Book A Week in 2010 - Week 25

[Robin M]

Today is the start of book week 25 and the quest to read 52 books in 52 weeks. Have you started Book # 25 yet? Mr. Linky is all set up on the 52 books blog and ready for you to link to your reviews.

 

Y is for Yellow Submarine: Who do you think of when you hear yellow submarine? The Beatles, I hope! Each one of the Beatles has actually written a book or two over the years and highlight one for each on the 52 books blog. I also found the entire movies of Help and Yellow Submarine online. Cool!

 

Happy Father's day to all your hubby's. What books did you or your kids get for them. John recently read Fahrenheit 451 and he usually doesn't read fiction. He enjoyed it so I had James buy him "Something wicked this way comes."

 

What are your reading plans for summer?

[Robin M]

I started reading "Liars Anonymous" on my nook by Louise Ure last night. Good murder mystery. Ure blogs at one of my favorite group author blogs - Murderati. Be sure to check it out sometime.

[PollyOR]

Read The Hunger Games last week, so I'll be working on the sequel, Catching Fire, this week.

[Storm Bay]

Read The Hunger Games last week, so I'll be working on the sequel, Catching Fire, this week.

 

 

What do you think of it? Dd & I have read those, and I'm 35th in line to read one of our library network's copies when they come in. That's out of 76 and counting.

[Stacia]

I'm close to finishing City of Thieves, an excellent & humorous, if bittersweet & horrifying (set during the siege of Leningrad in WWII), book.

 

I also started The Hunger Games earlier this week. Am I the only person on the planet who finds the underlying premise of this book absolutely horrific? It is compelling, but I find the premise so disturbing, I'm not sure I actually want to read the whole thing. ??? :tongue_smilie: (And, yes, I'm saying this even as I'm reading a book, which I think is excellent, set during the siege of Leningrad which touches upon the utter depravity & horrifying cruelty of the human race when warring.)

 

I just picked up Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen from the library & can't wait to start it.

[Storm Bay]

I'm close to finishing City of Thieves, an excellent & humorous, if bittersweet & horrifying (set during the siege of Leningrad in WWII), book.

 

I also started The Hunger Games earlier this week. Am I the only person on the planet who finds the underlying premise of this book absolutely horrific? It is compelling, but I find the premise so disturbing, I'm not sure I actually want to read the whole thing. ??? :tongue_smilie:

 

 

Not at all. I was the same way and kept thinking I should return the book unfinished, but kept on reading. The underlying premise is horrific, but there's more going on than meets the eye at first, and it's hard to see what's going to happen where you are now. It is the first book of a trilogy and I don't want to give any spoilers. I was also quite upset at first when dd started reading it, too, but didn't know about it in time to stop her.

 

That said, there are many disturbing things about the book, but things that horrific have happened & do happen in real life in our world (it's a big planet,) albeit not exactly the same thing. At least this one is fiction.

Edited June 20, 2010 by Karin

[Guest Virginia Dawn]

I've got two Wentworth mysteries, The Language of God, and Extraordinary Popular Delusions in the line up. Am currently on a break.

[Stacia]

Not at all. I was the same way and kept thinking I should return the book unfinished, but kept on reading. The underlying premise is horrific, but there's more going on than meets the eye at first, and it's hard to see what's going to happen where you are now. It is the first book of a trilogy and I don't want to give any spoilers. I was also quite upset at first when dd started reading it, too, but didn't know about it in time to stop her.

 

That said, there are many disturbing things about the book, but things that horrific have happened & do happen in real life in our world (it's a big planet,) albeit not exactly the same thing. At least this one is fiction.

 

Thanks for posting this.

 

I know things as horrific (or worse) happen in real life (i.e., the book I'm currently reading about the siege of Leningrad). All things like that are disturbing. I don't know why this particular book seems to be hitting a wrong note w/ me. Maybe it's because soooooooooo many people I know have LOVED & GUSHED about this book, but not a single one of those folks has said anything about the content being disturbing, a horrible mind-twister in a way. (I felt the same way about Life of Pi.) Kwim?

 

Sigh.

[Amira]

I finished A Canticle for Leibowitz this week and really liked it. Now I'm reading The Amulet of Samarkand and Nothing to Envy, both of which I'm very much enjoying but I'm always short on time to read in the summer.

[Heidi @ Mt Hope]

In the last couple weeks I read Murder on the Orient Express by Agatha Christie (great stuff!) and Cranford by Gaskell (I loved Ruth, North & South, and Wives & Daughters by the author but thought Cranford was a bunch of nonsense). I'm reading The Core: Teaching Your Child the Foundations of Classical Education by Leigh Bortins and am REALLY liking it. Next up is Twilight.

[prairiegirl]

Book #24--The Heart Specialist by Claire Holden Rothman. I loved this book. I think it will be put on my Top 10 list of 2010.

 

Book # 25--Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

 

Book #26--How Reading Has Changed My Life by Anna Quindlen. Non-fiction. I enjoyed this one.

