BOTNS: Winning Reads 2017

It's so difficult to let go of my favorite podcast when they string me along like this. Ann Kingman and Michael Kindness send a monthly email to their faithful followers with a book recommendation from each. Here is what we have this month:

 A Really Good Day by Ayelet Waldman

In A Really Good Day, Ayelet Waldman writes about her experimentation with micro-dosing LSD in an effort to cure her debilitating mood swings that had been difficult to control with conventional psychiatric medicine. Micro-dosing (taking a tiny amount of LSD every few days) does not give the kinds of psychadelic effects that we tend to associate with LSD, and Waldman explains, with the help of experts, the history of LSD and its potential uses that may never be made available because of governmental regulations about research.

This is also a memoir of how Waldman's marriage (to novelist Michael Chabon, though she never names him in the book) was strained by her mood disorder, and how her experiment with LSD may be the thing that saves it.

This book is truly fascinating and, I confess, had me wondering for a moment if maybe I knew a guy...

I love that Kingman, before introducing the book, prefaces with this:

I debated whether or not to include this book in our prize package, since I don't know the winners personally and I didn't want them to think that I was advocating for the use of illegal drugs. But in the end, I loved it so much, and it's not really about illegal drug use in the standard way, and most readers are open minded, so here we are.

She is sensitive to her readers, but also acknowledges our reading maturity, ability to decide for ourselves, and in general, gives us the power to choose. That is respect. Thanks, Ann.

Kindness is next with this suggestion:

The Most Dangerous Place on Earth by Lindsay Lee Johnson

Though I think The Most Dangerous Place on Earth had its title early on, the plot was a mystery to me. That's a good thing because I think if I had known what it was about beforehand, I might not have read it. And that would have been a shame.

Lindsey Lee Johnson's debut novel is the story of a group of teens at a high school in affluent Marin County, CA. At first, the characters appear to fit into the usual high school stereotypes: the A-student, the athlete, the bad-boy screwup, the once-popular, now-ostracized girl. But in this novel, no one is quite what they seem, making them all the more real.

But back to why I wouldn't have wanted to read it if I'd known the plot. At the heart of the story is Tristan Bloch, a shy outcast and the target of online bullying. As a parent, the tragedies of this book were nearly too much to bear. But Lindsey Lee Johnson's writing makes this book worth the pain.

Again, a simple yet poignant warning to the reader that this will not be an easy journey, especially if you are a parent. However, if you choose to, you may just be a better person for it.  

And with that, you can see why I still miss this weekly podcast from these two exceptional readers. I have downloaded both of these, and added to my TBR. Let me know what you decide!

Coming across my desk are two new ones!

I await two new review copies from authors I adore. I received confirmation yesterday and today that they are coming, one electronically and the other in hardcover (!).

"small great things" by Jodi Picoult.

Summary:

Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient. The parents are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene?

Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy. Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family—especially her teenage son—as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others—and themselves—might be wrong.

With incredible empathy, intelligence, and candor, Jodi Picoult tackles race, privilege, prejudice, justice, and compassion—and doesn’t offer easy answers. Small Great Things is a remarkable achievement from a writer at the top of her game.

You can read an excerpt here. "small great things" will be released October 11, 2016 by Ballantine Books.

The second, and the hardcover, is the latest by Herman Koch. I adored his "The Dinner", and can't wait to read "Dear Mr. M". This book was released yesterday.

Summary:

Mr M is being watched. As a famous writer, he is no stranger to the limelight, although interest in his work has been dwindling of late. His print runs are smaller than they used to be, and so are the crowds at his bookshop signings. But there is someone still interested in Mr M and keeping an extremely close eye on him—someone whose own story bears more than a passing resemblance to the plot of Mr M’s bestselling thriller, in which a teacher has an affair with a student, only to be brutally murdered by the girl and her teenage boyfriend. In Mr M’s book, the body is never found—but in real life, bodies have an awkward habit of turning up.

Listen to or read an interview with Herman Koch about the book here.

Stay tuned for my reviews of these two!

Man Booker Long List Announced

 

I am a few weeks late on this, but the Man Booker long list was announced at the end of July. It is a list of 13 books, and the short list will be announced September 15. The judges chose this list from a total list of 156 books.

The nationality is listed this year because, for the second time in the history of the Man Booker Prize, the prize is open to any nationality. Normally, it is a very British list, open only to UK & Commonwealth, Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe. As you can see, the US is well represented!

