That article sums up my opinion too. I consider 3 stars to = fine, meaning it was probably enjoyable enough, not perfect but fine, & worth my time overall to read it. Maybe not a memorable book for the long run but one worthy of my time when I read it. I had to read A Room with a View and A Passage to India in high school. I was the type of kid who actually read the books (vs. reading those yellow Cliff Notes books, lol, like so many other students) & A Passage to India ranked among my most disliked required reading, lol. I thought it was incredibly boring & not much happens. I'm sure that's not true entirely, but I have a very jaded vision of it. I remember A Room with a View being fine, not great but not bad either -- probably a 3 star type book. NoseInABook, hang in there! What a crazy schedule (crazy in a good way, right? ;) ), but if anyone can manage to pull it off, I think it will be you! Heather, sending more :grouphug: for your dad & family. Angel, I'll request Brave New World from the library too. Don't know how long it will take to get it. Rose, thanks for the mention of the Tempest; I'll request it too. It has been ages since I've read Shakespeare. Eliana, glad to hear you're still plugging away at the Marco Polo books too. I'm finding the In the Footsteps one interesting, especially at those little overlapping intersections where they'll mention some minor thing, then pull out a quote from MP's account that points out the same thing. One thing, though, that just screams in my mind throughout this book is that it would have been so much harder for two women to undertake the same journey as there are some extremely dangerous areas (for anyone), but definitely enough places where the culture is so male-dominated & centered that, realistically, it would have been almost impossible for two women to have traced the same route. :glare: I do admire the guys' dedication to MP's trek. What they accomplished is really quite amazing. MP too.

I don't know that I've posted a recent list of my books. Since I don't have access to that document right now, I looked at my list over on Goodreads. Here is my shortlist of favorites in 2015: The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy The Good Lord Bird by James McBride Guantánamo Diary by Mohamedou Ould Slahi The Martian by Andy Weir

Sat down and read a small Archipelago book today: In Red by Magdalena Tulli. I've had this one on my shelf for a bit & tried reading it a couple different times, but just couldn't get into it. I decided to give it one last try & have now read it in one day. It's a strange story, unsettling, though sometimes beautiful too. I like this review/description of it & it describes it better than I can. Even with the unusual & bizarre happenings, I can't really say this story is magical realism, but in a sense, it may be. Partly it reminded me of the old, scary, dark fairy tales from Europe but with a modern edge where the evil beings are war (the two world wars bookend the novel), inertia, & cold-hearted business. There's a coldness & distance in the presentation style, but it is also deeply touching & makes you feel the futility of war (among other things). I will say that, for some reason, I can see this story as a modern dance ballet with a very neutral color palette (white, gray, black) with symbolic slashes of red throughout. There's definitely a stage/scenery bent to the writing that makes me picture it in motion on stage. I think it could be a grand & dramatic ballet. I know my review sounds disjointed, but I'm afraid that may the best I can do with this book. Anyone else want to give it a shot & post your opinions? Let me know & I'll get it in the mail to you.

Angel, your call on the book. I have not read either one of them.

Heather, glad to hear that your dad's surgery went as well as could be expected under the circumstances. Hoping this is the first of many positive steps for him during his recovery. :grouphug:

What a lovely story. Thanks for posting it.

:grouphug: :grouphug:

Jane, as always, thank you for the nice offer to share your books. I have enjoyed so many (& have a few more still here on my shelves) because of your generous spirit of sharing. Re: Kareni's question.... I definitely have books I love & a few authors too. I do think I tend to love individual books more than an author in particular.

I was going to mention Burt's Bees too, but I do think there is mint or something else in there. I also love Clinique's Black Honey Almost Lipstick. Not sure what the ingredients are, though. http://www.clinique.com/product/1603/4772/Makeup/Lip-Glosses/Almost-Lipstick http://thebeautyjunkee.blogspot.com/2013/01/review-clinique-almost-lipstick-in.html Another place to look is etsy. ETA: Oops. Just now seeing zoobie's post. I agree. Love Black Honey. It's been a makeup staple for me for over 20 years.

:lol:

Ohhh, Jane & idnib, I got a catalog from Archipelago in the mail the other day. Finally had a few minutes to sit down & look at it. Looks like the upcoming December release is A General Theory of Oblivion by Jose Eduardo Agualusa. :hurray: He's the author of The Book of Chameleons (a book I absolutely loved... & I think Pam enjoyed it too, lol). I don't always read more than one book by an author, but in his case, I'm thinking I'll be ordering the book & making an exception. And, Pam, I noticed that the upcoming January release is another book by Elias Khoury: Broken Mirrors. Actually, there are lots of goodies in this catalog that are leaving this reader drooling....

Hey, Angel. Are we planning to do a 'banned books' read together this year? If so, it's your pick this year. Any ideas of what you want us to read? (Just asking so I can plan ahead & find a copy of the book....)