 

Book #27. Not sure yet. I have a Diane Chamberlain book on my bedside table but after reading the back of the book, I am not sure I want to read it. I might start Socrates in Love by Christopher Philips.

[eaglei]

This week I interrupted the classic I am reading in order to read:

 

#33 - Her Mother's Hope, by Francine Rivers. Absolutely loved it! Can. not. wait for the sequel to come out this fall!!!

 

Now I am back to the classic:

 

#34 - The Custom of the Country, by Edith Wharton. This will be my sixth classic in my quest for twelve this year. This is proving a bit slow to read, but I am determined to stick with it as I. want. that. sixth. classic!!!:D

[JennW in SoCal]

By the end of the day I should be done with The Name of the Rose. I am enjoying it, though not as much as I had hoped. It isn't a mindless page turner -- it makes me regret that I didn't make the kids stick with 2 years of Latin because I then would have made it through 2 years of Latin and understood more in the book. The author is a medievalist, so I wonder how much of the book is accurate, and if it is accurate I once again wonder how Western Civilisation ever made it past the Middle Ages. Should I then say I'm not thoroughly enjoying it because it is making me think?!!!! What an admission to make!

 

I have several unfinished books and some favorite fluff waiting for me...perhaps I'll have more to report next week.

[Storm Bay]

Thanks for posting this.

 

I know things as horrific (or worse) happen in real life (i.e., the book I'm currently reading about the siege of Leningrad). All things like that are disturbing. I don't know why this particular book seems to be hitting a wrong note w/ me. Maybe it's because soooooooooo many people I know have LOVED & GUSHED about this book, but not a single one of those folks has said anything about the content being disturbing, a horrible mind-twister in a way. (I felt the same way about Life of Pi.) Kwim?

 

Sigh.

 

 

That's probably why it's even harder for you. I hadn't heard that it was good; someone found it looking for something for dd, so I preread it before showing her to see if I thought she'd like it. It was nothing like the other book she'd read (Kiki Strike--not even close), though, so I took it back, but somehow she went through some change and could suddenly handle novels like that--I don't think it hit her the same way as me because she's a teen, not a mother. I felt the same way about Life of Pi, too, and the ending of that book was quite disturbing. I've never understood why people like that book so much. However, I'm hopeful about the third book in the Hunger Games Trilogy & how it may end (it's not out yet). I hope that that's not too much of a spoiler for anyone.

[ladydusk]

I've been reading through my mom's Georgette Heyer collection. This, and this alone, has allowed me to almost catch up on my reading! (Hooray!) We also finished reading The Princess and the Goblin last night as our family read aloud. Everyone really enjoyed it! We had to help the children a little with following the plot, but it was really worth it.

 

List (Links are to my review):

Week 1: Touch Not the Cat

Week 2: An Introduction to Classical Education: A Guide for Parents

Week 3: Parenting from the Heart

Week 4: Meet the Austins

Week 6: The Moon by Night

Week 6: The Little Book of Christian Character and Morals

Week 7: How Lincoln Learned to Read

Week 8: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society

Week 10: The Young Unicorns

Week 12: Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics

Week 12: The Arm of the Starfish

Week 15: Building Her House

Week 16: Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit

Week 17: A Ring of Endless Light

Week 20: Just So Stories

Week 20: Wise Words

Week 24: Troubling a Star - L'Engle

Week 24: House Like a Lotus - L'Engle

Week 24: The Talisman Ring - Heyer

Week 24: The Grand Sophy - Heyer

Week 24: The Corinthian - Heyer

Week 24: Arabella - Heyer

Week 25: A Civil Contract - Heyer

Week 25: The Princess and the Goblin

Week 25: Crocodile on the Sandbank - Elizabeth Peters

Edited June 26, 2010 by ladydusk

[Daisy]

I've been reading completely frivolous stuff and not bothering with reviews.

 

I read all 4 of the Twilight books in 3 days. That was kinda fun. Book 2 and 3 were lame. I just couldn't get into the whole Jacob, Edward, Bella triangle. But otherwise they were a fun mindless summer read.

 

Oh,and I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini. THAT was a terrific book.

[Mom-ninja.]

I'm waiting for my next book to get here from the library.

[Kareni]

I just finished a book that I would recommend to young people taking college classes. It's Lecture Notes: A Professor's Inside Guide to College Success by Philip Freeman.

 

The book is a quick read at just under 150 pages with plenty of white space; however, it's full of good tips and engagingly written. My just home from college daughter read half the book in one sitting and told me not to return it until she's had a chance to finish it. (This is high praise.)

 

Regards,

Kareni

[Stacia]

I felt the same way about Life of Pi, too, and the ending of that book was quite disturbing. I've never understood why people like that book so much. However, I'm hopeful about the third book in the Hunger Games Trilogy & how it may end (it's not out yet). I hope that that's not too much of a spoiler for anyone.