Author (nationality) - Title (imprint)
Bill Clegg (US) - Did You Ever Have a Family
Anne Enright (Ireland) - The Green Road
Marlon James (Jamaica) - A Brief History of Seven Killings
Laila Lalami (US) - The Moor's Account
Tom McCarthy (UK) - Satin Island
Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria) - The Fishermen
Andrew O’Hagan (UK) - The Illuminations
Marilynne Robinson (US) - Lila            
Anuradha Roy (India) - Sleeping on Jupiter
Sunjeev Sahota (UK) - The Year of the Runaways
Anna Smaill (New Zealand) - The Chimes
Anne Tyler (US) - A Spool of Blue Thread
Hanya Yanagihara (US) - A Little Life

On a side note, the list of 13 books is called The Man Booker Dozen. I love that!

So, pull out your TBR, and get ready to add some books.

Look at this haul!!

I love Book Mail!! I have been on an ordering spree lately (in honor of National Library Week, of course), and it is finally starting to arrive. Allow me to summarize!

First, I have been listening to the podcast Books On The Nightstand with Michael Kindness and Ann Kingman. In podcast BOTNS #326: April Showers Bring More Questions, Michael answers a question on Batman graphic novels. Realizing that I own NO graphic novels, and listening to his answer with interest, I decided to buy the four that he summarized. Please listen to this podcast to hear, and get ready to make your own purchase!

Next, we have two books by a favorite author, Ann Patchett: Bel Canto and Patron Saint of Liars. Patron Saint was my first Patchett book, and the one that caused me to fall in love with her writing. Bel Canto is a favorite of all time of mine, and I order copies often so I can give them away to friends who not yet discovered this masterpiece. A bonus: if you buy from Parnassus Books in Nashville, which is co-owned by Ann, ALL of her books are signed!!

The last book in today's haul is a quirky book called Severance by Robert Glen Butler. I saw this book years ago on a cart at Books-a-Million, and didn't buy it. I have wanted it ever since, and when I saw it available from Half Price Books online, I jumped at it. Read the summary of this one on the Shelfari site here.

Lastly, I ordered a Mad Hatter V-neck t-shirt. A reader can never have too many bookish clothes!!

Gotta run and get reading!!

Reading list for August

Let's see if I can get my act together and pull together a reading list for this month. That will give me some good structure for an otherwise fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants reading.

Here are books to read for my Wednesday night book club:

1. The Giver by Lois Lowry
2. Mr. Rosenblum Dreams in English by Natasha Solomons
3. Not To Disturb by Muriel Spark
4. Keep Quiet by Lisa Scottoline
5. The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
6. Dolci di Love by Sarah-Kate Lynch

Here are books I need to read for my Bibliophile Reading Challenge (which ends at the end of August):

1. Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
2. Detour #6 on the Challenge (still to be announced)

Books that have caught my eye:

1. The Ice Cream Queen of Orchard Street by Susan Jane Gilman
2. Death of a Red Heroine by Qiu Xiaolong

That is 10 books, and I think that is very doable!

...and all of the sudden, BAM! It's everwhere!

I have seen this book pop up a lot lately. It's on reading lists, displays at bookstores, and on blogs.

Here is the summary:

From bestselling author Meg Wolitzer a dazzling, panoramic novel about what becomes of early talent, and the roles that art, money, and even envy can play in close friendships. The summer that Nixon resigns, six teenagers at a summer camp for the arts become inseparable. Decades later the bond remains powerful, but so much else has changed.

In The Interestings, Wolitzer follows these characters from the height of youth through middle age, as their talents, fortunes, and degrees of satisfaction diverge. The kind of creativity that is rewarded at age fifteen is not always enough to propel someone through life at age thirty; not everyone can sustain, in adulthood, what seemed so special in adolescence.

Jules Jacobson, an aspiring comic actress, eventually resigns herself to a more practical occupation and lifestyle. Her friend Jonah, a gifted musician, stops playing the guitar and becomes an engineer. But Ethan and Ash, Jules’s now-married best friends, become shockingly successful—true to their initial artistic dreams, with the wealth and access that allow those dreams to keep expanding.

The friendships endure and even prosper, but also underscore the differences in their fates, in what their talents have become and the shapes their lives have taken. Wide in scope, ambitious, and populated by complex characters who come together and apart in a changing New York City, The Interestings explores the meaning of talent; the nature of envy; the roles of class, art, money, and power; and how all of it can shift and tilt precipitously over the course of a friendship and a life.

