Leslie's Reading the Rainbow in 2015

[Leslie]

Purple Challenge: BINGO (book published in 2015)
Alabaster A-to-Z Challenge

X   (done 9/27)

4★ This 24th entry in the Kinsey Millhone series was a lot of fun. I haven't kept up with this series so I was slightly surprised to find that it was still set in the late 1980s. Having lived in California during the drought well described in a nice subplot involving Kinsey's landlord Henry's attempt to conserve water, I enjoyed the nostalgic trip down memory lane. The two main investigations Kinsey is involved in during this novel were well done. The ending of the one involving Ned Lowe wasn't to my taste - (view spoiler)[having the bad guy get away bothers me, although it was realistic. I just hope that he doesn't reappear in one of the remaining two books of the series! (hide spoiler)]

[Leslie]

Just a bit more than 3 months to go in 2015 so I thought I would do a status check on my challenges.

I have read 172 books so far this year so making my overall goal of 250 is possible but unlikely.

Finished Challenges
·Brick challenge to read books in translation has gone very well (goal was 10+ & I have read 24) but I am still mostly reading European authors. Asia, Africa, South America all need more attention and I could stand to be reading more Australia/NZ authors as well!
·Pink challenge of Kindle catch up
·Orange challenge of 12 short story collections
·Yellow challenge of 25 books from the Guardian list
·Silver challenge to read 3+ nonfiction books

Mysteries
·Still have 8 states to go in my Read-the-USA challenge (well, 7 states & Washington DC).
·Maroon challenge to read already owned print mysteries is woefully behind: goal is 24 and I have read 12.
·I have done okay reading foreign mysteries although I haven't gotten to any Maigrets yet this year...

Sci fi & Fantasy
·On track with the Vorkosigan series with only 2 books left to go.
·Discworld series - I wanted to read 5+ & have read 2 so need to read 3 more (one a month for the rest of the year?)
·Charles de Lint - I didn't set a number for this but have only read 2. I would like to read at least one more but we'll see...

·Tan Historical Fiction challenge: finished part A to read the whole d'Artagnan series but haven't read even one book for part B (Sabatini novels) :(

On track with plays, poetry, BINGO, Hoarder's and A-to-Z challenges.

[Leslie]

I haven't been keeping up with my summaries -- ran out of steam for reviews temporarily. But I have read a few more books for my challenges:

Navy Challenge: Vorkosigan series

CryoBurn     (done 10/5)

4★ After all of Bujold's explorations into the possible consequences of technology-assisted reproduction, it was interesting to read one about technology-assisted dying (well, prevention of death via freezing). While Miles is older, this one had the feel of some of his earlier adventures, perhaps due to the adolescent Jin. I loved his character! And it was fun to see more of Roik's thoughts this time out. Once again, while I own this as a print book (and a Kindle one too!), I listened to Grover Gardner's marvelous narration in the audiobook from the library. Only one more to go in this series but sadly, I don't own a copy of it: Captain Vorpatril's Alliance. But my library does have the audiobook :-)

Black Hoarder's Challenge (#3: a book gotten for free) -- challenge completed

A Darker Shade of Magic   (done 10/10)

3½★ I received this audiobook from Ford through the now-defunct Ford Audiobook Group on Goodreads. Steven Crossley did an excellent narration and I liked the concept of the 4 parallel worlds, each with a different level of magic in it. However, some historical anachronisms bothered me and the main plot was fairly standard fantasy/adventure. I'm not sure I would read more in this series despite Schwab's leaving intriguing unresolved issues in this one (such as where did Kell come from?).

Orange Challenge: Short Stories

I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down   (done 10/11)

4★ I had never heard of William Gay until a short time ago when AAB decided to feature him. I got these short stories as a Kindle book from the library & for a while, I couldn't decide what I thought of them. Each story immediately engaged me but then some disturbing dark or twisted element would enter the story. In the end, I decided to just go with the darkness; once I accepted that it was going to be part of the story, I found it bothered me less. Gay's descriptions of Tennessee, both physical and cultural, were brilliant & I look forward to reading some of his full-length novels.

