November 2010 Book Thread

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

Fall is in full swing, and as we all slowly come out of our Halloween-candy-induced comas, here is November's thread all ready and rarin' to go.

So, just by way of clarification (for comers both new and old), new and improved guidelines for the Book Challenge Thread are as follows:

1) Post the books you read ... or not
2) Post a recommendation ... or not
3) Number your book ... or not
4) Make a goal ... or not
5) Have fun with books (This one, unfortunately, is MANDATORY)


So, with that, avante, allons-y and a happy reading November to everyone!

2009's Thread can be found HERE
January's Thread can be found HERE
February's Thread can be found HERE
March's Thread can be found HERE
April's Thread can be found HERE
May's Thread can be found HERE
June's Thread can be found HERE
July's Thread can be found HERE
August's Thread can be found HERE
September's Thread can be found HERE
October's Thread can be found HERE

[konamama]

28-37# Sookie Stackhouse series - it is good! well worth the read if you like supernatural books with a shot of romance :-)

which pushes me over my years goal so everything now is gravy! will set a higher goal for 2011 :-))

[kofduke]

Looking for Alaska

Sixteen-year-old Miles Halter's adolescence has been one long nonevent - no challenge, no girls, no mischief, and no real friends. Seeking what Rabelais called the "Great Perhaps," he leaves Florida for a boarding school in Birmingham, AL.

I didn't love this as much as some of the other books I've read by Greene, but enjoyable nonetheless.

Monster

teve Harmon, 16, is accused of serving as a lookout for a robbery of a Harlem drugstore. The owner was shot and killed, and now Steve is in prison awaiting trial for murder. From there, he tells about his case and his incarceration. Many elements of this story are familiar, but Myers keeps it fresh and alive by telling it from an unusual perspective. Steve, an amateur filmmaker, recounts his experiences in the form of a movie screenplay. His striking scene-by-scene narrative of how his life has dramatically changed is riveting. Interspersed within the script are diary entries in which the teen vividly describes the nightmarish conditions of his confinement.

[raksmama]

Faithful by Marianne Faithful and David Dalton http://www.amazon.com/Faithfull-Auto.../dp/0815410468
My interest started because my son had to do a report on Mick Jagger. While helping him go over all the material, I came across the name Marianne Faithful who was Mick Jaggers girl friend from 1966 -1970 and I remembered when I was a very little girl my mother having her album ( and I am probably older than a lot of you so I am talking about Tears go By and not Broken English which came out when I was a young adult) I had not thought about her in years, but was captivated as I read about how after her famous break up with Mick Jagger (he wrote Wild Horses about her) she became a homeless heroin addict for about 3 years before she resurfaced in the music scene with Broken English. I was also not aware that she has made many recordings since, although I knew she had acted in Sophie Copola's Marie Antoinette film playing Maria Teresa.
It was fascinating reading about the late 60s hippy era and her relationship with the Rolling Stones. It was difficult reading through all her drug abuse but in spite of this the book is really an interesting read!

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#51 Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing
by Isabel Cristina Pinedo
>>I'm writing a seminar paper on the postmodern horror film and its relation to both 2nd and 3rd Wave feminism as well as the theory of the "Final Girl" and how it relates to the films "The Descent" and "The Descent 2," so this was a necessary reading to make my argument. Outside of that, though, it is a very interesting look at not only the postmodern horror film movement, but also a very interesting look into why women enjoy horror films so much (especially of the slasher genre) and how this fact is often overlooked in both social and academic criticism of the genre.


