15000pages

11:48 am - Books 16-19

Book # 16. Leaping Beauty by Gregory Maguire (197 pages// 0-06-056419-9)
This is a book of retold fairy tales written by Gregory Maguire: the author of Wicked. These stories are written for children though. Sleeping Beauty is actually frog princess doomed to be Weeping Beauty forever. Instead of three bears, there are three chickens who have to outwit Goldifox. Very cute book.

Book # 17. Alfie's Home by Richard A. Cohen (24 pages)
The most disturbing children's book ever. I found it while surfing the internet at work. Don't even ask.

Book # 18. Atonement by Ian McEwan (480 pages// ISBN: 978-0-307-38884-1
I liked it, but it doesn't end well. The only characters I liked consistently were the twin boys.

Book # 19. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by JK Rowling (309 pages// ISBN: 0-590-35340-3
No point in reviewing this one.

( Books 1-15 )

Cross-posted in 50bookchallenge, bookish, and booktards

07:11 am - Book #22 - (Not That You Asked) (Steve Almond)

Title: (Not That You Asked)
Author: Steve Almond
# of Pages: 288
Rating: 3/5
Started: May 4, 2008
Finished: May 9, 2008
Total Books: 22/75 (29%)
Total Pages: 6,878/20,000 (34%)
Next Up: Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman)

From Barnes & Noble: How does Steve Almond get himself into so much trouble? Could it be his incessant moralizing? His generally poor posture? The fact that he was raised by a pack of wolves? Frankly, we haven’t got a clue. What we do know is that Almond has a knack for converting his dustups into essays that are both funny and furious. In (Not that You Asked), he squares off against Sean Hannity on national TV, nearly gets arrested for stealing “Sta-Hard” gel from his local pharmacy, and winds up in Boston, where he quickly enrages the entire population of the Red Sox Nation. Almond is, as they say in Yiddish, a tummler.

Almond on personal grooming: “Why, exactly, did I feel it would be ‘sexy’ and ‘hot’ to have my girlfriend wax my chest? I can offer no good answer to this question today. I could offer no good answer at the time.”
On sports: “To be a fan is to live in a condition of willed helplessness. We are (for the most part) men who sit around and watch other men run and leap and sweat and grapple each other. It is a deeply homoerotic pattern of conduct, often interracial in nature, and essentially humiliating.”
On popular culture: “I have never actually owned a TV, a fact I mention whenever possible, in the hopes that it will make me seem noble and possibly lead to oral sex.”
On his literary hero, Kurt Vonnegut: “His books perform the greatest feat of alchemy known to man: the conversion of grief into laughter by means of courageous imagination.”
On religion: “Every year, when Chanukah season rolled around, my brothers and I would make the suburban pilgrimage to the home of our grandparents, where we would ring in the holiday with a big, juicy Chanukah ham.”

The essays in (Not that You Asked) will make you laugh out loud, or, maybe just as likely, hurl the book across the room. Either way, you’ll find Steve Almond savagely entertaining. Not that you asked.

10:54 am - Book #21 - Saint Maybe (Anne Tyler)

Title: Saint Maybe
Author: Anne Tyler
# of Pages: 373
Rating: 4/5
Started: May 2, 2008
Finished: May 4, 2008
Total Books: 21/75 (28%)
Total Pages: 6,590/20,000 (33%)
Next Up: Not That You Asked (Steve Almond)

05:05 pm - Books 28, 29, 30

Созвездие Жадных Псов by Дарья Донцова  [368 pages]

Синий Мопс Счастья by Дарья Донцова  [376 pages]

Сволочь Ненаглядная by Дарья Донцова  [406 pages]

Pages: 9326/20,000 = 46.63%
Books: 30/70 = 42.86%
Average pages per book: 310.87
Days: 128/366 = 34.97 %

06:57 pm - Lots of pages...

15000pages

100ormorebooks

50bookchallenge

Current Mood: crappy

06:33 pm - More books

15000pages

100ormorebooks

50bookchallenge

12:34 pm

Book #39 -- Peter Abrahams, Delusion, 297 pages.

