For a while I'm going back to list form with some commentary for favourites.

Non-Fic
Feminism and Pop Culture by Andi Zeisler
To the Finland Station by Edmund Wilson. A favourite and a classic about the history of socialism and communism but written in a very particular narrative arc.
Word Freaks - the accompanying book to the film about those wacky scrabble competitors. Fills in the gaps.
*Albion's Seed by David Hackett. Loved this long long book about the cultural affects of four specific mostly 17th century migrations on the history of the USA
Cherry by Mary Karr. Lyrical but oddly paced memoir.
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. A fascinating detailed study about the wider reasons for individual success
Stone of destiny - the memoir about stealing the stone of Scone
Clara's War - memoir about surviving the Holocaust in poland in a dug out basement with 18 people
Factory made - about the Warhol era focusing on the personalities
One Pair of Hands by Monica Dickens. Memoir about being a live in cook. Sometimes hilarious and maybe some of the first 'reality' memoirs.

Kids Books
The Brilliant Fall of Gianna Z
The Unusual Mind of Vincent Shadow
Snow, Fire, Sword by Sophie Masson. Very interesting sort of contemporary fantasy set in Indonesian culture.
*The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Brilliant. Desered its Nationla Book award. I like Alexie but this is his most successful book about an Indian kid who gets flack for trying to get off the reservation and ends up a popular kid at his new school.
thinandbeautiful.com - about anorexia sites
Witach and Wizard. A brother and sister aren't welcome in dystopian new future.
It's not about the accent. Not great.
Savvy by Ingrid Law. Fun but fluffy story about family who all find their own power and the girl who goes on a road trip to try to save her dad.

Fiction
All our worldly goods by Irene Nemirovsky. Generations ina French village are affected by an unsanctioned marriage. Another good one from her.
*Lolly Willowes by Sylvia Townsend Warner. Amazing book from early twentieth century about a sister who does everything right and one day moves to the countryside to be a witch. Sort of.
The Clothes on their Backs by Linda Grant. A girl's life story, her reticent parents and how she comes to infiltrate the life of the outcast uncle.
The Invention of everything else by Samantha Hunt. About Tesla, very interesting but still found it dragged.
Confusion by Stefan Zweig. Did not love it like the first few of his I read but this author is a real forgotten master.
*Alfred & Guinevere by James Schulyer. A great lost classic about a young brother and sister magically creating their inner worlds and suggesting their outer ones.
*Hotel World by Ali Smith. She is one of the best - her ear and strange style are unmatched.
stripmalling by Jpn Paul Fiorentino
Animal by Alexandra Leggatt - sort of boring stories
The Lost art of Keeping Secrets - Eva Rice. This one seemed really promising about a girl in the 50s who lives in a crumbling mansion and how her life is changed by meeting a flamboyant news friend. it didn't quite live up to the premise.

How about starting with the best ones?

For kids it was Masterpiece by Elise Broach which is about a beetle family who live in a Manhattan apartment and sometimes have to do favours for the people (rescue a contact ens, fix a tap) who might otherwise discover them. The young beetle is fond of the boy in the flat and makes him a beautiful ink drawing. The parents think the boy did the art and get him to help try to foil an art fraud ring. The beetle/boy relationship is lovely. Her earlier novel, Shakespeare's Secret is OK but not great, about a girl looking for a diamond with a connection to a queen.

For non-fiction it was the bizarre world in Cross-x by Joe Miller, an intense story about an inner-city debate team. This one tackles race head on and the results are pretty powerful. Miller threw himself into the story and the team and ends up mentoring some of the kids, definitely throwing aside journalistic distance. The only real problem was that the book took a strange turn near the end, leaving behind the characters the story is built around. Also the debate format is just TOO weird to even get my head around.

Also An Exact Replica of a Figment of my Imagination by Elizabeth Elizabeth McCracken, an intimate and almost flawless story of losing a child just before birth and the times that came before and after. It's sad but wonderful and so well-written.

In drama (!) I read the Coast of Utopia, a trilogy of plays by Tom Stoppard. I had really wanted to see these performed but it's a big production and I didn't make it to NY or London. My interest in 19th century Russian revolutionaries made this a no-brainer and it just occurred to me that I could read the script if not see the plays. By the end it was quite powerful but there is a lot going on and its hard to imagine how this works on stage. I trust Stoppard though so it probably does. I'm also reading John Reed's Ten Days that Shook the World about the Russian revolution which has flashes of brilliance but it fairly biased and shows that the revolution was pretty tragic right from the get-go. Also that it was kind of a coup and not a revolution.

I read the much acclaimed The Believers by Zoe Heller about a family after the patriarch has a stroke. The characters are pretty unlikeable and the book is a good read but not great. And the big seller The Guernsey Literary and Potato Pie Society which has war and orphans and books and love and is pretty middle brow. I guess I can see its appeal but I wouldn't say it's that great for books of its kind.

Also read in YA: The Secret Blog of Raisin Ramirez by Judy Goldschmidt about a girl who has to move to a new school, Gilda Joyce: Psychic Investigator by Jennifer Allison about a girl trying to use psychic powers to solve mysteries

The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery is a big seller in France and it a literary novel about two characters who are brilliant but hide it, a teenaged girl who doesn't want to make her parents happy and a concierge who feels she must act the part (which in France seems to mean being as dumb as a bale of hay). A Japanese man moves into their building and changes both of their lives. Parts of it are really wonderful but it is overwrought and I felt cheated by the ending.

Also read some parts of KATE, a Hepburn biography which was only mildly entertaining.

Trying to get through Sheila Rowbotham's comprehensive biography of Edward Carpenter, the 19th c British socialist, vegetarian, rural life advocate, anti-imperialist, feminist etc who was so before his time and influenced so many. I did my honours thesis about him and while the book is very good its quite traditional and doesn't use the rich material for deep analysis of the times.

For book reviews; Butter Cream by Denise Roig about a year in pastry school, boring boring boring boring boring by someone with a nom de plume and crazy designed book about kids in art school, Anna's Shadow about a brilliant Russian scientist, a Canadian diplomat and the end of the cold war.