#1 Tales from Outer Suburbia, #2 The Men Who Stare at Goats, #3 Under the Dome (Audio), #4 Benito Cereno, #5 Doctor Who: The Rising Night, An Exclusive Audio Adventure (Audio), #6 UR (Audio), #7 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, #8 Shutter Island (Audio), #9 Watchmen, #10 The Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection (Audio), #11 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #12 Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, #13 Lovecraft: Tales, #14 Hellboy: Oddest Jobs, #15 Danse Macabre (Audio), #16 Doctor Who: Ghosts of India (Audio) #17 The Iron Man: A Story in Five Nights, #18 The Pop-Up Book of Phobias, #19 The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares, #20 Horns (Audio), #21 Blockade Billy, #22 Titus Andronicus (Bantam Anthology), #23 Doctor Who: Dead Air, An Exclusive Audio Adventure (Audio), #24 The Puppet Masters, #25 The Body Snatchers, #26 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, #27 The Three Little Pigs Buy the White House, #28 Psycho, #29 The Silence of the Lambs, #30 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel, #31 Leviathan (Audio), #32 Android Karenina, #33 Mythologies, #34 The Short Secret Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella (Audio), #35 America, #36 The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, #37 The Shining, #38 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, #39 Rosemary's Baby, #40 Blood and Guts in High School, Plus Two, #41 Naked Lunch: The Restored Text, #42 Watchmen: Redux, #43 Lolita, #44 Beloved, #45 Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, #46 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, #47 Dracula, #48 Behind a Mask: Her Unknown Thrillers, #49 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings, #50 Goblin Market and Other Poems, #51 Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#52 The Stepford Wives
by Ira Levin
>>My masters thesis is going to be on the ways in which the horror genre (both in literature and on film) responds to and reacts against social change, and since I'll be focusing on horror of the 1970s in particular, The Stepford Wives was "required" reading. On top of that, it's a pretty damn scary novel.


#1 Tales from Outer Suburbia, #2 The Men Who Stare at Goats, #3 Under the Dome (Audio), #4 Benito Cereno, #5 Doctor Who: The Rising Night, An Exclusive Audio Adventure (Audio), #6 UR (Audio), #7 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, #8 Shutter Island (Audio), #9 Watchmen, #10 The Darwin Awards II: Unnatural Selection (Audio), #11 Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter, #12 Still Life: Adventures in Taxidermy, #13 Lovecraft: Tales, #14 Hellboy: Oddest Jobs, #15 Danse Macabre (Audio), #16 Doctor Who: Ghosts of India (Audio) #17 The Iron Man: A Story in Five Nights, #18 The Pop-Up Book of Phobias, #19 The Pop-Up Book of Nightmares, #20 Horns (Audio), #21 Blockade Billy, #22 Titus Andronicus (Bantam Anthology), #23 Doctor Who: Dead Air, An Exclusive Audio Adventure (Audio), #24 The Puppet Masters, #25 The Body Snatchers, #26 Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, #27 The Three Little Pigs Buy the White House, #28 Psycho, #29 The Silence of the Lambs, #30 Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Graphic Novel, #31 Leviathan (Audio), #32 Android Karenina, #33 Mythologies, #34 The Short Secret Life of Bree Tanner: An Eclipse Novella (Audio), #35 America, #36 The Post-Modern Condition: A Report on Knowledge, #37 The Shining, #38 The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories, #39 Rosemary's Baby, #40 Blood and Guts in High School, Plus Two, #41 Naked Lunch: The Restored Text, #42 Watchmen: Redux, #43 Lolita, #44 Beloved, #45 Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories, #46 The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, #47 Dracula, #48 Behind a Mask: Her Unknown Thrillers, #49 The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings, #50 Goblin Market and Other Poems, #51 Recreational Terror: Women and the Pleasures of Horror Film Viewing, #52 The Stepford Wives

[raksmama]

The Reckoning by Kelly Armstrong http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/the-reckoning/
Is the Third Book of the Darkest Powers Trilogy. http://www.kelleyarmstrong.com/books/
If you want a real page turner, something escapist, urban fantasy that is easy to read, yet not trashy, then this YA books is for you! However if you don’t want to read about ghosts and zombies I would skip it!

