And here is the final list, including my current read, which I'm committed to finishing before the end of the year. 80. Angel of Oblivion Maja Haderlap (novel) 79. Mindfulness in Plain English Henepola Gunaratana (nonfiction, audiobook) 78. We Should All Be Feminists Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (nonfiction) 77. Breakfast of Champions Kurt Vonnegut (novel, audiobook) 76. What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Raymond Carver (short stories) 75. The Last Battle C.S. Lewis (novel) 74. Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale Jack Zipes (nonfiction, audiobook) 73. The Nutcracker E.T.A. Hoffmann (illustrated short story) 72. The Magician’s Nephew C.S. Lewis (novel) 71. Some Kind of Fairy Tale Graham Joyce (novel) 70. Between the World and Me Ta-Nehisi Coates (nonfiction, audiobook) 69. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running (nonfiction, audiobook) 68. Explorer 1-3 various authors (graphic short stories) 67. The Sleeper and the Spindle Neil Gaiman (illustrated short story) 66. Paradiso Dante Alighieri (poetry) 65. Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale Marina Warner (nonfiction) 64. The Ocean at the End of the Lane Neil Gaiman (novella, audiobook) 63. The Body Stephen King (novella) 62. We Have Always Lived in the Castle Shirley Jackson (novella) 61. The Children of Green Knowe L.M. Boston (novel) 60. Born Standing Up Steve Martin (nonfiction, audiobook) 59. The Sorrows of Young Werther Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (novella) 58. Murder at the Roosevelt Hotel in Cedar Rapids Diane Fannon-Langton (nonfiction) 57. The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories Angela Carter (short stories) 56. The Turn of the Screw Henry James (novella, audiobook, re-read) 55. Dune Frank Herbert (novel) 54. Through the Woods Emily Carroll (graphic short stories, re-read) 53. Mosquito Dan James (graphic novel) 52. Raven Girl Audrey Niffenegger (short story) 51. Friends with Boys Faith Erin Hicks (graphic novel) 50. The Adventures of Superhero Girl Faith Erin Hicks (graphic novel) 49. A Writer’s Notebook Ralph Fletcher (nonfiction) 48. Summer Knight Jim Butcher (novel, audiobook) 47. 3arabi Song Zeina Hashem Beck (poetry) 46. Driving Without a License Janine Joseph (poetry) 45. Doll Studies: Forensics Carol Guess (poetry) 44. Cave Canem Lorna Robinson (nonfiction) 43. An Iranian Metamorphosis Mana Neyestani (graphic non-fiction) 42. Salt Water Amnesia Jeffrey Skinner (poetry)* 41. Flaming Iguanas: An Illustrated All-Girl Road Novel Thing Erika Lopez (novel) 40. Survivor Chuck Palahniuk (novel, audiobook) 39. Howl and Other Poems Allen Ginsberg (poetry, re-read) 38. Hamlet William Shakespeare (play, re-read) 37. First Bite: How We Learn to Eat Bee Wilson (nonfiction, audiobook) 36. A Separate Peace John Knowles (novel) 35. Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio Amara Lakhous (novella) 34. The Return of the King J.R.R. Tolkien (novel) 33. As You Wish: Inconceivable Tales… Cary Elwes (nonfiction, audiobook) 32. The Island of Last Truth Flavia Company (novella) 31. Twelfth Night William Shakespeare (play, re-read) 30. Peace Is Every Step Thich Nhat Hanh (nonfiction, audiobook) 29. The Two Towers J.R.R. Tolkien (novel) 28. Dear Continuum: Letters to a Poet Crafting Liberation Mariahadessa Ekere Tallie (nonfiction) 27. Collected Stories Gabriel Garcia Marquez (short stories) 26. Furiously Happy Jenny Lawson (nonfiction, audiobook) 25. Demian Hermann Hesse (novella) 24. A Moveable Feast Ernest Hemingway (nonfiction, audiobook) 23. The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home Catherynne M. Valente (novel) 22. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? Mindy Kaling (nonfiction, audiobook) 21. Reading Like a Writer Francine Prose (nonfiction) 20. Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls David Sedaris (nonfiction, audiobook) 19. Civil War Mark Millar (graphic novel) 18. The Book of Merlyn T.H. White (novella) 17. Distant Light Antonio Moresco (novella) 16. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead Tom Stoppard (play) 15. The Book Thief Markus Zusak (novel)* 14. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere Z.Z. Packer (short stories) 13. The Making of a Story Alice LaPlante (nonfiction, short stories)* 12. 84, Charing Cross Road Helene Hanff (nonfiction) 11. The Tunnel Russell Edson (poetry)* 10. The Blue Fox Sjon (novella) 9. Flash Fiction Forward James Thomas and Robert Shaphard (Eds.) (short stories)* 8. The Strange Library Haruki Murakami (short story) 7. Oh Baby Kim Chinquee (short stories, poetry) 6. Lying Sam Harris (nonfiction)* 5. The Fellowship of the Ring J.R.R. Tolkien (novel) 4. The Rose Metal Press Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction Tara L. Masih (ed.) (nonfiction, short stories)* 3. Gutshot Amelia Gray (short stories) 2. You Animal Machine Eleni Sikelianos (nonfiction, poetry) 1. Sputnik Sweetheart Haruki Murakami (novel)

