedures of starting a new aircraft project. It is a labyrinth with obscure processes even in non-controversial aircraft. The V-22 ended up being the poster child for delayed and over budget military development plans. Dick Cheney fought the hardest to kill it. It didn't get full production status until 2005. It wasn't field operational until 2007. It still is only being supplied ten to twelve new aircraft per year. To fulfill the original contract numbers for the full slate of aircraft will still takes years to finish. It's looking like a fifty year timeline. There were civilian plans for the aircraft also. Those are advancing at an even slower pace.

Whittle set out to write his book from neither a pro or con viewpoint of the Osprey. He covers the good, the bad, and the tragic. Thirty lives were lost in crashes. He had two and a half decades of reporting on the V-22 to mine for the book. It shows. It is thorough and detailed in the narrative manner in which he relays the ups and downs of the V-22 Osprey history.

I've caught up! Lots of great reviews here. I vaguely recall some TV news stories about vertical take-off airplanes, but didn't realize it was all about one vehicle or that it's still considered viable.

A string of great reviews here! Making note of both Packing for mars and Nothing to envy. I read and liked Fledgling earlier this year, so I'm sure I'll look for more Butler in the future. Parable of the sower sounds good.

GingerbreadMan, Octavia Butler wasn't a prolific writer so it's not hard to read her entire ouvre.
Kindred
Parable of the Sower
Parable of the Talents
Lilith's Brood, omnibus
Seed to Harvest, omnibus
Bloodchild and other stories
Fledgling
Survivor, Octavia E. Butler, this is the hard one to get hold of. She didn't like it and wouldn't allow it back into print. Now it's expensive.

Nobody asked but here's my ranking of her books.
1. Parables
2. Kindred
3. Lilith's Brood
4. Fledgling
5. Seed to Harvest
6. Bloodchild
7. Survivor

64. Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, Margaret Atwood

My Atwood in April turned into Atwood in April, May, June, July, and August. It was the Massey Lectures Series for 2008. A Canadian program that has been ongoing for some time now. Since 1961, I believe. Atwood shifted some things around for the book format but it still reads like a speech. There are some very interesting themes. Speeches work different than print so putting speeches into book form leaves a something a little off. Not bad, but noticeable. I probably should have just listened to the speeches. Then again, I'm not much of a speech listener. Her thoughts on debtors and creditors were intriguing though.

65. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

When I was young I could disappear into books at will. The real world would fade and I would be immersed into book world. As I've aged that doesn't happen often. I disappeared into Lonesome Dove. Sharing that world with the wonderful flawed characters that McMurtry created was an enjoyable respite from the world of work, bills, annoying people, and the pettiness of life.

Lonesome Dove follows two main characters, Gus and Call, from Lonesome Dove, Texas to Montana. They are former Texas Rangers whose rangering days are over. Neither are comfortable with that. Their world has changed and they aren't fitting well into the new one. The solution? Drive a herd of cattle from south Texas to Montana to be the first to do so. Call fixates on the idea and Gus gripes about the endeavor daily. Neither are cattlemen, nor do either of them particularly want to be, so it's not a labor of love or an ambition to fulfill a dream. It's something to do because rangering has gone away.

Along with Call and Gus are dozens of other characters with their own interesting back stories and goals. Call girls, cowboys, gamblers, loafers, drifters, and outlaws. There is an understated sense of humor throughout and many instances of man/woman problems. It's an epic even though the main time period covered is less than a year. There are flashbacks and recollections that extend the time frame to fill in blanks but it's still compressed into a months long adventure. It was a fantastic book to disappear into for a week.

Nice review VG. It's been on wishlist awhile, I should read it sometime...

I was recently realised I had never read a Western before and someone on LT (Sorry being forgetful today) recommended Lonesome Dove so it's to see more high praise.

I should check my thread more often than once a fortnight.

dchaikin, I had Lonesome Dove hanging around for years before I actually picked it up to read. Wait until you're in a mood for a rollicking good adventure.

clfisha, Lonesome Dove has clfisha written all over it. Well, maybe not. It will be interesting to see your take on it. McMurtry plays coy with the genre of Lonesome Dove like Atwood does with her non-science fiction science fiction. He calls it an alternate historical novel instead of a western.

