jfetting's 100 books in 2011

I'm back in the 100 challenge group for 2011. I just barely managed 100 last year, but we'll see what this year holds. A couple of reading goals:

1) Read 100 books!
2) As ever, try to reduce the number of books tagged TBR in my library
3) Proust!
4) The Brothers Karamazov

I'm planning on reading some poetry this year, as well as some non-Shakespeare drama (as well as Shakespeare drama). I'll be re-reading some favorites (the Brontës, Jane Austen, Harry Potter), going on a spy thriller binge, indulging in some trashy historical fiction, and participating in the Author Theme Reads group (Mario Vargas Llosa as the main author). So I'm looking forward to the year ahead!

I'm beginning to get all excited about 2011 now. :)

#1 The Queen's Fool by Philippa Gregory

A little bit of brain candy to start the year. My usual caveat with Gregory, and all historical fiction: I'm not too concerned about historical accuracy. The likelihood of me noticing any inaccuracies is extremely slim. So I enjoyed this book, almost as much as the Boleyn one. Queen Mary really was a piece of work, wasn't she?

Good luck with your 2011 reading! I had a tough time with The Brothers Karamazov. I read it about 7 years ago and I got really distracted with all the side stories and tangents, although I was in grad school and didn't have a lot of time for reading then. I'll be interested to see how you like it - maybe I'll try it again in a few years.

I've tried (and failed) to read TBK about three times now. I get bogged down around The Grand Inquisitor part - there really is just too much to keep track of (maybe because it isn't really finished? I don't know). So this year I'm determined to finish it. We'll see.

Gosh, Proust! There's a goal. I think he should count for at least two or three books... ;)

I'm going to count him as 6!

#2 The New Lifetime Reading Plan by Clifton Fadiman and John S. Major

Another one of those "here is what you should read and why" books. This one is great - I like the styles of both Fadiman and Major, and it has given me a lot of suggestions for important and/or really good non-Western books to read.

#3 Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling

This one is my favorite!

>3 jfetting: I started reading The White Queen late in December last year and am quite enjoying it. The historical accuracy isn't a big thing for me either, I wouldn't be able to tell if she was pulling a swifty or not, I do enjoy her writing though.

I've been wondering about Gregory - we have a few of her books here that I've collected for our popular reading collection. I might have to check her out! Where should I start?

Hey! Did you see this review? I thought of you when I saw it!

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/02/books/review/Schillinger-t.html?_r=1&scp=1...

I liked The White Queen, too. I probably know even less about the Lancasters and Yorks than I do about the Tudors (if that is even possible).

I started with The Other Boleyn Girl, and read it all in one go, so that might be a good place to start. Good trashy fun.

Nice article! Now I have two more books that I need to read!

#4 The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai

I thought it was wonderful - she writes beautifully. A sad one, though.

Yo. You have more tolerance for Gregory than I. I read the Other Boleyn Girl and it bugged me, so I haven't read any others. Anyway. Got ya starred.

#5 Empire Falls by Richard Russo

Gah, no. I couldn't stand this book, read it for my real life book group, and have to figure out a nice way of saying "no, I hated this book that you all loved". So long and so boring and so depressing. It combined the themes of middle-aged angst and "where is my life going" and disintegrating small-town life because The Mill Shut Down and school shootings. No, no, no.

Agreed. I despised that book. I don't even think I read the whole thing.

#6 Seven Plays by Henrik Ibsen

Overall: Ibsen was WAY ahead of his time, I think. These plays, despite being around 150 years old, are incredibly modern in the issues they address. Wow.

1) Hedda Gabler - one of his most famous. Hedda herself is one of those trapped-in-the-wrong-time women of literature, whose longing for a huge, beautiful, grand gesture on the part of anybody leads to tragic results.
2) Ghosts - all about STDs, and the resulting madness in the offspring. With some additional narrowly-avoided-incest! Fun for the whole family! (no pun intended)
3) An Enemy of the People - this one is great; all sorts of speaking truth to power! Also, since it is about what happens to one man who tries to expose corporate pollution, it is hugely relevant in today's society.
4) A Doll's House - obligate reading for the young feminist. Nora's journey to selfhood is an amazing story.
5) The League of Youth - power corrupts, and everyone is out for themselves.
6) The Wild Duck - don't be assholes to your kids, people. Your mistakes are not their fault. I spent most of it worrying about the actual wild duck (there is one; it isn't just a symbol although it is also a symbol).
7) The Master Builder - please tell me there is another level at which to read this, besides "old man desperately trying to convince himself that he is still sexually attractive to young women". Please.

Thanks for those snippets. I've never read or seen an Ibsen, but now I want to, except for maybe The Master Builder. ROFL.

#7 Nobody Said Not to Go by Ken Cuthbertson

This is a biography of a woman named Emily (or Mickey) Hahn and is the next Missouri Reader's group selection. On one hand, it is really badly written. Cuthbertson is one of those authors who is convinced that his audience can't remember, from one chapter to the next, important names, places, and events. So he keeps reminding you, over and over, that the Peninsula Hotel in Hong Kong was called the Grips, that so-and-so's first wife died, etc. It drove me crazy - I, like most people, are actually not stupid, and don't need to be written down to.

On the other hand, Mickey Hahn was an absolutely fascinating woman. She was a St. Louis native, went to high school in Chicago, then college at Wisconsin. She was a prolific novelist, biographer, and contributor to The New Yorker. When she was in college she and a friend took off on a cross-country road trip from Madison to LA (in the 1920s, before such things as expressways and decent cars), she went to the Belgian Congo with the Red Cross for a couple years by herself, again. Then to Shanghai where she became an opium addict and concubine (no, really! All while writing for the New Yorker!), then to Hong Kong where she was trapped when Japan invaded in 1941, and where she also got knocked up by the head of British Secret Service (who she later married). Overall, one of those ballsy, outspoken, who-cares-what-they-think types that I admire the hell out of but am not nearly brave enough to be. She had a crazy, fascinating life. I need to read her writing, which I'm sure is much better than this book.

#18 Thanks for the review, Jennifer. My copy is waiting at the library for me - I'm looking forward to it.

Sounds like a fascinating subject, shame the writing wasn't up to scratch!

I would really love to read Mickey's story, but I'm not sure. I hate editing in my head while I'm reading.

I'm wondering, now, after I've set the book down for awhile, if it really was badly written or if I just hate the style the author used. Possibly the second; but the prose was so plodding and dull. It should be sparkling and witty, like its subject.

I added her memoir to my wishlist, though. Lets see what she has to say for herself.

#22 I read the first 2 chapters today and "plodding and dull" are close enough to how I am feeling about it. I was actually thinking in terms of "wooden and unimaginative". But in this case, they amount to the same thing. It sounds like we'll have plenty to critique in this book when the group discussion begins.

Wooden! Yes, wooden. His writing is wooden. And unimaginative. What do you think of her, though?

#8 The Honourable Schoolboy by John le Carré

Three stars for this second of the Smiley spy books. It wasn't anywhere near as good as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, but it was still a good read. (I may up the stars to 4 in the future, but we'll see). I love all the parts where he goes into nitty-gritty detail about spycraft; I don't at all like the behavior of Jerry Westerby. Also, le Carre follows the Trilogy Rule (#1 ends happy, #2 ends on a downer, #3 ends...?), and as this means that my favorite character got screwed over, boo on that!

Le Carre writes terrible women. There are 2.5 "women" in the book. One is the awesome Connie Sachs, aka Mother Russia, no scare quotes needed for her. She's one-dimensional, but then so are the other spies so that is ok. The problem comes in with the alleged love interests. I'm sorry, Mr. le Carre, but no women in the history of the world has ever fallen in love with a man who she meets 2 times, and the second time he shoves a gun in her back and tells her to shut the hell up. NO. This does not happen outside of the minds of certain dudes. Please stop. The 0.5 woman is this underage chick that Jerry is shacking up with in the book. She is, essentially, a body part, and really only speaks one time.

#24 I'm not far enough along to have much of an impression of her yet, but you've given me hope that I will love her. Despite the bad writing.

John le Carre is an author that I want to love, but haven't so far. I must give him another try.

I tried to read one of le Carre's more recent books and it was pretty awful, so I don't know which ones to read and which not to. I enjoyed The Spy Who Came in from the Cold. Recommendations?

I've only read The Spy Who Came in from the Cold which I really enjoyed, too, and the first two Smiley books. I loved Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. I'll be reading a bunch more this year, so I'll let you know what I think of those as I get to them.

#9 Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard

I liked the movie a lot, although I was pretty confused (they speak so quickly! Slow down!). So reading the play cleared a lot of it up. It is really, really, really good if you like this sort of thing. I'm not sure how to describe "this sort of thing", though. Blood, love, and rhetoric (as The Player says). Very dark, very funny, very makes-you-think. Highly recommended.

Jennifer - glad I found you! Looks like you have an ambitious year of reading ahead of you. Good luck.

Welcome, Joyce!

#10 The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke

This collection of fairy tales is set in the same universe as Clarke's novel, Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell. I loved the novel (keep meaning to re-read it), the Victorian atmosphere and the magic and Mr. Norrell and the footnotes. Especially the footnotes. It is a long, long, long book, so I didn't have very high expectations for this collection (since I'm convinced that most people can't do both well. Stefan Zweig, Stephen King, James Joyce, Edith Wharton, Henry James, and Somerset Maugham. 6 authors, out of thousands).

Susanna Clarke, while not at all the equal of a James or a Zweig, actually can write short stories well, too. Kinda like Stephen King, actually, since these are tales of supernatural beings (fairies) and their interactions with humans. I loved the story called Mrs. Mabb (clever, the way she borrows from the Queen Mab speech from Romeo and Juliet to describe Mrs. Mabb), and the one called "The Duke of Wellington Loses His Horse", set in Neil Gaiman's town of Wall. Really, though, I liked them all a whole lot.

I loved Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell-- footnotes were a highlight for me too! I vaguely remember staring The Ladies of Grace Adieu once upon a time, but I don't remember if I finished it or got sidetracked... Adding it to my library list.

29/30 I liked both books too. I keep wishing she would write another novel..

I didn't know about The Ladies of Grace Adieu! You just made my day. I enjoyed Strange and Norrell quite a bit.

I'm not surprised that she does decently with short stories, thinking about it - some of her footnotes were nearly short stories in themselves! So glad it's good! I'll definitely be grabbing this.

The short stories were a lot like the footnotes from Strange and Norrell. Overall just a really enjoyable little book.
Unlike...

#11 The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos

Instead of "The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love", this book should have been called "The Mambo Kings Have Lots of Sex With Random Women and They Also Have Really Big Penises, and Both Sex and Penises Are Described On Every Other Page Using The Same Five Adjectives". This is a long, thick, hard book that swells with burning, turgid prose and oh look! I've used all five adjectives in that sentence! Consider it a summary of the whole book, and avoid.

Pulitzer committee, what were you thinking?

ETA: I only read this because I received Beautiful Maria of My Soul as an ER book that I haven't read or reviewed yet, and wanted to read this first. Now I'm totally dreading Beautiful Maria because I can't handle and more purple, throbbing, veiny genitalia descriptions. Please God, no.

If that book was more than 6 pages long, I don't know how you got through it.

Oh dear. I have Mambo Kings on my shelves. Feeling a bit worried about it too...

But I also do have Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, and I'm hoping to participate in "Fantasy February" over on the 75 book group, and that one might just fit the bill. (I've got a gazillion fantasy novels to read already, and this one has suddenly popped back into my mind. Better find it!)

It was 400 pages long, but I probably only read about 100 pages of it, really, since I started skipping over the sex scenes. It isn't like they change.

I had no idea! I think I own that book. Well, I won't worry about reading it anytime this decade. Just a note: avoid John Irving's Until I Find You, as it is also penis-centered, but in that case it was a small one, which doesn't make it any better. Has there ever been an example of any female fiction writer (not of erotica) who has filled a book with descriptions of the female genitalia?

That is one of the best reviews I have ever read.

Yup, trust feminist criticism to have a book about female genitalia: This Sex Which Is Not One, by Luce Irigaray. I picked it up at a used bookstore about a month ago because I'd read a shorter essay of hers about... something. Who knows. I've not yet read the book, but the introduction describes female genitalia in some detail (hence the title: two lips/one sex) as a foundation for the necessity of divorcing one's self from the phallocentric yadda yadda.

Whoops, just noticed you said female fiction writer. This isn't fiction, but definitely speculative.

I can't think of one that centres on female genitalia, but Carol Shields had Larry talk about his penis way too much in Larry's Party.

Can't for the life of me think of a female fiction writer (non-erotica) who describes female genitalia incessantly throughout a book. I wouldn't want to say none, but I think it is safe to say that there are nowhere near as many female writers obsessed with female genitalia as there are male writers obsessed with male genitalia. Or female writers obsessed with male genitalia (phallocentric yadda yadda, indeed).

I've been a little bit leery about Irving, since the only book of his I've ever read was The Cider House Rules and I hated it. Suggestions for further reading that may redeem him are appreciated. I'll avoid "Until I Find You".

Oh dear, I'd heard The Cider House Rules was his best. I'm yet to read any Irving, although my partner loves The World According to Garp and re-reads it fairly often. (Although he never bothered reading any of Irving's other works, as far as I can tell.)

Thinking of books with female genitalia, I'm at work so might skip looking it up for you, but you should be able to Google and find Jonathan Franzen's entry in the Bad Sex in Literature Award for 2010, for a particularly strange passage in Freedom. Oh my.

Oh, what the hell, here you go: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/nov/18/alastair-campbell-bad-sex-award

Its nomination definitely pushed Freedom off my wishlist. (But I've asked for it at the library, so I may be reading it anyhow. But not spending money on it!)

Love that review! Makes me want to really, really not read it.

Ditto. Sounds like a book I'll be pleased to avoid, but a review - on the other hand - that I' glad not to have missed.

#12 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J. K. Rowling (re-read)

This one was my absolute favorite, until the 6th one came out. Super good, and perfect for my first snow day in years!

#13 Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling (reread)

This is my least favorite of the set. I get sick of CAPSLOCK HARRY pretty quickly, what with all the NO ONE UNDERSTANDS ME and teenage angst and the shouting. Plus this book makes me feel old - I kept asking myself "why doesn't he tell a grown-up?". And then at the end, when Harry blames himself for the horrible thing that happens, and Dumbledore is all "no, no, not your fault, Harry". But it is Harry's fault!

Another thing about this re-read: I hadn't read this one again since finishing the series. Now, in retrospect, Harry's dad, and Sirius, are even more loathsome as teenagers than they were the first time around. I find I have a lot less sympathy for Sirius in general now.

#14 Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K Rowling

I love all the Dumbledore in this book, and how we learn so much more about Voldemort.