Sounds interesting, but it makes me wonder ... why all the buzz? What sets this one apart? I would say it's advertising, product placement and promotion. For example, the New York Times Best Seller list reports book sales at stores specializing in selling books. That counts out WalMart, Sam's Club, and Costco, as well as other department stores which offer books. As another blogger points out, when it comes to pure sales in the short term, books that are well advertised and noticeable (i.e., placed in store windows or up front in separate book stands) have a much higher chance of landing on a bestseller list. Prominent book reviews (both good and bad) and the number of retailers involved in selling the book also determine its success.

The ultimate question is whether or not I will read it. Yes, probably. I am nothing if not a sucker for what's popular!

February Planned Reading

January was a pretty good month for reading. Here is a quick recap of my read books:

• The Handmaid's Tale by Atwood - 5 looks
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Chbosky - 5 looks
• Three from Galilee by Holmes - 5 looks
• The Magician's Nephew by Lewis - 4 looks
• The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Christie - 3 looks
• Unwind by Shusterman - 3 looks
• UnWholly by Shusterman - 4 looks
• Every Day by Levithan - 4 looks
• The Traveler's Gift - 2 looks
• The Rook by James - 3 looks
• The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Christie - 2 looks
• Life As We Knew It by Pfeffer - 5 looks
• Mistress of the Art of Death by Franklin - 3 looks
• The Edible Woman by Atwood - 2 looks

 

Far more books than I expected, as I started the month with a reading goal of seven. Yay, me!

 

Here is my tentative list for the LOVE month of February:

• Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
• My Enemy's Cradle by Sara Young
• Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
• Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker
• Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
• Living Dead in Dallas by Charlaine Harris

 

So, that is eight books on deck for me, subject to change, of course. I will add an Agatha Christie to this list once my F2F bookclub decides which one to read next.

 

Happy reading!

January Planned Reading

Because I am in two book clubs, one online and one face-to-face, plus in the middle of the Bibliophile Winter Reading Challenge, I need to map out my January reads. Subject to change, of course. ha!

The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood (BOTM)
Three From Galilee by Marjorie Holmes (F2F Bookclub)
Unwind and UnWholly by Neal Shusterman (BOTM)
Every Day by David Levithan (BOTM)
The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie (F2F Bookclub)
The Perks of Being a Wallflower Stephen Chbosky (Winter Reading Challenge)

That is 7 books for the month, and should be VERY doable.

A kick in the pants!

I posted over on Bibliophile's "What are you reading for December" page:

Ugh. Okay, remember that post of mine above? Well, not one thing has changed. I still have to finish The Handmaiden and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg and Two from Galilee by Margorie Holmes.

Then I need to read The Spellman Files for the discussion.

AND I just started a book my dad gave me for Christmas: The Christmas Train by David Baldacci.

Is it too late to say, "Bah! Humbug!"?

This was Vonnie's reply:

My read-a-thon has begun today over at my blog. Maybe this can help you push yourself with your reads?

So, I am going to take Vonnie up on her "nudge" and do it! This is what I need to finish for the year:

The Handmaiden and the Carpenter by Elizabeth Berg
Two from Galilee by Margorie Holmes
The Christmas Train by David Baldacci
Lastly, I want to start and finish The Spellman Files by Lisa Lutz

Can I do it? Sure!!
 

Next three books in book club

My Wednesday night book group members were tasked with bringing at least one recommendation for our next book.

You know how that goes. One woman brought the book. Two ladies brought 2 suggestions each and two ladies came empty-handed. In the end, we had set our next three books. ha!

I love to be around readers!

Here are our next three books:
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer - I've read this one, but it was way back in the summer of 2009. I gave it 4 stars. Here is my review:
This book started slowly for me. However, once I truly entered the worlds of Juliet, Dawsey, Amelia and Elizabeth...I was enamored. And to feel these two worlds, nee, three worlds, come together was as sweet to me as any freshly plucked fruit. Presented as letters, telling the story of people, relationships, situations and war...my trip to Guernsey was a lovely one.

Dogwood by Chris Fabry - I had seen this one on the Christy Awards list, but didn't know anything about it. Summary:
In the small town of Dogwood, West Virginia, Karin has buried her shattered dreams by settling for a faithful husband whose emotional distance from her deep passions and conflicts leaves her isolated. Loaded with guilt, she tries to raise three small children and "do life" the best she can. Will returns to Dogwood intent on pursuing the only woman he has ever loved--only to find there is far more standing in his way than lost years in prison. The secrets of Will and Karin's past begin to emerge through Danny Boyd, a young boy who wishes he hadn't survived the tragedy that knit those two together as well as tore them apart. The trigger that will lay their pain bare and force them to face it rather than flee is the unlikely figure of Ruthie Bowles, a withered, wiry old woman who leads Karin so deep into her anger against God that it forces unexpected consequences.

