2013 could be the year IpsoIvan makes a dent in the shelves

I used to buy books as a job, then it continued as a hobby. Definitely my soul is in my shelves. This year, though, I'll try to just work through my shelves and explore some books that made me so excited in years past. I am declaring a book purchasing fast for six months from today: I'll check in June 20 to review this.

So: 50 weeks or so to go, 50 books from my shelves will be read in 2013. I'll add to the list each Sunday.

This week:
Wicked
Son of a Witch

I forgot to add the books I've finished since the beginning of January:

The Bookshop -- Penelope Fitzgerald
The Children's Book -- A.S. Byatt

Currently reading Travels by Night by Douglas Fetherling and beginning A Lion Among Men. After that, I'll likely finish the series with Out of Oz.

Hmm, I can tell that if I plan to read a book a week from the stockpile, I'll find myself drifting towards the thin ones to accomplish this. I'm ok with not making the full 50, as long as I enjoy them all.

Oh wow-- book buying as a profession. Did that take the joy out of it for you at the time?

Good luck with the challenge!

Maybe a bit. I was a buyer for a major bookstore in a large city. Lots of freebies, lots of temptation, lots of stuff I wouldn't touch with a barge pole, but after a few years it was just all too much. More fun now that I get my fix through university library sales and second-hand book browsing. When it's more of a challenge, it's more fun, don't you find?

Good luck with your challenge, ipsoivan.

I see from your page you did BOMB last year. How did that go? Thanks for the encouragement.

Impressed by your _target and even more by the six-month fast! Good luck!

> 6. Was that question directed at me? If so, I did fine. My _target was 18 and I've read 28 books that qualified. (And lots of other newly bought books)

Oh, sorry connie53, yes, to you. I imagine if I make it through this goal, I'll likewise join another challenge next year. I'm currently at 345 TBR, and getting desperate!

Thanks, konallis. And to you.

welcome back, and good luck!

>9 ipsoivan: Don't be, my TBR has grown as of yesterday with 5 new books an has reached 613 **sigh**

I'm not sure how well joining LibThing and my goal to not buy more for 6 mos. will work. I am looking over others' lists and feeling a stirring of book lust. MUST keep my eyes firmly trained on the line of print or the line of shelves in front of me.... But it's the potential of reading something that somehow tugs on me, and has since I was little. 5 more books, such ecstasy!

A Lion Among Men. 5 down.

Just joined Reading Globally and have a stack of Eastern Europe lined up to read. May finish Travels by Night first, or may jump in with Cat and Mouse by Gunter Grass.

>4 ipsoivan: Re: the enjoyable challenge of a good book hunt-- definitely! My undergraduate university had (well, has) a wonderful series of booksales each autumn that were always such a delight to spend an evening or afternoon picking through. I keep meaning to go back to visit at least one of them, but life seems to get in the way.

Yes, I try to make all the different sales at U of T. They feed me with lots of cheap, good quality fiction and other, more odd, books.

Hey, ipsoivan! Good luck with your reading this year and with not buying books for six months (which leaves you the loophole of borrowing).

Thanks. I realize that I don't have a copy of Finnegan's Wake, but I saw a nice, old one at a used bookstore a couple of weeks ago. I'm crumbling...

Stay strong, friend! You're almost 1/6 of the way there.

Thanks, MM. As long as I just reread my nice old copy of Ulysses, I should avoid the temptation. One month without a single new book coming home with me. I am REALLY surprised. As to reading goals, I'm surprised in a different way -- too little progress. I'm going to read some shorties to put more wind in my sails. It's not as if I don't have plenty of those, and good ones too. Next up -- Tarabas by Joseph Roth, I think.

Wow, I applaud you, ipsoivan. I REALLY think you're doing great.