In some ways, it is nice being able to jump right to the next book after finishing one (I'm reading Deathly Hallows right now), but there was something so exciting and fun about having to wait years for the next book, especially after HBP, and speculate and wonder and get into big arguments with other people about whether or not My Favorite Character is Good or Evil. When I read HBP the first time, my friend Jane (who is the only person I know who reads faster than me) called me just as I was reading the third to last chapter, ordered me to call her as soon as I finished, and we spent the next 2 hours debating the end. Which demonstrates two things: 1) way too much investment in a children's series and 2) how much fun delayed gratification can be.

I think that joy is ramped up even more with something like HP, where you can be assured that at least /someone/ of your acquaintance has also read it. I think this trend of 'super series' that we're seeing says something really interesting about the new place of books in our society - the stuff that does really well does really well /in part/ because everyone is reading it.

It's not necessarily related to (or solely related to) quality of content, but to whether you can have that book in common at a party or a bar or on the school bus or the subway just like you'd be likely to have TV shows or movies in common.

And for the record, I ALWAYS believed that Your Favorite Character was good. ;)

the stuff that does really well does really well /in part/ because everyone is reading it.

This is very true - everyone I know is reading The Hunger Games right now, and so I'm dying to read it too so that I can talk about it.

I, too, always believed that My Favorite Character was good! I kept insisting that there was something else that we didn't know, and I came pretty close to guessing what it was.

Well, s/he was never my favorite character. S/he's cruel to people-who-are-kind-of-vulnerable and of whom s/he's envious or bitter about or maybe-just-petty or in love with or who s/he thinks has betrayed her/him, so I kinda thought: aha! and that it was so sad for the person whose unfortunate circumstance s/he may-or-may-not be responsible for and those who'd appeared or pretended to trust her/him, so I was glad that there may have been a chance where s/he could be redeemed, if one chooses to read it that way.

I really hope that was cryptic enough. I don't even understand it anymore.

#50> I don't even understand it anymore. LOL!

Unfortunately, my re-read of Harry Potter is going very slowly, due to the fact that it's a chapter-a-night (or thereabouts) as I read it to Mr Bear. (I want to read it faster!)

We're up to the Yule Ball in HP4, and Mr Bear is most cross that I won't tell him who Hermione is going to the Ball with. (He's had spoilers for most of the books, but I'm being stubborn on this one!)

citygirl, I think that is part of why I liked her/him so much as a character - s/he has facets. S/he can be nasty, but ultimate s/he is, as you say, redeemed, and takes on more than just about anyone besides the person-who-trusted-her/him, including, IMO, Harry. Actually, thinking about the end of the last book, maybe not Harry. But top 3, definitely. In general, many of the books' characters are good-and-kind or good-and-funny or good-and-smart or good-and-loyal, and others are vicious-and-evil, or stupid-and-evil. My Favorite Character is both nasty and good, and is just about the only one in the books who is. Admittedly - it is a kids book and not all the characters need to be deep and tormented and whatever. I think, too, that Rowling threw in those hints of horrible childhood to try to get the reader to sympathize with her/him.

I love the Yule Ball part! "Tell Hermy-own-ninny I haff drinks". :-)

Well, I respect her/him deeply for sure for her/his undertaking, but there's no affection there. Perhaps gratitude, but if I say that I am only exposing the depth of my identification with these fictional characters, which may-or-may-not be sane.

Speaking of, I took the facebook "Which movie is your life?' quiz and got Harry Potter (all of 'em together I think). I was pleased.

#15 Conversation in the Cathedral by Mario Vargas Llosa

The book is framed as a conversation, sort of, between two people, Santiago and Ambrosio, who meet after many years and decide to go have a beer or 30 in a bar called La Cathedral. Stylistically, it follows conversational patterns. There is lots of jumping around, back and forth in time, as the characters reveal more about themselves and their relationships to everyone else in the book. The arcs of their lives, and their search for identity (Santiago's search for identity, especially) are depicted against the background of the Odria presidency/dictatorship in Peru in the late 40s and early 50s.

It is hard to follow at first, especially when the scene changes from sentence to sentence. And, of course, I know absolutely nothing about Peruvian politics, but that isn't necessary to enjoy the book. I liked it a lot, but it wasn't one to read while my mind is preoccupied with something else.

#16 Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (re-read)

Polished this one off in an afternoon. I love this book - it is Jane at her snarkiest, before she learned how to polish up the bitchiness (and I use the word "bitchiness" in the best possible way. Reverently, even, in this case). An example:

"Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well-informed mind, is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing any thing, should conceal it as well as she can."

Plus ça change, plus c'est le meme chose! I've totally been on that date. About 50 times.

Ha! Wonderful quote! I've never actually read Northanger Abbey - I might have to pick it up.

#17 Frankenstein by Mary Shelley (re-read)

It would be interesting to know the reactions of the people who read Frankenstein back in 1816 or whatever when it was first published. Were they horrified by the monster? Did they sympathize with Victor Frankenstein? Was that Shelley's intention? I doubt it. To be totally honest, I feel bad for the innocent people but really, Victor Frankenstein had it coming. To abandon his creature to alienation and despair because it wasn't pretty enough? Nope, he totally deserved his fate. In my mind, Victor Frankenstein is the real monster. I read this for the first time when I was 12, and I still feel exactly the same way.

However, Frankenstein-the-novel did inspire the great, epic, genius "Young Frankenstein", starring the Gene Wilder and the late, lamented Madeleine White. Also, this:
this is awesome

It would be interesting to know the reactions of the people who read Frankenstein back in 1816 or whatever when it was first published.

It would be interesting, wouldn't it! And I'm sure we could, if we only wanted to do the research.

Anyway, I thought Frankenstein was a very weird book. I just couldn't get over the monster spontaneously breaking into eloquent, grammatical speech. It was a bit of a show stopper for me, actually.

Love the cartoon!

jetting
I just read Frankenstein and I agree. Dr. Frankenstein was the monster not his creation.

And I'm sure we could, if we only wanted to do the research

And that is where the problem lies - I'm too lazy to do the research!

I love the cartoon, too. I'm a huge Kate Beaton fan (what is it with you Canadians and being hilarious?) and can get sucked into her website for hours. I also like the Bronte ones. If I get time at work today, I'll hunt them up and link to them.

I had the same reaction, jen, when I read Frankenstein as a teenager. It wasn't an assignment, but I was surprised to find it one of the best books that, still, I have ever read. I haven't read it since, but I remember it close to clearly. I felt so hurt for the monster.

Btw, thanks for the link to that cartoon site. Looks like it could be lots o' fun.

Brontes

Herodotus & Thucydides

Rosalind Franklin

I'll stop, I promise. It's just that it's Friday, and the boss is out of town at study section, and it is finally above freezing, so I'm just not motivated to work.

Aaargh! The peer pressure. Now I feel like I shouldn't work, too... But I've been trying to be good. It's amazing how productive you can be when you just pop in now and then instead of obsessively checking talk and reading all the new recommendations. Ok. Gonna go be good for a while.

I think peer pressure only works if you're bent that way in the first place ;-)

#62 - love the Bronte cartoon--too true. Anne is the only Bronte who has a realistic clue about men.

Those were great!

LOVE the cartoons... I mean I even got the Rosie Franklin one (I am a biology teacher after all ;-)). But I'm afraid I will be even more ostracized by my non-literary, non-science (XKCD... need I say more?) friends for linking/posting these.

I love XKCD! We have the "scientists vs. normal people" one printed out and hung up in the lab.

it's funny because it is true

even funnier because it is even truer

Back to Northanger Abbey for a minute. I love that quote and that book! BUT, remember I tried to read The Mysteries of Udolpho last year? It's awful and now it really bothers me that it was such a big part of that book. It's NOT exciting to read!! There's so much description that you can barely keep track of the plot plus there's all this really long, really bad poetry that the heroine writes. Not the page-turner that Austen makes it out to be.

Ok, rant over!

*Loving* the cartoons. Especially the difference between scientists and real people, that's a corker.

japaul22, I've got The Mysteries of Udolpho on the shelves thanks to Catherine Morland's recommendation. (The Monk is the other one that was mentioned a lot, wasn't it?) Still to read it, however.

That's too bad - I've also put it on the TBR pile thanks to Catherine's rec. But thinking about it, I'm not all that surprised. I had to read Ann Radcliffe's Romance of the Forest for my Fiction and Its Ghosts class in college, and it was neither shocking nor thrilling (it is discussed in Emma).

I'll put Udolpho off for another decade or so, now. And hey, Jennifer, how come you didn't warn me that The Sunne in Splendour is like 1100 pages long?!?! It is going to take me years to read that thing!

#18 Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter by Mario Vargas Llosa

I thought that this was hilarious. The chapters alternate between the real story (Mario and his affair with his uncle's wife's sister, not an actual blood relation, and all its complications, plus his interactions with the scriptwriter) and the scriptwriter's soap operas, which get increasingly insane as the writer does. They remind me a lot of If On A Winter's Night A Traveller, which I love, also.

<70 The Sunne in Splendour is long but it reads really fast. I'm a little nervous about recommending it and I hope you like it. It's one of those books that I really got into, but I'm not sure if it actually merits the praise or if it was just the right book at the right time, you know? Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you think! It's definitely the best of her books that I've read so far.

<70 The Sunne in Splendour is long but it reads really fast. I'm a little nervous about recommending it and I hope you like it. It's one of those books that I really got into, but I'm not sure if it actually merits the praise or if it was just the right book at the right time, you know? Anyway, I'm curious to hear what you think! It's definitely the best of her books that I've read so far.

Not sure why this message won't show up - I'm going to try it again.

OK, I just posted on someone else's thread and it worked so this better show up this time! So frustrating - sorry for clogging up your thread!
Anyway, Sunne in Splendour is long but it reads really fast. I hope you like it. It's one of those books that I really got into, but I'm not sure everyone would. It's not a literary masterpiece or anything, but I liked the historical setting and the characters. And it made me want to read more of her books. I'll be curious to hear what you think!

It is great so far (although the whole rape-and-pillage chapter right at the front was unpleasant)!

#19 Collected Poems by W. H. Auden

I've been reading this on-and-off for a couple years now (it is a long long collection). Auden is a favorite - I especially like his shorter poems, like "Lullaby" and "Funeral Blues". These are included in this collection, along with some unexpected pieces. Auden tried his hand at storytelling through poetry, like Milton, and plays written as poetry, like Shakespeare. I didn't like these so much (much as I love him, he is not in the same league as either of those two), although there is one that reminded me quite a bit of Beckett's Endgame. Also included are hilarious little "Shorts" which are just a sentence or two, usually funny or thoughtful or bawdy. Overall, it is wonderful and a must-read for Auden fans.

Some of his more famous works, like "September 1, 1939" are omitted (I guess that Auden himself had a lot of control over what went into this collection, and he didn't like that poem). Also omitted is the dirtiest poem I have ever read in my entire life - which is called, for the curious, "The Platonic Blow". (Yes, it is about what you think it is about.) This omission is probably a good thing.

#20 The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte

I like the first 4/5 of this book, and then I like the last chapter or two. The setup is fun, and the exposure of the Wildfell Hall Tenant's secret is great. My main problem comes after the Big Reveal, when Anne gets all preachy and unrealistic on us. She's spent about 400 pages getting us to loathe the problem character - believably, thoroughly, totally - and then it is almost like she got scared of what she had done, and stuck in some moralizing bullshit that didn't fit at all with what the characters would really have done (based on the personalities she gave them). Nice happy ending though.

Anne really could write, too. I'm looking forward to Agnes Grey.

#21 Beirut 39: New Writing From the Arab World edited by Samuel Shimon

I have been neglecting my ER reviewing duties. This book I received back almost a year ago. It is a collection of short writings (short stories, chapters from novels, poetry) from young writers (under 40) from the Arab speaking world. Overall they're pretty interesting. Some are great - I really liked the story "The Pools and the Piano", about increasing intolerance for foreigners in Libya. "Haneef from Glasgow", a story about a conversation about a Kashmiri servant living in Scotland and his former employer, is also excellent. My favorite piece in the whole book is the poem "The Geography of I", which is hard to describe but absolutely wonderful.

The subject of the stories aren't always political - there are selections from murder mysteries, love stories, all sorts of things. Some are political, about bombings and whatnot. But in general, worth reading.

#22 Sophocles: The Complete Plays.

This is the Paul Roche translation, a fairly recent one (2001ish?), and the language is pretty modern. Antigone isn't all "Creon, dude, WTF? Quit being an asshole and let me go bury my brother" but it isn't the most formal language ever. On the other hand - super readable and really brings home the idea that people haven't changed that much in the past 2500 years. Sophocles, of course, wrote way more than 7 plays, but these are the ones that survived (and what a loss to our civilization that the others are gone, given just how wonderful these seven are).

1) Ajax - Ajax is mad because he doesn't get Achilles's armor after his death, goes on a rampage (very unfortunate for local livestock), realizes what he did, tragedy ensues.

2) Electra (my favorite of the bunch) - Hamlet Electra wanders around, angry and upset because her mother and her mother's lover murdered her father. Her brother comes back, and Electra gets her revenge. Tragedy ensues.

3) The Women of Trachis - Heracles is back from the wars, bringing back spoils including the princess Ione. His long-suffering wife decides that she'll just be nice to the new girlfriend, and put up with the situation. After all, she has the ring, right? To prove to her husband just how cool with it she is, and secretly to win his love back (having been told by the centaur Heracles had just shot with a poisoned arrow that this would work), sends him a robe made with wool that had been used to clean the centaur's wound. It turns out that dying (murdered) centaurs lie. Tragedy ensues. I liked this one a lot too.

4) Philoctetes - so sad, this one. Odysseus is such a dick, honestly, I don't understand why Homer made him the hero of the Odyssey.

5) Oedipus the King - we all know the basics of this one, but it really is a spectacularly crafted play. You see the tragedy coming for miles, and just want to start shouting at Oedipus to just leave well enough alone and stop asking so many questions.

6) Oedipus at Colonus - another sad one, although it is nice to see someone (Theseus, the Athenian king) be nice to Oedipus. Creon is also a dick.

7) Antigone - more tragedy. Poor Antigone. Roche seemed to think that I would feel sorry for Creon by the end of it, but nope.

#23 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling (re-read)

I love this book. Such a great ending to the story, even though I pretty much sob my way through the last 100 or so pages.

I always found Antigone such a depressing, frustrating story, which may explain why I don't often read Greek tragedies and never at my own initiative. They're just so Greek and tragic :)

#24 Swann's Way by Marcel Proust

I love long, well-crafted, flowing sentences about ideas and tea and cookies and music. Which is good, because that is what this book is. It is every bit as beautiful as reported; contrary to the opinion of Alain de Botton, it did not change my life.

#25 Practicing Our Faith: A Way of Life for a Searching People edited by Dorothy C. Bass

A group at my church has been reading and discussing this since October. Each chapter discusses a particular practice from the Christian life (keeping Sabbath, dying well, hospitality, etc etc). Like all the religious/spiritual books I read, it has a decidedly liberal slant (the hospitality chapter is all about supporting immigrant populations, for instance). Some chapters I found useful, others less so, all of them seem difficult.

