Erin G's 100

I know I'm joining the party late, but here is my 100:

Brisingr by Christopher Paulini

Inheritance by Christopher Paulini

The Plains of Passage y Jean M Auel

The Tapirs Morning Bath by Elizabeth Royte

Wicked by Gregory Maguire

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkein

Ishmael by Daniel Quinn

A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold

Wonder by R J Palacio

Grimms Complete Fairy Tales by The Fall River Publishing Company

Eldritch tales By HP Lovecraft

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Five Weeks in a Balloon

A Journey to the Center of the Earth

From the Earth to the Moon

Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea

Around the World in 80 Days

The Mysterious Island (Last 7 by Jules Verne(

Interview with a Vampire by Anne Rice

The Vampire Lestat by Anne Rice

The Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice

A Study in Scarlet by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Sign of the Four by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Return of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

His Last Bow by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Case Book of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austin

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austin

Mansfield Park by Jane Austin

Emma by Jane Austin

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austin

Persuassion by Jane Austin

Lady Susan by Jane Austin

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn BY Mark Twain

A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court by Mark Twain

The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain

Short Story Collection by Mark Twain

The Son of the Wolf By Jack London

The God of hid Fathers By Jack London

Children of the Frost By Jack London

White Fang By Jack London

The Faith of Men By Jack London

Uncollected Stories and Tales By Jack London

The Call of the Wild By Jack London

The Sea Wolf By Jack London

Tales of the Fish Patrol By Jack London

Canterbury Tales by Geoffery Chaucer

Twice Told Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Whitman: Poetry and Prose by Walt Whitman

Essays and Poems of Ralph Waldo Emerson

Waldn by Henry David Thoreau

Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau

The Illiad By Homer

Gulliver’s Travels by Johnathon Swift

Possession by AS Byatt

Tipperary by Frank Delaney

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton

Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder

Aphrodite by Isabel Allende

The Fiery Cross by Diana Gabaldon

The Mystic Life of Merlin by RJ Stewart

The Works of Kipling by Black’s Readers Company

Dragonfly in Amber by Diana Gabaldon

Voyager by Diana Gabaldon

Drums of Autumn by Diana Gabaldon

A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon

An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon

The Fellowship of the Ring by JRR Tolkein

The Return of the King by JRR Tolkein

The Two Towers by JRR Tolkien

Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Beowulf By Unknown

The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley

The Sword of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Elfstones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Wishsong of Shannara by Terry Brooks

Magic Kingdom For Sale – Sol by Terry Brooks

The Talismans of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Druid of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Elf of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Sciones of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Talismans of Shannara by Terry Brooks

The Fairy Tale Detectives by Michael Buckley

Tales from the Hood by Michael Buckley

Magic and Other Misdemeanors by Michael Buckley

The Problem Child by Michael Buckley

The Everafter War by Michael Buckley

Once Upon a Crime by Michael Buckley

The Unusual Suspects by Michael Buckley

Mistborn: The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn: The Well of Ascension by Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn: The Hero of Ages y Brandon Sanderson

Mistborn: The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

The Wood Wife by Terri Windling

Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

A little over halfway

I've been at this for two years and nine months now and have fallen a bit behind, having only read 47 of my books. I have decided that I am going to take the liberty of swapping out up to five books, two for books that I have attempted and decided that I am just not interested in, plus up to three others. I subbed a book once before, when I decided that Three Cups of Tea needed to go because of the dishonesty in the book.

I will mark my substitutions in red. I'm not going to chicken out and sub for Karamazov  or Les Mis, as much as I would like to take the easy way out.
 
 So here is my list:

1. Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
2. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy (2/13/2012)
3. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
4. Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
5. Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond
6. North and South by Gaskell
7. Dune by Frank Herbert (3/19/2011)
8. Wheel of Time by Robert Jordan
9. A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle
10. Wench by Dolen Perkins-Valdez
11. Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
12. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (3/16/2012)
13. Law and Gospel by CFW Walther
14. Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset (3/17/2013)
15. Beach Music by Pat Conroy (3/22/2012)
16. The Children of Hurin JRR Tolkien
17. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
18. The Frontiersmen by Allen Eckert
19. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat by Oliver Sacks
20. The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde (12/5/2011)
21. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak (2/21/2012)
22. Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood
23. The Jungle Books by Rudyard Kipling (1/27/2012)
24. The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov (2/5/2013)
25. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson (4/29/2011)
26. Death Comes for the Archbishop  by Willa Cather
27. Churchill by Paul Johnson
28. The Conquest of Gaul  by Julius Caesar, subbing The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius
29. Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
30. The Bondage of the Will by Martin Luther
31. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas (11/4/2012)
32. Summerland by Michael Chabon (6/25/2012)
33. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
34. The Great Divorce by C.S. Lewis
35. The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier (5/19/2011)
36. Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler (6/28/2012)
37. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
38. A Canticle for Leibowitz, Miller (2/9/2011)
39. In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
40. The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
41. The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss (4/12/2011)
42. A Life Worth Living by John Holt
43. Defenders of the Faith: Charles V, Suleyman the Magnificent, and the Battle for Europe, 1520-1536 by Reston
44. Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
45. The Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. DuBois (12/13/2012)
46. Life at the Bottom by Theodore Dalrymple (3/20/2011)
47. The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (1/7/2011)
48. Desolation Road by Ian McDonald (7/10/2012)
49. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe (9/25/2012)
50. All the King’s Men by Robert Penn Warren (4/3/2012)
51. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood
52. Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
53. Faust by Goethe
54. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (5/29/2013)
55. Up from Slavery by Booker T. Washington (4/7/2013)
56. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster (4/24/2012)
57. Redwall by Brian Jacques
58. The Guns of August by Barabara Tuchman (just can't get into the military history), subbing Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut 
59. Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
60. Life of Pi by Yann Mertel, subbing Lord of the Flies by William Golding
    
