LibriVox Forum

Anyone in? ... that makes, gulp, 52 for the year.

Propose to list books you are reading here (as you start new ones), and write little reviews here when we are done with them, if you feel like it (or a link to blogged reviews).

Just finished:
-Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami

Now reading:
-Programming the Universe, Seth Lloyd
-Lullabies for Little Criminals, Heather O'Neil
-The Wealth of Networks, Yochai Benkler

Man, as much as I like books I read so little. Perhaps I should change that. One book a week, eh? I'll see what I can do Oh wait! I just finished a book in a week, just after Christmas. I'll have to write a review up on it, because I highly recommend it to other knitters.

Plan to read:
Shirley by Charlotte Bronte

Have read:
Knitting Rules: The Yarn Harlot's Bag of Knitting Tricks by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

Oh, that's easy ;-)

Currently reading:
Areas of my Expertise, by John Hodgman
Skeleton Man, by Tony Hillerman
Unnatural Selection, by Aaron Elkins (Dreadful. Gave up after 2 chapters)
The Cultured Handmaiden, by Catherine Cookson (Boring. Gave up after two chapters)

Finished:
1. Holidays on Ice, by David Sedaris
2. The Christmas Store, by Ray Sipherd (not recommended)
3. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld (Excellent!!!)(Jan. 9)
4. Castle, by David Macaulay (Jan. 5)
5. Cathedral, by David Macaulay (Jan. 9)
6 The Lost Art of Keeping Secrets, by Eva Rice (Jan 11)
7. London is the Best City in America, by Laura Dave (Jan 18)
8. The Grey King, by Susan Cooper (Jan 29)
9. The Shepherd, The Angel, and Walter the Christmas Miracle Dog, by Dave Barry (hilarious and touching) (Jan 31)
10. When Madeline Was Young, by Jane Hamilton (Amazing!) (Feb 3)
11. The Book of Ruth, by Jane Hamilton (feb)
12. Disobedience, by Jane Hamilton (excellent!!) (Feb)
13. Whose Body?, by Dorothy Sayers (librivox - excellent)(Feb)
14. The Awakening, by Kate Chopin (LibriVox) (March)

(the next group)
I'll just keep editing this post all year, until there are 52 books in the list!

Just the one a week? (j/k)

2 questions:

Do re-reads count?
And what about listening to a book, does that count?


Reading List:

1) The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents, Terry Pratchett
2) The Life and Times of the Thunder Bolt Kid, Bill Bryson (re-read)
3) The Thirteenth Tale, Diane Setterfield
4) Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson (audio)
5) Neither Here nor There, Bill Bryson (audio)
6) The Pheonix and the Carpet, Edith Nesbit (re-read)
7) The Expected One, Katheleen McGawan
8) The Murder Room, PD James
9) In the Kingdom of Mists, Jane Jakeman (in progress)

rereads count... audio no.

okay, then that only makes 2 so far this year, darn...

Don't think I'll make it to 52, but curious to see how it goes. I assume if I read (rather than listen to) all the chapters for a collaborative LV project, that counts? I'm hoping that by choosing books I'm interested in it will spur me to read the remainder.

Reviews on demand!

