JANUARY 2008

1. Women With Men by Richard Ford three
2. Light Years by James Salter three
3. Cat Deck the Halls by Shirley Rousseau Murphy three
4. The Book of Evidence by John Banville five
5. Time Traders [Omnibus Ed.] by André Norton four
6. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen four
7. The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo five
8. The Road by Cormac McCarthy five five
9. For Your Eyes Only by Ian Fleming three

FEBRUARY
10. The Moviegoer by Walker Percy five
11. Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham five
12. Who Is Conrad Hirst? by Kevin Wignall four
13. The Book Thief by Markus Zysak two
14. Desire, Women Write about Wanting edited by Lisa Solod Warren four

MARCH
15. The Untouchable by John Banville five+
16. The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black four and a half
17. Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig four
18. Dust by Martha Grimes four
19. The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster five

APRIL
20. Ghosts by John Banville five
21. I Feel Bad About My Neck by Nora Ephron four
22. Athena by John Banville five
23. The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall [a weakish] four
24. Patrimony by Philip Roth five

MAY
25. Dreams of My Russian Summers by Andrei Makine 5/5 *****
26. Embers by Sandor Marai 4/5
27. I Am Legend by Richard Matheson 2/5
28. Shroud by John Banville 5/5++
29. Tarzan of the Apes by Edgar Rice Burroughs 5/5
30. The Emperor's General by James Webb 4/5
31. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith 4/5
32. Ripley Under Ground by Patricia Highsmith 5/5
33. Ripley's Game by Patricia Highsmith 5/5
34. 10:30 on a Summer Night by Marguerite Duras 3/5
35. The Boy Who Followed Ripley by Patricia Highsmith 4/5
36. Ripley Under Water by Patricia Highsmith 5/5
37. Casanova in Bolzano by Sandor Marai 5/5 ++

JUNE
38. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M. Miller, Jr. 5+
39. Touching History by Lynn Spencer 5/5
40. Hit and Run by Lawrence Block 5/5
41. The Sea by John Banville 10/5 [reread]

JULY
42. The Lemur by John Banville 3/5
43. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood 4/5
44. Two short stories by Flannery O'Connor, A Good Man is Hard to Find & You Can't be any Poorer than Dead 2/5 [if that]
45. The Epic of Gilgamesh the N.K. Sandars translation
46. Of Cats and Men by Nina de Gramnot 4/5
47. A Plea For Eros by Siri Hustvedt 3/5
48. The Storm by Kate Chopin [short story] 5/5

AUGUST

49. Orlando by Virginia Woolf 3/5
50. The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt 1/5

SEPTEMBER

51. Silks by Dick Francis and Felix Francis 4/5
52. The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart 4/5 [reread]
53. New Olreans Noir edited by Julie Smith 4/5
54. 52 Pickup by Elmore Leonard 3/5
55. Star Trek Academy Collision Course by William Shatner 3/5

OCTOBER

56. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad 4/5
57. Man in the Dark by Paul Auster 5/5
58. Moon Palace by Paul Auster 5/5
59. American Pastoral by Philip Roth 4/5

NOVEMBER

60. The Laughing Policeman by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo 4/5
61. Roseanna by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo 4/5

DECEMBER

62. The Art of the Story edited by Daniel Halprin [book of short stories only partially finished]

Touching History, The Untold Story of the Drama That Unfolded in the Skies over America on 9/11 by Lynn Spencer is a dizzying array of facts and flashbacks that Spencer has painstakingly researched to present a view of 9/11, the few hours of terror and uncertainty that hit this country like a sucker punch. It contains many instances of close calls, heroism, so-called grunts stepping up to the plate and taking charge and responsibility for the defense of the United States.
The decisions to stop all air traffic over the country, the checking of each and every flight in the air, down to refueling of the few fighter planes that were available to patrol the skies over NYC and WDC, the very decisions to send those fighters out, to take personnel that wasn't even actually cleared to go and send them....all this was managed by men that were skating on the edge and sometimes over stepping the "bounds" of their responsibility.
There is something I'd like to quote from the Epilogue that sums up their heroism.



Now it would be too easy to blame the President et als for this, it is hardly that simple. The system was simply not in place to deal with this new sort of terrorism. This was completely new to them, even when they started to understand, it was beyond their ken that someone would deliberately fly an airplane into a building. They thought in terms of was the airport they were sort of headed towards appropriate for a landing.
The author is a commercial pilot herself and an instructor, so she is well aware of how things work.

