Mona's 2010 Reading List

[anisia]

Currently Reading:

"Feast of Fools" - Rachel Caine

 

January

1."Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts" - Lucy Dillon, 412 pages

2. "Help Yourself" - Dave Pelzer, 214 pages

 

 

March

3. “The Mummy at the Dining Room Table” – Jeffrey A. Kottler & Jon Carlson, 512 pages

 

April

4. "True Tales of American Life" - Paul Auster, 473 pages

 

July

5. “Critical Injuries” – Joan Barfoot, 342 pages

6. “The Three Musketeers” – Alexandre Dumas, 436 pages

 

August

7. "Northern Lights" - Philip Pullman, 398 pages

 

September

8. "The Subtle Knife" - Philip Pullman, 341 pages

9. "Tell me Why, Mummy" - David Thomas, 275 pages

10. "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone" - J.K. Rowling, 223 pages

 

October

11. "Always Looking Up" - Michael J. Fox, 288 pages

12. "Glass Houses" - Rachel Caine, 361 pages

13. "The Dead Girls' Dance" - Rachel Caine, 256 pages

Edited October 30, 2010 by anisia

[anisia]

In case it's needed...

[anisia]

TBR List

"The Possession of Mr Cave" - Matt Haig

"Foucault's Pendulum" - Umberto Eco

"Anna Karenina" - Lev Tolstoi

"Just a Geek" - Wil Wheaton

"The Eye of the World" - Robert Jordan

"1984" - George Orwell

"Dear John" - Nicholas Sparks

"Marley & Me" - John Grogan

"Saturday" - Ian McEwan

"Still Me" - Christopher Reeve

"Trainspotting" - Irvine Welsh

"Requiem for a Dream" - Hubert Selby Jr.

"Stalking Darkness" - Lynn Flewelling

"Luck in the Shadows" - Lynn Flewelling

"Traitor's Moon" - Lynn Flewelling

"Shadows Return" - Lynn Flewelling

"Speak" - Laurie Halse Anderson

"Point Counter Point" - Aldous Huxley

"My Life As a Man" - Philip Roth

"The Metamorphosis" - Franz Kafka

"Light on Snow" - Anita Shreve

"The Oxford Murders" - Guillermo Martinez

"Money" - Martin Amis

"My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser" - Helen Boyd

"She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband" - Helen Boyd

"Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and Daughter, a novel" - Alice Kuipers

"Cut" - Cathy Glass

"Testimony" - Anita Shreve

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" - J. K. Rowling

"Mrs Zhivago Of Queen's Park" - Olivia Lichtenstein

"Tuareg" - Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa

"The Woman in Black" - Susan Hill

"The Ballroom Class" - Lucy Dillon

"Shogun" - James Clavell

"The Lucifer Effect"- Phillip Zimbardo

"The To-Do List" - Mike Gayle

"Black Like Me" - John Howard Griffin

"The Host" - Stephenie Meyer

"Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell" - Susanna Clarke

"The Stranger Beside Me" - Ann Rule

“Thinking Sociologically” – Zygmunt Bauman & Tim May

“How Starbucks Saved My Life” – Michael Gill

“A Place Called Here” – Cecelia Ahern

"Still Life" - Joy Fielding

"Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories Presented by the Horror Writers Association" - Kevin J. Anderson (Editor)

Edited October 20, 2010 by anisia

[anisia]

Wishlist

"The Possession of Mr Cave" - Matt Haig

"Just a Geek" - Wil Wheaton

"Marley & Me" - John Grogan

"Stalking Darkness" - Lynn Flewelling

"Speak" - Laurie Halse Anderson

"Traitor's Moon" - Lynn Flewelling

"My Husband Betty: Love, Sex, and Life with a Crossdresser" - Helen Boyd

"She's Not the Man I Married: My Life with a Transgender Husband" - Helen Boyd

"Life on the Refrigerator Door: Notes Between a Mother and Daughter, a novel" - Alice Kuipers

"Cut" - Cathy Glass

"Testimony" - Anita Shreve

"Always Looking Up" - Michael J. Fox

"The Woman in Black" - Susan Hill

"The Ballroom Class" - Lucy Dillon

"The Lucifer Effect"- Phillip Zimbardo

"The To-Do List" - Mike Gayle

"Black Like Me" - John Howard Griffin

"The Stranger Beside Me" - Ann Rule

"Still Life" - Joy Fielding

"Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories Presented by the Horror Writers Association" - Kevin J. Anderson (Editor)

Edited April 11, 2010 by anisia

[Kell]

Still Me by Christopher Reeve is such an inspiring and uplifting read, as is the 2nd one, Nothing Is Impossible. I read them a few years back and was blown away by his determination.

