One Book a Week Club, 2010...

[rpcvlawson]

I love this thread.

So far this year, I have read:

Under the Dome by Stephen King
Dies the Fire by S.M. Stirling
The Scenic Route by Binnie Kirkenbaum
King Lear by Bill S.
The Children of Rhatlan by Jonathan Fesmire
South Coast by Nathan Lowell
Wicked by Gregory McGuire
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Fool by Christopher Moore
Outcasts United by Warren St. John
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum

I'm currently:
Rereading The Freedom Writers Diary for a class that I'm teaching.
Reading War & Peace by Tolstoy.
Reading F is for Fugitive by Sue Grafton.

[hugh]

I'm a bit behind, but:

* On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
* The Ascent of Money, Niall Ferguson
* The Housekeeper and the Professor, Yoko Ogawa

[Peter Why]

8 Jack The Ripper: The Final Solution, by Stephen Knight (1994 Edition)

An interesting and, in places convincing, set of theories. Unfortunately, the author, while being painstakingly analytical and critical of the ideas of other "Ripperologists", seems unable to apply the same tools to his own ideas. So, for example, he's convinced of the freemasonic significance of the mechanisms of the murders, but doesn't offer the slightest suggestion why non-masons (and women!) should be killed in this way; and accepts a book of masonic "protocols" as representing actual masonic instructions and plans for the future, despite accepting that the book may be a fiction.

That anti-freemasonic side to the author's theories is the most strongly unbalanced (at least in its presentation ... he may have unstated reasons for believing it), but there are other ways he fails to be self-critical.

However, a fascinating read .. and supposedly there's another updated edition coming, too.

Peter

[sadclown]

Still on track!

Read
1. Carrie by Stephen King
2. 'Salem's Lot by Stephen King
3. The Shining by Stephen King
4. Under the Dome by Stephen King (I know it's a lot of King, but I have never read him before and thought I'd check him out!)
5. Angels and Demons by Dan Brown
6. I, Alex Cross by James Patterson
7. The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
8. Julie and Julia by Julie Powell
9. Waiter Rant by the Waiter: Steve Dublainca
10. The Woods by Harlan Coben
11. Witch and Wizard by James Patterson
12. Empty Womb, Aching Heart
13. The Apothecary's Daughter

(can't wait to get a kindle with my tax refund, will be able to read anything, anywhere!)

Edit: Added some books, the Kindle is great! 13 books in 11 weeks, phew!

[neckertb]

7. Fasandræberne by Jussi Adler-Olsen (the feasan killers?) Very good nut completely unlikely to actually happen in Denmark...

Listening to: Keraban le Tetu by Jules Verne

[aravis]

Just finished reading:
"Falling leaves" by Adeline Yen Mah: loved it

and started on:
"But Inside I'm Screaming" by Elizabeth Flock: a bit strange but interesting so far

[Hokuspokus]

I have finished Wheel of Time Vol. 5 by Robert Jordan. Now reading Wheel of Time Vol. 6. I'm afraid I won't read anything else until I've read all 12 volumes.

Well, it turned out that Wheel of time became boring with Vol.6

In progress:
Tahiti von Friedrich Gerstäcker (Adventure novel from a forgotten German author, might be interesting to record)
Die Sängerin von Wilhelm Hauff(recording)

Finished:
1. The Mystery of the Four Fingers by Fred M. White read by knotyouraveragejo Excellent!
2-3. Wheel of Time Vol. 4 and 5 by Robert Jordan Good Fantasy.
4. SIE rächt sich (The Vengeance of She) von Peter Tremayne
5. Walpurgisnacht von Gustav Meyrink
6-8. His Dark Materials 1-3 by Philip Pullman (much much better than the film!)
9-10. Detektiv Nobody 1 and 2 von Robert Kraft (Adventure novels from a forgotten German author, a bit like Old Shatterhand meets Arsen Lupin, quite funny) might be interesting to record.
11. Der Schatz von Eduard Mörike
12. Eddystone von Wilhelm Jensen, read by raynr. I really liked it.
13. Horus von Wolfgang Hohlbein (well, Hohlbein. It was a present ...)

[Nullifidian]

I already mentioned:

1. Arcadia by Tom Stoppard
2. Libra by Don DeLillo
3. Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

I have now finished the third in that list and add the following three books—two of them audiobooks—to my finished list:

4. Benito Cereno by Herman Melville, which I read in full in order to record it here.
5. Persuasion by Jane Austen, an LV audiobook read by Elizabeth Klett.
6. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming, read by Simon Vance.

I've been away for a bit, but I've been keeping up with my reading.

7. Best Russian Short Stories ed. by Thomas Seltzer
8. Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana (not an LV recording... yet, but "catchpenny" is working on it)
9. The Sorrows of Empire by Chalmers Johnson
10. Erasure by Percival Everett
11. Welcome to Oakland by Eric Miles Williamson
12. Melville: A Biography Laurie Robinson-Lorant
13. Voyage Round the World in His Majesty's Frigate Pandora by George Hamilton, an LV recording read by Roy Schreiber
14. My Man Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse, an LV recording read by Mark Nelson
15. Survivors' Tales of Famous Crimes by Walter Wood, which I read before suggesting it for an LV project.