Kareni, looking forward to your review of A Tale for the Time Being. I loved it. It resides on my 'favorites' list (over on Goodreads). indigomama, welcome. And, unsinkable, nice to see you here too. Jane, it's funny that you mention the Hans Fallada book. I think heard about it in The Garden of Beasts, looked it up & thought I might like it. One of my library systems has it & I requested it. It sat on my request list for months & months (there's just a single copy), which leads me to think that the library *had* one copy that is now lost/gone/destroyed or something. Maybe I'll try adding it again & see if it ever appears. Jane & idnib, do you think I would like the Archipelago book you've been discussing? Can't quite decide based on your final comments. Lol. TeacherZee, glad to see you checking in & knowing that you're hanging in there! Wishing for rain for you CA gals. :grouphug:

Lol. The comments about things that are pesky to clean makes me think of my motto: If it can't be cleaned in the dishwasher or washing machine, I don't want to own it anyway. I decided that many years ago &, while there are a few exceptions to this rule, it made both kitchen & clothing easier in our household.

21 Signs That Prove Booksellers Are The Absolute Best

Thanks, Kareni.

:grouphug: :grouphug: to all our CA girls with worries about the fires. VC, loved reading your account of your museum visit. :lol: Loved City of Thieves when I read it many years ago for my book club. It's not a book I probably would have ever picked up on my own because I would have thought it would be too depressing. But, even though it is depressing in parts, it's also heartwarming, funny, & unexpected... very worth reading. Even though it is fiction, I think I read an article that said a lot of it actually was based on the lives of the author's grandparents (who both stayed in Leningrad during the siege). And the grandmother actually did the job that she had in the book. (I won't give it away as it's a bit of a spoiler). ETA: I am still plugging away at Marco Polo. Enjoying it but in small doses.

Don Juan was surely a scoundrel if ever there was one & I started thinking about other scoundrels, so I popped in my Chicago cd for a sing-along. ;) And, now that I've been singing all afternoon with a host of ne'er-do-wells & completely irredeemable characters, I am very in the mood to find a fun book with a villain I can root for. I always was the type to like J.R. Ewing, Wile E. Coyote, Sylvester the Cat, early James Bonds, and the entire cast of Chicago. :lol: I don't mean truly evil characters (no American Psycho or Devil in the White City for me, please), but I'd love some recommendations with some deliciously fun bad guys (or gals) with joie de vivre! :bigear:

I was looking through my (fairly large) accumulation of kindle books on my ipad this weekend. Most have been picked up for free (either classics that are out of copyright or freebies that have been linked here) & a few have been bought. I figured I would delete some things on my digital bookshelf. Of course, most are books that I really don't recognize since I would download & then almost never read ebook versions of anything. So, as I started looking through my virtual stacks, I would open some of the books to see what they were. And guess what? I ended up reading two romance novels in the process. I'm not even sure I've ever read a contemporary romance book, so they were firsts for me. Both were books by Marie Force: True North and Maid for Love. (Ok, I have to :rolleyes: at that second title. :lol: ) Definite beach reads, both of them. I enjoyed True North much better than Maid for Love. Partially, I think, because True North has a 'matched' couple in that both are successful, driven in their fields, etc... vs. the Maid for Love one which has (a probably predictable) love match of the 'town tramp'/low income/single mother who accidentally runs into the the town's prodigal son (of the wealthy/hotel-owning family that employs said maid) & they fall completely in love. (So, kind of a 'lesser woman' & the 'higher man' thing.) Also, the Maid one had some glitchy stuff -- not sure if it was formatting issues for kindle or if the author just changed scenery/time in the middle of a chapter more than once or what...? Overall, True North was the better written of the two books & I liked the storyline better. And, quite frankly, I liked True North better because it had better 'adult' stuff in it, at least in my biased opinion. :laugh: So, anyway, I've entered the romance reading arena, probably an area I would have never read if it weren't for our pool of romance readers here posting regularly & linking free downloads & such. I'd definitely read another one down the road when I'm looking for mind fluff that's fun (but I may steer away from ones with overly cheesy titles). Any recs, if you've happened to read those & know of something similar? I was road-tripping today (by myself -- actually heading home after being away) & ended up sticking in a cd with a bunch of '80s & '90s music on it, including one that made me think (very much) of the books I had just read this weekend.... Just had to share with you gals.... Are you laughing at my hokey ways yet? And, then, since that song was originally written by Bryan Adams for the Don Juan DeMarco movie (which I never did see, btw), it got me to thinking about Don Juan. Maybe I should read it. So, after that, I was thinking...

Gee, I'm out of the loop -- I didn't even know the world was ending until I read this thread. Mentioning 'end of world' cults in the US vs. other countries.... I believe the cult in Japan that did the subway attacks years ago was an 'end of the world' cult. Since this mindset seems to be popular (it seems like you hear about it at least once a year, if not more often), I don't understand how many buy into the newest craze for it considering that NONE of the previous guesses about it have been correct. Does society in general have collective amnesia?

Rose, re: Memoirs of a Porcupine... Not sure how I would categorize it, maybe a mix of folktale & magical realism. But, for the setting/area/group, having an animal double is normal/an initiation rite, so it seems much more like a folktale variation to me.

Free ebooks right now: The God of Small Things (nook) Wicked (nook & kindle) Twelve Years a Slave (nook)

Cripes! Did someone give him a fig-paste sandwich? A brilliant study of the poisons Agatha Christie used to kill off characters Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-3229892/Cripes-Did-fig-paste-sandwich-brilliant-study-poisons-Agatha-Christie-used-kill-characters.html#ixzz3lOVm4EcE

VC, Belling the cat?

I'll agree. The final part was... Different? Not expected? Not liked? Still, though, I loved the rest of the book enough to overlook the aberration.