#26 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

Sappy, sappy, sappy. Interspersed with Dickens's pull-no-punches approach to the way the poor were treated in Victorian England. The second-to-last chapter (Fagin's last night) was horrifying. On the Dickens scale, with the best book (Bleak House) being a 10 and the worst book (David Copperfield) being a 1, I'd give this a 4.

Hm, I'm yet to tackle a Dickens novel (maybe this year...?), but I'll make sure it's not Oliver Twist. :)

Can't remember if we've ever discussed David Copperfield. I read it in 2009, so it's possible, but I didn't realize that you hated it. Do you mind telling why? btw, I'm about a quarter in to Bleak House and I'm not loving it the way I did DC. I like it fine, but some bits stall for me. I can kinda see where he's leading with Esther's identity (I just read the chapter entitled Lady Dedlock, which is one of the finest chapters of English literature ever written, I believe), so I think the disparate threads are going to start coming together soon and then it will be really compelling.

DC suffers, probably, from being the Dickens I had to read my freshman year of high school. From what I remember, I hated the sappiness (again), anything at all to do with Dora - although Agnes was pretty great - and I wasn't a fan of the character of David. Dickens's pathetic orphans leave me pretty cold (I include Esther and the Wards in Jarndyce in that - BH for me was all about the magnificent Lady Dedlock & the detectives and the court case), though I did love Pip. If I were to ever re-read DC (doubtful), I may revise my opinion.

#27 Poetry: A Pocket Anthology edited by R.S. Gwynn

One of those poetry anthologies used in college Intro to Poetry classes. I picked it up, used, at a book fair for about $0.50, and have been dipping into it for awhile. It is interesting how poetry has changed over the centuries, and how little I understand modern poetry (always a statement guaranteed to piss off poets, for some reason). It has some of my favorites in it, like Elizabeth Bishop's "One Art", and some interesting ones I'd never heard of, and some like Philip Larkin to avoid at all costs.

#28 One of Our Thursdays is Missing by Jasper Fforde

Every time I give up in despair, thinking that there will never be another Thursday Next book, Fforde writes a new Thursday Next book. This one is a little different; the protagonist is written Thursday, not real Thursday (a description which may make little sense to those not already Fforde fans). IMO, written Thursday is not as entertaining as real Thursday, but on the upside I love when the books are set entirely in Bookworld. Fiction Island is AWESOME, I love the map, I love all the bookish in-jokes, I love Sprockett.

#29 Smiley's People by John le Carre

This book is amazing. Loved every single page of it - Smiley was the protagonist again, and you follow his every move, and get inside his poor, sad head. Everything about this story was perfect - it was exciting, nothing unnecessary ridiculous, all the characters were fantastic. The ending, while not exactly precisely how I wanted the series to end, was perfect for the book and where the characters were headed. Loved it! Best book of the year so far.

#30 Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris

Mildly entertaining mind candy. I like the TV show better.

#88> I loved Sprockett's cocktails, they were brilliant. :) I actually thought this one was a return-to-form, I found the previous (First Among Sequels) a bit disappointing, since it didn't have the rabid book-love of the other ones. For good, plot-related reasons, it turns out, but it wasn't as much fun.

#31 Complete Poems by Elizabeth Bishop

I think that the touchstone is leading to a different book than the one I read - it is the one I thought I was getting from the library, but ended up with something different. Because the version I read isn't complete. It is missing her number one most famous poem. ??? Anyway, Bishop was a very good poet and I enjoy her work a lot.

#32 Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure by Matthew Algeo

After leaving the White House, Harry Truman and his wife Bess spent a couple weeks one summer driving from Independence MO to Washington DC and NYC and back again. All alone, no secret service, just the two of them on an all-American road trip. This book covers that trip, as well as the author's trip following the same route today. He covers a lot of ground for such a short book - the loss of Main Street culture, the rise of chains, what a jerk Eisenhower was, the Rosenbergs, the fashions and the weather - but it doesn't seem out of place or forced.

I've been a huge Truman fan since reading Truman my very first summer living in St. Louis. Matthew Algeo also clearly adores Truman, and overall I just thought this book was great.

#33 The First Paul: Reclaiming the Radical Visionary Behind the Church's Conservative Icon by Marcus J. Borg and Dominic Crossan

For a little Lenten reading, I picked up another of the Borg-Crossan collaborations. As a progressive Christian and a woman, I've had a lot of problems with Paul, he of the on-the-road-to-Damascus conversion. How could the same person write such beautiful, profound words about love (1 Corinthians 13, aka "the wedding one") and the bit in Romans about there being no longer Greek nor Jew, nor slave nor free, etc, but that all are equal, ALSO write the disgusting bullshit about slaves needing to obey their masters, and women needing to never speak or ask questions but to let the men 'splain things to their little lady-brains? Also, they must have long hair. The answer, of course (to most New Testament scholars, not just Borg and Crossan), is that he didn't. Here, B&C sketch out the transition from the radical Paul of the real letters to the conservative Paul of the tribute-letters to the reactionary Paul of the anti-Paul letters.

So Paul turned out to be very interesting. I didn't know that all the language we've used for centuries (Son of God, Jesus is Lord, etc - language that to be honest is pretty problematic in the progressive church.) was actually hugely radical and heretical back then, when that sort of language was solely used to describe the Roman emperors. Which, since using it was clearly a condemnation of the Roman domination system, probably got poor Paul killed. But before I get too rambly about this book, let me just sum up by saying that Paul is somewhat redeemed, although I'm still not down with his attitude towards homosexuality (to be fair, Paul was grossed out by sex and bodies in general, but it is unfortunate - to put it mildly - that the homophobic religious zealots get to use this language to stomp all over the civil liberties and human rights of a section of the population) and let's face it - I'm cutting my hair as short as I want to, and I'm never wearing a veil in church.

#34 Blindness by Jose Saramago

Bleak, bleak, bleak. And yucky. It was good, but my least favorite of his works so far. That I've read, anyway.

#35 The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I started reading this book at about 9:00 last night, and finished it at 1:00 AM. I'm exhausted, and I have a long day of work ahead of me, but I just could not put it down. 5 stars! 10 stars!

Looks like you've been doing some interesting reading. I've been wondering when I should read The Hunger Games, and you just pushed it up a bit. The Paul book sounds quite informative. I enjoyed your review a lot, I learned a lot just from it. As a refugee from Christianity, I'm glad to know that there is such a thing as a progressive church.

Now. You should read The Hunger Games now. I wish I was reading it again right now.

Okay, okay. On my next trip to the bookstore.

The Hunger Games is on my Mt TBR. It keeps on getting pipped by books I "must" read!! Soon, soon.

I didn't even finish Blindness. Too bleak for me.

ETA: "must" read books are bookgroup books, library books due back, etc.

The Hunger Games is on my Mt TBR. It keeps on getting pipped by books I "must" read!! Soon, soon.

I didn't even finish Blindness. Too bleak for me.

My book club is still supposed to read Hunger Games this year. Hope we get to it.

I disliked Blindness. A lot. 'nuff said.

I've had the entire Hunger Games boxed set staring at me from the bookshelf since it was received as a family Christmas present...

NO, people. Don't wait! Go read Hunger Games right now! I am eagerly awaiting the arrival of my own boxed set, so that I can tear through the final two without having to wait. I've heard they don't hold a candle to the first one, but that would be impossible.

#36 The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

More of the same. Yawn.

I've already told jen, but I read The Hunger Games Saturday, Catching Fire yesterday, and guess what I'm reading today?

So, I second the go out and get THG and read it now!

Hmmm. I haven't been even mildly interest in The Hunger Games but if YOU loved it . . .

What genre of book is it? Is it YA lit?

Yes, it is young adult lit (but don't let that scare you away - I'm not usually a YA fan) but SO MUCH MORE. So, the book is set in the future, after the collapse of the US, and in its place is this country called Panem that is made up of a Capitol city (rich & in charge) and 12 (once 13) districts (varying degrees of poor) that send goods and food and whatnot to the Capitol. 74 years earlier, the districts rose up and tried to rebel against the Capitol. They failed, and to punish them the Capitol destroyed District 13 and set up the Hunger Games, in which each district has to send 2 teenage tributes each year, one boy and one girl, to the Hunger Games. The games are basically the reality show from Hell, because they are a fight to the death. It is televised. The last one standing is the winner, gets fame and fortune beyond their wildest dreams. But everyone else is dead.

The main character is a 16yo girl named Katniss, who is beyond awesome, and I think she is the main reason that the book is so good. I can't tell you anymore, and I'm not really doing it justice, but it is super fantastic, and you should give it a shot, even if you think you might not like it. Check it out of the library (but be prepared to wait a bit... it is a popular book). It is seriously so, so good.

Oh, God, now I'm going to have to read Catching Fire tonight. I can't believe you're already ahead of me, citygirl!

Only cuz you went to work yesterday and I didn't.

You, unlike me, have your priorities straight. If you figure out how to get paid for reading, let me know.

OK, I'll reserve Hunger Games at the library when I get home. Sounds pretty entertaining!

#37 Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

I read a couple of reviews that ranted about what a disappointment this book was, compared to Hunger Games. I must have read a different book than those people, because this was just as compelling and gripping and not-put-downable as the first one.

Or maybe even more so, especially the second half.

I did not see that coming. At all. Neither the thing that happened, or the resolution to the thing that happened at the very end.

I did, in part, re the resolution to the thing that happened at the end, cuz I was putting together clues from the behavior of the people around the person and other person.

Or, if you mean, the exact event/activity, I didn't see that coming. I didn't see coming the thing that was announced about a 1/3 of the way in.

The nature of the Quarter Quell - that was unexpected to me. The resolution should have been obvious, but wasn't, to me. But I rarely figure out what is going to happen in books. So far I'm not finding Mockingjay quite as gripping, since I was able to start it and put it down for a few days to finish...

#38 Battle Cry of Freedom by James M. McPherson

So people who have been checking in on my threads over the last couple years might remember what a rabid PBS/NPR fan I am. A couple weeks ago, my local PBS affiliate ran the Ken Burns "The Civil War" for a week to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Which in turn got me temporarily hooked on Civil War history, and so I read Battle Cry of Freedom. It is great - a huge 900 page behemoth that covers the buildup to war, politics, major battles, the general feel of the nation at the time, etc etc. It took a long time to read, but I loved it and have a much better understanding of the conflict than I had before I read it. Now one of these years I'll have to tackle Shelby Foote's three-volume masterpiece.

#39 Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

When did books for tweens start killing off dear, vital, important characters and keeping them dead? There is one character, in particular, that is mentioned as being "likely dead" at the beginning of the book and it is one of my favorites, so I was all "oh, but s/he can't POSSIBLY really be dead. Probably s/he is hiding" but no! Not hiding! Really dead! And other favorites become really dead, really quickly. Sigh. Not quite the same level of bloodbath as Deathly Hallows, but by no means happy.

Overall, I was much more impressed by this series than I had expected to be. They are three fantastic books and you should all go read them right now.

#40 Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant

Another super good collection of short stories by one of my favorite short story writers. These are set in Montreal, or have connections to Montreal. Many stories are linked through the same characters, but at different times or from different people's points of view. Like many of her stories, these explore the themes of not-quite-fitting-in, of conflicts between different subsets of Montreal people, and of course of complicated families. I found it almost compulsively readable.

re: Battle Cry of Freedom... I read that several years ago and am about due for a reread. I love everything Ken Burns does and especially like his Civil War series. As far as further reading goes, I've only read parts of Shelby Foote's trilogy, but I enjoyed what I read. I also really liked Bruce Catton's trilogy starting with The Army of the Potomac: Mr. Lincoln's Army. Catton provides more of a northern perspective, while IIRC, Foote's is more of a southern one.

** and look, lo and behold, both Foote and Catton's books are available for the Kindle! .... doing the happy dance!!

** a little further research shows that Catton actually wrote a LOT of Civil War history books... the trilogy that I remember reading actually started with The Coming Fury. I may have read some of his Army of the Potomac as well, but that trilogy was a little more specific in scope. Ok I'll shut up now. ;-)

I'm a huge Ken Burns fan, too, to the point where I'm getting super excited about Prohibition, coming up this fall. I also loved the baseball one, and the jazz one, and the national parks one, and the WWII one, but I think The Civil War is my favorite. Thanks for the list of Civil War books - adding them to the TBR pile!

#41 The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

I'm never sure what to do with these sorts of stories, really. Not being a terribly dreamy, artistic, detached-from-reality type of person myself (I'm the kind of person who, while watching Rent, starts to wonder why some of those people don't get jobs and pay for their own wine and beer). So for this play, I couldn't really sympathize with all the crazy.

It may be one that works better on stage than on paper. I've seen a movie version with Katherine the Great as Amanda and Sam Waterston as Tom, and I remember enjoying that more than I liked it when I read it.

So glad to see you loving Hunger Games and sequels! They're books that really do live up to the hype, I think - and I can't help but follow the casting for the upcoming movie with rapt interest. I read Mockingjay when it came out this spring and then immediately went and reread the first two books. Lots of fun, quick reads, and full of meaty ideas for teens - or us! - to chew on.

Yeah, they are great. I can't remember the last time I read a series of books that affected me that strongly - maybe HP? I don't know. But they are fan-flippin-tastic. I already re-read the first book!

I'm holding off on re-reads...for the time being.

Oh, and the movie! The little girl who is going to be playing Rue (according to IMDB her name is Amandla Stenberg) is just as cute as a button. I'm not totally sold on Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss (unless they do some serious alterations to her looks), but the boys seem ok. Most importantly, who is going to play Cinna?!?

And because I like to post links to things that amuse me:

Important Literary Analysis

ETA: Yes, obviously, to numbers 1, 2, and 3. Bertie Wooster should be higher up. Why is King Lear even on this list? I would put Snape ahead of Aslan. And where is Gabriel Oak? Appalling oversight.

um.. Severus Snape?? eww! Might as well put Hagrid on that list too. Assuming that 'bangability' means what I think it means.

What about Jack Aubrey & Stephen Maturin? Allan Quatermain? Hercule Poirot?

not a well thought out list IMO... but what do I know, being male and straight? ;-)

Poirot is on the list, but Quartermain is another appalling oversight. I've never read any of the Master and Commander books, so I can't weigh in there. I suspect that "well thought out" is contrary to the spirit of the list ;-)

You know, you never see lists like this about the 111 Women in Fiction in order of bangability. I don't even know who would go on such a list (being female and straight). Eowen? Miss Marple? (kidding!)

What about #1--Rochester! Yuck!!!!!!!!! And St.John is on the list too, which is another big YUCK. I really dislike the men in Jane Eyre and wouldn't touch any of them with a proverbial 10 ft pole.

hmmm

well both Arwen and Eowen for sure, and I bet Minerva McGonagall is a real pussycat underneath that stern exterior. Mrs. Weasley...

I would imagine that Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet both belong on that list (although not having actually read either book, I don't know for sure).