An interesting murder mystery in that it is told from the point of view of a small town housewife who is becoming increasingly convinced that people she knows and loves are involved in the crime. As such, she doesn't really *want* to know, but can't seem to help herself from digging deeper. This results both in some very interesting effects as well as a certain amount of frustration when what is going on becomes obvious to the reader, but the narrator is still floundering around because of her unwillingness to believe that the people she has known for 20 years could possibly do such a thing.

Progress toward goals: 127/366 = 35.0%

Books: 39/150 = 26.0%

Pages: 11244/50000 = 22.5%

2008 Book List

cross-posted to 15000pages, 50bookchallenge, and gwynraven

10:35 am - Book 16 Kenilworth

 Book:  Kenilworth
Author:  Sir Walter Scott
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Pages:  529
Rating:  4.5/5 stars

Amy Robsart has left the home of her father and is being held in seclusion in a manor home in Oxford, England.  Sir Walter Scott takes the events 1575 in Elizabethan England regarding Amy's secret marriage to Queen Elizabeth's favorite, Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, and weaves a scintillating take of Court intrigue and villiany.  It took me a while to become accustomed to the language of the dialogue, but after I did, the story reads so easily that I quickly became engrossed in the twists and turns of the plot.  Scott is a master of language and imagery.

I loved this book.

Next up:  Down and Out in Paris and London

16/50 books read

6195/15000 pages read

(x-posted to 50bookchallenge, and dearjanesociety) 

Current Mood: pleased

01:09 am - Book #11

Title: Look at me in the eye: my life with asperger's
Author: John Elder Robison
Genre: non-fiction, memoir
# of Pages: 288
My rating of the book, F- [worst] to A [best]: B+

Description of the book (from Chapters.ca): Look Me in the Eye is the moving, darkly funny story of growing up with Asperger’s at a time when the diagnosis simply didn’t exist. A born storyteller, Robison takes you inside the head of a boy whom teachers and other adults regarded as “defective,” who could not avail himself of KISS’s endless supply of groupies, and who still has a peculiar aversion to using people’s given names (he calls his wife “Unit Two”). He also provides a fascinating reverse angle on the younger brother he left at the mercy of their nutty parents—the boy who would later change his name to Augusten Burroughs and write the bestselling memoir Running with Scissors.

Review: As somebody who has Asperger's, I could understand John's feelings of not feeling as though one quite fits in and needs to find something that they like. While at times the language was a little simplistic, it was good. Found it enjoyable and was quite amused by the names he gave his parents and younger brother.

Next up: Mistress of the Sun by Sandra Gulland.

Current Mood: discontent

11:32 am - The first 25

Books Completed in 2008:
1. Goer, Henci. The Thinking Woman's Guide to a Better Birth. 218 pages.
2. Briggs, Patricia. Iron Kissed. 287 pages.
3. Pullman, Philip. The Golden Compass. 296 pages.
4. Rogak, Lisa. A Boy Named Shel. 215 pages.
5. England, Pam and Rob Horowitz. Birthing from Within. 281 pages.
6. Fields, Denise and Ari Brown, MD. Baby 411. 396 pages.
7. Alcott, Louisa May. Little Women. 525 pages.
8. Silverstein, Shel. Playboy's Silverstein Around the World. 181 pages.
9. Feinberg, Leslie. Stone Butch Blues. 301 pages.
10. Hamilton, Laurell K. Guilty Pleasures. 355 pages.
11. Hamilton, Laurell K. The Laughing Corpse. 293 pages.
12. Hamilton, Laurell K. Circus of the Damned. 329 pages.
13. Hamilton, Laurell K. The Lunatic Cafe. 369 pages.
14. Hamilton, Laurell K. Bloody Bones. 370 pages.
15. Hamilton, Laurell K. The Killing Dance. 387 pages.
16. Harrison, Kim. The Outlaw Demon Wails.. 455 pages.
17. Frost, Jeaniene. Halfway to the Grave. 358 pages.
18. Chance, Karen. Touch the Dark. 307 pages.
19. Harris, Charlaine. All Together Dead. 323 pages.
20. Armstrong, Kelley. Personal Demon. 371 pages.
21. Stein, Jeanne C. The Becoming. 293 pages.
22. Hamilton, Laurell K. Burnt Offerings. 392 pages.
23. Hamilton, Laurell K. Blue Moon. 418 pages.
24. Hamilton, Laurell K. Obsidian Butterfly. 585 pages.
25. Twain, Mark. Mark Twain's Helpful Hints for Good Living: A Handbook for the Damned Human Race. 182 pages.

