Books and Movies

The rules for the 2009 TBR Challenge are pretty simple: choose 12 books (one for each month) from your to-be-read stacks. Read those 12 books during 2009. You must have your list up by January 1, 2009 (tomorrow!), and after that you cannot make any changes to your list. Books can count for other challenges. Re-reads do not count. You can create a list of 12 alternates, if you wish, and those titles can be substituted for any on your original list. For the full set of rules, click over to the TBR Challenge Blog.

Here are my twelve books:

1. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
2. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Dubliners by James Joyce
3. Women in Love by D.H. Lawrence
4. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens
5. Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
6. Death Comes to the Archbishop by Willa Cather
7. The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8. So Brave, Young, and Handsome by Leif Enger
9. The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
10. Wives and Daughters by Elizabeth Gaskell
11. The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton
12. Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

As you can see, my list is very classics-heavy. I wasn’t happy with the number of classics I read in 2008. I read a lot of modern fiction and recently published historical fiction, which was wonderful, but I have all these amazing classics sitting in my to-be-read stacks.

Classics can sometimes be more daunting to read, and I tend to avoid them if I’m especially busy or stressed, because they require more concentration and a bigger time investment. Hopefully, doing this challenge will mean that by the end of 2009, I’ll have been a little more ambitious in my reading.

Hard to believe it’s time for another wrap-up post already! 2008 seems to have just whizzed by. As I look back over the past few years since I’ve kept track of my reading, I see that as my kids get older, I have more time to read. Also, discovering audiobooks means more time can be spent “reading” - time that was normally wasted washing dishes, folding laundry, and fixing meals is now time spent listening to wonderful books.

This year, I read 132 books. For my wrap-up post, I thought I’d sort the titles into genres.

Children/Young Adult fantasy (17 titles):

Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke (read-aloud) - 4 stars

The Field Guide (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 1 by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (read-aloud) - 3 stars

The Seeing Stone (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 2) by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (read-aloud) - 3 stars

Lucinda’s Secret (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 3) by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (read-aloud) - 3 stars

The Ironwood Tree (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 4) by Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi (read-aloud) - 3 stars

The Wrath of Mulgarath (The Spiderwick Chronicles, Book 5) by Holly Black & Tony DiTerlizzi (read-aloud) - 3 stars

Prince Caspian by C. S. Lewis (read-aloud) - 4 stars

Coraline by Neil Gaiman (read-aloud) - 4 stars

Fly by Night by Francis Hardinge (read-aloud) - 3 stars

Tigerheart by Peter David - 5 stars - related post

Magyk (Septimus Heap, Book 1) by Angie Sage - 4 stars

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart (read-aloud) - 5 stars - related post

Flyte: Septimus Heap, Book 2 by Angie Sage (read-aloud) - 4 stars

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer (audiobook) - 4 stars - related post

New Moon by Stephenie Meyer - 4 stars - related post

Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer - 4 stars

Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer - 4 stars - related post

Children/Young Adult fiction (5 titles):

Heidi by Johanna Spyri - 4 stars

Penny From Heaven by Jennifer Holm (audiobook) - 4 stars

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall - 5 stars - related post

Waiting for Normal by Leslie Connor (audio) - 4 stars - related post

The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen - 5 stars - related post

Children’s graphic novels (2 titles):

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick - 4 stars

Artemis Fowl: The Graphic Novel by Eoin Colfer, Andrew Donkin, and Giovanni Rigano - 3 stars

Children’s non-fiction (4 titles):

Making Brothers and Sisters Best Friends by Sarah, Stephen, and Grace Mally (read-aloud) - 3 stars

Heaven for Kids by Randy Alcorn and Linda Washington (read-aloud) - 5 stars

Eric Liddell: Something Greater Than Gold by Geoff and Janet Benge (read-aloud) - 4 stars

Peril and Peace: Chronicles of the Ancient Church by Brandon and Mindy Withrow - 3 stars

Children’s poetry (1 title):

A Light in the Attic by Shel Silverstein (read-aloud) - 3 stars

Children/Young Adult science fiction (4 titles):

The Softwire: Virus on Orbis by P.J. Haarsma - 3 stars - related post

The Softwire: Betrayal on Orbis 2 by P.J. Haarsma - 4 stars - related post

Gone by Michael Grant - 4 stars - related post

Little Brother by Cory Doctorow - 3 stars

Christian fiction (5 titles):