[kofduke]

Devil's Labyrinthe, Saul

Quote:

 It's a demonic-possession yarn set in a Catholic prep school in Boston, to which 15-year-old Ryan McIntyre's Iraq War–widowed mom, on the advice of boyfriend Tom Kelly, sends him after he is hospitalized from being beaten at public school. Two boys Ryan's age have disappeared from St. Isaac, but Kelly assures her that his good friend at the school, Father Sebastian, psychologist as well as priest, can help Ryan accept his father's demise. By the end of Ryan's first week at St. Isaac, one of the missing boys has been killed by police while committing bloody murder. During week two, Ryan finds the corpse of the other missing boy in the underground tunnels beneath the school. But Father Sebastian near-simultaneously finds Ryan. The psychologist-priest is an exorcist, too, and has found an ancient summoning rite that allows an exorcist control of the evil to be found in anyone. Sebastian has been testing his find on St. Isaac's students, and he definitely has an agenda, part of which is to get Pope Innocent XIV to come to Boston.  

Honestly, this is one of the worst books I've ever listened to.  Unnecessarily gory, and IMHO very anti-islam.  Ridiculous.

[kaliki_kila]

84.  Dracula by Bram Stoker 

Finally finished this one that I started on Halloween.  I enjoyed it - especially the beginning when Jonathan gets trapped in Dracula's castle. 

85.  Ireland by Frank Delaney 

A storyteller travels around Ireland to tell stories of the country's myths and legends.  He arrives at one little boy's house and the boy is besotted with him.  The little boy becomes fascinated with history and myth and spends his life studying Ireland's history and tracking down the elusive storyteller.  Every other chapter is someone telling a story and the chapters in between are about the boy and his family.

[kaliki_kila]

How do I get rid of that pregnant lady under my name?  I've been trying for a baby for 3 years now and I really don't want that there.    eta:  nevermind, I figured it out.

[cathe]

Yikes . . . this new format his freaky!

So, I've been stuck in the Oct. thread and just noticed we're in November. Yes, things have been super busy as I tried to finish up my new book and get to agent. Anyway, just read this one:

Second Hand Heart by Catherine Ryan Hyde

This one was released only in the UK but I got a copy thanks to a blog contest. Interesting premise: a woman dies in a car accident and her heart is donated to a 19-year-old girl. The girl begins to have memories from the donor and falls in love with the donor's husband. The story is told from the alternating perspectives of the girl and the husband. I really enjoyed it. Hyde is a such a good writer; I was drawn in from the first page.

[cathe]

Nature Girl by Jane Kelley

Loved this middle-grade novel about an eleven-year-old girl stuck in Vermont for the summer--no Internet, no cell phone, and worst of all her best friend cancelled at the last minute. Unfortunately, Megan does not take to Vermont very well. She refuses to participate in "art time" or appreciate the beauty of the country. Basically she is a big pill -- even to her friend who only cancelled because her mom's cancer treatments were not going well. When Megan gets lost during a hike and ends up on the Appalachian Trial, she decides she will walk to Massachusetts to be with her friend. After all, it's only 30 miles or so. She figured she'd make it by nightfall . . . Not quite. But she does have quite an adventure and learns something about herself too. I loved the voice of the character, loved the story, and had quite a few laughs. I'll definitely be recommending this to my daughters and my elementary school students.

[cathe]

The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan

Beautiful, sad, wonderful book!

[cathe]

Continuing my middle-grade readathon (just got my book order in for the library and trying to read as many as possible so I can talk them up to the kids next week).

Star in the Forest by Laura Resau

Scary topic put into a format for younger readers: Zitlally's dad is stopped for speeding and the police discovered he was an illegal immigrant so he's deported. Zitlally and her family try to make ends meet without him while worrying whether he will safely make it back to them. This is a great story for kids to learn about a tough situation that many children go through. The addition of the dog and the friends issues make the book even more relatable to everyone. Recommended for 3rd - 6th grade.

[fremontmama]

Hmmmmm, wow, quite a change in this format!  I have books to post, but am slammed at the office.  I'll come back soon.  :D  Hope you are all having a wonderful autumn :D

eta, where did all the images come from?  i'm curious if the images next to our name are randomly picked?  i kinda like mine anyway....