Here are some stats: Library: 41, Dusty: 7, Re-reads: 5 Audiobooks: 17, Kindle: 1 Nonfiction: 24, Plays: 3, Poetry: 9 Female Author: 27 (34%), Male Author: 48 (60%) (and some anthologies with both) Translated: 14

I am enjoying the wrap-ups! At the end of last week's thread, I posted a picture of the books I got for Christmas, but I'll post a list here: I Wanted to Write a Poem by William Carlos Williams Oishinbo a la carte, Volume 1 by Tetsu Kariya I'm Buffy and You're History: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Contemporary Feminism by Patricia Pender Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud And Barnes and Noble Collectible Editions of Grimm's Complete Fairy Tales and Aesop's Fables Last week I finished listening to Mindfulness in Plain English, which turned out to be just a tiny bit New Agey, a little bit self-helpish (much of which was in the first easily skipped chapter) and which contained mostly practical information. I also read the very short We Should All Be Feminists, which I found easy to agree with, but which I thought didn't really say anything new or interesting. I've just started listening to Our Revolution by Bernie Sanders and I'm still reading Angel of Oblivion by Maja Haderlap. I'll come back and do my wrap-up later.

You're welcome! Merry Christmas, everyone! Sadie, nice haul. Last night we had our annual family get-together for my mother's side of the family and enjoyed oyster stew made by my grandmother. This morning we ate kolaches (also made by my grandmother), then we opened presents and played Alhambra. We also intend to play Zombie Dice sometime today, and...? We'll be bringing games over to my mil's and we'll see what we feel like playing, if anything. Here are the books I received this year.

:party: I wish you many happy hours of reading with your new Kindle. I've got a few books in mind for BINGO. Prime number: Eleven Hours by Pamela Erens Eastern Europe: I Served the King of England by Bohumil Hrabal (which is about Czechoslovakia, not England, at least according to the description) Best Seller in Child's Birth Year - The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold Name in Title (middle name - Marie) The Lais of Marie de France Western - The Hawkline Monster by Richard Brautigan (or maybe The Sisters Brothers since I think I already have that one on my Kindle and so many here might be reading it) Dystopian - The Road by Cormac McCarthy Outer Space - The Martian by Andy Weir Finance - Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel by Tom Wainwright One Word Title - Sphinx by Anne Garreta Debut Author - The Bear and the Nightingale by Katherine Arden Any or all of which may change, of course.

I read one page of Multiple Choice and didn't like it - can't remember why - so I put it back on the library shelf, but maybe I'll check it out and give it more of a chance. I didn't realize there were stories, too, and getting it from the library won't cost me anything. I wanted to buy the Flow Book for Paper Lovers from the local B&N if I could, since I needed to ship my SIL's gift to her and I didn't know if I could get it to her in time if I had to wait for B&N to ship the book to me. I called and asked if they would get it in on the 13th, when it was supposed to become available online, and they said they never knew what they would be getting in the magazine section. So I waited and went to the store, and they did not have it. Then I discovered they had sold out online before the release date. Well, I got us each the Flow Book of Posters & Cards instead. I'll be keeping my eye on the B&N site to see if the bigger book ever becomes available there, but if not, I'm pretty satisfied anyway. Thanks for mentioning these on the thread! Stacia - Thank you for your list of female adventure books. Many good options there.

Oh, I just bought that one on Audible! Haven't started it yet. Ditto the "how was it?"

I love Gilmore Girls. Have you seen Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between by Lauren Graham? I've got it on hold at the library; I'm currently number nine on the waiting list.

Ditto. And what is a "seaworthy" book? ETA: And thank you for the new BINGO card!

Norwegian Wood

:grouphug: , Ethel! Mom-Ninja, Congrats, and what did you think of Arthur's Britain? BINGO 2017: Prime number - In the title? Number of pages? Name in the title - As a unit? Spelled the same or variations allowed? Every letter of one's name found somewhere in the title? Finance - Stacia, (or anyone else who's read it) do you think Narconomics would count here? I'm excited to see what everyone chooses for "female adventure!"