Fanny Hill and Constance Chatterley of course...

better stop while still ahead (if in fact I am...) ;-)

Oh, I wouldn't want to be married to Rochester or anything. But, maybe just once or twice... (and in case it isn't clear, I really do have moral standards, just not imaginary literary ones). Of course, one would have to be sure to use protection, since he's probably disease-ridden.

St. John is definitely a no.

ETA: and don't worry Keith, you're safe here - no one will take offense. Lady Chatterley should have been an obvious one.

Peter Pan???????? That's a funny list.

It also made me realize there is still a lot of British lit that I haven't read yet.

Yes, St John, Peter Pan and Aslan were all my "what were they thinking???" moments.

Although obviously I shouldn't take these things very seriously. :)

Was disappointed that Seth Starkadder from Cold Comfort Farm wasn't in it, he's certainly over-the-top sexy. Love the way his shirt slowly becomes more and more unbuttoned as the story progresses.

On the list of *ahem* "bangable" women, you'd have to have Becky Sharpe from Vanity Fair. And any number of heroines from Jane Austen or the Bronte sisters. Would Amelia Peabody count? She's awfully British, but her author is American. I'd definitely have her on my list!

if you add Amelia Peabody... you'd have to add Radcliffe Emerson.

Look at us.. adding sexy wrong-genders to each others list!!

The problem with adding British females to this type of list... is that many of them are a bit... youngish. Makes me feel somewhat a dirty old perv.

#131> Yes, I was thinking that a number of my favourite heroines are really too young to be on this list (Ginny Weasley, Hermoine Granger both spring to mind). I thought I've just been reading too much YA though...

Yes, Radcliffe Emerson has to be on the list too!

I didn't even notice Peter Pan when I looked at the list - ew. The underage should be banned (as should the non-human, unless it is Ford Prefect or someone like that). ETA: or Legolas.

I love Seth from CCF! And I'm curious about the Dickens character that made the top 10. Is this even possible? I can see Sydney Carton, but any other Dickens character that I can think of is a resounding NO.

Okay. I am all kinds of appalled and perplexed by that list. The more I read, the more indignant I've become:

1. Dr Watson can be sexy if he's played by Jude Law ;-)
2. Bertie is definitely more bangable than Jeeves. He's an idiot, not ugly. And he is tons of fun.
3. Charles Bingley at 80? Again, idiot, fun, not unattractive.
4. Peter Pan is asexual and underage.
5. Aslan is a lion.
6. Romeo is less bangable than Winston Smith (1984)? (We'll overlook the underage thing b/c of context.) Whoever wrote this list should be embarrassed.
7. Frederick Wentworth at 54? He was totally bangable.
8. And I'd definitely do Darcy way before Rochester.
9. Ditto, jen. King Lear? Where's Hamlet? Now he was bangable.
10. Maxim de Winter number 28? Are you effin' kidding me? He's even less attractive than Rochester. Wasn't he old?
11. I agree with Aragorn, Darcy, Wimsey. And if Bond is imagined as Daniel Craig? Shoot straight to the top of list. On the page? Not so much.

Well, that's more than two cents.

#134> Dr Watson is also yummy when played by Martin Freeman. :) Hmm, isn't he being Bilbo as well? Although I rather agree with #133 that the non-human (apart from Ford Prefect and Legolas) should be banned, so let's not think about Bilbo.

And Dr Watson jumped fairly high up my list when I was reading the books. He's really rather charming and clever (just overshadowed by Holmes), and when he does fall in love he's very sweet.

At #64 there is Henry Pulling from Travels with my Aunt. I withheld judgement yesterday because I'd only just started Travels, but now I'm further in and can say that he doesn't deserve to be on this list unless boring retired bank managers who are only interested in dahlias are considered sexy. Maybe he'll start to live soon, but at the moment, he's one of the dullest characters in literature. (Not that it's a dull book, mind.)

ETA: Carrot from Pratchett's Night Watch! He's great! Right down to the crown shaped birthmark (that Google sadly tells me is on his left arm, not his left buttock as I misremembered).

De-lurking a moment to decry the absence of Mr. Knightley from Emma...

Welcome katie! I'm glad you spoke up (and now that you've done it once, you need to do it again)! And that you brought up Mr. Knightley - you're right! How could I forget about him!?! He's way better than stupid Edward Ferrars.

Oh yes, Mr Knightley. Possibly somewhat influenced by Jeremy Northam (Mr Knightley to Gwyneth Paltrow's Emma). That man was born to wear tight pants and frock coats.

Oh, wookie, I SO agree! He made that film for me.

I just got back from a real, honest-to-God vacation, which involved lots of me lying on a beach reading:

# 42 The Sunne in Splendour by Sharon Kay Penman

I read Richard III last year (the Shakespeare one, where he makes poor Richard out to be a crippled devil), and japaul22 suggested I read The Sunne in Splendour next. She's right, people, because this is a fantastic book. I am very, very angry at the Tudors now. Bastards. I am also no longer a fan of Elizabeth Woodville (SKP is a WAY better writer than Philippa Gregory). The book basically covers the Wars of the Roses from when Richard was 6ish to when the evil traitor cowardly Tudor took the throne from him w/ the help of that traitor Stanley. So good!

In other news, Woody Harrelson has been cast as Haymitch in the Hunger Games movie. Perfect casting!

The Sunne in Splendour looks very good. I recently read (listened to) Jospehine Tey's Daughter of Time which had a similarly sympathetic view of Richard III, and I have been wanting to learn more about that period.

Yay! I'm so glad you liked it! I haven't loved her other books as much as that one and it made me question whether Sunne in Splendour was really as good as I remember. It's long, but I can picture it as a pretty good beach read as crazy as that sounds. Hope you had a great vacation - I need one of those!

I think it is definitely a good book for long periods of downtime (and/or lots of time for reading). Otherwise it is hard to keep track of who is siding with whom at any given time, and who is in charge, etc. I gave it 5 stars. Have you read the Eleanor of Acquitane (OMG spelling but I have no idea how to spell that word) trilogy? The one that starts with When Christ and His Saints Slept? I've heard good things about that one, too.

#43 The Bourne Supremacy by Robert Ludlum

The movie is orders of magnitude better than the book. It is just so confusing. And there would be no plot at all if all the characters weren't idiots. Plus Ludlum has this really irritating style, involving overuse of italics, just constantly nonstop. Annoying, isn't it? It is like he thinks that the reader won't put the emphasis on the right word in a sentence during an argument or something unless Ludlum makes it really clear. Plus characters do a lot of shouting in regular conversations. It bugs me.

I read several of the Bourne books many, many years ago. I remember being annoyed that the same plot seemed to resurface in every book... an unspeakably evil man or organization threatened the very existence of democracy. I recall liking the action sequences... it was just that everyone was so terrified of the bad guy... all the time. Seriously, how much worse could any man or organization be than say Hitler and the Nazis turned out to be, or Stalin, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, etc etc.

Thanks, jen. Now I know I don't have to read the Bourne books even though I love the movies. I was particularly blown away by Ultimatum. Are there any more in the pipe (d'ya know)?

I liked the action sequences too, but otherwise it was pretty flimsy. Part of me wonders if that is because of how dated the book is now - after all, it is hard for this reader to get all worked up about a big scary plot to destabilize Hong Kong prior to the 1997 handover. People in the books are completely terrified of the bad guy, you're right, but in this one the bad guy was an idiot. Lucky for him that Bourne, the government types, etc were too.

Don't know about any more Bourne movies - I thought they were great, but it is turning out to be the case that the movies are only loosely based on the novels. Jason Bourne is a great character. David Webb is too whiny and pathetic to be a hero.

Got quite a lot of reading finished up while holed up in my apartment this weekend hiding from both the rain and my responsibilities:

#44 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (re-read)

So I read this for the first time when I was twelve, have read it every year or two since then, am now 33 (yikes!), so that makes probably somewhere around 15-20 readings? It is that good.

#45 Possessing the Secret of Joy by Alice Walker

Now how to review this? It is horrifying, and fascinating (like a train wreck), and powerful, and beautifully written. Towards the end, it gets a bit too... well, if you go up to the messages around 34-45 or so, I have, in fact, found a female author who writes obsessively about female genitalia. However, this is justified since the book is about female genital mutilation (hence the "horrifying"). Quite a bit to think about in this book, on top of the knee-jerk OMG what a horrible thing to do. I think I have a better idea now of why such practices continue, as a way to maintain a sense of culture and to defy those who would try to come in and destroy your heritage. Plus, if that is the norm in the region - I mean, we live in a society where wealthy people inject themselves with BOTULISM TOXIN, for crying out loud, or chop up other body parts, to achieve a beauty ideal. Which is admittedly not the same thing as an non-consenting child being subjected to FGM.

But in the end, I'm right where Walker wants me to be - appalled by the practice and wanting it to stop.

well you KNOW that these books WERE written as the COLD War was winding down... people still needed to frightened by something, drug lords, evil cartels... something

Nice channeling of Ludlum, there. Thanks for the much-needed laugh!

You are braver than I, jen. I've never wanted to go anywhere near PSJ. FGM already makes my blood boil and I become incoherent, so it's a subject I stay away from. I don't think I could bear the detail and pathos.

I just read a few months of your posts (yes, I am way behind . . . no excuses) and laughed out loud so many times!

#46 Within a Budding Grove by Marcel Proust

So our unnamed narrator has entered adolescence and discovered girls. The first half of the book is about Girl #1, the second about Girl #2. The narrator isn't the most likeable of characters - he spends lots of time manipulating people, using them to achieve his ends and then abandoning them, even if 200 pages earlier their notice was the high point of his existence. The interesting part is that while it is impossible to like the narrator, his musings and his reflections on his behavior and his life touch on universal themes and emotions. It is hard to go more than a page or two without reading a sentence that makes me think "oh, so someone else has had that thought too".

#47 Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen (re-read)

On the descending Jane Austen scale of greatness, with #1 being Pride and Prejudice and #6 being Mansfield Park, S&S ranks a solid 5. Comfortably above MP, but significantly lower than Northanger Abbey (#4). Something about it just doesn't work for me - I can't tell if it is because Edward Ferrars and Colonel Brandon are colorless, uninteresting romantic leads, or if it because Elinor is so dreary and miserable and boring, or if it is because I can't stand the behavior of John Dashwood and his wife. I've ranted about this before, in other challenge threads, but I really cannot get past the idea Austen brings up in the last chapters of the book that Marianne is to be seen as a "reward" for Colonel Brandon and his sad past and his kindness. At a point where she has been so beaten down by heartbreak and sickness that she just docile-y goes along with whatever her sister and her mother tell her. I mean, Austen even SAYS that she marries him because everyone else seems to think she should. Nice. Yuck.

Interesting take on S&S! I can definitely see your point. (I disagree with you on Mansfield Park though. That one is my second favourite).

I'm wondering if MP will improve on a re-read. Persuasion did - when I first read it I thought it was boring and stupid and now I love it and I think it may move past Emma up to #2 later this year.

So when I first joined this challenge group, a few years back, one of my favorite people to follow and favorite commentors on my threads was a member called englishrose60. She stopped posting sometime last year, and every so often I pop over to her profile page to see if she has started posting again. Just today, I saw that someone had posted on her profile page that she passed away last month, from cancer.

Considering that I never met her, and only knew her through our conversations on the internets, I'm surprisingly upset about this. RIP, Valerie. You are missed.

It is amazing how many lives we touch through LT, the kindred spirits we find, and how sad it is to lose such a one.

*hugs* A friend is a friend, whether you meet them in real life or not.

#48 Private Life by Jane Smiley

Scientists in books are always crazy. Always, always, always (except for Meg Murray's mom in A Wrinkle in Time), and this book is no exception. An old maid (of 26) in post-Civil-War Missouri finally marries the local boy who had made good (sort of) and moves to San Francisco. She is repressed and moves through life as if it wasn't real, or as if she had no say in it. He is a arrogant, overbearing jerk who falsifies data and who eventually becomes the crazy guy who all of his colleagues make fun of.

I wasn't a big fan of the book, but it wasn't terrible. Andrew's character is a very common sort in my world - I know far too many scientists who make mistakes in their data but whose massive egos prevent their being able to publish retractions (which would be both the grown-up and the ethical thing to do).

#49 At Day's Close: night in times past by A. Roger Ekrich

This is a very interesting micro-history book about nighttime during the pre-industrial early modern era (from the end of the middle ages up to just before the Victorians). Take home message: it was really, really dark. And dangerous - lots of scary fire, and hooligans, and theft, and falling into wells. In some places it got a little bit confusing; first he says that everyone went to bed at 8:00, then he says everyone stayed up until 2:00 working, then he said that everyone went out carousing and drinking and whoring and beating people up, then he said that they went to bed at 9:00. Which is it!?! They can't do all these things.

The most interesting factoids:
1) Courting couples used to participate in something called "bundling", which basically involved the young man sleeping over at his girlfriend's parents' house, and snuggling. Not, theoretically, fornicating. But also not playing chess.

2) We have totally messed up our innate sleep patterns with the introduction of artificial light. Back then, before gas or electric lights, we (as a species) used to go to bed early-ish (about an hour or so after it got really dark), lie awake/doze for 2 hours, sleep for about 4 hours, have about an hour of drowsy wakefulness, then back to sleep for 4 more hours. In controlled studies, when test subjects are subjected to similar light-dark cycles, after a week or so they revert to this same cycle. Cool, right?

Overall, a really interesting book, although he gets repetitive. Also, he doesn't try to draw all this into a narrative - it is a series of facts and examples. But that is ok.

#50 Dubliners by James Joyce

Very good collection of short stories, much easier to read and understand than either Ulysses or Finnegan's Wake. I particularly liked "Grace", "The Dead" (deservedly famous, probably one of the best short stories ever), and "Eveline". They're all downers, but he does draw the reader in.

#51 Aeschylus Complete Tragedies volume 2
A trio of plays by Aeschylus. my copy is the second volume of Modern Library's set from like the 1960s. Old book in perfect shape, and I just found out that since the pages were still uncut in places, never read.

1) The Suppliant Women: 50 daughters of Darius don't want to marry their 50 Egyptian cousins. Somehow, the Egyptian rules state that the girls don't have a say. They go to Argos for help and protection, but since they aren't fully Greek they aren't guaranteed help. They get it, of course. This play was a little strange. The women's part is spoken by a chorus, which takes away from the drama a little bit. Individual characters are more sympathetic than a disembodied chorus. But overall, a good play.

2) The Persians: This play was a surprise. It was written about 10 years after the Persian wars ended (as described in Herodotus) with Greek triumph and Persian loss. The play is entirely from the point of view of the Persians, and they are presented very sympathetically, even though they were recently Greece's bitter enemy. It speaks well of Aeschylus that he was able to look past the Greek's anger to see their enemies' humanity.

3) Seven Against Thebes: tells the same story about Oedipus's children and how the boys go to war with each other and kill each other. Antigone is there too, at the end, insisting on burying Polyneices. Overall, this play cracked me up. All the action occurs offstage; the bulk of the play is spent introducing each of the Seven against Thebes, and what is painted on their shields, and which Theban gets to go fight him.