Although this book is non-fiction it reads like an adventure story with all the threads crafted in such a way as to make exciting reading.
I highly recommend it.

Thanks for that review, Margo. You've sold me on the book, so I'm adding it to my "to read" list.

You certainly won't be sorry, it pulled me along like a freight train.

I finally finished The Blindfold by Siri Hustvedt, and a stranger, more boring recitation of events I've not read in ages. If there had been any sort of lesson learned, conclusion come to I would have been more satisfied, but no...it just kept going and then stopped. On a dime.

*****************************SPOILERS**********************************

It is the story of a student at Columbia University in New York City, a slightly bizarre girl in the big city for the first time away from her Mid-western roots. She immediately falls in love with the City and runs a gamut of strange characters, temporary jobs that defy description with some of the most peculiar people that I've encountered in fiction. She suffers from the worst migraines that I've ever heard described and finally checks herself into an Institution, leaves there and wanders the streets of New York City in an old roommate's brother's suit unsuccessfully pretending to be a young man. The book pretends she has a gender identity problem, but doesn't develop it a bit, then she enters into another destructive affair with a middle aged professor [male and married], it's one self made disaster after the other. Soon after the affair ends she goes to dinner with a strange little man she'd met early in the book, confides her personal affairs to him...and all he does is betray her.....it's one thing after the other with this woman. Unbelievably that's where the book ends. Just drops off a cliff. Boom. The End.

So. I'm back to reading Harlot's Ghost by Norman Mailer, the first Mailer I've read and this guy certainly knows the ins and outs of the CIA. Dynamite so far.

BTW, "Harlot" is the cover name for a legendary agent in the book. Fascinating man.

Ooh...... sounds interesting indeed Margo btw..... just a little uncommon knowledge for you, 'Harlot' is another name for a female 'tart' over here lol......

It is interesting and well written. Some of the unsavory aspects are really unsavory though. I did know the meaning of "harlot", I think that is Mailer's sense of humor taking over and bringing out what he really thinks of some of the agents. It's the same over here.

I've temporarily put Harlot's Ghost aside.
Finished The Ivy Tree by Mary Stewart the other day, and talk about a trip down nostalgia lane! I read most of Stewart's books when I was young, but they hold up beautifully, sweet, poignant and just beautifully written. Ivy Tree may have been my first encounter with 'twinning' or possible doppleganger. The minute I began reading I remembered the story, but it was so well written it was like visiting an old friend.

Yesterday morning I finished New Orleans Noir, it's a book of short stories about New Orleans, crime related, not mysteries but almost like true crime, delving into the perpetrator's mind. While the stories were all well written and very true to the locale I found it depressing. The first half were stories pre-Katrina, and the second half post-Katrina, and were so true to life describing how the City was right after the storm it almost gave me chill bumps.

Here, too.

52 Pickup by Elmore Leonard is an interesting little blackmail/revenge piece, probably typical Leonard, although this was my first Leonard. I'd seen the film with Roy Scheider and Ann Margaret years ago, probably a good 30 years, I'd have to check to be sure, but it seems that long. I enjoyed it, although perhaps "enjoy" isn't exactly the correct term. It is true to life and gritty, and btw, the film followed it very closely with a few time line changes that really don't make much difference.
Man cheats on wife, [first and only time in 22 years], is blackmailed, murder ensues, revenge follows.

Now, as to the Star Trek book....... :cool: This is a new series that Shatner is starting chronicling the young lives of Kirk and Spock. Maybe a little too long, and a little angst ridden, but that's Shatner, take the good with the bad. Lots more good than bad though.

KIRK & SPOCK FOR PRESIDENT AND V.P. !!!! ROTFALOL

I just finished, in one sitting mind you, Paul Auster's Man in the Dark. What a trip! A 72 year old man, a widower that has been injured in a terrible car crash lies in bed night after night in his divorced daughter's home with his granddaughter downstairs who has suffered a terrible loss herself. Three generations of a family in mourning at different stages of life and their way of coping with the losses.

His method is to lie in bed and make up a continuing story of an alternative United States that is suffering a civil war and the assassin that is slated to kill him in a crossover from said alternative time line.