Best books I read this year, not necessarily published this year although some were. In no order.

-Pictures at a Revolution:  Five Movies and the Birth of the New Hollywood. Mark Harris. A great non-fiction narrative with a plot, heroes and villains. Long and detailed but never boring. About the five films (the best picture nominees of 1968, Guess who's coming to dinner, dr doolittle, the graduate, in the heat of the night, bonnie and clyde).
-The Geography of Bliss: Eric Weiner. Great non-fiction about the happiest and saddest countries.
-Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day: Winifred Watson. Funny, charming classic from the 30s
-Spook Country: William Gibson. This is a real grower and by the end I was transfixed.
-First LIght: Rebecca Stead. A very original middle grade novel about a boy who finds a city under the ice in Greenland.
-Winnie and Wolf: AN Wilson. I thought this was interesting but politically it's a little suspect, I guess.
The Accidental - Ai Smith. Serious mindgames in the story about a stranger who works her way into a family.
-Kasztner's Train, Anna Porter. The devastating story of a Hungarian Jew who tried to save her fellow citizens in WWII.

Other books read recently.
The Summer Book by Tove Jansson. One of her few novels available in English, I think. A very irreverent story about a grandmother and granddaughter on a Finnish island at summer.

Ballet Shoes for Anna and Party Shoes by Noel Streatfeild. Two I had never read. I never knew that the 'shoes' books were all renamed for the US editions and only Ballet Shoes was actually called Something Shoes in the UK.

The Dud Avocado: Elaine Dundy. A New York Review Books Classic, originally from the 1950s. A lively girl heads to boho life in Paris. Really funny and charming.

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare. Part two of the trilogy has great character interaction and a fast-moving plot which makes it really fun and readable. I'm looking forward to #3.

Roswell. The Outsider and The Wild One. I was a big fan of the show and had always wanted to read the books but couldn't find them when the show was on, even in mall bookstores. So I had to buy them on abebooks. They are good! Liz was Hispanic and Michael was kind of nice.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. A real winner about a girl who infiltrates her boyfriend's prep school secret society. She is taking a course on cities and social protest and works the panopticon into the story. Points for that.

I’ve been reading whatever interesting memoirs I can get my hands on. At the moment it is The Geography of Love by Glenda Burgess , a very real and personal story about a woman who has kind of given up on finding love when she meets Ken, who has two tragic marriages in the past. I also read The Three of Us, the story of Julia Blackburn coping with her bizarre and chilling family situation. Dad was a semi-successful English poet who couldn’t control excess and had a lot of trouble with drugs and alcohol and even had an affair with Francis Bacon. Mum was similarly hedonistic and both parents came from disturbed family backgrounds. One aunt was probably a lesbian and killed herself. Julia tries to be her own parent and once the folks split up she is left with Mum, who competes with her for boyfriends. Julia is confused and ends up having affairs with some of the same lodgers in their home as her mum. It takes years to sort out their messy lives, when mum is dying and Julia has rekindled a romance from long ago. I also enjoyed Loose Girl by Kerry Cohen, a memoir about looking for love and acceptance though a lot of casual teenage sex. Even when Kerry finds stable relationships in her twenties her past behaviour patterns and need for recognition which she never got from parents makes her a needy partner. Happily, she does get it together in the end.

Many more children’s books. I looked up a few classics that I’d never read. A View from the Cherry Tree is a pretty simple mystery but by Willo David Roberts, the author of The Girl with the Silver Eyes which was one of my childhood favourites. In this novel a kid sees his cranky neighbour pushes out her window but no one will listen because they’re all so busy planning his sister’s wedding. A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively was an award winner in the 70s or so (?). It’s a very interior novel about a girl on holiday in Lyme Regis with her very quiet parents. She is mostly left to think on her own until she meets Martin who is holidaying next door. He also likes fossils and other things not terribly cool and she has the chance to interact him and his boisterous family. From the second she arrives she hears sounds from the past – a swing and a puppy and tries to find out what happened to a girl her age who seems to have disappeared about a hundred years ago. It’s not your average history mystery time travel kind of thing – it’s very understated and even though it’s very thoughtful it’s a tiny bit dull. In Granny was a Buffer Girl, one Sheffield family's history is recounted. This could be totally boring but the stories of religion, class and factory work are very illuminating.

In The Book of Michael by Lesley Choyce, Michael Grove endured the unimaginable when he was sent to adult prison after being convicted of the murder of his girlfriend, Lisa. When the novel begins, the real killer has confessed and Michael is free but liberty is hard to enjoy when the reception at home is so chilly. The story behind Michael’s rebellious youth and wrongful incarceration is compelling and unpredictable and it illustrates how often people judge others without understanding the reality of their lives. In The Saver by Edeet Ravel, another issue novel, Fern’s mom dies suddenly and she is left completely isolated. She and her mom lived on the margins and she has no friends and family. Fern’s determination to survive is well told and her voice is really engaging. I liked this one a lot. Flora’s Dare is the sequel to Flora Segunda by Ysabeau Wilce, which was one of my favourite kids books of recent times. What is so strong is the believable but unexplained world Flora a lives in, with punk and glam rock clubs, pulp novels and outrageous fashion for men, but no cars or electricity. It’s vaguely a California of Spanish decent and they have been conquered by bird people who are vaguely Aztec. As in the first book the plot is the weakest point – so many possibilities are ignored for a story that doesn’t seem as compelling as it could. But everything else is so original and Wilce’s inventions of words and phrases are superb. Tell No One Who You Are is the story of Regine Miller, a girl who was hidden in Belgium during WWII and survived while the rest of her family died. It’s for kids so it’s done in a simple form but it’s a compelling true story. Girl from Mars by Tamara Bach is a translation from the German, a very understated, quiet novel about a girl waiting for something to happen in her small town. When she falls for energetic Lisa she still doesn't know what to make of life at all. Very different in tone from the way a similar novel would have been written in North America.