#52 Howard's End is on the Landing by Susan Hill

So this is a super quick read, a nonfiction book by a novelist about a year she spent reading only books she already owned (no new purchases, or library books. Gasp!). It (the book) is pretty much an excuse for her to write about books she likes, books she dislikes, books she hasn't read yet, etc without having to be too lit crit about it. Oh! And to name drop. Want to hear about the time she met Kingsley Amis? No? How about Alan Clark? W.H. Auden? And then she wrote a book and got paid for this activity. Why, oh why, does no one offer to pay me to do something similar? I mean, the book is essentially my challenge thread, but better written w/ fewer cuss words and she doesn't care for Jane Austen and I do.

That said, I absolutely loved the book. I'd love to spend an afternoon with her, drinking tea and talking books. She has great taste (despite the Austen wrongness), and even though I made fun of her for the name dropping I want to hear every detail about bumping into E.M. Forster in the stacks of the London Library when she was an undergrad and he dropped a book on her foot. Plus she ends the book with her 40 desert island books (and she doesn't even cheat - only picks ONE Shakespeare, not the Collected Works like I would). So now I'm thinking of putting together that same list. And of only reading books I own next year (ha! like that would even happen).

#53 Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky

Wow. Such an amazing, incredible, fantastic book. Nemirovsky managed to capture the humanity of both sides during the early years of WWII (and by that, I mean both the best and the worst aspects of humanity). She was not inclined to sympathize with either the French or the Germans as entities, but the individuals who populate her book are written as people, not heroes or monsters. They are cowardly, warm, selfish, brave, greedy, stupid, angry, sad, proud, etc. You start to love them, even the more odious ones.

It is heartbreaking that she never got to finish it. There should be three more sections! My copy (and I'm guessing all copies) has appendices with her notes for the rest of the book, and her correspondence before the war, and her husband's increasingly frantic letters and telegrams and attempts to find her after she was arrested and shipped off to Auschwitz before his arrest. And those bastard French collaborator police spent three years hunting down her teenage daughter trying to get her too (and didn't, thank God).

Oh, desert island books! Are we allowed to take an eReader and a solar powered recharger? (I'd cheat. So help me, I'd cheat.)

Suite Francaise was an amazing book, wasn't it?

#54 The War of the End of the World by Mario Vargas Llosa

It was a difficult book to read, and harder to talk about. It is about a religious, socialist commune type thing set up in Brazil towards the end of the 1800s. According to my copy, the novel is based on a true story, so I'm guessing the settlement was real. The government of the state in which it was located, through trickery and lying and power plays, decides to destroy it. It takes three tries, with increasingly large armies.

Now, I always side with the underdog, and if there is a question of whose side I'm going to be on, soldiers or a community made up of society's marginalized and downtrodden who only wants to live in peace and be left alone, I'm picking the commune. And MVL does too - everyone who is involved with the government in any way, anyone who isn't somehow outside society in some way, is completely despicable and loathsome. Why couldn't they just leave the poor people alone? They weren't bothering anybody.

Downside to the book - lots of descriptions of battles (attacks, counterattacks, etc. Boring) and there are probably at least 10 rape scenes. I can't tell if MVL is trying to make a point, or if he is one of those writers.

Jennifer, I want to thank you for your recommendation of The Brontes: A Life in Letters. I have just finished it, and it was amazing. There was so much I learned, and I had no idea of the tragedy that family endured over the years. Very moving.

Yay! I'm so glad you liked it. Juliet Barker just does an amazing job organizing the Brontes and their correspondence and the like. I can't recommend them strongly enough.

#55 Cleopatra: a life by Stacy Schiff

Three stars. It was ok - very readable, not dry or boring. Too readable, actually. While she has a couple pages of citations in the back, they aren't marked in the text. So if you want to know who the "someone" or "a twentieth-century historian" actually is, you have to go hunting. Important note: she doesn't actually tell you, all the time, who she is quoting. This gets annoying fast, makes me question her scholarship, and makes me suspect she is making things up. Probably she isn't, but she needs to tell me so.

As far as content goes, Cleopatra was super interesting, and it is unfortunate for her that history is told by the victors. It really does sound like Roman historians had a huge problem with powerful women.

#56 Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Its really funny. Surprisingly funny. I want to see it staged sometime.

#57 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte (re-read)

It has never been my favorite; I prefer Charlotte's and Anne's books. But every time I read WH, I'm impressed by what Emily was able to do with the story. Just about all of the characters are horrible - Cathy is selfish and bratty and mean to Heathcliff, Heathcliff is vicious and cruel except to Cathy, anyone with "Linton" in their name anywhere is a whiny, spoiled, wimpy, pathetic nightmare (I much prefer Heathcliff, evil as he is). Nelly Dean is the only decent person in the whole book. I may hate the characters, but in the end I'm not indifferent to them, and the book is really compulsively readable. If nuts.

#58 The Guermantes Way by Marcel Proust

I think I like this volume the best yet. Our odious little narrator is almost all grown up (I can't figure out his age - for some reason I'd pictured him in his early twenties by this point, but then someone makes a joke about him needing to start shaving soon... so confused) and invading high Parisian society. So basically this whole entire volume is him social-climbing. He continues the pattern of idolatry, pursuit, initial rebuff, loss of interest, award of access to the someone, and total disillusionment/disgust with the formerly desired object. He's really a little jerk.

So then why do I enjoy these books so much? Because all of the narrators friends are miserable creatures, too. But the novel itself is wonderful. There is a chapter where the ***SPOILER ALERT*** grandmother dies, and it is heartbreaking and completely different from anything else Proust writes.

#59 The Bourne Ultimatum by Robert Ludlum

Terrible, horrible, no good, very bad book. I can't get over how much better the movies are than these alleged "novels". Ludlum is as much a crime against literature as the comparably talentless clown James Patterson.

Seriously, this book is one of the worst I have ever read. The characters are all idiots, to the point where their actions are no longer believable (the uber-assassin Jason Bourne not recognizing obvious traps? traps that are so not-subtle that the reader is left yelling at him? His tragically not-dead wife Marie - the movies again did the smart thing there - standing in the streets of Paris shouting "Jason" during an ambush? Come on people).

In short, this book sucked. All three of them did. Not ok.

@172 Thank you. I've been saying that for years... although perhaps not as harshly. But you ARE right.

# 60 The Oxford Book of Short Stories edited by V.S. Prichett

I read another book of short stories! An anthology I picked up at the Greater St. Louis Book Fair for a buck, published back in the early 80s. It is pretty great. He tried to pick less-anthologized works (not totally successfully - I think "The Fall of the House of Usher" might be one of the most anthologized short stories of all time, and I would have gone with "The Cask of Amontillado" instead. And since when is "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of blah blah blah" rarely anthologized?). As usual with this sort of thing, I liked some and others not so much.

Favorites included "The Birthmark" by Nathanial Hawthorne, which is good but not as good as "Rapaccini's Daughter" which is the best story ever. Another goodie was "The Demon Lover" by Elizabeth Bowen. I've read one of her novels, wasn't too impressed, but obviously the reason why is because instead of writing novels she should have been writing short stories like "The Demon Lover". Ambrose Bierce's "The Coup de Grace" is excellent, like all his stories. Henry James's "Paste" is almost perfect, as is Somerset Maugham's "An Official Position". OH! And Ring Lardner's "Who Dealt" is amazing, too. I'm trying to think of ones that didn't work - none come to mind. Well, except the stupid frog one.

#61 Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

So I'm a True Blood addict, the show based on these novels. And I'm going to say that the books are entertaining trashy fun, but the changes to the storyline in the show really improve on the original. In this book, the second (so think season 2, the one with the maenad), Harris immediately kills off a character who was 1) barely mentioned in the first book but 2) an integral character in the show and also one of my favorites. Huh. So that's too bad.

Happily, Eric is as fantastic in the book version as he is in the screen version.

@175 yeay to Eric :-) I think the books get better structurally although she still has a tendency to do one plot after the other..

Yay to Eric, indeed. I'm about to watch last night's episode, and since last week ended w/ shirtless Eric, I'm hoping this week's starts with shirtless Eric. Yum.

#62 The Prospector by J.M.G. Le Clezio

I read this because he is the Author Theme Reads miniauthor of the quarter, and I'd never read anything by him before, but he won the Nobel Prize and all so I thought I should. The book is really good, about the narrator's childhood, and his search for the Unknown Corsair's buried treasure, and his stint in the trenches in WWI. It is very dreamy, and lovely (not the war part), and he does some amazing nature writing. He made me really want to go visit the ocean, and I live less than 50 feet from the ocean, so the sense of longing he conveyed so well really stuck.

Shamelessly stolen from divinenanny (and because I'm tired of working on my paper):

Favorite childhood books A Wrinkle in Time, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, Emily's Quest
What are you reading right now? Emma

Bad book habit? Buying them. More than I need. But I WANT!

Do you have an e-reader? Not yet

Do you prefer to read one book at a time or several at once? Several. I have a short attention span.

Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog thread? I don't have a blog (I am not that interesting) but since starting these threads, my reading has definitely broadened. So many good suggestions from so many people! Many, many more authors in translation, which is a good thing.

Least favorite book you read this year (so far)? The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Ugh.

Favorite book you’ve read this year? Yikes. I hate questions like this. Smiley's People? Suite Francaise? The Hunger Games?

How often do you read out of your comfort zone? Uhh... almost never? But my "comfort zone" is really big because I find so many things interesting (see: short attention span).

What is your reading comfort zone? Oh good! Now I can explain the above. Comfort zone = the classics, literary fiction, sci-fi/fantasy, biography, nonfiction about random topics, pop science, theology, dystopia, kids books, history, philosophy, trashy vampire fiction, trashy historical fiction, slightly-more-respectable historical fiction, mysteries, spy thrillers that don't suck, etc etc.

Can you read on the bus? No. I used to be able to read in moving vehicles, but now I can't.

Favorite place to read? Bed, couch, beach, Eastern Prom (grassy hill area along the coast here in Portland. Very pretty, lots of boats).

What is your policy on book lending? I do it, but only to people I trust, and never nice books. Sometimes in a fit of generosity I lend a book to an unknown quantity, and then I stress about it. What if they dog-ear? What if they break the spine? What if I never see it again?

Do you ever dog-ear books? Gasp! No! Where are my smelling salts?

Do you ever write in the margins of your books? Oh yeah. This I do all the time. Totally acceptable, unlike the dogearing thing.

What is your favorite language to read in? English. Because it is the only language I know well enough to read in. I read Candide in French class in high school though. That should count for something.

What makes you love a book? Beautiful writing, great characters, really interesting or unusual plot devices, humor.

What will inspire you to recommend a book? How much I like it. Have I mentioned that you all should read The Hunger Games?

Favorite genre? Literary fiction.

Genre you rarely read (but wish you did)? A tossup between poetry, fantasy, and mystery.

Favorite biography? The Brontes by Juliet Barker

Have you ever read a self-help book? Ha! Yes. I actually broke up with a guy once after reading He's Not that Into You because it made me realize I wasn't that into him. I also read that The Purpose-Driven Life which is total, total shit.

Most inspirational book you’ve read this year (fiction or non-fiction)? ??? I'll have to get back to you on this.

Favorite reading snack? Cookies (although, you can omit the word "reading" and get the same answer)

How often do you agree with critics about a book? Don't read critics. I only care what I think, or what people whose reading taste I trust think.

How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews? So fun.

If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you chose? Russian. Or German. For Dostoevsky and Rilke.

Most intimidating book you’ve ever read? Finnegan's Wake. And I'm not sure it is fair to say I "read" it. More "looked at the words on the page"

Most intimidating book you’re too nervous to begin? War and Peace

Favorite poet? Ranier Maria Rilke

Favorite fictional character? Oh, hell. How to answer this? I'll make it a top 5 list:
1) Severus Snape (from Harry Potter)
2) Jane Eyre
3) Satan from Paradise Lost
4) Archdeacon Grantly (from the Barchester books)
5) Becky Sharp (from Vanity Fair)

Yes, I love the baddies.

Favorite fictional villain? Since I would argue that Milton failed in making Satan the villain of that book, I'll go with Karla from the Smiley books.

Books I’m most likely to bring on vacation? Something big enough that I don't have to bring lots of books along. Before becoming a postdoc, I used to spend summers reading along themes. Like, The Summer I Read the Russian Biggies, or The Summer I Read Henry James. This is The Summer of Proust. In theory.

The longest I’ve gone without reading. Meaning pleasure reading? B/C as an academic, I read things all the time. But I'd say the 4 months in fall of 2006 when I was doing an extra TA and prepping for my thesis proposal. I used to push myself to work more by promising myself that I could read a novel in just a little bit...

Name a book that you could/would not finish. I usually finish books, but the last book I didn't bother with was Tinkers by Paul Harding. All these books set in Maine about death...ugh again.

What distracts you easily when you’re reading? Nothing. People have to shout or throw things at me to get my attention.

Favorite film adaptation of a novel? The Lord of the Rings. OH! All of the Bourne movies.

Most disappointing film adaptation? I'm disappointed with all adaptions of Jane Eyre.

The most money I’ve ever spent in the bookstore at one time? I spent $125 at Amazon one time when I won a $100 gift card. That was awesome.

How often do you skim a book before reading it? Sometimes I'll flip to the back to make sure my favorite character is still alive. Otherwise, never.

Do you like to keep your books organized? Sorta like everything else in my world - there is an underlying organization to the mess that I can't explain.

Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you’ve read them? Keep, keep, keep. Unless they're really bad.

Are there any books you’ve been avoiding? Nope. Well, The Brothers Karamazov. It scares me.

Name a book that made you angry. That shitty King Tut book by James Patterson, and the Bourne books, and Atlas Shrugged.

A book you didn’t expect to like but did? The Hunger Games

A book that you expected to like but didn’t? The only one that comes to mind is Night Train to Lisbon, but that is just because I just read divinenanny's list.

Favorite guilt-free, pleasure reading? trashy historical fiction, Sookie, kids books.

Awesome answers! I totally laughed at Satan being one of your favorite characters! Don't be intimidated by War and Peace but, yes, The Brothers Karamazov was intimidating to me. Didn't get that one at all.

It is so big and scary, War and Peace. Like 3 inches across!

#61 Final Harvest by Emily Dickinson

Final Harvest is a kind of Greatest Hits collection. These poems start out happy and sunny, about bees and trees and nature and birdies. But really they are all about death. All 500 or so of them.

#62 Emma by Jane Austen (re-read)

I love Emma - it is either my 2nd or 3rd favorite, depending on how recently I've read Persuasion. Emma cracks me up, Mr. Woodhouse cracks me up, the way that every single character is so completely wrong about every other character's feelings or motivations or actions or whatever. So great. It had been way too long since I read this.

Ahhh, I love Emma too. I wrote a paper on it for Mr. Moeller's class, though I can't remember what it was about. I haven't read Persuasion in a long time. Maybe that will be one of my re-reads for this year.

Wow. Even "looking at the words on the page" for Finnegan's Wake is extremely impressive as far as I'm concerned.

