Ooooo, I love a good suspense novel, and Stephen Fry's book Revenge hit the spot. A retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, the novel is an excellent update to that fine story. The book follows the travails of Ned, the victim of a prank that goes very, very wrong and lands him in a mental asylum for years. The pacing was great, and even though I pretty much knew how things would end (having read TCoMC), I couldn't wait to get there with Ned. Fry's more known for his comic novels (and for being part of a comic duo with House's Hugh Laurie). Given my enjoyment of Revenge, you can expect to see at least one of those comic efforts further down this list.
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
95. The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan
94. A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones
93. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
92. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
91. Beauty by Robin McKinley
90. The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
89. The Unicorn Sonata by Peter S. Beagle
88. Revenge by Stephen Fry
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
Friday, February 6, 2009
100 Books Update
Just a quick update today! I finished the laugh-out-loud funny An Abundance of Katherines by John Green a few days ago. My husband discovered this author through his (the author’s not my husband’s) daily video blogging as part of the Brotherhood Project 2.0. If you need a good laugh, check out the book and check out John and his brother Hank’s year-long web “correspondence” on YouTube. I’ve not laughed this hard in a loooooong time.
Beauty is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. This was Robin McKinley’s first work, and I’ve read and enjoyed several of her later books, so it was hard to pass this up when I saw it on the library’s new acquisitions shelf. While the story isn’t new, the telling is good, and I enjoyed it!
P.S. I did finish Last Child in the Woods, but I think I've said all I'm going to say about kids today not getting the outdoor free time that I had as a child. Read the book if you wish. It's good but not earth-shaking.
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
95. The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan
94. A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones
93. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
92. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
91. Beauty by Robin McKinley
Beauty is a retelling of the Beauty and the Beast story. This was Robin McKinley’s first work, and I’ve read and enjoyed several of her later books, so it was hard to pass this up when I saw it on the library’s new acquisitions shelf. While the story isn’t new, the telling is good, and I enjoyed it!
P.S. I did finish Last Child in the Woods, but I think I've said all I'm going to say about kids today not getting the outdoor free time that I had as a child. Read the book if you wish. It's good but not earth-shaking.
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
95. The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan
94. A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones
93. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
92. An Abundance of Katherines by John Green
91. Beauty by Robin McKinley
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Next Books
As I referenced in my entry below, I just finished some books on children without mothers. I admit that I have a real weakness for juvenile fiction and young adult fiction. Whenever I visit a bookstore or the library, I always check out the latest in juvie lit and YA. So when I found myself dragging a bit in reading Last Child in the Woods, a nonfiction discussion of the need of children for nature, I hit the library for a few good, short reads to get me through.
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron was a book I stumbled on at Borders or Barnes & Noble over the summer. Because I'm making a conscientious effort not to buy books but to check them out from the library, I noted the title and added it to my library to-read list. A Newberry Award winner, the book is a tender and sensitive look at the efforts of ten-year-old Lucky to cope with the loss of her mother, the absence of her father, and her fears about her French caregiver Brigitte leaving her, too.
The book is infused with humor, and Ms. Patron clearly has a finger on the pulse of what makes young children tick. I loved the childish intelligence and insight of Lucky and her friend Lincoln. Lincoln, worried that people will assume that the children in their town of 43 souls are stupid, amends the traffic sign to read "Slow: Children At Play." (It's something I wanted to do as a child!) Lucky, eavesdropping on local twelve-step meetings, has a beautiful, child-like understanding of the "higher power" credited by the recovering addicts as their salvation, and she seeks her own "higher power" in an effort to attain the stability she senses she's lost with the death of her mother.
It's a sweet and funny book, one I would like to read with my daughter one day.
Touching on similar themes of loss, A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones, has the feel of a thriller or ghost story as sixteen-year-old Declan Steeple comes to terms with the departure of his mother six years before. Through dreams and memory, Dec has, in a sense, a vision quest that leads him to accept truths about his mother as well as about his father and even himself ... truths that he has hidden from himself in an effort to cope with his mother's departure. While not as sweet or tender as Lucky, this book was also worth the read. I came away feeling that I knew Dec and his friends. Even though some characters appear briefly, they are so well "drawn" by Wynne-Jones, that you feel you know them, and they certainly reminded me of people I know.