Right now I’m reading The Post Office Girl, an Austrian novel. It really highlights how crap it is to be growing up during a war and for your country to lose that war. That's why Christine really has no dreams. She's lucky just to have her job in a remote post office and be able to afford to look after herself and her mum. Her aunt fared better though and shows up in Europe, now rich and married, and invites Christine to have a vacation with them. Christine has never had a vacation... I look forward to the haunting and desperate anti-capitalist tale to come. The author Stefan Zweig, wrote this ont he run from the Nazis and it wasn't published until after his death.

On Subbing by Dave Roche was originally a ‘zine and was published in book form a number of years ago. Roche started working as a substitute in the Portland school system but without a teaching degree the only position available to him was as an educational assistant. Roche is obviously good with children and teens but he has to put up with every known type of crap from other teachers and administrators. This is a view into a world we have no experience of unless we happen to be special needs teachers or have a family member who needs care. Also Roche is a bit of an undercover agent in these schools, observing them from his own perspective as a vegan punk.

In Dora Borealis by Daccia Bloomfield, Flip meets Dora at a Toronto hipster party and he thinks he’s in love. The hipster is actually evoked in a new way and Flip is kind of a weirdo who is stalked by the ghost who has been his only girlfriend and also by a nameless second person character who turns up now and then. It’s not worth a lot of effort but it’s not bad. I don’t think I mentioned reading Miriam Toews latest novel, The Flying Troutmans, which is awesome. The is my favourite of all her novels and concerns a roadtrip by Hattie and her niece and nephew. Hattie is looking after the kids while their mom is in the mental ward and she feels pretty lost so she’s looking for their dad. It is hilarious and such a great balance of funny and dark sad. I read about a third of At Fault by Kate Chopin – it’s about a plantation owner (a widow) who meets a pretty cool guy. He’s divorced though and she’s a Catholic so she sends him to work things out with the ex. It was actually really good but I didn’t get around to finishing, maybe because there was a lot of dialect.

It's hard to remember.

Right now I'm reading A Severed Wasp by Madeleine L'Engle. She wrote so many things I didn't know about until recently. This takes place in the 80s I think and as about a retired pianist who gets caught up in the people around an Episcopal Cathedral. The style reminds me of Iris Murdoch. It's a sequel of sorts to L'Engle's very first novel, A Small Rain whcih I read a few weeks ago. It was fantastic - an adult novel about coming of age, I suppose, but from that very different perspective of the 1940s or 50s when teens didn't really have a group identity. Katherine is awkward and lonely and the novel had that very thoughtful female sensibility that reminded me of Murdoch and Patricia Highsmith and Jane Rule to some degree. I also read Camilla Dickinson which might have been her first YA novel and is about a girl falling in love in NYC but it again so different from later YA. Camilla's mother i having a affair and the guy pretends to everyone he is comign to see Camilla which is SO crepy. And her best friend has crazy parents and is super intense and then mad when Camilla starts to date her brother.

I read Stephanie Klein's memoir Moose, about going to fat camp. Some of it was interesting but it did drag a bit. I also have another interesting memoir - The Three of Us by Julia Blackburn which is about her crazy parents mostly.

Also reading At Fault by Kate Chopin and The Given by Daphne Marlatt which is kind of a novel in poetry about a family coming to vancouver in 1950s and is very good.

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day – Winifred Watson. The first plane book I’ve bought in ages which I really loved. It’s great to find more gems from the 30s. Miss Pettigrew really needs a job but ends up find a friend and happiness when she goes for an interview at the apartment of a beautiful showgirl. I think a movie jst came out but if so I missed it.

My Name is Red – Orhan Pamuk. As usual, a layered, complex funny book from him. It isn’t as intense as Snow but the concept, or murder among the artists who make books because of controversy over images, is a neat one.

One Good Turn – Kate Atkinson. I read all her books although I don’t think any of them have been good for many years. I didn’t much like Case Histories, which features the same character but I think Atkinson finally hit the comfort zone with his brand of literary mysteries.

Audrey, Wait – Robin Benway. I saw this when it was in production and lovd the concept. Audrey bresk up with her boyfriend and the next day he writers a song about it. He’s just in a high school band but they aren’t bad and she’s embarrassed. Little does Audrey know that ‘Audrey, Wait” will become a surprise smash hit across the world and her life will change forever. Julie tells me that this is the premise of an Avril Lavigne song but I can’t verify that. It’s a pretty edgy book and I like that Audrey is seriously into music herself and knowledgeable on the subject.

Something Borrowed (Katherine Hapka), Bloom (Elizabeth Scott), Crimes of the Sarahs (Kristen Tracy). A trio of new books from Simon Pulse. They were free so I read them. The first is a super generic light romance which was well-executed. The second is about a girl who has it all including the most popular boyfriend but her life is empty until something from her past reappears – again fairly generic but with more substance. Crimes of the Sarahs is the most unusual, I guess. Four best friends all names Sarah follow the lead of Alpha Sarah is a real type A personality and gets them all the steal and do other stuff for kicks. The narrator Sarah is fanatically devoted to life in the clique and when it looks like she’s getting kickd out it is really tough. She starts to see that the other Sarahs have more to their life and don’t always take Alpha Sarah’s word as law. There are a few bad bits to do with her father’s used car lot of something but this one is pretty good.

Spud – John van de Ruit. A South African bestseller – in fact known as the South African Catcher in the Rye. I don’t know why that one always gets used and this fairly gentle book is not Catcheresque, really. Spud is a new student at a prestigious South African boarding school where he’ll have to deal with a motley cast of characters, the weirdest being his dormmates. No one is weirder than his own family though who he sees frequently. Although he hasn’t quite gone into puberty Spud is pretty suave and makes a few conquests among the ladies. He also sees the better side of the most nerdy guys in his dorm, including the kid who is always getting sick and the kid who goes to live in the crypt.

A Brief Chapter in My Impossible Life – Dana Reinhardt. The title is pretty misleading. This teen novel is about a girl who is very happy with her family – she knows she’s adopted but has no real interest in her birth story. But her parents encourage her to make contact – as it turns out her mom is dying. X finds out about her mother’s tough split from her Orthodox Jewish family and of course gets a great guy in the process. It’s serious book about worthwhile issues, a little laboured at times but also fun.