I started listening to the Wodehouse as something to keep my mind occupied on the drive to the Wild Animal Park. Only half the stories are Jeeves and Wooster stories. The other half deal with the travails of Reggie Pepper, a genially goofy rich loafer in the Wooster mold. These stories were annexed to the Jeeves canon by the TV show, though, so if you're familiar with it then there will be a twinge of recognition.

Hamilton's account of the voyage and sinking of HMS Pandora, which was sent to retrieve the Bounty mutineers and bring them back to stand trial, was a fascinating find. It requires a little patience, as Hamilton was the ship's doctor and much of his early narrative focuses too much on the diseases and provisions of the ship, but for an old naval buff like myself, it was a terrific look at the day to day operations of a frigate. When he gets to the shipwreck, one will be amazed that anyone ever survived. In those days, being stranded in the middle of the ocean pretty much meant that you were screwed and the difficulties they overcame were incredible.

I also have to give special notice to Percival Everett's Erasure. Of all the novels I've read published in the last decade, this has them all beat in a canter, as Bertie Wooster would say. It's a story of a man recovering from the sudden and violent death of his sister, a doctor at a women's clinic, the ravages of his mother's Alzheimer's, the world of postmodernist lit crit in academia, and the fraught issue of being "black enough" in the publishing industry. It's a real seven-layer cake of a novel. The centerpiece of the work is a novel-within-a-novel called "My Pafology", a send-up of the kind of blaxploitation fiction represented, in the novel, by We's Lives in da Ghetto, a fictional work by the equally fictional Juanita Mae Jenkins, a privileged black Oberlin grad who wrote the book after staying a mere three days with relatives in Harlem.

Now I'm reading John Barth's The Sot-Weed Factor, which is one of the funniest things I've ever read. If anyone wants to say that postmodernist writing is humorless, I will direct them to this book (and Erasure, come to that). I'm also continuing the postmodern theme by reading Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler. The admin of the Freethought Forum, livius drusus, recommends this to everyone she knows, and I purchased it years ago on the strength of her description, but I'm only now just getting to it.

I'm also listening intermittently to Elizabeth Klett's recording of The House of Mirth. It's a pure pleasure to hear this work, which has long been one of my favorites.

I'll also probably read some nonfiction. I've got two nonfiction works planned for solo recordings as soon as I finish Melville's Benito Cereno. One is Herman Melville: Mariner and Mystic by Raymond Weaver and the other is The Catalpa Expedition by Z.W. Pease. Since it's invariably my practice to read books before I record them, I'll probably find myself reading one or both of these this month.

[neckertb]

8. Havfruen (the Mermaid) by Camilla Läckberg
9. Freedomland by Richard Price (ville noire ville blanche). A bit slow but pretty good!
10. Un pays à l'aube (a Given Day) by Dennis Lehane

Listened to "Tartarin de Tarascon" by Daudet (another wonderful solo by ezwa).

[Nullifidian]

Still keeping up with my reading.

This month I've read:

16. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, an LV audiobook read by Elizabeth Klett
17. The Sot-Weed Factor by John Barth
18. If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino
19. The Song of the Dodo: Island Biogeography in an Age of Extinction by David Quammen
20. The Future of Life by E.O. Wilson
21. The Perfect Wagnerite by George Bernard Shaw
22. The Wife of the Secretary of State by Ella Middleton Tybout

The House of Mirth was easily one of the best recordings I've heard at LibriVox. It's a longtime favorite story of mine, and I was overjoyed to hear it read so well.

The Sot-Weed Factor was hilarious, as I knew it would be. It's a satire of picaresque novels like Tom Jones, but even funnier thanks to some rather explicit parts that would have scandalized Fielding's readers.

Italo Calvino's novel was a real romp. It's a little hard to describe, but the odd chapters deal with "you", the reader, trying to read a book, which is printed in the even chapter, but the book is misprinted, containing only multiple copies of the same chapter. So "you" go back to get another copy of the book, but you're mistakenly handed a different book, which is also incomplete. Eventually, "you" meet another reader, a woman, who is also addressed in the second person. Thus the book flips between the odd-numered "you" chapters and the even-numbered chapters of ten different books.

The Song of the Dodo and The Future of Life both deal with the environment. If I had the money, I'd put copies of Wilson's book in every hotel room and hospital in the country: it is that well-written and important. The Song of the Dodo is a longer book that balances an explication of what biogeography is (the study of the distribution of species on the planet) and its history with discussion of how it is being used to determine the amount of species diversity and how much is being lost due to humanity's actions. The fourth chapter, "Rarity Unto Death", is one of the most depressing things I've ever read.

The Perfect Wagnerite is my latest solo project, and I read the Dover Thrift edition that I had picked up years ago when it was being tossed out by my uni library, in preparation for recording it for LV. It stoked my desire to see the Ring, which I will be doing in June.