On the bed table:
Giraffe by J.M. Ledgard

Back on the bookshelf:
Jan
1. Hardrock Fever by Robert B. Boeder
2. Mountain Man Dance Moves: The McSweeney's Book of Lists (John Warner, ed.)
3. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
4. Mind of the Raven by Bernd Heinrich
Feb
5. Mountains of the Mind by Robert Macfarlane
6. Running After Antelope by Scott Carrier
7. The Poe Shadow by Matthew Pearl
March
8. Walking Zero by Chet Raymo
9. The Mind Has Mountains by Paul R. McHugh
10. Thoreau and the Art of Life (Roderick MacIver, ed.)
April
11. The Places in Between by Rory Stewart
12. The Sweet Smell of Psychosis by Will Self
13. Beyond the Marathon by Robert B. Boeder
May
14. The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski
15. Finbar's Hotel by Dermot Bolger et al
June
16. Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
17. The Space Tourist's Handbook by Eric Anderson
18. The Gospel of Judas by Simon Mawer
July
19. Ignorance by Milan Kundera
20. Adventures in the Rocky Mountains by Isabella Bird
21. Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt
August
22. Ring of Ice (Peter Stark, ed.)
23. To the Ends of the Earth by Gordon Wiltsie
September
24. The Ambidextrist by Peter Rock
25. Snakes with Wings & Gold-digging Ants by Herodotus
October
26. Night Watch by Terry Pratchett
27. The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer
November
28. Can-cans, Cats, and Cities of Ash by Mark Twain

This seems like fun...I am looking forward to looking back (:?) at the end of 2007 and seeing what was on my list!

1. Kushiel's Chosen by Jacqueline Carey [re-read]
2. Kushiel's Avatar by Jacqueline Carey [re-read]
3. Kushiel's Scion by Jacqueline Carey [re-read] (IP)
4. Letters of a Portuguese Nun by Myriam Cyr (IP)

Review on demand, or, if I blog a review, I'll post a link here. Happy reading, everyone!

-Michelle

Updated 30th January

All re-reads:

1 Terry Practchett: The Wee Free Men
An easy flowing story of a young girl being drawn into witchcraft as she struggles against the Queen of the Fairies .. who is not at all a maiden in a tutu with wispy wings, but whose power comes from her power over dreams .. and not the nice ones. ... Oh and Tiffany does have the help of a tribe of distinctly unmagical fairy pictsies .. "who you callin' a fairy, pal? Catch a faceful of head!" And then there's her first meeting with Granny Weatherwax, possibly the most powerful witch on the Discworld.

I like it. Not as strong a story line as most of his Discworld novels, but gentle fun, and with a strong undercurrent of the power that is waiting for Tiffany as she grows.

2 Terry Practhett: A Hatful of Sky
The next Tiffany story. Tiffany travels to a distant witch to start her apprenticeship. An ancient disembodied force follows her, seeking the power of her personality and mind. The pictsies race after her to help her defeat the apparently unkillable hiver that tries to invade her. ... and Granny turns up, too, to show Tiffany how to find her own strength.

So many little pieces in the story that make me smile.

3 Roger Zelazny: Dilvish the Damned.

The world is a little like Vance's fantasy world, but with a poetic, crystalline feel to it that (to my mind) is lacking in Vance's world. Dilvish wanders the world, seen through stories that are anything from half a dozen pages to novella-size, pursuing vengeance against the sorcerer that sent him to Hell a couple of centuries ago. Released, and accompanied by a creature that he met in the world of demons, he searches, diverted easily by adventure and his willingness to help others. Not just a creature of vengeance, he has a gentle, romantic side, and is able to see how unbalanced his life has become.

4 Terry Pratchett; Monstrous Regiment

An old story about a girl running away to join the army (like Elizabeth Moon's sheepfarmer's daughter), with TP's usual twists and stretching of the story. See the strange drive to battle through the strong, sensible central characters ... with a lovely aura of humour and affection flowing through it.

4 Steve Hagen: Buddhism is not what you think.

A collection of dharma talks from a modern teacher of zen buddhism. (A dharma talk in this context is not something that the listener is meant to think about or memorise, but acts directly, a contact between the teacher's mind and the listeners. Despite the way we feel most of the time, the words and feelings that fill our minds aren't the important bit; it's possible to quiet them and you become aware of a non-verbal "thinking" ... now we move out of being able to describe what happens.) As near as these things can be, a clear demonstration of how practice overflows from sitting to the whole of your life.

