Becky's Books –

The Prague Cemetery 

Just finished  this morning –  great book but not quite up to Foucault’s Pendulum (my favorite) or The Name of the Rose (#2).

Now what to read next?   I’ve got Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke going on the iPad.  What else – Maybe The Greater Journey by David McCullough?  Or Little Bee by ?  Ransom by David Malouf won’t be here until tomorrow or Tuesday so …  oh but DeLillo’s new book of short stories is due out Tuesday, too.    I guess I can start the McCullough and take a pause?  (heh)

I tried –  I got over half-way so a review is probably in order.  I’ll do something.  I won’t count it as a “finished” book and I’ll amend this if I ever get around to finishing it.  Right now I’ve got to the point of skimming and that’s not fair to it. The book is The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof written in 1899.  It’s a 400 page collection of stories about one Gosta Berling,  a young male Cavalier, a veteran, an ex-minister,  “a poet and a picker and a problem when he’s stoned,”  (Bob Dylan). I read the first stories carefully and enjoyed them but for me,  it culminated when the bear was shot and went straight downhill from there.  I stopped caring about any of them.  The premise is good and I did write up some summaries and a review.

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Finished  Jenneifer Egan’s A Visit From the Goon Squad – the 2011 Pulitzer Prize winner.  I was wary going into this book,  I’ve read Egan before and was not terribly impressed.  But a friend raved so I caved but my interest was not that of my friend.   I didn’t hate it –  it just seemed like a mishmash of stories with a whole lot of characters who sometimes worked to connect the stories but from different angles.  Here’s my review:    But there’s a much better one by Janet Maslin at the New York Times

 Just finished “The Marriage Plot” by Jeffrey Eugenides.  It was much better than I expected.  I read it in Kindle version –

The second chapter is draggy but the rest of them just sing along dealing with love, life, religion and Barthes.  This one is for the Bookies reading group – discussion starts in one week. (this one is categorized)

See Review:

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  Currently listening to Feast Day of Fools by James Lee Burke starring Hackberry Holland as sheriff of a small county on the Texas-Mexico border.  I’m trying to save it for walking and cleaning times so it might be awhile.  (This is in spite of the fact I have a new game to play while listening!)   Will Patton is narrating and so this is super delicious.

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  Received “A Visit From the Goon Squad” by Jennifer Egan  from Amazon by mail today –  I’m reading it in paperback because I understand that there is one very graphic chapter. This is just a choice read – it’s not been selected by a group … yet –  but it was the recipient of so many awards and I have heard some buzz.  I’m not sure how impressed I’ll be because I’ve not been a fan of Egan’s prior works but …

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The Prague Cemetery  by Umberto will be coming tomorrow.   I got it in hard cover as a pre-order because I didn’t know it would be available for Kindle   Oh well,  I have several of his others books in hard cover.   I’ve got some background for this book – It’s about the hoax and conspiracy behind “The Protocols of the Elders of  Zion,”  a concept that Dan Brown made famous via The Da Vinci Code  and I got curious about.  Then I got very upset with Brown for treating it as though it were a real situation.  The only thing real about the Protocols is  the anti-Semitic lie promulgated by the viscous and ignorant at the turn-of-the century and used against the Jews since then.

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Also coming,  – Byzantium by Judith Herrin which sounds good – This one is for the History group over at GoodReads.

“Byzantium. The name evokes grandeur and exoticism–gold, cunning, and complexity. In this unique book, Judith Herrin unveils the riches of a quite different civilization. Avoiding a standard chronological account of the Byzantine Empire’s millennium–long history, she identifies the fundamental questions about Byzantium–what it was, and what special significance it holds for us today.”    http://press.princeton.edu/titles/8470.html

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And finally,  a hard cover edition of “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens – this time for History group > historical fiction over at GoodReads.  I’ve read this a couple times and have not particularly enjoyed it but the last time was better because I was finally able to overcome the serious dark aspect of the book.   Also,  I think having studied the French Revolution a bit has helped –  got me more interested.  But it’s not really any kind of a history – it’s more of a English response to the horror.   War and Peace was written 50 years after the Napoleonic Wars,  so too,  A Tale of Two Cities was written 50 years after the events.

I think that’s all for now although I’ve added a couple books to the wish lists at Amazon and Audible.