Thanks, connie. I can't be too complacent about not shopping, as it is so easy to justify books, and I might just slip some into the shopping basket. Proudly announcing that I haven't shopped for books for a month is almost like proudly announcing that I haven't shopped for vegetables for a month -- I mean, books are essential to life, as everyone at LT would agree. However, I do wish I had more to show for the challenge; hence my comment to MaskedMumbler about reading some short books in the next little while, just to get that sense of accomplishment.

Wow. Just totaled up the page count for the last 4 books I've read. 1708 pages. I guess I'm not such a slacker after all.

Maybe I should start and count pages as well.

It's not entirely satisfying. I'm the kind of person who likes to tick things off of lists, books included. When I began the challenge, though, I was aware that I might fall into this habit and start reading short books just to show progress. I guess it's all part of the process, and when I've cleared a few more ROOTs, I'll be able to settle into reading for the book, not the length. I'm going to finish the last of Maguire's Oz books this morning, then allow myself a short Eastern European book to feed that itch. I'm also doing Reading Globally's Eastern Europe group read, but haven't begun because of wanting to finish with Oz.

So far I've read only 1110 pages in ROOT books. But I've read 2 non-ROOTers. And I don't count those pages.

Wow. "Only" 1110 pp, and 2 books beyond that. I'd say that's pretty impressive.

Ok, just finished Out of Oz. Ready for change, so getting to work on my Reading Globally group read books.

Tarabas by Joseph Roth finished. Not a book to fall in love with, but satisfying after a struggle.

Cat and Mouse finished. Moving on to either The Captive Mind or maybe finishing up Travels by Night.

I've just finished Travels by Night, Douglas Fetherling's memoir of Toronto in the 60s. Really interesting read for someone who knows the places he mentions very well, but for whom many of the people are legends.

I feel a little star-struck with books like this; you'll now find me now hanging around Jan Sibelius Park in the Annex or wandering up and down Beverly St. and St. Nicholas Lane.
I felt much the same way after re-reading In the Skin of a Lion, a read inspired by walking across the Bloor Viaduct again for the first time in a while. Those of you who know Toronto probably know what I mean: this superficially bland big city has such an interesting history, so much texture.

A Question of Upbringing by Anthony Powell. Fairly enjoyable. I am moving on immediately to A Buyer's Market so that I don't forget who everyone is.

I've updated the February progress tickers.

I finished A Buyer's Market today on the way to work. Too busy these days to do much reading when I come home, but I'm pleased with my progress overall.

I'm also pleased that I have only bought 1 book this year -- work-related, so I'm not really counting it. I've been finding it enormously satisfying to read from my shelves. Rereading is also going to happen, and I'm going to count it as ROOT reading if it is necessary to allow me to understand a ROOT.

Progress tickers updated. I tipped the counter from 699 to 700. Ahhhh.

So I've been rereading Quicksilver (to be followed by a re-read of The Confusion) as part of the process to get ready to read, for the first time, The System of the World, a ROOT. My partner was looking over my shoulder as I read Quicksilver on Kindle and commented that I'd been reading it for a while. I said, "Yeah, I think it's about 600 pp. long." Today I realized that it is more like 960 pp., and that The Confusion is 848 pp. All this to reach my goal of reading the final in the series, 928 pp. I must say, however, that I'm enjoying the re-read immensely. Only a touch of guilt. Many short ROOTS will follow.

That a lot of pages to read, Ipsoivan. But it's for a good cause!

Neal Stephenson isn't good at keeping it short, is he? But his books are so entertaining I don't care!

I've only got the 3 books of the Baroque Cycle, but his other work does seem to take up a lot of shelf space at the second hand store I often go to. I rein him in to portable bounds on my Kindle. This series is entertaining, yes, and the way he ties the Baroque world of money, politics, and science together is a real joy to read.

