January 2007 Book List

[eleneariel]

1. A History of the World in Six Glasses, Tom Standage
    I read this on a plane, and it was just as good as the last time I read it. And this time I remembered to copy out the recipe for grog. Talk Like A Pirate Day, here I come!

2. Braniac, Ken Jennings
    Yes, the Ken Jennings of Jeopardy fame. I like his way with words, (read his blog, it's good) and I like the tidbits of information about what it's like behind the scenes of Jeopardy. I wasn't so fascinated by the extensive history of trivia, but that's just me.

3. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
    I can't believe nobody made me read this book earlier! I blame you all. It was wonderful.

4. The Godfather Legacy, Harlan Lebo
    Naturally I loved this one. savetheolives gave it to me for Christmas, and obviously she knows (and encourages?) my dark side well. :) Most of the book focuses on the making of the first Godfather movie, with much less attention paid to the second and third. But that's okay. 

5. Ball of Fire, Stefan Kanfer
    Biography of Lucille Ball. It was sad, as most biographies of famous figures seem to be.

6. Fables for the Fair, by One of Them
   A hilarious little old book. I should post one of the fables later on. *makes note*

7. The Authoritative Calvin and Hobbes, Bill Waterson
    This does so count as reading! There are a lot of words along with the pictures. :)

8. The Cinderella Pact, Sarah Strohmeyer
     I read this one of the evenings when the power was out and there was nothing to do but read. It's chick-lit (the baby blue cover with picture of the sparkly high-heeled shoe sort of gives it away), but what the plot lacks in plausibility, the characters make up in surprising realism. It was light, and fun, and not-serious in a nice sort of way.

9. The Witch of Blackbird Pond, Elizabeth George Speare

ruthette reminded me that I'd been meaning to read this for years. So I did. (I liked Nat. :))

10. A History of London, Stephen Inwood
     I never would have made it through all 1000+ pages before the end of the month had it not been for the eleven-day power outage! It's probably more than the average person wants to know about London's history, but it's a big book for a big subject. I was very impressed, very very impressed. I'd recommend it to people like elanortheeldest and jennymae, but it seems that everybody I think would enjoy reading it is too busy going to college to do so. Life! 

11. The Bronze Bow, Elizabeth George Speare
      Another one I blame ruthette for. She was right, it's even better than Blackbird Pond.

 Current reading: Well, among other things, Grace and Power: the private world of the Kennedy White House. 'Tis very interesting.

And in other news: it's been snowing all day, and when I went out at lunch I had much more trouble on the roads than I ever did two weeks ago when they were covered with solid ice. Go figure.

I love snow so much ... I love looking out the window and seeing it fall. I love how quiet the outdoors seems when there's a layer on the ground.

Comments

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Wow. I am rather ashamed to post my book list for the month. LOL (I will though. ;-))

You hadn't read any Speare books? Yeah, she's a great author. :-D

Hmmm... I'll definitely add the History of London to my books-to-read list, although that's so long, who knows when I'll get to it!

How is Grace and Power? You say it's interesting, but that could mean a lot of things. LOL Does it spend much time on Kennedy's immorality? I don't mind if it mentions it...but I really don't care to have too many details (as some presidental/Kennedy books tend to have). I LOVE presidential history, so I always keep an eye out for good presidential-related books. :-)

[ex-blackswa.livejournal.com]

You mentioned Speare's books: do you know of any other titles? I'd love to hunt some more out!

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Calico Captive and The Sign of the Beaver are two that I'm aware of.

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Marie mentioned the two that I was thinking of. :-) I read Calico Captive, and I'm pretty sure I read The Sign of the Beaver, but that one's not written down on my list of books read...so perhaps I didn't finish it? At any rate, CC is good, although I liked The Bronze Bow and The Witch better.

[ex-blackswa.livejournal.com]

Awesome! I'll look out for those other two you mentioned.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I can argue away my longer booklist by insisting that I "have" to read for my job. ;) (Unfortunately not ON the job, so sad!)

