Because none of us have enough books in our TBR stacks yet: NPR's morning edition story: Fulfill Your 2017 Reading Resolutions

I now remember you posting about it. I didn't sob, but it was a beautiful ending. My dh and I were talking about how refreshing it is to see a totally, unabashedly happy movie without a drop of cynicism. And Griffith Park was so lovingly filmed as a beautiful backdrop. It almost erases the memories of the crowds last time I was there... It cracks me up that they were able to close an entire ramp of the freeway in order to shoot that opening number. They must have created one major traffic jam just to film a beautiful, day-dreamer's version of a traffic jam. I'm sure it would have been shot on a Sunday morning -- still what a headache to drivers!

I'm interrupting the book discussion this morning with an important public service announcement. Go see La La Land!! Dh and I saw it last night, and loved it. I found myself simply smiling with happiness during the musical numbers. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants (and needs) a happy, non-cynical, escapist movie. Los Angeles looks dewey and bright, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are dewey and bright, the music is terrific, the choreography is perfect and the cinematography is jaw dropping.

A very diverse crowd here. And some of us are wantonly diverse in our book choices! I really enjoyed Da Vinci code and the first Outlander book. Never really enjoyed the next entries by either author, but both initial books were fun page turners for me. I read the entire Twilight series only because I was surrounded at the time by teens who were obsessed with the books. They appealed to my inner 12 or 13 year old self -- I would have gobbled them up at that age. I even saw a couple of the movies with my college aged niece. I remember threatening one of my young teen boys that I'd make him watch the Twilight movies as a punishment for some minor infraction or another! I would NEVER have tried any of Georgette Heyer's books if it weren't for all the really intelligent women I know and respect, both in IRL and here, who LOVE them! I've enjoyed the few I've read. I've also read a few romance books thanks to Kareni's example and recommendations. Perhaps it is time to repeat her guest post on the romance genre?

I couldn't listen to Call the Midwife -- that chirpy British voice describing all sorts of horrors just did me in! I made it through one nightmarish chapter only to have her cheerily announce the next chapter title "Preeclampsia" .....and I hit the off button. Deleted it from my phone's audible app. It was otherwise fascinating, and I keep thinking I should try it in print, or watch the tv series. But never again the audio book! Go wily librarians! Fighting the good fight against our robot overlords! Our library, in an effort perhaps to counter the anonymous nature of our library system with its auto check out kiosks, has a 2017 reading challenge which I signed up for today. One of the categories is to read a book recommended by a librarian. Hah -- it means we actually have to talk to one another!

Ohhh -- thank you for the Kindle alert! Just downloaded it, and am thinking it will fit right in with both my reading of all things Japanese and my current listen to Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time :D (My fellow Pratchett fans know there is an actual time "being" on the Discworld.) Hope all my BaW pals in northern CA are high and dry.

I've not read it and will definitely look for it. Those poor teachers in Japan have no control over where they teach and no guarantee they will stay at the same school from year to year --they can get reassigned and have to move to another town between school years! And my ds says they never, ever share anything about their personal life. One of the teachers in his school got married over a year ago and hadn't told anyone! Needless to say ds hasn't had the heart or nerve to try to explain his own homeschooled education... But before I return to reading about Japan I have to pick up By Gaslight at the library tomorrow as it is waiting on the holds shelf for me!