Book of Dreams by Davis Bunn - This is the same author as our first book, The Book of Hours. It is telling how much we enjoyed that book to add another by the same author so soon. The summary on Shelfari is sparse:

A dream interpreter is thrown into a world of espionage and danger when she inherits a book that unleashes the power of her gift.

Doesn't it sound good?

This group sets the reading pace based on the book. We decide initially how much we will read for the next week's discussion, then set the next reading amount, etc. It is so amusing to see how far we all get before someone throws out "Let's just finish it!" haha! More often than not, someone in the group has already finished it because she just couldn't put it down. We decided Guernsey would be a one-week read. :)

These will be a great couple of months for the group!

New books to my TBR

What is WRONG with me?! I should have been on my way home yesterday afternoon after running a few errands. But NO! I actually backtracked to see if the public library friends store was open. Alas! It was!

The Friends Store is a mess of books. It is literally a MESS of books. It is a building with 3 rooms (looks like a storage building on the outside) with book shelves on each wall and long tables in the middle of each room. The books are stacked 2 deep on the shelves with books on top of the rows and books stacked on the floor. Books on the tables are placed with the spine up (so you can read the title), but then books are stacked on top of these. There are also boxes of books under the tables.

But, if you like scrounging (and I LOVE it), this is the place to go. Books are anywhere from a quarter to $3 (for a really nice, hardcover, recently published book). There are religious, self-help, history, children, young adult, romance, mystery, travel and general fiction. They really do have it all.

I bought eleven books. ELEVEN more books! My total was a whopping $7.25. For eleven books. You can't beat that even at a yard sale.

But, I have just added ELEVEN more books to my self. Woe is me!

Rory Gilmore's Reading List

It's pretty awesome when a television show sparks a list of books as long as "Gilmore Girls" did. I didn't watch this show, so I had no idea that the daughter on the show, Rory, was a voracious reader. There are book clubs out there because of this, and people are still challenging themselves to reading all of the books on the list. Awesome!

The list is below, and I have highlighted those books I have already read. I am a bit disappointed that the titles starting with "The" are in the T-section, but we can't have it all. Overall, I was shamed by the number of books unread. I need to get on the stick!

Enjoy!