I started this challenge in October 2009 with the goal of finishing 100 books. That is sooo not going to happen. I will be around the 67 or 68 mark on Oct. 1st. 32 books short! I don't get to post in the I'm Done thread. :( Looking back, I had a great reading year- it's just that my volume fell off after reading 166 books in 2008 and 100 in 2009. I was busier in real life and several things cropped up that I wasn't planning on. No regrets though.

I have finished Tigana and need to come up with some coherent thoughts on it. Should finish Laika this week and need to finish an ER book by by the 1st, Mood Matters, in which I'm having a book-long argument with the author. And that will probably finish off my year in this challenge.

Be interesting to hear your thoughts on Tigana, I really enjoyed even of I felt it was a flawed book. Tends to create a huge range of emotional responses too, always good for a discussion :)

My volume of reading is really low this I know works been manic but last year I was starting my 90th book around this time instead of my 58th!

I want to see what you thought of Tigana as well.

66. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay

GGK is an author I've put off reading for years. I'm not sure why. It was probably a tiring of the traditional fantasy genre along with getting caught up in the New Weird genre when it burst upon the scene. Tigana ended up being an immensely enjoyable read. The main themes are identity, memory, love, hate, revenge, and power. Tigana is set in an environment that is similar to Italy before unification. Instead of uniting, outsiders end up in power with the aid of locals. Any occupier and occupied could be part of the model that went into Tigana. For instance, I thought not only about Italy while reading Tigana but also of Palestine and Israel. Kay built a fantasy novel from ideas and then inserted the story around the ideas. The book is fantasy but it is also message fiction. Kay is a good plot twister- they were a few turns that surprised me. He also does well with tension and arcing toward an ultimate showdown which is a standard fantasy trope.

There are two main sorcerers, Bradin and Alberico, who rule part of the land and desire the part they don't control. There is little background on how they achieved their great powers. Was it preternatural power? Did they have to work to maintain it? Could they increase its scope? This is not addressed and the reader is expected to accept their power with no explanation on how they received it or maintained it. I wanted a lot more in this part of the story. It would have enhanced the book. It was a solid four-star book for me and I will read another Kay sometime. I'm curious to see if the message fiction recedes into the background a bit more in his other books.

Some graphic works I knocked out.

67. Laika, Nick Abadzis

A neat little work telling the tale of little Laika, the dog that ventured into space, well, she didn't have much choice. Even though I knew her fate it still got to me in the end.

68. Barefoot Gen: Volume One: A Cartoon Story of Hiroshima, {keiji Nakazawa

I have very mixed thoughts on this one. The story of a pacifist family in WWII Japan is well told and drawn up until August 6, 1945. But dear lord, was the family really that violent towards one another? Pacifism ends at the family threshold? Or is it over represented in the artwork?

69. Gus and His Gang, Christophe Blain

A French take on the American Western. This worked out better than I thought would. Gus and friends are outlaws whose sole purposes in life are outlawing and the pursuit of women.

Reread

70. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole

There are about fifty reasons why I love this book. Here are a few of them. First, none of the characters are worthy of emulation. They have no redeeming qualities. None. Zero. Zilch. They aren't evil- they're just goofy banality writ large. It's easy to write a character that is easy to hate. Just make them so evil that the reader can't stomach them. None of that here. Also there is no comeuppance served upon their inept heads. They are living in their same world at the end as they were in the beginning. Some circumstances have changed but there is absolutely no happily ever after. Kind of like real life.

Nobody is likable in Confederacy. They are all wacky and weird in their existence. Not likable does not mean not entertaining. They are endlessly entertaining. Not to mention- sometimes hilarious. There is no overall moral lesson involved. You won't a damn thing about how to better yourself by reading this. No answers to anything are forthcoming. Readers looking for insight will be left shaking their heads and muttering insults directed at the author and readers who praise such foolishness.

Finally, the end is not the end. Readers will forever wonder if Ignatuis J. Reilly's and Myrna Minkoff's coming together will survive the next fifteen minutes or if it is the beginning a long inharmonious adventure.

71. Mood Matters, John L. Casti

This is a book in search of an audience. It's not quite a science book, nor a business, investment, economic, finance, or sociology book. It is a mash-up book scratching the surface of those areas. The field is dubbed socionomics which is not to be confused with socioeconomics. The thesis is that collective moods drive events instead of events driving collective moods. The two main measurements used in the book to gauge collective moods are stock market indices and news headlines. That's not very original and they can only measure a sliver of public sentiment. The author admits socionomics needs to go along way down the road to be considered a science. No kidding! Dozens of fields have been trying to measure animal spirits for decades. It's a tough problem to solve with data increasing at a frenetic pace. Socionomics might contribute to solving the intricacies of mood measurement but it's going to need lots of help from other fields.

