Between the Lines discussion

I trade YA/middle reader fantasy recommendations with my nephew, but he's now in his mid-20's!

100. Solly Ganor: Light One Candle A Survivor's Tale from Lithuania to Jerusalem

Hurray! You made it to 100! Congratulations!

Congratulations on making it to 100 (already!), Shoshanapnw!

Thank you. For my next trick, I will leap from this high dive into another pile of books.

Love that sense of humor!

LOL

53. The Queen of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner
54. Rabbit Proof Fence by Doris Pilkington

101. Kris Holloway: Mali: Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali

70. The Good Earth - Pearl S.Buck

71. Where the Red Fern Grows - Wilson Rawls

102. Edward Steichen: The Family of Man (Luxembourg)

103. Rick Riordan: The Sea of Monsters (Percy Jackson & The Olympians, Book Two)

55. March by Geraldine Brooks

72. The Unbearable Lightness of Being - Milan Kundera

73. Naked Lunch - William S. Burroughs

56. Rise and Shine by Anna Quindlen

57. The Other Queen by Phillipa Gregory

July 2009

56 Anonymous Lawyer A Novel by Jeremy Blachman (Legal fiction, humour)
57 The Dark Room by R.K. Narayan (Fiction, Indian)
58 Bottlemania How Water Went on Sale And Why We Bought It by Elizabeth Royte (popculture, environment, industry)
59 The English Teacher by R.K. Narayan (Fiction, Indian)
60 Seaside Style by Diane Dorrans Saeks (Interior design, architecture, photography)
61 Searching for Schindler by Thomas Keneally (Memoir, writing, Holocaust)
62 Children of the Flames Dr. Josef Mengele and the Untold Story of the Twins of Auschwitz by Lucette Matalon Lagnado and Sheila Cohn Dekel (Holocaust, history, evil)
63 I Remember by Fara Lynn Kransnopolsky (Russia, Jews, history)
64 Needles A Memoir of Growing Up with Diabetes by Andie Dominick (Memoir, medical)
65 Zelda's Bloopers The Good, the Bad, and the Whatever by Carol Gardner (Humour, dogs)
66 Memoirs of an Arabian Princess of Oman and Zanzibar by Emily Ruete (Memoir, Islam, history, slavery, racism, royalty)

My reading really slowed up as my mum died on Aug. 2nd and I couldn't really get into anything at all for a while. Even now, my thoughts drift off instead of staying concentrated on the book.

I like writing reviews but since Goodreads has been forced by Amazon to become what is essentially a shopfront for it, and it alone, no B&N or independent links allowed to be shown on book searches (see the Goodreads blog http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/17...) I don't feel any joy in writing them right now.

I know that everyone has a choice whether or not to buy from Amazon or search for the book elsewhere but if every picture, every title, every author's link is to Amazon, that's facilitating Amazon's business to a great degree. Good reviews that interest people become too much like advertisement copy-writing.

I may continue to write them on Facebook and I may come back to writing them on Goodreads, but not right now.

August 2009

67 Babyface by Jeanne McDermott (Memoir, Apert's Syndrome, baby, birth defects, philosophy)
68 Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology by Paul Broks (neuropsychology, philosophy)
69 The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 by Jane Poynter (memoir, ecology, science) 5-star book

Wendy's Updated Reading List

73. Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum
74. Four to Score by Janet Evanovich
75. Behind Every Illusion by Christina Harner
76. Celtic Evil: A Fitzgerald Brothers Novel: Roarke by Sierra Rose
77. High Five by Janet Evanovich
78. The Chosen Few by Matthew Simon
79. The Missin Ink by Karen E. Olsen
80. Duma Key by Stephen King