At long last, I've finished the Baroque Cycle. 3000 pages gives readers a lot of time to see its strengths and weaknesses, and I must say by the final book, I really saw more weaknesses than strengths. Only one solid character, Daniel Waterhouse, several very long set pieces held together with lots of short scenes that move the characters into place for the big scenes but don't do much else, hundreds of pages of descriptive passages that described and described and described ad nauseum, and a wholly extraneous bit of fluffiness about the lost gold of Solomon introduced somewhere in the second book and developed in the final book, that is supposed to provide motivation for some of the characters that just felt ... dumb. Maybe I'm being hard on Stephenson: these books are surely not meant to be read back-to-back. What kind of fool venture was that?

I am SO relieved to be beginning another book and making progress again on my ROOT reading. I've updated my ticker to show one ROOT finished, the final book in the Cycle, which was new reading, while the others were a re-read. I started The Thirteenth Tale last night.

I see from looking over previous posts that I allowed myself to count re-reads as ROOTS if they were necessary to help me read a ROOT. After 3000 pp of Stephenson, I feel more than justified in counting all of it, so I'm adding the other two works in the Cycle to my ticker.

Wow, that is a LOT of Baroque Cycle! Yes, you should definitely count it in your ticker :) Enjoy The Thirteenth Tale!

And that's a lot of perseverance. High five to you.

Thanks, rp and Connie. I must admit that towards the end I was gritting my teeth, rather. In contrast, I'm sailing through the Thirteenth Tale. Have either of you read it? I seem to have completely missed it when it came out.

I've read it! In 2007 and gave it **** 1/2. So I hope you will enjoy it too.

I stayed up late reading it. So far, wonderfully creepy.

Congrats on finishing the Baroque Cycle! I think I read the second and third volumes back to back, so I can somewhat relate to your experience. I think I may have done some skimming toward the end...

The Thirteenth Tale should be a nice contrast. I flew through it and thoroughly enjoyed it. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

Thanks, shinyone. I should be able to write up some notes about the Thirteenth Tale today, as I don't have much more of it to read. It's such a good feeling to get out from under the Cycle.

I just finished The Thirteenth Tale. Wonderful.

I so agree Maggie, that The Thirteenth Tale was wonderful! I thought it exquisite. I loved the story, the suspense, the characters, (yes, even the naughty ones), just everything about the book was marvelous. I finished it in 2 sittings. It has left me quite yearning for something else to immerse myself in. I'm reading The Voyage Out and Call the Midwife. The first is still just okay while the second is good but neither are all consuming and that is what I want right now.
BTW, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you too!

Oh, Being Dead--wonderful. The descriptions of decay are, oddly, very beautiful, and the couple's relationship that seems at first so frayed by time turns out to be far more enduring than you might at first expect. All of this is done with no flash, just quietly poetic prose and some subtle character development. The daughter is a bit of late magic.

According to Queeney by Beryl Bainbridge. An odd book, and quite wonderful. Queeney is the daughter of the Thrales, Dr. Johnson's friends and patrons, with whom he lived for many years. In letters written later in life to the daughter of another of Johnson's circle, Queeney recounts her version of Johnson's relationships with her parents and their friends, and his friendship with her. These letters are woven into a third person omniscient narrative and serve as its counterpoint, offering us the perspective of an insider, but of an insider whose memory is coloured, in particular, by her damaged relationship with her mother, with whom Johnson was in love.

Bainbridge reminds me of Penelope Fitzgerald in her ability to create characters that are clearly of another era, not merely contemporary people projected into an earlier time. This gives the book much of its strangeness, as the situations, and the characters' responses to them, are not completely accessible to us.

Providence by Anita Brookner. My first by her. A real pleasure.

I've just read 2 Anita Brookners back-to-back. I'm gratified to learn that she has been so prolific, as I enjoyed both immensely. Somehow I always thought she would be twee-- far from it! The one I finished last night, Look at Me, had me biting my nails. Creepy and suspenseful, but at the same time, an ordinary life. The timeframe was hard to pin down, which contributed to the doubt that you have about the narrator's version of events.