I studied Emma back at high school, and then re-read it about 10 years ago. Have to say, I didn't smile once. I'll give it another go, but I think this may be an instance where my enjoyment of a book has been damaged by over-analysis. (Good teacher though, I won't say she was bad at all.)

#63 Sodom and Gomorrah by Marcel Proust

I really, really wanted to lead off this review by saying "This book started out with a bang", but after looking at other people's reviews here and at Goodreads I noticed that a good half of those reviewers also felt the need to use that sentence in their reviews, so I will resist the urge. In this volume, the obnoxious narrator discovers the existence of homosexuals (by inadvertently witnessing an encounter between two men while watching bees pollinate orchids - the narrator is a ridiculous little perv). He doesn't like them and finds them icky (self-loathing much, M. Proust?). The book centers around two main story arcs - the Baron de Charlus and his adventures, and the narrator's sociopathic mental and emotional abuse of relationship with Albertine.

This was a hard volume to get through, for me. Proust brings back a lot of my least favorite characters (the odious Verdurins, Albertine) and hides my favorites (Swann, the Duc and Duchesse de Guermantes).

Have to say I'm pretty impressed that you're reading Proust. I've never been tempted to try his books yet - maybe some day.

It takes awhile to get used to the style, but once you do it is hard to stop reading. Even though nothing at all happens, ever.

#64 Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen

Quick & easy beach read today. I didn't like all the beatings (of animals, of people), but the circus setting was really interesting.

#65 Shirley by Charlotte Bronte (re-read)

Story-wise, it revolves around two young women and their respective love stories. Main character #1 is Caroline Helstone, who is essentially Fanny Price lifted from Mansfield Park and stuck into a Bronte novel. She is of course anguished and tormented because she is in love with her cousin, doesn't hide it, and suffers because he is pursuing another woman for her money. This makes her physically ill - almost dying of a broken heart, naturally, until a mysterious long-lost relation show up. Caroline is horrible; every single part of the book with her in it is a waste of paper. Boo.

The only real reason to read the book is because of main character #2: Shirley Keeldar. Shirley is a wealthy young lady, with money and land and charm and a fantastic personality. If Caroline is a totally unrealistic and annoying and insipid character, Shirley is real and vivid, almost as if she was drawn from life. Which, of course, she was. Shirley is Charlotte's tribute to her sister Emily (dead by the time the book was finished) - Emily as she might have been, with money and security and perfect health. Half the characters in the book are immediately recognizable as people in Charlotte's life (if you've read any Bronte biographies), especially the curates and the Yorke family. Heck, even Emily's dog gets a part. The writing in sections is heartbreaking, where she starts philosophizing and trying to work through her loss. It was a very good book, and I think I like it better now that I know more about Charlotte's backstory. In the future I will skip the Caroline parts. They are not good

#66 Club Dead by Charlaine Harris

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I have a new guilty pleasure. These just keep getting better.

#67 Small Island by Andrea Levy

Absolutely wonderful! It is the story of two Jamaican immigrants to the UK right after WWII, and their landlady, and their backstories. Super interesting, really well-written, just a fantastic book.

Fiction or non-fiction? Either way it sounds like my kind of book - another one for the tbr pile.

Fiction. And I really think you'd like it.

#68 The Crucible by Arthur Miller

Horrifying and brilliant. How do things like this happen?

#69 Dead to the World by Charlaine Harris

I really enjoyed this book for two reasons: first, SO MUCH ERIC! Yay! and second, because I now know (sorta) how this season of True Blood is going to turn out. I'd been wondering whether or not Real Eric would remember Amnesia Eric's experiences when he got his memory back (not a spoiler, because duh they're giving him his memory back). Now I know.

#70 The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne

This book is completely insane. I can't think of any other way to describe it. It does not tell either the life or the opinions of Tristram Shandy. He's not even born until the end of the first volume. There are lots of digressions, and addresses to the reader, and blank pages, and instead of just *** over swear words, there are entire sentences like "** ******** ***** ******* ******".

That said, I absolutely loved it. Five stars. This book is awesome.

You have me so curious about Tristam Shandy. Some day . . .

Oh, I failed last time I tried Tristram Shandy; I must give it another go now! (From memory, there was a newborn in the house last time. Bit off more than I could chew there!)

I even failed on the comic book of Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman :) and as for True Blood all I can say is: Yeay Eric!

I've been meaning to watch the movie adaptation of Tristram Shandy, I think it's called "A Cock and Bull Story". I think I could cope with it in visual form. Fewer commas, for one.

Loved the movie! Well, the first part, anyway. It sort of falls apart near the end. Time to pull it out and watch it again soon (I bought it).

Oh yeah I second the recommendation for the movie, a lot of fun.

I'll have to watch that - I can't imagine how they would film something like this. I'm imagining Tristram's father and Uncle Toby and Dr. Slop sitting around arguing about philosophy, siege warfare, and noses while Tristram's mother has a baby.

#71 The Golden Ass by Apuleius
A Roman novel - possibly one of the first ever novels. It's about a man who accidentally gets turned into a donkey, and his adventures. It reminds me a lot of Don Quixote, or the bits of The Canterbury Tales that I've read; it is a journey story, interspersed with stories Lucius hears along the way. It's pretty entertaining, and quite raunchy.

#72 The Bad Girl by Mario Vargas Llosa

MVL seems to write two kinds of books (my n=4 though, so this may not really be the case). He writes big, sweeping, epic, political novels that are very deep and depressing and take a long time to read. Or he writes relatively lighthearted love stories. This book is one of the second type, and I liked it a lot. I think in general I like category 2 better. The titular Bad Girl pops in and out of the narrator's life, over the course of decades, so on top of the love/hate story we get glimpses of Lima in the 50s, Paris in the early 60s, London in the late 60s, Paris again in the 70s, Peru again in the 80s, Madrid in the 90s.

#73 The Captive and the Fugitive by Marcel Proust

***SPOILERS AHEAD***
Plot-wise: in The Captive, our unnamed narrator acquires a name (Marcel), and keeps Albertine locked up in his house to prevent her from having sex with women. Every time she behaves, he gets bored with her. Every time she leaves the house, or has a friend over, he freaks out and falls back in love. Finally, finally, finally, she comes to her senses and leave the jerk.

In The Fugitive, Marcel plays a lot of douchey tricks to get Albertine to come back to him, but just as he succeeds she dies tragically in an accident. Does this stop Marcel from obsessing over whether she had hot girl-on-girl action while she was away from him? Or ever, in her life? NO! No it does not. So 200 pages of sending people out to investigate, losing it when he finds out that yep, she slept with women, and going on and on about losing the woman he loved - the one he's spent around 2000 pages bitching about how he doesn't love her and how boring she is. Then he goes to Venice, gets over it, a bunch of random things happen to random characters from earlier books, and then the volume ends. Sigh.

Other observations: Proust died while editing Sodom and Gomorrah, and the lack of his editing in these volumes shows. He keeps killing people off, but then forgets about that because they appear again (not in flashbacks), living their normal lives. This is probably also why the books are so short compared to the rest (400 and 550 pages, compared to almost 1000).

The narrator remains a little creeper, and if he was a real person in real life would be exactly the kind of guy you stage an intervention to get a friend away from. But he does come up with really profound statements, particularly about love, jealousy, and grief, which redeem a lot of the nonsense. One more volume left; I wonder who Marcel will inflict himself upon now.

#74 Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda

Swoon. These are great.

#75 The Feast of the Goat by Mario Vargas Llosa

This is another political novel, about the assassination of Trujillo in the Dominican Republic, connecting different storylines from the point of view of the conspirators, Trujillo himself, various hangers-on, and a personal story that reflects the horror of living in the Trujillo regime. A political book, definitely, but one that was absolutely fascinating.

oo I have Feast of the Goat on my wishlist and plan to read it next year, it's encouraging to read another recommendation.

#76 Time Regained by Marcel Proust

With this final volume of In Search of Lost Time, Proust totally gives up on even the most basic attempt at plot. This is basically 500 pages of reflections on WWI, memory, loss, aging, death, literature, society, etc. One of my favorite volumes.

And with that... I did it! I did it! I read all of ISOLT! All 3000 pages! Overall, I'm torn. On one hand, everyone who says that Proust is a beautiful writer and presents these really universal themes and ideas is fully right. On the other hand, the snobbishness is really obnoxious to modern readers (or at least this modern reader), and the relationship between Marcel and Albertine is totally appalling. Marcel, as a character, is revolting. In this last episode, he wanders into some sort of S&M male prostitute brothel, and stands around and watches the Baron de Charlus get whipped by some footman. Ick, Marcel. I realize that, with a first-person narrative, in order to work these scenes in (and Marcel-the-character is very much only a frame for the book as a whole - things don't really happen to him) Marcel has to be a creepy voyeur stalker weirdo, but he's really hard to read about.

But definitely worth reading. I'll pick it up again, someday. In a decade or so.

Congratulations! A mammoth effort, I am truly impressed.

Thank you. I'm bragging about it, quite obnoxiously, almost as obnoxiously as Marcel does about attending his first society party, all over LibraryThing. Because this is the only place where people will be all "yay you!" and not all "what? what's that? why aren't you working?".

LOL! Absolutely a "yay you!" from me. :)

I did have a copy of the first volume somewhere, I wonder what I've done with it... Still, probably worthwhile just buying the newer translations anyhow and starting from there. One day. I find it rather frightening to commit to that much reading time on *one* book!

I have a couple weeks worth of reading to catch up on, now.

#77 The Cubs and other stories by Mario Vargas Llosa

I really liked the title story, about a group of boys in Peru and how one gets, um, castrated by a Great Dane and the fallout from that. I especially liked how it was told in second person plural. The other stories are unmemorable.

#78 Dead as a Doornail by Charlaine Harris

So this will be the basis of next season? Lots of Alcide, then.

#79 Definitely Dead by Charlaine Harris

Who is this Quinn person? I feel like he is interfering with the all-Eric, all the time thing that I prefer.

#80 The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats by the same

I really like Yeats. He wrote some of my favorite poems ("When You Are Old", "Cap and Bells", "The Second Coming"), and the whole collection is great - I even like the narrative poetry at the end. My favorites have not changed, though.

#81 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (re-read)

I love this book.

#82 The History of the Peloponnesian War by Thucydides

This is one of those epic, influencing-all-of-western-civilization books. Military history, with all the battles and whatnot, isn't my favoritest thing ever, but I liked all the speeches, and I liked seeing how influential individual people could be when it came to battle outcomes. Again, the Landmark edition of the book was well worth it. These provide lots of maps and appendices and footnotes that make everything very easy to understand for those of us who know next to nothing about ancient Greece.

#83 Coraline by Neil Gaiman

This is not one of those epic, influencing all-of-western-civilization books. But it is a really fun read. I think Gaiman is a genius. Coraline is great, but not as great as

#84 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

which is absolutely fantastic. Almost as good as Neverwhere. I wish he had written it back when I was 10; I would have read it monthly.

History of the Peloponnesian War???? And Proust in the same year? Wow. Glad you enjoyed parts of it!

BTW, have you seen Downton Abbey? It's a british tv show that is being broadcast on PBS. We're watching it on netflix because it's between seasons here, but I thought of you while I was watching it cause it's awesome. Early 20th century rich family of daughters, entails, servant drama, etc. I think you'd like it.

Have you read Kipling's Mowgli stories? The Graveyard Book is very much a homage and retelling of those.

I watched the first few episodes of Downton Abbey when it ran on PBS last year, but then I missed a bunch for various reasons. They're re-running them before season 2 starts, so I'll finish up then. I loved the parts I did see.

Never read the Mowgli stories - I'm not the biggest Kipling fan in the world, but I didn't realize that The Graveyard Book was retelling them. I'll look them up. Wait, is that Mowgli like in The Jungle Book?

Yes, Mowgli like The Jungle Book. I recently read that, and (once prodded into remembering The Graveyard Book), yes, the homage-ness of it all is obvious.

I watched a bunch of Downton Abbey too, and have a bunch recorded to watch. But I don't seem to bother turning on the TV any more unless my husband is around, and then we choose something we both want to watch (Downton Abbey isn't high on his viewing priorities :).

#85 A Perfect Spy by John le Carre

This isn't just a spy thriller - it is the life story of a spy, and his relationship with his father, and his relationship with his handlers, and his wife, and everything. And it is great.

#86 The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Bronte

They're exactly the kinds of poems you would expect her to write, so whether or not they are good depends on whether or not you think she is overly dramatic or a genius. I loved them. I was surprised to learn that they mostly fit into the Gondal universe she and Anne invented, and aren't really personal poems at all. My favorite is the one that starts "No coward soul is mine". The only bad thing about this book is that now I'm dying to read the whole Gondal saga, and I don't know if that is possible.

#87 Agnes Grey by Anne Bronte

Not a re-read, for a change. This and The Professor had been the only Bronte novels I hadn't read. It was a quick and entertaining little read, but not exactly a work of genius. I feel like it maybe could have been, if she had written more and gone into more detail and fleshed out some of the characters (like Mr. Weston). There could have been more drama and agonizing depth of feeling and whatnot when Agnes has to watch Rosalie Murray hitting on Mr. Weston. But then it would be Jane Eyre, I suppose.

Nothing wrong with another Jane Eyre in this world. :)

I must admit, I've only read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights from the Bronte sisters. Really should rectify that.

They're worth it. Even though Jane Eyre is the best of the bunch.

#88 Welcome to the World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg

I hate when this happens. A book starts out so well; it is clearly going to be one of those how-she-got-to-this-point books, with some nice comparison/contrast between City Mouse (here, a TV reporter named Dena) and Country Mouse (her Missouri cousins and Alabama college roommate). You always sorta know, in these books, that City Mouse is going to chuck it all because life in the country is better, fame isn't everything, etc. Like I said, it goes along so well for about 400 pages. Then the author tries to do to much, make too big a stretch, adds in one of the least believable "love" stories I've come across in a long time, neatly ties up every single loose end, and everyone lives happily ever after. Which turned out to be a really sucky ending to what had seemed like it would be a fun book. 3 stars.

#89 The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever (obviously)

At first, I thought I wasn't going to like the book. Lots of stories about New Yorkers and New Englanders who use "summer" as a verb - I can't relate. I'm from the midwest, I'm broke, etc. But I kept reading, and they grew on me. He's got some absolutely fantastic stories - the very first one in the book is the frequently-anthologized "Goodbye, My Brother", and then "The Swimmer" is great, and I've forgotten the names of the rest. I've put check marks by my favorites, but my book is at home and I'm at work, so I'll edit this later. I like the ones set in his imaginary suburb of Shady Hill, and the ones about people struggling to make it in NYC. I'm not such a fan of the rich-expat-in-Rome ones (and it is only a little bit because I am envious!)

I've not read any John Cheever, but the other night on TV there was an adaptation of "The Swimmer" with Burt Lancaster. I've taped it, and watched a bit, and it does look good.

Hello. Just caught up. What a treat.