Winter Haven by Athol Dickson - 4 stars - related post

A Window to the World by Susan Meissner - 4 stars

Home to Holly Springs by Jan Karon (audiobook) - 4 stars - related post

Doesn’t She Look Natural by Angela Hunt - 4 stars - related post

She Always Wore Red by Angela Hunt - 5 stars

Classics (8 titles):

Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray - 4 stars - related post

Heart of Darkness & Selected Short Fiction by Joseph Conrad - 3 stars - related post

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy - 4 stars - related post

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (audiobook) - 2 stars

The Quiet American by Graham Greene - 4 stars - related post

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley (audiobook) - 3 stars -related post

Kristin Lavransdatter III: The Cross by Sigrid Undset - 4 stars - related post

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh (audiobook) - 3 stars

Essays (1 title):

Standing by Words: Essays by Wendell Berry - 3 stars - related post

Fantasy (2 titles):

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman - 5 stars

Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman (audiobook) - 5 stars - related post

Graphic novels and memoirs (7 titles):

The Complete Maus by Art Speigelman - 4 stars - related post

Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi - 3 stars

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi - 3 stars

1602 by Neil Gaiman and Andy Kubert - 4 stars

Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars, Volume 1 by Frank Beddor, Liz Cavalier, and Ben Templesmith - 3 stars

Slow News Day by Andi Watson - 3 stars

American Widow by Alissa Torres & Sungyoon Choi - 4 stars - related post

Historical fiction (12 titles):

Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier (audiobook) - 4 stars - related post

Life Class by Pat Barker (audiobook) - 3 stars

Stealing Athena by Karen Essex - 4 stars - related post

Guernica by Dave Boling - 5 stars - related post

The Heretic’s Daughter by Kathleen Kent - 5 stars - related post

Capote in Kansas: A Ghost Story by Kim Powers - 4 stars - related post

A Bell for Adano by John Hersey - 3 stars

North River by Pete Hamill (audio) - 5 stars - related post

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland - 3 stars - related post

The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer & Annie Barrows - 5 stars - related post

The Passion of Artemisia by Susan Vreeland (audiobook) - 5 stars - related post

Blindspot: By a Gentleman in Exile and a Lady in Disguise by Jane Kamensky and Jill Lepore - 4 stars - related post

The Observations by Jane Harris - 4 stars - related post

History (3 titles):

What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew: From Fox Hunting to Whist-The Facts of Daily Life in Nineteenth-Century England by Daniel Pool - 3 stars - related post

Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War by Nathaniel Philbrick - 4 stars - related post

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599 by James Shapiro - 3 stars - related post

Memoir (7 titles):

Born Standing Up: A Comic’s Life by Steve Martin (audiobook) - 3 stars - related post

About My Sisters by Debra Ginsberg - 4 stars

The Woman Who Can’t Forget: The Extraordinary Story of Living with the Most Remarkable Memory Known to Science by Jill Price & Bart Davis (audiobook) - 3 stars - related post

Mediterranean Summer: A Season on France’s Cote d’Azur and Italy’s Costa Bella by David Shalleck and Erol Munuz - 3 stars - related post

Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir by Jennette Fulda - 4 stars - related post

Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim by David Sedaris (audio) - 3 stars

The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls (audiobook) - 5 stars - related post

Modern fiction (19 titles):

Perfect Match by Jodi Picoult (audiobook) - 4 stars - related post

Broken for You by Stephanie Kallos - 5 stars - related post

Matrimony by Joshua Henkin - 2 stars

How to Be Good by Nick Hornby - 4 stars - related post

The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller (audiobook) - 2 stars

The House at Midnight (ARC) by Lucie Whitehouse - 2 and a half stars

The Dew Breaker by Edwidge Danticat (audiobook) - 3 stars

Belong to Me by Marisa De Los Santos - 5 stars - related post

The White Mary by Kira Salak - 3 stars - related post

This Charming Man by Marian Keyes - 2 stars

Inglorious by Joanna Kavenna - 2 stars - related post

My Husband’s Sweethearts by Bridget Asher - 4 stars - related post

Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski - 5 stars - related post

The Post-Birthday World by Lionel Shriver - 3 stars

The Night Country by Stewart O’Nan - 4 stars - related post

The Grift by Debra Ginsberg - 4 stars - related post

The Professors’ Wives’ Club by Joanne Rendell - 3 stars

The School of Essential Ingredients by Erica Bauermeister - 5 stars - related post

Goldengrove by Francine Prose (audiobook) - 3 stars - related post

Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane - 3 stars

Mystery (11 titles):