 

I also want to read Always Looking Up by Michael J Fox. His first one, Lucky Man, is also excellent and, again, inspirational. It's amazing to read what these people have gone through and how they can still remain positive and see their condition as actually having a positive impact on their lives.

[anisia]

Lucky Man was excellent and I love how honest it was. He didn't try and make himself look good (in the early years I mean), he was completely honest about things. It was an amazing book.

I need to order Still Me and Always Looking Up, they've been on my TBR list for a while now. I haven't been able to find them at the English book shops here so I'll have to rely on the net.

[anisia]

Finished Lost Dogs and Lonely Hearts by Lucy Dillon.

Book Description (amazon.com):

When the abandoned strays from a local dogs

Edited January 17, 2010 by anisia

[anisia]

Finished "Help Yourself: How You Can Find Hope, Courage and Happiness" by Dave Pelzer.

 

Book Description (amazon.com)

How you can find hope, courage and happiness The Inspiring Conclusion to Dave Pelzer’s Life Story, which has been on the Sunday Times’ bestseller list for 15 weeks and counting! This inspiring conclusion to Dave Pelzer’s multi-million copy bestselling titles takes Dave’s story up to the present and for the first time offers the invaluable life lessons he learned along the way. A Child Called It, The Lost Boy, A Man Named Dave and Help Yourself have all been on the non-fiction bestsellers since UK publication. There should be a huge audience for this book in paperback. Dave Pelzer’s case of child abuse was one of the worst recorded cases in US history, yet he overcame his past to become the best he could be. Help Yourself weaves in stories from Pelzer’s own experiences with the principles he has discovered on how to survive difficulty and embrace challenges as an opportunity for growth.

 

Personal Note

The only reason why I read this book was because I’ve read Dave Pelzer’s books and I was curious about this one. I wasn’t disappointed, despite the fact that I don’t normally read these types of books. It’s an inspiring work that makes you see things different. It contained so many real life examples that I found it impossible not to remain with something by the end of it. It was worth the read, even though I’m still not a fan of the genre.

[anisia]

It

[poppyshake]

Happy Spring Mona yay!!

 

Don't get down on yourself for not being able to read much ... some months that's how it goes, something will probably click in to make you want to start reading more but just go with the flow.

You have some great books on your TBR pile .. so when you do feel like reading fiction again you've got some treats ahead of you.

Edited March 1, 2010 by poppyshake

[anisia]

Thank you and sorry my reply is well...I'd say late but this is an understatement I seem to have gotten my mojo back a bit especially with the book I currently finished!

 

Finished The Mummy at the Dining Room Table by Jeffrey A. Kottler & Jon Carlson

 

Book Description (amazon.com)

 

A wife pretends to hang herself in the basement so she can time how long it will be before her husband comes to rescue her. . . .a woman whose dead aunt was made into a mummy so the family could better grieve her passing and on occasion dine with her at family gatherings . . . a man wants his nose cut off to escape an annoying smell that haunts him . . . a teenage boy would only come to therapy if he could bring his pet snake

 

These and other fascinating and revealing stories are told by some of the most famous therapists in the world. Collected in this extraordinary book, well known practitioners recount the most memorable case histories of their illustrious careers. Engaging and surprising stories of human behavior are dramatically and often humorously portrayed. Each chapter gives a behind-the-scenes look at how therapists work with clients whose problems and behaviors aren’t found in standard psychology textbooks. The book also shows how these eminent therapists often cure these apparently intractable problems and learn something about themselves in the process.

Personal Note

I got the book as a recommendation from a couple of my teachers and I wasn’t disappointed at all. The therapy stories mentioned are incredible and you learn something from each one. You read stories that were told by some of the most famous therapists (Albert Ellis, Scott Miller or William Glasser to name a few) and it’s interesting to see what they faced, some at the beginning of their careers, including having to use some never before seen techniques in order to have progress with their client. Some of the stories had a bigger impact than others and I know the one that gives the title of this book is not one I’ll easily forget.