Some were fantastic (Alcott, Feinberg, Twain), and some were downright horrible (Frost, Chance, Stein). I'm rereading Hamilton's books because I didn't read them in order the first time, and thought I'd do it before her latest comes out. I don't have nearly as much time to read as I thought I would, so I'm very behind on my goal of 100 books. But hey, that's why it's a goal, right?

01:01 pm

 Two months of reading to catch up on.  So, without further ado...


11)  Skeletons on the Zahara by Dean King.  351 pages.  Non-fiction.  The piecing together of what happened to a group of Connecticut sailors when they became shipwrecked on the coast of Africa in 1815.  King used captain's logs and the autobiographical work of several survivors, as well as his own research of the Saharan nomadic tribes to compile a rich and fascinating story.  3.5/5

12)  Midnight in Death by J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts).  90 pages.  Barely worth mentioning, for a whole host of reasons.  I read it on my lunch hour.  2/5

13)  I'm Looking Through You by Jennifer Finney Boylan.  270 pages.  More non-fiction.  Not sure what I'd expected out of this.  Still not sure what I make of it.  It was intensely readable, extremely fascinating.  It's about a trans-gendered individual, but more than that, it's a memoir of a childhood, a family, a coming of age.  Definitely worthwhile.  4/5

14)  Lady Macbeth by Susan King.  340 pages.  An altogether different look at the life of the Lady Macbeth.  Once I got a hold of the geography and time period involved, I got to lose myself in sweet details of everything from battle to medicinal herbs.  Beautifully researched and written, I still found myself wishing for Macbeth himself to be a bit more fleshed out.  4/5

15)  The River King by Alice Hoffman.  324 pages.  Another book club read.  I loved this one.  It is a haunting, timeless modern gothic novel, with skillfully woven subplots and a plethora of secondary characters who are all unique and distinct and never fade into obscurity.  5/5

16)  Switching Time by Richard K. Baer.  360 pages.  Still more non-fiction.  This is so unlike me--I used to be the fiction queen.  Anyway.  A woman with suicidal tendencies begins therapy sessions with Dr. Baer.  Over the course of the following years, they unravel her depression and come to the realization that the patient is in fact suffering from Multiple Personality Disorder.  Treatment is begun to reintegrate.  This was both interesting and frustrating.  Since reading Sybil a number of years ago, I've been somewhat fascinated by the concept of MPD, and I suppose I expected more than I got from this.  I expected more analysis and less simple narrative.  At the same time, the narrative, though somewhat repetitive, was quite interesting.  3/5

17)  The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.  518 pages.  A re-read, and one I've been meaning to re-read since I originally read it back in 2003.  Knowing the basic plotline made it easier, as it is not told in a particularly linear fashion, and also harder, as I knew what was coming in most cases and would be sick with dread as events unfolded.  At the same time, I also realized I'd missed huge chunks from my initial reading, and in those cases, it was like coming to it for the first time.  Still loved it all the more, and will look forward to reading it again in another 5 years.  5/5

18)  Guilty by Karen Robards.  408 pages.  Meh.  It moved quickly, but it was due to lack of substance and less due to plotline.  Characters were stilted and shallow, the plot was contrived and stale.  Not her best work by a long shot.  1.5/5

19)  Hold Tight by Harlan Coben.  416 pages.  Now THIS is what a thriller should be, especially in such contrast to the previous book.  Tightly plotted, lightning-speed pacing, I literally looked for any and every opportunity to sit down and read this.  5/5


19/50 = 38%
6499/15000 = 43%

x-posted to  </a></font></b></a>50bookchallenge

06:35 pm - Ed McBain – Eighty million eyes

Ed McBain – Eighty million eyes (08-024)

Once in a while I want to read McBain. Simple and entertaining. This must be one of the older ones, it was written ages ago. Two stories in one book. The title is referring to the case that Carella is solving. A television host dies in front of an audience, with forty million viewers watching. Can it be anything else than a natural death? Off course they seem to think so.

