janepriceestrada's 2010 reading

About me – I am an architect and interior designer living in New York City. I am originally from Louisiana and have been doing a lot of reading in that area. I read primarily fiction – mostly literature and fantasy/sci-fi. My nonfiction reading is usually architecture related, but I do dabble in history, science, sports, and travel. I love to cook and have been spending more time doing that as well as reading through my cookbooks.

My 2009 reading

I would like to attempt to set some reading goals for 2010. There will still be a fair amount of miscellany I’m sure, but this is my valiant effort outlined:

1. Louisiana – a good portion of my 2009 – nonfiction and fiction both about, set in, or by authors from Louisiana.

2. Race in the Americas – a horrible lapse in my education including African-American literature, South and Central American literature, and immigration.

3. Architecture – both research items for possible future study. I’m working on my research into various schools and programs for yet another degree. I will also be revamping my portfolio and some previous school papers (some of that may show up here depending on my feelings about it at the moment). Material Culture – how and why we do what we do with things and Architects and Writing – books by/about architects.

As always, I would greatly appreciate any recommendations ya’ll have.

Currently Reading:

The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois
Flight of the Hawk by G. R. Grove
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Emerald City: An Environmental History of Seattle by Matthew Klingle
The Southern Review (Autumn 2010)

Ongoing reading (I pick at it here and there):

Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson
The City in History by Lewis Mumford
The Norton Book of Science Fiction
Selected Writings by Ruben Dario
Interior Design Reference Manual: A Guide to the NCIDQ Exam by David Kent Ballast
Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child
The Portable Greek Historians

Finished:

1. Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel
2. Into the Path of Gods by Kathleen Cunningham Guler
3. Emeril at the Grill by Emeril Lagasse
4. LSU Football Vault: The History of the Fighting Tigers by Herb Vincent
5. Light in August by William Faulkner
6. Storyteller by G. R. Grove
7. Childwold by Joyce Carol Oates
8. The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
9. Reading Seattle: The City in Prose
10. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann
11. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
12. The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo
13. The Red Album of Asbury Park (Remixed) by Alex Austin
14. Equus by Peter Shaffer
15. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
16. The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
17. Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum
18. Ourika by Claire De Duras
19. In the Shadow of Dragons by Kathleen Cunningham Guler
20. The Lesson of the Master by Henry James
21. The Anvil Stone by Kathleen Cunningham Guler
22. Texas Tough: The Rise of America's Prison Empire by Robert Perkinson
23. On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger
24. An American Type by Henry Roth
25. 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff
26. A Land Beyond Ravens by Kathleen Cunningham Guler
27. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
28. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
29. Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
30. Therefore, Repent! by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam
31. The Best American Poetry 1996
32. Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
33. Piranesi: The Etchings by Luigi Ficacci
34. Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson
35. True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness by Elliott Merrick
36. The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis
37. Acacia: The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham
38. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa
39. Never After by Laurell K. Hamilton, Yasmine Galenorn, Marjorie M. Liu, and Sharon Shinn
40. Wallpaper City Guide: Los Angeles
41. Shadowplay by Tad Williams
42. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
43. The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
44. The Stranger by Albert Camus
45. The Road by Cormac McCarthy
46. My Antonia by Willa Cather
47. Peaceful Places: New York City by Evelyn Kanter
48. The Queen in Winter by Lynn Kurland, Sharon Shinn, Claire Delacroix, and Sarah Monette
49. Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy edited by Dana Stabenow
50. To Weave a Web of Magic by Claire Delacroix, Lynn Kurland, Patricia McKillip, and Sharon Shinn
51. Nicaraguan Cooking: My Grandmother's Recipes by Trudy Espinoza-Abrams
52. Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill: With More Than 125 Bold New Recipes by Bobby Flay
53. The Barefoot Book: 50 Great Reasons to Kick Off Your Shoes by Daniel Howell
54. Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil by Peter Maass
55. Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy edited by Dana Stabenow
56. Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology: Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Steven Savile and Alethea Kontis
57. Mistborn by Brandon Sanderson
58. The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson
59. The Hero of Ages by Brandon Sanderson
60. House by Tracy Kidder
61. Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat by Temra Costa
62. Naked Empire by Terry Goodkind
63. Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson
64. Chainfire by Terry Goodkind
65. Rome Antics by David Macaulay
66. Phantom by Terry Goodkind
67. Confessor by Terry Goodkind
68. The Mom and Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America by Robert Spector
69. Where We Know: New Orleans As Home edited by David Rutledge
70. The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

I've dipped into Emerson here and there, too. I like his essays, but when I read about him in life, I find him annoying! I'll be interested in seeing what books you come up with for your three categories.

I'll be interested in your Louisiana reading. What kinds of things are you thinking of, and what have you already read? I think I can come up with a few recommendations.

Thanks for stopping by ya’ll. I am having a bit of trouble getting going on my reviews this year, but I promise to have a few up soon.

3 – This collection of Emerson is particularly interesting because the first half is excerpts from his journals and letters. You go so quickly from something that is quite lovely to something totally bizarre.

4 – Last year’s Louisiana reading:

Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa
Frommer's Irreverent Guide to New Orleans
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza
A.D.: New Orleans After the Deluge by Josh Neufeld
Abita Beer: Cooking Louisiana True
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Barry
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

I have a very loose definition of what qualifies. I have a bunch of things in the pipe which I already own:

The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast by Douglas Brinkley
Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum
Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City by Jed Horne
Louisiana Sojourns: Travelers Tales and Literary Journeys
The Moviegoer by Walker Percy

We will see where we go from there.

Jane, if you're looking for a non-fiction recommendation for the "race in the Americas" topic, I highly recommend Harriet Washington's Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present. It was - obviously, given the subject matter - pretty hard to read, but so worth it.

6 - Thanks! It went right on the wishlist (damn that feature is addictive).

I have edited my original message to include a little bit about myself. Also, I have gone and done something that is possibly insane. I have joined both Le Salon Litteraire and Le Salon du Faulkner. I always hesitate to join group reads because I find myself avoiding the book in question. However, I feel like I am missing out a lot on some good discussions, so I will try to read some of the books, participate in some threads, or just generally enjoy some good discussion.

I promise to review something soon – possibly even tonight. In the meantime, here are my top reads of 2009:

Fiction:
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
The Morning Watch by James Agee
All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren
Beloved by Toni Morrison
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole

Nonfiction:
Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America by John M. Barry
The French Laundry Cookbook by Thomas Keller
Arthur Schwartz’s New York City Food: An Opinionated History and More Than 100 Legendary Recipes

Fantasy/Sci-fi:
The Judging Eye by R. Scott Bakker
The Hero and the Crown by Robin McKinley
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde

Also, I have finally caught up with reading through everyone’s threads for 2010. I just wanted to say how much I have enjoyed some of the discussions. Hopefully now that I am caught up I will be a more active participant.

http://www.librarything.com/topic/70571#1721360

Which group reads are you thinking of joining? I will be glad when my life calms down soon & I can join in on Paradise Lost. I'm also looking forward to Infinite Jest, Proust (reread), The Brothers Karamazov, and Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (reread).

Top Fiction Read of 2009-

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys was also one of my top reads last year. I am reading Beloved by Toni Morrison this year as part of my Novels that Became Movies Category. I look forward to see what books you will come up with this year!
Jenn

Beloved was on my 2008 "best" list and Zeitoun on my 2009. I read The Eyre Affair a few years back and thought it was terrific fun, but have yet to read the sequels. And I've been meaning to get to Wide Sargasso Sea for years!

Yeah, those group reads can be alluring, can't they? I'm still working on Les Mis and Light in August, not to mention some other reading. I'll undoubtedly see you around!

Oh and I've been meaning to dip into your library to find the Emerson collection. Am intrigued by description of "bizarre" :)

8 – Thank you for the lovely welcome! Right now I’m thinking of dipping into things which are all rereads – Les Miserables, Paradise Lost, The Histories of Herodotus, and Chronicles of Narnia. Although I am leaning pretty heavily toward reading The Brothers Karamazov.

9 – Have you seen the movie Beloved? Someone recommended it to me on the train when they saw me reading the book. I was thinking about renting it when I’m in the mood for something surreal.

10 – I have Light in August on its way from my mom’s house today so I’ll see you over there.

Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobel

A very slim book, I was able to finish it in only a few days. While I find that Sobel was a bit too enthusiastic about her subject, it was quite interesting and entertaining. It piqued my curiosity about exploration and map making. A very good holiday read since I spent more time cooking and eating than reading.

I haven't read Longitude, but we did get the BBC series from Netflix -- it was fascinating.

For #2 goal I would recommend Slavery by Another Name.

11- It's been some time since I had seen the movie. However from what I can remember it was pretty good. I guess it had to because it did inspire me to read a couple of Toni Morrison's other books. I would recommend the Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison if your looking to read another one of hers.

11> I loved the movie of Beloved, but it got mixed reviews -- people hated it or loved it. I don't think it works very well for anyone who has not read the book. I'm not a big fan of Oprah as an actress (I didn't like her at ALL in The Color Purple), but she's very effective in this one. The movie is very graphic, and some of the effects are a bit grotesque, but I think it served the message of the book well. It obviously doesn't have the lyricism of the novel, but there are some wonderful performances, and Beloved is one of my all time favorites novels. As for other Morrison novels, The Bluest Eye is wonderful as are Jazz and The Song of Solomon.

13 - I'll have to check that out as well.

14 - Thanks! It's on the wishlist.

15 & 16 - I've definitely got my eyes peeled for some more Morrison.

I have been having trouble getting into anything - too much football watching. I started The Craftsman by Richard Sennett and will be starting Light in August soon. Hopefully that will get me out of the funk. I also will be dipping in and out of a test prep book - yuck.

Into the Path of Gods by Kathleen Cunningham Guler

Note: I received this book through LibraryThing Member Giveaways.

Set in Britain immediately preceding the rise of King Arthur, Into the Path of Gods follows Claerwen as she is run out of her home, almost into marriage, and meets a spy named Marcus. The story is split into two parts – Claerwen and Marcus’s fight against her would-be husband and their struggle to find out why so many are chasing them for an unknown treasure. The action is fast-paced and entertaining. I was a bit worried at first that Claerwen would be the always-in-need-of-rescue type girl, but she develops well and toward the end is very capable. Overall it was a quick, light read. This is the first of four books in a series, and I’m going to take a few days to decide if I want to continue on with the story.

Emeril at the Grill by Emeril Lagasse

For many years I was not a fan of Emeril (he’s from Massachusetts!) However, his most recent show has really won me over. This collection is nice in that the ingredients are really varied. Many of the sauces are divided out as separate recipes which allows you to mix it up as well. This week I think I will try Salmon with Peach-Tamarind Barbecue Sauce and Balsamic-Marinated Rib-Eyes with Balsamic Barbecue Sauce.

LSU Football Vault: The History of the Fighting Tigers by Herb Vincent

This is a history and collection of LSU Football. There were some interesting tid-bits that I didn’t know and great reproductions of tickets, pamphlets and other odd things. I particularly like some of the names of the early opponents (New Orleans Young Men’s Gymnastic Club). However, my favorite part is reserved for the Tulane people here at ClubRead:



(Tulane gave up the goat mascot in the early 20s)

So, I was thinking on Friday to post some of my thoughts on the first hundred or so pages of Light in August. Then on my ride home Faulkner wrote my thoughts for me:

“He turned the pages in steady progression, though now and then he would seem to linger upon one page, one line, perhaps one word. He would not look up then. He would not move, apparently arrested and held immobile by a single word which had perhaps not yet impacted, his whole being suspended by the single trivial combination of letters in quiet and sunny space, so that hanging motionless and without physical weight he seemed to watch the slow flowing of time beneath him…”

Touché Mr. Faulkner, touché. More thoughts later.

#19: BOO! I'm not a Tulane alumnus, but I was a student (using the term very loosely) there from 1979-81. I'll bet I'm the only LTer who has seen LSU lose to Tulane twice, in 1979 and 1981, both times in the Superdome. Have the Greenies beat the Bayou Bengals since '81?

Have you read New Orleans, Mon Amour by Andre Codrescu? It consists of a collection of articles that he wrote for Gambit, a free NO weekly paper, mainly in the 1980s, I think. He writes mainly about the characters in and around the French Quarter, and it reminded me about my years in the Crescent City more than anything else I've read.

Well I guess a green wave as a mascot is better than a goat. I was never a football fan, so I don't think I went to one football game during my years as a Tulane undergrad or a Tulane law student. I did go to Sugar Bowl on New Year's Eve once when it was in the old stadium, since we lived right across the street from the stadium on Calhoun Street and someone gave us free tickets. It was supposed to be one of the classic games, but it all went over my head and I remember nothing of it. My punishment is that three of my kids (the boys) are rabid football fans. The oldest, who was born in NO, is really rooting for the Saints today. NO must be going wild.

BTW I checked my library for some Louisiana books and here are some I liked:

The Hard Blue Sky by Shirley Ann Grau--set on a Louisiana island suspiciously like Grand Isle.
Property by Valerie Martin--excellent depiction of tragedies of slavery.
One Dead in Attic by Chris Rose--a collection of essays originally published in the Times-Picayune in the months after Katrina--absolutely heartbreaking, but really captures the essence of New Orleans.
The Awaking by Kate Chopin
A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
Anything You Say Can and Will be Held Against You by Laurie Lynn Drummond--fictional stories written by a former female Baton Rouge police officer, that I found absolutely fascinating.
and of course there's always Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood.

