Between the Lines discussion
Reading Goals
>
2009 challenge to Read 100 books
117. Anthony Bourdain: Typhoid Mary: An Urban Historical
118. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
118. Audrey Niffenegger: The Time Traveler's Wife
September 200972 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history)
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)
74 The Bamboo, Grass & Palm Specialist - David Squire (Plants)
75 Life Doesn't Frighten Me - Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat (art, poety)
76 Julia and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (Memoir, cookery, blog)
77 Coals of Fire by Verna Penn Moll (Technology, Caribbean, Cooking, Anthropology)
78 Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent by David Henry Sterry Goodreads Author (Memoir, sex)
The writing of this book is original and sparkles. Its the only book I've read by a worker in the sex industry that got me inside their head. Its not titillating but doesn't shy away from graphic descriptions. What truly lifts the book is the author's empathy for his clients and the descriptions of some of the most bizarre characters you will ever read about.
I am surprised no one has made a film of it - the story of a middle-class boy, abandoned by his family, at a Catholic college as a heterosexual prostitute who roars around town on a Harley and is rescued, almost, by the love of a good woman is just made for the movies.
Brilliant book. Really a five-star read.
66. I Am the Messenger by Marcus Zuzak
Shoshanapnw wrote: "119. Lev Grossman: The Magicians"119! You'll have read 150+ by the end of the year.
Oy! At some point I'm expected to write syllabi and teach!
Shoshanapnw wrote: "Oy! At some point I'm expected to write syllabi and teach!"Can't you just let them get on with some reading and set essay questions later? :-)
Indeed, but these days higher education treats the syllabus as a contract and all grading criteria must be set out in advance.
Back in my day, the professor would say "Read Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and write 5 pages of dialogue between Grendel and Sir Gawain demonstrating the view each holds of honor and combat by Tuesday," and we'd like it!
[/fist-shaking liberal arts granny:]
Back in my day, the professor would say "Read Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and write 5 pages of dialogue between Grendel and Sir Gawain demonstrating the view each holds of honor and combat by Tuesday," and we'd like it!
[/fist-shaking liberal arts granny:]
Shoshanapnw wrote: "Indeed, but these days higher education treats the syllabus as a contract and all grading criteria must be set out in advance.Back in my day, the professor would say "Read Beowulf and Sir Gawain ..."
I would so have enjoyed that.
120. Bamboté: Daba's Travels from Ouadda to Bangui (Central African Republic)
121. Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
121. Aravind Adiga: The White Tiger
September 200972 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history)
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)
74 The Bamboo, Grass & Palm Specialist - David Squire (Plants)
75 Life Doesn't Frighten Me - Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat (art, poety)
76 Julia and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (Memoir, cookery, blog)
77 Coals of Fire by Verna Penn Moll (Technology, Caribbean, Cooking, Anthropology)
78 Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent by David Henry Sterry Goodreads Author (Memoir, sex)
79 The Last Jews of Kerala: The 2,000 Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community by Edna Fernandes, (History, religion, anthropology)
I thought that this subject would have benefited by having a non-Jewish author to document the end of a people who had a much-different world experience than any other of these dispersed people. It didn't and obviously her editor wasn't Jewish either. Silly factual errors really rather do spoil a book that has obviously been quite deeply researched.
The premise of the book is that of the several Jewish communities in India, some of which have been there since the time of King Solomon and are documented in the bible, and who have lived entirely peacefully and as equal Indian citizens for thousands of years, are now disappearing because of the racism by the white Jews towards the older community of black Jews in two particular communities - the Jews who live in the state of Kerala.
This part of the book is very interesting. The history of Haile Selassie's visit, the story of the 'kingship' and lands awarded to the Jews, the building of the town by a Rajah, where equidistant from his central palace there were holy buildings of the four religions, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Judaism and the peace with which all four religions coexisted from time immemorial to this day. Apart, that is, from the hiccup when the Portuguese came and conquered Goa after the Inquisition and foisted their particular anti-semitism on the local Jews (including the ones who had fled from the Inquisition) and then the Moors, whose brand of Islam was not the same as the Indian one, and they too were anti-semitic.