I'll update all tickers.

Look at Me is a thoroughly unsettling book. Brookner plays with the narrative voice in the novel: how much can we trust Fanny's perceptions? Fanny is a writer who uses the people in her life as fuel for her work. When her relationship with a group goes wrong, she decides to suppress her feelings so that she can continue to write about her friends as a kind of revenge--or is it out of desperation? There is much astute analysis of events and of her frame of mind, but also of her writing process that leads the reader to doubt all that is presented as 'truth'. Even the timeframe is hard to pin down: the fashions sound early 60s, as does the dialogue; the length of time from the bombing during the War pushes the time to maybe the 70s, and then there is a microwave used to heat up dinner.... The effect is disturbing and compelling.

The Nine Tailors. Good satisfying mystery of the old school.

William Trevor The Old Boys. Wonderful.

Several elderly men who were together at an Eton-like school serve on the Old Boys committee, and one is hoping to be made the new President. A lot of the plot centres on his home life--with the most wonderful sparring between him and his wife. Another man on the committee, who was the brunt of the would-be President's bullying as a boy, is determined to prevent his election. Two other members live together in a rooming house and get up to various schemes to keep themselves occupied, and another slips into dementia. This sounds really depressing, but Trevor's very weird dialogue and comic sensibility kept me reading.

That is a very impressive reading list you have got there. How are you doing with the not buying books for six months? I keep telling myself to stick with the ones I have and then I look at other people's reading... I just checked what Stephenson's Baroque Cycle is all about and it sounds absolutely fascinating.

Thanks, MissWatson! I've been really enjoying the challenge. I feel as though I've gotten back to my voracious-reading younger self.

As to not buying books, I've stuck with it, much to my, and my family's, surprise. About 3 or 4 new books, all work-related (so they don't count-- and they are still unread), but nothing else. I came SO close last week, but picked up one of my own, and the urge passed. I find that right now it is enough to add books I find in others' lists to my wish list, which is now enormous.

The first book of the Baroque Cycle is really fun, the second has some good bits, but by the third, I just wanted to be finished. Of course no one should try to read them one after the other, but it is quite easy to forget the details, as the books are so complex. I still highly recommend them.

I finished Alan Bennett's Smut today. The first story is very funny and quite effective, the second less so. Still, weak Bennett is very good.

Well, I caved in after I peeked at the first pages of Quicksilver on amazon (that is SO dangerous) and ordered it at my bookstore. I think I’ll add Aussicht auf bleibende Helle as a companion piece. It’s not strictly a ROOT, either, but as I remember it, it throws a rather unusual light on Leibniz.

>61 MissWatson: Has it been translated, and if so, what is the English title? The Liebnitz character is one of the most sympathetic in the series.

No, as far as I know it has not been translated.

Oh, too bad. My German is limited to "Das is eine tomate" and "Wo ist mein freund? Mein freund ist nicht hier" from high school, and after 40 years, I'm not even sure I have that right.

I've just realized, after looking at your thread, that this is Hoffman. I've read The Golden Pot and Other Stories, and thoroughly enjoyed it. It contains the story The Sandman, which I know quite well from doing some work on Freud's The Uncanny in grad school.

> 64: I looks quit right to me! Except for the first 'is' that should be 'ist' too, i think. But my last German lesson is more than 40 years ago.

It's shameful how parochial we North Americans are in terms of language. After a few days in Quebec, I can stumble along in French, but I long to be as comfortable switching from one language to another as many Europeans are.

>65 ipsoivan: Yes, that's the one. The kind of classic one has on the shelf and puts off reading. Possibly also an author one can appreciate better at a later age. I expect that Die Elixiere des Teufels will prove challenging.