21 - The last time Tulane beat them was in 1982, but there was a long period in the 90s and early 2000s where they didn't play. And after this year they are no longer playing regularly. Thanks for the recommendation. I've heard good things about Codrescu so I'll keep an eye out for that one.

22 - We had quite a boisterous football celebration here yesterday. I can’t quite believe that the Saints are actually going to the Superbowl. Thanks for all the recommendations. One Dead in the Attic keeps moving closer and closer to my currently reading pile of books (moved from a top shelf to a lower one to my ‘read this next’ pile). I think it will make the full jump next week.

Turandot by Puccini at the Metropolitan Opera
Conductor – Andris Nelsons
Turandot – Maria Guleghina; Calaf – Salvatore Licitra; Liu – Maija Kovalevska

I was lucky enough to get to see Puccini’s last opera, Turandot, this week. For anyone in the New York area, the Met has $20 tickets in the top balcony – not the best view, but very affordable. The production – set/staging/lighting – is phenomenal as you can see here:



It was a really lovely production. Maija Kovalevska who played Liu was particularly good. And thanks to the magic of the internet, we have video:

Act III finale

#19 ouch! But Tulane had a goat as a mascot? Really?! In that case, maybe it's deserved.

#21 kd - I'm pondering Tulane beating LSU in 1979, 1980 & 1982. Good to know, not sure it's likely to happen anytime in the near or distant future.

Jane - petermc's thread over on the 75 book challenge thread (2009) went through a list of recommended Katrina-related books. I have them on my wishlist - see this link: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/dchaikin&tag=Katrina (make sure you're on my Wishlist collection).

22/23 - Bah! Small brain fart on my part. One Dead in Attic is on my wishlist; Nine Lives is one I am starting next week most likely.

24 - Thanks for the suggestions.

Storyteller by G. R. Grove

I received this through Member Giveaways from LT author G. R. Grove. I spent quite a long time with this book and am glad I did. It is a long journey that young Gwernin takes. This was not one of those historical novels where the characters are completely modern individuals placed in a historical setting. Nor was it one where the characters were given particularly divergent hot button political and social issues. Rather, they are simply authentic – which extends to age as well. You see Gwernin’s growth as his journey continues. There is a nice balance of surreal/fantastical elements mixed into the tale. I am looking forward to getting to the next installment.

In honor of the Super Bowl, Wynton Marsalis wrote and performed a lovely piece of music and poetry. I tragically can’t find video, but the words are here. Love that ending:

"It’s like waiting 43 years to hear somebody say 'I Love You' back. And they do."

Jane - Nice summary. I read the first two book of the Storyteller series last year and enjoyed them both quite a bit. I have the third volume on my shelf waiting.

>23 janemarieprice:

Thanks for the link to Turandot. It's always a thrill to watch the end, although why Calaf would fall for such a horrible woman has always been beyond me.

28 - Thanks. I'm looking forward to finishing up the series.

29 - I mentioned the same to my husband. As beautiful as the music of operas are, the plots are always extremely silly to me. Of course I was the one girl in high school who absolutely hated Romeo and Juliet. I just can’t bring myself to buy the 'love at first sight.'

Light in August by William Faulkner

I won't summarize what this book is about because I'm not in a high enough intellectual sphere to be able to do that. Instead, I will talk about three things which I kept thinking about while reading – rhythm, quiet, and salvation.

First, let's talk about rhythm. Usually when I start a book, I read about 15-50 pages into it and then restart it. It takes me a little while to get into the rhythm or style or pace or whatever you want to call it, and I like to read through the entire book totally immersed in it. I didn't have to do that with this novel. It made me wonder if there is something about the tone which is familiar to because I'm from the south. Is it rhythm what makes a piece of writing 'southern'. There are plenty of books written by southern authors or set in the south which I wouldn't call 'southern'. Thoughts?

Faulkner uses the word 'quiet' a lot – particularly in the first half of the book. I think this is used to show something about social norms. The quiet members of a society are the good ones, the ones doing all the socially appropriate things. So it is not so much a volume issue as a comment of conspicuousness. I noticed this particularly with regards to Hightower. "The entire affair had been a lot of people performing a play and that now and at last they had all played out the parts which had been allotted them and now they could live quietly with one another." I get the impression that his sermons were probably not seen as strange until the problems appeared with his wife – like the interviewed neighbors of someone recently arrested always say 'there was always something strange about him/her.'

There much too much to be said about the role of religion in the novel. First, there is some phenomenal imagery used to evoke the feeling of religion – particularly the use of variations of monotone. Faulkner is a master at dropping one word into a sentence that instantly brings you back to another part of the story or someplace else entirely. Salvation and fate become major elements in the story. It seems that all of the characters are looking for salvation in some way, either through normalcy (Joe’s adopted parents) or the 'other' (Joanna). It also seems that there is no way to escape where each character is going and they know this. "The street which ran for thirty years…It had made a circle and he is still inside of it." "Already he can feel the two instants about to touch: the one which is the sum of his life, which renews itself between each dark and dusk, and the suspended instant out of which the soon will presently begin." The only characters which seem outside of the cycle of fate are Joe's grandparents. I kept thinking of them as the Greek chorus. Each one side of the same coin – one wanting forgiveness for all and one wanting punishment for all, neither being able to rationalize the meaning or consequence of their wishes – "monotonous strophe and antistrophe."

In summary, I can't recommend this highly enough. Reading back over my thoughts, they seem really disjointed, but there were a lot of thoughts to keep track of while reading. There is some excellent discussion going on in Le Salon du Faulkner which I highly recommend.

Tandy's Story by Theodore Sturgeon from The Norton Book of Science Fiction

A new plaything causes a young girl becomes mysteriously well-behaved. In retrospect, this was fairly interesting, but I never felt very connected to the characters. **

Hi, Jane. I enjoyed your comments on Light in August, especially those dealing with Joe's grandparents. I'm still parsing LIA. Are you joining us for the March read of As I Lay Dying? Hope so.

Childwold by Joyce Carol Oates

Avaland has an excellent review here.

Childwold is a farm in decline housing Joseph, a grandfather battling Alzheimer’s; Arlene, a mother obsessed with pregnancy and her children, and Laney, a young girl who befriends a middle aged man – Kasch. Throughout the story, the reader is bounced back and forth between each of these characters points of view as well as Laney’s brother Vale, a Vietnam veteran.

This was very character driven which I liked. It sucked me into their lives. It was also somewhat surreal. There became a point where I couldn’t tell if Kasch’s view of his and Laney’s relationship was a product of his madness or more realistic and Laney’s view was one of denial. I particularly liked this passage:

“She tried to read the passage again but lost the meaning almost at once. She turned to another page, began another paragraph; but with Laney watching her, and her own feelings in such a turmoil, she couldn’t concentrate. Such crazy complicated sentences! She closed the book and handed it back to Laney, who took it from her in silence, and their eyes brushed each other, and in that instant Arlene felt that she would never be young again: not only would Laney outlive her, and live a life she could not control, but Laney was already grown from her, slipped far from her, beyond Childwold. Her own daughter! She was reading this book, which was only a jumble of words to Arlene, and she treasured it, and Arlene could not follow her into it – could not understand, could not share.”

33 – Thanks. I will most definitely be joining the As I Lay Dying read.

I’m still working my way through The Craftsman, but I wanted to post a bit here about the ‘intelligent hand’. Sennett outlines Raymond Tallis’s four dimensions of prehension: “anticipation, of the sort that shapes the hand reaching for the glass; contact, when the brain acquires sense data through touch; language cognition, in naming what one holds; and last, reflection on what one has done” and adds his fifth dimension: “the values developed by highly skilled hands.” I thought this was nicely appropriate given the Olympics. It is truly amazing the amount of physical memory the human body can be invested with. Not only amazing feats of speed or strength, but sometimes more importantly the ability to use only the exact amount of force needed for a particular activity – most sportswriters would call this ‘touch’.

>34 janemarieprice: Well, thank you for the compliment of posting a link to my review of Childwold but I don't think of it an excellent review. I had a difficult time making sense of what I wanted to say (and trying to decide what exactly I wanted to say). I am haunted by everything I left out! btw, particularly like the scene of Laney looking at the photographs in the museum; I think it was a pivotal moment for her.

36 - It was a hard one to review. I had a lot of thoughts but couldn't really pull them all together.

Way back in message 27 I talked about Wynton Marsalis's tribute to New Orleans. Finally was able to track down video. Enjoy! (4min:11sec fyi)

I posted this in Le Salon, but I thought some here might appreciate it as well:

I took Death in Venice off the shelf today - planning to start soon. This was written in the front:

LOL - I'm starting to think maybe I'm not so ready for Proust...

Excellent! I love it.

I was reading the introduction in my edition of Plato's Symposium (which I've not read yet) recently, and the way the author/translator boiled down Socrates' arguments, I thought, there's all of In Search of Lost Time, right there...

I see a lot of your reading has something to do with Louisiana. If you ever want to do some light reading, Laura Childs has written a scrapbooking series of mysteries that are set in New Orleans. They are quite entertaining!

It's such a colorful place, everybody writes about it! I'm from the dreary Midwest -- evidently not as interesting.

I also noticed your category for "Ongoing Reading." I have several books that I intend to finish before year-end. I had them all in a separate collection; but deleted it. The main thing is I just don't want them to linger in my "2010 Reading List" collection until I get around to finishing them.

ETA: Laura Childs Bibliography. The touchstone doesn't lead to the right page.

39/40 - It was such an odd thing because (1) I didn't notice it when I bought it, and (2) it's sort of artistic in a way - at least Alexandre seems to have put some thought into the layout.

41 - Thanks for the recommendation. I'm from Louisiana so I try to collect anything written about it. Funny you should mention the ongoing reading. I recently decided I need to get through some of it and have less currently reading. Some I don't mind - large short story and poetry collections that I can dip in and out of - but I need to finish up a good bit before I start something new.

The Craftsman by Richard Sennett

Sennett has a very broad definition of craftsman, which I’m still not entirely sure how to summarize. It includes anything from traditional handcrafts to medicine to parenting. His primary premise being that there is value in doing good work for its own sake. There is a lot to digest here. Most interestingly were his comments on the development of new techniques, physical memory, the psychological impression given by materials, and the cultural aspects of work. Everything is not always tied together very nicely, but interesting none the less. While, I disagree with Sennett on a couple of points – the inherent problems with computer aided design software and the idea that if one is happy with their work they will never ask for a raise and this is a good thing. And it needs pictures. How can one discuss Cellini’s saltcellar without having a picture of this beauty:



Other than these three quibbles, it was very interesting. There was a particularly helpful discussion of permeable borders which will be useful when I finally get around to reworking some of my portfolio – hopefully this will push me into starting this project.

>43 janemarieprice: very interesting; I have a real interest in work and workplaces. The book brings to mind Shop Class as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford, about manual/mechanical work vs knowledge work. I'm waiting for it in paperback but in the meantime have read the author's essay from the NYT Magazine.

Reading Seattle: The City in Prose

This was an excellent collection which I would highly recommend to anyone interested in the city. Of particular interest were the selections from:

The Executioner Waits by Josephine Herbst – two sisters with liberal sensibilities living in a boarding house during the 1919 General Strike with many eccentric conservatives. This one goes straight on the wishlist.

Skid Road: An Informal Portrait of Seattle by Murray Morgan – seems to be a good history of the city.

Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins – lovely opening passages about the abundant blackberries.

Seattles Son by David Guterson – an essay about Seattle’s architecture.

Never Mind Nirvana by Mark Lindquist – very witty piece about a boy looking for love or something.

I saw you put Nine Lives on the March reading thread, and I have to get that book. So, thanks! Maybe one year I'll read only (or mostly) NOLA stuff.

Death in Venice by Thomas Mann

Gustav Aschenbach, writer and nobleman, spurred by artistic restlessness, embarks on a trip to Venice. Once there he falls in love with a beautiful young boy. Meanwhile, Venice is dealing with an epidemic. Aschenbach slowly succumbs to both the disease of the body and the temptations of his own mind.

Aschenbach’s obsession with the boy Tadzio is extremely complex, an aspect that made the stalking relationship . Tadzio is both an object of art and a vestige of Aschenbach’s lost youth. “Icon and mirror!” Ultimately, Aschenbach’s inability to escape his excess is a mark of his artistic nature – what today we would consider living on the fringe becomes damning. “We may deny the abyss and acquire dignity but, no matter how we try, it attracts us.” Mann was convinced that any artist could only deny their passions for so long.

Even in translation, one can see what a gifted writer Mann is. The story is meticulously crafted. Varying motifs are repeated throughout, piecing together parts of the story and larger classical references. But my favorite portions were Mann’s observations on the human mind – things I have thought from time to time but wondered if anyone else ever thought this way. Deep insights that become silly in a few moments of thought:

“Weary and yet mentally agitated, he spent the protracted mealtime considering abstract, in fact transcendental matters; he reflected on the mysterious combination of regularity and individuality that is requisite for the creation of human beauty; this led him to general problems of form and art; and finally he concluded that these thoughts and discoveries of his resembled those apparently felicitous inspirations in dreams which, when you are fully awake again, prove to be totally insipid and worthless.”