The main part of the book concerns the European Jews who fled the Inquisition and settled in India and then rewrote history declaring themselves the original community and that their whiteness proved their religious purity. Religious purity to Hindu India is the be-all and end-all of mortal and immortal life. These Jews tried for five centuries to get rabbis from different countries to lend their stance legitimacy, but failed but still persisted with their devise and revisionist stance. In the end though, they came to see the error of their ways, but by then it was too late. This is all very interesting.
But the whole premise fails because the Jews in these communities are dying and leaving their synagogues as tourist attractions because of the migration to Israel and also by migration to the cities by the young, not for any other reason. It happened in my own community - growing up in the South Wales valleys there were many tiny communities but one by one they have all gone or are dying as the children, myself included, left for the metropolises and Israel. Only the cities have vibrant communities now, in Wales and in India.
The last part of the book concerns the success or otherwise of some of the Kerali Jews who emigrated to Israel. It wasn't well-written, the stories were recited in a somewhat maudlin' fashion and there were factual errors (again!) about the religion. A better editor could have helped Fernandez to write a really cracking book and so perhaps its more the fault of the publishing house than of the author that the book was so flawed. Great cover though, and great cover art is always a plus to me.
83. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins84. The Unknown American Revolution - Gary B. Nash
Wow. I haven't been into this thread since June. I was sorry to hear about your mom, Petra, and I hope you're doing okay. All of you in this thread are doing great! I'd reached 50 by end of June, but have slacked off since then.
Keep up the good work!
Laura wrote: "Wow. I haven't been into this thread since June. I was sorry to hear about your mom, Petra, and I hope you're doing okay..." Thanks Laura :-)September 2009
72 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history)
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)
74 The Bamboo, Grass & Palm Specialist - David Squire (Plants)
75 Life Doesn't Frighten Me - Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat (art, poety)
76 Julia and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (Memoir, cookery, blog)
77 Coals of Fire by Verna Penn Moll (Technology, Caribbean, Cooking, Anthropology)
78 Chicken: Self-Portrait of a Young Man for Rent by David Henry Sterry Goodreads Author(Memoir, sex)
79 The Last Jews of Kerala: The 2,000 Year History of India's Forgotten Jewish Community by Edna Fernandes, (History, religion, anthropology)
80 What We Did On Our Holidays by Geoff Nicholson (Fiction, humour) 5-star read.
If you are the sort of person who appreciates the unnecessarily graphic sex and excessive violence that one might experience on a caravan holiday at the English seaside, then you are going to love this black comedy. It makes you want to laugh in a hurhurhur sort of way and snork your coffee through your nose. Dear dear, middleage is a terrible thing!
(Its a mystery to me that anyone could give this book less than 5-stars, but perhaps they have read Diary of a Nobody which apparently spoils this book somewhat if you have.)
67. Ice Land by Betsy Tobin68. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen
55. Ned til Hundene (Down to the Dogs - novel by Danish author about a woman having left her husband)56. Un Lun Dun (great urban fantasy ya book about two girls discovering London's abcity UnLondon where all lost and unwanted things end up)
57. The Grapes of Wrath (excellent amazing book)
58. Smashed, Squashed, Splattered, Chewed, Chunked and Spewed by Goodreads author Lance Carbuncle (not quite what I thought ...)
59. Eksil by late Danish author Jakob Ejersbo (great novel about a young girl living in Africa)
60. Sense and Sensibility (didn't enjoy this one all that much even though I've been looking forward to it)
61. Dragons of the Hourglass Mage (novel about Raistlin's way to the black robes - okay but not as good as some of the other Dragonlance books)
Currently I'm trying to work my way through George Eliot Middlemarch and looking forward to Dan Brown The Lost Symbol.
Updated List89. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
90. To the Nines By Janet Evanovich
91. Mastered by Love by Stephanie Laurens
92. Among Schoolchildren by Tracy Kidder
93. Ten Big Ones by Janet Evanovich
94. Temptation and Surrender by Stephanie Laurens
95. Mystic River by Dennis Lehane
Wendy, you're closing in on it! Do you know yet what your last 5 books will be?