Breaking Dawn – Stephanie Meyer. Well Julie insisted I read this one although since the first in the series I could really take Bella and the vampires or leave them. And she also told me it was really bad before forcing me to read it. And then Nicola stole it off me while we were on holiday. But in fact I quite enjoyed the last instalment which finds Bella getting married and… well I guess I better not give it away. Meyer really know how to write a page-turner and I thought the internal struggles here were better than some of the random pot devises used in past books.

Stealing Buddha’s Feast – Bich Minh Nguyen. Memoir about being a Vietnamese immigrant to uncosmopolitan Grand Rapids Michigan told mostly through memories about food. Perfectly interesting but not that exceptional.

The Geography of Bliss – One Grump’s Search for the Happiest Place on Earth – Eric Weiner. A superb example of how focused travel/narrative non-fiction can work. Weiner, an NPR journalist, visits 10 countries in an attempt to understand what makes some places happier than others. He begins in Holland, where a sociologist has been gathering data for decades for his World Happiness Database. Some findings are obvious but others aren’t and Weiner goes off to discover why countries like Switzerland and Iceland are the happiest in the world. He also goes to Moldova, the unhappiest place on earth to see why it’s worse off than countries much poorer, and why Qataris are not that happy given their vast wealth.

I've read a couple of very interesting books this week.

Winnie and Wolf - A.N. Wilson. Quite an enthralling and amazing book even if the author appears to be a dink who no one likes. This one is about the relationship between Winifred Wagner, the composer's daughter-in-law, and Hitler. Winifred was an English orphan adopted to a German family and her odd social position made her a candidate to marry Wagner's gay son. She turned out to be a great manager who brought the Bayreuth festival back to life. The story is told through the eyes of a family assistant who has always loved Winnie and who later raises her illegitimate daughter. He is a philosophy student so much of the book is about the relationship between art and politics and what Wagner was trying to say.

The Heroic Edge of the Mysterious World - E.L. Konigsberg. Her newest ones sounds so promising, about a boy who really wants to do something special who is helping to get her neighbor's estate ready for a sale and comes across a Modigliani drawing. However there is a lot of talk and not enough action.

Bitter Sweets - Roopa Farooki. Bad title but super name! This novel begins with a number of episodic pieces about a Bangladeshi family and lives built on lies. I thought it was going to be too disjointed but about halfway through the story really starts to gel. Mostly about a father an daughter and the lies that eventually come out.

THE INVISIBLE RULES OF THE ZOE LAMA, by Tish Cohen. A cute tween novel with aheroine who is good at keeping the peace and sorting people's lives out, hence her position as the school 'lama.' Pretty tame but entertaining.

we are preparing to move and stuff like that so i have been busy and sometimes too stressed to actually read, which never happens.

Pretty Things by Sarra manning. A very amusing and convincing YA novel with four points of view. Four teens in London are in a summer drama program, putting on Taming of the Shrew. Brie is clueless and likes her gay best friend Charlie who likes straight Walker who likes gay Daisy. These boundaries and definitions shift in very believable ways.

THE MITFORDS: Letters Between Six Sisters. Edited by Charlotte Mosley. I suppose this book was collected for people like me. There are actually quite a few of us who are fascinated by the Mitfords and this collection adds to their dimensions. In particular, Debo comes off as very smart and funny - not dull, and Nancy comes across as quite a bit more bitchy. And I can see why Jessica could never cut out Unity - she is quite tragic, even for a Nazi. In case you don't know the Mitfords were an eccentric family and the daughters were involved in the spectrum of 20th century politics. And it's about 800 pages - yay.

The Inheritance of Loss - Kiran Desai. A Booker winner and after about half, I am very into it. Takes place in northern India where a judge and his granddaughter live amidst political turmoil.

Everybody Hurts An Essential Guide to Emo Culture: Trevor Kelley, Leslie Simon. It's all about Emo and maybe I finally understand it.

Naomi and Ely's No-Kiss List - David Levitan and Rachel Cohn. Another duet for the two authors of Nick and Norah's all infinite playlist or whatever it was called. Another hot girl is in love with her gay best friend (does this happen a lot)? Hence the no-kiss list but Ely kinda falls for naomi's boyfriend and trouble hits. These two are real pros so it is very well-written with good characters and lots of fun.

Are there more? I'll check.

I Feel Bad about my Neck – Nora Ephron. Maybe I was the only person who hadn’t heard of this until recently. Ephron was a serious writer before she got into movies and she has a subtle, sympathetic touch. Especially funny was the essay on her failure with purses.

Kafka – Nicholas Murray. Fairly straight up biography which is very enlightening, but does get a little dull. I read this great essay to do with Kafka in the Believer a few years ago and go back to it all the time. It finally got me to fill in the rest of the story by reading this book.

Letter from America – Rupert Brooke. Little known writings by Brooke on America and Canada – very sharp and thoughtful.

Amerika/The Man who Disappeared – Franz Kafka. Now I know that this was unpublished and unfinished in his lifetime and that Max Brod put it together. I actually got bogged down right around the chapter which was the last actually finished by Kafka. I did appreciate the vast changes in fortune of the young man, which are all out of his control.

20 Miles – Cara Headley. Amusing and chaotic story about a freshman on a women’s hockey team.

Faith: a culmination of scenarios by Caley MacLennan. Strange little book in which each story has a character called faith but probably not the same person.

In a Mist – Devon Code. Short stories mostly dull though stylistically ambitious. However one future set piece, The White Knight, stands out as amazing.

A Moveable Feast – Ernest Hemingway. I sort of dipped in and about but enjoyed it – these essays on early days living in Paris.

The Year of Magical Thinking – Joan Didion. I’m a big fan of Didion but it took me a while to get to this one. It really is amazing. We probably all know the premise – that Didion’s husband died and daughter become extremely ill in this year period and she documents the strange ways her mind imagined these events.