I also suppose there's less incentive or need to learn foreign languages if you can make yourself understood in your own tongue nearly everywhere. I expect it must have been like that for the French once, at least for the aristocracy. In my copy of Krieg und Frieden half the conversations in the salons are in French. And I've noticed lately that there is an increasing number of young people who grow up with multiple languages, sometimes because their parents are from different countries or simply because they work in different countries. But it needs working at it, if you don't use a language regularly it becomes rusty.

Flaubert's Parrot I'm not quite sure why this one took me so long. I found myself resisting picking it up, although I liked most of it. Oh well, done and dusted, as one of my friends says.

One more finished for May: White Noise by Don DeLillo.

Two for June so far, neither all that great: Still Life by Louise Penny and The Sixteen Pleasures by Robert Hellenga. I'm not sure why I didn't give up on either: I laid both aside a few times, but decided to finish them. The Hellenga book had some interesting stuff about art and restoration, and the Penny as well has some interesting comments about art, but in both cases, there was a lot of dreck to wade through.

So the book fast is over. I don't see any purchasing looming, which is to say that the fast did what it was supposed to do and got me to re evaluate my buying. Since it ended 2 days ago, I bought a mystery online which was not too good, reinforcing the message to use the library and read more of what I already have.

For the most part, I've enjoyed plowing through some of the things that I've accumulated over past years, but the fast has also shown me that if I'm eager enough to buy something, I should read it right away, or it might join the many books I own that spoke to me at another time in my life and no longer do. I am returning to ROOT with new resolve to pick out a book every few days that has been languishing on my shelves, read 50 pp or so for ROOT, then either finish it or pass it on to someone else.

Kennedy's Brain by Henning Mankell

I recently read A Troubled Man, and it was so compelling that somehow, despite the important topic, this felt kind of flat. Not one of the characters came alive. Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it.

I'm delighted that I've managed to squeeze in another ROOT this month, Patrick Leigh Fermor A Time to Keep Silence. A lovely book.

Weight by Jeanette Winterson. A brilliant meditation on destiny (or the myth of destiny) and personal choice. One of those books that is so full of ideas that one or two readings is just not enough.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Why has it taken me over 30 years to finish this? A clear reason for doing ROOT!

July is not proving to be a good ROOT month for me, as I've been reading a ton of library books. I hope to do better in Aug. A trip away will have me reading my Kindle ROOTS.

I have updated all tickers for July. Only added 2 to my ticker this month, as I figured out how to download books from the Toronto library onto my iPad, which has distracted me from reading my own books. I've glutted myself on library mysteries, which I don't often buy. My numbers for the 75 book challenge are looking great, not so much my ROOTS.

I'v been doing the same thing with my Kobo Glo. Just reading anything I could get my hands on as an ebook. And reading mysteries instead of my favorite genre: fantasy.

Is this thing for easy reads and novelty because we are half way through and losing steam, or is it a summer thing?

On a related note, I just went out and bought 6 new books yesterday, and I still own hundreds I haven't read.

I think it's a summer thing. Sitting outside in the sun with a reader is much easier than sitting there with a book of 750 pages.

I'm finally back to ROOT with new resolve. Yesterday I finished Red Shift by Alan Garner, one of a handful of NYRB books I picked up on a sale table. It's a wonderful book that I would never have known about if not for Library Thing. I'll update all tickers.

The Pilgrim Hawk, another NYRB sale book.

You go, Ipsoivan!

Heh. Well...not so much. After finishing a few short books in a few days, I made a trip to see family in Washington and Vancouver without much time to read, then started teaching an intensive 2 week course. I haven't even had a chance to look at LibThing for a while. And unfortunately, Sept may be bad too.

Well, if you are busy, you are busy. Just keep trying.

Thanks, connie, I will. It's really a project for life, not just for a year, isn't it? LibThing has really made me evaluate my reading, and my buying.

The same here, And the challenges concerning the TBR pile help a lot.

I finished Turtle Diary by Russell Hoban yesterday. I did have to buy a copy recently, since I must have inadvertently given my old one away in one of my purges, but as I did have it on my shelf for years, I'm counting it as a ROOT. And happy I am to have finally read it.