5 James White - Mind Changer

One of a series of collections of science fiction short stories centred on Sector General, a multi-species hospital in an enormous space station. Over time, the stories covered about twenty years of the hospital's life. Seen mainly through the ideas and thoughts of the humans, the non-humans are often much more interesting and entertaining characters. Mind Changer is a group of linked stories about the life of O'Mara, who started as a labourer on the hospital when it was being constructed, and ended as the most powerful being there, the Chief Psychologist .. .with many little quirks of his own, swimming under the surface. They're fun.

6 Terry Pratchett - Jingo

Another Discworld book, on politics, invasion and policemen. Over the water and under it, Vimes and the Patriarch pursue each their own way to avoid a war over an island that rises from the deep.

7 Len Deighton - The Ipcress File.

Deighton's first spy novel. Complex, intense, with a lot of humour and hidden motives. To my taste, the first four he wrote were his best, with a simlar taste. Written in the first person ("Harry Palmer" in the film, never named other than ... possibly only once ... as "Harry", in the books).

8 Charlotte Joko Smith - Everyday Zen.

Another collection of modern dharma talks in the Soto tradition. Live in this moment. Themed sections on suffering, feelings, relationships etc. I suspect they would be gibberish if you hadn't practiced at least a little in the tradition, but very helpful if you have.

Peter

I'll keep my running list of books here:
http://librivox.org/wiki/moin.cgi/BetsieBush

1. The Lair of the White Worm by Bram Stoker
   While this book was very suspensful and kept me wanting to read on, there were a lot of holes in the plot that left me scratching my head. At times, it was difficult to know which character was speaking, and the transitions between scenes were often so abrubt that I felt as if something were missing from the text. The characters were certainly interesting, but their motivations did not always seem clear or valid. This book felt more like an outline for a longer book... I would love to have read a more complete version. I read (and recorded) this book to my husband from Jan. 1st to Jan. 7th (he said he'd seen a movie version with Hugh Grant and wanted to know how close it was to the book... not even close, was the verdict, but the movie was even worse)

Wow, I want to do that. The young man and I are already making plans to read...you know, lots of things together. But right now editing his novel takes up all my spare time.

Never introduce yourself to young men who have written novels. They are fascinating but vampiric.

kafka on the shore:

Talking cats, raining fish, death, trapped souls, parallel universes, a confused fifteen-year-old, and of course a good smattering of sex. Among other (sometimes heart-breaking) oddities. With Kafka on the Shore, Japanese novelist and fabulist Haruki Murakami continues his metaphysical exploration of the odd underside of human and not-so human experience, getting at the raw truth that lies obscured by everyday reality. The writing seems less assured than in the masterful Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, which might be blamed on the translator: Philip Gabriel replacing Jay Rubin. The prose is a bit clunky (possibly Murakami, possibly Gabriel), but the narrative transcends those problems, much as his characters, willing and not, transcend physics.

Oh, and Richard Dawkins, the God Delusion:
http://dosemagazine.blogsome.com/2007/01/06/bookreview-the-god-delusion/

Completed in 2007:

1. J.S. Fletcher. The Middle Temple Murder
2. Nicholson Baker. Vox
3. J.S. Fletcher. The Paradise Mystery
4. Arthur Schopenhauer. Studies in Pessimism
5. Anthony Trollope. The Warden
6. Anthony Trollope. Barchester Towers
7. Jane Austen. Mansfield Park
8. Dorothy L. Sayers. Whose Body?
9. Edgar Wallace. The Clue of the Twisted Candle
10. Henry Handel Richardson. The Getting of Wisdom
11. Maurice Leblanc. The Hollow Needle
12. Anthony Hope. The Prisoner of Zenda
13. Baroness E. Orzy. The Scarlett Pimpernel
14. Okakura Kakuzo. The Book of Tea
15. Martha Grimes. The Old Wine Shades
16. Philip Verrill Mighels. Thurley Ruxton
17. J. Sheridan LeFanu. Carmilla
18. A.A. Milne. The Red House Mystery
19. Ernest Bramah. Four Max Carrados Detective Stories
20. Raphael Sabatini. Scaramouche
21. E.W. Hornung The Amateur Cracksman
22. F. Hodgson Burnett. Little Lord Fauntleroy
23. Haruki Murakami (trans. Gabriel). Kafka on the Shore
24. Joshua Slocum. Sailing Alone Around the World
25. Susan Cooper. Over Sea, Under Stone
26. Kate Chopin. The Awakening
27. Susan Cooper. The Dark is Rising
28. Lewis Caroll. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
29. Joseph Conrad. Typhoon
30. Susan Cooper. The Greenwitch
31. Susan Cooper. The Grey King
32. Susan Cooper. The Silver Tree
33. Edward L. Wheeler. Deadwood Dick's Doom; or, Calamity Jane's Last Adventure
34. Washington Irving. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow
35. Joseph Conrad. Lord Jim
36. John Stuart Mill. Utilitarianism
37. J.K. Rowlings The Deathly Hallows
38. Harriet Beinfield & Efrem Korngold. Between Heaven and Earth
39. Anna Katharine Green. The Leavenworth Case
40. John le Carre. The Missing Song
41. Martin Cruz Smith. Wolves Eat Dogs
42. Mary Hastings Bradley. The Fortieth Door
43. Henry James. Daisy Miller: A Study in Two Parts
44. Baroness E. Orzy. The Old Man in the Corner
45. Edgar Wallace. Angel of Terror
46. Mary Robert Rinehart. The Circular Staircase
47. Jean Webster. Daddy-Long-Legs
48. A. Friend. Unpublished Novel
49. Eleanor Hallowell Abbott. The Indiscreet Letter
50. Eleanor H. Porter. Pollyanna
51. Ernest Shackleton. South! The Story of Shackleton's Last Expedition 1914-1917
52. Baroness E. Orzy. El Dorado
53. Anne Austin. Murder at Bridge
54. Mary Elizabeth Braddon. Lady Audley's Secret
55. Israel Zangwill. The Big Bow Mystery
56. Frank Pinkerton. Won by Crime
57. Charles Norris and Alice Muriel Williamson. The Second Latchkey
58. Raphael Sabatini. Captain Blood
59. Elizabeth George. What Came Before He Shot Her
60. Theodor Fontane. Ein Sommer in London
61. L.T. Meade and Robert Eustace. A Master of Mysteries
62. P.G. Wodehouse. Love Among the Chickens
63. LibriVox volunteers. The Yellow Sheet
64. George Macdonald. The Princess and the Goblin
65. Augusta Groner. The Case of the Pocket Diary in the Snow
66. Roy J. Snell. The Blue Envelope
67. Arthur Conan Doyle. The Sign of the Four
68. Jean Webster. Dear Enemy
69. Maude L. Radford. King Arthur and His Knights
70. Various. Short Mystery Story Collection 001

Read so far this year:
1. Reaper Man by Terry Pratchett (reread)
2. Snow Crash by Neal Stephenson
3. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling (reread)
4. Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman (reread)

In progress:
Outlander by Diana Gabaldon
La Maison sur le Rivage by Daphne DuMaurier
Zorro by Isabel Allende
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson
Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie

A blog to keep track of them.

For 2007 I'm watching TV less and reading more, so I guess I should have a go at this. I think I'll find 52 a tall order though.

My self imposed rules and loopholes will be:

1) I usually have more than one book on the go, and I'm also a bit inconsistent, reading a book in a day then nothing for a fortnight, so my target is 52 in a year, rather than one a week.

2) I've already got a quite challenging pile of books lined up, including quite a few thick ones. So I'll probably have to deliberately choose some short books also in order to compensate and give myself a fighting chance.

3) Recording a solo project and prooflistening (provided I read the whole book) are going to count, which will encourage me to be a good citizen of LibriVox.

I'm going to re-do my Wiki in order to catalogue my progress.

Cheers and wish me luck,
Carl.