So, here's the latest run-down, including Last Child in the Woods, which I'll finish today but blog about later. :)
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
95. The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan
94. A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones
93. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron was a book I stumbled on at Borders or Barnes & Noble over the summer. Because I'm making a conscientious effort not to buy books but to check them out from the library, I noted the title and added it to my library to-read list. A Newberry Award winner, the book is a tender and sensitive look at the efforts of ten-year-old Lucky to cope with the loss of her mother, the absence of her father, and her fears about her French caregiver Brigitte leaving her, too.
The book is infused with humor, and Ms. Patron clearly has a finger on the pulse of what makes young children tick. I loved the childish intelligence and insight of Lucky and her friend Lincoln. Lincoln, worried that people will assume that the children in their town of 43 souls are stupid, amends the traffic sign to read "Slow: Children At Play." (It's something I wanted to do as a child!) Lucky, eavesdropping on local twelve-step meetings, has a beautiful, child-like understanding of the "higher power" credited by the recovering addicts as their salvation, and she seeks her own "higher power" in an effort to attain the stability she senses she's lost with the death of her mother.
It's a sweet and funny book, one I would like to read with my daughter one day.
Touching on similar themes of loss, A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones, has the feel of a thriller or ghost story as sixteen-year-old Declan Steeple comes to terms with the departure of his mother six years before. Through dreams and memory, Dec has, in a sense, a vision quest that leads him to accept truths about his mother as well as about his father and even himself ... truths that he has hidden from himself in an effort to cope with his mother's departure. While not as sweet or tender as Lucky, this book was also worth the read. I came away feeling that I knew Dec and his friends. Even though some characters appear briefly, they are so well "drawn" by Wynne-Jones, that you feel you know them, and they certainly reminded me of people I know.
So, here's the latest run-down, including Last Child in the Woods, which I'll finish today but blog about later. :)
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
95. The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan
94. A Thief in the House of Memory by Tim Wynne-Jones
93. Last Child in the Woods by Richard Louv
Princesses Without Parents (or Why Does Disney Kill Off Parents?)
My recent reading has been about young characters with absent mothers (and, in one case, an absent father as well), which made me revisit an old topic of thought: Disney animated movies and what they seem to have against mothers. As I thought about it, though, I realized that not only do most Disney characters lack mothers, but they also lack fathers.
Think about the Disney “princesses.” Cinderella and Snow White’s mothers are dead, their fathers also presumably, and they’re left with “evil stepmothers.” Briar Rose (of Sleeping Beauty fame) has parents, but they’ve sent her off to live with fairies for protection and then fallen into a long, deep sleep under the influence of a spell. Little mermaid Ariel doesn’t appear to have a mother, and her father, what with having a fishy kingdom to run and all those other mer-children and young adults to look after, has, not surprisingly, little time to focus on leg-longing Ariel. Belle – who rescues the Beast – also appears to have uninterested parents at best … I don’t recall ever seeing them in the film.
The other three “princesses,” each have a father, but it’s a father that they must save in some way, switching the traditional parent-child dynamic. Jasmine has an ineffectual Sultan father at risk of losing his kingdom to the evil Jafar. Mulan has a father who is unable to answer the call to arms from his emperor due to physical disability so Mulan does it for him. Pocahontas must rebel against her father, Chief Powhatan, to save the British settlers.
Beyond the princesses, the Peter Pan children presumably have parents… parents who leave them in the constant care of a dog Nana. Mowgli is off roaming the jungle, having been stolen from his parents.
The animal heroes don’t fare much better: Bambi’s mother is killed by a hunter early in the film. Dumbo’s mother is locked up as deranged similarly early. As for Simba, his father is murdered by his uncle, and who knows where his mother has gotten of to. (Hamlet anyone?) For each character, these are pivotal events in the plots of their lives.
