Book List 2009

The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner
Dream of Orchids by Phyllis A. Whitney
The Good Dog by Avi
Chasing Vermeer by Blue Baillet
Murder in the Latin Quarter by Cara Black
The Stone Bull by Phyllis Whitney
Shelter Dogs by Peg Kehret
Lord of the Ring by JRR Tolkien
Parallel Lives by Phyllis Rose
The Death of Woman Wang by Jonathan D. Spence
The Gallows Murders by Michael Clynes
The Haunted Looking Glass, Ghost Stories Chosen By Edward Gorey
Small Steps by Peg Kehret
The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne
Genghis Bones of the Hills by Conn Iggulden
A Certain Justice by P.D. James
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred Taylor
Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy
Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin
Blood Hunt by Ian Rankin
Stone Fox by John Reynolds Gardiner
The Falls by Ian Rankin
The Private Patient by P.D. James
Voice of the Violin by Andrea Camilleri
Fingersmith by Sarah Waters
Dead Souls by Nikolai Gogol
Exit Music by Ian Rankin
Tyrannosaur Canyon by Douglas Preston
Number the Stars by Lois Lowry
Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky
Deep and Dark and Dangerous by Mary Downing Hahn
The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens
Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy
The Long Goodbye by Raymond Chandler
The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexander Dumas
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Yiddish Policemen's Union by Michael Chabon
Loot and other stories by Nadine Gordimer
The Final Solution by Michael Chabon
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue
The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine
Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay
Cranford by Mrs. Gaskell
The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
The Tortilla Curtain by T.C. Boyle
The Rendezvous and Other Stories by Daphne DuMaurier
March by Geraldine Brooks
Falling Slowly by Anita Brookner
Never Change by Elizabeth Berg
A Dog's Life by Ann M. Martin
The Virgin Blue by Tracy Chevalier
Girl With A Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier
Lords of the North by Bernard Cornwell
Leaving Home by Anita Brookner
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
The Poyson Garden by Karen Harper
Snow by Orhan Pamuk
The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop
The Catalans by Patrick O'Brian
Lord Peter Views the Body by Dorothy Sayers
Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers
Alfred & Emily by Doris Lessing
The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent
The Book without Words by AVI
The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall
The Boys Start The War by Phylllis Naylor
Something Rotten by Jasper FForde
Peony in Love by Lisa See
Total 70 Books

Book List 2008

The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov
Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee
The Chinese Lake Murders by Robert Van Gulik
Diamond of Darkhold by Jeanne DuPrau
City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau
The Sea, The Sea by Iris Murdoch
War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry
The Lady and the Unicorn by Tracy Chevalier
Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
The Unicorn by Iris Murdoch
The Alchemist by Paul Coelho
Dancing Bear by James Crumley
The Pale Horseman by Bernard Cornwell
The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
Les Miserables by Victory Hugo
Tides of War by Steven Pressfield
The Lost World of Quintana Roo by Michael Peissel
Catherine the Great by Henri Troyat
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
Augustus by Anthony Everitt
Break No Bones by Kathy Reichs
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
The Pearl by Douglas Smith
The Translation of Dr. Apelles by David Treuer
The Golden Bowl by Henry James
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
Ivanhoe by Walter Scott
The Painter of Battles by Arturo Perez-Reverte
My Life as a Fake by Peter Carey
Merlin by Jane Yolan
Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer
Hobby by Jane Yolan
Passager by Jane Yolan
Him,Her,Him Again, the End of Him by Patricia Marx
The Secret of Lost Things by Sheridan Hay
Jane Boleyn by Julia Fox
Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman
Time and Chance by Sharon Kay Penman
Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafan
Love in the Driest Season by Neely Tucker
The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Epic of Gilgamesh
The Western Canon by Harold Bloom
Portrait of a Lady by Henry James
Soldiers of Salamis by Javier Cercas
Total 48 Books

Classic Challenge Wrap-Up

This is my wrap-up for the Classics Challeng II.
My books are, Count of Monte Cristo
Tale of Two Cities
Far From the Madding Crowd
Dead Souls
The House of the Seven Gables
The Long Goodby (new classic)
I enjoyed the process and again had to modify my list so The Brothers Karamazov will have to wait for another time. Thanks to all who participated and to Tricia for hosting.

The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne

This is such a classic of American literature and yet I couldn't remember if I had ever read it! It's a little bit of a mystery in the gothic style although Hawthorne prefers to call it a romance in that allows him wider powers to indulge in his imagination. The story, of course, centers around the dark, dismal, and decaying ancestral home of the Pyncheons, The House of the Seven Gables. The founder of the family, as we come to find out, has swindled a Matthew Maule out of the property the house was built on and then been instrumental in having Maule sentenced to death for witchcraft. As Maule dies he curses the family and says "God will give him blood to drink!" As we take up the story, the House is occupied by Hepzibeh and her brother Matthew. Both are old before their time and live oppressive restricted lives in the House. There is a tragedy hanging over Matthew that is not fully revealed until the end of the tale. Even though the tale is dark, it has moments of wit and humor and is also lightened with descriptions of everyday life going on around the dreaded House. Enter Phoebe, a young cousin, beautiful, kind, and light-hearted who soon becomes indispensable to the older pair. There is another tenant, a young comely man, who lives in one of the gables and is a daguerreotypist (a portrait artist). Later, we find he is a descendant of Matthew Maule and has the Maule family's gift of mesmerism. Hence, perhaps part of the witchcraft problem the plagued his ancestor. Another important character is Judge Pyncheon, a cousin and contemporary of Hepzibeh and Matthew and whom it turns out has perpetrated a vile crime on Matthew. I won't reveal the whole plot because it is rather interesting and not fully developed until the end of the book. Suffice it to say that in the end justice is served to some degree and the two families are joined together through Phoebe and the daguerreotypist called Holgrave. An interesting aside is that Hawthorne's ancestor John Hathorne was a judge in the Salem with trials of 1692. I enjoyed the book and was surprised at some of the humor and sly asides as well as the accessibility of the writing. It's not as tragic as The Scarlett Letter but deals with some of the same themes, duplicity, guilt, and redemption. I recommend it particularly at this Halloween time.