In the other case Kling is trying to find a man who has beaten up a young lady he considers his girlfriend, whereas she said she never even met the guy. How to find him in a big city like New York?

Just discovered I’ve got the translation on my shelf as well. Don’t need to read that one anymore now. Nice detail: On the back one can find the price of a book back then. 30p in the UK, 90c in New Zealand and 95c in Australia, though the last one is not obligatory but recommended. And why the book isn’t on sale in Canada, guess I’ll never find out.

Quote: “As Kling had anticipated, Cindy Forrest was not overwhelmed by the prospect of having to spend even an infinitesimal amount of time with him. She reluctantly admitted, however, that such a course might be less repulsive than the possibility of spending an equal amount of time in a hospital.” (page 76)

Number: 08-024
Title: Eighty million eyes
Author: Ed McBain
Language: English (US)
Year: 1966
# Pages: 172 (4572)
Category: Whodunnit
ISBN: 0-330-02462-0

11:56 am - No. 20 for 2008

Title: Certain Girls
Author: Jennifer Weiner
Rating: 4/5
Book: 20/50 (40% completed)
Pages: 384
Total Pages 7,032/15,000 pages(46.88% completed)
Next up: The Whole Truth by David Baldacci

This one was a good read. Not the best by Weiner, but definately worth a read :)

xposted to 50bookchallenge, 15000pages and thirdwatch_gurl

( Book Description from book jacket or back of the book: )

07:51 am - Book #20 - Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride (Michael Wallis)

Title: Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride
Author: Michael Wallis
# of Pages: 250
Rating: 3/5
Started: April 16, 2008
Finished: May 2, 2008
Total Books: 20/75 (26%)
Total Pages: 6,217/20,000 (31%)
Next Up: Saint Maybe (Anne Tyler)

06:29 pm - Book 10 and 11

Book 10: Rebel Angels by Libba Bray – 548 pages

I was actually quite surprised to learn that A Great and Terrible Beauty was part of a trilogy, but it makes sense that Gemma Doyle’s story has so much to offer. I have a notorious habit of picking up a book and going ‘Oh this looks good, it’s a stand alone, I’ll just read it quickly’ and then finding out its actually part of a trilogy/series and realising I now have to keep the story in my head while I wait to get my hands on the next one. But alas, here I am, and while I found that this one dragged a little – some scenes just didn’t seem necessary, but in hindsight – as I got to the home stretch, and got quite wrapped up in what was happening. Whilst I didn’t see the twist with Cirque in the first one, it became pretty obvious to me within the first few chapters of this one, but I still thought it was quite clever. Anyway, I have to wait awhile to read The Sweet Far Thing as I can’t buy it anywhere, and there’s a long line at the library, so I fear I will have to keep Gemma’s tale in my head for a bit longer.

4,317 / 15,000 (28.8%)

10 / 50 (20.0%)

Book 11: Quiver by Stephanie Spinner – 177 pages

I’m a big fan of Greek mythology and I haven’t read the story of Atalanta, so this little re-telling was quite interesting. Basically, Atalanta, abandoned as a baby, is saved by the goddess Artemis and blessed as the fastest person in the world. But having pledged her chastity to Artemis, she is put in a difficult position when her long lost father, a King, comes to find her and insists she bare him an heir.  A very strange twist at the end, which is quite typical of mythology, but Spinner has evidently done her research. Spinner’s writing is very easy to read and a nice change from the more full-on stuff I’ve been reading lately.

