MJ’s Comments (group member since May 23, 2008)

MJ’s comments from the The Complete Idiots Guide to the Ultimate Reading List group.

CLASSICS: CASTLES IN THE SKY AND OTHER REAL ESTATE

The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart
Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey
Harry Potter and the Socerer's Stone by J.K. Rowling
The Hobbitt by J.R.R. Tolkin
The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Mists of Avalon by Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Once and Future King by T.H. White
The Princess Bride by William Goldman
Small Gods by Terry Pratchett
Watership Down by Richard Adams
Wizard's World by Andre Norton

Classics: castles in the sky and other real estate
More great reads: flights of the imagination

Is Christ the Lord Road to Cana by Anne Rice?

If we start to filter literature then we will never be able to grow as society. You have to look the past and all its grime to be able to grow in the present to have hope for the future

Okay then. I will get the rest of the books on tonight. Hopefully and then we can start with the bookclub

It was reccomend to me a lot and I never read it until my family picked it as a read

Hi Melanie and Ranata

I wanted to give props to my cousin and friend Lydia who not only suggested the book to me but gave it to me for christmas

My family read it a s one of our book club selection recently. I really indetified with the characters knowing that my family faced similar diffuculties as pioneers

Once a list all the books we can start one if there is enough interest

I have read them all but the Boleyn Inheritance. I am still waiting for it from my library.

Does anyone want to do a bookclub and read the books in the lists

Growing up we always had Louis L'Amour books around the house and this is defentily the best of them all. His descriptions of people and western experience are wonderfully written.

I was suprised by this list of books. The more great reads section is not your granddads western. They include the Native American, Womens and African American Experience

This is a great story of Anne Franks need to grow and mature aunder horrible circumstance.

I am not always a fan of biography or autobiographies especially those about actors. I mostly find them dull and boring and with some interesting stories and maybe 1 or 2 useful things about life. Mr. Alda gives us a moving and funny account of his live. Being brutelly honest about his faimly and his personal struggles. I loved how he spoke about his wife and daughters it is apperant how in love he still is with his wife and what a wonder his daughters and then grandkids are to him. And his sharing of the strained relationship he had with both parents and how he was finally able to come to terms with his mothers mental illness and his need to prove himself to his father.

Kirvin is a historian of the future. Her goal to travel back to the 1300s to more accuratley study what life was really like. When the oppurtunity presents itselfs to go back to 1320 she jumps even though her mentor protests its to dangerous. Kirvin is not be stopped and go back she does. But there is a problem (of course there has to be or the book would be very dull). The tech running the "jump" tells them something is wrong and then passes out. The discover that he has some viral infection and an immediate quarantine shuts down the city. as more and more people get sick noone knows what is wrong with Kirvin or is she is alive. In the mean time Kirvin is sick herself and she doesnot know what is wrong she had all her shots and should not be suspetable to diesease from 1320. The story jumps back and forth telling Kirvins story in 1320 and what is happening in the "present". Did something sneak through the time travel "net" to invect modern Oxford or is it a modern virus outbreak. And why is the tech so worried that something went wrong with the "jump".

This book is very interesting and presented a new look at time travel. At times it was a bit wordy but i liked the overall story. I would recomend this to anyone who likes a bit of science fiction mixed in with their history

I didnt like the movie but I loved the book I have read it several times. I loved all the characters the author meet while in Savannah

I also loved this book. I enjoy when someone write a book that is positive about different cultures

WORLD: EVENTS THAT ROCKED THE GLOBE

1421: The Year China Discovered America by Gavin Menzies
Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War by Mark Bowden
Bounty: The True Story of Mutiny on the Bounty by Caroline Alexander
A Bright Shining Lie: Johan Paul Vann and America in Vietnam by Neil Sheehan
A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman
Elizabeth and Mary: Cousins, Rivals, Queens by Jane Dunn
From Beirut to Jerusalem by Thomas L Friedman
Ghost Stories: The Forgotten Epic Story of World War II's Most Dramatic Mission by Hampton Sides
The Great Infuenza: The Epic Story of the Deadliest Plague in History by John M. Barry
The Greatest Generation by Tom Brokaw
Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
How the Irish Saved Civilization: The Untold Story of Ireland's Heroic Role in the Fall of Rome to the Rise of Medieval Eurpoe by Thomas Cahill
How the Scots Invented the Modern World: The True Story of How Western Europe's Poorest Nation Created Our World and Everything In It by Arthur Herman
The Ice Masters: The Doomed 1913 Voyage of the Kurluk by Jennifer Niven
King Leopold's Ghost :A Story of Greed, Terror and Heroism in Colonial Africa by Adam Hochchilds
Kon-Tiki by Thor Heyerdahl
The Last Empire: De Beers, Diamonds and the World by Stefan Kanfer
The Longest Day: A Classic Epic of D-Day by Cornelius Ryan
A Night to Remember by Walter Lord
Paris 1919: Six Months That Changed the World by Margaret MacMillian
The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II by Iris Chang
The Rise and Fall Of the Third Reich by William Shirer
The Six Wives of Henery VIII by Alison Weir
The White Headhunter by Nigel Randell