Howling Frog Books

This year I cut way back on the challenges, and then I just about didn't keep track of the ones I did have going.  I know I hit my goals, but I can't prove it.  The only one I officially finished was Adam's TBR Pile Challenge, which is being retired: Not sure I ever got the right graphic... Map Drawn By a Spy, by Guillermo Cabrera Infante (Cuba) The Green Roads of England, by Hippisley-Cox The World of Odysseus, by M. I. Finley How We Survived Communism and Even Laughed, by Drakulic Wife of the Gods, by Kwei Quartey (Ghana) Pageants of Despair, by Dennis Hamley (this is a children's book??) The Way to the Sea, by Caroline Crampton Ransom for a Knight, by Barbara Leonie Picard The High Book of the Grail (Perlesvaus), ed. Nigel Bryant How Democracies Die, by Levitsky and Ziblatt Samson's Hoard, by John Verney Hippolyte's Island, by Barbara Hodgson Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Red Famine, by Anne Applebaum    I definitely hit my goals for Bev's two T

I took a look at my reading for this year, and there was a definite trend.  I tended to do two things: I either read difficult and depressing books about politics, or I hid in comfort reads.  If there was a Nancy Drew on the donation table, I took it home.  I read a simply incredible number of fluffy mysteries, which meant that there wasn't as much to blog about, even if I'd been keeping up my former writing rate, which I certainly was not.  Of course I read other things too, but ambition, international reads, or classics were pretty thin on the ground.  I don't feel bad about it or anything; I just noticed it when I looked at my Goodreads list.  (My goal for the year was 170 books, and I passed 200, but a hefty percentage of that list involved titles like Three Investigators and so on.) This month I've been in the mood for a lot of Christmas reading.  Not much new, just a bunch of old and easy favorites. I'm a bit late to get very detailed, so here's a quick li

 It's nothing but fun around here, as you can see by these very cheery selections.  Maybe I should try to read heartwarming Christmas tales for a bit?   Sexy But Psycho: How the Patriarchy Uses Women's Trauma Against Them , by Dr Jessica Taylor:   This is a UK book, and focuses on UK practices, though it's still relevant to the US.  But just so you know, she uses a lot of NHS terminology that I didn't understand at first, such as sectioning , which seems to be holding a patient for psychiatric reasons without their consent.  Anyway... Taylor's theme is that she has seen way too many women shoved into psychiatric diagnoses and  medication because they were upset about the abuse that they had suffered.  Say you get a teen girl who has been through some horrific abuse, and instead of receiving therapy and advocacy, she is told that she is making a lot of it up and has BPD.  Her distress is interpreted as mental illness instead of a normal person's reaction to terr

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, by L. Frank Baum   It's such a long time since I read this story, but I remember all the illustrations so well!  I must have read it many times as a kid. I think we all know the story, so I won't repeat it, except to point out that there is about three times as much material in the book as there is in the movie.  I'm not a huge fan of the movie -- I didn't grow up on it like so many people did -- so I won't say a lot about it either.  But Baum puts in a whole lot of hazards and side-trips that couldn't fit in the film version! L. Frank Baum was wanting to write an imaginative, fairy-tale type of story for the new America.  Forget all those princes and princesses, and especially all the violence, death, and heavy-duty moralizing of 19th-century children's literature!  This was going to be a fun, quirky story for a vigorous, expanding America, and it was going to star some familiar sights for an American child, like scarecrows, far

It's Spin day!  I finished my book in good time, and it was a very interesting read.   Boswell's London Journal, 1762 - 1763, by James Boswell, ed Frederick A. Pottle James Boswell was the son of the laird of Auchinleck, and he was on the outs with his father.  Lord Auchinleck wanted his son to study law and generally act like a responsible adult, and James wanted to live an exciting life in London, maybe join the Guards -- as long as he didn't have to actually leave London and do anything military -- hang out with literary types, and write poetry.  So they made a deal: Jamie's dad gave him an allowance that was enough to live on as a gentleman, but not enough for living large, and let him spend some time in London to see how he liked it.  (This was pretty nice of Dad, considering that a couple of years before, young Jamie had announced a desire to become a Catholic monk and then ran off to London for a few months of serious debauchery.  The Laird must have been pretty

