November 2008 Book Challenge - Page 8

[Jenifer76]

Love and Other Impossible Pursuits by Ayelet Waldman

Will write review later.

[cathe]

"Chains" by Laurie Halse Anderson

This book was so good. I could not stop reading it. This one the NBA this year. About a slave girl during the American Revolution. It was great!

[Labbemama]

I just read "Dead Until Dark" and "Living Dead in Dallas" from Charlaine Harris's Southern Vampire Series.

I had to go to two different Borders to get "Club Dead."

I should have just bought the box set. Would have been way easier.
These are just easy reading and kind of fun.
This is the series that True Blood from HBO got it's inspiration from. A guilty pleasure.

[Bufomander]

#128 Right Behind You by Gail Giles

Man, this was good. Young adult fiction about a teenager, who, when he was 9 yo, set another child on fire. He spends several years in a juvenile ward and then had to move to another state because of how angry the community was. Really really good stuff. How do you forgive yourself? How do you define a good/bad person? What is forgiveness/redemption? Yep. I liked it.

[ColoradoMama]

Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother's Toyko Kitchen by Naomi Moriyama - okay, I'm too tired to write much about this book, but I enjoyed it. It's pretty sappy in spots, but I love that, too. This book is all about Japanese food - history, etc. Not a lot of recipes, but a lot of information.

[cathe]

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

OMG--another page turner. I have dishes stacked all over my kitchen because I had to finish this book last night. A futuristic story when every year two teenagers are chosed from each of 12 districts to compete in a survivor type reality game, except this is to the death. Very good except another one of those cliffhanger endings that I hate.

[fremontmama]

Originally Posted by ColoradoMama

Japanese Women Don't Get Old or Fat: Secrets of My Mother's Toyko Kitchen by Naomi Moriyama - okay, I'm too tired to write much about this book, but I enjoyed it. It's pretty sappy in spots, but I love that, too. This book is all about Japanese food - history, etc. Not a lot of recipes, but a lot of information.

Oh I liked that book a lot too. I managed to make a few things from the recipes. Or at least get a little inspired.

#46 I Am Legend

Pretty good, definitely creepy and scary, and very unsettling. The author does a great job of transporting you into the mindset of someone who is completely alone in the world and also must battle some evil forces to survive. Bleak. The short stories were not as enjoyable for me.

[Jenifer76]

Murder Plays House (Mommy-Track Mysteries) by Ayelet Waldman

Funny and entertaining mystery series featuring Juliet Applebaum, a full-time Mom and part-time private investigator. She is looking for a bigger house to hold her growing family. Unfortunately the house she wants also happens to be a murder scene. Applebaum hopes to if she can solve the crime, she can get her dream house.

[Fiestabeth]

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

Excellent. I've wanted to read this for a long time and finally got the opportunity today. It's been so long since I got to just sit and read an entire book all at once, so I think my view of the book was colored by the simple joy of getting to read uninterrupted.

I do have to wonder if the book would have been considered so great had the author not killed herself, and if the reader didn't have the knowledge that it was largely autobiographical.

[kofduke]

#39 The Double Bind, Bohjalian

Laurel works in a Burlington, Vt., homeless shelter and is trying to overcome mental and physical scars incurred from a brutal assault some six years earlier. After being given a portfolio of photographs taken by a recently deceased resident of the shelter, Bobbie Crocker, she becomes obsessed with questions surrounding what appears to be a picture of herself shot on the day of her attack. Laurel's already fragile mental state begins to unravel as she follows Bobbie's life from his rich-kid childhood on Long Island to homelessness in Vermont.

The third in a string of books about Vermont that quite literally have nothing to do with each other. This was perhaps one of the best books I've read this year. The story of Laurel's life, the intertwining of "fact" and fiction, the hold of mental illness - just really recommended.

#40 The Burnt House, Faye Kellerman

.A.P.D. Detective Peter Decker and his wife, Rina, are profoundly shaken by this terrible "accident" that has occurred frighteningly close to their daughter's school. And an irate call from the unaccounted-for flight attendant's stepfather further tangles an already twisted mystery. The man insists twenty-eight-year-old Roseanne Dresden was never on the doomed flight, but was probably murdered by her abusive, unfaithful husband—a revelation that propels Decker down a path of tragic history and deadly lies toward an unimaginable evil that will challenge his and Rina's cherished beliefs about guilt and innocence and justice.

Listened to this one on audio CD (my CD player on my new car appears to have jammed as of listening to HSMIII for the 18 millionth time today, which I'm not happy about, how can I "read" on my way to work?). I've always enjoyed Kellerman's books, though the past few haven't had enough Rina in them. She's back in this one, discussing Jewish philosphy on death and loss. And the story is interesting as well - a bit too farfetched, possibly, but intruging nonetheless.