The List

• 1984  (George Orwell)
• A Confederacy of Dunces (John Kennedy Toole)
• A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (Dave Eggers)
• Mencken Chrestomathy (H.L. Mencken)
• A Month Of Sundays: Searching For The Spirit And My Sister (Julie Mars)
• A Passage to India (E.M. Forster)
• A Quiet Storm: A Novel (Rachel Howzell Hall)
• A Room of One’s Own (Virginia Woolf)
• A Separate Peace (John Knowles)
• A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (Betty Smith)
• American Tragedy (Theodore Dreiser)
• Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
• Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (Anne Frank)
• Atonement: A Novel (Ian McEwan)
• Autobiography of a Face (Lucy Grealy)
• Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress (Dai Kijie)
• Bee Season (Myla Goldberg)
• Bel Canto (Ann Patchett)
• Beloved (Toni Morrison)
• Beowulf
• Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)
• Brick Lane (Monica Ali)
• Catch-22 (Joseph Heller)
• The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty (Eudora Welty)
• Edgar Allan Poe: Complete Tales & Poems (Edgar Allan Poe)
• Cousin Bette (Honoré de Balzac)
• Crime and Punimensht (Fyodor Dostoyevsky)
• Daisy Miller (Henry James)
• David Copperfield (Charles Dickens)
• Dead Souls (Nikolai Gogol)
• Death of a Salesman (Arthur Miller)
• Demons (Fyodor Dostoevsky)
• Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (Robert Louis Stevenson)
• Eleanor Roosevelt (Blanche Wiesen Cook)
• Ella Minnow Pea: A Progressively Lipgrammatic Epistaolary Fable (Mark Dunn)
• Emma (Jane Austen)
• Empire Falls (Richard Russo)
• Ethan Frome (Edith Wharton)
• Rick Steves’ Europe Through the Back Door 2007: The Travel Skills Handbook (Rick Steves)
• Extravagance: A Novel (Gary Krist)
• Fahrenheit 451 (Ray Bradbury)
• Fat Land: How Americans Became the Fattest People in the World (Greg Critser)
• Flowers for Algernon
• Frankenstein (Mary Shelley)
• Franny and Zooey (J.D. Salinger)
• Galapagos (Kurt Vonnegut)
• Hamlet (William Shakespeare)
• Heart of Darkness (Joseph Conrad)
• Holidays on Ice: Stories (David Sedaris)
• How the Light Gets in (M. J. Hyland)
• How to Breathe Underwater (Julie Orringer)
• Howl (Allen Ginsberg)
• Inherit the Wind (Jerome Lawrence)
• Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë)
• Just a Couple of Days (Tony Vigorito)
• Leaves of Grass (Walt Witman)
• Letters to a Young Poet (Rainer Maria Rilke)
• Life of Pi (Yann Martel)
• Little Dorrit (Charles Dickens)
• Little Women (Louisa May Alcott)
• Living History (Hillary Rodham Clinton)
• Lord of the Flies William Golding)
• Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)
• Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris)
• Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (Simone de Beauvoir)
• Middlesex (Jeffrey Eugenides)
• Moby-Dick (Herman Melville)
• Monsieur Proust (Celeste Albaret)
• Mrs. Dalloway (Virginia Woolf)
• My Lai 4: A Report on the Massacre and Its Aftermath (Seymour M. Hersh)
• My Life in Orange: Growing Up with the Guru (Tim Guest)
• My Sister’s Keeper (Jodi Picoult)
• Nervous System: Or, Losing My Mind in Literature (Jan Lars Jensen)
• New Poems of Emily Dickinson (Emily Dickinson)
• Night (Elie Wiesel)
• Dawn Powell: Novels 1930-1942 (Dawn Powell)
• Of Mice and Men (John Steinbeck)
• Old School (Tobias Wolff)
• Oliver Twist (Oliver Twist)
• On the Road (Jack Kerouac)
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (Ken Kesey)
• Oracle Night (Paul Auster)
• Oryx and Crake (Margaret Atwood)
• Othello (William Shakespeare)
• Out of Africa (Isak Dinesen)
• Please Kill Me: The Uncensored Oral History of Punk (Legs McNeil)
• Property (Valerie Martin)
• Pushkin: A Biography (T.J. Binyon)
• Pygmalion (George Bernard Shaw)
• Quattrocento (James Mckean)
• Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books (Azar Nafisi)
• Rescuing Patty Hearst: Memories From a Decade Gone Mad (Virginia Holman)
• Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)
• Rosemary’s Baby (Ira Levin)
• Sacred Time (Ursula Hegi)
• Sanctuary (William Faulkner)
• Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay (Nancy Milford)
• Seabiscuit: An American Legend (Laura Hillenbrand)
• Sense and Sensibility (Jane Austen)
• Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse)
• Slaughterhouse-Five (Kurt Vonnegut)
• Small Island (Andrea Levy)
• The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories (Ernest Hemingway)
• Song of the Simple Truth: The Complete Poems of Julia de Burgos (Julia de Burgos)
• Songbook (Nick Hornby)
• Speak, Memory (Vladimir Nabokov)
• Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Mary Roach)
• Swann’s Way (Marcel Proust)
• Swimming With Giants: My Encounters With Whales, Dolphins, and Seals (Anne Collett)
• Sybil (Flora Rheta Schreiber)
• A Tale of Two Cities (Charles Dickens)
• Tender Is the Night (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (Mark Twain)
• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay (Michael Chabon)
• The Art of War (Sun Tzu)
• The Awakening (Kate Chopin)
• The Bell Jar (Sylvia Plath)
• The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews (Peter Duffy)
• The Catcher in the Rye (J.D. Salinger)
• The Code of the Woosters (P.G. Wodehouse)
• The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)
• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime (Mark Haddon)
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America (Erik Larson)
• The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (Tom Wolfe)
• The Five People You Meet in Heaven (Mitch Albom)
• The Fortress of Solitude (Jonathan Lethem)
• The Fountainhead (Ayn Rand)
• The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
• The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
• The Group (Mary McCarthy)
• The Handmaid’s Tale (Margaret Atwood)
• The Holy Barbarians (lawrence lipton)
• The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (Victor Hugo)
• The Jungle (Upton Sinclair)
• The Kitchen Boy: A Novel of the Last Tsar (Robert Alexander)
• The Kite Runner (Khaled Hosseini)
• The Last Empire: Essays 1992-2000 (Gore Vidal)
• The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (C.S. Lewis)
• The Little Locksmith: A Memoir (Katharine Butler Hathaway)
• The Lottery: And Other Stories (Shirley Jackson)
• The Lovely Bones (Alice Sebold)
• The Manticore (Robertson Davies)
• The Master and Margarita (Mikhail Bulgakov)
• The Meaning of Consuelo (Judith Ortiz Cofer)
• The Metamorphosis (Ovid)
• The Naked and the Dead (Norman Mailer)
• The Name of the Rose (Umberto Eco)
• The Namesake (Jhumpa Lahiri)
• The Nanny Diaries (Emma McLaughlin)
• The Opposite of Fate (Amy Tan)
• The Picture of Dorian Gray (Oscar Wilde)
• The Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby)
• The Portable Dorothy Parker (Dorothy Parker)
• The Portable Nietzsche
• The Price of Loyalty: George W. Bush, the White House, and the Education of Paul O’Neill (Ron Suskind)
• The Razor’s Edge (W. Somerset Maugham)
• The Red Tent (Anita Diamant)
• The Rough Guide to Europe 2006 (Various Authors)
• The Scarecrow of Oz (L. Frank Baum)
• The Scarlet Letter (Nathaniel Hawthorne)
• The Second Sex (Simone De Beauvoir)
• The Secret Life of Bees (Sue Monk Kidd)
• The Shadow of the Wind (Carlos Ruiz Zafon)
• The Song of Names (Norman Lebrecht)
• The Song Reader (Lisa Tucker)
• The Sound and the Fury (William Faulkner)
• The Story of My Life (Helen Keller)
• The Sun Also Rises (Ernest Hemingway)
• The Time Traveler’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
• The True and Outstanding Adventures of the Hunt Sisters (Elisabeth Robinson)
• Unabridged Journals (Sylvia Plath)
• The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion)
• Time and Again (Jack Finney)
• To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Lee)
• Truth & Beauty: A Friendship (Ann Patchett)
• Uncle Tom’s Cabin (Harriet Beecher Stowe)
• Unless (Carol Shields)
• Vanity Fair (William Makepeace Thackeray)
• War and Peace (Leo Tolstoy)
• When the Emperor Was Divine (Julie Otsuka)
• Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Edward Albee)
• Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West (Gregory Maguire)
• Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood (Rebecca Wells)

