Books 21-30

That photo is a TRUE PHOTO of Emily's entry hall full of boxes of books that have yet to be unpacked from their move prior to Christmas.


Ok, not really. But Emily's copy of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die is still packed in a box somewhere, so she requested that I post a list of books twenty-one through thirty. So here we go!

21. Albert Angelo by B.S. Johnson (1964)
22. The Albigenses by Charles Robert Maturin (1824)
23. Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood (1996) Emily, I own this one and will send it down if you want. It's so good!
24. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (1865)
25. All About H. Hatterr by G.V. Desani (1948, revised 1972)
26. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque (1929)
27. All Souls Day by Cees Nooteboom (1998)
28. Amateurs by Donald Barthelme (1976)
29. The Ambassadors by Henry James (1903)
30. Amelia by Henry Fielding (1751)

There you are, ma soeur. :)

Marissa

Sorry, I appear to have been an absentee.

HA! Did you see what I did there? I finally finished The Absentee by Maria Edgeworth. Like Emily said, "Incognito adventures!" I really liked this book. I was pleasantly surprised because I found it slow at first, but it all tied up nicely. And I'm pleased that they went back to Ireland. Lady Clonbrony was trying way to hard to fit in and Lord Clonbrony was letting everyone walk all over him. It's hard to believe that Colombre, so upstanding and heroic, is their child. But he followed his heart, saved the day, and got the girl. Definitely refreshing after Eponine and her shenanigans in Bataille's book.

Absalom, Absalom! is up next for me when I can wedge it in between reading for school.

Marissa

Familiar tales.

I thought I would like Aesop’s Fables more than I actually did. Mike pointed out (as I was complaining about it) that the fables are really very well assimilated into culture by now. So, they feel formulaic. But they can’t really BE formulaic since they were the first ones on the block!

I learned from reading the Preface (which the Kindle put at the end of the book, oddly) that Aesop didn’t necessarily write all of the fables but probably collected them as they were part of popular culture during his time as well.

We’ve all heard or read a lot of these. The grasshopper that spends the summer sleeping and making fun of the ants and then has nothing to eat during the winter. The tortoise beating the hare at a footrace. But I liked The Boy and the Nettles. The boy grasps the nettles really gingerly and gets hurt. His mother explains that he has to grab the nettles really hard and then they’ll get crushed and not hurt him. (Whatever you do, do with all your might.)

I’m at a weird stopping place in the book list. I am waiting for the library to open so I can pick up a few more books that are next on the list. I have an ILL request for After the Death of Don Juan by Sylvia Townsend Warner. And, After the Quake by Haruki Murakami will be placed on hold for me. It will probably be a few days before the library opens because we're all still cleaning up from Snowmageddon. And Snoverkill is currently rapidly falling outside my window. In the meantime, I’ll download The Age of Innocence onto the Kindle. It’s free!

Elementary, my dear Watson.

I kind of had an idea of what Sherlock Holmes was before I started to read this book. Though I may have been under the impression that he was a real person. (Since he is character in a novel, I’m guessing he wasn’t.) This was a fast, fun, super enjoyable read. Each chapter stands on its own with its own little mystery. Perfect for reading in small chunks and perfect for the Kindle.

I liked how the author portrayed Sherlock’s processes of “deduction” to figure out each mystery. (There’s a lot of tapping of the fingers together and saying “Hum.”) Sherlock is a fully formed character at the start of the book so you don’t get to see how he got that way. It would have been cool to see him as a young man developing his processes and learning about how to solve mysteries.

This is one of those books that I’m SO glad I read and I wouldn’t necessarily have picked it up on my own.

Next up: Aesop's Fables on the Kindle, during what the media are calling a "paralyzing" snowstorm.

I'm still around, never fear.

Wow, Emily is a CHAMP. I am on The Absentee still. It's turning out to be really good, though. My semester just started again and I'm taking 2 courses, so fair warning. I have to finish The Absentee though, because it's an interlibrary loan and it's about a week overdue. Oh, and I already renewed it once. I think I shall go read right now.

Marissa

Huh?

I just finished Adjunct: An Undigest by Peter Manson. This book was very, uh, different. I’ll include a quote. From Page 18.

“Dr. Ramsay good at injections. Prynne lineation in poems not by Prynne. Rabbi Hugo Gryn is dead.”

The book is entirely like that. Well beyond my understanding.

Here’s a recipe for Bistro Dinner Salad.

For the salad:

1 box (probably 5-6 cups) mixed herb salad

¼ c walnuts

¼ c dried cranberries

1 pear, chopped

½ c Gorgonzola cheese crumbles

7 slices bacon

3 eggs

Sliced French bread

For the dressing:

1 ½ T Dijon mustard

1/2 c Olive oil

1 tsp tarragon

½ c white wine vinegar

Cook bacon in large cast iron skillet and hard boil the eggs. Place other ingredients for the salad, other than the French bread, in large salad bowl. Slice the French bread and lightly toast in toaster. Prepare the dressing. When bacon is done cooking, tear into little pieces and add to salad. Toss the salad with the dressing. Serve in bowls and top with sliced hard boiled eggs and pieces of toasted bread.

“What do you mean, you’ve never read Huck Finn?”

Said Mike when I told him what was next on the list. Indeed, I managed to get through high school and college without reading this book. (I was going to call it a “timeless classic” there. Then Mike started chuckling.)

So, it was pretty cool. I understand why it’s popular. As I’ve personally never actually SEEN the Mississippi River, it was hard for me to envision the action. I have a hard time imagining them floating along on this raft? And they also had a canoe? And all that stuff? It seemed like a lot for them to keep track of. And there’s also all that other stuff floating along in the river? Very weird.

I also thought the ending was kind of a little bit too neatly all tied up in the last chapter. It was like, all of a sudden, everything is wonderful! Hooray! Jim is freed, Huck gets his money back, finds out his father isn’t going to bother him anymore, and Aunt Sally wants to adopt him. It just felt a little bit rushed. But I was glad that everything wound up working out OK for everyone at the end.

I'm glad I finally read Huck Finn. It was a fun adventure story. I can see why everyone likes it so much!