1-Garden of Beasts, #2-Passporter Guide to WDW, #3-Skylight Confessions, #4 - The Secret, #5 - The Kite Runner, #6 - Gone, #7 - Hidden Mickeys, #8 - Into Thin Air, #9 - Wolf Point, #10 - Ocean Breezes, #11 - Harmony Guide to Cables and Aran, #12 - East, #13 - Getting Started Knitting Socks, #14 - Keeping Faith, #15 - The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight, #16 The Big Nap, #17 - Grave of God's Daughter, #18 - Daddy's Girl, #19 - Behind the Scenes at the Museum, #20 - America, #21 - The Little Friend, #22 - Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, #23 - Candyfreak, #24 - Devil in the White City, #25 A Playdate with Death, #26 - Lunch Lessons, #27 - Hidden, #28 Garden of Eden and other Criminal Delights, #29 The Amber Room, #30 The Keep, #31 March, #32 Triathlons for Women, #33 Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, #34 - Mirror, Mirror, #35 - The Kingdom Keepers, #36 Freakonomics, #37 - The Thirteenth Tale, #38 - The Jungle Law, #39 - The Double Bind, #40 - The Burnt House.

[kaliki_kila]

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

I really enjoyed Garden Spells by this author. This one was not quite as good, but I liked it! I like the author's writing style of weaving a modern-day fictional story with magic. This one had magical books that wouldn't leave one of the characters alone and a fairy godmother living in a woman's closet.

[Bufomander]

Originally Posted by kaliki_kila

The Sugar Queen by Sarah Addison Allen

I really enjoyed Garden Spells by this author. This one was not quite as good, but I liked it! I like the author's writing style of weaving a modern-day fictional story with magic. This one had magical books that wouldn't leave one of the characters alone and a fairy godmother living in a woman's closet.

I liked Garden Spells, too.... been wondering about this one.

#129 A Grave Talent by Laurie R. King

first in the Kate Martinelli series. i liked the author's Mary Russell/Sherlock Holmes series and wanted to see what this one was like. I liked it. Set in California, Kate is a police detective. I like mysteries in general, they are my "trash" reading. I'll definitely be keeping on with this series.

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#100 Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (Audio)
by Neil Gaiman
read by the Author

My review of Fragile Things (Audio) can be found HERE.

:#100! And with 31 days left in the year! Anything else from here on out is gravy!:

#1 The Time Machine, #2 The Shining (Audio): Redux, #3 Curious George, #4 Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, #5 The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice (Bantam Anthology), #6 A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, #7 "A Study in Emerald", #8 The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, #9 Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, #10 Quidditch Through the Ages, #11 On the Day You Were Born, #12 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bantam Anthology), #13 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, #14 Rubyfruit Jungle, #15 John, Paul, George & Ben, #16 The Merchant of Venice (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #17 Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, #18 Trent's Last Case, #19 Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts, #20 Animal Dads, #21 Faggots, #22 A Day with Wilbur Robinson, #23 And Then There Were None, #24 Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper's Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels, #25 Henry IV, Part One, #26 Zami, A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, #27 Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Bantam Anthology), #28 Murder Must Advertise, #29 Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, #30 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, #31 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bantam Anthology), #32 Stone of Destiny: The Story of Lady Macbeth, #33 Ian Pollack's Illustrated King Lear #34 Celtic Folklore Cooking, #35 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika Revised Edition), #36 The Winter's Tale (Bantam Anthology), #37 Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England, #38 The Body (Audio), #39 Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Audio), #40 Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog (Audio), #41 The Tempest (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #42 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, #43 Science Verse, #44 Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don’t You? Well, All Right Then, #45 Case Histories, #46 Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs, #47 Why Pandas Do Handstands and Other Curious Truths About Animals, #48 Rolling the R's, #49 Spooky ABC, #50 A is for Arches: A Utah Alphabet, #51 Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest, #52 E is for Evergreen: A Washington Alphabet, #53 Beowulf (Longman Anthology), #54-60 The Harry Potter Series (Audio), #60 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Audio), #61 The Gingerbread Girl (Audio), #62 A Whale Hunt: Two Years on the Olympic Peninsula with the Makah and Their Canoe, #63 Heart-Shaped Box (Audio), #64 The Host, #65 Why War is Never a Good Idea, #66 Spicy Hot Colors: Colores Picantes, #67 To Everything There is a Season, #68 Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural, #69 Stick: Great Moments in Art, History, Film, and More..., #70 America: A Patriotic Primer, #71 A is for America: An American Alphabet, #72 Just How Stupid Are We?: The TRUTH About the American Voter, #73 Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Pre-School Years, #74 S is for Shamrock: An Ireland Alphabet, #75 The Brief History of the Dead, #76 The Ruins, #77 Marvel 1602, #78 The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, #79 The Preservationist, #80 Duma Key, #81 Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, #82 The Wood Are Dark: Restored and Uncut, #83 Wild About Books, #84 Tarzan of the Apes, #85 Breaking Dawn, #86 Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever, #87 Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, #88 Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, #89 Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, #90 Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, #91 Middle Passage: Redux, #92 Donald Duk, #93 The Historian (Audio), #94 The White Boy Shuffle: Redux, #95 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Audio), #96 Secret Window, Secret Garden (Audio), #97 Persuasion, #98 The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, #99 Bag of Bones (Audio): Redux, #100 Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (Audio)