1. Sense & Sensibility - Just read it a coupla weeks ago. Am not reading Emma. I liked S&S. I think it's #3 for me: P&P, Pers, S&S, MP, NA (Emma not slotted yet, but it's going to be in the latter three. I like Elinor. I admired her self-restraint and altruism. I loved how she dealt with that odious Lucy Steele and Edward. If only I could have kept my head like that in my twenties (shoulda read Austen sooner, obviously).

2. Thank you. Now I will never have to read Water for Elephants, because I have a zero tolerance policy for exposure to animal cruelty.

3. Glad you're loving Sookie by Harris. To me, the show and the books are kinda two different animals. I'm quite behind in TB, so are you telling me there's no Quinn? I liked Quinn.

4. Congrats on the Proust. You are a rock star.

Citygirl: Thank you. Now I will never have to read Water for Elephants, because I have a zero tolerance policy for exposure to animal cruelty.

The cruelty towards animals in Water for Elephants is nothing compared to the cruelty toward people. And that's just the beginning of what makes that book lousy.

Excellent! Now I feel even more secure in my decision. It's kinda cool when you can kick a book off of TBR with no compunction. Very satisfying sense. Now there's room for one more!

Haven't got to Quinn yet. I suspect he might make an appearance in season 5, if they keep him as a character. I'm really glad they didn't kill off Lafayette in TB the way they did in the books. I love him.

Very much agree re Lafayette. When I saw him in the first season, I was so hoping the show would take a different route, because TB's Lafayette is an incredible character, with an incredible actor. I also like the changes they made to Tara.

#90 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Wow, that Sue Bridehead is one batshit crazy piece of work, isn't she?

I started watching True Blood the other week (a group of friends has an occasional Friday night DVD fest; we watch things like Buffy, Twin Peaks, Babylon 5, etc). I don't remember the first book (I didn't like it enough to continue), but I liked the first four eps of the series. Glad to hear Lafayette lasts, he's a great character.

I've got Jude the Obscure somewhere on Mt TBR. You're not filling me with hope. :)

"Batshit crazy piece of work" isn't making you want to drop everything and read it? If it makes you feel better, everyone else in the book is also crazy.

If you made it through the first four eps, I think you'll love the series. I know a lot of people who were turned off by all the sex, but I've noticed that HBO series do that for the first couple episodes, and then the number of sex scenes drops off (although never disappears). I'm a huge Eric fan (yum, yum).

I also prefer TB Tara to Book Tara. She's so much more interesting the way she is now. Although if I were her, I'd leave Bon Temps and never never come back.

No, I dislike batshit crazy people in reality, I'm not altogether fond of them in books either. (Unless they are highly entertaining in said fiction.) But, hey, it's not a tome of a book, it'll stay on Mt TBR. :)

I was actually okay with the amount of sex in TB, funnily enough. I can never predict how I'll deal with an excess of sex scenes, sometimes I'm fine with it, sometimes I'm not. It's probably if I'm dissatisfied with the book/show in the first place, too much sex between the characters just doesn't work for me.

I was mostly worried because I couldn't quite cope with the idea of Anna Paquin having sex because she's just a teenager. Or, rather, was just a teenager in the last thing I saw her in (one of the X-Men movies). She has of course grown up since then, and once I got used to her as a grown up (in about 2 seconds) it was fine.

#91 The Help by Kathryn Stockett

I'm like the last person I know to read this book. I thought it was pretty good, a very quick read. I loved Minny and Aibilene and Miss Celia, and I loathed Miss Hilly. Skeeter was fine; I would have liked the book better if she only served as a framing device for the maids' stories, and their interactions with their employers. Her own problems were the least interesting part of the book to me, but maybe that is just because White Girl Whose Life Is Transformed By The Black People Around Her Cause She's Just Like So Ahead Of Her Time is a pretty overdone trope.

A quartet of self-help books:

#92 The Automatic Millionaire by David Bach

It is budget-making time for FY2012. Or getting there, anyway

#93 Stop Acting Rich by Thomas J. Stanley

This is the guy who wrote The Millionaire Next Door, and it is more of the same. He's a big fan of working-class and middle-class types who scrimp and save and eventually at 60 have tons of money. Which is definitely admirable. This book focuses a lot on "high income/low savings" people, like doctors and lawyers, apparently, who pretend to be the "glittering rich". Lots and lots of charts about people who buy certain products. Stanley is obsessed with Grey Goose vodka (lots of not-rich people buy this to pretend to be rich, apparently. I feel very virtuous because I do not like vodka, and therefore would never behave in such an infamous manner). He's also practically an advertisement for Toyota. Want to be a millionaire? Buy a Toyota.

#94 Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey

Did I mention it is budget-making time for FY2012?

#95 The 4 Hour Body by some crazy nutjob

This book is making the rounds of my friends right now, some of whom vocally mock it and others who are clearly secretly following it, but don't want the mockers to find out. He can guarantee you will lose weight if you follow his crazy diet that will only work if you are one of those people who don't like to eat. And are totally ok with crazy bodybuilder supplements. There is also a hilarious chapter for straight dudes on how to get a woman off. Complete with diagrams.

Fun reading, Jennifer! I think I'll skip the crazy nut job body book though.

The man schedules in one crazy binge day per week. Every other day of the week, you aren't allowed to eat fruit. Or any grains or grain products. Or dairy. Meat, beans, vegetables, eggs. I'm sure this would work, because after a couple days I'd stop eating entirely.

#96 The Russia House by John le Carre

I love these books. This one was fantastic, with all sorts of really satisfying spycraft.

#97 Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa

Another depressing book about Peru, and people being very mean to each other. I gave it 3 stars. I don't know about this Vargas Llosa. I realize he's a Nobel Prize winner, I appreciate that some of his books are very profound and well-written and cover very big and important political topics. It's just that in general, I don't enjoy reading those books of his. I like the sillier ones, but even those I don't like that much. He's this year's Author Theme Reads author, but I think I may be done with his work for awhile.

#98 Tacitus: the Histories

I made it through another ancient writer! You think modern politics are bad? Those Romans have us beat to pieces. The whole book basically covers the events of one year, 69 A.D., in which there were 4 different civil wars and 4 different emperors. Tacitus himself is an entertaining writer; he is not at all an impartial historian, and he doesn't think very highly of anyone in this book. Overall, an entertaining read.

#99 Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

She really has a gift (well, she has many gifts, actually) for sucking a reader into her books. By the time I was a third of the way through I was tuning out all external stimuli, I was that absorbed in the book. It's really just amazing.

Only one more to go . . . . .

. . . And it's in!

#100 Bossypants by Tina Fey

She's so funny. I love her. And this book.

Congratulations on reaching 100! I really enjoyed Bossypants too, Tina Fey is very clever.

Congrats!

Very nice. I had much fun with Bossypants myself.

Congratulations on hitting the 100 book mark! You can relax for the rest of the year.

Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Wow, that Sue Bridehead is one batshit crazy piece of work, isn't she?

Okay, I told you I'd read this and we could chat about it. I haven't had much time for reading, so I've only made it through about a chapter a day. This weekend I made a bit more progress--now up to II-v, which is p111/452. Jude has just made contact with Sue, and reconnected with his old school teacher. After a fairly pleasant and interesting beginning, I have to say I'm getting bored and would love to read something else.

It isn't the most interesting book, that's for sure. I love Hardy, but not this one.

#101 Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield

These were fantastic short stories! "The Garden Party" was in there, of course, although it wasn't the best in the set. There were some wonderful character sketches, set in Germany, and then quite a few of her privileged-people-in-New-Zealand stories (always with an undercurrent of something not-quite-right).

#102 The Misanthrope and other plays by Moliere

Tragic comedies? Is that the term? These are deservedly famous.

1) The Misanthrope - So this guy, he's so determined to stick with his principles, despite common sense and good manners suggesting he maybe not. An interesting idea: which is more important, principles-at-any-cost or civilized-society-involves-compromise?
2) The Sicilian - a very silly but fun comedy about what happens when a dad gets in the way of his daughter marrying who she wants.
3) Tartuffe - I would've liked it better if everything didn't work out at the end. That seemed a little too contrived. Although maybe the hypocrites and thieves did get punished back in the day, as opposed to now when they do just fine for themselves. The play also contains a subplot in which a dad gets in the way of his daughter marrying who she wants.
4) A Doctor in Spite of Himself - hilarious farce, about a peasant who gets pressed into being a doctor, to treat a daughter whose father is getting in the way of her marrying who she wants.
5) The Imaginary Invalid - a father imagines his is much sicker than he is, and because of this tries to get in the way of his daughter marrying who she wants.

I sense a theme...

I love Katherine Mansfield. I think my favourite story of hers is "How Pearl Button was Kidnapped" (at least I think that's what the title is--not 100% sure).

Another Mansfield fan here!

Isn't she great? I love her stories.

#103 Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

Oh, God, I just cannot stand Fanny Price. I want her out of this novel, or any other novel. I don't understand the point of her - she's so different from Austen's other heroines, in a bad way. Even Anne from Persuasion has some spunk to her. She's so good; there is no bad to her; there is no interesting to her. She moons over Edmund for the whole book, despite his confiding in her about how he feels about Mary Crawford (who is actually super interesting up till the point where Austen must have realized "Oh, no. The book is going to end in a chapter and I still have not justified why Fanny should end up with Edmund" and then she throws a not-in-keeping-with-her-character-up-to-that-point nasty mercenary quality to Mary). Come on, Fanny. Get some self-respect, please.

Everything having to do with Fanny is just such moralizing bullshit. Except that, oh wait, being quiet, and never speaking up, and having no opinion, and always doing what you are told, and being too weak to WALK HALF A MILE are NOT VIRTUES. They are barely tolerable in live human beings; they are inexcusable qualities in a fictional heroine. I say, kick her out. Outside of the Fanny horror show, the rest of the book is quite good, and really pushes the envelope (for Austen) when it comes to behavior.

I know, I know. Great book, dopey character, which considering Fanny is the main character is quite an achievement.

If you don't mind, I'm going to rank JA books, each of which I've read only once:

P&P
Persuasion
Mansfield Park
S&S
Emma
Northanger Abbey (which is the only one which was "meh" to me, but of course I will read it again).

Does your ranking ever change, jen?

Interesting rankings, and I'm glad you posted them! Everyone should post theirs! For me, Emma & Persuasion frequently trade being in the #2 & #3 slots. P&P always wins (although that letter from Captain Wentworth...). I do like NA because I have a soft spot for silly teenage girls. S&S gets worse every time I read it. Mansfield Park is always, always last. Because she is so awful. Sometimes I feel like I shouldn't be so harsh to Fanny when I talk about MP, because I know there are people who identify with her. Probably the same people who come to book group, don't say a word, and stare at me. *shudder*

I should point out that even the "bad" Jane Austen novels are better than most things out there, and totally worth re-reading, although MP won't ever be an every-other-year reread like P&P because it stresses me out.

Another thought: so part of why I love NA so much is that Austen hadn't yet learned to retract her claws. Some of the cattiest, bitchiest prose around can be found in that book. And no one who can think or write some of the things Austen does about society in NA can possibly actually approve of a mealy-mouthed character like Fanny. So why does Fanny exist? I've read somewhere that she wrote it after P&P to give the world a more-acceptable-to-the-time-period alternate to Elizabeth Bennet. She's, like, the anti-Elizabeth. But that means she sucks.

Interesting rankings, and I'm glad you posted them! Everyone should post theirs!

Okay, since you asked . . . I've read each of these one time only.

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Mansfield Park
3. & 4. Persuasion and Sense & Sensibility -- can't decide
5. Northanger Abbey
6. Emma

I suspect that I might like S&S less on another reading, and move the bottom two up. However, I have a soft spot for S&S because I saw the movie before I read the book, and just loved the cast-- Emma Thompson (who really was too old for the part)! Hugh Grant! Alan Rickman! Along with Helena Bonham-Carter, and Colin Firth, I love any movie that has a combination of those actors in it. They could get together and read the phone book, and I'd swoon.

Have you read Bitch in a Bonnet's blog on reading Mansfield Park? He makes some great observations: http://bitchinabonnet.blogspot.com/2010_09_01_archive.html

Ranking Austen's books? I can't resist!

1) Pride and Prejudice
2) Emma
3) Persuasion
4) Sense and Sensibility
5) Northanger Abbey
6) Mansfield Park

#1 and 2 are indisputable in my personal ranking. 3, 4, and 5 I'm torn about and will probably flip flop around depending on my mood and how recently I've read each book. I'm intending to reread Persuasion and Northanger Abbey this year, maybe Mansfield Park as well. Northanger Abbey fell in my estimation a bit when I tried to read The Mysteries of Udolpho. It's so slow-paced and flowery that it's not at all exciting and that made me question my feelings for NA.

I agree with you about Fanny, but I like a lot of the other characters in the book so even though it's last on my list I still love it.

The Austen I know and love—the keenly intelligent, fiercely independent, poison-tongued mock-maker—would have had Fanny Price for breakfast.

I love it!

Jennifer, that is my ranking almost exactly except that for me, Emma and Persuasion flip 2 & 3, and I like NA better than S&S.

Well, we'll see after I read Persuasion and NA this year if I want to revise my rankings. I'll let you know! Ahhhhhh . . . I love talking about Austen.

1. Pride and Prejudice
2. Persuasion
3. Sense and Sensibility
4. Northanger Abbey
5. Emma

and, I'm sad to say, I'm yet to read Mansfield Park.

Rankings are subject to change without notice, of course. They're all *excellent* books, and to say that Emma is #5 isn't to say it's a bad book, it's just to say I had to study it at High School and haven't quite been able to return to it without a feeling of dread of having to write essays about themes...

I think I liked S&S more than most people; I read it as a teenager and then only got around to re-reading it in the last year or so, and had a great time. Maybe on a future reading I'll downgrade it a bit.

I do love NA as well, Catherine Morland is delightful, as is Henry.

Jeez, could I just give those first four equal rankings....? Or at least P&P and P equal first place, and S&S and NA equal second place, with Emma trailing...

So much hatin' on Emma (and by "hatin'" I mean "less blind adoration")! I don't understand. Everything that is wrong with MP is corrected in Emma! She's fantastic, and so is the book.

229 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Wow, that Sue Bridehead is one batshit crazy piece of work, isn't she?

Okay, now I know what you're talking about. Definitely a piece of work. As is Arabella. As for the novel as a whole, I did not see that big moment coming. Ouch! I'm bruised.

I dunno, jen. Emma just didn't tickle me as well. It took longer for me to get into, altho the 2d half did go a lot faster.

Of course, I kept seeing scenes from Clueless in my head, so I don't know what my response would've been if I'd read it cold.

Do you think Emma's more an anti-Fanny than Fanny is an anti-Elizabeth?

ooh- me too!
Persuasion and Sense and Sensibility trade off for numbers 1 and 2
Pride and Prejudice (of course) as number 3
Northanger Abbey
Emma
Mansfield Park

I think I'll reread MP and NA in 2012. I think that's the order I started in.