[Leslie]

Green Challenge: Plays

Press Cuttings     (done 10/12)

4★ Perhaps even 4½ stars! Read as part of the Kindle omnibus "Plays of Shaw".

I found this one-act play hilarious. Set in 1911, at the time of suffragettes trying to get votes for women, it uses reductio ad absurdum to show the logic of the government and military positions. Some of the military attitudes would be an appropriate commentary to today's military in my opinion. For example, this exchange between the Prime Minister Balsquith and the general Mitchener:

Mitchener: How do the inhabitants sleep with the possibility of invasion, of bombardment, continually present in their minds? Would you have our English slumbers broken in the same way? Are we also to live without security?
Balsquith (dogmatically): Yes. There's no such thing as security in the world; and there never can be as long as men are mortal. England will be secure when England is dead, just as the streets of London will be safe when there is no longer a man in her streets to be run over, or a vehicle to run over him. When you military chaps as for security, you are crying for the moon.

I can imagine this exchange as referring to the "war on terrorism".

[Leslie]

Purple Challenge: Bingo (Book that scares you)

Locke & Key, Vol. 1: Welcome To Lovecraft   (done 10/13)

1½★ I really didn't like this but gave it an extra star for the quality of the artwork. I read/looked at this, my first graphic novel, while listening to the audiobook Locke & Key (which covers more than the first volume of this series).

While I was reading & listening to this, I couldn't stop thinking about the Cherokee proverb:

There is a battle of two wolfs inside us all. One is evil. It is anger, jealousy, greed, resentment, lies, inferiority and ego. The other is good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy and truth. The wolf that wins? The one you feed.

This graphic novel is definitely feeding the wrong wolf -- far too violent & gruesome for me. It was good to have both graphic novel & audiobook because neither gives a complete story. Too bad the story it told was so awful...

On the plus side, I now only have one square left in my BINGO challenge!

[Leslie]

Green Challenge: Plays

The Goat, or Who is Sylvia?   (done 10/17)

4★ I found this strange, funny in places & sad as well. I have some thoughts about what Albee was trying to say but need to mull it over some first.

[Leslie]

Green Challenge: Plays

The School for Scandal   (done 10/17)

5★ for the play, 4* for the Librivox audiobook.

I fell in love with comedies early in life & Richard Brinsley Sheridan was one of the authors responsible for that. While I have reread his most famous two plays (this and The Rivals) more than once, it has been some time since I revisited The School for Scandal. It was a joy to discover that this satire still makes me laugh.

A big part of the fun for me were the names -- Lady Sneerwell, Sir Benjamin Backbite, Mr. Joseph Surface, Mrs. Candour, Miss Gadabout, Sir Filagree Flirt ... I could go on but the point has been made. This satire about gossip and hypocrisy may feel dated in its setting to some readers (though it is like home to me after all the Georgette Heyer I have read), but the situations are still relevant & still funny. As David Garrick (in the original production at Drury Lane Theater in 1777) said in his prologue:

"Thus at our friends we laugh, who feel the dart;
To reach our feelings, we ourselves must smart."

So true! Whether it is the slapstick pie in the face or slip on the banana peel or the more sophisticated comedy of manners presented here, we laugh at things that would not be funny if they were happening to us. Being talked about behind our back is one such situation.

A few funny bits (my underlining):

Joseph Surface: The license of invention some people take is monstrous indeed.
Maria: 'Tis so; but, in my opinion, those who report such things are equally culpable.
Mrs. Candour: To be sure they are; tale-bearers are as bad as the tale-makers -- 'tis an old observation, and a very true one" but what's to be done, as I said before? how will you prevent people from talking? To-day, Mrs. Clackitt assured me, Mr. and Mrs. Honeymoon were at last become mere man and wife, like the rest of their acquaintance. She likewise hinted that a certain widow, in the next street, had got rid of her dropsy and recovered her shape in a most surprising manner. And at the same time Miss Tattle, who was by, affirmed, that Lord Buffalo had discovered his lady at a house of no extraordinary fame; ... But, Lord, do you think I would report these things! No, no! tale-bearers, as I said before, are just as bad as tale-makers."