(Hey – even Miss Bianca and Bernard of The Rescuers, who are ostensibly the heroes, go to rescue a little girl they who is, you guessed it, an orphan!)
At best, in each of these movies, the protagonist’s parents are background characters, people who have little role in their children’s lives. Occasionally, the fathers (but not the mothers) are sources of danger or conflict, the cause of the characters’ adventures. At worst, the parents are traumatically dead.
So what is it about the absence of parents that is so powerful that it appears over and over and over as a theme in the movie fare we show our children? Perhaps the absence of parents frees the characters in some way. Lacking parents, these characters have the freedom to have adventures, to be heroines and heroes. Often, the loss or inability of a parent actually spurs the adventure. And, let’s face it, some of these films are scary, particularly because the characters are doing it, by and large, alone. Oh, maybe they have a few loyal sidekicks, but they don’t have the support of their parents, and that makes life frighteningly challenging for the protagonist and makes the movie interesting for us viewers. And while a life without parents is scary and certainly lacks the firm stabilizing influence parents provide for children, such a life also has, dare I say it, excitement. That’s a powerful message for our children.
And I’m not so sure about that message, though it does appear to be a strongly American one. After all, it is the clearly stated goal of most American parents (most Western parents even) for their children to “leave the nest” and start “lives of their own.” Perhaps these movies just tap into our culturally-imbued sense that our primary role as parents is to prepare our children to go off on their own adventures then for us to bow gracefully off stage into the wings of our children’s lives.
Regardless of the roots of the message, it is one to which I pay attention, and I encourage other parents to notice it as well. While I have no intention of banning Disney films in our house, I do plan to introduce the ones with more traumatic scenes (like Bambi – I still remember sobbing when Bambi’s mother dies…) later and cautiously. I plan to talk with my daughter about the messages these films send. (Hey, I haven’t even touched on the “every girl must have her prince” message. That’s for another blog.) And I plan to reassure her that absent parents in movies do not translate to absent parents in her life.
Think about the Disney “princesses.” Cinderella and Snow White’s mothers are dead, their fathers also presumably, and they’re left with “evil stepmothers.” Briar Rose (of Sleeping Beauty fame) has parents, but they’ve sent her off to live with fairies for protection and then fallen into a long, deep sleep under the influence of a spell. Little mermaid Ariel doesn’t appear to have a mother, and her father, what with having a fishy kingdom to run and all those other mer-children and young adults to look after, has, not surprisingly, little time to focus on leg-longing Ariel. Belle – who rescues the Beast – also appears to have uninterested parents at best … I don’t recall ever seeing them in the film.
The other three “princesses,” each have a father, but it’s a father that they must save in some way, switching the traditional parent-child dynamic. Jasmine has an ineffectual Sultan father at risk of losing his kingdom to the evil Jafar. Mulan has a father who is unable to answer the call to arms from his emperor due to physical disability so Mulan does it for him. Pocahontas must rebel against her father, Chief Powhatan, to save the British settlers.
Beyond the princesses, the Peter Pan children presumably have parents… parents who leave them in the constant care of a dog Nana. Mowgli is off roaming the jungle, having been stolen from his parents.
The animal heroes don’t fare much better: Bambi’s mother is killed by a hunter early in the film. Dumbo’s mother is locked up as deranged similarly early. As for Simba, his father is murdered by his uncle, and who knows where his mother has gotten of to. (Hamlet anyone?) For each character, these are pivotal events in the plots of their lives.
(Hey – even Miss Bianca and Bernard of The Rescuers, who are ostensibly the heroes, go to rescue a little girl they who is, you guessed it, an orphan!)
At best, in each of these movies, the protagonist’s parents are background characters, people who have little role in their children’s lives. Occasionally, the fathers (but not the mothers) are sources of danger or conflict, the cause of the characters’ adventures. At worst, the parents are traumatically dead.