A better way to rate books?

Since I am reviewing quite a few books this year, I have noticed that my rating scare is not quite what it should be. I mean, I think I rate highly on one book one day that I may give a lower ranking the next day. I know that rating books is based on their ease of read, entertainment value, blah, blah, blah. However, I feel the need to get more subjective in my ratings.

With this in mind, I found the scale to the left on an initial Google search for "rating scale". I thought it was funny and I like the little pictures, and even though I don't agree with the disparaging remark about Ms. Palin (which I find a bit mean-spirited), I though enough of it to copy and post here.

So, after hardly any thought or deliberation at all, here is my new and improved book rating scale:

1 Look  I wish I hadn't looked.
This book is so bad that the irises in my eyes have constricted to such an extent that I can't read another word on this page. If I finished the book, it's because I had a bet with someone or it's so incredibly short that even I would feel badly if I put it down. More likely, though, I put this stinker down.

2 Looks  I looked and didn't like what I saw.
This book barely passes for literature and probably should never have been published, but it didn't make me want to burn it. I may, however, use it to line a bird cage or put it to use in the outhouse. I will forever be disturbed that I will never get this time back again. Probably not going to read any other titles by this author.

3 Looks  I looked and I liked it. As a matter of fact, I probably looked again.
This is a pretty good book. Maybe a little too long or maybe not quite descriptive enough. It is definitely lacking, though. I may try another one by this author, but only one more, if it is not written better than this one.

4 Looks  This is more like an ogle. I looked and turned my head to see it from the back.
This is a good book. Well written, fully-developed characters, satisfying story and makes me want more.

5 Looks  What's your name and number, baby?
This is fine, fine book. It's beautifully written and I find myself thinking about it when I am not reading it, wishing I had it in my hand. When it is finished, I miss it and wish I had read it more slowly, to savor the story and characters longer. I must own this book and will read it again and again.

So, there you have it. That is my new reading scale. What do you think?

My next three

Here are my next three reads, put in order by my eldest son, Strat.

The Drowning Tree by Carol Goodman
I can't remember why I chose this one, other than the fact that I own it, so I assume that I saw it at the Friends of the Library store for extremely cheap (the most I ever pay for a book there is $2 and I really have to want it to pay that steep a price - ha). Strat thought enough of the summary on the back cover to place it first on the list, though. I am about 100 pages in, and so far, so good.