Mood Matters basically uses Robert R. Prechter Jr.'s work as a foundation. Prechter's work is based on the Elliot Wave Principle which some technical traders use for investment purposes. It has adherents but it also has a lot of detractors. In the lists of the world's richest people one would have to search hard to find any that claim the Elliot Wave Principle was instrumental in building their fortune. The writing and editing leave something to be desired also. The author is fond of writing " as we will show you in chapter two". Then in chapter two we are treated to "as we showed you in chapter one." This or similar phrases were distracting, then became annoying after the nth time. I haven't read Prechter's work but if one is interested in the subject I think I'd start there.

My final book for my 1010 challenge.

72. The Origin, Irving Stone

Remember Irving Stone? If you don't your parents or grandparents might remember him. He was popular in his day, I gather. He mostly wrote biographical fiction featuring famous artists and such. This was my yearly Charles Darwin book. I'm not sure why- but there are three individuals I find endlessly fascinating: Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. I know their basic stories. However, I continue to read books about them.

The Origin sticks very close to accepted facts concerning Darwin. There is little speculation put forth and the little that is doesn't seem to stray from Darwin's voice. If you don't like to read biographies then you'll not likely be engrossed with this one. I zipped through it and enjoyed my revisit with old Charley.

That's the end of my 1010 challenge. My hourglass has run out of sand. I came up 28 books short. I had a good reading year anyway. I'm probably done posting about my reading for the rest of the year on LT. I still haven't decided if I'm going to post anywhere next year. It might end up being a sabbatical year.

A Confederacy of Dunces is on the shelf - the one I was supposed to read in 2009 and am still working on. Next year??

vg - sounds like you need a break. I do hope we see you here in lt-land next year.

Sounds like a rest will do you good. I do hope you change your mind and we'll see you back on LT next year!

56 "It was probably a tiring of the traditional fantasy genre along with getting caught up in the New Weird genre when it burst upon the scene." I can totally relate to this. The strange thing for me was I was only starting to venture back into fantasy (after not having read anything since my teens basically), picking up and liking Tigana, literally being my first fantasy read in a decade or so...and then being blown away by Perdido Street Station just a few months later. Kay is truly my red-haired step child.

dchaikin, got your note. Thanks. I should get over to your thread this week.

VictoriaPL, Ya never know- I might decide to restart book blathering at a future date.

GingerBreadMan, Interesting comments on 'old school' fantasy and New Weird. I'm trying to think what I replaced New Weird with (I haven't read that much of it in the last couple of years) but nothing is coming to mind. I think I read more historical fiction than I used too. I did go on a James Ellroy and David Mitchell kick but that is all I can think off. I only started putting my toes in the water with graphic works three years ago so that genre is rather new to me. Musing on reading subjects and genres is a curious thing.

Oh well I least I am not the only one who didn't make it.. well I have three more days to cram in about 20 books... Still I hope you do feel tempted to come back, I do enjoy your reviews.

I guess noird could be the new new weird :) ah genre can get silly. I must admit I still have trouble considering to read straight fantasy.. if there is even a whiff of an elf I avoid, it has to be odd, chaotic and full of mystery which is quite hard to ferret out..

clfisha, I'm not really looking for strange new genres but sometimes a book will grab my attention. One that has gotten a lot of attention recently in the blogosphere is The Orange Eats Creeps by Grace Krilanovich. I might have to give it a try.

#61: I also hope you will reconsider and post next year whether to this group or another. You have given me a ton of recommendations, books I would probably have not sought out otherwise.

Hi Stasia, If I don't post anywhere on LT then you won't have to bear me waxing poetically about such fare as Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape which I'm reading now and enjoying. Well, I guess someone was odd enough to write it, so I guess I can be odd enough to read it. Actually, it has good ratings on the sites I've checked. For the rest of this year I'm mainly gonna be a lurker though. *dusts off lurker costume*

Hope that involves some sort of cape :)

Don't mind me. I'm still lurking so you really can't see this. I was loosing track of the titles I've read in 2010. I used to keep track of this on paper but lately I have used tags and posting to track it. Paper? Pens? Pencils? Do those things still exist?