Finished Still Life by Louise Penny

Inspector Armash  Gamash of  Three Pines,  near Quebec investigates the murder of a neighbor.  This is the first of the Gamash novels –  Penny’s okay  but not an author I’ll look for again –  although I wouldn’t avoid her either.  Who knows,  I might get a yet.  This is kind of a “cozy” mystery.

Just finished “A Month in the Country” by J.L. Carr.  This is a very short book,  a novella really,  at only 132 pages,  but it’s kind of magnificent in its own way.

It’s a beautiful, complex,  gentle  about life in post WWI England and one man’s healing.

Downloaded Jeffrey Eugenides’  The Marriage Plot and am through page 16.  I think it might be kind of funny comparing the theory of lit classes to the lives of the lit major (this is a prediction only).   Meanwhile I’m not terribly eager to read this for some reason.  I liked Middlesex well enough but not overwhelmed.

Listening to Still Life  by Louise Penny,  a detective story set near Quebec over the Thanksgiving holidays.  This is the first of the Armand Gamache series.  I’m reading it for a Holiday Challenge in the audio group.

Currently reading:

1Q84 by Haruki Murakami

A young woman in a taxi is trapped in traffic.  She takes an unusual way around and out of it.  A man is offered the opportunity to rewrite  the possibly award-winning  novel of a 17 year old girl.  These two stories are alternated with the woman in the taxi doing some very outrageous things.    MORE …

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

  There are only three people still living in Blackwood House,   18 year-old Merricat, her older sister Constance and their aging Uncle Julian.  This is because the others,  the parents of the girls,  their parents and Julian’s wife were killed by arsenic which was put in the sugar bowl at dinner one evening.   MORE…

The Savage City:  Race, Murder and a City on the Edge

The Savage City was sometimes too dark and gritty  for my tastes.  Other times it suited me just fine.  I stayed up way after hours to finish it last night.   The narrative switches between two or three narratives –  first there is the story of George Whitmore,  a poor, black, well-meaning but ignorant and innocent kid from New Jersey who is picked up for murder and framed for it.

READ MORE…

 After the Funeral

Typical Agatha Christie/Hercule Poirot book.  I used to read a lot of these when I was in my early 20s.  Now I don’t seem t like them as much – Christie reveals some info only with the revelations of guilt.  I did guess this one pretty early on, anyway.

Buddenbrooks: The Decline of a Family  

The story of a bourgeois family in 19th century Germany , 1835 – 1877.   More specifically,  it’s  the tale of the family of Johann Buddenbrooks and his family,  his children, grandchildren and great grandchild – 4 generations.   Johann is a grain broker, like his own father, but makes a

MORE… 

Chiefs by Stuart Woods

finished 10/22

1981 – audio – read by Mark Hammer

rating 7.5 –

In the winter of I 1920, the first body is found in Delano, Georgia-the naked, brutalized corpse of a young boy. It Is a crime too horrific to be ignored; the first of many that will span four decades, embroiling three separate police chiefs in a remarkable manhunt that will expose the hatreds, fears, dark secrets and festering wounds beneath the surface of their sleepy God-fearing community.

Finished Generosity by Richard Powers –  I can’t type right now – I’m in caffeine withdrawals.

Finished In the Garden of the Beasts by Eric Larson – 8

Currently reading

Finnegans Wake by James Joyce – page 227

Chiefs by Stuart Woods – audio

The Saga of Gosta Berling by Selma Lagerlof (notes)

Getting ready to pick up

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann –

FInished LIFE  by Keith Richards – click for review.

Working on

In the Garden of the Beasts by Erik Larson and

The Saga of Gosta Berling

And getting ready to start

Buddenbrooks by Thomas Mann

Generosity by Richard Powers

Also!  I heard about a couple other new books I really want to get so they’re on my wish list now –

Cat’s Table by Michael Ondajii and The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes – (both old favorite authors)

Reading schedule updated for Bookies group – I’ll likely not read all of those.

Finnegans Wake  –  so my opinion at this point is that it’s a drifty dreamy Irish thing, phonetically written out of a distinct brogue.

Life –  oh my –  it’s getting long and someone else is narrating and it’s not nearly so good –  I guess James Fox helped Richards write this and it shows through in some places.  Also, I  hope we get Johnny Depp back  reading at some point –

In the Garden of the Beasts –  very interesting so far – (page 32)  I wish I had more time.