The Secret Lives of Dresses by Erin McKean
I saw this one online and was immediately intrigued. When I saw it at the Friends store, I was shocked and excited! Grandmother-granddaughter relationship, vintage clothing store and histories of the clothing that passes though them all. Can't wait to read this one!

Midwifes by Chris Bohjalian
I am really no fan of Oprah's Book Club because I get the feeling that all of her books should come with a razor blade. This one, however, caught my eye despite this dubious distinction. About a delivery-gone-bad and the subsequent legal actions. Midwives are not commonplace in the south, where belles like to have their babies in a sterile environment, then be served three meals by someone in scrubs while wearing a fashionable Tyvek bracelet. This will be good reading.

And what do all three of these books have in common? They are from my library shelf, all trade paperbacks, and will eventually end up on paperbackswap.com. I am so glad to get rid of my physical books. Not so I can be free of them, but so I will have room for more, of course!

Last 10 Books on Amazon's Book Club List

So far, I have not been disappointed in myself for not having more of these books on my TBR list - most of them don't appeal to me. Here are the last 10 from the list.

21. A Visit From the Good Squad - This one is already on my list. The ridiculously simple plot: an aging former punk rocker and record executive, and the passionate, troubled young woman he employs.

22. Zeitoun - The title alone is almost enough for me to add it to my TBR list. Plot: true account of lives altered after Hurricane Katrina. No thanks.

23. The Elegant Universe - "Brian Greene, one of the world's leading string theorists, peels away the layers of mystery surrounding string theory to reveal a universe that consists of eleven dimensions..." HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHHAHHAAHHAHA

24. American Wife - I read this loosely-based-on-George and Laura Bush-novel a while back. Didn't like it much.

25. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie - British mystery series starring an 11-year-old girl. I read it last year and it was just okay. Not good enough for me to read any more in the series. I have noticed that this is one of those books that people either love or don't like too much. Go figure.

26. Unaccustomed Earth - "Eight stories—longer and more emotionally complex than any she has yet written—that take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand as they enter the lives of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers." This one intrigues me for some reason. I think I will add it.

27. Cloud Atlas - The summary is unclear as to what the book may be about, but all of the reviews are positive, which is very unusual. I think I will add this one for that reason alone.

28. The Lost City of Z - What happened to the British explorer Percy Fawcett and his quest for the Lost City of Z? This one sounds pretty good. Good enough to add!

29. Bloodroot - Named for a flower whose blood-red sap possesses the power both to heal and poison, Bloodroot is a stunning fiction debut about the legacies—of magic and madness, faith and secrets, passion and loss—that haunt one family across the generations, from the Great Depression to today. YES! Right up my alley!

30. Country Driving - The subtitle says it all: A Journey Through China from Farm to Factory. Not for me.

So there you have it! The last 10 books on the 30-book list. Summary:

• 2 Already Read
• 1 Already on List
• 4 Added
• 3 Not interested

This last one was a pretty good list!

Amazon Book List: Books 11-20

So, you'll remember that I was shocked that I had read, or even added to my TBR list, so few of the Amazon Book Club books. There were very few of the first 10 books that I was even remotely interested in. Let's see how the next 10 books on the list fare.

11. How to Live in a Science Fictional Universe - Some reviews called this one unique, but most said it was bizarre, odd and hard to understand. Not adding this one.

12. Home Cooking - "Equal parts cookbook and memoir"...may interest me at some point, but not adding this one just yet. Not interested now.

13. Murder on the Orient Express - I am sorry to say that I have read only one Agatha Christie book, And Then There Were None, with was very good. I am going to add this one.

14. Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell - The cover of this one looks so familiar that I thought I had added it, but Shelfari statuses don't lie. After reading the summary, a story of two magicians who start as teacher/pupil, move to friends, and find themselves on opposite ends of good/evil. I think I've had my fill of stories on magic for now. Will pass on this one.

15. Atonement - While this one is set during WWII, it is on my reading list because of the compelling summary of the story.

16. The Invisible Bridge - "A grand love story and an epic tale of three brothers whose lives are torn apart by war." Again with the war? I supposed war provides a rich backdrop for a novel, but good grief! Not adding this one.

17. The Help - Read it and loved it. Saw the movie and liked it, too.

18. Patron Saint of Liars - Story of an unwed mother in the 1960s. This one is already on my list.

19. Will Grayson, Will Grayson - Story of two people in the same city named Will Grayson. This one is on my list already. Strat tried to read it earlier this year and proclaimed it too weird to finish. I will keep it on my list, but not be in a huge hurry about reading it.