74. She - H. Rider Haggard

58. Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Here's an update from me:
Completed books '09:
1. One Day in the life of Ivan Denisovich (amazing book from nobel prize recipient about life in a Siberian work camp)
2. Beginner's Greek (nice novel about love...)
3. Rebecca (Last night I dreamt of Manderlay...)
4. Sippy Cups are not for Chardonnay (funny book about being a new mother)
5. The Rules of Attraction (my first Brett Easton Ellis - liked it a lot!)
6. Alias Grace (real life Canadian murder mystery)
7. The Social life of dogs (funny book about the author's dogs (some of them))
8. Anna Karenina (simply amazing!!!)
9. The Year of Fog (interesting book about a child gone missing)
10. The Forest (about the history of the New Forest in UK, told in short stories about the people living there, didn't like this one very much)
11. Middlesex (Amazing book!)
12. The Audacity of Hope (interesting - especially to see the differences between US and Danish/European politics)
13. Chicago (about Egyptians muslims - a very different read from what I'm used to)
14. Hogfather (a nice Discworld novel)
15. Stolen Innocence (one of the girls from Warren Jeff's people tells her story)
16. Death and the Penguin (great novel about a man and his penguin - and the mafia)
17. Hotel New Hampshire (Never read this John Irving-novel before - loved it)
18. House in Paris (really great novel about two children happening to meet in a house in Paris and the story of why one of them was adopted)
19. Man Gone Down (amazing debut - not an easy or light read in any way but very rewarding and interesting - about a father struggling to get by in today's America)
20. Håndteringen af udøde (Handling the undead - the recently deceased wake up again and cause a lot of problems - liked this one a lot)
21. The Handmaid's Tale (for the group read)
22. Fanny Hill, or Memoirs of a Woman of Pleasure (not my thing - rather repetitive - for the 1001-books you must read... list)
23. The Story of Edgar Sawtelle (loved it!)
24. Wonder Boys (enjoyed this one a lot as well)
25. City of God (very impressive book)
26. After Dark (another good book by one of my favourite authors, Haruki Murakami)
27. The gravedigger's daughter (I love Joyce Carol Oates - this was a great novel about a girl of immigrant parents who suffer from abuse from her husband and have to make her own life)
28. Going Postal (a really good Discworld novel! Very funny!)
29. Watchmen (the best graphic novel ever! Such an amazing combination of words and pictures - really show what graphic novels can do at their best!)
30. The Raw Shark Texts (wow - amazingly creative book that really plays with the way words can tell and show a story)
31. The Kite Runner (finally I read this one and really liked it. Not quite what I expected - the plot twists really surprised me)
32. The Stand (re-read this one. Great book - enjoyed King's post-apocalyptic vision)
33. My Stroke of Insight (Brain scientist gets a stroke - did not enjoy this very much or as much as I'd expected)
34. Breakfast at Tiffany's (okay read - enjoyed it more after reading discussions of it
35. Half of a Yellow Sun (great read about the Biafra-Nigeria war in 1967-70 which I knew nothing about before reading this book)
36. Buffy the Vampire Slayer - Wolves at the Gate (Buffy season 8 is in graphic novels only - enjoyed this one)
37. The Eye of the World (The Wheel of Time book 1. Okay read - too much borrowed from Tolkien)
38. I was a really good mom before I had kids (great book about focusing on what you really want for you and your family and learning to prioritise what you really want)
39. The Great Hunt (The Wheel of Time book 2 (Better than the first - nice easy fantasy)
40. Buddha vol. 2 (Manga - I love this series about Buddha's life)
41. Dead Babies by Martin Amis (Did not like this very much)
42. Eldritch Horrors (short stories inspired by H.P. Lovecraft - some really good stories in this book)
43. East of Eden by Steinbeck (great book - loved it)
44. A son of the Circus by Irving (not the best Irving book but I just love his books)
45. The Moon is down by Steinbeck (re-read - love it)
46. War and Peace (amazing!)
47. Cannery Row
48. Sweet Thursday
49. Catch 22 (a bit disappointed in that one)
50. The Dragon Reborn (Book 3 in Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series)
51. The Final Solution (great novella by Michael Chabon about a boy who escaped from Nazi Germany with a parrot)
52. Hvor lagde jeg babyen? (Where did I put the baby - a book about becoming a mother, reads like a series of blog entries - great read)

So a bit behind - just need to get to 60 by the end of August and then read 10 books each month for the rest of the year...!

Petra - so sorry to hear about your mother!

59. The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane by Katherine Howe
60. Here on Earth by Alice Hoffman

75. Hawksmoor - Peter Ackroyd
76. The Alchemist - Paulo Coelho
77. 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die - Peter Boxall

Thanks Christina.

I can't read hardly at all. I read two or three books a week until my mother died. Since then, nearly weeks now, I've read three and still got two more on the go and it doesn't look like I'm going to finish those either. So I wouldn't say I'd given up the challenge as much as I just can't concentrate right now.

I'm going to try now too, I think its a great idea, I can't do the list thing though either. I don't think I'd stick to it. But I really want to try. I might have a hard time working full time, going to schoo part time, being a mother and a wifey, but I'm going to manage! Good luck to everyone else!

61. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

78. Going After Cacciato - Tim O'Brien

104. Jules Verne: Around the World in 80 Days
105. Philip Roth: The Ghost Writer
106. John Le Carre: The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
107. Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society
108. Michael Palin: Around the World in 80 Days
109. Fyodor Dostoyevsky: Notes from the Underground
110. Stieg Larsson: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
111. Amy Tan: Saving Fish from Drowning
112. Geraldine Brooks: People of the Book
113. Dan Brown: Deception Point

114. Grigore Vieru: Bread and Dew: Stories by a Moldavian Writer (Moldavia)

61. Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

79. Shoeless Joe - W. P. Kinsella

August 2009

67 Babyface by Jeanne McDermott (Memoir, Apert's Syndrome, baby, birth defects, philosophy)
68 Into the Silent Land: Travels in Neuropsychology by Paul Broks (neuropsychology, philosophy)
69 The Human Experiment: Two Years and Twenty Minutes Inside Biosphere 2 by Jane Poynter (memoir, ecology, science) 5-star book
70 Brick Lane - Monica Ali (fiction)