61. Aeneid by Virgil
62. The Complete Poetry of  John Donne
63. Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, T.S. Eliot (4/23/2012)
64. Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie
65.  My Antonia by Willa Cather (1/15/2013)
66. Dead Souls by Gogol
67. The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek
68. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (9/28/2011)
69. East Lynne by Ellen Wood (6/18/2011)
70. Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle
71. Emily of New Moon by L.M. Montgomery (1/6/2012)
72. The Hobbit JRR Tolkien
73. The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald (12/26/2010)
74. Robinson Crusoe (9/9/2013)
75. The Once and Future King by T.H. White
76. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (7/18/2011)
77. Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf
78. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
79. Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (3/25/2013)
80. Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
81. The Man Who Was Thursday by GK Chesterton, subbing Middlemarch by George Eliot
82. Introducing Father Brown by GK Chesterton (10/6/2011)
83. Casino Royale by Ian Fleming (5/2/11)
84. The Last of the Mohicans by James Fennimore Cooper
85. On the Road by Jack Kerouac
86. The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
87. Death in Venice by Thomas Mann (5/6/2013)
88. Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov (7/2/2012)
89. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1/20/2013)
90. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
91. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (3/6/2011)
92. The Forgotten Man by Amity Shlaes (12/30/2012)
93. The Warden by Anthony Trollope (1/28/2013)
94. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie
95. Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy
96. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
97. Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula LeGuin, (I have read other works by LeGuin this year) subbing The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
98. The Stranger by Albert Camus
99. Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman
100. The Histories by Herodotus

57 books read

Braddon, Mary Elizabeth. Lady Audley's Secret.
Gaskell, Elizabeth. Ruth.
Heyer, Georgette. Faro's Daughter
Heyer, Georgette. Friday's Child
Trollope, Anthony. Can You Forgive Her?
Trollope, Anthony. Phineas Finn.
Webster, Jean. Daddy Long Legs.
Webster, Jean. Dear Enemy.

Darlene's Review: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K. Rowling

Hi, everyone!

This is Book #4 for me! I read it aloud to my kids.

5/5 stars!

You can read the review on my blog HERE.

Excellent Women by Barbara Pym

I had such high hopes that I would love this book, and I did, so very much.

So many people had said that it was so good, that it was Barbara Pym’s best book, and when I realised that it was the story of a spinster, in her thirties in the fifties, my mind went spinning back.

Not to the fifties – I’m not that old – but to when my mother took me to church as a very small child. We always sat behind a row of elderly ladies, and I spent a long time looking at their backs and hats during dull sermons and lengthy intercessions. They always spoke to my mother – they had know her since she was a small girl coming to church with her own mother – and whenever something was going on, be it a coffee morning or a jumble sale, they were always there and they were always busy.

When I was a small girl I thought that they were ancient, but looking back I think most of them would have been in their sixties. Years layer my mother used to visit one of those ladies when she was housebound, and I remember my mother telling me that she was always so welcoming and so appreciative. Not long after she did her nephew appeared on our doorstep with two carved elephants. My mother had mentioned in passing that she remembered her parents having a similar pair, and she had made a note that nother was to have her elephants.

I’m rambling, but I’m going to come to the point now. Mildred Lathbury – the excellent woman who tells this story was so real, so utterly believable that I am quite prepared to believe that I might have been looking at her back and her hat back in the day.


Mildred was the daughter of a clergyman, and she had been brought up in a country vicarage, but when she found herself alone in the world she moved to a small flat near the Anglican church that she regularly attended. She was a stalwart of that church and had formed a close friendship with Winifred Mallory. She was the vicar’s sister and, as both sister and brother were ummarried, they lived together in the vicarage. It had been suggested that Mildred would be an excellent wife for Julian Mallory …

New arrivals heralded change.