The Wife of the Secretary of State is a political thriller centering around the theft of some diplomatic papers and mixes characters, both of Washington insiders and peripheral figures, together in a "cinematic" way that reminds me of the movies Babel or Crash. The lead character is the eponymous wife, Mrs. Redmond, who is apparently being blackmailed by the unscrupulous Count Valdmir, the Russian ambassador. It's a surprisingly good book, considering that I had never heard of it or the author, Ella Middleton Tybout, a mere week ago. If it gets a good group of readers, then it could easily become one of my favorite LV recordings.

Currently, I'm listening to South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition, 1914-1917. I've always been fascinated by the story of this heroic story of survival. A few years back, there was a Shackleton renaissance with a miniseries starring Kenneth Branagh as Shackleton and a two-hour Nova documentary on Shackleton's voyage, and I thought the documentary was even more interesting than the docudrama.

I'm going to stop going to the library for a while or buying new books, while I work on whittling down the backlog I've created for myself. If I want something new, I'll find it on Gutenberg, Archive, Google Books, or LibriVox.

I have several books to choose from, but I'd like to return to the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brian. I loved the first book, as well as the movie which hardly resembles the first book except in the title, and seems to be drawn more from later books. I'm watching the movie right now on AMC.

I also recently came across my copy of Fields, Factories, and Workshops Tomorrow, edited by Colin Ward, from Pyotr Kropotkin's Fields, Factories, and Workshops. While I can't read Ward's abridged and edited version, I can read the original work for LV, and I think I will do that sometime this summer, as it's one we don't have.

[Peter Why]

8 The Awakening of Spiritual Awareness. By Keith Loy. Not finished.
Suggested by Amazon's seach engine. Dross. Author presents as wonders for the uplifting of your spirit from this weary world stuff he's culled from easily available sources .. and italicises what he thinks are important bits, in case you miss them.

9 Night Watch. By Terry Pratchett. Another re-read. A good exploration of Sam Vimes's personality.

10 The Wizard's Dilemma. By Diane Duane. Strong novel in the series that starts with "So you want to be a wizard". Very involving, emotional and magical tale.

11 Lost Crafts: Rediscovering skills. By Una McGovern. A collection of short pieces about all sorts of things from blacksmithing to lacemaking .. and where possible, with instructions (sometimes not very clear) and information on classes. Made me want to get out and dissipate some of my energy on green woodworking.

12 The Handmade Loaf. By Dan Lepard. Good on sourdough; helpful instruction on making and keeping starter. A lot of space taken up with repetition in the recipes, but some lovely short essays about bread makers in different countries.

[aravis]

I kinda lost track of my reading... but I remember finishing:

"But Inside I'm Screaming" by Elizabeth Flock: liked it, but it was quite boring somewhere in the middle
"Ballet Shoes" by Noel Streatfield: odd writing style, but liked it a lot
"The Saddest Girl in the World" by Cathy Glass: quite interesting, just a little too sad
"His dark Materials - Northern Lights" by Philipp Pullman: liked it a lot
"A probable future" by Alice Hoffman: re-read, love it
"The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan: re-read, love it
"The finaly journey" by Gudrun Pausewang: didn't like it much, too sad

In progress:
"Thursday's child" by Noel Streatfield
"A little Princess" by F. H. Burnett

[Hazel Pethig]

3books by AJ Jacobs
The know it all
Guinea pig diaries
A year of living biblically
All excellent books. All about his wacky experiments on himself. In the first he spends a year reading the complete encyclopedia britannica.

I'm also reading Dead in the Family. Sookie Stackhouse book 10, good so far!

[Peter Why]

13 Diane Duane's "A Wizard of Mars". The series started with "So you want to be a wizard". The main characters are developing well as they age through childhood and adolescence, and the situations they get involved in are maturing, too. A good read, but it felt a little slow moving. I won't be starting at the beginning again immediately, as I do with the Discworld books.
I think the first novel Duane wrote was The Door into Fire. The last one in that series, Door into Starlight, seems to have been in abeyance for well over ten years. I'd love to know why.

14 Tom Holt's "You don't have to be evil to work here, but it helps". (re-read). I've never found Tom Holt laugh-out loud funny, just gently humourous. I like the unexplored strangenesses in his novels .. for example, in this one, an unseen roomful of auditors making stranger and stranger demands on the staff of J.W. Wells and Co, Sorcerers. ... and when Benny and Mr Tanner eventually broke in, the room was bare but for scattered debris.

15 Lynne Truss: "Talk to the hand" ... a criticism of rudeness, written in a light-headed, amusing .. but definitely serious way. A short book. I found myself reading comments that had been trapped inside my head for years ... watching the behaviour of many of the people around me.

16 "Meditation Now or Never", by Steve Hagen. A bit thin on content. Some of his other books on buddhism are much more involving. It could have been a free pamphlet, given away to beginners in a zen group, instead of extending itself to almost 200 pages.

17 "Bread Matters - Why and how to make your own", by Andrew Whitley. He does go on a bit .. reasonably enough ... about the ghastliness of much modern bread and the additives, revealed or not, that go into it. But much of it's very helpful .. unusual ideas and methods, and a very good system for sourdough. Worth getting for all sourdough bread makers.

[Gesine]

Oops, sorry, hit 'Quote' instead of 'Edit' button by accident before.