So what is it about the absence of parents that is so powerful that it appears over and over and over as a theme in the movie fare we show our children? Perhaps the absence of parents frees the characters in some way. Lacking parents, these characters have the freedom to have adventures, to be heroines and heroes. Often, the loss or inability of a parent actually spurs the adventure. And, let’s face it, some of these films are scary, particularly because the characters are doing it, by and large, alone. Oh, maybe they have a few loyal sidekicks, but they don’t have the support of their parents, and that makes life frighteningly challenging for the protagonist and makes the movie interesting for us viewers. And while a life without parents is scary and certainly lacks the firm stabilizing influence parents provide for children, such a life also has, dare I say it, excitement. That’s a powerful message for our children.
And I’m not so sure about that message, though it does appear to be a strongly American one. After all, it is the clearly stated goal of most American parents (most Western parents even) for their children to “leave the nest” and start “lives of their own.” Perhaps these movies just tap into our culturally-imbued sense that our primary role as parents is to prepare our children to go off on their own adventures then for us to bow gracefully off stage into the wings of our children’s lives.
Regardless of the roots of the message, it is one to which I pay attention, and I encourage other parents to notice it as well. While I have no intention of banning Disney films in our house, I do plan to introduce the ones with more traumatic scenes (like Bambi – I still remember sobbing when Bambi’s mother dies…) later and cautiously. I plan to talk with my daughter about the messages these films send. (Hey, I haven’t even touched on the “every girl must have her prince” message. That’s for another blog.) And I plan to reassure her that absent parents in movies do not translate to absent parents in her life.
Monday, January 26, 2009
Frack and Frell Go to …
I was listening to NPR a little earlier today, and I heard a piece on a young man in Pasadena who has started a “No Cussing Club.” McKay Hatch’s parents, apparently, have written the book on raising a G-rated child. (Literally. It’s Raising a G-Rated Family in an X-Rated World by Brent and Phelecia Hatch.) Young McKay has followed in his parents’ G-rated footsteps and encourages all young people to foreswear swearing.
Maybe I’m a bad, bad mama because I’ve just gotta admit that swearing is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the list of things I worry about with my kid. (And I think that seeing the world as generally X-rated is pretty cynical and perhaps even a little paranoid.)
In fact, profanity just doesn’t bother me at all, and I’ll be the first to admit: Mama’s got a potty-mouth. Mama does do a good job of reining in her wayward tongue when DD is in earshot, but no one has ever accused me of being prim (or proper, for that matter). I don’t go out of my way to expose DD to profanity, mind you, but I don’t shield her ears when we’re in public either.
McKay suggests that we all say “pickles” and “shoot” and such euphemisms for the “dirty words” we really mean. I don’t really see the point. For one thing, there’s a real satisfaction from letting a choice word fly when you slam your fingers in the door or drop your perfectly scooped $10 ice cream cone on the not-so-pristine ice cream parlor floor. A satisfaction that just doesn’t materialize with an “oh pickles.” Admit it, illicit words are just more FUN! Even DD gets the humor and sneaky little satisfaction from saying “oh POOP” – high profanity for a two-year-old – when something moderately annoying, yet simultaneously funny happens to her And really, in a sense, what’s the difference in saying “pickles” or a four-letter-word when you mean the same thing when you say them???
So, while I hope DD doesn’t start letting the f-bomb fly anytime soon – there is, after all, a time and place for all behavior – when she inevitably does, I doubt she’ll get in trouble. (Maybe a brief conversation about not cussing in front of your great-grandmother – even your mama knows better than that!)
Because I’m pretty okay with raising a PG-rated child. Maybe even PG-13. Hell (whoops!), when she’s old enough, she can even be R-rated, if she wants. Now if we ever get to that X-rated point, THEN I’ll draw that firm line!
**P.S. For those of you who aren’t SciFi geeks like me, “frack” and “frell” are the creative, censor-evading words used by characters in, respectively, Battlestar Galatica and Farscape. :)
Maybe I’m a bad, bad mama because I’ve just gotta admit that swearing is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay down on the list of things I worry about with my kid. (And I think that seeing the world as generally X-rated is pretty cynical and perhaps even a little paranoid.)