First new neighbours moved into the flat below Mildred’s. Helena Napier, an anthropologist, arrived first, and Mildred was taken aback when Helena spoke to her freely and frankly, when she announced that she didn’t go to church, when she said that she didn’t believe in housework. Her husband, Rockingham had just come out of the navy and was on his way home from Italy. Mildred wasn’t sure if she liked Helena but she was intrigued by her, and by new possibilities.

And then the Mallory’s decided to let a room. Allegra Grey was a clergyman’s widow and she seemed to be the ideal person to share the vicarage. She wasn’t, and some worked that out more quickly than others. There was much speculation, and a good deal of gossiping.

Mildred’s relationship with the Napiers was lovely to watch. She was flattered to be asked for help and advice, and she came to realise that marriage was far, far more complicated than she had realised. And that she was rather more involved than she really wanted to be. Events at the vicarage offered interesting parallels and contrasts. Church events provided a wonderful backdrop. And I haven’t even mentioned Everest Bone …

Barbara Pym constructed her story so cleverly and told it beautifully. There is wit, intelligence and insight, and such a very light touch and a natural charm. A simple story, but the details made it sing. It was so very believable.

It offers a window to look clearly at a world that existed not so long ago, but that has changed now so completely.

Mildred’s voice rang completely true, and I did like her. She was a genuinely nice woman, practical intelligent, and dependable. She didn’t think marriage was the answer to everything, she liked having her independence and her own space, but she did rather like the idea of being married, of having a companion in life.

And now I have just one more word – excellent!

Mariana by Monica Dickens

This may be the loveliest opening to a novel that I have ever read.

"Mary sometimes heard people say: 'I can't bear to be alone." She could never understand this. All her life she had needed the benison of occasional solitude, and she needed it now more than ever. If she could not be with the man she loved, then she would rather be by herself."

 

It captured my own feelings perfectly, and expressed them more beautifully than I ever could.

Mary escaped to the country with just her small terrier dog, Bingo, in tow. Her husband was at sea, in the navy, and the country was at war. Because she wanted to be quiet, to remember, to think.

It was lovely watching Mary and Bingo settle in, lovely to be reminded of the depth of Monica Dickens' understanding of character and of her talent for catching exactly the right details to paint a perfect picture.

I was particularly taken with her understanding that a terrier can be sound asleep and alert at the same time ...

The peaceful scene was disturbed when Mary switched on the wireless, when she heard that her husband's ship had been hit. There were survivors, there was hope, but Mary had a night to get through before she found out the next morning if her husband was alive or dead. It was a sleepless night, and as she lay awake Mary turned over memories in her mind.

She remembered her childhood, with a mother who had been widowed in the last war and who worked as a dressmaker to support them. Her husband's family would have helped but she didn't want to be beholden to them. It was enough that they gave Mary lovely, idyllic summer holidays in the country. And a place in a bigger family.

She remembered going to drama school with grand plans, and coming to realise that she was on the wrong path. Fashion college in Paris was a much better idea. She could have a lovely time and she could play a part in the family business. Mary had a wonderful time in Paris, and she made a marvellous catch. But even the most marvellous catch is not necessarily the right catch.

Mary found her happy ending back in England, at the most unexpected moment.

Now it has to be said that Mary is not the most sympathetic of characters. She is often awkward, thoughtless, selfish even. But she was real, and for all her failing I did like her, I did want her to find her path in life, her place in the world. Sometimes fallible heroines are so much easier to love. And Mary was real, alive, and her emotional journey was so utterly real. There were highs and lows, tears and laughter. Every emotion a young woman might go through. And so many incidents, so many moments to recollect. All of this was observed so beautifully, with understanding, intelligence, and just the right amount of empathy.

But if Mary's life was the foreground, the background was just as perfectly realised. Her world was as alive as she was, and every character who was part of that word, even if only for a short while, was caught perfectly.

I loved watching over Mary's life. It was an ordinary life, but every ordinary life is unique and Monica Dickens highlighted that quite beautifully.

And I could have stayed in her world quite happily, but morning eventually came, and Mary had to face whatever news of her husband might come. And when it came I had to leave. I'd love to know what happened in the next chapters of Mary's life, but failing that I'll go back and read about the years I know all over again one day. Because this is a lovely book, and a lovely way to get lost in another life and another world.

Darlene's Review: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling

Hi, everyone!

I'm not doing very well with this challenge!