T is for Trespass by Sue Grafton - 2 stars - related post

The Crime Writer by Gregg Hurwitz (audiobook) - 3 stars

Booked to Die by John Dunning - 3 stars - related post

The Bookman’s Wake (A Cliff Janeway Mystery) by John Dunning - 3 stars

An Unsuitable Job for a Woman by P.D. James (audiobook) - 4 stars

The Bookman’s Promise by John Dunning - 4 stars

One for the Money by Janet Evanovich (audiobook) - 3 stars

The Beekeeper’s Apprentice by Laurie R. King (audio) - 5 stars -related post

A Monstrous Regiment of Women by Laurie R. King - 5 stars - related post

A Letter of Mary by Laurie R. King - 5 stars - related post

The Moor by Laurie R. King - 4 stars - related post

Cover Her Face by P.D. James - 3 stars - related post

Non-fiction (5 titles):

The Yellow-Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee - 4 stars - related post

An Incomplete Education: 3,684 Things You Should Have Learned but Probably Didn’t by Judy Jones & William Wilson - 4 stars - related post

Plato and a Platypus Walk Into a Bar: Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes by Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein (audiobook) - 3 stars

The Faith of Barack Obama by Stephen Mansfield - 3 stars

The Intellectual Devotional by David S. Kidder & Noah D. Oppenheim - 3 stars

Vintage Jesus: Timeless Answers to Timely Questions by Mark Driscoll & Gerry Breshears - 3 stars

Poetry (5 titles):

Songs of Innocence and Experience by William Blake - 5 stars - related post

Ararat (American Poetry Series) by Louise Gluck - 4 stars

The Ordering of Love: The New and Collected Poems of Madeleine L’Engle - 5 stars - related post

The Radiation Sonnets: For My Love, in Sickness and in Health by Jane Yolen - 4 stars

What the Light Was Like: Poems by Luci Shaw - 3 stars

Science fiction (4 titles):

Blasphemy by Douglas Preston (audiobook) - 3 stars

The Host by Stephenie Meyer - 5 stars - related post

The Cross-Time Engineer (Book 1 in The Adventures of Conrad Stargard) by Leo Frankowski (re-read) - 3 stars - related post

The High-Tech Knight (Book Two in The Adventures of Conrad Stargard) by Leo Frankowski - 3 stars

Short story collections (6 titles):

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman (audiobook) - 3 stars

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by Z.Z. Packer - 3 stars

The Best American Short Stories 2007 edited by Stephen King - 3 stars - related post

Life Studies: Stories by Susan Vreeland - 4 stars - related post

The Pacific and Other Stories by Mark Helprin (audiobook) - 3 stars

Irish Girls Are Back in Town by various authors - 2 stars - related post

Rating system:

1 star - Terrible
2 stars - Just Okay
3 stars - Good
4 stars - Very Good
5 stars - Brilliant, Wonderful, Excellent, Fabulous

Books I started but didn’t finish:

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (I made it to page 56. Ugh.)

Dream When You’re Feeling Blue by Elizabeth Berg (I tried to listen to the audio version read by the author. She shouldn’t read her own books. I may try to read the print version one of these days.)

Change of Heart by Jodi Picoult (I couldn’t get past the fact that she stole much of the storyline from Stephen King’s The Green Mile.)

Petite Anglaise (ARC) by Catherine Sanderson (I just didn’t like it.)

The Ten-Year Nap by Meg Wolitzer (It didn’t grab me. Every time I started to get interested in a character’s storyline, she switched to a different character. It was just kind of blah, and there are too many other books waiting to waste any more time on this one.)

Passion on the Vine: A Memoir of Food, Wine, and Family in the Heart of Italy by Sergio Esposito (Just couldn’t get into this one - it’s very well-written, though. I think it was too similar to another book I had recently read.)

When We Were Romans by Matthew Kneale (The book is narrated by a 9-year-old boy. I have son who will be 9 in a little over two weeks. I talk to him on a daily basis. I love him - very much - but I don’t think I’d want to read a novel that is entirely made up of his inner thoughts and narration of daily events. However, I loved To Kill a Mockingbird, which is narrated by a 9-year-old girl, so maybe it’s purely the execution. Author Matthew Kneale has written not only in Lawrence’s voice, but with lots of misspellings, as if he actually wrote the book. Maybe that’s what pushed it over the top. I also couldn’t take the descriptions of his sister Jemima’s misbehavior - it made me want to lock her in an eternal time-out. I did, however, find another reviewer who enjoyed the book - and several Amazon reviewers liked it enough to give it at least three stars. So it’s probably just me. )

The Gone-Away World by Nick Harkaway (ARC) (I made it to page 100. Very well-written - Harkaway has a unique voice, but it is not my kind of thing. The sheer size of it is daunting anyway, but to make it to page 100 and not feel like you want to keep reading - enough said. It is getting rave reviews from other people, though, as you can see here and here.)

