Becky's Books –

by James Joyce

rating 9.5  (it’s an incredible achievement but maybe not one of my all-time favorite books)

What a heck of a ride!   I read this a bit at a time for 7 months with a 10 week break.  I read about 15 pages a day,  usually,  but it would range from 1 to 30 probably – and scattered throughout the day like a little break.  It became like a meditation.  MORE

by Erin Morgenstern –

2011 / 400 pgs /  rating –  8.5

I kind of expected to be disappointed in this book because there’s been so much hype.  But I wasn’t – maybe I kept the hype at bay somehow.  Anyway, this book is MAGICAL!   It’s about magic rather than illusion – or perhaps manipulation is a more accurate term.  And it’s about  about perception,  names,  cards, love, reality and  running away with the circus.  MORE… 

Her life story as written out by an old woman with the help of her son, The Long Song stretches from the days of slavery in Jamaica to 1898, the day the old woman’s book was published in 1898.  Her name is July and her skin is dark, her mouth sassy and her troubles and heartaches many as she works in the big house for the plantation owner’s wife who calls her Marguerite.   It is truly her voice which carries the book.  MORE

by Wilkie Collins

I think this must have been a pot-boiler in its day.  Collins does so well with women – he was apparently the only male author of his day who presented them as wonderfully well-rounded and realistic – internal thoughts and all.  Dickens’  female characters tended toward the stereotypes and Hardy’s,  even a bit later, almost idealized them in some way.  Not Collins.

MORE… 

Currently reading Byzantium by Judith Herrin,  The Law and the Lady by Wilkie Collins, and Finnegans Wake by James Joyce.  Listening to Reamde, the new one by Neal Stephenson.   I’m really enjoying every single one of them.  But I have other things to do,  like cook soup and walk and shop and talk and go to eat with friends, do email, and more email –  and Christmas is coming so  things are busy.

But I read –

and read …

by Haruki Murakami

2011 / 954 pages  / Audio & Kindle / rating – 9.5

I realize that I made NOTES on this book and I posted them and I included the book in my monthly reads for November but I didn’t get into some rather important stuff –  like themes of Murakami’s oeuvre!  MORE …

 The Nashville Needlework convention is rescheduled for December and this is hard on everyone from the business owners to the hotel management because it’s close to tax time and too late for Christmas orders.  On top of that a very unusual snowstorm hits and the conventioneers are snowed in.  Betsy Devonshire, a business owner,  her friend Jill, a police woman who had meant to attend a different gathering there,  and Godwin, Betsy’s employee are all on the scene when Belle Hammermill, a store co-owner falls 9 stories to her death on the atrium floor.   This is NOT fine lit by any means but it’s good fluffy fun and I may read another of the cozy detective – Betsy Devonshire series.

by Jussi Adler-Olsen

 The first book in Olsen’s Department Q series,  Carl MØrck, a homicide detective near retirement is “promoted” to the new department of  old cases.  There with his totally intriguing immigrant Muslim  assistant Assad.  Their first case involves the disappearance of a very popular politician some 5 years prior.  She had a brother who survived a car accident but is almost totally incapacitated as a result. The story plays out with one following the politician and the other following MØrck, who is a stubborn old curmudgeon of the old school of detectives,  but somehow lovable.

by Stephen King

2011 / audio 30:43 / rating 7.5

I’ve never been able to read a whole book by Stephen King,  although goodness knows I’ve tried.   I’d like to say that I really admire the man for doing his job well and attracting a lot of fans and winning a lot of awards;  for working with new writers and for an unusual willingness to try new media.  He won the National Book Award for lifetime achievement … MORE…

by Deon Meyers

Capetown detective Benny Griessel has some problems,  he drinks and womanizes too much and his wife has tossed him out.   Also,  a very young, female tourist …  MORE

• The Greater Journey: Americans in Paris
• by David McCullough
• 2011/ 576 pages /
• rating 8.5

I was actually disappointed in what I thought was an oh-so-promising book.  I guess I bought the hype but I’ve read much better books by this author, too.  But when McCullough is good,  he’s very, very good and this book is that, too.
Americans went to France in the 19th century and brought back the art and the medicine if not the politics.  We owe much of our cultural heritage to France and McCullough goes to great lengths to point that out.   MORE

In other news –  I started Ransom by David Malouf – short book but very, very satisfying trip back to Prius and Achilles of the Trojan War and how Prius grieves for his son.  I’ll finish tomorrow,  I’m sure –  while the turkey is cooking.  🙂

The Litigators 

Boy Grisham’s back and he’s having fun – two down and out ambulance-chasing attorneys are joined by a Harvard educated casualty of a big-firm law practice.  David Zinc just burned out one day,  told his boss off,  grabbed the next elevator and found a bar-room.   Review

 I started The Greater Journey by David McCullough and that is certainly a very “rich” book – it feels like I’m involved with a double-rich chocolate eclaire.   So I can’t read too much at a time.  It is delightful though,  fun,  well written.  There’s just so much to take in!  I’ll have to read a chapter a day and leave it at that.

Also started listening to John Grisham’s new release,  The Litigators.   This is Grisham at his light-hearted best with two low-life ambulance chasing lawyers trying to get involved in a big bucks class action suit.

I continue to make progress on Finnegans Wake – I’m up to page 356 or so.  I read about 10 pages a day I’ll finish by the end of the year.   I keep the book in the bathroom.  (lol)   Scarily enough,  there are parts which very nearly make sense and it’s fun reading along and finding them and realizing that oops!  Here’s Ireland’s history.  Here’s a love scene (of sorts).  Here’s a funeral!

11/18 – Feast Day of Fools

Okay fine – we’ve got Sheriff Hackberry Holland fighting the baddies in the desert of southwestern Texas.  This one was certainly grittier,  and instead of small town hoodlums with some bigger connections Holland spends more time  going after the bigger (international) connections straight on.   I should leave the Holland books alone but Will Patton was narrating – that saved it.   This is the review.

So I have  The Greater Journey by David McCullough in hard cover because I was nervous about the photos in the Kindle version.  I’ve started and I kind of wish I’d got the Kindle because the physical book is pretty big and heavy – not one for toting around.

REVIEW

This is one of those instances where I started a book and really did NOT think I would like it one little bit.  I tried the Audible version and the Kindle version – both were not at all what I thought I