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

Originally Posted by fremontmama 

eta, where did all the images come from?  i'm curious if the images next to our name are randomly picked?  i kinda like mine anyway....

I think they came with the new upgrade.  I'm guessing they were randomly chosen because my first one was a pregnant earthy momma which, while cool, needed to be changed because, well, it just wasn't representative of me, and since I;m assuming they wouldn't want my typical style of avatars (Jack Nicholson from The Shining, a zombie girl, other odd-off-beat photos), I chose the tie-dyed peace symbol.

[kofduke]

Sacred Games, Chandra

Quote:

 Mumbai in all its seedy glory is at the center of Vikram Chandra's episodic novel, which follows the fortunes of two opposing characters: the jaded Sikh policeman, Sartaj Singh, who first appeared in the story "Kama," and Ganesh Gaitonde, a famous Hindu Bhai who "dallied with bejewelled starlets, bankrolled politicians" and whose "daily skim from Bombay's various criminal dhandas was said to be greater than annual corporate incomes." Sartaj, still handsome and impeccably turned out, is now divorced, weary and resigned to his post, complicit in the bribes and police brutality that oil the workings of his city. Sartaj is ambivalent about his choices, but Gaitone is hungry for position and wealth from the moment he commits his first murder as a young man. A confrontation between the two men opens the novel, with Gaitonde taunting Sartaj from inside the protection of his strange shell-like bunker.

This is a long, dense book -- I don't know that I've spent this long with a book in years.  It's multilayered, rich, and altogether fascinating and beautifully written. I'm very glad that I stuck with it.

[cathe]

A Whole Nother Story by Dr. Cuthbert Soup

Fun read in the same style as Series of Unfortunate Events (in fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Lemony Snickett and Dr. Cuthbert Soup were one and the same). In this book, the Cheeseman family is on the run from government agents, spies, and evil corporations who are want to get their hands on Mr. Cheeseman's latest invention. 

[kangamitroo]

this month has been very, very slow for reading.  read a slim volume by Imam Al-Ghazali, Inner Dimensions of Islamic Worship.  interesting and helpful, but not exactly a general interest title.

i have to go back to some of the book blogs i used to visit, because i need ideas for novels to read.  maybe B Kingsolver's Lacuna?  or G Brooks People of the Book? 

with dd i have just started Erin Hunter's Warriors series, and she is very excited about the first book.

[Smokering]

I've been reading...

Harvesting the Heart by Jodi Picoult. Not her usual - well, I've only read one other one, House Rules, but Mum's a fan and it seems most of her books are sort of medical-ethical in focus. This was basically a rather depressing love story about a woman whose mother left as a kid, and when she has a baby she gets awful PPD and goes to find her mother, leaving *her* baby in the process. It was well-written, but I didn't like it much. The husband, Nicholas, was a total jerk and yet you were supposed to like him (sort of, anyway).

A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby. About four people who all try to kill themselves by jumping off a building, but they all choose the same time and place and end up forming a kind of cynical support group as they decide to give life another six weeks before jumping. It's good, typical Hornby - written from four different perspectives, very witty and a nice mix of upbeat and depressing.

Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures - can't remember the author. I haven't finished it yet. The chapters are only vaguely related - about a few doctors and patients. The chapter I found most interesting was a woman in labour with a prolapsed cord. They prepped her for an emergency C-section, but they kept paging the anaesthetist and he wouldn't come, and the baby's heart rate kept dropping... so she eventually told them to go ahead and do it without anaesthetic. It was pretty powerful, but I'm currently pregnant so that kind of thing gets to me. :p

Now I'm trying not to read fiction, because I have an article on child-led weaning due in a week. So I'm reading La Leche League's "How Weaning Happens", which is surprisingly good - not at all "militant", and just chock-full of real women's experiences, lots of suggestions for gently nudging weaning, and so on. I guess Breast is Best - forget the author - will be next on my list.