In fact, profanity just doesn’t bother me at all, and I’ll be the first to admit: Mama’s got a potty-mouth. Mama does do a good job of reining in her wayward tongue when DD is in earshot, but no one has ever accused me of being prim (or proper, for that matter). I don’t go out of my way to expose DD to profanity, mind you, but I don’t shield her ears when we’re in public either.
McKay suggests that we all say “pickles” and “shoot” and such euphemisms for the “dirty words” we really mean. I don’t really see the point. For one thing, there’s a real satisfaction from letting a choice word fly when you slam your fingers in the door or drop your perfectly scooped $10 ice cream cone on the not-so-pristine ice cream parlor floor. A satisfaction that just doesn’t materialize with an “oh pickles.” Admit it, illicit words are just more FUN! Even DD gets the humor and sneaky little satisfaction from saying “oh POOP” – high profanity for a two-year-old – when something moderately annoying, yet simultaneously funny happens to her And really, in a sense, what’s the difference in saying “pickles” or a four-letter-word when you mean the same thing when you say them???
So, while I hope DD doesn’t start letting the f-bomb fly anytime soon – there is, after all, a time and place for all behavior – when she inevitably does, I doubt she’ll get in trouble. (Maybe a brief conversation about not cussing in front of your great-grandmother – even your mama knows better than that!)
Because I’m pretty okay with raising a PG-rated child. Maybe even PG-13. Hell (whoops!), when she’s old enough, she can even be R-rated, if she wants. Now if we ever get to that X-rated point, THEN I’ll draw that firm line!
**P.S. For those of you who aren’t SciFi geeks like me, “frack” and “frell” are the creative, censor-evading words used by characters in, respectively, Battlestar Galatica and Farscape. :)
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Philosophic reading
Before I met my husband, I was not a reader of Science Fiction. He not-so-gently introduced me to the genre with Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game and William Gibson’s Neuromancer. I haven’t looked back.
While my husband has done most of the introductions of scifi writers into our reading lives, I like to take credit for bringing one great author onto our “must read” list: Neal Stephenson. I don’t recall whether a friend recommended the book or I heard a review on NPR or I just picked up the book at a bookstore, but Stephenson’s Snow Crash was a roller coaster ride of a book that grabbed me from the get-go. I wanted more and soon read Zodiac then later Cryptonomicon.
Stephenson’s work has gotten longer, deeper, and more philosophical while retaining the action. Snow Crash and Zodiac, earlier works, are heavily on the scifi action end - not exactly fluff and certainly not cheesy but driven more by the action than by the characters' thoughts. They're relatively short, fast reads. Cryptonomicon trended more thoughtful, relied less on constant action to drive the reader on, and was a more difficult read for me as a result. Stephenson's latest work, Anathem, is no exception to the trend.
At about 953 pages, the book was a smooth, engaging read (far more so than the comparably sized Moby Dick, which I finished over Christmas. Bleh). Like Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, I initially was unable to get into the book fully, but the effort was worth it. Anathem takes place in a world similar to our own but with its own vocabulary. For about the first 100 pages, I felt I was constantly referring to the glossary Stephenson kindly included at the back, which was mildly irritating. Once I inevitably got caught up in the storyline, in the worldview of the characters, especially of the protagonist Erasmus, and in the characters’ adventures, the weird words all suddenly didn't matter. They didn't always make instant sense, but I couldn't tear myself away from the page to flip to the glossary!
The book isn’t all adventure, though. While Stephenson has honed his ability to keep readers on the edge of their seats, this book is as much about philosophy as it is about typical scifi action. As a philosophy minor in college, I found the book refreshed my recollection of ideas I hadn’t (at least consciously and actively) thought about in some time. For anyone familiar with basic concepts of Philosophy – from the classic Platonic ideals to modern theories of consciousness and knowledge – this book will ring those same bells.
It was so enjoyable that I may have to hit some more Stephenson. I’ve been putting off reading his Baroque Cycle (which dear hubby greatly enjoyed) for some time. It’s three times as long as Anathem and, apparently, just as philosophical, but I think it’s time!