And the daily interactions of strangers:

“Nothing is stranger or more ticklish than a relationship between people who know each other only by sight, who meet and observe each other daily – no, hourly – and are nevertheless compelled to keep up the pose of an indifferent stranger, neither greeting nor addressing each other, whether out of etiquette or their own whim. Between them there exists a disquiet, a strained curiosity, the hysteria of an unsatisfied, unnaturally repressed need for recognition and exchange of thoughts – and also, especially, a sort of nervous respect.”

#47 Nice review. That last excerpt is my work life.

Great review, Jane. Thanks for including those selections from the book, which I'll add to my wish list.

Thanks! 49 - I really enjoyed the Dover Thrift edition I had - some very good notes on the style, references, and translation.

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

Addie Bundren lays dying while her oldest son builds her coffin outside her window. After her death, her husband and children set out to bury her in her hometown. They are beset by a variety of obstacles, not the least of which are their own personal difficulties.

The first thing I thought (and loved) about As I Lay Dying, was how wonderfully Faulkner captured the feeling of the terminal illness and death of a matriarch/patriarch. How very, very long each day becomes and how extremely important and significant each small daily task becomes. Also moving is the youngest son’s reaction to the dead body: “It was not her. I was there, looking. I saw. I thought it was her, but it was not. It was not my mother.” I found this was my reaction to every funeral I’ve been to and have heard this sentiment given as advice to people attending their first. Another beautiful passage on the difficulty of caring for someone from Jewel, the third son: “I said if you’d just let her alone. Sawing and knocking, and keeping the air always moving so fast on her face that when you’re tired you can’t breathe it, and that goddamn adze going One lick less.”

I am always fascinated by stream of consciousness, and Faulkner is a master. One of the biggest complaints I see in reviews of the novel are the difficulty in determining what is happening. However, I think this is one of the stronger points of the novel’s construction. After all, how often does one think factual things about oneself or family.* Also it exposes different viewpoints. Events are not always seen in the same way by each character. The post poignant of these is the chapter from Addie’s perspective. This in itself could be a remarkable and beautiful short story.

I found myself fascinated by Darl’s character. For most of the book, I found him to be the more well adjusted, comprehensible one. Here is a lovely passage from early on: “When I was a boy I first learned how much better water tastes when it has set a while in a cedar bucket. Warmish-cool, with a faint taste like the hot July wind in cedar trees smells. It has to set at least six hours, and be drunk from a gourd. Water should never be drunk from metal. At night it is better still.” However, as the book moves on both his actions and thought patterns degenerate significantly. I’m still not sure what to make of his breakdown.

Finally, Faulkner again deals with issues of fate, sin, inevitability, etc. The father’s feelings on roads for example: “Durn that road…A-laying there, right up to my door, where every bad luck that comes and goes is bound to find it…But I told her it want no luck in it, because the Lord put roads for travelling: why He laid them down flat on the earth. When He aims for something to be always a-moving, He makes it long ways, like a road or a horse or a wagon, but when He aims for something to stay put, He makes it up-and-down ways, like a tree or a man.” As difficult as the family’s situation becomes, I could never quite bring myself to feel like their fate is hopeless. I can’t tell if this is me projecting my optimism on the story or Faulkner not believing his own doomed characters. Thoughts?

*Possible Spoiler Alert* such as ‘I am pregnant’, ‘he is not my father’, ‘I had an affair’, etc. I found this a really hard novel to address without spoilers.

>51 janemarieprice: Lovely, meaningful review!

I'm sure I could go to hundreds of sources to find comments, reviews, explanations, and so on, about As I Lay Dying but only on LT can I stumble upon a heartfelt, intelligent post such as yours that makes me want to pick up the book again after some 40+ years (since high school). Thanks for this.

And you made me want to read it for the first time. Faulkner for me is one of those, Oh I'll get to it eventually, but I've had no catalyst other than "it's supposed to be good."

Hope you don't mind me popping in! I noticed that two of your top fantasy/sci-fi reads in 2009 were The Hero and the Crown and The Eyre Affair. I recently listened to The Eyre Affair on audiobook and liked it very much, so it's a newer favorite. But The Hero and the Crown is one of those books I grew up reading and rereading, and nearly memorizing. McKinley's characters and prose are amazing! The Blue Sword is also very good.

Carrying over from my thread... I think you will really like The Thief! It's actually my least favorite of the three books so far (though of course I still love it). It isn't until the second book, The Queen of Attolia, that we really start getting into the heavier themes. There's a big twist in each story, so I really can't say much more about them. Enjoy! :)

*Applause* Great review of As I Lay Dying, Jane!

I have yet to meet a Robin McKinley book I didn't like. I think I've read almost all of her work with the exception of The Outlaws of Sherwood Forest and a collection she co-wrote with her husband. My favorite McKinley books are Deerskin and Rose Daughter.

52, 53, 55 – Thanks!

54, 56 – There will definitely be more McKinley in my future.

I wanted to comment briefly on the Journals and Letters section of the Selected Writing of Ralph Waldo Emerson. I often wonder about the reasoning of someone being a ‘product of their time’ to deal with their feelings on race, gender, and other hot button issues. Emerson was an abolitionist had some very strong writings to that effect. In particular, several journal entries would fall into the rant category – seemingly not being able to understand how any reasoning person could see the issue in any other way. I feel this way quite often about current political issues. It was nice to see that a ‘time’ isn’t as homogenous idealistically as it is usually assumed.

I finished The Last Day of a Condemned Man over the weekend and hope to have some thoughts up tomorrow.

urania — I need to reread Rose Daughter; I liked it, but it blends with Beauty in my head since they retell the same story. I read Deerskin last year and it was fantastic, though I would never hand it to a younger reader. Heavy stuff, but so deftly handled.

Outlaws of Sherwood is really good too, probably my favorite reworking of the Robin Hood story despite its unorthodox Robin. That's another one I constantly reread as a teen.

Hope you enjoy whatever McKinley you pick up next, jane!

The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo

Hugo’s polemic against the death penalty is crafted as more of an emotional reaction than a political rant (though that appears in the preface). At first the condemned man believes that “death is infinitely to be preferred” to a life of hard labor; however, as his diary continues, we journey through his thoughts as execution day looms. Most disturbing is the festival atmosphere surrounding executions. When a woman remarks on the higher interest level in seeing a death row inmate versus a chain gang, out narrator posits “it is less diffuse, a concentrated and more aromatic liqueur.”

It is also filled with Hugo’s beautiful prose: “For La Grève has already had enough. La Grève is mending her ways. The blood-swigging old crone behaved well in July. She now wants to live a better life, and to remain worthy of her recent good deed. Having lent her body to all the executions of the last three hundred years, she has now gone all coy. She is ashamed of her former calling. She wants to lose her bad name. she disowns the executioner. She is washing down her cobblestones.”

Ah yes I've been waiting for your thoughts on this Hugo! Excellent isn't it? I was so energized after reading this! An very good read and a good way to get a taste of Hugo for those who are a bit intimidated by his larger works.

The English translation doesn't really sound right to me but lately all translations have been sounding a little iffy. But this structure just doesn't seem to ring right for Hugo.

60 – It was very good, and particularly appropriate. I just received Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire from LT Early Reviewers. It is sure to make me extremely angry and I think Last Day was a good emotional introduction.

Nature by Ralph Waldo Emerson

I actually had a hard time getting into this essay. One, it’s fairly long for one sitting, and two, there is a lot about the connection of God and nature. I’m not religious, so a good portion of it didn’t resonate with me. However, there are some lovely passages that I did agree with/find interesting.

On tradition and the Old World/New World: “Why should not we have a poetry and philosophy of insight and not of tradition, and a religion by revelation to us, and no the history of theirs…why should we grope among the dry bones of the past, or put the living generation into masquerade out of its faded wardrobe? The sun shines today also…There are new lands, new men, new thoughts.”

On art: “Nature, in the common sense, refers to essences unchanged by man; space, the air, the river, the leaf. Art is applied to the mixture of his will with the same things.” and “The poet, the painter, the sculptor, the musician, the architect, seek each to concentrate this radiance of the world on one point, and each in his several work to satisfy the love of beauty which stimulates him to produce.”

And an interesting bit given our current treatment of nature: “Religion includes the personality of God; Ethics does not…They both put nature under foot.”

The Red Album of Ashbury Park (Remixed) by Alex Austin

Sam returns from Vietnam determined to start a band and make it big. As with most things in life, all does not go so smoothly, and Sam finds himself involved in a crime ring he cannot seem to break free of. This is a fast-paced story, both tense and immediate. The story is bookended and sprinkled throughout with vivid descriptions of Ashbury Park. Written by LT Author AlexAustin, this was an enjoyable read about the intertwining of place and identity.

Equus by Peter Shaffer

“A child is born into a world of phenomena all equal in their power to enslave…Suddenly one strikes. Why? Moments snap together like magnets, forging a chain of shackles. Why? I can trace them. I can even, with time, pull them apart again. But why at the start they were ever magnetized at all – just those particular moments of experience and no others – I don’t know.”

Alan Strang is a 16 year old boy who has blinded six horses and is currently undergoing psychiatric therapy. Alan’s case is a convoluted one of religion, sexuality, parental neuroses, and childhood fantasy. As the play moves along, the psychiatrist, Dysart, becomes more and more unsure of his role in ‘curing’ children.

“The Normal is the good smile in a child’s eyes – all right. It is also the dead stare in a million adults…It is the Ordinary made beautiful; it is also the Average made lethal.”

“In an ultimate sense I cannot know what I do in this place – yet I do ultimate things. Essentially I cannot know what I do – yet I do essential things. Irreversible, terminal things.”

I was lucky enough to catch a performance a couple of years ago and highly recommend it. The horses costumes and movements were extremely well done. I find the story compelling on a lot of levels and am sure I will be thinking about this one for some time.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

I am glad I read this during the day. It is quite frightening on a lot of levels. The narrator is struggling with depression stemming from the pressure of being a ‘good wife’ by society’s standards and possibly also from the recent birth of her child. As I’m sure was common at the time, she is assumed to have some sort of non-medical exhaustion by her doctor husband and brother. The cure is extended rest and absolutely no work whatsoever. Trapped in a room (of her husband’s choosing of course), she descends into a sort of madness through obsession with the wallpaper. There is a lot going on in the short story, most disturbing to me is the narrators seeming ignorance of the cause of her own depression. While she does fight in a way against her husband’s diagnosis, she doesn’t seem to feel sure about her condition herself.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros

A series of vignettes about the life of a young Hispanic girl growing up in Chicago. There are some nice things here, and it was a very quick read. However, I don’t feel like anything really stuck with me. I didn’t learn anything about Chicago or Hispanic culture. It is very good at portraying coming of age, but I’ve read other things which I thought were more effective.

Personally, I love the stories in the House on Mango Street. Woman Hollering Creek is in much the same style. I particularly like the story "Eleven" in that collection. I used the story about her name in my art class in Louisiana. I read the story and talked about where my name came from, and invited the students - high schoolers - to talk about theirs. It was one of the rare times when they listened to each other without interruptions. Then they did the artwork of their name. The other story that stuck with me was about the house - I think that is near or at the beginning.

67 - It's funny. I didn't dislike it, I just don't feel like it will stick with me for some reason. While I was reading, I found them quite enjoyable.

Very busy week at work last week (boss going on vacation leads to much craziness around the office). I finished Ourika and am in the middle of The Lesson of the Master by Henry James. And I'm late with this review:

Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans by Dan Baum

This is the best overview of New Orleans’s culture I’ve read. Following the lives of nine people makes it accessible without feeling forced. While I didn’t always like the subjects (in fact, two I downright hated*), they were all extremely interesting. Starting with Hurricane Betsy is a key element that most New Orleans stories have been missing.

“What tripped me out, man, was every place we’d go, no matter how far, everybody knew me…I was connected, you feel me?” “Always been fucked-up here, man, but it’s home. Till you been someplace else, you don’t know.” – Anthony Wells

* I would be curious if anyone who has read it could guess which two.

Thanks, Jane; I'll add Nine Lives to my wish list. Was there any mention of Hurricane Camille in the book?

69 - No, Camille didn't have a large effect on New Orleans other than bad wind and rain. It was devastating to the coast - Grand Isle near my hometown had significant damage, the coast of Mississippi was nearly wiped out. But Betsy was the big one. It cut a swath across Louisiana and blew the levee in New Orleans causing massive flooding. Here are the rain maps which show it pretty well:

Camille
Betsy

Poems by Ruben Dario



I have been reading through and finished this weekend the selected poems of Ruben Dario. Dario was a Nicaraguan poet and writer who is considered the father of the Modernista movement of Central and South American writers. He spent his life in several countries and traveled extensively, writing for several Ibero-American magazines. Aside from Somoza, the Sandinistas, and Alexis Argüello he is probably the most well known Nicaraguan personality – the city of his birth being renamed Ciudad Dario. My mother-in-law described him to me as ‘the greatest voice for all the Hispanic people” and my husband’s middle name is Ruben in honor of the poet.