71 Bad Science - Ben Goldacre (science, media, health) 10-star book
Not available in the US as books that attack big Pharma, Alternative medicine gurus and sacred cows like the MMR-Autism viral myth get sued just to stop publication even if there is no hope of winning the suit. Not so in the UK! If you are interested in this, you can get it post-free anywhere in the world from www.bookdepository.co.uk. I am probably not supposed to say that since all links to books are supposed to go to Amazon http://www.goodreads.com/blog/show/17... since August 15th, but this is an important book and illuminates the part the media plays in the disemmination of truths, half-truths and outright (but very profitable) lies in the medical, health and nutrition fields and why we are taken in, why the truth is both deliberately and in a very cavalier manner hidden from us by all that stand to make a buck, even peripherally. It also explains, after a fashion, the still-not-properly understood placebo effect and why therapies that can have no possible physical effect whatsoever still work! We are amazing! The book is too.

80. Justine - Marquis de Sade

Dan wrote: "80. Justine - Marquis de Sade" I read that years and years ago. Very filthy book - it put me off porn for a while!

Looks interesting, Petra.

115. Susan Jane Gilman: Undress Me in the Temple of Heaven

Wendy's Updated Reading List
81. Familiar Scars by Christy Leigh Stewart
82. Hot Six by Janet Evanovich
83. Seven Up by Janet Evanovich
84. Twenties Girl by Sophie Kinsella
85. 24 Hours by Greg Iles
86. Hard Eight by Janet Evanovich
87. Black Hills by Nora Roberts
88. Visions of Sugar Plums by Janet Evanovich

September 2009

72 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history) 5-star
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)

A slight book, beautifully illustrated and filled with fairly meaningless quotes in interesting typography, all surface, no depth. All in all a very representative book of Warhol.

62. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
63. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner

Jen wrote: "62. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
63. The King of Attolia by Megan Whalen Turner"

What's Oryx and Crake like? I have the book but have never read it.

116. Nathacha Appanah: Blue Bay Palace (Mauritius)

Petra X wrote

What's Oryx and Crake like? I have the book but have never read it."


It's a post apocalyptic story that is pretty weird and dark. It's told from the perspective of a man who knows how the apocalypse was brought about and who believes himself to be the last human alive. There is also a theme of genetic engineering and the consequences of that to both humans and animals that I found very interesting. I didn't love it, but I liked it. I think it was worth the read.

Still behind - and I am starting work full-time on the 14th so then I'll have even less time to read...

53. Tarka the Otter (un-sentimental book about the life of a otter from birth to dead)
54. To the Lighthouse (my first Virginia Woolf - really enjoyed it)
55. Ned til Hundene (Down to the Dogs - novel by Danish author about a woman having left her husband)
56. Un Lun Dun (great urban fantasy ya book about two girls discovering London's abcity UnLondon where all lost and unwanted things end up)

Thanks Jen :-)

September 2009

72 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history) 5 star
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)
74 The Bamboo, Grass & Palm Specialist - David Squire (Plants) 5 star

75 Life Doesn't Frighten Me - Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat (art, poety)

The poem might not frighten you at all but Basquiat's pictures might. I don't know who wrote the blurb for the book, but the pictures are far from childlike, as anyone who is familiar with Basquiat's art would know. The book is ostensibly a children's book but I bought it as an art book and cannot imagine a child who would actually enjoy these harsh, self-referencing pictures. Basquiat had always lived it up on drugs and alcohol, but limited means bought limited supplies. The bounty that was fame and money for the latest, much-lauded inheritor of Warhol's Factory ethos bought him excess, brought him death.

Its a gentle childlike poem, yes, but its a hell of an art book to own.

81. God Laughs and Plays - David James Duncan

82. The Road - Cormac McCarthy

64. Fearless Fourteen by Janet Evanovich

65. Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton

September 2009

72 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history)
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)
74 The Bamboo, Grass & Palm Specialist - David Squire (Plants)
75 Life Doesn't Frighten Me - Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat (art, poety)

76 Julia and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (Memoir, cookery, blog)

I can see how this book was a successful blog, its more a series of snacks than a grand a la carte meal in a French restaurant. The endless repetition of her hatred for Republicans (if you aren't an American, which I'm not, this doesn't make a lot of sense) and her job (if you've ever been a secretary, which I was, this does) and the use of her favourite words fuck and suck, neither of them used sexually, probably give you the flavour of this slight one-note book. A snarky, sarky, endlessly-whining personality that is amusing to read on a daily blog, gets a bit much in a full-length book. A bit like having to eat all your meals at MacDonalds every day for a week: by Wednesday, you'd long for the week to end.

Julia Child is, for non-Americans, not much more than a name than some people might recognise but the imagined episodes of her life in the book are teasing and delicious, a very unusual woman, far more intersting than the author herself. And in that lies my hope for the author. If she can write this well when not writing about herself, then maybe there will be other, non-autobiographical books to look forward to from her. Meanwhile I look forward to the non-pareil acting of Meryl Streep to illuminate both Julia Child and the film way above the standard of the book.