Ex Libris

A Look Back

As 2006 comes to a close, I can't help but think how quickly the year has gone.  (But then, I say that every year.)  In my personal life, 2006 gets mixed reviews.  In my reading life, however, 2006 was exceptional.  The numbers may not reflect this, as I completed only 59 books this year compared to 72 in 2005, but I truly enjoyed what I read which to me is what counts.  Of equal importance to me are all of you, the book bloggers and blog readers.  What I have learned from book blogs/bloggers is invaluable - the book recommendations, the reading challenges, the insights into authors and literature, and best of all, the camaraderie.  You are the best!

The breakdown of the 59 books I read (or listened to on CD, as I count those) looks something like this:

• Fiction - 51 (includes 2 short story collections)
• Non-fiction - 4
• Children's/YA - 1 (does not include books I read to my granddaughter - that will change in 2007)
• Poetry - 3 (includes books about poetry)

Near the end of 2005, I selected 52 books that I wanted to read in 2006.  Of those 52, I only read 6.  (However, there were some authors on the list that I did read, just different titles.)

My reading horizons broadened some in 2006.  I took a look at and dipped into poetry for the first time.  I also revisited children's/YA literature and read a children's fantasy book.  I have been actively accumulating lots of these books and have been having a great deal of fun in the process!  I hope to expand both areas in 2007.

Here is what I read in 2006 in the order completed.  I have rated the books on a 1-5 scale, with 5 being the highest:

1. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury - 5
2. The Ponder Heart, Eudora Welty - 5
3. The Little Guide to Your Well-Read Life, Steve Leveen - 5
4. The March, E.L. Doctorow - 4
5. The Rottweiler, Ruth Rendell (on CD) - 4
6. 1776, David McCullough - 5
7. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates - 5
8. The Madonnas of Leningrad, Debra Dean - 4
9. The Conjurer's Bird, Martin Davies - 5
10. March, Geraldine Brooks - 5
11. Beyond Black, Hilary Mantel - 5
12. Rape: A Love Story, Joyce Carol Oates - 5
13. The History of Love, Nicole Krauss - 5
14. Three Day Road, Joseph Boyden - 5
15. Persuasion, Jane Austen - 5
16. A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens - 5
17. Abide With Me, Elizabeth Strout - 4
18. The Falls, Joyce Carol Oates - 5
19. Like, Ali Smith - 5
20. The Night Watch, Sarah Waters - 5
21. How Elizabeth Barrett Browning Saved My Life, Mameve Medwed - 4
22. Digging to America, Anne Tyler (on CD) - 4
23. Ruth, Elizabeth Gaskell - 5
24. To Kill A Mockingbird, Harper Lee - 5
25. Deafening, Frances Itani - 5
26. Talking to the Dead, Helen Dunmore - 5
27. The River of Doubt, Candace Millard (non-fiction) (on CD) - 4
28. The Whirlpool, Jane Urquhart - 4
29. How to Read A Poem...and Start A Poetry Circle, Molly Peacock - 5
30. Invisible Woman, Joyce Carol Oates (poetry) - 4
31. Animal Farm, George Orwell - 5
32. A Hundred White Daffodils, Jane Kenyon (essays & poetry) - 5
33. Other stories and other stories, Ali Smith (short story collection) - 4
34. Literacy and Longing in LA, Jennifer Kaufman - 4
35. The Book of Proper Names, Amelie Nothomb - 4
36. The Barracks, John McGahern - 5
37. The Fur Person, May Sarton - 5
38. The Brief History of the Dead - Kevin Brockmeier - 4
39. Too Loud A Solitude - Bohumil Hrabal - 5
40. Scoop, Evelyn Waugh - 5
41. Carry Me Down, M.J. Hyland - 5
42. Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury - 5
43. Booked to Die, John Dunning - 4
44. In Cold Blood, Truman Capote - 5
45. The Secret River, Kate Grenville - 4.5
46. The Voyage Out, Virginia Woolf - 5
47. The House of the Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne - 4
48. Offshore, Penelope Fitzgerald - 5
49. The Memory Keeper's Daughter, Kim Edwards - 4.5
50. Lolly Willowes, Sylvia Townsend Warner - 4
51. Not A Girl Detective, Susan Kandel - 4
52. All Quiet on the Western Front - Erich Maria Remarque - 5
53. Into the Wild, Erin Hunter (children's fantasy) - 4
54. Trouble, Jesse Kellerman - 4
55. By A Slow River, Philippe Claudel - 4
56. Emotional Geology, Linda Gillard - 4
57. Wilderness Tips, Margaret Atwood (short story collection) - 4
58. The Ladies' Paradise, Emile Zola - 5
59. The Scent of Water, Alison Hoblyn - 4

Update at 1:24 p.m. - I just finished The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo which brings my total to 60!  It is a wonderful story with gorgeous illustrations.  Rating - 5.