 Here's some more November reading!  I'm thinking about going back to single-book posts, but on the other hand I'm having trouble finding time to write even these quickie riffles through several books at a time.  What do you think?     The Canceling of the American Mind: Cancel Culture Undermines Trust and Threatens Us All -- But There is a Solution , by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott:   I've been looking forward to this book for a long time!  The title is a riff on Lukianoff's last book, co-written with Jonathan Haidt, and the two titles work together.  This time, Lukianoff is teamed up with a Gen Z writer, Rikki Schlott, to bring in a younger perspective.  The thesis here: that cancel culture (which yes, exists) is a manifestation of false ideas discussed in the earlier book, and which serve to make us less mentally healthy and less able to function as a society.  The ideas: Fragility: that people are fragile and need comfort; they cannot withstand discomfort,

 Lory over at the Enchanted Castle has had a fun idea: reading all 14 Oz books from December 2023 - January 2025 .  If you can't take that much Oz, the first six are the main titles and you can just read those. I remember reading many of the Oz books when I was a kid, including several of the later titles.  But I haven't read them at all since then (except of course the first one, which I aloud to my kids).  So it would be quite interesting to do an adult readalong and see how they hold up and what I missed before.  I had no idea that Baum was making fun of General Jinjer, for example; I thought she was great. So I'm going to do it and read at least the first six books.  We'll see how it goes! First up!

 I'm working on that pile!  Here are three of my pile books, plus two quick reads I stuck in around the edges. Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter , by Katharine Coldiron -- This book was just a delight to me, but then it was written by somebody who likes many of the same terrible movies I do but is much more knowledgeable than I am.  The first third of the book is dedicated to a monograph of Plan 9 From Outer Space and what makes it so interesting as a terrible movie.  Wonderful!  She talks about a failed TV show called Cop Rock in which somebody mashed a serious procedural cop show with a musical -- "I promise this is true."  Coldiron gets into literature and compares Irene Iddesleigh with Sean Penn's novels.  She explains why a low-budget 70s horror film called Death Bed is actually pretty good.  I loved it. If you like bad movies, this is a great book for you.  Others possibly not so much.     How Democracies Die , by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt -- This

First off, happy Halloween!  Happy Witch Week!!  I hope everything is suitably spooky in your neighborhood. Wow, I feel like I've done quite a bit of reading lately....but what I have not done is finish anything much.  I think I am 30 - 50% through ten or so books!  There are books all over my coffee table; it's a disaster. How Democracies Die, by Levitsky and Ziblatt  I Served the Kind of England, by Bohumil Hrabal The Cancelling of the American Mind, by Greg Lukianoff and Rikki Schlott Overreach, by Owen Matthews (oh my gosh so heavy-duty) The Lost 116 Pages, by Don Bradley A Land, by Janetta Hawkes Sexy but Psycho, by Dr Jessica Taylor  (fascinating and I think goes a bit too far) London Diary, by James Boswell  (why yes he has picked up an STD, again) Les Miserables, by Victor Hugo Junk Film: Why Bad Movies Matter, by Katharine Coldiron  (I love this book) So, I'm in kind of a ridiculous place right now.  But here are the three books I've managed to actually finis

   Number 2! This gives me Boswell's London Diary , which on the one hand -- yay, I get to read about London!  and on the other -- how many brothels do you suppose he will visit, and in how much detail?  If this turns out to be nothing but a list of exploited girls, I'm going to be disappointed.  I hope he does something else with his time.  We'll find out! What book did you get?          