London: City of Disappearances – Iain Sinclair. I don’t really know Sinclair and if I did maybe I would have expected how odd this book it. Essentially a huge collection of musings, stories, facts on London seen as a place full of memories, absences and dead things. Quite something. There is some fantastic writing and pieces that are unlike what is published almost anywhere else. My favourites were a piece called Death of Cleaner about this man’s fantastic life, hidden from almost everyone, and all the little paragraphs on places which have disappeared. Also some good essays on disappearing land around Heathrow and going to see Kim Philby.

The Welsh Gir – Peter Ho Davies. I looked forward to this because it sounded so great but it was boring and I couldn’t finish.

Gender Blendr – Blake Nelson. Maybe the last of his I hadn’t read. This is another Freaky Friday rewrite – a boy and girl who used to be best friends switch bodies and get to understand their new tween selves. Well done but hardly intense fare.

The Architecture of Happiness – Alain de Botton. I couldn’t even remember if I’d read this and glancing at it the work looks a little dull. But actually settling in is a real treat. As usual Botton really nails it.

The Gathering – Anne Enright. This one to Booker prize and while it starts off well I found it it just repeat the same themes and thoughts over and over again.

Better than Blonde – Teresa Toten. Sequel to Me and the Blondes is intense and deals with mature stuff. Sophie’s dad is out of jail and starts to drink again. She feels she needs to help him keep it a secret. Her friends are dealing with stuff and she’s headed for a truly sad ending with the boy she loves.

Y in the Shadows – Karen Rivers. Wow – I liked this YA novel much more than the first in the series. Yale is a school misfits who starts to be able to actually turn invisible. She is drawn to queen bee Michael, who has troubles of her own, and Tony, an unusual jock. Yale has super weird, immature parents but the whole thing is very low key and really works.

And a bunch of books about Sylvia Plath, Christopher Isherwood and Walter Benjamin.

The Accidental – Ali Smith. I almost put this down as I couldn’t make head nor tails of the first several pages. I’m glad I kept going as this is such an interesting novel and I’ve been thinking about it for days. Smith is a bit of an experimental writer and I understand this is her most accessible book. A family goes on holiday to Norfolk and there a stranger enters their lives and changes them all. A premise we’ve read before but there is a lot more to this. Each character in the four-person family gets their own sections and each is different – not in something as obvious as voice but in complete world outlook and interior meaning. Astrid is the wispy pre-teen, Magnus the math-loving, guilt-ridden morose teen, Eve the author of ordinary lives from WWII and Michael her philandering professor husband. Wow. I wasn’t even totally sure what happened at the end but it was quite something.

Hotel du Lac – Anita Brookner. A Booker Prize winner in the 80s. I’d only read one other Brookner and was really bored by it but this story was more intriguing. A romantic novelist is bundled off to a Swiss hotel by friends when she calls off her wedding. A very interior novel which reminded me of Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Wonderfully insightful.

Paranoid Park – Blake nelson. I left this one for a while because I didn’t think I’d like it and I didn’t really. An accidental death and then guilt and deterioration of a teen’s life.

Dairy Queen – Catherine Murdock. This was fabulous in the end. For a while I wondered what the hype was about. DJ lives on a Wisconsin farm and basically runs things since her father’s illness and since her mother has a full workload. But she has a lot on her shoulders and no one to talk to until she starts training the quarterback from her rival high school. Of course she falls for him but things get difficult when she decides she’s like to play football as well. A story about the tough turns in life without being indulgent or weepy.

Date:	2008-01-02 14:31
Subject:	latest books read
Security:	Public
Mood:	busy

Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton. Just halfway through this novel about a lonely man with a terrible set of drunk friends in 1938 Earl’s Court. So far it is fantastic.

Put out more Flags – Evelyn Waugh. I wasn’t sure which war books I’d read but this is a stand alone, not part of the trilogy. Reminded me of Nancy Mitford’s Pigeon Pie – tackling the early days of WWII in Britain – the phoney war. This one is a satire and it does skewer the upper classes again and the desperation to find a ‘good war job.’ Of course the devious prevail which is probably what does happen in wartime.

The New Rules of High School, Rock Star Superstar and Prom Anonymous by Blake Nelson. After I loved Girl so much I think I did look at his other books but didn’t think they looked as good. The New Rules is definitely as good – sort of a guy version told with Nelson’s typical profusion of details. Rock Star Superstar has similar elements to Girl in that it was a about the rise of a local Portland band and the way the music biz screws people. But Pete is such a good character, an accidental rock star. Prom Anon is the weakest – written to appeal to the mainstream but it’s still entertaining.

Eclipse – Stephanie Meyer. This one finally turned up at the library for me and I read it straight through. It was just about as good as New Moon but still not as good at the first in the trilogy. I think Meyer really understands the obsessive, gloomy lovesick mindset of teen girls and this feeds right in.

Jane Austen in Scarsdale – Paula Marantz Cohen. Chick lit, I guess, but smart and entertaining. About a high school counselor who meets the one man she really loved but let get away and tries to make things right.

Spook Country – William Gibson. No Pattern Recognition but this novel really picks up steam as it progresses and became very satisfying. Three main narratives drive this story about a secret shipping container with mysterious contents and the old guard of spies still trying to navigate a changed world. I couldn’t quite understand the technology behind the central phenomenon of locative art but I leaned to live with it.

Kasztner’s Train – Anna Porter. A Christmas gift and a book I wanted to read. I think that this was the most depressing book I’ve ever read but important, incredibly well-written and compelling. It is the story or Rezso Kasztner, a Hungarian Jew who attempted to stop the deportation and murder of Hungarian Jews during the later stages of WWII. He bluffed his way into the confidence of several top Nazis who thought he could procure bribes and possibly help them once the war was over. The tragedy is the darkness of the events and how unwilling most were to help and the destruction of his own reputation even though he did buy freedom for many.

I tried to read Susanna Clarke’s stories but they were kind of boring.

Date:	2007-12-21 13:55
Subject:	another list
Security:	Public
Mood:	mellow

My favourite one time reads.

I loved these books when I read them but can't imagine delving in again for a variety of reasons.

Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Ship of Fools - Katherine Anne Porter
The Buddha of Suburbia - Hanif Kureishi
Middlemarch - George Eliot
A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
Ada or Ardor - Vladimir Nabokov
Eustace Chisolm and the works - james Purdy
Under the Volcano - Malcolm Lowry
One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
If on a Winter's Night a Traveller - Italo Calvino

A tough one. My top 10 favourite books. But I'm slanting this towards the ones I love to reread the most.

1. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
2. A Room with a View, E.M. Forster
3. The Rebel Angels, Robertson Davies
4. The Rings of Saturn, W.G. Sebald
5. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
6. Minus Times, Catherine Bush
7. Parade's End, Ford Madox Ford
8. The Sopranos, Alan Warner
9. The Wars or Famous Last Words Timothy Findley
10. Father and Sons, Ivan Turgenev

Top 10 books I have not finished that I own.

1. Ulysses, James Joyce. I always think I have a chance with this one but so far, nothing.
2. In Search of Lost Time, Marcel Proust. I plan to make another assault on this one and enjoy the many may pages.
3. Adam Bede, George Eliot.
4. Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy. I've started about four Hardy novels and I just can't get anywhere.
5. Madame Bovary, Gustave Flaubert. I got quite into this fr a while but then I just couldn't read another word.
6. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy. This was the only book I had when I was in London one time and so I read several hundred pages but as soon as I got a library card I put it away.
7. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo.
8. The Sound and the Fury, William Faulkner. What happened?
9. The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck. I keep trying to give this one away but people give it back.
10. The Burn, Vassily Aksyonov.

What has been lately cleared off my to-read shelf

*Overachievers: the Secret Lives of Driven Kids by Alexandra Robbins. I can’t believe I didn’t pick this up right after I read her fantastic book Pledged. This one is about high-performance well-rounded high school students but Robbins using it to critique the education system and the efforts spent now to get into the ‘right’ college. I also read Alexandra Robbins’s book about Skull and Bones, the famous Yale secret society. You can tell it’s a first effort since she hasn’t quite got her winning formula down. It’s also a bit of a let-down because she set out to see if the myths are true and basically they aren’t.

*Reconcilable Differences – Cate Cochran. I totally yawned with this cam in the mail but in fact this is a fantastic book about how ideas of the family have changed. Each chapter is about a different family dealing with divorce and the ‘unconventional’ arrangements they come up wih to keep antagonism out of their lives and make the best environment for the kids. It’s pretty inspiring since we are led to believe that these kind fo truly adult relationships are not possible.

Bad Tickets – Kathleen O’Dell. Rather an odd YA about a Catholic girl breaking out of her safe life in 1967 Portland. It does a very nice job of evoking the realities of the summer of love and not the myths. Mary Margaret has a wild new friend, Jane, and together they break the rules and think outside the box. MM has the courage to go for the guy she really like who happens to have had polio. Jane hangs out with a dharma bum type at a hippie house. The characters are amazing but the plot is a little weird and it suddenly wraps up really fast.

Lambs of London – Peter Ackroyd. This guy seems to have written a lot of novels – this one interested me because it was published by New York Review of Books. It’s set in the er, 18th century, maybe and concerns a bookseller’s son who fakes Shakespearian documents. There I gave it away. It was a little dull.

Warriors Don’t Cry A Searing Memoir of Battle to Integrate Little Rock: Melba Pattillo Beals.
I guess everyone hears in passing (or in studies) about the integration of Central High in Little Rock and has seen a few photos. And yes memoirs are subjective but the daily abuse that this teenaged girl and her black classmates were subject to is absolute horrifying. The fact that not that long ago she and some other kids were seen as nonpersons, who didn’t count for anything is still amazing.

*Fire in the Blood – Ireme Nemirovsky
That’s what I’m talking about! This novel, again found in fragments after her murder by the Nazis, returns to the village where much of Suite Francaise is set. It’s got the insight and combination of lightness and depth which made that novel so profound. Here, an older country man who has spent his youth travelling now has a small world. When a young newlywed man is murdered it eventually brings out a story from the past. The subject of the book is the ‘fire in the blood’ that makes young people do crazy things tat seem strange in old age.

Where Girls Come First The Rise, Fall, and Surprising Revival of Girls' Schools: Books: Ilana DeBare
A very interesting history of girls chools in America including issues of race, class, sexism in public schools, the move to go co-ed etc. Interesting to look at the historical times ad see how they affected girls’ education. Some of the most recent developments are the most interesting. Throughout the author also describes her experiences starting a new middle school for girls. I have to say I kind of wish I could go there.

Drinking: A Love Story – Caroline Knapp.
More sick lit, this memoir is about alcoholism and the many people who pass in the regular world, holding down good jobs etc. I don’t know what Knapp was going for in terms of structure. It seems very haphazard and that didn’t work well. I know this was quite a huge book, maybe because drinking is such an American activity. I still don’t know about alcoholism as a disease though. I can see it as a physical affliction and addiction which all bodies treat differently but I have a hard time seeing what begins as a voluntary activity as a disease. It seems insulting to people with cancer… I know it's kind of an unpopular opinion but I guess it seems like a psychologist disorder but not disease.

The Accompanist – Nina Berberova. A Russian novelist I didn’t know about. This is a very quiet but intense book about a girl with musical training who becomes part of a singer’s family to be the background noise. An unusual plot and subtle character.

Man of My Dreams – Curtis Sittenfeld
I didn’t even know that the ‘Prep’ author had written another book. This one travels a lot of similar territory – the outsider who lacks social skills and can’t fathom how it is that author people’s live happen. The book is compelling though and a good read, though not as original as Prep.

Me and the Blondes – Teresa Toten.
Canadian YA set in the 70s about a girl with immigrant parents. Dad is in jail and mom has an embarrassing accent. What is Sophie to do? At yet another yet school she targets the blonde girls as her new friends and finds out they have their own troubles.

The Ice Museum: In Search of the lost Land of Thule. Joanna Kavenna
About Thule, an icy place described by the Greeks. But no one is sure where it really was or if it was real. The author travels the north in search of history and legend. Pretty good but a few opportunities missed.