What's it about? Middle-aged despair and loneliness, a crazy project to free some sea turtles from the London Zoo that seizes the imaginations of the two diarists, and the changes the project brings to their lives.

All tickers updated.

#36 A Month in the Country, another of the NYRB books. I took a little while to warm to this but soon did; there is something about characters with a tone of stiff-upper-lip that I often find off-putting, but this narrator soon won me over. In addition, I loved the descriptions of the mural the narrator is restoring, and his analysis of the painter's process.

#37 Hotel du Lac I have read a couple of books by Anita Brookner that I really enjoyed, and I guess because of the Booker for this one, I had assumed that this one would be her masterpiece. I did enjoy it very much, and found myself going slowly to savour it, especially near the end, yet ultimately I wonder if I will consider this one to be her strongest when I have read more.

Ok, not too bad after all. I finished 5 ROOTS in August, and all tickers are updated. I had thought I was going so slow. All the books I read were kind of short, but all quite satisfying.

#38. I just finished another by Anita Brookner, Latecomers. I found it a very curious book. She follows 4 interconnected characters through their lives, gradually drilling down to reveal their essence. Nothing really happens, just shifts in moods are noted. At times I found it dull, as the moods repeat, each character having a dominant tone, but eventually, I got quite involved in it. Recommended for the patient.

#39 A Star Called Henry by Roddy Doyle. Absolutely fantastic. Brilliant. I am tempted to pull the next in the series off the shelf, but it is too new to me to be a ROOT.

I'm afraid my recent reading has been some new things, but I have 2 ROOTS on the go. Unfortunately, I doubt I'll have either finished tonight.

Ah, i didn't realize I had another day in the month. Just maybe, I might finish one.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet . A surprise for me, as I was expecting a more experimental novel, but David Mitchell does a surprisingly good historical novel about Dutch trade in Japan in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.

#41/50 Definitely the home stretch. I just finished Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald. Bliss.

#42 I read Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark yesterday. Spark is having some fun at Freud's expense, with a psychologist named Wolf who is treating 2 men who claim to be Lord Lucan, the infamous nanny killer. Doubling of identities, blood, religious mania, the talking cure, uncanny glimpses in a mirror--I had a great time spotting references. Not as profound as The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie or my favourite, Memento Mori, but a very satisfying book.

#43 No Fond Return of Love by Barbara Pym.

#44 A Time of Gifts. Last read 30 years ago or so, so like reading it all over again. Yes, I'm counting rereads of forgotten books.

#45 The Way By Swann's. I really like this new translation. I had read the first 3 books in the series before, but like many, had found them heavy-going. Lydia Davis's translation took off some of the load.

#46 Gilgamesh translated by Stephen Mitchell. I read this many years ago when I was a student--skimmed, is more like it. This time, i savoured.

#47 Father and Son by Edmund Gosse. This one has been hanging around since the late 80s, waiting for me to finally read it. It's a bit heavy going toward the end, but up to that point well worth reading.

This is the autobiography of Gosse and his life as the son of a famous 19th century naturalist who also happened to be a member of the Pilgrim Brethren, an extreme Puritan sect who, of course, did not believe in evolution. The fater's struggle of intellect vs faith is less an issue in the book than might be expected. The focus is more on the extreme innocence and lack of judgment of the father, and the son's gradual coming into his own as a thinker and, although it is not spelled out, either an atheist or agnostic. Oddly enough, it is quite funny.

#48 The Year 1000: What Life Was Like at the Turn of the First Millennium by Robert Lacey and Danny Danziger. This was quite fun, a fast history read. Written by a couple of journalists, it is interesting to see how they knit snippets of information together.