86. My Story As Told By Water - David James Duncan
I am reading The Help next, then Vision in White (Nora Roberts) and then I don't know. I am hoping to cross the finish line by the middle of October. I had a little setback with Mystic River as it took me forever to read that.
Wendy, great, and I hope they don't take as long as Mystic River.
Dan, what did you think of Duncan?
Dan, what did you think of Duncan?
Wow, a lot of people are getting close to the 100 mark.69. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safron Foer
129. Sholom Aleichem: The Tevye Stories and Others
An hour a day on the treadmill pretty much guarantees a book every few days.
131. Norma Khouri: Honor Lost: Love and Death in Modern Day Jordan I suppose I could still technically count this as my book for Jordan, but given the evidence that the author lived in Jordan for only her first three years, them moved to the US, and later wrote a book claiming to be Jordanian, I will look for something else.
132. Professor Sir Themistocles Zammit: Prehistoric Malta: Tarxien Temples and Saflieni Hypogeum (Malta)
Looks like I'll have to add this one to the database.
Looks like I'll have to add this one to the database.
133. Thomas Cathcart & Daniel Klein: Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar Understanding Philosophy Through Jokes
70. The Virgin Suicides by Jeffery Eugenides
Updated List End of September96. The Help by Kathryn Stockett
97. Vision in White by Nora Roberts
98. QBQ! The Question Behind the Question: Practicing Personal Accountability in Work and in Life by John G. Miller
I am almost there but I have been dying to read An Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon (Outlander series) so I am reading that now and it is almost 1000 pages. I am figuring by mid October I should hit the 100 mark.
135. Samad Beh-Rang: The Little Black Fish. Although the translator says Beh-Rang is from Azerbaijan-Iran, and other sources call him Azerbaijani, this turns out to mean ethnically and linguistically Azerbaijani but as far as country, Iranian. Bah. I've located another book for Azerbaijan.
136. Vivian Child: City of Arches: Memories of an Island Capital, Kingstown, St. Vincent & The Grenadines (St. Vincent & The Grenadines)
71. Ahab's Wife, or the Star Gazer by Sena Jeter Naslund - I loved this one.
137. Ashi Dorji Wangmo Wangchuck, Queen of Bhutan: Treasures of the Thunder Dragon: A Portrait of Bhutan--Bhutan
I'm way behind in my reviews due to work. They expect me to do things! What nerve!
I'm way behind in my reviews due to work. They expect me to do things! What nerve!
Between the Lines
Books mentioned in this topic
Gentlemen of the Road (other topics)Entertaining Your Indoor Cat: 50 Fun and Inventive Amusements for Your Cat (other topics)
Allah's Garden: A True Story of a Forgotten War in the Sahara Desert of Morocco (other topics)
Pitcairn: Paradise Lost: Uncovering the Dark Secrets of a South Pacific Fantasy Island (other topics)
Pomegranate Roads: A Soviet Botanist's Exile from Eden (other topics)
More...
Authors mentioned in this topic
Freda Warrington (other topics)David Henry Sterry (other topics)
Francis Bok (other topics)
Mende Nazer (other topics)
Andie Dominick (other topics)
More...
72 Ye Yslands of Enchantment - Norwell Harrigan & Pearl Varlack (Caribbean, history)
73 Style Style Style - Andy Warhol (Art, humour)
74 The Bamboo, Grass & Palm Specialist - David Squire (Plants)
75 Life Doesn't Frighten Me - Maya Angelou & Jean-Michel Basquiat (art, poety)
76 Julia and Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously by Julie Powell (Memoir, cookery, blog)
77 Coals of Fire by Verna Penn Moll (Technology, Caribbean, Cooking, Anthropology)
This is a wonderful book described the technology of fireplaces for cooking from Siboney Indian times through to present day folk-cooking. Although everyone in the Caribbean now cooks on gas or electric, the few people lucky enough to have a traditional bread oven in the garden do produce superlative bread and cakes. At Carnival time though, out come the coalpots, the kerosene drum barbeques and the latest - cast-off wheels of cars and trucks turned into ovens! The pen and ink illustrations by Joseph Hodge are spot-on. Just the write amount of detail and no romanticised coconut trees waving in the backgrounds. An excellent and informative read.