 

Hmmm. Ok, I may try to finish it then, seeing how you have some similar feelings & still feel hopeful about it, lol! I put The Hunger Games down last week & still haven't picked it back up.

 

I also just started The Swan Thieves. I had been on the library wait list for a long time & it just came in, so I need to read & return it by the due date because there are others still waiting to get it. I really enjoyed the author's last book (The Historian), so I'm looking forward to this book.

 

From Publishers Weekly

Reviewed by Katharine Weber:

"Elizabeth Kostova made a dramatic debut in 2005 with her megabestselling The Historian. The first debut novel to hit the New York Times bestseller list at #1, The Historian has been published in 44 languages, has more than 1.5 million copies in print, and there's a Sony film in the works. A hefty, quirky, historical vampire thriller that took 10 years to write and for which a reported $2 million advance was paid, The Historian has managed through sheer bulk and majestic grandeur to confer upon itself the literary weight of Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, even as it offers up some of the easy delights and generic writing skimps that put it on the Da Vinci Code shelf.

 

The Swan Thieves revisits certain themes and strategies of The Historian, chief among them an academic hero who is drawn into a quest for knowledge about the central mystery, only to develop an obsession that becomes the driving force of the plot. Each chapter marks a point of view shift from the previous one, with the narrative shared among a variety of characters telling the story in a variety of ways. The events range from the present moment back to the 19th century of the painters Beatrice de Clerval and her uncle Olivier Vignot, whose intertwined lives, letters, and paintings are at the heart of the story.

 

This time out, Kostova's central character, Andrew Marlow, has a license to ask prying questions as he unravels the secrets and pursues the truth, because he is a psychiatrist. (Before Freud, genre quest novels depended on sleuths like Sherlock Holmes to play this role.) Even though Marlow comes across as a sensible, trained therapist, after only the briefest of encounters with his newly hospitalized patient, the renowned painter Robert Oliver, Marlow develops an obsessive desire to solve the mystery of why Oliver attempted to slash a painting in the National Gallery. Marlow is himself a painter, and the Oliver case has been given to him because of his knowledge of art. But Oliver is uncooperative and mute, though he conveniently gives Marlow permission to talk to anyone in his life before falling silent. Oliver's inexplicable behavior, which includes poring over a stolen cache of old letters written in French, triggers what I can only call a rampant countertransference response in Marlow, whose overwhelming obsession becomes a strange and frequently far-fetched journey of discovery as he persists to the point of trespass and invasion. Is this the crossing of the ultimate border promised by the ARC's jacket copy, the enactment of the fantasy of one's therapist developing an obsessive fascination that blots out all other reality?

 

Less urgent in its events than The Historian, The Swan Thieves makes clear that Kostova's abiding subject is obsession. Legions of fans of the first book have been waiting impatiently, or perhaps even obsessively, for this novel. The Swan Thieves succeeds both in its echoes of The Historian and as it maps new territory for this canny and successful writer."

[Mom-ninja.]

In need for total fluff. I'm reading Sh*t My Dad Says. It's funny because it's just so wrong. :tongue_smilie:

[Ginevra]

Oh,and I read A Thousand Splendid Suns by Hosseini. THAT was a terrific book

That book was excellent! I read it a year or two ago. It really made me appreciate the plight of oppressed women in the Middle East.

 

I'm reading How to Read a Book and Crucial Conversations concurrently. I'm not quite up to 25 books this year; I think I'm 5 or 6 "behind".

[Mom-ninja.]

I'm reading How to Read a Book and Crucial Conversations concurrently. I'm not quite up to 25 books this year; I think I'm 5 or 6 "behind".

 

I'm a few behind as well. There are some books I need to give more time to.

[jazzyfizzle]

I just finished Frankenstein - M. Shelley of course.

 

Now I am rereading - Clicker Training for Obedience - Morgan Spector

(dog training)

[WiseOwlKnits]

I read The Hunger Games series at the beginning of the year. It was a great book, but it definitely was a horrific idea to base a book on.

 

I finished Cutting for Stone by Abraham Verghese. It was awesome. It's definitely in my top 10 fiction books of all time. I can't recommend it enough. I also read One Second After by William Fortschen, which was good...but also a very scary thing to be reading about. I kept thinking how close we could be to that happening and be completely oblivious to it. Book 21 (I'm behind, LOL!) is The Help by Kathryn Stockett.

 

On a semi-related note, I just discovered Goodreads.com and am in love with it. It's such a great way to keep track of what I've read and what I want to read! :)

[dangermom]

Oops, forgot to post! This week we have Beautiful Girlhood and a great book on self-justification titled Mistakes were made...but not by ME.

 

I finished my great London book and will be posting on it soon!

[Robin M]

 

Link to week 26 thread.

[Storm Bay]

I'm late since I haven't made it here in about a week. I read the biography Doc Susie this week. I think I read about it in one of these threads. At first when I saw the cover & read the jacket, I was skeptical about whether or not I'd like it & thought it might be hokey, but I was pleasantly surprised. She was quite the woman.