20. Reading Like a Writer - No thanks. I'd rather read like a reader.

And there you have it! The second 10 books on the Amazon Book List. Summary:

• Read 1
• Already had 3 on my list
• Added 1 to my list
• Not interested in 5 of them

Who knew Amazon had a Book List?! I am behind the curve.

I have only SEVEN of Amazon's Book Club Picks on my shelf!

Breathe. Breathe.

Here are the first 10 books on the list:

1. The Imperfectionists - This is a novel about the newspaper industry and sounds like a yawner.
2. A Big Little Life - This is the memoir of a dog written by thriller author Dean Koontz, but this one is non-fiction. And the dog dies in the end. No thanks.
3. French Lessons - Three Americans in a single day in Paris. I'm adding this one.
4. Citizens of London - This one is about WWII, and is another non-fiction. Not for me.
5. To the End of the Land - The power of family life and the cost of war. What is with these war books?
6. One Day - On my list already
7. The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind - Young boy in an impoverished African village during a famine who dreams of building a windmill while everyone calls him crazy. Not interested.
8. The Hangman's Daughter - Children are murdered and witchcraft is blamed. Not really interested, but I will wait and read a few reviews from my groups and see what they thought. Not ruling this one out just yet.
9. The Lake Shore Limited - Called "a power love story" and even uses the description of " incandescent lovemaking". That cracks me up enough to not take this book seriously and leave it off of my list.
10. The Glass Room - Loving couple in Germany coming against the Nazi Regime. Again I say: why all the war?

So far, I'd say I made pretty good decisions. There are so many books out there that are entertaining, I just don't have the desire to read about war and real-life sadness. Nonfiction is just not my bag, baby, and war novels are too close to the truth for me.

The next 10 books soon.

A new mini-challenge!

Vonnie added a new mini challenge for our summer reading challenge. Here it is:

Mini Challenge #5: Read a book that's part of Oprah's Book Club Collection.
Here's the link: http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Complete-List-of-Oprahs-Book-Club-Books
*****
Challenge must be completed and reviewed by August 16th in order to receive an extra entry to raffle at the end of the game. Good luck!

I have Night by Elie Wiesel, so I will read that. It was on Oprah's list, and I ran across this on Wikipedia:

Ruth Franklin writes that Night's "resuscitation" by Oprah Winfrey came at a difficult time for the genre of memoir, after a previous book-club author, James Frey, was found to have fabricated parts of his autobiography, A Million Little Pieces. She argues that Winfrey's endorsement of Wiesel's work was a canny move, perhaps designed to restore the book club's credibility with a book regarded as beyond criticism. She writes that Night has a useful lesson to teach about the complexities of memoir and memory, and that the story of how it came to be written reveals how many factors come into play in creating a memoir: "the obligation to remember and to testify, certainly, but also the artistic and even moral obligation to construct a credible persona and to craft a beautiful work ... truth in prose, it turns out, is not always the same thing as truth in life."

I have the book in audio form, which is acceptable for the challenges. I have listened to one hour of it, and find it extremely sad, gripping, disconcerting, moving, and emotional. The reader is excellent. I had to take a little break between the two hours of the audio, and will probably finish it tomorrow.

Done with the Summer Reading Challenge!!

Finishing The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen brought those coveted words from the administrator of the Bibliophile Summer Reading Challenge: "you're done!!" Now just to make sure I stay on top of the mini-challenges! Yippee!!

Added some new books

I added a few new books to my TBR pile today. Let me know what you think:

Winkie by Clifford Chase: This book is about a mild-mannered teddy bear named Winkie who comes to life and finds himself on the wrong side of America’s war on terror.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris: This completes the Food Trilogy series by Harris, of which I have read none. Never mind that, though. This one concentrates on the relationship between mothers and daughters, so it's right up my alley. Plus, you gotta love a series of books about food!

Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs: I saw the cover of this book on the shelf at Barnes & Noble when my best girl Deanne and I were there last week (was that just last week?!). From the inside flap: In this spooky debut novel from filmmaker and travel writer Riggs ... that was as far as I got and I knew I had to read this one! Plus, I loved the cover.

The Meowmorphosis by Coleridge Cook: The first sentence on this one: “One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that he had been changed into an adorable kitten.” Again, between the cover of the book and this start, I was smitten! There is even a BOOK TRAILER for this one!!

I can't wait to get started on these!!