11 / 50 (22.0%)

4,494 / 15,000 (30.0%)

-          From Modernism to Postmodernism: An Anthology edited by Lawrence Cahoone – 600 pages

-          What is History? by E.H. Carr – 183 pages

-          Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling – 607 pages

-          Size Doesn’t Matter by Meg Cabot – 280 pages

And coming up:

-          Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling – 607 pages

-          The Second Chronicles of Thomas Covenant: Volume 1: The Wounded Land by Stephen Donaldson – 499 pages

-          The Veiled Lands by Christine Hogan – 283 pages

10:57 am

Book #38 -- Gail de Vos and Anna E. Altmann, New Tales for Old: Folktales as Literary Fictions for Young Adults, 382 pages.

At first I was actually disappointed to find this book, since it's so close to the book I'm working on. How dare someone else have my idea before me! Then as I kept reading it, I realised that not only does this book have a different format and focus than what I'm planning, it's a wonderful reference for my own work. The book consists of chapters on various popular fairy tales, each chapter comprising a basic retelling of the tale, comparison of different versions, timeline and synopsis of the relevant criticism, and annotated bibliography of retellings in novel, film, short story, and poetry formats. Plus a wonderful bibliography of resources. Since my book is mostly reader's advisory, focusing on novel-length retellings for adults, it will both be more varied and more comprehensive in its annotated bibliography and with less of a critical approach. I think there's room for both in the world.

Progress toward goals: 123/366 = 33.6%

Books: 38/150 = 25.3%

Pages: 10947/50000 = 21.9%

2008 Book List

cross-posted to 50bookchallenge, 15000pages, and gwynraven

04:42 pm - The Virgin Suicides

Book 11
Author and Title of Book: The Virgin Suicides by Jeffrey Eugenides
Rating: 10/10
Date Began: April 3rd
Date Finished: April 30th
249 pages

Well written, grabs the reader and makes them wish they knew more, knew what to do, how to help. To me this book read like a work of non-fiction. It seemed so real. Thank god it isn't.


( My thoughts )

11/50
3,239/15,000

Current Mood: numb

02:35 pm - Iain Banks – The bridge

Iain Banks – The bridge (08-022)

The first very hard book this year. I started reading it on my way back from Austria in January. Then continued reading it at home. Yet I never really got into it. On the other hand, it was fascinating enough to keep on trying.

Banks is a strange author. I do not know any writer whose books vary so much as his. A song of stone was just crap. The Wasp Factory fascinating. Dead air was funny and brilliant. Canal dreams entertaining. Espedair street simple but good. Walking on glass complicated. Complicity and The Business (sorry, no review, read it too long ago) were both incredibly good, but The Crow Road kept lingering.

So, could be me, but it is always a surprise whenever I start a new Banks novel. Unfortunately The Bridge doesn’t live up to the expectation I had. The Bridge in this novel is the whole world of a man in coma. Time and space do strange things with perception, dreams and reality, fact and fiction, everything seems to be woven into this story. Not until over halfway this book Mr. Orr, as the main character has been named until then, becomes a story. His history becomes known, slowly, gradually.

Certainly not my favorite book, this one, but it certainly won’t stop me from reading more books by Banks. Whit is next, waiting on my shelf already.

Quote: “Things went on; Lennon got shot, Dylan got religion. He could never decide which depressed him most.” (page 328)

Number: 08-022
Title: The Bridge
Author: Iain Banks
Language: English (Scotland)
Year: 1986
# Pages: 386 (4256)
Category: Fiction
ISBN: 0-349-10215-5

06:40 pm - 642/15000

Of, through some amazing feat in this giant community, you remember another review I did a while ago, I wrote that Zach's Lie by Roland Smith was a really nice read.

So when I learned from a kid at school the book had a sequel, I scooped it up at the bookstore when I was getting manga.

Jack's Run by Roland Smith (246 pages)

03:15 pm - Books 26 and 27.

Обед У Людоеда by Дарья Донцова  [408 pages]  

Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger's by John Elder Robison  [294 pages]



Pages: 8176/20,000 = 40.88%
Books: 27/70 = 38.57%
Average pages per book: 302.81
Days: 120/366 = 32.79 %