You can't write a good bio of JFK and still ignore his womanizing ways, more's the pity, but so far this book has presented the facts in what I consider a sensitive manner. That is, it's not presented to scandalize and shock, and most (so far) has been confined to a few chapters that one could skip altogether. The writer didn't feel a need to constantly be mentioning it.

[jennymae.livejournal.com]

Rightyo. I agree about JFK...I guess it just depends on how it's written if it bothers me. But I'll definitely check it out! I already added it to my list of books to read someday. That list is continuously getting longer. :-)

[radiantlove.livejournal.com]

Snow is so wonderful... I love it except when I have to tromp up & down our driveway, or when I have to drive somewhere :)

And.. I cannot believe you'd never read The Witch of Blackbird Pond before! I love that book!
I've never read The Bronze Bow, however... *adds it to the already-extensive to-read*

I'm bookmarking this so I can reference it when I'm in search of new books to read :)

[ex-blackswa.livejournal.com]

THOU SHALT READ THE BRONZE BOW.

[ruthette.livejournal.com]

AMEN, AMEN!

[ex-blackswa.livejournal.com]

By the mouth of two or three witnesses...

[radiantlove.livejournal.com]

I shall, I shall!

:)

[pansyprincess.livejournal.com]

What is The Phantom Tollbooth about?

[jmcphers.livejournal.com]

It's about an exceedingly unusual and magical journey unwittingly undertaken by a formerly bored little boy. I read it just a few months ago.

[ruthette.livejournal.com]

It's pretty much the BEST BOOK EVER!

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I love the way in which you recommend books. *snerkle*

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

And it provides wonderful reading for wordophiles. =) I adored it!

[melyndie.livejournal.com]

I can't believe I didn't tell you to read The Phantom Tollbooth (or, worse, that you hadn't read it before)! I just love it! So clever.

I think I need my power to go out for a good, long while.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Be careful what you wish for...!

[melyndie.livejournal.com]

True. :-) I'd be work-less if my power went out, and that would be A Big Problem.

[jmcphers.livejournal.com]

Good news: The world needs librarians!

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

Woohoo! Thanks so much for taking the time to point that article out. I'm going to print it out and wave it triumphantly around the workplace tomorrow. ;)

(Reason #1: Not everything is available on the internet ... you would be surprised how many people Do. Not. Understand. This. I've had people insist that when I couldn't make the internet magically produce the SSN of a person they were looking for, it was just because I was lazy and didn't want to look hard enough.)

[http://users.livejournal.com/patrick___/]

3. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
I can't believe I nobody made me read this book earlier! I blame you all. It was wonderful.

That's what I thought when I discovered it too. I must have been about 18, and I was like, "Wow, this is such a great kids book! I wish I had read it when I was a kid!"

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

It's a shame how many great children's books I didn't discover until I grew up. =P

[ex-blackswa.livejournal.com]

'The Bronze Bow' is one of my favourite books EVER. I want to be IN that book.*

EGS is a great author; but you are so right, The Bronze Bow is better than The Witch of Blackbird Pond. But both are awesome.

*and either be the main character (if I were a boy) or marry him (if I were a girl, which I am).

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

I agree!

[ruthette.livejournal.com]

HOORAY FOR ELIZABETH GEORGE SPEARE!

[mcubedtech.livejournal.com]

Hasn't everyone who's anyone read The Phantom Tollbooth? ;)

I read it when I was a kid and really liked it. It's been so long ago now I'm glad you reminded me as I honestly hadn't thought of it again until now.

[eattheolives.livejournal.com]

So does this mean that now I'm Someone? *happy*

[mcubedtech.livejournal.com]

Who wants to be someone, it's much better being no one, or anyone than having the pressure to always be someone. I'm not sure that even makes sense o_O but I you read it on the internet so it must be true.