To mothers! :cheers2:

For writers: On Writers and Writing by John Gardner Writers in America: The Four Seasons of Success by Budd Schulberg The Company of Writers: Fiction Workshops and Thoughts on the Writing Life by Hilma Wolitzer Virginia Woolf: The Will to Create as a Woman by Ruth Gruber

Thank you to my secret Santa! I received my book today. Many packages have been coming in full of things I've ordered for other people, so it was fun to open something up for myself, and obviously I'm excited to read it. (I got I Wanted To Write a Poem by William Carlos Williams.) Also, thank you to Robin for organizing the gift exchange. I enjoyed putting together a gift for someone. My kids are no fun anymore; they just want money (so they can buy things outside my price range). ETA: I do force a little fun on them in the form of holiday socks and board games. Jane, I hope your eyes are healing well. I have had very little time to read, and I anticipate another busy, busy week. I was thinking I might get some free time with Christmas break, but I'm starting to think that was just me letting myself fantasize too deeply. I did finish listening to Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions. It is narrated by John Malkovich, and I enjoyed both the story and the reader. It was a fun meta-fictional piece with Vonnegut in his own story and in which Vonnegut defines things in the barest, most truthful way. "Dwayne's bad chemicals made him take a loaded thirty-eight caliber revolver from under his pillow and stick it in his mouth. This was a tool whose only purpose was to make holes in human beings." I started reading Angel of Oblivion by Maja Haderlap, which Jane sent me. I haven't gotten far, but I like the atmosphere of it and the differences between the mother and the grandmother. I started listening to Mindfulness in Plain English by Henepola Gunaratana. It is a little too New Agey for me, but I'll probably finish it because it's pretty short and I'm not sure what I'd really like to be listening to right now. By the time I figure out what I want to listen to, I suppose I'll have finished the book.

RE: free Kindle books I recommend typing in open road media and sorting by price: low to high For whatever reason, there are many free books today by that publisher. Perhaps some of them are always free, but I know the three I linked above are not usually free (or even 1.99). They have been on my private wishlist at regular price for one to several months now.

Currently free on Kindle: Some Faces in the Crowd: Short Stories by Budd Schulberg I read one of these stories in a recent issue of Zoetrope. The story is called "Your Arkansas Traveler" and is about a man with a big personality who gets on radio and charms and influences the country. It was turned into a movie called . Based on the trailer, it looks to me like they made the story less realistic by exaggerating the Lonesome Rhodes (Andy Griffith) character into someone too flatly evil. I intend to pick it up from the library today. ETA: Also free - Tourists by Lisa Goldstein This one is on the Mythic Reading List I linked to before. And another - Typical: Stories by Padgett Powell

I barely got any reading done this last week, but I did just manage to finish What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver. I was excited when two of the first three or four stories were just a touch surreal and disappointed that there were no more, but I still liked these vignettes, grim and sad though they were. Now, of course, I need to read Cathedral and compare style.

I kind of like A hand full of stars And backyard birds-- This home we have made

Think I'm sticking this on my Audible to-read/listen list. Thanks!

Perfect! Thank you. I'll send one to my sister-in-law - and probably get one for myself too. That's lovely.

Thanks for the review of this book. I think you've gotten a number of us excited about it! Is there a good site, that you know of, to order this from if it's going to a US address? At flowmagazine.com, the cost of shipping to the US is higher than the cost of the product.

I see. Thank you for explaining that.

Sailor Twain, or the Mermaid in the Hudson? I have never read this, just did a search for nautical graphic novels. You can read the first few chapters online though. (And I put it on hold at the library.)

That sounds great! Do you find the "five minutes a day" claim to be accurate?

I finished listening to a book of essays by Jack Zipes: Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale. This is a set of essays that are not really linked, though each is focused on a particular fairy tale and the author shows how a certain version of the tale became a sort of myth - became embedded in our culture and is thought of as -the- version no matter how many times the story is successfully revised or retold. Because I was listening to these while running and they would require me to read a little slower than I might be able to read a novel, I feel like it's possible these could be way better or way worse than I perceived them to be, but I found them both interesting and entertaining. Among others, there was an essay on how Robert Bly took the Iron Hans fairy tale and made a self-help book (Iron John) out of it that encouraged men to be more manly and claimed to respect females for their femininity, and there was one on how Walt Disney sort of made himself into a mythical figure when he put his name on the big screen. My favorite was an essay on Rumpelstiltskin that argues that the story is not so much a story about Rumpelstiltskin himself and the power of names, but more about women and spinning, as can be seen by how the story changed over time to reflect different views on women and spinning as men and machines took over and cotton become more popular/common than linen. That one can be read for free here. I also read the last Narnia book, which I really didn't like until the end. I started reading What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver, short stories or vignettes that are quite grim and sometimes a little surreal. I got to clicking around on Ambleside Online for a while and, as a result, started reading The Brendan Voyage by Tim Severin. I have only read the first chapter so far, but I'm intrigued. And I started listening to Breakfast of Champions by Vonnegut, which is, you know, Vonnegut. I think it's very funny; I'm sure many people disagree. I agree with the suggestion for a non-anthology poetry week and will repeat my suggestion for a Bradbury month (one book of poetry, one book of essays, one book of short stories), which could include the poetry week followed or preceded by an essays week and a short stories week.