Not a bad book in the bunch!  I enjoyed all of these.  There were only two re-reads:  A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens and The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne.  Eleven are what I would consider classics.  Five are translations.  I read more Joyce Carol Oates than any other author (four titles); Ray Bradbury and Ali Smith come in second with two.

There were several books I started and was not able to finish; not because I didn't want to but because they were set aside for other books and I did not get back to them.  I do intend to finish them at some point, because they are all very good.

• The Small House at Allington, Anthony Trollope
• Bleak House, Charles Dickens
• Team of Rivals, Doris Kearns Goodwin
• A Writer's Diary, Virginia Woolf
• Of Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham
• Uncensored: Views and (Re)views, Joyce Carol Oates
• The Constant Princess, Philippa Gregory
• Passion, Jude Morgan

My favorites for 2006?  These are the books that left the biggest impression and stayed with me the longest after I read them:

• To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee - what can I say about this book that others haven't said?  It was funny, it was horrifying, it showed a slice of American life that no longer exists.  Extremely well written, Lee shows prejudice for what it is through the eyes of a child with unerring accuracy.  It took me 30+ years to finally read it.  I'm glad I did.
• A Hundred White Daffodils by Jane Kenyon - a book of essays by poet Jane Kenyon collected and published after her death by her husband.  It includes a series of articles for a local newspaper about her everyday life; her dealings with life long depression, her poetry, gardening, and her community.  The volume also includes her translation of poems written by Anna Akhmatova.  It is a shame that Kenyon was not a fiction writer - I think it would have been amazing.
• The Barracks by John McGahern - this is quite possibly one of the best books I have ever read.  I had not heard of McGahern until this year (thanks kimbofo!).  In this book, the main character is a woman dealing with a disappointing marriage and a terminal illness, among other things.  McGahern's writing is sparse and realistic and does not allow the story to become too sentimental or depressing.  He gets inside the head of the woman and describes her feelings and actions unlike any other writer (male or female) I have read.
• Scoop by Evelyn Waugh - The sarcastic wit of this book had me laughing and turning pages so quickly, I finished it on a four hour flight.  Published in the 1930's, it is a little dated, with a few instances of "unpolitically correct" typecasting that would not fly in today's world.  But overall it is a very funny, sly look at foreign correspondents and how they determine the outcome of wartime journalism.  Not totally inappropriate for our time.
• In Cold Blood by Truman Capote - This book stayed with me for days.  It is absolutely blood chilling, yet it is beautifully written. 
• All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque - Another book that stayed with me for days.  It is a novel, but one that was written based on Remarque's experiences in the German army during WWI.  A very powerful anti-war statement.

Looking forward to much reading and blogging with all of you in 2007.  Hope everyone has a wonderful new year! 

December's Mail Bag - Continued

There's more!  Today's mail brought me another Transita publication, Scuba Dancing by Nicola Slade.  I am so looking forward to these books, because it is refreshing to read contemporary fiction with characters my age and plots that deal with the same issues I am faced with every day. 

I have now completed two of the Transita books (Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard and The Scent of Water by Alison Hoblyn).  I'll be writing and posting my review of The Scent of Water within the next few days.

In my last post I mentioned having mooched Angel Pavement by J. B. Priestley.  Priestley is an author I was unfamiliar with until a few weeks ago when my brother asked for a copy of Priestley's Bright Day for Christmas.  Not knowing anything about Priestley, I asked some book friends if they had heard of him and if so, what they thought.  The response was he was an excellent author, very popular in his time, but that now he is pretty much forgotten.  That seemed a little bit sad to me, so I decided to see if I could mooch one of his books in order to make up my own mind about him.  Angel Pavement was available, so I requested it.  Soon after I received an e-mail from the person asking how I had heard about Priestley and why I was interested in his books.  I explained, and he said he had approx. 30 Priestley titles he had obtained years ago at an auction and was willing to either mooch or sell at a very, very low price.  The books are all first editions, some with the original dust jackets.  How could I resist?  He sent me a list of titles, and I arranged to buy 21 of them!  The box arrived at my office yesterday morning!!  I was not disappointed.  The books are in good condition and very readable.  I most definitely got my money's worth!