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#101 American Woman
by Susan Choi

My review of American Woman can be found HERE.

#1 The Time Machine, #2 The Shining (Audio): Redux, #3 Curious George, #4 Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, #5 The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice (Bantam Anthology), #6 A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, #7 "A Study in Emerald", #8 The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, #9 Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, #10 Quidditch Through the Ages, #11 On the Day You Were Born, #12 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bantam Anthology), #13 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, #14 Rubyfruit Jungle, #15 John, Paul, George & Ben, #16 The Merchant of Venice (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #17 Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, #18 Trent's Last Case, #19 Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts, #20 Animal Dads, #21 Faggots, #22 A Day with Wilbur Robinson, #23 And Then There Were None, #24 Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper's Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels, #25 Henry IV, Part One, #26 Zami, A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, #27 Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Bantam Anthology), #28 Murder Must Advertise, #29 Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, #30 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, #31 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bantam Anthology), #32 Stone of Destiny: The Story of Lady Macbeth, #33 Ian Pollack's Illustrated King Lear #34 Celtic Folklore Cooking, #35 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika Revised Edition), #36 The Winter's Tale (Bantam Anthology), #37 Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England, #38 The Body (Audio), #39 Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Audio), #40 Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog (Audio), #41 The Tempest (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #42 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, #43 Science Verse, #44 Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don’t You? Well, All Right Then, #45 Case Histories, #46 Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs, #47 Why Pandas Do Handstands and Other Curious Truths About Animals, #48 Rolling the R's, #49 Spooky ABC, #50 A is for Arches: A Utah Alphabet, #51 Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest, #52 E is for Evergreen: A Washington Alphabet, #53 Beowulf (Longman Anthology), #54-60 The Harry Potter Series (Audio), #60 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Audio), #61 The Gingerbread Girl (Audio), #62 A Whale Hunt: Two Years on the Olympic Peninsula with the Makah and Their Canoe, #63 Heart-Shaped Box (Audio), #64 The Host, #65 Why War is Never a Good Idea, #66 Spicy Hot Colors: Colores Picantes, #67 To Everything There is a Season, #68 Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural, #69 Stick: Great Moments in Art, History, Film, and More..., #70 America: A Patriotic Primer, #71 A is for America: An American Alphabet, #72 Just How Stupid Are We?: The TRUTH About the American Voter, #73 Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Pre-School Years, #74 S is for Shamrock: An Ireland Alphabet, #75 The Brief History of the Dead, #76 The Ruins, #77 Marvel 1602, #78 The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, #79 The Preservationist, #80 Duma Key, #81 Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, #82 The Wood Are Dark: Restored and Uncut, #83 Wild About Books, #84 Tarzan of the Apes, #85 Breaking Dawn, #86 Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever, #87 Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, #88 Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, #89 Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, #90 Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, #91 Middle Passage: Redux, #92 Donald Duk, #93 The Historian (Audio), #94 The White Boy Shuffle: Redux, #95 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Audio), #96 Secret Window, Secret Garden (Audio), #97 Persuasion, #98 The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, #99 Bag of Bones (Audio): Redux, #100 Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (Audio), #101 American Woman

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

#102 Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories: Redux
by Peter Bacho

My review of Dark Blue Suit can be found HERE.