His poetry has been divided into four thematically organized groups for this publication based on an arrangement Dario was organizing at the end of his life: Y muy siglo diez y ocho (And Those that Come from the Eighteenth Century); Y muy antiguo y muy moderno (Some Both Ancient and Modern); Audaz, cosmopolita (Some Audacious, Cosmopolitan) (inferred by scholars); and Y una sed de ilusiones infinita (And a Thirst for Illusive Hope That’s Endless).

Yo persigo una forma … (I’m Hunting a Form)

I’m hunting a form that my style can barely trace,
the budding of thought that wants to become a rose;
first it lands on my lips like a kiss, then it goes
to Venus de Milo’s impossible embrace.

There are green palms along the columned gallery;
the starts have shown me a vision of the goddess.
And in my soul, light extends itself in fullness
like the moon’s bird skimming the lake’s tranquility.

I can only find words that never seem to stay,
pieces of a song from a flute, which slip away,
the ship of those dreams, which drift aimlessly in space.

And under my Sleeping Beauty’s open window,
the soft and steady crying of the fountain’s flow,
and the swan’s great white neck*, with its questions, its grace.

*another lovely bit about swans from Los cisnes (The Swans)

I am questioning the Sphinx about what it can foresee
with the question mark of your neck, asking the air for me.

I’ll post a few more that I liked throughout the month.

Finished two in a series this weekend:

In the Shadow of Dragons by Kathleen Cunningham Guler

In the second installment of the Macsen’s Treasure Series, we follow Marcus and Claerwen as they try to foil an assassination attempt on the high king. The action of the story is again fast paced and interesting. One of the plot points was easy to figure out, but there were a few surprises none the less.

The Anvil Stone by Kathleen Cunningham Guler

The third installment of the series has been my favorite so far. We a get a more in depth look at the characters without sacrificing plot. This is also the first of the series where I really began to recognize some of the Arthur legend.

I still have two novellas to review - The Lesson of the Master and Ourika. I hope to get to those this week.

#68 “Always been fucked-up here, man, but it’s home. Till you been someplace else, you don’t know.”

There is a lot of truth in that about NO.

So I have a few reviews to do which hopefully will get done today – two of my novella reads Ourika and The Lesson of the Master and my February ER book Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire (highly recommended). Now I’m reading another novella, On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger, waiting for my March ER, An American Type by Henry Roth, and reading some poetry – DailyLit and Poets.org daily emails and I picked up The Best American Poetry 1996. I am having some difficulty. There are poems I enjoy, but the majority don’t do very much for me. However, yesterday we were watching the Rock and Roll 25th Anniversary Concert and I decided that Simon and Garfunkel are my favorite living poets. Some from their set:

The Boxer (4min 50sec)
Bridge Over Troubled Water (5min 24sec)
The Sound of Silence (4min 58sec) – the best one. If you only watch one, watch this one!

And another poem from Ruben Dario:

Nocturno (Nocturne)

Silence of the night, painful silence,
Nocturne … Why does my soul tremble like this?
I hear the low hum of my blood.
I watch a calm storm pass inside my skull.
Insomnia! Not to sleep, and perchance
to dream. To be the whole soliloquy
of spiritual dissection, my Hamlet-I!
To dissolve my sadness
in one night’s wine,
in the marvelous crystal darkness …
And then I wonder: When will it be dawn?
A door just closed …
Someone is passing on the street …
The clock strikes three … It must be Her!

Finally, reviews of three novellas:

Ourika by Claire de Duras, (published in 1823)

Ourika is a Senegalese girl, rescued from slavery to be raised by a Parisian noblewoman, and coming to a sudden realization of her ‘otherness’. Set against the background of the French revolution, the twinned terrors plunge her into a deep depression. Regarded as one of the first internal portraits of African character in fiction, Ourika is both beautiful and melancholic.

I should have liked to be transported back to my uncivilized native land and its savage inhabitants – less frightening to me than this merciless society that declared me guilty of a crime it alone had committed.

The Lesson of the Master by Henry James

A young writer, Paul Overt, befriends St. George, a famous master whose later work, while popular, is less artistically strong. Enmeshed in their social dance are St. George’s wife, who it becomes apparent directs the master’s artistic and business life, and Marian Fancourt, a young intellectual beauty who captures Paul’s heart. Revolving around themes of marriage and its effects on the artistic life (anyone care to guess?), The Lesson is a dense, rich novella full of twists and turns. There is a bit of humor here. Particuarlly St. George’s response to Paul’s question of whether the artist is a man - ”I mostly think not.”

What the master wishes for the student: “The sense of having done the best – the sense which is the real life of the artist and the absence of which is his death, of having drawn from his intellectual instrument the finest music that nature had hidden in it, of having played it as it should be played.”

On the Marble Cliffs by Ernst Junger

A homogeneous mixture of parable, fantasy, social critique, and fable, Junger’s novella centers on two botanists living in an idyllic seaside community as a mysterious political group gains power. This was a tough read for me. It is ominous and haunting. The characters’ struggle with how to deal with the rising fascist leaders is very tactile.

While evil flourished like mushroom spawn in rotten wood, we plunged deeper into the mystery of flowers, and their chalices seemed larger and more brilliant than before. But, above all, we continued our study of language, for in the word we recognized the gleaming magic blade before which tyrants pale. There is a trinity of word, liberty and spirit.

So I still have an outstanding review for Texas Tough, but I want to spend some time on it because it deserves it. I've been keeping going with some poetry samplers and found a few things I like. I've also read two extremely boring and disagreeable essays on architecture The Hidden Risk of Green Buildings and Building and Designing for Security which I passed the quizzes for and get an hours credit towards my licensing exam. There are three essays and a monograph to go through: Ethics and Professional Rules of Conduct: Distinction and Clarification, Pushing the Building Envelope, Why You Need a Spec Writer, and the monograph Professional Conduct - really pretty retched stuff. To cope here is another piece from a Dario poem:

from A Goya (To Goya)

Rare and daring man of genius
with your visions of the endless,
for you I light fragrant incense.

To the greatness of your palette
that’s capricious, brash, incited,
and beloved by every poet;

to the darkness in your visions,
to your whitened emanations,
to your black and your vermilions.

From you all Dante’s colors flow.
From you, lovely human forms glow.
From you, glorious frescoes.

Edited to change 'assed' to 'passed'.

The novellas sound intriguing -- I'll see if I can hunt them down. Lovely poem too. Thanks.

I'm having a bit of trouble picking my next read. I've been a bit bogged down in life and most of my reading has been pretty dense if not depressing. Anyone have any suggestions for something lighter from my to read +@ apt collection?

I vote for 84 Charing Cross Road. Light, charming, a quick read, and it was refreshing for me last year when I was also a bit bogged down in life.

79 - Ha! I read that today in the park but hadn't moved it from that collection.

I see some stuff that I know well enough to comment on. First of all, though, I'll say that I saw the movie of 84 Charing Cross Road and would expect the book to be as charming, but I haven't read it.

Olive Kitteridge is not light, but it is not hard reading. It is specially good.
Siddhartha is not hard going. It is a take on Buddha's enlightenment and can be refreshing.
The Tale of Genji is beloved by many, but it can get tedious in its repetitiveness.
The Classical World is straightforward readable. It is history so if homework is a burden it might not fit.
Life of Pi is not hard; it is also not very good -- it is worth reading for parts that are good and to know what everyone is talking about.
Eats, Shoots and Leaves may be ideal. You can take it in little or big pieces. It is comprehensible. It is interestingly informative. I disagree with a lot of what she finds right; you might too.
Great Monasteries of Europe might also be a shoe in. You can browse it as well as read it. If you have access to the DVD of Into Great Silence you might watch that in conjunction.
What a great way to present yourself to someone, "I was feeling down in the dumps so I read The Complete Works of William Shakespeare; of course I had to start with the comedies."

I liked Accordion Crimes; a lot of people didn't. It can prove heavy going albeit not in readability.

The End of Faith is not worth reading. If you want literate doubt read Bertrand Russell or Jennifer Michael Hecht.

I'm going to read Kafka on the Shore for discussion the first Wednesday in June. I was thinking of offering to comment to one another, but I'm just don't know when I will read it.

Have fun,

Robert

It took me long enough to write my little post that your message 80 wasn't there when I started.

Apparently you are having fun.

Robert

I'd vote for The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time or White Teeth.

Into the Wild comes to mind as interesting and not dense. Curious incident, Life of Pi and Middlesex all blend together in my head as enjoyable and not depressing books - although each has its darker moments.

Of the books on your list, I just read Gods Behaving Badly for the very reasons you give and found it very enjoyable.

In contrast to Robert, above, I found Eats, Shoots and Leaves unbearably irritating in style as well as content, and I'm pretty obsessive about grammar. I also do not recommend A Reliable Wife, although it is without doubt a lighter read and has been highly praised; I found it to be a dud.

Many good books on your list, but the best light read? – Curious Incident.

I don’t have the Field Guide to the Natural World of New York City but it seems perfect for dipping into; even to enjoy just the illustrations would buoy me.

Girl with a Pearl Earring is well worth reading and it's not too long either.

Thanks guys. I picked up Curious Incident this morning as it was conveniently located on my shelves (I double stack and it's getting out of hand - for instance I didn't know I owned Girl with a Pearl Earring). I also stuck Siddhartha in my bag as my emergency back-up book. I'll work my way through a few of these in the next few weeks and hopefully things will be less crappy by then.

Wow, Siddhartha! I haven't thought about that book in 40 years!

Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire by Robert Perkinson

Texas Tough traces the development of Texas’s prison system from the implementation of the penitentiary through the ascension of convict leasing, the development of the prison farm system, the massive prison growth through the war on drugs, and the court battle Ruiz v. Estelle which brought about an end to prison farming and the rise of the maximum security style incarceration seen throughout the United States today.

Some of the depressing statistics: Texas has 173,000 inmates; more paid employees than Google; imprisons 691 per 100,000 residents; 81% of all new inmates are nonviolent offenders (violent offenders include fighting, resisting arrest, illegal possession of pepper spray); 64% of female prisoners leave at least one dependent child behind; former prisoners are barred from such assistance as food stamps, public housing, etc.

Perkinson comes at the topic from a liberal political point of view (which admittedly I share), but is up front about this at the beginning and is able to give a very balanced history nonetheless, pointing out faults in both conservative and progressive approaches to reform. This has everything I’m looking for in a nonfiction: dense with information but highly readable and an important thought-provoking topic. This is one of my best reads this year – highly recommended.

“Prison history has been characterized less by advancement than corrosive cycle. From the birth of the penitentiary forward, prisons over the long haul have followed a distressingly predictable sequence: crisis begets reform; reform (plus cutbacks) unleashes unrest; unrest bleeds into disappointment; failure leads to rollback, retrenchment gives way to neglect, or worse, which finally generates crisis anew.”

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

We interrupt your regularly scheduled programming to bring you two notes:

I saw an entirely amazing concert Saturday night. It was the American Classical Orchestra’s 25th Anniversary concert. A client of mine gave me tickets to this beautiful performance (3rd row!!) of Handel’s Coronations Anthems and Beethoven’s 9th Symphony at St. John the Divine Cathedral. The orchestra plays entirely on period instruments and the cathedral was an excellent venue.

Second note is that I have really been enjoying HBO’s new show Treme (from the creators of The Wire). It’s worth watching if only for the music.

#90 - That second paragraph really is depressing - somehow stunning but not surprising.

91--I loved the Wire (and am, in fact, still finishing of the seasons on DVDs), but am warming to Treme. I thought the first couple of episodes were interesting, but wasn't sure if I would take to the show. I thought they began to hit their stride in episode three.

St. John Divine is a great venue isn't it?

92 - It's pretty bleak and that's just the Texas statistics. That leaves out the fact that the United States incarcerates more people per capita than any other country in the world (though China's incarceration rate is heavily disputed), that small rural communites where these prisons are located get to include the prison population in their counts for state and federal representation even though prisoners cannot vote (and in many states never regain the right to vote), 40% of female inmates were physically or sexually abused as a child and an even larger percentage were homeless during childhood, 60-something% of inmates were abusing drugs or alcohol when they commited the crime.

93 - The cathedral is really near our house so we go quite often, but I've never been for any performance. It was an amazing venue for this.

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff

Hmm…I’m not really sure where to go with this. At first I was a little put off by Helene, but she grew on me. However, towards the end I started feeling a little bad for her, like she was this New York shut-in. I don’t know. It was an enjoyable read, but maybe a little too precious.

“The Children of Time” by Stephen Baxter

A post-apocalyptic short story giving short windows into the lives of several eleven-year-old humans over a vast span of time. The premise fascinating really, but it told too much and never showed me anything.

Note: I read this through DailyLit.

A Land Beyond Ravens by Kathleen Cunningham Guler

The fourth installment of the Mascan’s Treasure series, Ravens is less the action/adventure novel of the first three and more mystery and reworking of legend. The Arthur legend is more present in this novel – I’m a sucker for it so this pulled me in. The middle got a bit slow but still not a slog. I generally enjoyed the series and thought it improved with each volume which is not easy to do or the typical direction of most series novels.

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Member Giveaways.

Back to #91-- Sounds like a great concert. Last year I attended the NY Phil's annual Memorial Day concert at St John the Divine. It was wonderful, one of the most memorable concerts I've attended. They chose the program really well for the big, boom-y space: Barber's Adagio, Ives' The Unanswered Question, Messiaen's L'Ascension, and Vaughan Williams' The Lark Ascending.