This is Book #3 for me:

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling
5/5 stars
Link to my review on my blog is HERE

A list rediscovery

I rediscovered a list on here which I made 4 years ago, I then stopped blogging and promptly forgot about this list. These are the books I have left on it to read, there are a few that I have can't remember why they are on the list, these I will have to investigate:
1. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

2. London Orbital by Iain Sinclair

3. The Cider House Rules: A Novel by John Irving

4. Schindlers Ark by Thomas Keneally

5. Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera

6. The Princess Bride by William Goldman

7. Petals of Blood by Ngugi wa Thiong'o

8. Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

9. Gravity's Rainbow

10. Cancer Ward by Solzhenitsyn

11. The Third Man and The Fallen Idol by Graham Greene

12. The Gormenghast Novels by Mervyn Peake

13. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

14. Out of Africa by Isak Dinesen

15. THE POSTMAN ALWAYS RINGS TWICE by James M. Cain

16. Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

17. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

18. The Forsythe Saga by John Galsworthy

19. Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

20. Hunger by Knut Hamsun

21. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

22. Danial Deronda, George Eliot

23. The Water-Babies (a Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby) by Charles KIngsley

24. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

25. Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

26. Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift

27. Oroonoko, Aphra Behn

28. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes

29. The Metamorphoses by Ovid

30. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

31. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende

32. Bellefleur, Joyce Carol Oates

33. A Garden of Earthly Delights by Joyce Carol Oates

34.Merlin's Brooke, Jane Yolen

35. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

36. THE WOOD WIFE by Terri Windling

37.Arthur and George by Julian Barnes

38. Big Sur by Jack Kerouac

39. Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

40. Arrow of God by Chinua Achebe

41.Canary Row, Steinbeck

42. In the Castle of My Skin by George Lamming

43.Migel Street, Naiupaul

44. Gilead: A Novel by Marilynne Robinson

45.The Wild Wood, Charles de Lint

46.In the Skin of a Lion, Ondaatje

47.Pendragon

48. The Glass Bees by Ernst Junger

49. Crash by J.G. Ballard

50. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

51. The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa

52. The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri

53.The Dreaming Place by Charles de Lint

54. Enchantment by Orson Scott Card

55.Houseboy, Ferdinand Oyono

56.The Devil that Danced on the Water, Aminatta Furna

57.The Circle of Karma, Kunzang Choden

58. Arresting God in Kathmandu by Samrat Upadhyay

59.I AM David, Holm

60. The Hundred and Ninety-nine Steps by Michel Faber
Quite nice to see that I had read 40 from the list with no prompt. I will continue tackling this list and see what I can acheive by April next year.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for A Day by Winifred Watson

I added Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day after hearing about the movie with the same name. I decided to read the book and I'm glad I did. It was a light hearted romp.
Miss Pettigrew's adventure starts with her looking for employment. Miss Pettigrew is a terrible governess but needs a job in order to keep her room. At the employment agency, Miss Pettigrew is given the name of Miss LaFosse who is looking for a governess. Miss Pettigrew heads to Miss LaFosse's residence determined to make this stick. But when she gets to Miss LaFosse's there are no children, but Miss LaFosse needs a lot of help and Miss Pettigrew is determined to help her. Miss LaFosse leads the opposite life of Miss Pettigrew. Miss LaFosse is a lounge singer, with more men than she knows what to do with. Determined to see Miss LaFosse settled down, Miss Pettigrew injects herself in a world she knows nothing about.
I loved both the fish out of water and the Cinderella aspects to Miss Pettigrew. Miss Pettigrew is about twenty years older than Miss LaFosse and her friends. Their expectations in life and with relationships are completely different. But Miss LaFosse welcomes Miss Pettigrew and gives her a makeover.
I really enjoyed Miss Pettigrew Lives For A Day. It was cute and an enjoyable read.

Darlene's Review: The Road by Cormac McCarthy

I'm not doing very well with this challenge and need to pick up the pace! I need to make more of an effort to choose books from my list. But the new ones that come out are so tempting! Ah, the bane of a book-lover :)

I just finished Book #2 on my Fill In The Gaps list:

The Road by Cormac McCarthy
3/5 stars

Here is the link to my review:
http://darlenesbooknook.blogspot.ca/2012/07/audiobook-review-road-by-cormac-mccarthy.html

Updates to List

I honestly can't remember my last update, but, I have read some more titles on my list. If my previous posts had correct math, I think I've read 51 books.

Collins, Wilkie. The Woman in White
Dickens, Charles. David Copperfield.
Dickens, Charles. Little Dorrit.
 Dickens, Charles. Oliver Twist.
Dickens, Charles. Our Mutual Friend.
Steinbeck, John. Grapes of Wrath
Zamyatin, Yevgeny. We.

Michelle (3M) at 1morechapter's Progress

Michelle (3M) from 1morechapter here. Wowsers. I just realized that I have less than two years to  finish at least 75% of this list. Reading 46 titles in two years is very doable. I just regret that I haven't gotten further along by now. One of the reasons is personal issues in 2010 that made me forego reading more than I should have. Hope to get back on track now, though. I didn't review all that I read, either, but there are some that are linked below.

Happy reading, everyone!

29/100

Bold titles have been read.