Far from the Madding Crowd

This is my 5th book for the classics challenge. I'm ashamed to admit that I haven't read any Thomas Hardy before and had been meaning to read this for a long time, mainly because I love the title. Hardy grew up in the southwest of England in a still very rural area. He sets this book and his others in a fictionalized region similar to his childhood home. The hero of the book, Gabriel Oak, is at the beginning trying to establish himself as a farmer and therefore move up from being a shephard. Due to an unfortunate series of events he finds himself going back to being a shephard although he has some education and is a highly intelligent and good person. It is although while he's still a farmer that he meets and becomes smitten with Bathsheba Everdene, a young an apparently penniless girl. He offers her marriage, she refuses him and then leaves the area. After Gabriel is ruined he searches for work and just happens to rescue a farm from a fire and that farm turns out to be owned by Bathsheba. She has inheirited from a rich uncle and is running it on her own. So Gabriel who once wanted to marry her now goes to work for her and proves himself to be indispensable. Meanwhile, Bathsheba toys with the affections of her bachelor neighbor farmer, Mr. Boldwood, and then falls in love and marries a manipulative soldier, Sgt. Troy. Mr. Boldwood becomes obsessed with Bathsheba and Sgt Troy turns out to be faithless and disappears presumed drowned. There's a subplot with one of Bathsheba's maids who has run off to be with Troy, had his child and then both have died. This is what precipitates Troy's apparent drowning. But, of course, he hasn't really drowned but has run away and essentially joined a circus! Bathsheba is presumed a widow, Mr. Boldwood continues to press his case and it all culminates in a tragic Christmas party where Boldwood kills Sgt. Troy. Now Bathsheba truly is a widow and has tasted the bitter pain of loss and remorse. Some time passes and Bathsheba realizes when Gabriel says he is leaving that she cannot do without him and has deep affection for him. The novel ends with Gabriel and Bathsheba being married in "the most private, secret, plainest wedding that it is possible to have." I enjoyed the book and especially the end because I like Gabriel Oak, who was a salt of the earth type and never really stopped loving Bathsheba. Bathsheba's character undergoes big changes and she is no longer the arrogant and flighty girl of the beginning pages. Hardy's descriptions of the countryside, the people and the work are moving. He has great feel for that kind of life and the people who live it.

Dead Souls

A deeply satiric and funny book by one of Russia's great authors. The premise is that a con man, Chichikov, is going around the contryside buying "dead souls" or dead serfs' names from small provicial landowners. The 'dead souls" are serfs who have died but have not yet been registered as dead thus taxes must still be paid on them the same as if they were still alive. A good deal of the novel is taken up describing the "wacky" negotiations that occur as Chichikov gathers his souls to him. His purpose is revealed about midway, that he intends to pass his "dead souls" off as living collateral and borrow a large amount of money. The book abounds with instances of how stupid, petty, and self-serving the landowners and government representatives behave. Apparently, this book inspired a fair amount of controversy at the time. Many people found the title offensive to religious teaching. Gogol had intended to write 3 parts to "Dead Souls" but only published the first part. A second part that he spent a number of years writing he destroyed just before he died supposedly on the advice of his spiritual adviser. The aim of the book is of course to expose the corruption at the heart of a slave society, but it's done in an almost lighthearted way so it doesn't bear down on the reader as heavily as other 19th century Russian writers. I was surprised at the mix of language in the book. Slang, cursing, and poetry all coexist together comfortably. There's some very beautiful language even as the author describes the most unbeautiful things. I definitely recommend this especially to someone who has not read very much Russian literature. Gogol has a different take on life!

A Tale of Two Cities

This is my third book for the Classics Challenge. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens has one of the most famous first lines,"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, "... and on for a whole paragraph! Anyway , the two cities are of course London and Paris and the story centers around the French Revolution. One of the main protaganists is Charles Darnay, a French nobleman who has more or less renounced his aristocratic background and is on trial for his life in England for being a spy. Through that trial he meets a French physician in exile who was unfairly imprisoned in the Bastille. Darnay falls in love and marries the doctor's daughter and they have a child. We're also introduced to the Defarges who are a French couple who help get the doctor out of prison but also lead the beheading of enemies at the guillotine. Through some hidden plot twists, it is revealed that Madame Defarge has a blood vendetta with Darnay's family and that is one of the plots driving the novel. The book is a commentary both on the oppression of the French people by the aristocracy and the consequent excesses of hatred and violence toward them. The ending is a happy one finally for Charles Darnay but only because of the Christ like sacrifice of another character, Sydney Carton. I enjoyed the book, maybe not quite as much as I thought I would and I can't really say why that is so. That said, it's amazing Dickens can cover so much ground in under 400 pages. The book also ends with another famous line, "It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known." I will end with those wonderful lines since Dickens said it best.