Anyone ready to talk Norwegian Wood? As I wrote last week, it appealed to me on many different levels from the deeply personal to the anthropological. I've been itching to touch on the culture. I minored in Japanese studies in college, had some good friends from Japan, taught English to Japanese students and now my ds is living there and teaching in a high school. I wanted to share a bit of what he said after I texted him a line Midori says early on the book. My ds immediately understood and explained more in depth, which I'll paraphrase. Japanese childhood is relatively free, and since the crime rate is so low, kids have the freedom to wander around even in the big cities. Then starting in middle school and accelerating into high school the kids have NO free time resulting in either workaholism or giving up and dropping out or being shunted into less prestigious schools. And they truly have no time to call their own -- school is 8 hours long, then there are clubs after hours followed by cram school afterwards. It is all about the struggle to get into a good college. But college on the other hand is seen as an excuse for the students to finally live their own lives and go crazy. My ds says the teachers have all told him they didn't work at all in college! Nagasawa is the perfect example of this - he has gotten into a good college so his career path will be set, and he gets to party every night. After college the workaholism kicks back in -- it is what is expected by society. He said if the boss gets mad at you, you don't commiserate with your co-workers because THEY shame you, too. The kids who give up early on sometimes become recluses, literal shut-ins (hikikomori), or they drop out after middle school and go work in the family business. The suicide rate in Japan is 60% higher than other western countries -- it is the leading cause of death of young men. And the mental health system is slim to non-existent by our standards. When you are in a culture that values conformity to a group rather than the rights and needs of the individual, well, it would seem that standard Western psychotherapy wouldn't work! I have often wondered what kind of therapy would in an East Asian culture. I'm not trying to reduce Norwegian Wood to a commentary on the Japanese educational system; it is much, much more than that. But to me it was fascinating to understand the culture which Watanabe, Midori, and Naoko inhabit.

After a long day on the road in the rain yesterday, I sat down to start Norwegian Wood then hardly budged til I finished it at midnight. I love this book! It touched me at a deeply personal level, the writing is brilliant, and the setting fascinating to me due to the stories I'm hearing from my ds who is teaching high school in Japan. I will write more when we are ready talk about it as a group. And sorry if I muddied the bingo waters with my suggested reads for the "space" square. I'm a child of the 60s with a dad who worked on rockets in the early days of the space program and am fascinated by the stories of the men and women who never physically left this planet but whose lives were nevertheless spent in outer space. I'm also a fan of good sci-fi, though, so am loving the follow up suggestions! And a library with no Dewey Decimal System? Nor Library of Congress? That's just, well, dumb!!

Oh my goodness -- I'm such a nerd that the Outer Space bingo square would be the easiest for me! I've read most of the following and the rest are in my "want to read" pile. Some varied ideas for non-fiction: Packing for Mars (huge thumbs up -- funny & informative) Hidden Figures Rise of the Rocket Girls Neil deGrasse Tyson's works from The Pluto Files to Death by Black Hole The Right Stuff (about the early space race) there's memoirs and biographies such as: Spaceman: An Astronaut's Unlikely Journey to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe Sally Ride: America's First Woman in Space Apollo 13 (originally published as Lost Moon) Failure is Not an Option -- Gene Kranz on his life at Mission Control There's so much fiction, too: The Martian The Martian Chronicles John Carter of Mars (well...maybe!) Many of Heinlein's "boys books" are great fun such as Have Spacesuit will Travel or Citizen of the Galaxy or The Moon is a Harsh Mistress Ender's Game

whoops!! double post...

We've been struggling for years to coax an opinion out of Stacia, but she remains stubbornly reticent in her reviews. I personally think Monty Python produced the definitive Wuthering Heights:

Oh good! I just picked it up today and will start tonight or tomorrow. My 2017 reading has gotten off to a strange start -- literally! My first two books are Murakami's The Strange Library and Arnaldur Indridason's Strange Shores. The Murakami was short and delightfully bizarre, and a beautiful book to hold and look at -- true book art with the illustrations and cover that opens vertically. I can't talk too much about the Indridason as many other BaW mystery lovers are also reading his series of Inspector Erlender mysteries. Suffice it to say it is beautifully written, dreamlike, bittersweet and ultimately very satisfying. Early on I had to open google maps and look for the places he was describing as it set outside Reykjavic. I'm also reading a few chapters a night of Georgette Heyer's Cotillion, and am getting such a kick out of it. It reads like a 1930s screwball-comedy movie. Love having the kindle for reading in bed -- it is so light to hold, and I don't have to struggle with the lamp on my bedside table which never has produced the right amount of light for bedtime reading. And on Audible I'm listening to The Hundred Days, the 19th Master and Commander novel. And yes, consuming books via audio is just as worthwhile as reading them -- my memory of the stories, setting and characters are the same whether I heard the book or read it. I wish I could underline a quote sometimes, but I'm most often driving when listening, so am out of luck in that regard!! My reading year is off to a good start as life is still quiet around here. My regular life hasn't kicked into full gear yet so I've been able to enjoy long, quiet afternoons with a book. It's one of the perks to having an empty nest, but then again when I was homeschooling we'd spend long winter afternoons with books, so not much has changed!