1. Middlemarch by George Eliot (1001)
2. War and Peace by Tolstoy (1001)
3. Crime and Punishment by Dostoevsky (1001)
4. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver (1001)
5. If on a winter’s night a traveler by Italo Calvino (1001)
6. Measuring the World by Daniel Kehlmann (1001)
7. The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene (1001)
8. Unless by Carol Shields (1001)
9. Tess of the d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy (1001)
10. Memoirs of a Geisha by Golden (1001)
11. What I Loved by Siri Hustvedt (1001)
12. The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Kundera (1001)
13. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll (1001)
14. The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri (1001)
15. Kafka on the Shore by Murakami (1001)
16. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle by Murakami (1001)
17. Cry, the Beloved Country by Paton (1001)
18. Labrynthes by Borges (1001)
19. Ficciones by Borges (1001)
20. The Hobbit by Tolkien (1001)
21. Out of Africa by Denison (1001)
22. Brave New World by Huxley (1001)
23. Summer by Edith Wharton (1001)
24. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins (1001)
25. Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen (1001)
26. Breathing Lessons – Anne Tyler (Pulitzer)
27. A Thousand Acres – Jane Smiley (Pulitzer)
28. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Pulitzer)
29. Empire Falls by Richard Russo (Pulitzer)
30. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (Pulitzer)
31. American Pastoral by Philip Roth (Pulitzer)
32. A Confederacy of Dunces by Toole (Pulitzer)
33. The Good Earth by Buck (Pulitzer)
34. So Big by Ferber (Pulitzer)
35. Gone with the Wind by Mitchell (Pulitzer)
36. Lonesome Dove by McMurtry (Pulitzer)
37. Arrowsmith by Sinclair Lewis (Pulitzer)
38. Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson (Pulitzer)
39. one title from 2010-2013 Pulitzers (Tinkers)
40. second title from 2010-2013 Pulitzers
41. one title from 2009-2013 Bookers (The Sense of an Ending)
42. second title from 2009-2013 Bookers
43. Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee (Booker)
44. Remains of the Day by Ishiguro (Booker)
45. Moon Tiger by Penelope Lively (Booker)
46. Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally (Booker)
47. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (Booker)
48. Offshore by Penelope Fitzgerald (Booker)
49. Possession by A.S. Byatt (Booker)
50. On Beauty by Zadie Smith (Orange)
51. Small Island by Andrea Levy (Orange)
52. Bel Canto by Ann Patchett (Orange)
53. The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville (Orange)
54. Larry’s Party by Carol Shields (Orange)
55. The Road Home by Rose Tremain (Orange)
56. Kristin Lavransdatter III: The Cross by Sigrid Undset (Nobel laureate)
57. Doctor Zhivago by Pasternak (Nobel laureate)
58. Blindness by Saramago (Nobel laureate)
59. The Piano Teacher by Jelinek (Nobel laureate)
60. The Wonderful Adventures of Nils by Selma Lagerlof (Nobel laureate)
61. The Fifth Child by Doris Lessing (Nobel laureate)
62. Cannery Row by John Steinbeck (Nobel laureate)
63. Home by Marilynne Robinson (NYT/Orange)
64. The Maytrees by Annie Dillard (NYT)
65. Intuition by Allegra Goodman (NYT)
66. When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson (NYT)
67. Natasha and Other Stories by David Bezmozgis (NYT)
68. The Inhabited World by David Long (NYT)
69. The Dream Life of Sukhanov by Olga Grushin (NYT)
70. The Yiddish Policeman’s Union by Chabon (NYT)
71. Complete Tales of Nikolai Gogol, Vol. 2 (classic)
72. Anne of Windy Poplars by Montgomery (classic)
73. Anne’s House of Dreams by Montgomery (classic)
74. Anne of Ingleside by Montgomery (classic)
75. Rainbow Valley by Montgomery (classic)
76. Rilla of Ingleside by Montgomery (classic)
77. Out of the Silent Planet by C.S. Lewis (sci-fi classic)
78. Perelandra by C.S. Lewis (sci-fi classic)
79. Our Horses in Egypt by Belben (James Tait Black Prize)
80. Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson (PEN/Hemingway)
81. To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis (Hugo)
82. The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon (Nebula)
83. Mister Pip by Lloyd Jones (Commonwealth Writers’ Prize)
84. Outlander by Gil Adamson (Books in Canada First Novel Award)
85. Crow Lake by Mary Lawson (Books in Canada First Novel Award)
86. Sophie’s World by Jostein Gaarder (Norwegian in translation)
87. Periodic Table by Primo Levi (Italian in translation)
88. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (French in translation)
89. The Character of Rain by Nothomb (French in translation)
90. Sulphuric Acid by Nothomb (French in translation)
91. The Oxford Murders by Martinez (Spanish in translation)
92. The Enchantress of Florence by Salman Rushdie
93. The Secret Lives of People in Love by Simon Van Booy
94. History of Love by Krauss
95. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Shaffer & Barrows
96. In the Woods by Tana French
97. Petropolis by Anya Ulinich
98. Revolutionary Road by Richard Yates
99. The Thing Around Your Neck by Adichie
100. The Spanish Bow by Andromeda Romano-Lax

Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan

Listening for Lions by Gloria Whelan

Summary: Rachel is a missionary kid living in British East Africa. The year is 1919 and The Great War is far from her, but a different kind of war dramatically changes her life and all that she has known for the past 13 years. Influenza has advanced and in its wake, it takes both her parents, who are mission doctors. Rachel has to trust her British neighbors, who she believes is dishonest. They take her in and send her to England. Her body maybe in England, but her heart is not. Her one desire is to return to the land that she calls home, Africa. 