[anisia]

Finished True Tales of American Life by Paul Auster

 

Book Description (taken from Amazon)

True Tales of American Life is a collection derived from a project launched by Paul Auster on US National Public Radio. Auster credits his wife with the idea of having listeners send in their own short pieces of true-life writing, from which Auster would choose half a dozen to be read on air each week. But, for all the success of the radio programme, as Auster writes, “you can’t hold the words in your hands”. Here, then, is the fully “holdable” book. Auster has selected 179 pieces from the 4,000 plus he had received by October 2000. Split fairly evenly between male and female authors, with an age range of 20 to “pushing 90″, the collection revels in its multifariousness: the contributors include “a postman, a merchant seaman, a trolley-bus driver, a gas-and-electric-meter reader, a restorer of player pianos, a crime-scene cleaner”, and so on. The biographical detail is relevant because inevitably most of these true stories draw on the rawest of raw materials, the writers’ own experience.

 

Auster wanted “true stories that sounded like fiction”. In an age where talk shows (think Jerry Springer and Ricki Lake) demand that we tell our life stories as fiction–and encourage us to live our lives as fiction–it’s a particularly timely and potent meeting place of reality and art, or in Auster’s words, “an archive of facts, a museum of American reality” in fictional form. Unlike Auster, who regularly has to wade through 60 of these tales in a day to meet his weekly radio deadlines, the regular reader can dip in and out. And at a rate of, say, one story per day, this book will keep you fascinated with (and occasionally horrified at) American’s true life tales for just about six months.

 

Personal Note: As I’ve always been a bit fascinated with American Life/Culture, when I saw this book a while back I decided to get it, despite the big reading list I already had (and still have). It was a good choice and reading it was an interesting journey. Not all stories are spectacular, but they all have this “real” vibe to them. I think what I liked most was the fact that those writing the little stories were from absolutely all backgrounds, like the author writes, “a postman, a merchant seaman, a trolley-bus driver, a gas-and-electric-meter reader, a restorer of player pianos, a crime-scene cleaner etc”. They’re little stories that keep you interested, some sad, some funny, some very simple.

[poppyshake]

Great review Mona, Paul Auster's 'Mr Vertigo' is on my mental TBR list.

[anisia]

Thanks I always worry about posting my thoughts about books, cause I am completely anti-talent at it

I'll have to add some more Paul Auster on my TBR list.

[Susie]

Hi Mona!

I think I'm going to order Always Looking Up, Michael J. Fox.

I've always been a fan of his.

My Mother has Parkinson's too, but not nearly as severe as Michael.

 

I think you will really enjoy Still Life, by Joy Fielding.

[Janet]

My Dad has it too.

 

I really must buy Michael J Fox's first book.

[anisia]

Susie and Janet

 

The first Michael J. Fox book was very good, read it last year and it's why I added Always Looking Up on my list. I definitely recommend it.

 

I've been reading the Umberto Eco book, enjoying it a lot. It's a bit complicated to follow at times which makes reading slow but still interesting! I hope to be done with it this week.

[anisia]

Critical Injuries by Joan Barfoot

 

Book Description (amazon.com)

 

A brilliantly original and laceratingly funny novel about ordinary people thrown from the course of their lives by extraordinary events.

 

Isla at forty-nine is reveling in second chances. Her first marriage ended horrifically, but her career thrives. Her two grown children are still reverberating from the shock of their father’s actions, but she has hopes for their recovery. And she has found in Lyle, her second husband, a man she both loves and trusts.

 

Roddy is seventeen, restless and anxious to escape the confines of his small town. He and his best friend, dreaming of glittering, more glamorous city vistas, devise a plan that will deliver them there, and into the lives they have imagined. But in the moment of an ill-timed encounter, everything changes for both Isla and Roddy, and in the wake of that moment, each must reconstruct their lives on new and unexpected foundations.

Critical Injuries is a stunning achievement, a novel of catastrophe, of hope and forgiveness, and of tenuous flashes of grace.

 

Personal Note:

I wasn’t impressed by the book. I got halfway through it still wondering what the actual plot was. It felt as if I was reading two separate stories, and I didn’t understand where it was going. They initially intertwined, but then one chapter was Roddy’s, one chapter was Isla’s. It’s not a style I particularly like, and I was disappointed, especially because it seemed like a really interesting story when I chose the book.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

 

Book Description (amazon.com)

The Three Musketeers tells the story of the early adventures of the young Gascon gentleman, D’Artagnan and his three friends from the regiment of the King’s Musketeers – Athos, Porthos and Aramis. Under the watchful eye of their patron M. de Treville, the four defend the honour of the regiment against the guards of Cardinal Richelieu, and the honour of the queen against the machinations of the Cardinal himself as the power struggles of seventeenth century France are vividly played out in the background. But their most dangerous encounter is with the Cardinal’s spy, Milady, one of literature’s most memorable female villains, and Dumas employs all his fast-paced narrative skills to bring this enthralling novel to a breathtakingly gripping and dramatic conclusion.