Here are the titles I bought:

• Faraway (1932) - fiction
• Four-In-Hand (1934) - fiction, inscribed "To my dear wife, Xmas 1934 with love from Billie, Torquay"
• Farthing Hall (1929) - fiction, written with Hugh Walpole
• Wonder Hero (1933) - fiction
• Black-Out in Gretley (1942) - fiction
• Let the People Sing (1939) - fiction
• They Walk in the City (1936) - fiction
• Bright Day (1946) - fiction
• Benighted (1927) - fiction
• Daylight on Saturday (1943) - fiction
• Saturn Over the Water (1961) - fiction
• Sir Michael & Sir George (1964) - fiction
• Low Notes on a High Level (1954) - fiction
• Found, Lost, Found or The English Way of Life (1976) - fiction
• Dangerous Corner (1932) - play
• Outcries and Asides (1974) - essays
• Postscripts (1940) - essays from radio program
• Delight (1949) - essays
• Out of the People (1941) - social/political essays
• Margin Released (1962) - on writing
• English Journey (1934) - travelogue, inscribed Mrs. A.E. Fawcus, Le Cottage, Bonay, Switzerland

Just think of the journey some of these books have had over the years.   From England to Switzerland (one book at least) and eventually to the US, then to find their way from the east coast to Ohio.  After all this I will become well-acquainted with J.B. Priestley!

December's Mail Bag

My December reading slowed to a trickle about two weeks ago, but that has not stopped packages containing books from arriving at my door!  I have been receiving books from different sources - book blogging friends, publishers, Paperbackswap and BookMooch.

Thank goodness for wonderful book blogging friends:  from DoveGreyReader I received Hostages to Fortune by Elizabeth Cambridge.  It is a Persephone, which are hard to find in the US.  Elizabeth Cambridge is a new-to-me author.  I look forward to reading this book and seeking out other books she has written.  Litlove sent me the thriller Keep Me Close by Clare Francis.  Clare Francis is another new-to-me author, and Keep Me Close sounds like the perfect book to stay home with huddled in a blanket on a cold winter night!  Thank you both!

I've been doing some reviewing for Penguin USA, and they sent me Breakpoint by Richard A. Clarke, and Death on the Flop by Jackie Chance.  The first is a techno-thriller and the second is a mystery involving a Texas Hold-em poker tournament in Las Vegas.  (I love Vegas - I couldn't resist!)

Thanks to The Bluestalking Reader and author Linda Gillard, some authors from Transita Publishing have sent me some of their books to review: 

A Lifetime Burning by Linda Gillard

The Scent of Water by Alison Hoblyn (I am reading this now and hope to finish within the next few days.)

Stage by Stage by Jan Jones

The Dangerous Sports Euthanasia Society by Christine Coleman

and Uphill All the Way by Sue Moorcroft.  These all look really, really good.

I've become a moocher!  A BookMoocher, that is.  I had enough points to mooch three books, two of which have arrived - All Will Be Well  by John McGahern (a memoir) and Angel Pavement by J.B. Priestley.  McGahern was the author of The Barracks, one of the best books I read in 2006.  There is a story behind the Priestley book, which I will blog about in a few days.  And last but not least, I received William Boyd's The Blue Afternoon in a trade from Paperbackswap.com.

Lots of great reading to look forward to in 2007!

G.I.F.T. Challenge Completed

I completed Carl V.'s 2006 G.I.F.T. Challenge yesterday.   As mentioned in a previous post, G.I.F.T. Event #1 was seeing A Christmas Carol at Cincinnati's Playhouse in the Park in early December (something new).  G.I.F.T. Event #2 was taking my granddaughter to see The Nutcracker performed by the Cincinnati Ballet a couple of weeks ago (also something new).  Both events were wonderful, and both will probably move out of the "something new" category and into the "family tradition" category next year.