And

Mrs. Candour: They'll not allow our friend Miss Vermillion to be handsome.
Lady Sneerwell: Oh, surely she is a pretty woman.
Crabtree: I am very glad you think so, ma'am.
Mrs. Candour: She has a charming fresh colour.
Lady Teazle: Yes, when it is fresh put on.
Mrs. Candour: Oh, fie! I'll swear her colour is natural: I have seen it come and go!
Lady Teazle: I dare swear you have ma'am: it goes off at night, and comes again in the morning.

Hahahaha!! But the main theme of the play revolves around two brothers: Joseph and Charles Surface. Everyone (except Lady Sneerwell) thinks Joseph is the virtuous good brother and Charles is the profligate ne'er-do-well. But, as Sheridan has foreshadowed for us, we must look below the surface to find the true character of these two men.

It is sadly hard to find productions of this play, on video or in live theater. Unfortunately, I found that the Librivox audiobook full cast recording, while good, wasn't as good as the play in print. I found the pace too slow (especially with Sir Peter and Charles) and hearing some of the stage directions read interrupted the flow for me. Not a bad experience but I would recommend someone unfamiliar with the play to read it rather than listen to this edition.

[Leslie]

Green Challenge: Plays

The Good-Natured Man   (done 10/28)

3★ for the Librivox audiobook; 4 stars for the play itself. This full cast recording had a few members whom I found hard to listen to (due to either accent or the flow of the narration) so I ended up reading the play along with listening.

This play isn't quite as much fun as Goldsmith's more famous "She Stoops to Conquer" but had the same type of humor. I'm glad I discovered it! And as a result of wanting the text to go along with this audiobook, I also discovered a lovely illustrated "Works of Oliver Goldsmith" on Project Gutenberg :)

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/49325

[Leslie]

Powder Blue Challenge: Discworld

The Light Fantastic   (done 10/30)

4★ I much enjoyed this second Discworld book but wish there had been chapter divisions. I like the combination of Rincewind and Twoflower - Twoflower on his own might be a bit much with his relentless optimism. As Pratchett puts it:

"Twoflower didn't just look at the world through rose-tinted spectacles, Rincewind knew -- he looked at it through a rose-tinted brain, too, and heard it through rose-tinted ears."

I marked this passage because it struck me as so insightful:

"Rincewind stared, and knew that there were far worse things than Evil. All the demons in Hell would torture your very soul, but that was precisely because they valued souls very highly; evil would always try to steal the universe, but at least it considered the universe worth stealing. But the gray world behind those empty eyes would trample and destroy without even according its victims the dignity of hatred. It wouldn't even notice them."

[Leslie]

Yellow Challenge: Guardian's list

Molloy     (done 11/4)

4½★ 5 stars for the magnificent narration of Barrett & Crowley; 4½ for the book itself (but this may change with time).

I mostly read along with the narration in my (quite poor) Kindle edition of the trilogy "Molloy, Malone Dies, & The Unnamed" as Beckett is an author I find demands concentration.

In common with "Waiting for Godot", the characters in "Molloy" have a purpose which they themselves are unclear about. In this, the uncertainty of identity is explored. The feeling that Moran (view spoiler)[was in fact some version of Molloy grew on me until it becomes fairly clear at the end -- or at least as clear as anything in Beckett ever is!! (hide spoiler)].

I suspect that I will be thinking about this one on and off for a while! I highlighted quite a few passages which I will be using to come up with a proper review at some later time...

[Leslie]

Yellow Challenge: Guardian's list
Purple Challenge: BINGO

The Monk     (done 11/3)

4★ Well done narration by James White in the Librivox recording.

The biggest flaw of this Gothic horror story for me was the somewhat dated style of writing (similar to that of Defoe). I think the creepiest part may have been the very end, in which the Spanish Inquisition is investigating Ambrosio (the monk) - partly because I suspect some of the tortures described may have been really used during this period of history!