My Thoughts: I've never been to Africa, so I can't tell you if the descriptions were accurate, but I can tell you that they were detailed. You could see and hear it, which I loved about this book. The other part that I liked is that Rachel is a third culture kid. I live overseas and have three TCKs of my own, so I could relate to some of the feelings she had when leaving Africa and adjusting to life in England. 

Update

I'm now one year and four months into the challenge and have read 27 of my books. They probably haven't been the toughest books on my list--and I know some of the driest are left--but I have read several books that I've put off for years. I loved The Poisonwood Bible, The Book Thief, The Remains of the Day, and The Shadow of the Wind. I appreciated Anna Karenina, although I can't say that I completely enjoyed it. I was bored by A Year in Provence and struggled with 100 Years of Solitude, although that may have been because I was sick. Last year was a slow reading year for me because I bought an old fixer-upper and planned and hosted a wedding for my daughter. This summer I hope to tackle a few of the weightier tomes on my list while I sit by the pool.
My list is here.

Lindy's Reading List

Some of these books have been stuck on my bookshelf for ages, and some are ones I am desperate to read, as always I am sure I have missed books and the list will grow ever longer with time.

1. The Robber Bride – Margaret Atwood
2. Regeneration – Pat Barker
3. The Eye in the Door – Pat Barker
4. A Testament of Youth – Vera Brittain
5. Villette – Charlotte Bronte
6. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – Anne Bronte
7. The Thirty-Nine Steps – John Buchan
8. Possession – A.S.Byatt
9. The Postman Always Rings Twice – James M Cain
10. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy – John le Carre
11. The Magic Toyshop – Angela Carter
12. Girl with the Pearl Earring – Tracy Chevalier
13. An Autobiography – Agatha Christie
14. The Shooting Party – Isabel Colegate
15. The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes – Arthur Conan Doyle
16. Going Solo – Roald Dahl
17. Nothing is Safe – E.M.Delafield
18. David Copperfield – Charles Dickens
19. Little Dorrit – Charles Dickens
20. The Old Curiousity Shop – Charles Dickens
21. The Mystery of Edwin Drood – Charles Dickens
22. Middlemarch – George Eliot
23. The Mill on the Floss – George Eliot
24. Charlotte Gray – Sebastian Faulks
25. Human Traces – Sebastian Faulks
26. Faulks on Fiction – Sebastian Faulks
27. Snobs – Julian Fellowes
28. The History of Tom Jones – Henry Fielding
29. The Beautiful and the Damned – F. Scott Fitzgerald
30. Tender is the Night – F. Scott Fitzgerald
31. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close – Jonathan Safron Foer
32. Fall of Giants – Ken Follett
33. Howards End – E.M. Forster
34. A Room With A View – E.M.Forster
35. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster
36. The Six Wives of Henry VIII – Antonia Fraser
37. Must You Go? – Antonia Fraser
38. The Forsyte Saga – John Galsworthy
39. North and South – Elizabeth Gaskell
40. Goodbye to All That – Robert Graves
41. Fallen Skies – Philippa Gregory
42. The Lady of the Rivers – Philippa Gregory
43. The Mayor of Casterbridge – Thomas Hardy
44. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy
45. The Woodlanders – Thomas Hardy
46. The Go-Between – L.P Hartley
47. Young Romantics – Daisy Hay
48. Howards End is on the Landing – Susan Hill
49. The Man in the Picture – Susan Hill
50. The Stranger’s Child – Alan Hollinghurst
51. The Iliad – Homer
52. The Expendable Man – Dorothy. B. Hughes
53. Birthday Letters – Ted Hughes
54. Les Miserables – Victor Hugo
55. Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood
56. When We Were Orphans – Kazuo Ishiguro
57. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man – James Joyce
58. The Report – Jessica Frances Kane
59. Little Boy Lost – Margahrita Laski
60. Lady Chatterley’s Lover – D.H.Lawrence
61. Women in Love – D.H.Lawrence
62. Small Island – Andrea Levy
63. Bring up the Bodies – Hilary Mantel
64. My Cousin Rachel – Daphne Du Maurier
65. Pure – Andrew Miller
66. Love in a Cold Climate – Nancy Mitford
67. Wigs on the Green – Nancy Mitford
68. The Blessing – Nancy Mitford
69. Madresfield – Jane Mulvagh
70. Starter For Ten – David Nicholls
71. The Understudy – David Nicholls
72. Byron in Love – Edna O’Brien
73. The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
74. 1984 – George Orwell
75. Decline of the English Murder – George Orwell
76. Half of the Human Race – Anthony Quinn
77. Clarissa – Samuel Richardson
78. Midnight’s Children – Salmon Rushdie
79. The Strange Fate of Kitty Easton – Elizabeth Speller
80. Perfume – Patrick Suskind
81. Vanity Fair – William M Thackery
82. The Hobbit – J.R.R.Tolkien
83. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy
84. Jane Austen – Claire Tomalin
85. Charles Dickens – Claire Tomalin
86. Thomas Hardy – Claire Tomlain
87.The Little Stranger – Sarah Waters
88. Decline and Fall – Evelyn Waugh
89. Scoop – Evelyn Waugh
90. Mary Boleyn – Alison Weir
91. The Lady in the Tower – Alison Weir
92. The Age of Innocence – Edith Wharton
93. The House of Mirth – Edith Wharton
94. Greenbanks – Dorothy Whipple
95. They Were Sisters – Dorothy Whipple
96. The Importance of Being Earnest – Oscar Wilde
97. The Passion – Jeanette Winterson
98. The Kenneth Williams Diaries – Kenneth Williams
99. The Letters of Nancy Mitford and Evelyn Waugh
100. The Book Thief – Markus Zusak