This op-ed piece in today's Los Angeles Times is a nice counterbalance to the NYTimes piece: Read-aloud book club

Hmmmm. I suppose it is no different that those old "Classics Illustrated" or "Classics for Children" series, which were perfect at one point for my reluctant reader. Or the wonderful retellings that Jim Weiss has done, which my kids loved and served as a great introduction to Sherlock Holmes stories and Shakespeare. The parents who have "snapped up books that promise to turn their children into tiny literature lovers" reminds me of a time years and years ago, before I was a mom, when I worked at a teacher's store. A couple with a young baby came in one day looking for materials to teach their child -- that infant in arms --to read. What they were looking for were those flashcards that were all the rage at the time (late 80s) which were supposed to teach children to read before they could even speak! I kindly explained to them that we didn't sell those flashcards, that our company philosophy was that reading aloud to children, even to babies, was the best start. The couple didn't believe me, weren't interested the idea that looking at board books, or tactile books while cuddled together on the couch would create the warm associations of books and love and comfort, that reading could naturally grow from that. Of course more than one set of parents and grandparents wanted to know where the instructions were for a box of building blocks. I'd get blank stares when I said the idea was for kids to use their imaginations and build whatever they want!

Happy New Year to all my long time book a week friends, and a warm welcome to those joining us! Just came back from the annual New Year's Day sale at my favorite independent book store, and as usual came home with a stack of books. I completed my collection of the Rivers of London series -- I figured I needed to buy them since they aren't in my library system and I want to be able to loan them out to a friend or two. I also bought an Arnaldur Indridason mystery, Strange Shores, a sci-fi/fantasy set in a future China, Chasing the Phoenix by Michael Swanwick, and a short Murakami work, The Strange Library. Mumto2, an audible reviewer didn't like the narrator for Norwegian Wood -- what do you think? I think I'm going to go for a print version. Stacia, I've got By Gaslight on hold at my library. I saw it at the bookstore today -- holy cow but it is a doorstopper of a book!!! My afternoon plans include listening to the 19th Master and Commander book, The Hundred Days, as I knit a scarf from a pattern in Piecework magazine. When my hands need a break I'll make some tea and pick something from my teetering TBR stack. I think my 2017 goal should be to have a couple days like this every month...

Y'all are cracking me up with your detailed reading plans for next year and your quest to finish this year with an even number of books read. And Amy with your pie chart! :svengo: I always thought of myself as rather OCD, but clearly I'm a lightweight!! So is Norwegian Wood for January or February? I'm heading to my local independent store for their New Year's Day sale tomorrow and will pick it up. Dh and I are on a quest to finish up left over prime rib. He had ordered a 7lb roast and the butcher handed over a 12 pounder for the same price -- how could we say no? 4 of us did serious damage at our Christmas 2.0 dinner, and we sent left overs home with ds and dn, but we'll still be eating beef for days!! Tonight it is roast beef sandwiches with caramelized onions and blue cheese. Jane does your dh make his own masa for the tamales? There was a large batch of bad masa sold up in Los Angeles, ruining the holidays for many families! Terrible tamales Mumto2, I'd love to hear the bells if you manage to figure out the technology to upload it to youtube! And Happy New Year to one and all!!