I could quickly see why this book fell into disrepute during the early Victorian times, as it includes somewhat graphic (if flowery) descriptions of carnal sins and horrifying tortures. I did have to chuckle a few times at the very English repugnance of Catholics that showed in some of the descriptions! And I could see why authors such as Jane Austen parodied this type of melodrama. However, I was surprised by the fact that Ambrosio wasn't painted as entirely evil & his struggles with his conscience were sometimes quite moving.

[Pink]

Oh I've been wanting to read The Monk...but a little less now you've mentioned Defoe!

[[deleted user]]

It seems you are making great progress, Leslie. I could never keep up with updating all of your posts, let alone reading that many books. :)

[Leslie]

Yellow Challenge: Guardian's List
Pink Challenge: Kindle Catch up

Crome Yellow   (done 11/16)

3.5★ Crome Yellow has been languishing on my Kindle since August 2012. This is a satire or comedy of manners so there is not much action. Various people are gathered at a country house for a visit which gives Huxley a chance to show us different types of 'bright young things' (this was published in the early 1920s). I found much to amuse me but it rarely made me laugh out loud.

One character I found particularly funny was the local vicar, Mr. Bodiham: "He preached with fury, with passion, an iron man beating with a flail upon the soulds of his congregation. But the souls of the faithful at Crome were made of india-rubber, solid rubber; the flail rebounded." A predecessor of Amos in Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm!

There were indications of Huxley's masterpiece to come, Brave New World. For example, in this early passage by one of the guests (Mr. Scogan):

"Eros, for those who wish it, is now an entirely free god; his deplorable associations with Lucina may be broken at will. In the course of the next few centuries, who knows? the world may see a more complete severance. I look forward to it optimistically. ... our descendants will experiment and succeed. An impersonal generation will take the place of Nature's hideous system. In vast state incubators, rows upon rows of gravid bottles will supply the world with the population it requires. The family system will disappear; society, sapped at its very base, will have to find new foundations; and Eros, beautifully and irresponsibly free, will flit like a gay butterfly from flower to flower through a sunlit world."

Finally, a quote I love from this (also by Mr. Scogan):
"After all, what is reading but a vice, like drink or venery or any other form of excessive self-indulgence? One reads to tickle and amuse one's mind; one reads, above all, to prevent oneself thinking."

[Leslie]

Alabaster Challenge: A-to-Z (done!)

The Zero Trap   (done 11/18)

4★ A murder mystery buried inside a thriller about hostages held in a remote Finnish house. There was a surprise twist or two towards the end but the romance angle wasn't one of them :)

[Leslie]

Yellow Challenge: Guardian's list

How Green Was My Valley     (done 11/28)

5★ for both book & audiobook

Lovely writing in this story of a Welsh family in a coal-mining village (I think in the Rhondda valley area altough the author didn't specify) from about 1890 to 1910. Ralph Cosham was the perfect narrator for this classic. I don't know if he is Welsh but his voice had the wonderful lilting quality I associate with a Welsh accent.

While ostensibly about the Morgan family, this novel is documenting the end of an era. I had seen the film but years ago and I was struck when reading this by the similarities to the more recent film "Brassed Off" about the colliery closings in northern England (Yorkshire?) during Margaret Thatcher's time. Different times and places but the same loss of a way of life & the same sense of sadness.

Some of Llewellyn's descriptions caught my breath such as this one of Angharad when fighting with 14-year-old Huw:

" 'I hate you,' she said, and wrapped her cloak round her so that she was a black pillar, with a white face and her eyes with glitter and shine to make you afraid."

Even though I knew the ending, I found myself weeping. It wasn't just (view spoiler)[the death of Huw's father but the sense of alone-ness with all his brothers gone, one dead and 4 overseas. (hide spoiler)] And the loss of the family home which is being buried by the slag heaps (as the reader knows from the very first page) just makes it all more poignant.