As well as posting updates on here I will be writing about my reading progress on my word press blog www.lindylit.wordpress.com

I'm looking forward to hearing how everyone else is getting on with this challenge
 Lindy

Dubliners Competition

Dublin: One City, One Book is an award-winning initiative, which encourages everyone to read a book connected with the capital city of Ireland during the month of April every year.

This year is the "Dubliners" by James Joyce, so to mark this event I thought that I would give a prize of the 'One City, One Book' O'Brien edition of the book "Dubliners" (see right) along with some nice goodies to EACH person who posts a review of the "Dubliners" or other works of Joyce this month?

This is open till 30th April.

Any takers??

Anyhoo happy Reading and looking forward to the reviews  :)

Emily

For more info on Dublin: one city, one book see website: http://www.dublinonecityonebook.ie/

House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski

My first book completed for Fill in the Gaps! Yay!

My thoughts:
This is probably not going to be very long because, frankly, I don't know quite what to write.  How to review a book that I liked and found very interesting, yet still gave me a headache every time I read it and has still left me scratching my head?  I'm not sure.  House of Leaves is literally a labyrinth.  Yes, there is an entire chapter that is actually a labyrinth...on the page.  What can I say?  The book is really an enigma.  I still don't know what the truth is, or who was actually telling the story, and this would normally piss me off.  But ironically, it just made me more intrigued.  Even though I finished the book, I'm still going to look over it more and I found a helpful page on Mark Danielewski's blog.  The page is Exploration Z and it's The Idiot's Guide to House of Leaves.  I'm going to explore this page and see if it can help me figure a few things out.  I know that this review has not really given much insight into if the book is good or not and I apologize for that.  Let me just say again...I liked it (4 stars on Goodreads), it's confusing, it gets the reader thinking (I think that's where the headache comes from).  Okay, now I'm getting a headache writing this review.  ;O)

About the book:
Years ago, when House of Leaves was first being passed around, it was nothing more than a badly bundled heap of paper, parts of which would occasionally surface on the Internet. No one could have anticipated the small but devoted following this terrifying story would soon command. Starting with an odd assortment of marginalized youth -- musicians, tattoo artists, programmers, strippers, environmentalists, and adrenaline junkies -- the book eventually made its way into the hands of older generations, who not only found themselves in those strangely arranged pages but also discovered a way back into the lives of their estranged children.

Now, for the first time, this astonishing novel is made available in book form, complete with the original colored words, vertical footnotes, and newly added second and third appendices.

The story remains unchanged, focusing on a young family that moves into a small home on Ash Tree Lane where they discover something is terribly wrong: their house is bigger on the inside than it is on the outside.

Of course, neither Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist Will Navidson nor his companion Karen Green was prepared to face the consequences of that impossibility, until the day their two little children wandered off and their voices eerily began to return another story -- of creature darkness, of an ever-growing abyss behind a closet door, and of that unholy growl which soon enough would tear through their walls and consume all their dreams.

Update + Review

La la la la la. I just realized that I have 13 months before my 5 years are up. And I've read 14 books (ok, 14.5, but that .5 is Atlas Shrugged, so that should count for like, 6 or something). So, we all know what I'll be doing in the next 13 months, right? BUT! When I was looking at my list to see what I had left to read, I saw a book that I had actually already read! So, Midnight on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie I was most excited because this was the first Kindle book that I checked out from the library, on the day that OverDrive became Kindle compatible. My full review is here, but here's the relevant bit: I like the twist on the contained environment, but you don't get a sense of the claustrophobia that must have been there-- train cars stuck in snow with murder? There should have been more tension, but that's not Christie's style. What I find most ingenious about Christie's work isn't how her detectives solve the crimes but rather in ingenuity of her criminals. Poirot just kinda sits back and thinks through details only he's noticed. But the real genius of Christie is how intricate the murder plots are.