A Drowned Maiden's Hair: A Melodrama: Laura Amy Schlitz
Neat middle grade novel about 19th century spiritualist rip-off artists who adopt a feisty orphan. At first she is content to stay hidden and work their séances but the she yearns for freedom. It’s very well done although the subject matter isn’t maybe the most original in the w

Date:	2007-10-30 22:20
Subject:	library strike is over!
Security:	Public
Mood:	thirsty

Latest reading. The shelf is now empty... where to turn...


Wicked Lovely – Melissa Marr.
OK. So yes, this seems very influenced by Holly Black’s modern faerie tale, Tithe, including the characters, setting and imagining of the faerie world. I did like the conundrum of Aislinn who is chosen to possibly be the next Summer Queen. Most girls are way into this but she’s always seen the invisible faerie world and it scares the heck out of her. So she wants none of it. The plot is a little repetitive and the world not totally convincing but it was entertaining.

This is What I Did – Ann Dee Ellis
A much-hated teenage boy tries to get through life. His past is scarred by an incident involving his best friend but we don’t know what happened until the end of the novel. In that way it is similar to I think, Silent to the Bone by EL Konigsberg. The mystery is drawn out really well and it illustrated how intolerant people are, even of victims.

Four Girls from Berlin A True Story of a Friendship That Defied the Holocaust: by Marianne Meyerhoff. Written by the daughter of a Jewish Berliner who managed to escape the fate of the rest of her family, murdered by the Nazis. Her best friends back in Germany kept many of her family’s belongings and sent them after the war. The daughter then returns to Europe to reignite the friendships. Despite some upsetting news about the Nazi involvement of one of them friends, the author remains positive about the country, even when history of the war is not on any school curricula. I suppose it is easier for her to ‘forgive’ since she didn’t live through it.

Missing Pieces – Olga Verrall.
Personal memoir of a woman who survived the Holocaust as a Hungarian child. In fact most of her close family survived the war although terrible things happened to them and they were not a family who could discuss any of them. Olga’s life suffered a certain disconnect since this important era needed to be kept silent. Her family was sent to a small labour camp where rules were not as hard and fast and they found ways to survive.

I, Tania – Brian Joseph Davis
Brian is back and blasting everyone else out of the ballpark. Brian – how do you come up with this stuff?? I, Tania is the autobiography of the Symbionese Liberation Army persona who was Patty Hearst. Most people have forgotten about the militant American radicals of the 70s but I think this stuff is amazing. Anyway this book really messes with history and storytelling, offering a wild read.

David Golder – Irene Nemirovsky
After the amazing Suite Francaise I was really looking forward to this – and all her books in translation. The writing is still amazing and the characters sharp but it’s a much different book, a portrait of a Jewish businessman with failing health and a cold, indifferent family.

Monkey Town – Ronald Kidd
A great topic for children’s historica fiction – the Scopes Trial. Actually based on a real family, it tells the through through the eyes of a girl growing up, with a crush on Johnny Scopes, an inquisitive mind and a trust in her father that is put to the test. The period is captured perfectly.

Istanbul – Orhan Pamuk.
A wonderful meditation on personal history, memory and the city. Really evokes a city that has been changing so much and one I know very little about.

The Mother-Daughter Book Club - Heather Vogel Frederick
So cute. Four girls, some friends, some not are forced to read Little Women and discuss it with their mothers. Of course everyone’s life change in the process.


Also I saw a lot of great films at the film fest. More on that at a later date.

Date:	2007-09-29 20:03
Subject:	The Recently read.
Security:	Public
Mood:	cold
Music:	high places!

Vampire Academy - Richelle Mead. High concept here - with yet another new vampire mythology which is quite convincing and original. Rose and Lissa are best friends, but Rose is a hybrid vampire sworn to guard her royal blood best friend. Rose is sassy but serious and the plot explores their life in training after a couple of years on the run. Why they left school is the
big question and the mystery is well spun. There were some plot openings not taken but I'm still looking forward to the next one.

Paper Kisses - Reinhard Kaiser. The author bought a selection of stamped letters at an auction and gets drawn into the story, a star-crossed love affair interrupted by WWII and Nazi Germany.

It Chicks - Tia Williams. Contemporary black Fame! Tangie and her friends go to a performing arts school in NYC. She's the serious, shy dancer with a booty trying to make it in a cut throat world and to finally get together with the boy she's always loved who is a bit of a playa. This one goes the whole way into current teen culture - all the references, all the gadgets. It
won't age well but it is addictive now. It's part of a series though and less than nothing gets resolved in this one, which is unfulfilling.

Betsy and the Great World - Maud Hart Lovelace. I loved the Betsy-Tacy books when I was little but stopped reading as Betsy grew up. Now I'm caught up on her great European solo adventure. Pretty heady stuff for 1914.

Bad Girls - Cynthia Voight. I picked this up at the library having read a few Voight books when I was young The two protagonists are in about grade six and they stand up for themselves and don't mind controversy. Straight-forward but very emotionally true without any bells and whistles.

Kiki Strike: Inside the shadow city - Kirsten Miller. OK, this did end up being quite fun but it's almost too slick and sophisticated, especially compared to Bad Girls. This is all bells and whistles - secret underground city, foreign princesses, guilt, trips to the hospital, assassins. You get the picture. Heroine Ananka is one of the irregulars, a supergirl group assembled by Kiki to explore a secret city under new york. Kiki is kind of superhero, a shadowy one and she needs a lot of watching.

For several weeks I was reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk. I thought it might be ponderous but after a page I was right in there and despite reading in short bursts it's utterly compelling. Orhan is tracing the journey of his 'friend' KA, a poet who comes to Kars in Turkey, mostly to visit a women he is drawn to. Ka is a refugee in Germany with a small and quiet life but he is swept into events in Kars, including a coup and all the political machinations around it. Profound and light, light and deep at the same time. Now I'm tackling Istanbul.

Our neighbour has the best new sheltie puppy...