If this year's Memorial Day program pleases me, I'll go again.

ETA: Oh, they just announced the program. "This year's program will open with the stirring, all-American Fanfare for The Common Man by Copland, and will be followed by two symphonies in honor of the occasion: Haydn's Symphony No. 49, La passione, and Schubert's Symphony in B minor, Unfinished. The program will conclude with Beethoven's Egmont Overture, a work depicting the triumph of freedom over oppression."

Aaaaaaah omg omg Schubert's 8th. I'll be there. :)

97 -
Oh how I love Barber's Adagio! Played that one back in high school - so amazing! And our conductor was great and made us play it nice and slow as it should be. So wonderful!

I'm mad at myself for missing a symphony concert in early April featuring the following:
WAGNER: Overture to The Flying Dutchman
BERNSTEIN: Serenade
TCHAIKOVSKY: Symphony No. 6, “Pathétique”

How could I not check the schedule!?

97 - Thanks, I'll keep it in mind though we are usually out of town for Memorial Day. By the way, I think we are leading parallel lives here - I'm turning 28 in June.

#98 lilisin: I love it, too. In the cathedral, the climactic chord rang and rang and rang. I burst into tears. Brilliant.

#99 janepriceestrada: By the way, I think we are leading parallel lives here
If it helps you feel like more of an individual, may I offer that I wouldn't know anything about architecture if it hit me over the head?

An American Type by Henry Roth

Ira has one successful novel and a controlling lover and benefactor. After finding love at a nature retreat, he leaves his former lover and sets out for California to make a life for himself and his new love. For a semi-autobiographical novel, Ira is not a particularly likeable character – neurotic and simultaneously selfish and lacking self-esteem. However, he is not dislikeable either and I found that dichotomy interesting.

It is a very bleak plot, emotionally in particular, for example: “The earth having been dug away from around its roots, the tree in the adjoining yard outside Ira’s window lay on the ground. His dandruff fell glimmering from his fingers clawing through his hair. Now, with rhythmic rip and scrape, crosscut saw with a man at each end, bit into the tree trunk. Eucalyptus logs are tawny in hue…” and “They had no right to pluck Ira out like a radish, like a beet, like a scallion, like a parsnip from among his own. And force him to grow hydroponically, a root crop like him…” There was a really delightful bit about riding the rails

An American Type was published posthumously and edited down from some two thousand pages. It suffers from what you would expect in such a work – disjointed bits of narrative in particular. However, there is some beautiful writing. I never found myself annoyed or bored while reading. Only when I finished did I feel like the whole thing didn’t gel for me. There were several interesting episodes – a delightful bit about riding the rails for instance – which perhaps would have worked better as short stories.

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Nice review, Jane!

Thanks!

During the month of April, I read one poetry anthology (The Best American Poetry 1996) and two Poem-A-Day emails (DailyLit and Poets.org). Below is a list of the poems I particularly liked, links to read the poems online if available, and personal notes on subject/impression. Overall I still don’t feel like poetry is my thing, but I will be looking for more work by some of these poets. I tended to prefer what I’m going to call narrative type poems – those having a sort of clear story or topic rather than those about internal emotions or environmental observations.

Poem-A-Day – DailyLit

Spring Song II by Jean Garrigue: Read Online - Spring!, perfect for the beginning of April.
You're Beautiful by Simon Armitage: Read Online - Funny look at ideas about beauty and ugliness as manifested by wealth and class.
A Good List (Homage to Lorenz Hart) by Brad Leithauser: Read Online - Amusing list of all the things the poet has never done wrong.

Poem-A-Day – Poets.org

A Story by Philip Levine: Read Online - A Story as told by a house.
Graves We Filled Before the Fire by Gabrielle Calvocoressi: Read Online - Depressing account of an accident.

The Best American Poetry 1996

Capital Punishment by Sherman Alexie – Account of a prison cook making a death-row inmate’s last meal.
Strong’s Winter by Sidney Burris – The denial of the existence of God by a schoolboy.
Sleeping on the Bus by Martin Espada: Read Online (about 3/4 of the way down) – Remembering the Freedom Riders.
Rednecks by Martin Espada: Read Online - The shattering of preconceptions.
Reading Aloud to My Father by Jane Kenyon: Read Online - Dealing with the long illness and death of a loved one.
Touch Me by Stanley Kunitz: Read Online - Desire and marriage.
Edge Effect by Sandra McPherson – The diversity of edge ecosystems.
Mangos y limones by Pat Mora: Read Online - Pregnancy cravings.
The Eighth and the Thirteenth by Alicia Ostriker: Read Online - Music and the Holocaust.
Song of Calling Souls (The Drowned Voices from the Golden Venture by Wang Ping – The sinking of a ship of immigrants.
Sestina for Jaime by Katherine Alice Power – Motherhood and memories.
Passive Resistance by Enid Shomer: Read Online - Touring the Nevada Nuclear Testing site, Vegas, and dealing with family history. A lot going on in this one – highly recommended.
Fair Trade by Gary Soto – Early days of marriage, living in a run-down neighborhood, watching a hobo pay 65 cents for two pieces of toast.
The Butcher’s Apron by Diane Wakoski: Read Online - Red meat, processed foods, and identity.

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

I enjoyed reading this one. It wasn’t a difficult read despite dealing with some serious subjects. The technique of an autistic narrator provided for some interesting moments. A good little read while I was in a slump.

>104 janemarieprice: Jane, my poetry experience was similar to yours ... enough that, of the DailyLit poems that resonated with me, two overlapped with yours! -- Spring Song and You're Beautiful. I also liked Ode to Pepper Vinegar by Kevin Young.

Going way, way back, I'm curious about who were the two characters in Nine Lives you really didn't like. Do tell.

I agree that Nine Lives really captured the essence of the city of New Orleans.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier

I picked this up because Vermeer is one of my favorite painters*. I was engaged with the story, though at times I found Greit somewhat unconvincing and the language a bit stilted. An enjoyable quick read nonetheless.

*Obligatory painting image (though not the one the book is based on):

Therefore, Repent! by Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam

A graphic novel about a post-rapture world full of strange sorts of magic and armies of angels. It is available as a free pdf download and the sequel is available through LT Early Reviewers this month. Nice artwork, interesting fast-paced stories, and a few twists and turns made this a quick way to pass a few hours.

Piranesi: The Etchings by Luigi Ficacci

A nice collection of all of Piranesi’s prints in publication order with some minor information about each collections printing. Images need to be larger to understand a lot of the detail. I particularly like the Carceri series. Fortunately for ya’ll the St. Louis Public Library has all of the plates scanned with zoom function on its website.

108> If you like Vermeer, you really should pick up Vermeer's Hat -- a fascinating study of how his paintings reveal the trade and political connections as revealed in his paintings. A way much better book than The Girl with the Pearl Earring.

106 - I liked that one too.

107 - The one that really rubbed me the wrong way was Tim Bruneau, the cop. The other I just didn't feel like I could always believe his parts - Billy Grace, the uptown, one time king of Rex. Not to say that their parts weren't interesting or believable, they were, but personality wise they got on my nerves.

111 - Thanks! I had added it to my wishlist after seeing your comments earlier this year. :)

I’ve fallen drastically behind due to life so here are some short thoughts on my recent reads.

Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Several stories interconnected by Olive and the small Maine town in which she lives. Each story takes the reader into the interior life of one of the residents. While no one is a completely wonderful person, each character was so human that it was hard not to see elements of oneself in them. I really enjoyed this.

“Olive’s private view is that life depends on what she thinks of as ‘big bursts’ and ‘little bursts.’ Big bursts are things like marriage and children, intimacies that keep you afloat, but these big bursts hold dangerous, unseen currents. Which is why you need the little bursts as well: a friendly clerk at Bradlee’s, let’s say, or the waitress at Dunkin’ Donuts who knows how you like your coffee. Tricky business, really.”

Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen

A beautiful and haunting tale of the appearance of the stigmata in a young postulant. All that delicious Catholicism, how could I not love it.

Warbreaker by Brandon Sanderson

In a land where breath is magic, a young princess is sent in place of her older sister to marry a god and stop a war. Very good stand-alone epic fantasy, my first Sanderson.

The Blind Side: Evolution of a Game by Michael Lewis

Half a history of modern football and half the story of Michael Oher’s rescue from poverty. I came away feeling less good about this family than I did when I went in. However, there is some really fascinating information about football tactics. Am I a bad person for liking the football history more than the family story? … Maybe. Am I concerned about this? ... No. Is it fall yet?

Acacia: The War with the Mein by David Anthony Durham

Four royal siblings are scattered after their fathers assassination by a race determined to stop the trade of drugs and children in the world. Another solid epic fantasy, I’ll be looking for the sequel.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

A housekeeper and her son form a bond with her client, a mathematics professor whose memory only lasts 80 minutes. This was a sweet story, very subtle in places.

Never After

A collection of one short story and three novellas which follow what happens when the princess refuses to marry her betrothed. This was a delightful collection which plays on the fairy tale genre.

Can He Bake a Cherry Pie by Laurell K. Hamilton – The princess determines to rescue a captured prince rather than marry the oaf her father has chosen for her. ***

The Shadow of Mist by Yasmine Galenorn – A selkie princess’s wicked fiancé has tracked her down right as she has found love with another. **

The Tangleroot Palace by Marjorie M. Liu – A princess runs away to an enchanted forest to avoid marrying a warlord, but the forest is more sinister than she imagined. ****

The Wrong Bridegroom by Sharon Shinn – A series of competitions are held to win the princess’s hand, but will she want to marry the winner? ****

Just catching up on your thread, Jane. Very astute comments on The Yellow Wallpaper. It brought the story vividly back to my mind.

You've been very busy reading - or - you've been reading and are very busy!

115 - Both actually (busy reading and reading and busy)

I've been flipping through the Wallpaper Guide: Los Angeles* in the evenings, preparing for a short vacation. Anyone else seriously stress about what books to bring with them on trips? I have a pile of about 20 in consideration right now.

*I love these guides. They're so pretty.

Jane,

I love revisionist fairy tales. Have you read the Jack Zipes collection entitled Don't Bet on the Prince?

117 - Me too! I haven't read that one, but it went on the wishlist.

True North: A Journey into Unexplored Wilderness by Elliott Merrick

In 1929 Elliott Merrick gave up his advertising job and headed to Labrador, Canada. True North is his diary from his 1930 trip with the local trappers and his wife. The writing ranges from philosophical musings to straightforward accounts of day to day activities. Generally I enjoyed the narrative, though there were a couple of places where I felt the things he was talking about did not mesh well – for instance the professed love and respect for nature while at the same time working with trappers who kill animals for fashion purposes. However, there were a lot of interesting tidbits about the daily life and some beautiful descriptions of the landscape. A nice passage at the end of the book when the trappers are preparing for their next hunt:

“…when they start again in winter, the first few days are unadulterated misery. It is a little like going to war. Toward the beginning of February all the trappers figuratively tighten their belts and clench the muscles of their jaws. It is time to start back into the woods again on the long, bitter haul to the furring grounds. Each man is conscious of an enormous presence that begins just back of the house, the wilderness that is waiting. He hates it and loves it; he fears it and defies it and understands its grimness and its bounty. His utmost endurance and the fortitude that is a steel-strong habit in the long days will not change its sphinxlike face by so much as an ice crystal. But in the mystery of paradoxical sensations that the wilderness rouses, each man senses that he has been made whatever he is by the great Unknowable where he is going. It cares not whether it kills him or makes him rich, but he knows the great Unknowable well enough to have borrowed and armed himself with a little of its own immortal carelessness.”

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Jane - thanks for that review. I had requested this as an early reviewer, but won something else instead.

119 - It was solid. Not great, but a lot of interesting information.

Now...

The Road by Cormac McCarthy

Overly sentimental philosophical musings. Check. Referring to the main characters as ‘the man’ and ‘the boy’ despite obvious first-page recognition of the father/son relationship. Check. Unrealistic amount of scavenging 5+ years after society’s downfall. Check. One more touching plot point in case you can’t tell that ‘the man’ loves ‘the boy’. Check. Vague and mostly unbelievable account of ‘the woman’. Check. Plot that goes nowhere. Check. Hemingway-wannabe brevity of sentence to not so subtly represent the desolation of landscape and human spirit. Check.

Does anyone need me to repeat this 80 times? No? You can understand it after reading it once? What a quaint idea. Oh, and by the way, you’re all going to die some day. There.

Peaceful Places: New York City by Evelyn Kanter

I quite enjoyed this little book. Of the 129 places listed, I have been to 45. I greatly appreciate the inclusion of St. John the Divine and Idlewild Books, two of my favorite places. I would quibble with the inclusion of the Roosevelt Island Tramway because I’m scared of heights and that sucker is a rockin. And even though I’ve heard of most of the locations, I did find a few places I knew nothing about and will be making an effort to visit (also I found this great bit from the NY Times on hidden parks).

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

120> -- love it!

121> -- I've not lived in NYC for almost 30 years, but St. John's was a regular haunt. I hope the Cloisters was also on the list.

I'll definitely add Peaceful Places: New York City to my wish list. I used to love taking the Roosevelt Island Tramway when I worked in NYC; my girlfriend at the time & I loved going to the island for a peaceful picnic. Did the book mention The Cloisters?