#1 The Time Machine, #2 The Shining (Audio): Redux, #3 Curious George, #4 Animal Farm: A Fairy Story, #5 The Tragedy of Othello, Moor of Venice (Bantam Anthology), #6 A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of Four, #7 "A Study in Emerald", #8 The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, #9 Fantastic Beasts & Where to Find Them, #10 Quidditch Through the Ages, #11 On the Day You Were Born, #12 The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Bantam Anthology), #13 The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare, #14 Rubyfruit Jungle, #15 John, Paul, George & Ben, #16 The Merchant of Venice (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #17 Dinotopia: A Land Apart from Time, #18 Trent's Last Case, #19 Cyrano de Bergerac: A Heroic Comedy in Five Acts, #20 Animal Dads, #21 Faggots, #22 A Day with Wilbur Robinson, #23 And Then There Were None, #24 Eating Between the Lines: The Supermarket Shopper's Guide to the Truth Behind Food Labels, #25 Henry IV, Part One, #26 Zami, A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography, #27 Twelfth Night, or What You Will (Bantam Anthology), #28 Murder Must Advertise, #29 Stagestruck: Theater, AIDS, and the Marketing of Gay America, #30 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part One: Millennium Approaches, #31 The Tragedy of Macbeth (Bantam Anthology), #32 Stone of Destiny: The Story of Lady Macbeth, #33 Ian Pollack's Illustrated King Lear #34 Celtic Folklore Cooking, #35 Angels in America, A Gay Fantasia on National Themes, Part Two: Perestroika Revised Edition), #36 The Winter's Tale (Bantam Anthology), #37 Tolkien's Art: A Mythology for England, #38 The Body (Audio), #39 Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption (Audio), #40 Four Past Midnight: The Sun Dog (Audio), #41 The Tempest (Bantam Anthology): Redux, #42 World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, #43 Science Verse, #44 Frankenstein Makes a Sandwich and Other Stories You’re Sure to Like Because They’re All About Monsters and Some of Them are Also About Food. You Like Food, Don’t You? Well, All Right Then, #45 Case Histories, #46 Time Bandit: Two Brothers, the Bering Sea, and One of the World's Deadliest Jobs, #47 Why Pandas Do Handstands and Other Curious Truths About Animals, #48 Rolling the R's, #49 Spooky ABC, #50 A is for Arches: A Utah Alphabet, #51 Raven: A Trickster Tale from the Pacific Northwest, #52 E is for Evergreen: A Washington Alphabet, #53 Beowulf (Longman Anthology), #54-60 The Harry Potter Series (Audio), #60 Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Audio), #61 The Gingerbread Girl (Audio), #62 A Whale Hunt: Two Years on the Olympic Peninsula with the Makah and Their Canoe, #63 Heart-Shaped Box (Audio), #64 The Host, #65 Why War is Never a Good Idea, #66 Spicy Hot Colors: Colores Picantes, #67 To Everything There is a Season, #68 Charles Fort: The Man Who Invented the Supernatural, #69 Stick: Great Moments in Art, History, Film, and More..., #70 America: A Patriotic Primer, #71 A is for America: An American Alphabet, #72 Just How Stupid Are We?: The TRUTH About the American Voter, #73 Teaching Montessori in the Home: The Pre-School Years, #74 S is for Shamrock: An Ireland Alphabet, #75 The Brief History of the Dead, #76 The Ruins, #77 Marvel 1602, #78 The World That Made New Orleans: From Spanish Silver to Congo Square, #79 The Preservationist, #80 Duma Key, #81 Your Money or Your Life: Transforming Your Relationship with Money and Achieving Financial Independence, #82 The Wood Are Dark: Restored and Uncut, #83 Wild About Books, #84 Tarzan of the Apes, #85 Breaking Dawn, #86 Backyard Giants: The Passionate, Heartbreaking, and Glorious Quest to Grow the Biggest Pumpkin Ever, #87 Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana, #88 Know Your Power: A Message to America's Daughters, #89 Banana: The Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World, #90 Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex, #91 Middle Passage: Redux, #92 Donald Duk, #93 The Historian (Audio), #94 The White Boy Shuffle: Redux, #95 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (Audio), #96 Secret Window, Secret Garden (Audio), #97 Persuasion, #98 The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream, #99 Bag of Bones (Audio): Redux, #100 Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (Audio), #101 American Woman, #102 Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories: Redux

[snozzberry]

Congrats, NCD!

[Bufomander]

Originally Posted by cathe

"The Hunger Games" by Suzanne Collins

OMG--another page turner. I have dishes stacked all over my kitchen because I had to finish this book last night. A futuristic story when every year two teenagers are chosed from each of 12 districts to compete in a survivor type reality game, except this is to the death. Very good except another one of those cliffhanger endings that I hate.

This one is on my Amazon recommendations...

[kaliki_kila]

: December challenge please :

[NewCrunchyDaddy]

Originally Posted by kaliki_kila

: December challenge please :

Duh ... it is the first, isn't it? Seesh!

(Sorry, final papers are due starting next week and I've got four of them (all scholarly, all 10-12 pages) ... the lot of an English major ... so my brain has been elewhere lately.)

Here's the December Thread