I had never read Austen previously so am truly flummexed that I didn't care for Emma but loved both Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility. Glad to see you are reading her too Jennifer. Are you doing the Auston-a-Thon as well?
I just started Mansfield Park last night and am enjoying it as well. Then comes Northanger Abbey and Persuasion. I hope I like them too. I was sad that I didn't care very much for Emma. I really wanted to love all of her works.

Belva, on re-reading you may come to love Emma. I was less than fond of Sense and Sensibility when I first read it, but on re-reading found it truly delightful. I'll probably give Emma another go, it's been almost 10 years since the last reading, and hopefully I will have changed too.

I must read Mansfield Park though! I'm just worried... (Although as my Mum says, even a less favourite Jane Austen is worth reading.)

Your Mum is right... the non-Fanny characters are a lot of fun. I'm loving all the Austen discussion around here! Do I think Emma is an anti-Fanny? Oh yes. All of Emma, I think, is an anti-Mansfield Park. Is Emma more an anti-Fanny than Fanny is an anti-Elizabeth? Hmm. I think maybe Emma is more deliberately an anti-Fanny than Fanny is an anti-Elizabeth. I think Austen read MP and said "oh, God, no, not doing that again" and then she stuck to Mary Crawford types for the rest of her heroines. Except Anne Elliott, of course, but she's pretty tough in her own way - she's no Fanny.

I'm not doing the Austen-a-thon, no. I don't spend much time over in the 75 book challenge - way too many people over there. Can't keep up. It was just a coincidence; someone else around here did an Austen-a-thon a couple years ago and I've been wanting to do one, since. I just started Sandition and other stories; her unfinished novel, some novellas, and her juvenile work. Not a re-read, for a change.

Oh, and I read a book recently.

#104 The Constant Gardener by John le Carre

A non-Cold-War book by le Carre. I think he managed the transition well; the bad guys in this book are Big Pharma (which is particularly interesting to me because my career Plan B is to sell my soul and go work for one of them). I thought it was just a great book; action packed, but not stupid.

Also, it was made into a really good movie starring the gorgeous Ralph Fiennes. Pre-Voldemort.

I had heard that Fanny was Jane Austen's favourite character. Mum's quite puzzled too, but she's the one who told me and she's generally pretty spot-on with her info. (Unlike me, who gets things all muddled.)

#105 Sandition and other stories by Jane Austen.

New Austen! Sandition and The Watsons were two unfinished novels. It was hard to tell where Sandition was supposed to go, but she was headed some riskier places, I think, than her other novels (the word "seduction" showed up multiple times, with an intended victim already selected). The Watsons looked like it was shaping up to be a P&P clone, complete with ballroom scenes (my favorites!) and marriages. I wish she had finished them!

Lady Susan is a brilliant little novella, in which the title character is a evil villain along the lines of the Marquise de Merteuil from Les Liaisons Dangereuses, who happens to be one of my absolute favorite characters ever (although somehow omitted from the list somewhere in this thread). Lady Susan isn't quite there, but still delightfully nasty. It's a really good story.

The second half of the book contains lots of Austen's younger work - sketches, stories, plays, etc. They're hilarious, really. So melodramatic! People fainting, falling into one another's arms, sobbing, etc. But then she'd stick in a completely Austen sentence, snide and hilarious.

I've never read any of these, though I have Lady Susan and Love and Friendship on my kindle. Hopefully I'll get to them plus Sandition and the Watsons this year. Have you ever read her history of england? I've read part of it. It's pretty funny, though I think it would be more funny if I knew more british history.

Love and Friendship is really, really, really funny and over-the-top melodramatic (it has all the fainting, etc). History of England was one of the stories in this edition. I had no idea that Austen was so anti-Tudor. It was really funny, too, but mostly the parts about the Yorks and Richard III, and then only because I had read The Sunne in Splendour.

#106 The Tender Land by Kathleen Finneran

My final LT group read of the year with the Missouri Readers. It was a memoir of her family, centered around her brother's suicide when he was 15 but not entirely about that. I loved the way it was organized (like a conversation, stories seeming to be told at random but not really), and I loved the obvious affection between all the siblings and the parents. The author has struggled with depression, and describes that very accurately and movingly. Overall just a wonderful book.

#107 The River Between by Ngugi wa Thiong'o. This book is amazing; it is pretty difficult to read (another dealing with FGM). It is about the clash of two cultures, and how that tears a tribe apart, and the fate of one man who was raised to believe that it was his job to unite them. 150 unputdownable pages of awesomeness.

#108 Politics by Aristotle. Oh, Aristotle. So, he sets forth the different kinds of government, and their strengths and weaknesses, and which are better applied to which state. He throws in some child-rearing advice, and suggests that women shouldn't have kids until they are at least 18 years old (good advice) and men shouldn't until they are 37 (hmmm). Everyone should stop at age 50 (good advice, again). Then men and women could live together for "reasons of health or some such reason" - maybe love and companionship? maybe not, since this is Aristotle we're talking about.

If you can keep all that in your head, separate from the other things Aristotle says, the book is boring but fine. The parts that upset me are his statements that "some men" are just born to be slaves. Designed by nature! You can tell this because they have no souls. Like women! Who also have no souls.

Thanks a bunch, Aristotle. That didn't cause centuries of problems, not at all!

Jennifer - why are you reading Aristotle? I love your comments--reminds me of all those books I had to read for university. I'm glad I read them, but I never really liked them much.

I've never actually read Aristotle, and I have a copy of The Politics on my shelf. So I read it. It is part of my 11/11 challenge. I like all the ancient Greek plays, a lot actually, but not this so much.

Yeah, the philosophy stuff is different from the plays. I had to read both at uni, and I came around to enjoying the plays a lot. With the philosophical stuff, I was glad I read it, but even gladder to stop. But you know what was worse than the Greek philosophers? The medieval ones. You want to make your head hurt? Read Pseudo-Dionysious. And then there's Augustine, who tells us that when we go to heaven we'll all turn into males, because that is the original perfect form.

I'm planning on reading Augustine next year! How exciting. I do so enjoy all that anti-woman crap they spew out.

I really liked The Constant Gardener as well. I was hesitant as I hadn't read any Le Carre and I'm often disappointed with thrillers (2D characters, nothing but plot, plot plot- think David Balducci). But it was a great book. Next up on my list is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy as I want to read it before being dragged to the movie.

Tinker, Tailor is SO GREAT. Once it stops being really confusing.

#109 No Exit and three other plays by Jean-Paul Sartre

1) "No Exit" - this is the famous "hell is other people" play. Hell also apparently includes hideous antique furniture and no toothbrushes. A really, really darkly funny play.
2) "The Flies" - a re-telling of the Electra story. Not funny at all, but some interesting thoughts about freedom.
3) "Dirty Hands" - this may have been my favorite of the collection. It's about a young intellectual in the 40s who is part of a Communist party. He begs for a real job to do, but once he's in position isn't quite sure he can do it.
4) "The Respectful Prostitute" - racism in the American South in the 40s somehow looks even worse through the eyes of Sartre than it does through our homegrown writers, who already make it look pretty damn hideous.

#110 The Professor by Charlotte Bronte and #111 Vilette by Charlotte Bronte (re-read)

I'm lumping these books together because they are practically the same story, only one is told from a male point of view, and the other from a female point of view. Also, one has a happy ending and one does not. Both are about impoverished Brits who teach in Brussels. The Professor was Charlotte's first novel and it shows; Vilette is one of her later ones and didn't really hold up in a re-reading. I thought I had liked it better the first time around. In both books, Charlotte's really strong anti-Catholic bias is prevalent, and a little bit annoying to a modern reader.

#112 Persuasion by Jane Austen

I absolutely love this book. Better than Emma? Unclear. It was so much fun re-reading all of Austen this year; I'll have to do it again in a decade or so.

A decade??? I can't imagine that you can wait that long to re-read Austen - I know I couldn't!!!

Maybe a decade to read all of them in the same year again. I'll probably read P&P again... next year?

As I can't possibly see myself finishing another book before the end of the year, I'm going to declare this thread finished. I managed to read more than 100 books this year, including Proust, so that is two goals met. The Brothers K will have to wait for another year, and since I didn't bother noting how many books were in my TBR pile at the beginning of the year I have no idea if I have cut down that pile any.

My new 100 book challenge thread is here, so please stop by. I've enjoyed reading all your comments this year, especially the Austen ones. Hope to see you again next year!

I can also be found here if you want to follow my 12 in 12 challenge thread. I admit that I mostly cut and paste my comments/reviews between the two threads, but not always.

Happy New Year!

Spoke too soon! Please stop by my other threads, but I am adding a Year End Awards Show to this thread.

Categories & nominees:

Best Book - fiction: Smiley's People, Tristram Shandy, The Sunne in Splendour, The Hunger Games trilogy, Song of Solomon
Best Book - nonfiction: Battle Cry of Freedom, At Day's Close, Bossypants, The Landmark Thucydides
Who Published This? the award for worst book of the year: Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love, The Bourne Supremacy, The Bourne Ultimatum, Empire Falls
Best Character: Smiley, Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet, Sookie Stackhouse, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, Heathcliff, Shirley, Katniss
Awesomest Villain: Karla (from the Smiley books), Lady Susan (from the Jane Austen story of the same name), Fagin (from Oliver Twist)
The "Who Cares That They Aren't Real" award for biggest Literary Crush: Captain Wentworth, Eric Northman, Mr. Darcy, Heathcliff (don't judge!)
Worst Sex Scene: any from Blindness, all of Mambo Kings, The Honorable Schoolboy
Least Comprehensible Heroine: Sue Brideshead (Jude the Obscure), Fanny Price (Mansfield Park),
Meter & Rhyme, the award for best poetry of the year: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda, The Collected Poems of W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop Complete Poems, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats
The Most Relentlessly Depressing Work: Empire Falls, ISOLT, Final Harvest
Comfort Read of the Year: Jane Eyre, P&P, the Harry Potter books, Persuasion
Where Have You Been All My Life? award for best new-to-me author: Andrea Levy, Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Irene Nemirovsky, Moliere, Suzanne Collins, Sharon Kay Penman
Biggest Disappointments: Cleopatra: a life, The Professor, Water for Elephants
Biggest Surprise: unexpectedly great book: The Hunger Games, The Graveyard Book, Coraline, No Exit and other plays, Seven Plays (Ibsen)
If I Told You, I'd Have to Kill You for spy book of the year: Smiley's People, The Perfect Spy, The Russia House (le Carre has this one locked up)
Best Collection of Short Stories: The Ladies of Grace Adieu, Dubliners, Varieties of Exile, the Oxford Book of Short Stories, Short Stories by Katherine Mansfield
Most Disturbing Book: Possessing the Secret of Joy, The Feast of the Goat, The War of the End of the World
Most Unreliable Narrator: Tristram Shandy, Marcel (from ISOLT)

Mahvelous, mahvelous! Where have you been all my life? Gonna have to steal that title! And check out a few of those authors.

I read Hunger Games cuz of you and then I made four other people do the same.

I can't believe you read Possessing the Secret of Joy. I've never been brave enough.

And I am totally judging you for Heathcliff! What're you, nuts? The man's a sociopath!

Am impressed that you added poetry selections.

A hot sociopath, cg.

And the poetry I read was really fantastic this year. It was hard to pick a favorite, actually.

Winners will be posted tomorrow!

Love your categories!

Award Show Winners for 2011

Best Book - fiction: Smiley's People. It was just really nonstop perfection in a spy novel. I was surprised by how much I liked it. Usually this award goes to literary fiction or a classic, but not this year.

Best Book - nonfiction: Battle Cry of Freedom. Unputdownable 900 pages of probably the most throughly-covered event in US history classes. It really goes into the reasons why it started, and why the North won

Who Published This? the award for worst book of the year: Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. Total crap, and I still have to read the sequel for Early Reviewers

Best Character: George Smiley. I can't wait to see Gary Oldman play him in the movie, if it ever comes up here to the backwoods of Maine.

Awesomest Villain: Lady Susan (from the Jane Austen story of the same name). Like a British Marquise de Merteuil. So much awesome.

The "Who Cares That They Aren't Real" award for biggest Literary Crush: Eric Northman. Yum. Google "Alexander Skarsgard shirtless" if you need convincing.

Worst Sex Scene: all of Mambo Kings. Allow us to use our imaginations, please. Never use the word "veiny" again. Ever.

Least Comprehensible Heroine: Sue Brideshead (Jude the Obscure). This category was so hard. Both were nuts, but Sue takes the crazy to a higher level.

Meter & Rhyme, the award for best poetry of the year: Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair by Pablo Neruda. Another difficult choice, because they were all great but this is particularly beautiful.

The Most Relentlessly Depressing Work: Final Harvest. All Emily Dickinson poems are about death. All of them. For 500 pages.

Comfort Read of the Year: the Harry Potter books. So nice to return to Harry's world

Where Have You Been All My Life? Sharon Kay Penman, who writes interesting, non-trashy, historical fiction

Biggest Disappointments: Water for Elephants. Why does everyone love this?

Biggest Surprise: unexpectedly great book: The Hunger Games trilogy. Literally unputdownable. I stayed up until 2 am to finish the first one on a work night.

If I Told You, I'd Have to Kill You for spy book of the year: Smiley's People, again. Love this book. Love the whole trilogy.

Best Collection of Short Stories: Varieties of Exile by Mavis Gallant. This was a really tough category as well, because they're all great, but Mavis wins again.

Most Disturbing Book: Possessing the Secret of Joy. Beautifully written but horrifying. Alice Walker is kindof a genius.

Most Unreliable Narrator: Marcel (from ISOLT). 7 volumes inside this kid's head is enough to make anyone a little nuts.

Biggest Disappointments: Water for Elephants. Why does everyone love this?

I'm mystified by that too. Icht.

Good to here that Smiley's People is so good--a copy was given to me, and I was interested because it's on the 1001 list, but so far it hasn't appealed to me much. Nice to be wrong sometimes!

Anyway, thanks for your entertaining comments, as always. Here's to another great year of reading in 2012.

Hmmm . . . I guess I'm going to have to read some Le Carre, I never have but my husband likes him. Totally agree with you on Lady Susan. I actually really loved reading that - so much less filtered than Austen's later novels.

Glad you liked Sharon Kay Penman so much. I'm dying to start her Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy. I'm reading Outlander now and I really can't stand it. Pushing through to the end, but it's making me antsy to get back to Penman.

Also putting Battle Cry of Freedom on the TBR list.

Looking forward to seeing what you read next year!

I'm reading the Eleanor of Aquitaine trilogy this coming year, too. I love that time period (largely b/c I love The Lion in Winter - yay Katherine Hepburn!).

Love your awards!

re: 282 Tinker, Tailoer.

I loved it. Can't wait to read the rest of the Smiley books now.

re: 283

I saw a production of NO EXIT last year where the second room was completely enclosed, and there was a big video screen showing what was going on. Very unique experience to have live theatre and live video going on at once. But it didn't make me enjoy the play any more.