Congratulations! Sounds like a busy but very promising way to start off the new year with renovating and packing and moving. You've reached a new level of mastery in hoop-jumping -- nothing can stop you now! And before the New Year madness sets in on these threads, I want to share a few of the fun books I got for Christmas. Thought my fellow quilters and knitters would appreciate these.

Can't keep up with the thread -- got to get Christmas dinner (2.0) started. We opened presents with oldest ds last night and are having roast beast and yorkshire puddings and Christmas crackers tonight with ds and dn (dear nephew). Must get to the store and clear the deck for more fun! Stopped by, though, with a serious recommendation for Rose's banana book bingo bind: Banana: The Fate of the Fruit that Changed the World. I read this 2-3 years ago and highly recommend it. Dan Koeppel is a good writer who makes the subjects of banana cultivation and shipping, and banana republics and kellogg's cereal actually pretty fascinating reading!

I got a kindle paperwhite for Christmas, signed up for my free month of kindle unlimited and promptly downloaded some Georgette Heyer titles that have been recommended here! I started Cotillion last night. I'm excited to have a better screen for reading e-books -- my phone is ok, but it sure kills the battery to read a long book on it. The short version of my 2016 wrap is that I'm on book 78. My favorites were: Beethoven for a Later Age: The Journey of a String Quartet by Edward Dusinberre becaue it captures the joy of playing music The Plover by Brian Doyle because of the beautiful prose Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro because of the memorable characters & evocative writing The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe by Kij Johnson because of the succinct, evocative writing and feminist take on Lovecraft I read lots of mysteries, some fantasy and there are a few book titles that I recorded and just can't remember what they were!

We got home in the wee hours yesterday morning and are now getting ready for Christmas 2.0 with my ds and nephew. I'll eventually get to a wrap up of my 2016 reads, but first thought I'd share a few photos from Hawaii: 2 blissful days at a resort were spent poolside with a book and festive beverage :coolgleamA: This particular book was the second in the Rivers of London series, Moon Over Soho. During our trip I also read an epic fantasy, Last Song Before Night, and a couple short stories in a collection by Kij Johnson. I also listened to, but have not yet finished Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere. A Pacific Golden Plover These little guys can be found all over Oahu but it took days to finally get a decent photo of one as they kept running away every time the crazy Brian Doyle fan-girl got close with her camera or iPhone! This one was at a resort area, so no doubt was used to people blundering about his territory. I passed this postcard-perfect tableau on my morning walk Christmas Eve.

Spent my first holiday without either boy. *sniff*!! One is teaching in Japan and the other has a job that requires him to work on holidays. So we went out of town to spend the holidays with extended family, which was a great distraction, and had long video chats with each boy. We'll all finally be together in March when we travel to Japan to visit the teacher. Love hearing all your stories, though, and am glad so many of you are together for the holidays! Lisa (Swimmermom), is your boy finally over mono?!

My but you all have been busy! I'm thinking everyone must be stuck indoors due to bad weather leaving you nothing to do but make reading lists! I'm just going to continue letting the currents carry my reading journey. My big accomplishment for the week is capturing a decent photo of a plover to share with y'all when I get back home to my laptop. (In honor of everyone who read The Plover this year.). Other than that it's been a week of food and extended family, and doing little else but reading. That all this takes place in Hawaii is just a nice bonus! We had a long video chat with my boy in Japan who is now staying thru 2018, and hope to catch up with my other ds tomorrow. In the meantime, Aloha!!

Welcome back, Jane! I've been thinking of you post op as being like a kitten or puppy with eyes finally open. So glad you can sit back, relax and read a bit during this most hectic time of year. Hope there are some good mysteries in your pile of books, or perhaps the Miss Read Christmas stories.

:lol: Holiday induced ADHD is rapidly spreading, I fear. Squirrel!