 Here are some titles from my official TBR list that I just haven't written about yet!  Mexican Gothic, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia : I saved this one for October, for an official RIP read.  And wow, this is a spooky story!  It's the 1950s, and Noem í is a debutante out for a good time in Mexico City.  Her father sends her down to the countryside to check on her cousin Catalina, who married last year in a romantic whirl.  Noem í arrives at a classic Gothic scene: a mouldering family mansion on a misty mountain, and....this is a strange place.  The silver mine that gave the Doyle family their wealth has been closed down for years, the house is festooned with mold, and everyone is very strange.  Catalina seems to be ill.  Her husband Virgil is creepy, but not as creepy as his elderly father is.  Just one family member, Francis, seems friendly, if shy and something of a weak character.  As Noemi unravels the dark family history and the secrets of the house, we wonder if she and Catal

Well, the world is on fire and I'm deeply upset about it, but this is not a blog about world events and politics, so let's escape for a bit with some books for the younger crowd....    Temple Alley Summer, by Sachiko Kashiwaba : This is a charming middle-grade novel translated from the Japanese.  Kazu lives in a big old house in an old neighborhood, and one night he sees a girl in a white kimono walk through.  The next day she is in his class -- and she has always been there.  Everyone but Kazu has known her for years.  And then he learns that his street used to be called Kimyo Temple Street, which implies that people can be brought back to life.  This is going to be a summer of adventure for Kazu and Akari, as they become friends and figure out what's going on. This is an unusual story, and I enjoyed it a lot.  It won the Batchelder award for translated literature.   The Last Cuentista, by Donna Barba Higuera : Petra Peña lives in New Mexico and wants to be a storyteller,

 It's the 35th Classics Club Spin !  You know the rules.  The number will be announced this Sunday and we'll have until December 3rd to read the chosen book.  Here's the list: The Well at the End of the World, by William Morris Diary of London, by Boswell It is Acceptable (Det Gaar An), C. J. L. Almqvist  Two Years Before the Mast, by Richard Henry Dana  Amerika, by Kafka Peter the Great's African, by Pushkin No Name, by Wilkie Collins The Black Arrow, by R. L. Stevenson Ring of Bright Water, by Gavin Maxwell The Tale of Sinhue (ancient Egyptian poetry)   I Served the King of England, by Bohumil Hrabal   Phineas Finn, by Anthony Trollope It Can't Happen Here, by Sinclair Lewis Revelations of Divine Love, by Julian of Norwich Conjure Tales, by Charles Chesnutt The Duchess of Malfi, by John Webster Rob Roy, by Sir Walter Scott Second-Class Citizen, by Buchi Emecheta Sybil, by Disraeli The Leopard, by di Lampedusa I think I'd quite like to read The Black Arrow, bu

 I'm way behind on documenting my reading in September, but here are two books that go together.  In our family, we love the 90s TV show Babylon 5 .  We especially love Lyta Alexander!  So a while back my husband got me the actress' memoir, and then I thought I ought to follow it up with another one.... Pleasure Thresholds: Patricia Tallman's Babylon 5 Memoir, 2020 edition, by Patricia Tallman : While there is plenty of Babylon 5 in here, I would not at all call it a B5 memoir, because it covers her whole life.  From a difficult childhood to work as a stuntwoman (especially on Star Trek ), a wobbly beginning on Babylon 5 , and life after that, and happily with lots of photos, Tallman talks about her experiences, difficulties, friends, and life with her son.  It's highly readable and a lot of fun, and (this is my preference) lacks snipy Hollywood gossip. Instead there are lovely stories about various co-stars and friends, and an abundance of snapshots of people in and

 These are some bonus books I read in August.  They don't fulfill a single thing on my lists; they are not from other countries, or on my TBR piles, or anything; I just felt like reading them, which is the best reason of all.   The Way Home, by Peter S. Beagle: A short story and a novella set in the world of The Last Unicorn .  I only just got around to reading that, so I thought these would be good to read too.  They are both about Sooz, a little village girl.  In "Two Hearts," a griffin comes to terrorize the village, and eats not only sheep, but children.  Any knights who challenge it are killed, and Sooz sets off to see the king to convince him to come himself.  On the way, she meets Schmendrick and Molly Grue, and sees the king...who is Lir, now grown old and feeble.  Or is he?  Perhaps he's the only one who can challenge the griffin....and Molly tells Sooz to whistle a certain tune on her 17th birthday. In "The Way Home," Sooz keeps the 17th birthday