The book is structured around the monthly illustrations found in the Julius Work Calendar; these roughly link together such ideas as the fact that, although the word 'man' had to do for both genders, women certainly had rights during the period, which leads to a brief description of some powerful women, followed by the punishment of violating women (a fine had to be paid to the woman), and then a brief disquisition on the punishment for theft. The final element has nothing to do with the other topics, yet somehow they make it work.

One flaw, to my mind, was the tendency to draw on contemporary pop culture analogies, of the "so and so was the Billy Graham of his day" and the like. These are going to date really quickly--some already have, as the book was published in 2000 to capitalize on the 2nd millennium.

#49 Chess Story by Stefan Zweig. I'm still digesting this long short story. I was totally absorbed in it while reading it, but have some trouble with the depiction of the loutish opponent.

on reaching your goal. Well done!!!

Oh my, flowers! Thank you!

Well deserved flowers, Ipsoivan!

#51 The Missing Bureaucrat by Hans Scherfig. This is not quite the mystery that it sounds, but more a satire of Danish society in the 30s.

A man has blown himself up and another has disappeared. Are they the same man? This is a funny examination of the cautious, dull, monotonous life of a bureaucrat, his gentle, loving, horrible wife, and Danish society as a whole.

I've updated all tickers.

Congrats on meeting and exceeding your goal! :)

Thanks, rabbitprincess. I feel a sense of relief, but still have quite a few books to finish for my 75 book challenge. I'm trying to focus my efforts there on reading ROOTs so I can whittle down my TBRs and contribute to the group goal.

#52 I just finished Bel Ami by Guy de Maupassant. So appropriate for Movember, as his moustache is what draws the ladies. Total cad, lots of fun

#53 Can You Forgive Her by Anthony Trollope. All tickers updated.

#54 Pig Earth by John Berger. Full diclosure:i did not finish this. I loved the book when I read it 30 years ago, and it's been with me since. This time--not much. I'll be donating it or trading it, along with the others in the series.

Oe, that's a pity. We, at my bookclub, call it 'the story sucking Fairie has come'

Ha! Well, it's not such a loss, as I need shelf room. New books coming in for Christmas, I hear.

That's a way to look at it. But I think I want my memories about books to last forever.

Yes, that's the ideal. I think if I hadn't attempted it again, I would still have retained a warm feeling for the series, as I couldn't remember the details. This time around, I found it a bit pretentious. That's ok, I've changed, and so have my tastes. It's all part of reading our older ROOTs
However, I just reread another old ROOT, The Commitments and enjoyed it thoroughly, even if not perhaps as much as I did the first time around when it first came out. Nice to see how far Roddy Doyle has developed since then!

#55 One more done, by candlelight because of an ice storm that knocked out our power. Very satisfying way to read, if a bit chilly. The Children of Dynmouth by William Trevor.

Romantic! I hope the power is back on!

It is, thanks. It was pretty touch and go--initially the power authority said it might take 3 days, then 6. In the end it was only off for 1 for us, but there are others in the city who still have none. And it is bitterly cold.

#56 Lighthousekeeping by Jeanette Winterson, a lovely book about storytelling and love. This one will stay in my mind for a good long time.

>122 ipsoivan:: 6 days in the cold! Luckily for you and yours 'just' one day. But that seems long anough for anyone.

Yeah, it's nice to be warm again! I do love the candles, though.

Well, you can use candles anytime you like.

Ah, yes well, got to have a reason to dig them out from under the avalanche of stuff around here... And to try not to set the books on fire...

However, I did use them again for Christmas dinner tonight. My daughter was enchanted, my husband less so, as he "couldn't see the colours of the food". We compromised, and he got an indirect light from another room.

Merry Christmas to you!

#57 Every Day is Mother's Day. The back made it sound so funny, but it's horrifying. I'm steeling myself now to read Vacant Possession.

#58 Vacant Possession by Hilary Mantel, the sequel to Every Day is Mother's Day. I enjoyed this a great deal more than the first, as it really was quite funny, but, like the earlier book, it is truly disturbing.