Spanish Fly - Will Ferguson. Just about to be released by Penguin Canada, the serious literary novel set in 1939 in the US southwest. Funny and enthralling, it's the story of a young man who goes on the road with two con artists and learns the game, becoming a master in a short time. The endgame is superb.

Mr Gilfil's Love Story - George Eliot. One of her first published works, a novella about doomed love. It's nice to read about a young girl being totally ruined by love, non?

The Platform of Time - Virginia Woolf. A collection of Woolf's writing on friends and family. Some lovely bits but not sure it hangs together as a concept in an illuminating way.

Fun Home - Alison Bechdel. Maybe the best graphic novel I've read. I've read some but am never really impressed. This one is as well-structured and nuanced as any novel, making its many story strands flow seamlessly. Much more than a memoir about a small town girl and her gay father and their funeral home.

Girl - Blake Nelson. One of the best novels I've read in ages - I devoured it. It's accumulation of detail without emotion reminded me of some non-fiction, like Random Families. The character and setting and development all seem so simple but they're complex and full of material to think on. Andrea Marr is a regular girl who gets involved in the Portland music scene at a young age and it changes her life, at least for a while. I had to see the movie after this, even though I knew it would be dumb. And it was dumb.

Date:	2007-07-23 13:44
Subject:	big tom
Security:	Public
Mood:	working
Music:	rondelles

Back from beautiful Welsh holiday. Drowning sorrows watching Tour de France and the lovely sprinter Tom Boonen.

Cockeyed - Ryan Knighton. A well-written memoir about going blind at a young age.

Theodosia and the Serpents of Chaos – R L LeFevers. Lots of fun. Theodosia is an Edwardian girl in London who spends most of her time sleeping in a sarcophagus as her parents are Egyptologists and work in a museum. They don't seem to notice the curses and evil spirits all around them and it is up to young Theodosia to uncurse all the objects they bring back from digs. One of them is too strong for her though and she must return it to the tomb from whence it came. The novel falters ever once in a while with uneven pacing but I loved the idea.

Slaves of Solitude - Patrick Hamilton. Absolutely superb. This is another 'lost classic', set in a town outside London during WWII but intimately involved with the details of daily life in a boarding house and only vaguely interested in the war. Captures so perfectly the way other people, virtual strangers, can grate on you and shape your world and how nuts they are. Miss Roach is a publisher's assistant, bombed out of London and now living with a quiet group in a boarding house who poison her life, especially when a German acquaintance moves in.

I am the Wallpaper - Mark Peter Hughes. Amusing YA novel about a plain jane who starts to get noticed when she takes a photo f herself fin the much too small training bra send by a clueless relative.

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress: Dai Sijie. Read on a plane, not the best circumstances. Still I enjoyed this take on teenagers sent to live in the Chinese country during the cultural revolution, even though they are not particularly educated or intellectuals. They soon find themselves wrapped up in a stash of forbidden western novels.

So I did finish the big Daniel Deronda which was great. I'm so glad I got into Eliot. I used to have this really cute edition of The Mill on the Floss which I would pick up every few years and get bored on in the first few pages.

I just read The Krzyzewskiville Tales by Aaron Dinn. It's a literary fictional work based on The Canterbury Tales but about the tent village that exists for students to get into Duke basketball games. Twelve students are in their tent waiting for a check to be called and each relays a story to do with Duke b-ball and its crazy fans. A great idea, mostly interesting although maybe a little too Chaucery in parts.

Also Empress of the World by Sara Ryan, a YA novel sent in gifted summer school where a quiet girl meets a group of friends who she really connects with. Surprising herself, Nicola falls for intense Battle (named after a building), a girl and tries come to terms with the idea of bisexuality. It's a quick read by has substance and is fun.

And The Wizard, the Witch, and Two Girls from Jersey by Lisa Papademetriou. Comedy fantasy for teens is becoming one of my fave genres. This one has two not friends from the present day taken into a classic fantasy novel. Veronica is a book worm and knows the story. Heather is a bit of an airhead with a secretly unhappy home life. Heather becomes a really interesting character and 'grows' in a fun and believable way. It's also fun to see her coping without hairspray etc. There are some funny bits with cookie baking elves and a tiny dragon. There are some sections which are too fantasy-novel with the characters tromping through the woods but the comedy is top-notch. I was disappointed in Veronica though - her characters didn't really change or do much at all.

And The Sopranos ended for good. It was pretty amazing.

Date:	2007-06-03 19:06
Subject:	tamale
Security:	Public
Mood:	devious

I’m reading Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot, which was recommendation to me by a lady when I was at a book launch at Carol Shields’ daughter’s house. Her book club had read Middlemarch and she was a fan and said DD was the nest best. I’m only about half way through but it is fantastic. I admire the way Eliot always presents clearly flawed characters but creates a lot of sympathy for them even when they have bad plans.

14 - Marilyn Sachs. I found this at a used bookstore and had never read it even though I love Sachs. She was probably my intro to YA – I remember finding her books in my elementary school library and recommending them to everyone. This one is about a girl whose mother is a novelist and is always using her life as material. Her first romance though, ends up nothing like one of her mother’s books.

Pop!- Aury Wallingford. I was looking forward to this because she had written for some good tv shows and because I think there was some story about how Wal-mart wouldn’t carry the book because it’s about sex. Anyway this novel is pretty much without substance and isn’t really charming or appealing at all.

Flora Segunda – Ysabeau Wilce. You’d think this had to be a pseudonym, but perhaps not. One of my favourites of the year probably aimed at around 14-year-olds. Flora lives in one of the fantastical worlds created, a kind of alternative Spanish California perhaps with elevators and magic and tamales and tabloid newspapers. Flora’s mom is a general and her dad is kind of nuts. Her country lost a war quite recently and is under the control of some evil bird-people who outlawed the rangers who Flora worships, She reads pulp novels about the great Nini Mo and has a chance to develop skills like her idol.

Austenland - Shannon Hale. I think this is her first non-YA and it’s chick lit, I guess, about an unlucky-in-love lady who loves Jane Austen maybe a bit too much. Her great aunt wills her a trip to a swanky 19th century themepark