I just love your review of the The Road! Congrats on it going Hot.

#120 Thank you!

Will have to look for Peaceful Places: New York.

I don't know how I missed your review of The Road, but it's hilarious! I won't read this, no matter what.

I liked The Road, but even I have to admit that's an entertaining review.

Thanks guys! I don't think I ever had a hot review before. I have felt the need to clarify without the snark. It just felt very forced to me. I get the feeling McCarthy set up a series of rules for the narrative, but sometimes the really beautiful moment is when you allow yourself to break those rules. At least that's how I feel about art.

122/123 - The Cloisters were certainly on the list along with Fort Tyron Park and a specific location within the park. It's one of my favorite places as well.

I agree with Bragen, I enjoyed the review and liked the book.

Catching up a bit here with reviews:

Shadowplay by Tad Williams

The second in the Shadowmarch series, Shadowplay follows the royal twins on their respective journeys through the kingdom. Like the first, it is dense with both characters and the mythology of the world and diverges to little side plots often. I like this; others may not.

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

My tome read for the summer, Bradley’s 876 page Arthurian drama is told mainly from the point of view of Morgaine, Arthur’s sister. There is a lot of good stuff here, but more than anything, the extremely detailed, well drawn characters make this novel.

Side note: This edition has a reader’s guide at the back. I had never seen this until this year and five of the books I’ve read have them. What is this crap?

Wallpaper City Guide: Los Angeles

A little too much shopping and not enough landmarks, but as always with these guides provides some really fun, different ideas for travel.

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

A re-read for me, I found this not quite as compelling as I did on the first read. Part of this I think is due to the fact that I’ve read Light in August and As I Lay Dying this year as well and like both of them more than Fury.

The other part is something I noticed in the characters. Faulkner is obviously very interested in the permeable boundary that is sanity. All of his characters seem to struggle with defining this line within themselves or others or society’s definition of this line. In Fury, I found the characters far enough over the line that it was more difficult to engage with them than those in As I Lay Dying for instance.

One last observation – Faulkner talks a lot about sin and various characters ‘paying for their sins’. I’m not totally sure what to make of this. It says something about the characters’ views of their lives, but I think it also says something about Faulkner’s worldview – something about fate or destiny, maybe. There are a lot of instances of characters noticing their shadows which I think is about fate as well – a shadow can’t act of its own volition and is fated or doomed to be stepped on or rolled over by a car. For example: “The car stopped. I got off, into the middle of my shadow.”

“I give it to you not that you may remember time, but that you might forget it now and then for a moment and not spend all your breath trying to conquer it. Because no battle is ever won he said. They are not even fought. The field only reveals to man his own follow and despair…”

The Queen in Winter

Four romantic fantasy novellas – a successful grouping, all being entertaining though not spectacular.

A Whisper of Spring by Lynn Kurland – An elf is kidnapped by a deranged wizard. Fairly entertaining, but a little mundane. **

When Winter Comes by Sharon Shinn – A story from her Twelve Houses series dealing with a couple minor characters. The characters I think would be a little flat if you weren’t familiar with them already. ***

The Kiss of the Snow Queen by Claire Delacroix – A seer determines to help a sorcerer to avoid a bad marriage. A little disjointed plot-wise but snappy dialog. ***

A Gift of Wings by Sarah Monette – My favorite of the collection, a swordswoman and the crippled wizard she is protecting must solve a murder mystery. The characters make this one – very well articulated. ****

Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy edited by Dana Stabenow

Twelve fantasy and sci-fi mystery stories. This one is a mixed bag, some were quite good, but most were unremarkable.

Cold Spell by Donna Andrews – A mage and his assistant try to solve two mysteries at a duke’s castle – a murder and a magical security issue. Entertaining. ***

The Nightside, Needless to Say by Simon R. Green – A paranormal detective must solve his own murder. Witty. ***

Lovely by John Straley – A crow follows a murdered body looking for a meal. Strange. **

The Price by Anne Bishop – An assassin investigates a brutal magical murder. Very good. ****

Fairy Dust by Charlaine Harris – A Sookie Stackhouse story – Sookie helps two fairies discover the murder of their sister. First I’ve read of these…cute. ***

The Judgement by Anne Perry – A woman is on trial for magically killing her brother-in-law. Had a dreamy quality that I liked. ***

The Sorcerer’s Assassin by Sharon Shinn – The head professors at a school for wizards must discover who among them is trying to kill the others. Funny in way. ***

The Boy Who Chased Seagulls by Michael Armstrong – A strange man teaches a young boy a lesson about birds. Weird. **

Palimpsest by Laura Anne Gilman – A thief discovers that her recent job is not all it seems. Interesting. ***

The Death of ClickClickWhistle by Mike Doogan – A diplomat tries to solve the mystery of a dead delegate of an alien race. Too clichéd. **

Cairene Dawn by Jay Caselberg – A detective is given an odd assignment to discover the whereabouts of a reanimated businessman. Ok. **

Justice is a Two-Edged Sword by Dana Stabenow – A seer and her swordswoman determine to bring the murderer of a young girl to justice. World-building was good. ***

Side note: This edition has a reader’s guide at the back. I had never seen this until this year and five of the books I’ve read have them. What is this crap?

I don't know! I've noticed study guides popping up at the backs of my books too and it's kind of annoying. Especially when the questions are insultingly simple!

I have a theory about those annoying reader's guides--I think that they're stuck there to make a book more attractive to book groups, as in "hey, this book has a reader's guide. Now we won't have to think up our own discussion topics." They are also clearly written under severe time constraints by the most junior member of staff, who skimmed the book during her lunch hour.

I skip them, but find them annoying when I'm caught up in an especially good book because it then ends several pages before the book runs out, leaving me feeling cheated.

I think they're for book groups too, and they're certainly astoundingly inane, at least the ones I've seen.

#134/135 - that's always been a mystery to me. If you are going to go through the effort of putting together a reader's guide, why not make it intelligent? I mean how hard is that really?...anyway...

Jane - Nice stuff. It was really nice to read your thoughts on Faulkner. Some day I'll get up the nerve to try him out. As for Mists of Avalon - I really enjoyed the end...but it felt to me like a 700 page set-up for a great 200 page novel. :)

133-36 - Glad to know I'm not the only one who feels this way. The questions are just not very interesting. I don't really see how it would help stimulate discussion. And I feel cheated. Especially if I like a book, I tend to slow down at the end because I want to stay with it. Even when I expect it to end before the pages run out, I'm still a little dissapointed.

136 - Mists of Avalon was more complex than I expected, but I do think it got bogged down in the middle. I read most of it on a plane and while sick. The cough syrup feeling I think enhanced my appreciation.

The Stranger by Albert Camus

So I’m going to go with a series of quotes and a few thoughts rather than a review, and y’all should go out and read it.

The narrator is extremely distant, though I would not say emotionless. At his mother’s wake: “Then he offered to bring me a cup of coffee with milk. I like milk in my coffee, so I said yes, and he came back a few minutes later with a tray. I drank the coffee.”

When his boss offers him a promotion to Paris: “Then he asked me if I wasn’t interested in a change of life. I said that people never change their lives, that in any case one life was as good as another and that I wasn’t dissatisfied with mine here at all.”

Between this and The Last Day of the Condemned Man, I find an interesting connection. Both narrators are both purposely cloaked (personality-wise) by the authors in an attempt to show us something greater about he world and human nature. I’m not sure what, but I want to read more books with similar themes. Suggestions? I’m thinking Crime and Punishment next.

***Mild spoiler, but an incredibly long and beautiful passage follows:

“The sun was the same as it had been the day I’d buried Maman, and like then, my forehead especially was hurting me, all the veins in it throbbing under the sink. It was this burning, which I couldn’t stand anymore, that made me move forward. I knew that it was stupid, that I wouldn’t get the sun off me by stepping forward. But I took a step, one step, forward. And this time, without getting up, the Arab drew his knife and held it up to me in the sun. the light shot off the steel and it was like a long flashing blade cutting at my forehead. At the same instant the sweat in my eyebrows dripped down over my eyelids all at once and covered them with a warm, thick film. My eyes were blinded behind the curtain of tears and salt. All I could feel were the cymbals of sunlight crashing on my forehead and, indistinctly, the dazzling spear flying up from the knife in front of me. the scorching blade slashed at my eyelashes and stabbed at my stinging eyes. That’s when everything began to reel. The sea carried up a thick, fiery breath. It seemed to me as if the sky split open from one end to the other to rain down fire. My whole being tensed and I squeezed my hand around the revolver. The trigger gave; I felt the smooth underside of the butt; and there, in that noise, sharp and deafening at the same time, is where it all started. I shook off the sweat and sun. I knew that I had shattered the harmony of the day, the exceptional silence of the beach where I’d been happy. Then I fired four more times at the motionless body where the bullets lodged without leaving a trace. And it was like knocking four quick times on the door of unhappiness.”

My Antonia by Willa Cather

What a beautiful and wonderful surprise this was. Going in, I knew that this was (1) about Nebraska, and (2) in the realm of things I usually like. I know very little about Nebraska except that there is lots of corn, and they are passionate about their college football. So, though I expected to like My Antonia, I wasn’t sure how well I could relate to it.

Well, it swept me up into a very intimate tale of Jim Burden who moves to Nebraska as a child and befriends a Bohemian family, especially their daughter Antonia. The story follows their early life on the farm, and then move to town, where Jim goes to school and Antonia works. We then follow Jim to college where he and another of the country girls develop a relationship and he learns of Antonia’s troubles. Finally, we are left with a view of Antonia, her many children, and her farm.

Country girls: “…I can remember something unusual and engaging about each of them. Physically they were almost a race apart, and out-of-door work had given them a vigor which, when they got over their first shyness on coming to town, developed into a positive carriage and freedom of movement, and made them conspicuous among Black Hawk women.” Vs. Town girls: “When one danced with them, their bodies never moved inside their clothes; their muscles seemed to ask but one thing – not to be disturbed. I remember those girls merely as faces in the schoolroom, gay and rosy, or listless and dull, cut off below the shoulders, like cherubs…” This country girl appreciates those descriptions.

Cather has a way of describing the landscape that makes you almost taste it. “Trees were so rare in that country, and they had to make such a hard fight to grow, that we used to feel anxious about them, and visit them as if they were persons. It must have been the scarcity of detail in that tawny landscape that made detail so precious.” It has the melancholy texture of home. There are certain smells, plants, and sounds that instantly transport me to my youth. There is a feeling about the place one grows up that is hard to describe. There is a love that wells up that is not attached to an explicit memory but exists in some larger connection with a place and its people.

But there is also the tension of success. There is the idea that leaving and making your way is success, while staying home is a compromise. For someone like me who never wants to live in the home of my youth again, there is also the struggle of infusing your new life with the things of your past that were special to you. There is the urge to move forward, while not forgetting. It is something I think Cather shows us through the immigrants – those who wish to assimilate completely, those who wish to maintain their old life, and those who need to find a balance between the two. For me it was extremely powerful and evoked thoughts that I had not been able to fully form before – and this is the reason I read.

And finally, on Antonia: “Antonia had always been one to leave images in the mind that did not fade – that grew stronger with time. In my memory there was a succession of such pictures, fixed there like the old woodcuts of one’s first primer: Antonia kicking her bare legs against the sides of my pony when we came home in triumph with our snake; Antonia in her black shawl and fur cap, as she stood by her father’s grave in the snowstorm; Antonia coming in with her work-team along the evening sky-line. She lent herself to immemorial human attitudes which we recognize by instinct as universal and true. I had not been mistaken. She was a battered woman now, not a lovely girl; but she still had that something which fires the imagination, could still stop one’s breath for a moment by a look or gesture that somehow revealed the meaning in common things. She had only to stand in the orchard, to put her hand on a little crab tree and look up at the apples, to make you feel the goodness of planting and tending and harvesting at last. All the strong things of her heart came out in her body, that had been so tireless in serving generous emotions. It was no wonder that her sons stood tall and straight. She was a rich mine of life, like the founders of early races.”

To Weave a Web of Magic

Good collection of four romantic fantasy novellas.

The Gorgon in the Cupboard by Patricia McKillip – A painter is inspired by a talking painting and a new muse. This was entertaining, and there were a few quirky things I liked, but overall nothing special. **

The Tale of Two Swords by Lynn Kurland – A young boy’s parents read him a story of love and adventure which tells the lives of a renegade horse breeder’s daughter and an ousted prince. Interestingly framed narrative. ***

Fallen Angel by Sharon Shinn – A spoiled young girl falls for a rebellious angel. This is part of her Samaria series, which I love, and it didn’t disappoint. ****

An Elegy for Melusine by Claire Delacroix – A reworking of the myth of Melusine, the serpent fairy. I thoroughly enjoyed this one as well, though I can’t quite place why – nice mood to it I guess. ****

Phew, I think I have finally caught up on reviews.

I now want to read My Antonia. Thanks for the review!

>139 janemarieprice: really lovely, you took me there for those paragraphs. I liked O! Pioneers well enough and will definitely get to this.

Just want to add my thanks for your review of My Antonia (#139). This was recommended to me by my mentor many years ago and I'd forgotten about it until I read your comments. Time to put it back on my reading list.