[Leslie]

Maroon Challenge: Mystery ROOTs

One Fearful Yellow Eye   (done 11/30)

3½★ While I have been mildly enjoying these nontraditional mysteries, the McGee series is a bit dated. I think that this will be the last one for a while; I'm going to put this series on the back burner as I have plenty of others awaiting.

[Leslie]

Navy Challenge: Vorkosigan series (Done!)

Captain Vorpatril's Alliance   (done 12/3)

4★ A fun entry in the Vorkosigan series featuring Miles's cousin Ivan Vorpatril. I do wish that I had read (or, rather, listened to) this before Cryoburn though, as it is clearly set prior to it. While I enjoyed this very much, this one had less social commentary in it and so wasn't quite as good a book as some of the others in the series in my opinion.

Grover Gardner once again shines as the narrator of this audiobook edition. I couldn't stop listening once I started :)

[Leslie]

Status of my challenges with ~3 weeks to go - all finished except the following:

Discworld - DONE! read 4 out of 5 (currently reading my last book for this one)
Charles de Lint - read 2 out of 5
Sabatini - read 0 out of 3 :(
Read the USA mysteries - read 8 7 new states, 4 5 states left (plus Washington D.C.)
Reading owned mysteries - read 13 out of 24

[Overbooked ✎]

Leslie wrote: "Status of my challenges with ~3 weeks to go - all finished except the following:

Discworld - read 4 out of 5 (currently reading my last book for this one)
Charles de Lint - read 2 out of 5
Sabatin..."

Go Leslie!

[Leslie]

Thanks for the encouragement Kiwi - except for the Discworld one, I am resigned to not completing those. I may try to read at least one Sabatini though - that zero bugs me!

[Leslie]

Powder Blue Challenge: Discworld series

Jingo   (done 12/11)

4½★ This satire of jingoism is hilarious but also sadly appropriate these days. I wish that the United States had a Lord Vetinari and/or a Commander Vimes to balance out our Lord Rusts...

I loved seeing Carrot (now a captain) in action once again. And Leonard of Quirms made me chuckle to myself several times...

This completes my goal of reading at least 5 books from the Discworld series this year! I have enjoyed these so I will be continuing to read this series next year...

[Leslie]

Scarlet Challenge: Read the USA mysteries {Indiana}

Death of a Couch Potato's Wife   (done 12/11)

2½★ I would have given this 3 stars but there were a few things that bothered me.

First off, I was confused by how old the protagonist Laura Berry was -- she starts off by saying her 70-year-old friend Babe was about 3 times her age; okay, I'm a math geek so I figure 70 ÷ 3 = ~23. On the young side to be a suburban housewife but possible. A chapter or so later though, we are told she met her husband when a sophomore in college and she has been married for 6 years; later we are told they dated for 2 years before marrying. Either she is super smart & went to college at 13-14 years old or she is NOT 1/3 of 70. I know that this isn't really important but it distracted me from the story trying to figure it all out.

Then there were the names -- Tiara, Darius, Chief Romeo, Gia, Steele, Babe etc. They just sound phony to me... Although I did like the fact that Laura lived on the Dullington Estates in Boring, Indiana!

Next was the repeated discussion about mowing lawns in winter -- does the author not know that winter is from the end of December to the end of March? Who mows in Indiana or any of the northern US then?? Even if the ground is free of snow, the plants are not growing.

Lastly, the religious aspects of Laura's life were a bit much for me. This one was just a minor issue but it came up more and more as the book went on & I would have some concerns about this in future books in the series.

On the plus side, I liked the protagonist & the setting. The writing was decent and the mystery kept me guessing. I would try another one from the library but I wouldn't pay for it.

[Leslie]

Yellow Challenge: Guardian's list

Neuromancer by William Gibson   (done 12/12)

3★ I might have given this a higher rating if I had read this in print (or ebook). I found it hard to follow in the audiobook - even with rewinding and listening to certain parts more than once.

Despite this difficulty, I found the plot ground-breaking with its invention of a cyberspace "matrix". But I think that I prefer this sub-genre of science fiction (cyberpunk) in movie form rather than in book form...