Update!

Blogger tells me I haven't posted here since the start of August...my bad! Back then I was hauling myself through Midnight's Children, which in the end I really enjoyed. I'm looking forward to reading more Salman Rushdie one of these days.

Between then and now I've crossed a couple of other books off my list. The Stone Diaries, by Carol Shields, I really enjoyed. It's the fictionalised autobiography of an ordinary Canadian woman, it's beautifully written. The Gathering, by Anne Enright I wasn't too wild about - it's the story of the ups and downs of an Irish family. I finished it feeling mildly irritated.

Then over Christmas I read Anna Karenina, which I probably would have enjoyed more if I hadn't read The Master and Margerita right before it. (Sidenote: that book is a new favourite. It's so wonderfully depraved!) Having said that though, l did like it. It's a great epic saga, and all of the characters are wonderfully flawed. Really, they all are. At one point or another I hated every single character in this book, but as collective group they're all okay :)

So that's where I'm at right now - 42 down, 58 to go! I'm thinking about possibly tackling Gone With the Wind next, although I might just resort to my tried and true method of a random number generator.

Also, I've decided to stop putting it off so I'm writing this now so you all can remind me - I'm going to read Ulysses this year EVEN IF IT KILLS ME WHICH IT PROBABLY WILL! I'm determined.

PS - I seem to be much better at updating my Goodreads account, so in case I disappear for another eight months, I might be here.

PPS - Moonrat, I just finished reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay...

13% down, 87% to go....

Maybe I shouldn't have titled my post that way - it's fairly demoralizing. Well, here are the 10 books I have read :) (in no particular order):

1) Autobiography of a Face by Lucy Grealy - an interesting book that I would read again. The now-deceased author was best friends with author Ann Patchett. I'm a fan of Patchett's - when I read her book, Truth & Beauty, which was about her friendship w/Grealy, I had to read this book as well.

2) The Book Thief by Mark Zusak - the title alone had me. I liked it enough to recommend it to a friend who enjoys books set in Europe during WWII.

3) The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers - I'm currently in the middle of this one, so the jury is out, folks! I've read so many promising things about it that I'll be sad if I don't enjoy it.

4) City of Thieves by David Benioff - I loved this book. It's another WWII story. It's brutal, difficult to read at times and hilariously funny. I finished it and thought it's bound to become a classic.

5) The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean - ANOTHER WWII story. Sense a theme here? I enjoyed this book for its originality and because I learned much about the Hermitage Museum's art and history.

6) Hyper-chondriac by Brian Frazer - another book I'd like to read again. This was a hilarious memoir with a lot of practical information about medical treatment.

7) Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt - remember when everyone and their brother was reading this book? I was late to the party (I often resist trends), but I have to say I enjoyed this memoir enough to purchase his following 2 books in this trifecta of memoirs.

8) Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer - I used to work at a bookstore and all of the "kids" I worked with L.O.V.E.D this book. Their love bordered on obsession, actually. This reason, coupled with the fact that I am a fan of the author, Jon Krakauer (adored his book Into Thin Air), ensured that my expectations were enormous. I was a bit let-down. Chris McCandless' story IS compelling, interesting and sad...I just didn't love the book.

9) Empire Falls by Richard Russo - this book won the Pulitzer Prize in 2002. Again, I had ginormous expectations. The book was good. It just wasn't as good as I expected it to be.

10) A Disorder Peculiar to the Country by Ken Kalfus - the description on the back of this book made me snatch it up and purchase it immediately. I loved how original, yet dark, this story appeared to be. Well, it was original and dark. For me, however, it took a turn into the absurd and never returned.

11) Still Alice by Lisa Genova - this is a moving and heartbreaking novel about early onset Alzheimer's Disease. The author has a PhD in Neuroscience, so she knows her topic well.

12) Little Bee by Chris Cleave - it seems people either love this book or hate it. I fall into the "meh" category. I am second-guessing myself because I was sick when I read it. I've saved it for a possible 2nd read some day in the future. We'll see if that day every comes.

13) Barrel Fever by David Sedaris - I consider myself a Sedaris fan. This book - essays, of course - fell short for me. Not his best work.

That's all, folks! I'm going to attempt to read more often and read more of the books on my list. Otherwise, this list is going to take me 20 years to complete.

One other note: I hadn't reviewed my list in a very long time. When I looked it over recently, I was not surprised to see that I had been overly ambitious when I created it. I included several trilogies (as one selection), and I also included numerous HUGE tomes. Ugh. Will I ever learn?

Hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their picks.