G.I.F.T. Event #3 is a family tradition started by my mother:  baking Christmas cookies with me while listening to our favorite Christmas music.  Music was so important to my family and was always being played (both recorded and live) when I was growing up.  Our favorite Christmas albums were Holiday: Sing Along with Mitch by Mitch Miller and the Gang and The Sounds of Christmas by Fred Waring and the Pennsylvanians.  (I have the Mitch Miller on CD but haven't been able to find the Fred Waring album on CD anywhere.)  I carried on the tradition with my daughters, and now with my granddaughter.  She and I baked cookies while listening to Mitch Miller this year.

G.I.F.T. Event #4 - Eating lunch the day after Christmas at The Golden Lamb in Lebanon, Ohio.  This has been a family tradition since the early 1980's.  The Golden Lamb is not just any restaurant.  It is widely considered (and sometimes contested) the oldest inn in continuous operation in the state of Ohio.  The Golden Lamb has been visited by a number of famous personalities, among them 12 U.S. presidents and Charles Dickens.  The Golden Lamb is filled with lots of antiques from the area (Warren County was home to Union Village, a Shaker community just outside of Lebanon) and they decorate beautifully at Christmas.  The food is alway exceptional.  It is the combination of food, atmosphere, and family that makes this so special for me.  It is also a nice way to extend the Christmas festivities a little bit! 

After lunch (and depending on the weather) we roam Lebanon's numerous antique shops.  Yesterday's trip saw me nab a couple of great children's books - two volumes of the My Bookhouse series, From The Tower Window and Up One Pair of Stairs.    I have 5 volumes of this series already that I picked up at the book sale in November, but these books are earlier editions.  Look at those covers - aren't they amazing?  These books are anthologies of literature, poetry, and essays for children.  Each volume has a theme that the selections follow.  The illustrations on the inside are fabulous, too.

Thanks so much, Carl, for this wonderful challenge! 

Holiday Madness Update

It is December 26th - the madness commonly known as Christmas is over!  I had a very nice holiday (which seemed to be over far too quickly in light of how many countless hours of preparation were spent getting ready for it).  I hope all of you did, too.  Now it is time for life to return to normal (if there is such a thing) and back to my favorite routines - reading, blogging and blog-reading!  I have missed you all and promise to try and catch up within the next week. 

I have a lot to post about - challenge updates, book-related gift updates, books purchased (and mooched) updates, reading updates, end-of-year statistics and updates, and resolutions for 2007.  So stay tuned as I get back into the swing of things!

busybusybusy.....

So sorry for not posting recently.  Life has literally swamped me and it will be after Christmas before I can come up for air.  Hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season!

Dinner and A Book...

...were the order of the evening yesterday for the second meeting of the Northern Cincinnati Book Club.  Five of us met at The Claddagh in Mason, which turned out to be not only a great restaurant with wonderful food, but a very nice, cozy, and not-too-noisy place for our group to rave about books and reading in general and Margaret Atwood in particular!  It was a diverse group with lots of different reading interests represented.  There are also writers in the group!  Three of the attendees participated in NaNoWriMo.   One is a freelance writer with a sci-fi book being "shopped" at various publishers and who is in the process of writing sequels.  Just listening to her talk about the publishing process was fascinating.

As a group we decided that we want to focus on reading books/authors we wouldn't normally pick up and read.  We chose God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut for January's selection.  I've not read Vonnegut before, but I'm willing to give his books a try.  This selection is not quite as well known as Slaughterhouse-Five or Cat's Cradle, and none of us have read it.  I get the sneaking suspicion that I will be adding several Vonnegut titles to my shelves!

From the Stacks Challenge Read #1

Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood

Completed:  12/8/2006

Rating:  4.5/5

I have finished the first of my selections for the From the Stacks Reading Challenge, Wilderness Tips by Margaret Atwood.  I chose this book for a couple of reasons - it was the selection of the f2f group I belong to that is meeting this coming Monday, and Margaret Atwood is an author whose books I have several of but have never read.   

Wilderness Tips is a collection of ten short stories which are set in Toronto or in the outdoors (summer camps, a bog, a lodge).  Some are contemporary, but most take place in the 1950's-60's.  Many of the stories' protagonists are women who seek revenge and find it in unexpected ways.  I have gathered from others who have read Atwood before that her stories are layered in such a way that it often takes more than one reading to understand and appreciate the full impact of her writing.   While I liked the stories (and loved Atwood's writing), I certainly felt this way. 