The Islands of Divine Music by John Addiego (I made it to page 100 or so, and then put it aside. It’s very well-written, but I didn’t like any of the characters, and when I found that I was forcing myself to keep reading, I thought, “Nope. Life’s too short, and there are too many other books waiting on the to-read stack.”

Cover Her Face is the first volume in P.D. James’ Adam Dalgliesh mystery series. I had listened to one other title in the series, Unnatural Causes, on audiobook, enjoyed it, and decided to read or listen to the series in order.

Cover Her Face tells of the murder of Sally Jup, unwed mother and house-maid to the Maxie family at Martingale. The father is an invalid, being cared for by his wife, the housekeeper, Martha, and occasionally by Sally. Mrs. Maxie has taken Sally on as household help in an effort to help the poor young mother in her “unfortunate circumstances.”

Mrs. Maxie’s children have different reactions to Sally. Deborah, a young widow, sees Sally as she is, a manipulator and someone who likes to toy with people. Stephen, a surgeon, is drawn to the beautiful Sally. When Sally announces at a family dinner that Stephen has asked her to marry him, all hell breaks loose. Obviously, a young housemaid with an illegitimate child is not the best match for the son who will inherit Martingale.

When Sally is found strangled in her bed the next morning, Inspector Adam Dalgliesh is called in to ferret out the murderer. Is it Deborah’s war hero boyfriend, Felix, whose experience being tortured by the Germans could have left him mentally unstable? Is it Katherine, the family friend and nurse who works with Stephen, and was also his lover and expecting a proposal? What about the housekeeper, Martha, who didn’t like Sally’s presence in the house to begin with?

James does a good job of keeping the reader guessing until the very end - I was convinced I knew who the murderer was, and I was wrong. Ienjoy a mystery where everything isn’t completely laid out; it can be frustrating to have the answer be completely obvious.

While I enjoyed the mystery, I did not enjoy this Dalgliesh book as well as the first one I listened to. While Dalgliesh solved the murder, there wasn’t much about him personally in this book. There were a couple of hints about his past, but nothing substantial, and so he felt more like a by-stander, with the Maxie family and their friends taking center stage. I wanted to get to know more about Inspector Dalgliesh, and I’m hoping that I will in the subsequent books in the series.

3 out of 5 stars

How often do you recommend books to others, and who do you recommend them to? Do you only recommend books to your “reading friends” or to anyone you think might find the book interesting? What does it take for a book to make it to your ‘recommendation’ list?

I love to recommend books, but I also don’t mind if people ignore my recommendations. I know there are so many books out there that look wonderful, and everybody has their own personal tastes and preferences. My best friend and I have pretty similar taste, so if I read something completely brilliant, I’ll loan it to her. I also loan books to my mom, but only if I’m sure the content is mild. I recommend books to my sisters, too - and even exchange books through the mail, since they live in different parts of the country than I do.

My blog is the biggest platform for book recommendations, though - this is where I talk about what I loved, liked, and hated.

To join in, click over to Just One More Page.

Bessy, the 15-year-old narrator of Jane Harris’ The Observations, is one of the most interesting and quirky characters I’ve encountered in a long time. She has a shady past, and has left Glasgow and her mother in order to find work and make something better of herself. She comes across Castle Haivers near the small town of Slatter, and is hired on as the estate’s “in-and-out” girl.

The estate is not so much castle as a large farm, owned by James and Arabella Reid. Master James is a notorious skinflint, and so Bessy is hired to do the work that would normally require a housekeeper and two or three maids. In spite of that, though, Bessy takes the job, mostly because she is immediately taken with Mistress Arabella. Marm, as Bessy is instructed to call her, hires Bessy mainly because of her ability to read and write, and gives her an odd assignment. Bessy is to record her daily activities and thoughts and feelings in a journal for Arabella to read in the evenings.

That’s not the only odd thing Bessy is asked to do, and she becomes more and more curious about her mistress’s odd behavior. As she investigates, she uncovers a tale of that involves the ghosts of maids past, a mysterious death, and a whole slew of unsavory characters.

Bessy unfolds the story as she herself experiences it, and her unique voice and way of speaking endeared her to me as I read. I found myself laughing at some of the predicaments she found herself in, and also crying over the details of her unsavory past and the abuses that had been forced upon her at such a young age. But most of all, I wanted to find out what had happened to the former maid Nora, and why the mistress’s mind was coming “unhinged.”