142 - 144 - Thanks guys. It is certainly the best thing I've read this year (ok, maybe tied with As I Lay Dying). I went out and bought O! Pioneers this weekend.

Starting to prep the Thanksgiving menu (looking like the theme will be dips and sauces), so I’m going through my cookbooks, and there are two new ones that need reviews:

Nicaraguan Cooking: My Grandmother's Recipes by Trudy Espinoza-Adams

A good overview of classic Nicaraguan dishes with some overlap of general Latin American cuisine. The first recipe I’ll try will be Nacatamales which are larger tamales with more ingredient usually eaten for breakfast. They are also a time consuming and difficult dish so wish me luck.

Bobby Flay's Boy Meets Grill: With More Than 125 Bold New Recipes by Bobby Flay

The magic is in the sauces with this book. Many of the cooking techniques are the same so it’s the dry rubs, seasonings, sauces, etc that make the meals.

The Barefoot Book: 50 Great Reasons to Kick Off Your Shoes by Daniel Howell

Disclaimer #1: I am a barefoot person. My whole family is barefoot most of the time (parents, sisters, uncles, aunts, cousins, etc.). As a child it was hell trying to keep me in shoes. For Mardi Gras, two of my uncles kick off their shoes as soon as the plane lands and don’t put them back on until they leave. This is my background, so I am not a hard sell on this particular topic.

Disclaimer #2: When I received the book, the first thing I noticed was that the author is a professor at Liberty University. I admit this gave me pause, but I tried not to let it influence my reading. However, I can’t say that I didn’t think about it while reading.

So, I first heard about the rise in popularity in going barefoot in New York Magazine a few years ago*, and I was thrilled. I hate wearing shoes. I never wear them at home; I take them off at the office, to climb the stairs to my apartment, to walk in the park, etc. The impetus for the article as well as the book, is that there is a lot of research going on right now as to the health effects going barefoot/wearing shoes. It is a fascinating concept, unfortunately the book relies heavily on anecdotes and observations, rather than research. It also makes the mistake of ignoring contrary evidence instead of taking an honest look at differing opinions. The most interesting aspect of this type of research for me is the amount of sensory information the nerves in your feet impart to the brain while walking – this lead to softer heel strike and better grip, etc. Unfortunately, this was glossed over in one page.

I think the book was written from the point of view of trying to convert people to going barefoot more often; however, it becomes extremely repetitive and for me seems ineffective at this. There are also a few tricky things going on. For instance, the author makes the claim that there are no health codes or laws in any state which require you to wear shoes in businesses and restaurants. While this is true, any place of business is a private enterprise which can make any rules about dress code it wishes. While they don’t legally have to require shoes, they can if they want to. Therefore, I can’t recommend this even though I agree with the basic premise.

* This article is worth taking a look at if only for the amazing body painting of feet to look like shoes.

Note: I received this book through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

>138 janemarieprice:: janepriceestrada,

Interesting connection between The Last Day of the Condemned Man and The Stranger. Did Camus have a humanitarian agenda in his book as well?

147 - No, I don't think he was making any kind of moral argument. That's not to say its immoral (maybe amoral). The connection for me was more that they both seemed to use an 'everyman' type convention in order to speak to a larger idea. And that both stepped back from the act of the crime in a way to focus more on the mental process.

Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy edited by Dana Stabenow

Sequel to Powers of Detection, these are twelve more fantasy and sci-fi mysteries. While not individually so spectacular, they were quite enjoyable as a whole.

Lucky by Charlaine Harris – This has successfully convinced me not to read the Sookie Stackhouse series. A bit too silly, too much clothes, hair, and makeup talk. **

Bogieman by Carole Nelson Douglas – A Humphrey Bogart simulation is killed in a Las Vegas resort. Somewhat interesting. ***

Looks Are Deceiving by Michael A. Stackpole – A wizard helps save the life of a duke from his own family. Fast-paced. ***

The House of Seven Spirits by Sharon Shinn – A divorcee moves into a haunted house. Cute, though the mystery was lacking. ****

Glamour by Mike Doogan – A peasant finds himself unwittingly dealing with magic and its costs. Good idea, but the writing was a little too affected for my tastes. ***

Spellbound by Donna Andrews – An apprentice must help her tutor discover who killed a professor at the school. I quite enjoyed this second story set in the Westmarch College of Magical Studies and will seek more out. ****

The Duh Vice by Michael Armstrong – Strange story about an semi-apocalyptic future and an energy device. Entertaining though quite weird. ***

Weight of the World by John Straley – Santa Claus investigates the murder of an elf. Really, really werid. **

Illumination by Laura Anne Gilman – A girl must use her magical abilities to find her father. Quite interesting with good dialog. ****

The House by Laurie R. King – A group of friends investigate a house rumored to be haunted. Really quite spooky and very good. *****

Appetite for Murder by Simon R. Green – Set in his Nightside universe, a detective is on the trail of a serial killer. Mediocre. ***

A Woman’s Work by Dana Stabenow – A seer and swordsman must sit in judgment of a woman accused of infanticide in a male-dominated society. Entertaining, though I wonder if this series might work better in longer form. ****

Whew -- you must have been on a binge!

Other Jane - a bit. A lot of these are just long neglected reviews. The Stranger for instance I read in California over July 4th. I treated myself to a bunch of fantasy anthologies (trying to fill our my Sharon Shinn collection) and have been tearing through them mostly becuase work is stressfull right now.

This great thrift store by my work occasionally has great deals on books. Last week they had paperbacks 2 for $1 and hardbacks for $1. Even though the sign was a crime against grammer ("Soft" covers 2 for $1 - *cringe*), I made a pretty good haul. This is what $11 + tax looks like:

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Stiff: The Curious Life of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach
Race Matters by Cornel West
Writing New York: A Literary Anthology edited by Phillip Lopate
Angelology by Danielle Trussoni
Tomcat in Love by Tim O'Brien
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Reader by Bernhard Schlink
Atonement by Ian McEwan
Seeing by Jose Saramago
Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee
Sula by Toni Morrison
Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
Ines of My Soul by Isabel Allende
Angels and Insects by A. S. Bayatt
Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons
The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger

Woo hoo!

Ahh -- NYC used bookstores -- I think half my library comes from thence -- when I wandered the streets many years ago. Certainly 90% of the books I had to read for my doctorate exams did.

Nice haul, Jane!

What a satisfactory experience to emerge from somewhere with an ample selection of books and money still in your pocket.

Just catching up, Jane. Loved your review of The Road. I didn't much care for it myself, I felt very manipulated. And I love that you have included cookbooks here. I just love seeing what other material people are reading.

Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil by Peter Maass

“The meek shall inherit the Earth, but not the mineral rights.” – J. Paul Getty

With chapters divided by region, Crude World examines the effects of the oil industry on oil-producing states. Each section was very interesting in and of itself, but ultimately it felt like a series of newspaper articles that never really coalesced into a common unit. This combined with the fact that most of the information is neither new nor surprising made it a mediocre read. Here’s some sad but interesting quotes:

Equatorial Guinea: “‘Almost everything has to be imported,’ Paces explained… I pointed to the small rocks that had been lined up to denote the shoulders of a dirt road on the site. ‘Those are local rocks, but importing them would be cheaper.’”

Nigeria: “According to official statistics, between 1976 and 2001, there were, on average, more than five spills a week in Nigeria, but according to unofficial estimates, the true figure could be ten times higher.”

Oriente region, Ecuador: “The first offering from Texaco, in exchange for permission from the Indians to look for oil, was a delivery of bread, cheese, spoons, and plates. (The Indians threw out the cheese because it smelled so peculiar.)”

Moscow, Russia: “I dined at a posh restaurant one evening with a banker who needed, midcourse, to make a business call. He faced a problem because he knew his cell phone was bugged and he assumed mine was, too. So he borrowed a phone from another diner, a total stranger.”

House by Tracy Kidder

“The art of civilization is the act of drawing lines.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

In House, we follow the process of building a typical architect-designed American home from initial design phases to construction. Now, as an architect, this book drove me crazy. The clients give a friend who is an architect his first commission. The contractor starts working without a contract. The architect does most of the design after the start of construction and then gets upset about changes that happen. The clients force the contractor to reduce the total contract price by $660 (psst…if you do this to a contractor at the start of a job, they aren’t going to be very willing to take care of little things that come up during the course of construction). So, I spent a good bit of my reading time variously cursing under my breath and throwing the book across the room. I had to put it down for several weeks during which work was very stressful for me, and this was only exacerbating it. However, if you are not in the industry I would actually recommend it highly – especially if you are planning on doing any construction/working with an architect. While I didn’t enjoy reading House, I do think it is a very good book.

The book was originally published in 1985, which makes for some interesting foreshadowing of our current housing predicament. For instance, when speaking about borrowing the money for the construction, the wife comments “It’s us against the world, you know.” I think this kind of attitude is part of what got us here. The idea that as an American you are owed a new home by right and any builder/bank/city zoning ordinance that stands in your way is somehow infringing on this right somehow replaced the idea of a new home as a luxury.

Another interesting sort of side issue for me is the New Englandness of the parties involved. It’s amazing to me how attitudes and personalities vary over regions which is something I never really noticed as much until I moved.

The Portable Greek Historians

I read the Herodotus section of this and wanted to share my favorite quotes:

“Now as for the carrying off of women, it is the deed, they say, of a rogue; but to make a stir about such as are carried off, argues a man a fool. Men of sense care nothing for such women, since it is plain that without their own consent they would never be forced away. The Asiatics, when the Greeks ran off with their women, never troubled themselves about the matter; but the Greeks, for the sake of a single Lacedaemonian girl, collected a vast armament, invaded Asia, and destroyed the kingdom of Priam.”

“Now the Persians had with them a man named Scyllias…He had for some time been wishing to go over to the Greeks; but no good opportunity had offered till now…It is said he dived into the sea at Aphetae, and did not once come to the surface till he reached Artemisium, a distance of nearly eighty furlongs. Now many things are related of this man which are plainly false; but some of the stories seem to be true. My own opinion is that on this occasion he made the passage to Artemisium in a boat.”

“Nothing mortal travels so fast as these Persian messengers. The entire plan is a Persian invention; and this is the method of it. Along the whole line of road there are men (they say) stationed with horses, in number equal to the number of days which the journey takes, allowing a man and horse to each day; and these men will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night.”

Elemental: The Tsunami Relief Anthology: Stories of Science Fiction and Fantasy edited by Steven Savile and Alethea Kontis

A couple of stinkers, but overall it had some really nice stories.

Report from the Near Future: Crystallization by David Gerrold – A story of the natural disaster-like consequences of completely stalled L.A. traffic. Very fun. *****

And Tomorrow and by Adam Roberts – A lawyerly interpretation of the witches of Macbeth’s prophesies. Also very entertaining. ****

Abductio ad Absurdum by Esther M. Friesner – A silly tale of a botched abduction. **

In the Matter of Fallen Angels by Jacqueline Carey – Very nice bit about an angel falling in a small town. ****

Tiger in the Night by Brian Aldiss – A three page kind of pomo thing. **

The strange case of Jared Spoon, who went to pieces for love. by Stel Pavlou – Really funny bit about a girlfriends strange gifts. ****

The Solipsist at Dinner by Larry Niven – Bad philosophy. **

The Wager by Kinley MacGregor – A Lords of Avalon story focusing on Sir Thomas Malory. ***

Expedition, with Recipes by Joe Haldeman – Interesting post apocalyptic tale about a group of children. ***

Tough Love 3001 by Juliet Marillier – An alien writing group rebels against the teacher’s use of genre fiction. Very funny. ****

Chanting the Violent Dog Down: A Tale of Noreela by Tim Lebbon – Nice fantasy about a Mourner finding an empty town. ****

Butterflies Like Jewels by Eric Nylund – Interesting bit about multiple dimensions and power. ***

Perfection by Lynn Flewelling – Loved this story of a designer building a magnificent palace for a cruel tyrant. *****

The Compound by Michael Marshall Smith – Odd dual tale of a boy nursing his sick mother and a political rebel’s escape from capture. ***

Sea Child: A Tale of Dune by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson – I can see why people hate these new Dune books. Takes itself entirely too seriously. *

Moebius Trip by Janny Wurts – A strange woman commissions a retired gentleman to make a scrying mirror. ***

The Run to Hardscrabble Station by William C. Dietz – Military sci-fi, an ambush, not really my thing. *

The Last Mortal Man by Syne Mitchell – Media follow the death of the last man who has chosen to remain mortal. ***

The Double-Edged Sword by Sharon Shinn – A noblewoman asks a fortuneteller for her help, in doing so brings up the fortuneteller’s past. ***

Night of the Dolls by Sean Williams and Shane Dix – A group of incorporeal beings are given form to attend a party. Interesting look at excesses of the flesh. ***

The Potter’s Daughter by Martha Wells – Entertaining story about a balladeer wanting to tell the story of a half fae woman. ****

The Day of Glory by David Drake – Another military sci-fi about recruiting a town for a battle. *

Sea Air by Nina Kiriki Hoffman – Strange story about a boy discovering he is some sort of sea creature. **

>158 janemarieprice:: janepriceestrada,

Re: House by Tracy Kidder

Have you read Production of Houses by Alexander? I've always wondered what people in the industry think about his ideas.