The Poisonwood Bible
A Fine Balance
State of Fear
The Angel's Game
The Periodic Table
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
The Foreign Correspondent
Memoirs of an Invisible Man
The World in 2050
The Climate war
Signal and Noise

Interesting list - I mean if I could see it. I'm interested in A Fine Balance, The Periodic Table and The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I've read Angel's Game, which I thought was fine, not great.

See! That's why it is essential to me to keep posting--it's the only reliable way to keep track of my reading. I've heard really good things about The Periodic Table; it is on my wish list.

dchaikin, A Fine Balance is first-rate storytelling. I not sure if it's lit or not but it kept me absorbed.

ronincats, if someone had told me in 1980 that I would track my reading with a laptop on something called the internet I would have told them that they read way way too much science fiction.

How was the heavyweight Signal and Noise?

clfisha, S&N was one of those everything-including-the-kitchen-sink epics. It had some sex, betrayal, adultery, spiritualism, engineering, insanity, the Big Stink, acting, capitalism, drug use, chicanery, a really big cannon, journalism, and art. It's not perfect but it more or less works capturing events not covered elsewhere in historical fiction- the laying of the trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. Modernity is being pulled into Victorian England and back-country USA. It doesn't have a historical note which it really needs, to clarify the fictional parts. It does tell the story of the Great Eastern, a ship snakebit from the start, but some devices and events were either dug up deep from the historical archives or made up. I'm still not sure about some of them. I give it a 3.78 rating.

My Top Ten fiction of 2010. I'll plug it into the Group thread also.

Asterios Polyp, David Mazzucchelli
The River Why, David James Duncan
Matterhorn, Karl Marlantes
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell
Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman
Geek Love, Katherine Dunn
Every Man Dies Alone, Hans Fallada
Parable of the sower, Octavia E. Butler
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMutry
O'Connor: Collected Works, Flannery O'Connor

My Top Ten non-fiction of 2010.

The Climate War: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth, Eric Pooley
Wildwood: A Journey Through Trees, Roger Deakin
Where the Wild Things Were, William Stolzenburg
Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape, Brian Hayes
In the Shadow of the Moon: A Challenging Journey to Tranquility, 1965-1969, Colin Burgess & Francis French
Son of the Morning Star, Evan S. Connell
The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Mystic of the Atom, Graham Farmelo
The World In 2050: Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future, Laurence C. Smith
Dunwoody Pond: Reflections on the High Plains Wetlands and the Cultivation of Naturalists, John Janovy Jr.
Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power, Robert D. Kaplan

VG - glad you posted these lists here, where I can find them. Interesting...some serious books in here.

The final books I got to in 2010 with one-liner comments. It did me good to take a break from commenting on my reads for a couple of months. I enjoyed it. And I'm sure most of you did too. ;)

The Wake of Forgiveness- Machismo writ large.
The New Empire of Debt- Goldbug rants and the excoriation of Thomas Friedman.
Silk Parachute- McPhee!!
Monsoon: The Indian Ocean and the Future of American Power- Geopolitics, history, travelogue, analysis, and commentary on the Indian Ocean region.
Rock Crystal- Awwwww....
The Miernik Dossier- Old school espionage.
2030: Technology That Will Change the World- Futurism.
Dissolution- Reformation with a hunchback.
Never Cry Wolf- Anecdotal anthropomorphism.
And the Pursuit of Happiness- WTF???
The Mists of Avalon- Medieval estrogen.

Actually, I won't finish Mist until the end of the week.

Next year I'll post here- http://www.librarything.com/topic/101840

and here- http://www.librarything.com/topic/104660

ACK!!! Forgot one of the best.

Infrastructure: A Field Guide to the Industrial Landscape- Look honey, there's a cyclone on top of that building.

I've very much enjoyed your meaty reviews, but these little enigmatic one-liners were quite nice too :)

@81 oh wow Infrastructure:A field Guide looks good, his website has a lot of the pictures up too.

clfisha, refineries at night remind me of steampunk. There's some steam, flares, lots of weird architecture, throbbing and humming noises, and industrial smells. They look like strange little cities.

I always feel I am in a sci-fi dystopian movie when I drive past one ;)