Two of my favorite stories were "Hairball" and "Weight".  "Hairball" is about a woman who seeks (and gets) revenge on her married lover who has betrayed her.  I can't say much more without giving the story and it's delightfully wicked ending away. Suffice it to say it would have been perfect as an episode of Night Gallery.

"Weight" is a story of power as well as revenge.  In it, a lawyer has a unique way of raising money for a battered women's shelter in the memory of her best friend who died at the hands of her husband.  I thought these passages were interesting:

"Sometimes, when I have amassed yet another ugly wristwatch or brooch (they never give rings; if I want one of those, I buy it myself), when I've been left stranded on a weekend in favor of the kids and the Georgian Bay cottage, I think about what I could tell and I feel powerful.  I think about dropping an acerbic, vengeful little note through the mailbox of the wife in question, citing moles strategically placed, nicknames, the perverse habits of the family dog.  Proof is knowledge.  But then, I would lose power.  Knowledge is power only as long as you keep your mouth shut." (pg. 170)

"I was married once," I say, sadly, regretfully.  I hope to convey that I did the right thing but it didn't work out.  Some jerk let me down, in a way too horrible to go into.  Charles is free to think he could have done better.  There's something final about saying you were married once.  It's like saying you were dead once.  It shuts them up." (pg. 171)

As usual, I am thinking to myself, "What took you so long to read Margaret Atwood?"!  I finally have, and I'm hoping to read much more of her in 2007.

Emotional Geology

Emotional Geology by Linda Gillard

Completed:  12/3/2006

Rating:  4/5

Geology, according to the dictionary, is "the science that treats of the origin and structure of the earth, including the physical forces which have shaped it and its physical and organic history..." (Funk & Wagnalls, pg. 268).  Geology of a different kind, that of looking at the emotional forces which shape the heart and soul, is the focus of Linda Gillard's novel, Emotional Geology.

Emotional Geology is the story of Rose, a textile artist suffering from bipolar disorder, who is trying to recover from the devastating effects of a broken relationship.  Following a hospital stay, she knows within herself that the only way she can possibly heal is to seek solitude, return to her work, and become chemically independent.  She finds herself in a cottage on the island of Uist.  It is here where she fights to put her past behind her while putting the pieces of her life back into place, not realizing just how much she needs the help and love of others in order to accomplish this.  She becomes a collaborator with her neighbor's brother, Calum, who teaches poetry.  They decide to put their creative talents together in an exhibition of textile art with companion poetry pieces.  The collaboration/friendship seems destined to move in the direction of a new relationship, but both Rose and Calum have private battles to overcome before that is possible.  It is through these battles that the emotional geology is forged.

I really enjoyed Emotional Geology.  I liked the descriptions of the Scottish islands and their inhabitants.  I learned about the thrills and dangers of mountain climbing.  I loved exploring the textures of the quilts through their descriptions.  But what impressed me the most, though, were the characters.  Ms. Gillard allows them to be believeable.  In Rose we see an insecure, almost middle-aged woman struggle for her emotional and physical survival.  She has difficulty with relationships, even with that of her adult daughter.  Not all mother/daughter relationships in real life are those of best friends, and it is refreshing to see this portrayed in fiction.  In Calum we see a man who has plenty of emotional struggles of his own, which he tends to drown quietly in alcohol.  Rose and Calum are like real people - neither is perfect.  Yet their strengths and weaknesses play well off each other.

Emotional Geology is good fiction.  It is creative, insightful, and most importantly, believeable.

Winter Classics Challenge

Tis the season......for reading challenges!  Booklogged has come up with a great one for January-February 2007, the Winter Classics Challenge!  Here are the rules:

***The challenge is to read five classics during the months of January and February***

Booklogged is permitting overlapping challenge reads, which is great!  Since I'm already committed to a couple of classics for the From the Stacks challenge, I will overlap those for this challenge.  My selections are as follows:

1.  Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (From the Stacks Challenge overlap)

2.  Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (From the Stacks Challenge overlap)

3.  Middlemarch by George Eliot

4.  The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington

5.  The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

This is an aggressive schedule - I hope I can finish them.  It will certainly be fun trying!