>158 janemarieprice: we have a "New Englandness"? :-)

161 - I haven't read that in particular, but I've read a good bit of A Pattern Language which is the more 'architecty' of his volumes. While I think there are some good things there, I find the execution of New Urbanism to be pretty poor and the motivations behind it fairly questionable.

162 - I think all places have a kind of character of the people, but yes, New England I have noticed small things since I moved here that are different than what I was used to. In particular, everything is planned. There's a lot of pop-ins the south - don't find that here. :)

Farmer Jane: Women Changing the Way We Eat by Temra Costa

I was impressed with the range of this book. Not only does Costa discuss female farmers, but also organizers of CSA’s, people advocating for farmer workers rights, preservers of native varietals and recipes, and restaurateurs. Aside from the interesting narratives of these women’s’ lives and work, there was also a lot of information and resources for those interested in getting more involved with local food production. In particular, I signed up for Slow Food’s newsletters.

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Where Good Ideas Come From: The Natural History of Innovation by Steven Johnson

Johnson posits that the key to progressive innovation is fostering environments where ideas can intermingle. That having lots of ideas bumping up against one another is when meaningful connections are made. He gives some anecdotal evidence of this which are all very interesting and quite readable. I particularly liked the description of innovation as the ‘slow hunch’ rather than the eureka moment – the idea being that you make a particular connection, it comes up from time to time, and eventually all the pieces slide into place. Overall it was an easy read with some interesting information but nothing that bowled me over.

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

>165 janemarieprice:
I may find my way to this one. Reminds me of Isaac Asimov: "The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not 'Eureka!' ('I have found it!'), but 'That's funny...' "

I really like that Asimov quote too - I heard it on a Radiolab podcast, I think.

165: janepriceestrada,

My favorite description of the "Eureka moment" is from What Mad Pursuit by Francis Crick, the co-discoverer of DNA structure.

"It is not easy to convey, unless one has experienced it, the dramatic feeling of sudden enlightenment that floods the mind when the right idea finally clicks into place. One immediately sees how many previously puzzling facts are neatly explained by the new hypothesis. One could kick oneself for not having the idea earlier, it now seems so obvious. Yet before, everything was in a fog."

"Slow hunch" and "eureka moment" are not necessarily mutually exclusive. Perhaps it's like giving birth to a child. The slow hunch is the pregnancy period, and eureka is the moment of birth.

166 - Love that comment.

168 - I think that is a better description of Johnson's theory. The 'eureka moment' being more of all the pieces snapping into place, rather than a spontaneously generated full-formed idea.

Mistorn Trilogy by Brandon Sanderson

I really enjoyed this series; great epic fantasy. Set in a world of ash and mist, where some people, “Mistings”, can ‘burn’ metals that give them various abilities – pushing/pulling on metals, affecting peoples’ emotions, heightening senses, etc. The world is ruled by the vague personality of the Lord Ruler who controls a caste of nobility and the skaa or serf population. Sanderson’s world building and magic systems are (like most of his work from what I understand) quite brilliant.

Note: Some spoilers in the reviews for the second and third volumes.

Mistborn

Vin, a street urchin of a sort, falls in with a crime syndicate who have accepted a job attempting to overthrow the Lord Ruler. What follows is a sort of epic fantasy caper novel. Very entertaining.

The Well of Ascension

As with most trilogies, this is the weakest of the three. I found most of the plot backloaded in the book, with the beginning dealing a lot with Vin and Elend’s waffling on their relationship.

The Hero of Ages

The dramatic conclusion. The focus shifts to include several of the minor characters as main characters which I quite enjoyed. Also the extent of the world mythology and the magic system are very complexly explored without getting into too many info dumps.

Rome Antics by David Macaulay

Macaulay is a children’s book writer, trained originally as an architect. He has some wonderful series on different building types with phenomenal drawings. This volume is about a carrier pigeon’s journey through Rome – visiting many of the historic sites. My favorite part is the appendix which has historical and architectural details of the various sites – I’ve never understood why some children’s books/programs gloss over things assuming they are ‘too advanced’ for them to understand.

You can see a great video of Macaulay working on his website. And here is an image from Rome Antics:

The Mom and Pop Store: True Stories from the Heart of America by Robert Spector

Rather than being a history or study of small family-owned businesses, The Mom and Pop Store is more a loose collection of anecdotes and profiles of various businesses. Spector writes with passion about his subject with a healthy dose of his own personal experiences, but, unfortunately, his attempts at tying all of these different people, businesses, and themes together never quite makes it. Not a bad read by any means, but I wouldn’t particularly recommend it either.

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Rome Antics sounds great; will have to get it before I go to Rome again (whenever that may be).

Jane, I'm curious to get your take on Where We Know: New Orleans As Home; I started reading it yesterday.

Loved it. I want to browse through it a second time before I write my review though.

>171 janemarieprice: fabulous visual perspective! But did you feel very dizzy while reading? I've been eyeing his Built to Last about castles, cathedrals, mosques.

176 - Ooh, I forgot that part in the review. All the drawings are from the bird's point of a view, though most are not as upside downy as that one. His other books are really nice as well. We want to get the whole set for my niece eventually.

This is going to be long…

Where We Know: New Orleans As Home by David Rutledge

First let me say that the book itself is beautiful (typical of Chin Music Press from what I understand). It is the book as art object – letterpress cover, lovely illustrations, full color images where needed. Now, while this would be nice in and of itself, it is less impressive if the content is weak.

Fortunately, the content in this anthology is superb. The articles vary in style, outlook, and topic and are interspersed with beautiful quotations from a number of people. It truly is a excellent representation of the city. There are historical accounts – at the sale of Louisiana to the US people in the city were very worried that it would never be the same – which reflect nicely many of the current fears about the city’s future. The work is touching, sad, infuriating, and joyful. What follows is a selection of the pieces that touched me.

“I tell ‘em, I tell ‘em all the time, Goddamn right we’re coming back, ‘cause we don’t like y’all food and we hate y’all music.”
– Terence Blanchard

“It is not an easy thing to describe one’s first impression of New Orleans; for while it actually resembles no other city upon the face of the earth, yet it recalls vague memories of a hundred cities.”
– Lafcadio Hearn, 1877

“I would like to tell the story of my city. I would like to do so in simple, declarative sentences. I would like my narrative to be neat and linear, like I learned in school and on television.”
- Still Live, with Voices by Lolis Eric Elie

This was a wonderful piece using the many voices of the city, – French, African, Spanish, Irish, German, American, etc. – and the way that the voices of the many within each of us compete and overlap.

“I am in New Orleans and I am trying to proclaim something I have found here and that I think American wants and needs. There is something left in this people here that makes them like one another, that leads to constant outbursts of the spirit of play, that keeps them from being too confoundedly serious about death and the ballot and reform and other less important things in life.”
– Sherwood Anderson, 1922

When We Make a Feast: Food as Prayer at the New Orleans Table by Reggie J. Poché describes the St. Joseph’s altar of his aunt. A loving memory of how food connects us – even when we aren’t eating it.

Tattooing Katrina by Rebecca Freeland-Hebert catalogs the tattoos people received after the storm and their reasons for getting them. She posits that there is an element of the spiritual in these. I found it to be more about closure.

“Standing outside the Walgreen’s
with a stone in my hand
Standing outside with a stone in my hand
I ask myself will Jesus understand?”
- What Would Jesus Do? by Chris Thomas King on the CD Rise

In the Brown Zone With Mother Cabrini by Mark Folse is a touch account of Folse showing his daughter the inside of St. Francis Cabrini Catholic Church which his father designed. Like many other churches, the Catholic Church mostly abandoned the structure, leaving it uncleaned and fenced off. It has sense been sold to a school which plans to tear it down.

“‘I was a symbol. I am still a Symbol in my ghostliness.
I betoken the old-fashioned life of the Pelican State
that is passing away. I represent the quaintness that
is dying out, and the antiquated thing that shall soon
become as ghostly as myself. The old city is becoming
Americanized; and I am glad that I am dead.’”
- The Pelican’s Ghose by Lafcadio Hearn, 1880

“I hope to die in my sleep, when the time comes, and I hope it will be in the beautiful big brass bed in my New Orleans apartment…”
– Tennessee Williams, 1972

“Once again, New Orleans is the only city that ever loved me back. When I was in the dome, I knew why: our people.
– Ashley Morris, Sept. 27, 2006 after the Saints return to the city.

Ashley was a professor, political activist, and blogger. John Goodman’s character in Treme is largely based on Morris. He spoke to the profound anger so many felt, yet did not know how to express or if it was appropriate to express such a feeling. He died in 2008, in a hotel room in Florida, alone – one of the thousands of young and middle age people who died of ‘natural causes’ in astonishingly larger numbers after the storm (this does not include the many others who too their own lives or were killed in acts of violence). What follows Morris’s account of the Saints return to the Dome is In My Home Over There by Ray Shea, a beautiful account of an impromptu to-go Dooky Chase lunch he had with Morris at the Lafitte Projects shortly before they were torn down.

This volume is highly recommended.

Note: I received this through LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

Excellent review, Jane! I just finished it yesterday, and I loved it as well.

179 - Thanks!

Finished up the holiday card this weekend (drawing by my husband). Hope ya'll have a good one!



This is a very sad one for me. This was a beautiful old cypress church in my hometown - one of the oldest buildings in the town (1892). In November it was completely destroyed by a fire. Here is a what it looked like:



More pictures, including the interior

And after the fire:

What a pity. Such a beautiful church, inside and out. I'm not much of a connoisseur of church architecture, but it must have been a wonderful experience to be in this one.

Spent a little time reviewing my reading for the year. Some statistics:

Going to be 71 books total

50 fiction, 22 nonfiction

19 fantasy/sci-fi
2 graphic novels
3 cookbooks
8 novellas
9 anthologies
1 poetry collection
1 play

12 read for Club Read challenges
2 read in Le Salon

41 male authors, 22 female
12 non-American

A la citygirl’s cover contest, here are my favorites:

The Faulkner’s Light in August, As I Lay Dying, The Sound and the Fury
The Craftsman by Richard Sennett
The Last Day of a Condemned Man by Victor Hugo
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
Crude World: The Violent Twilight of Oil by Peter Maass
Rome Antics by David Macaulay
Where We Know: New Orleans As Home edited by David Rutledge – picture doesn’t really do it justice. It’s beautifully letterpressed with neighborhood names.

Very striking selection, jane. The Last Day of a Condemned Man and Mariette in Ecstatsy particularly so.

The cover for Rome Antics gets my vote.

So it looks like this is going to be it for the year…not going to finish The Brothers Karamazov today. Couple of outstanding reviews. I blazed through and finished Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series. In general not really recommended. First few aren’t bad, but the middle really slogs down – full of long speeches of terrible philosophy.

Naked Empire – By far the worst in the series. Mostly different characters giving long, long sermons which would be bad enough but becomes unbearable since I disagree completely.

Chainfire – The series ends with a trilogy in which Kahlan is somehow erased from everyone’s memory but Richard. This first book is spent trying to determine what happened to her. More action in these and less speeches, but still the series is drawn out too long.

Phantom – Second book of the ending trilogy. Plotwise, like most middle books of a trilogy – mostly unnecessary. A lot of bringing together many plot points in preparation for the finale.

Confessor – The final book of the series sees the characters put into some of the more impossible situations. Very glad to be done with these.

While stuck in Salt Lake City for more time than I was supposed to be (stupid snow storms), my sister-in-law loaned me The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor. Princess Alyss Hart confides the story of her Aunt Redd’s revolt and capture of Alyss’s country and her subsequent exile to a deacon in our world. But when he publishes her story as a fanciful fairy tale, Alyss is distraught. Will she ever be able to return to her home of Wonderland and regain her throne? I highly enjoyed this Alice in Wonderland reimagining and plan to read the two follow up volumes. Highly recommended for YA fantasy fans and those who like retold stories.

Also wanted to include a couple sci-fi short stories read through DailyLit.

Dhuluma No More by Gord Sellar - A documentarian is following an activist group when they sabotage a company that regulates climate, and he is forced to play the PR role in the act. Interesting format.

8264602::Bare, Forked Animal by John Alfred Taylor - In a world completely regulated by technology, an actor’s chip fails. He can no longer enter his room, no one can see him, he is arrested as an intruder. Funny take on heavy reliance on technology.

Turbulence by Kristine Kathryn Rusch – On a plane flight, the woman sitting next to a passenger predicts turbulence. Odd story that I’m not sure I understood the point of.

The Lonesome Planet Travelers' Advisory by Tim McDaniel - Alien visitation guidelines pamphlet. Very funny.

Kin by Bruce McAllister – A boy hires an alien assassin to keep sister safe and forms a bond at the same time. Ok.

Also some kind soul gave us a subscription to New York Magazine (still not sure who). I’ll try to link to some of the more interesting bits in each issues. Jan 3-10 issue:

The Trouble With Liberty - A profile of Libertarians in the US. I’m even more scared now than I was.

The always wonderful Where to Eat. Bottom line – hit Chef’s Table at Brooklyn Fare, Recette, ABC Kitchen, Eataly, and Ma Peche.

An Architectural Plan: What to do with the Whitney’s building after its art moves downtown.

Still Booming - a profile of Mexican author Carlos Fuentes

Well, that's all. Come join me in 2011.