Will he decide to live or die? Almost more important, what is real and what is imaginary. Fascinating study of time threads.

Highly recommended.

Last night I finished Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness and found it to be excellent. It's one of those books that was difficult for me to pick up, but just as difficult to put down. I've never read any of Conrad's work before, and definitely want to read more.
Colonialism, unconscious racism, the Ivory Trade that decimated the Congo of Africa in the latter part of the 19th Century is the setting, a man's struggle against himself and the force of nature that was Africa. A well told tale, certainly worth reading. It isn't what I'd call a layered story by any means, but a fairly straightforward story that stays with the reader and seems to grow in stature as time goes by.

Definitely recommended.

I was wondering if You would agree with Chinua Achebe who said that "...Conrad had a problem with niggers. His inordinate love of that word itself should be of interest to psychoanalysts. Sometimes his fixation on blackness is equally interesting..." and stated that it should never be called "a great work of art". I disagree with Achebe and was surprised by all this... More on the subject You can find here:

wikipedia

Thanks for the link Durga, it looks interesting, I'll read it when I am a little more awake. it's 3 in the morning here.
As far as the use of the word 'nigger[s]', although it is totally unacceptable, at the time he wrote, it was still part of the vernacular and casually used. Unfortunately it is still used in a derogatory way nowadays, although not by anyone that is the least civilized IMO.
It was not allowed in our family.
This is the only Conrad I have read, so I can't comment on his so called fascination with blackness in general, but at the time there were not that many black people in England, and Africa was a very new thing to Europeans, so really it would be a fascinating thing to see people that were so very different from ones self wouldn't it? Not necessarily in a mean way, but just plain interesting.
We have to look at it in the context of the time frame. It isn't really fair to apply modern attitudes on the past.

Durga, since I couldn't sleep, I went ahead and read your very interesting wiki article. Toward the end in the counterpoint section there is an Achebe quote...

"....Although he's writing good sentences, he's also writing about a people, and their life. And he says about these people that they are rudimentary souls... The Africans are the rudimentaries, and then on top are the good whites. Now I don't accept that, as a basis for... As a basis for anything."

It is certainly NOT true that Conrad casts white people as the good guys, not by a long shot! He shows how many whites mistreated the natives, took advantage of them in every way possible to the terrible detriment of the natives.
Conrad shows how the natives were beaten, killed and generally stolen from.
How can Achebe say that then? It's amazing to me.

That is exactly how i felt - i've read Conrad and was surprised by Achebe's words, because i always felt that this books are about moral choices - and usually white people in Africa are shown as those without values - of course there usually is one good character but this accusations i've found unjustified.
My favourite Conrad's novel was "Lord Jim" - i loved the moral struggles of the main character!

I have to think that some people like Achebe have seen so much prejudice and really terrible things done that they might tend to see bad intent where there is no intention on the author's part to be prejudiced. It's understandable really. A darned shame, but understandable.

I am sure You are right It's just a pity that a known and respected author can't really be a bit more objective...

Moon Palace by Paul Auster

A lost young man of the '60's struggles to find himself. Sounds pretty ordinary doesn't it? Not when Paul Auster gets through with the reader. In actuality there are at least three main stories, finally intertwining in a practically unbelievable series of meetings. Auster turns coincidence into a fine art form and makes us believe him.
.
Young Marco Fogg begins his narrative many years after the fact, so we know he survives the year of the moon landing, but if not for that foreknowledge given by the author in the very first paragraphs, the reader would be hard pressed to believe Fogg could live through it. Loss of parent, all family, loss of home, the loss in fact of everything humans consider necessary to survive in this world is inflicted on this man, mostly through his own self-confessed inertia. What he finds however are the very things he has lost.

Reading this book no New Yorker will ever look upon Central Park in the same light, the deserts of the West will seem even emptier and more heartless than ever before, the Pacific even more beautiful than thought.

As Fogg traversed the few years covered, I found myself cringing, weeping, laughing and finally cheering him on, this is a must read.

5/5

I only just realized I'd not finished up my 2008 list. With all the stuff going on around here I barely read anything, only partially read a book of short stories. If I recall correctly, I started a few books but was so distracted I didn't finish anything.

AIE: Oh, I remember now! I read half of The Quincunx, more really, but was bogged down. hah, 500 and something pages ought to count for something!