This page-turner was a great way to spend Christmas weekend.

4 out of 5 stars

Names My Sisters Call Me by Megan Crane

I decided that the tension in my neck was a perfectly natural response to the unknown, and didn’t mean that I was particularly worried about Lucas meeting Matt. I sort of wished there was a way for Lucas to meet him and thus be able to discuss him without actually meeting him, but I was at a loss on that one.

If you play along, be sure to leave your link at Should Be Reading.

I’m in Philadelphia, being dragged from one restaurant or country club to another by my mother, who has insisted on planning my engagement party, for an engagement that is less than a week old. I’m also trying to figure out how to get both my sisters to come to my wedding without all hell breaking loose.

Where are you today?

If you play along, be sure to leave your link at An Adventure in Reading.

I can hardly believe this is the last Sunday Salon of 2008! The year has flown by - it’s been a good year in some ways, a difficult one in others - but a really great reading year. On Wednesday, I’ll be posting my reading wrap-up for the entire year. Right now, I sit at 128 books, although I hope to finish The Observations and Cover Her Face before the end of the year. Then I can start fresh on books for all of 2009’s reading challenges!

Bookish posts this week:

~ I joined the Graphic Novels Challenge 2009 and the Outlander Challenge 2009.

~ I posted my Fall Into Reading 2008 wrap-up post.

~ I finished reading and reviewed The Moor by Laurie R. King.

~ I posted about some giveaways and other bookish links.

I plan to spend some time today reading The Observations and also organizing my titles for the 2009 challenges. What are you reading today?

Laza of Gimme More Books is hosting the Graphic Novels Challenge 2009. I just discovered graphic novels in 2008, and was planning to read some more this year anyway, so this isn’t really like adding another challenge. Almost.

There are four levels of participation for this challenge.

Minor: Read 6
Major: Read 12
Masters: Read 18
Doctorate: Read 24

I’d love to try for the “major” level, but don’t think I’ll have time with all my other challenges. I’ll stick to the “minor” level. Here are my graphic novels:

1. Mom’s Cancer by Brian Fies (technically, this is a graphic memoir, but hey…)
2. Black: The Birth of Evil by Ted Dekker, adapted by Matt Hansen & Bob Strachan
3. Red: The Heroic Rescue by Ted Dekker, adapted by Matt Hansen & Bob Strachan
4. White: The Great Pursuit by Ted Dekker, adapted by Matt Hansen & Bob Strachan
5. Ice Haven by Daniel Clowes
6. Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

My library has the first four titles, and my friend has title six, so at least I won’t be purchasing any.

My best friend, Michelle, got me a subscription to Bookmarks for Christmas! I’m so excited, but will have to be patient, since the first issue won’t arrive until February. That was my only bookish present this year, but I made up for it with a book order at Barnes & Noble’s online end-of-year bargain sale. More about that when the order comes.

We’ve spent today being lazy, eating leftovers (I had mincemeat star cookies and coffee with real whipped cream on top for breakfast!), taking the kids sledding, and then to the (indoor) pool - where I sat in the hot tub and read. I hope you’re having a wonderful Boxing Day.

Here are the bookish links I came across in the past week:

~ Amanda at A Patchwork of Books is giving away some wonderful children’s alphabet books.

~ The New York Times has a great essay on the crazy things librarians have found in books.

~ Teddy Rose at So Many Precious Books, So Little Time is giving away three Brad Meltzer audiobooks.

The Moor is the fourth book in Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series. I just turned the final page, and for the first time with this series, I am slightly unsatisfied. And only slightly - I still rate the book 4 out of 5 stars. The first three were brilliant, however, and this one didn’t quite have the same depth as the first three.

Mary is called to Dartmoor by Holmes, the scene of his most famous case, as chronicled in The Hound of the Baskervilles. Residents of the moor are seeing the ghostly hound again, and Holmes has been summoned by the eccentric vicar Sabine Baring-Gould, who has known Holmes since childhood, to sort things out. The case that ensues is interesting, the writing is wonderful - especially the descriptions of the moor - and the characters are as well-drawn as ever. I think what I was missing was the additional themes that existed in books two and three, issues of women’s rights and women in theology. These themes weren’t present in The Moor, and that’s why I didn’t find it as fabulous as the first three.

That said, I would still recommend the series as a whole, and this book as part of it. I’m looking forward to book five, O Jerusalem, which goes back to the early days of Holmes and Russell’s relationship, chronicling a trip they took together to the Holy Land.

4 out of 5 stars