Personal Note:

This is probably my all time favorite book, and if there’s any doubt, I should mention I had a collie who’s name was Athos, and I have another dog who’s name is Porthos. It’s a book I’ve read countless time and it never gets boring. The characters are so well written, the story is moving at the right pace, the plot is interesting. There really isn’t anything I didn’t like about this book. I got the same thrill reading it at 25, as I got when I first read it at 13 or 14.

Edited July 26, 2010 by anisia

[anisia]

Northern Lights by Philip Pullman

 

Book Description (amazon.co.uk)

 

Lyra’s life is already sufficiently interesting for a novel before she eavesdrops on a presentation by her uncle Lord Asriel to his colleagues in the Jordan College faculty, Oxford. The college, famed for its leadership in experimental theology, is funding Lord Asriel’s research into the heretical possibility of the existence of worlds unlike Lyra’s own, where everyone is born with a familiar animal companion, magic of a kind works, the Tartars are threatening to overrun Muscovy, and the Pope is a puritanical Protestant. Set in an England familiar and strange, Philip Pullman’s lively, taut story is a must-read and re-read for fantasy lovers of all ages. The world-building is outstanding, from the subtle hints of the 1898 Tokay to odd quirks of language to the panserbjorne, while determined, clever Lyra is strongly reminiscent of Joan Aiken’s Dido Twite.

 

 

Personal Note

I’ve been meaning to read this for many years. First in a trilogy, I enjoyed the book a lot and definitely regretted it took me so long to start it. It’s fast paced, packed with action and has an ending that makes you want to start the next book immediately. The characters are pretty well developed, although in some cases I would have liked more. Overall, I liked the book a lot.

[Chrissy]

I love this trilogy! The next two will really take you places too. Have you got 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass' ?

[anisia]

I love this trilogy! The next two will really take you places too. Have you got 'The Subtle Knife' and 'The Amber Spyglass' ?

Yes, I have them both My friend, with whom I stayed for two days when I got here, gave me the whole trilogy to read when I told her I didn't bring any books with me. Already started the second one

[Weave]

Happy reading Mona

[anisia]

Thank you!!!

[anisia]

The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman

 

Book Description (amazon.co.uk)

 

“What is he? A friend, or an enemy?” “He is a murderer.” Will has just killed a man. He’s on the run. His escape will take him fa beyond his own world, to the eerie disquiet of a deserted city and to a girl, Lyra. Her fate is strangely linked to his own, and together they must find the most powerful weapon in all the word.

 

Personal Note

While I did enjoy the first volume of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy more, the second volume was very good! I didn’t think it could be even more fast paced than the first one, but it is. While the story follows quite a few characters in separate chapters, it’s easy to follow and the the story lines mix by the end very well. I will for sure read the third book too.

[anisia]

Tell me Why, Mummy by David Thomas

 

Book Description (amazon.co.uk)

The inspirational true story of one man overcoming enormous odds including sexual abuse from his alcoholic mother to choose his own path in life and become a truly exceptional human being. From the age of four David was sexually abused by his alcoholic mother. He didn't understand, but he didn't have a choice. Then one day it got much worse: his stepfather turned on him, too. The beatings always started when his mother left the house. But if the violence was terrible the betrayal was even more shattering: David's mother knew but did nothing to stop it. As the nightmare of his life grew worse, David turned to petty crime. For the first time he felt powerful and in control. But deep down he knew it would destroy him. Then, one night, he saw a programme on TV that changed everything. It sparked the life-long passion that would free him from his past and make his future worth living for. A heartbreaking story of abuse, betrayal and ultimate redemption.

 

Personal Note

It's a tragic read, as the description obviously shows but I'll be honest and say I didn't really get into the book. The reason I picked it up was because I had read Dave Pelzer's books and I do find him incredibly inspiring. I thought this would give me a similar feeling, besides other horrible emotions you go through while reading these kinds of books. But for some reason I felt a bit detached from the story and I struggled reading it.

Edited September 26, 2010 by anisia