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
While my husband has done most of the introductions of scifi writers into our reading lives, I like to take credit for bringing one great author onto our “must read” list: Neal Stephenson. I don’t recall whether a friend recommended the book or I heard a review on NPR or I just picked up the book at a bookstore, but Stephenson’s Snow Crash was a roller coaster ride of a book that grabbed me from the get-go. I wanted more and soon read Zodiac then later Cryptonomicon.
Stephenson’s work has gotten longer, deeper, and more philosophical while retaining the action. Snow Crash and Zodiac, earlier works, are heavily on the scifi action end - not exactly fluff and certainly not cheesy but driven more by the action than by the characters' thoughts. They're relatively short, fast reads. Cryptonomicon trended more thoughtful, relied less on constant action to drive the reader on, and was a more difficult read for me as a result. Stephenson's latest work, Anathem, is no exception to the trend.
At about 953 pages, the book was a smooth, engaging read (far more so than the comparably sized Moby Dick, which I finished over Christmas. Bleh). Like Stephenson’s Cryptonomicon, I initially was unable to get into the book fully, but the effort was worth it. Anathem takes place in a world similar to our own but with its own vocabulary. For about the first 100 pages, I felt I was constantly referring to the glossary Stephenson kindly included at the back, which was mildly irritating. Once I inevitably got caught up in the storyline, in the worldview of the characters, especially of the protagonist Erasmus, and in the characters’ adventures, the weird words all suddenly didn't matter. They didn't always make instant sense, but I couldn't tear myself away from the page to flip to the glossary!
The book isn’t all adventure, though. While Stephenson has honed his ability to keep readers on the edge of their seats, this book is as much about philosophy as it is about typical scifi action. As a philosophy minor in college, I found the book refreshed my recollection of ideas I hadn’t (at least consciously and actively) thought about in some time. For anyone familiar with basic concepts of Philosophy – from the classic Platonic ideals to modern theories of consciousness and knowledge – this book will ring those same bells.
It was so enjoyable that I may have to hit some more Stephenson. I’ve been putting off reading his Baroque Cycle (which dear hubby greatly enjoyed) for some time. It’s three times as long as Anathem and, apparently, just as philosophical, but I think it’s time!
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
96. Anathem by Neal Stephenson
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Books 99-97
It's been a busy few days, book-wise! On Thursday, I finished the pleasant and engaging The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher Wren. The story of Henrietta, the cat who travelled around the world with foreign correspondent Wren and his family, it was worth picking up off the "take me" pile at my yoga studio. One little note: the frontispiece of the book quoted a passage from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, a neat little segue from my previous read.
For book 98, I returned to a classic that I read years ago, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. While I enjoyed it again, the book was not as scary as I recalled, and I had completely forgotten the rather abrupt ending. I found myself contemplating the mental state of the narrator far more than soaking up the eeriness of the book. Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it again.
Book 97 was pretty much a throw-away: a brief graphic novel, Emily the Strange (no author attribution). I've bought my own sister Emily a number of Emily the Strange paraphernalia over the years. Unfortunately, her snarky, spooky non sequiturs, wisecracks, and obiter dicta did not translate well into book format. Buy the cute tees, notepads, magnets, and more, but avoid the book...
So, here's the summary:
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
For book 98, I returned to a classic that I read years ago, The Turn of the Screw by Henry James. While I enjoyed it again, the book was not as scary as I recalled, and I had completely forgotten the rather abrupt ending. I found myself contemplating the mental state of the narrator far more than soaking up the eeriness of the book. Nonetheless, I'm glad I read it again.
Book 97 was pretty much a throw-away: a brief graphic novel, Emily the Strange (no author attribution). I've bought my own sister Emily a number of Emily the Strange paraphernalia over the years. Unfortunately, her snarky, spooky non sequiturs, wisecracks, and obiter dicta did not translate well into book format. Buy the cute tees, notepads, magnets, and more, but avoid the book...
So, here's the summary:
100. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll
99. The Cat Who Covered the World by Christopher S. Wren
98. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James
97. Emily the Strange by Anonymous
Not sure what I'll read next, but I'll be sure to report!
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