Howling Frog Books

Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances , by Neil Gaiman Fun fact: I am reading two different books titled Trigger Warning at the same time.  The other one is about free speech, and (also) written by a Brit. I'm a Gaiman fan, and there's nothing not to love about this latest collection of short stories with a few scattered poems.  They are just what you want in a Gaiman collection--creepy or unsettling or fun stories.  One is a Doctor Who story; one features an elderly Sherlock Holmes.  One or two or three are takeoffs on familiar fairy tales. They're all good. So, happy new year, everybody!  May 2016 be filled with great books and fun blogging discussions for all of us.  Not to mention peace on earth, good will towards men.  This is also my 6th blogiversary, so I'm entering my 7th year of blogging.  Seven is a lucky number, right?  So I'll aim for a really excellent year. :)

The Statues That Walked: Unraveling the Mystery of Easter Island, by Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo Short version: this is a fantastically interesting book.  Read it! Easter Island (aka Rapa Nui) is so famous that you would think that exhaustive archaeology work has already been done, and that everybody has a pretty good idea of what Rapanui society was like before the modern era.  NOT SO.  Instead, everybody has been depending on a hodgepodge of a narrative that postulated a society run by power-hungry kings presiding over warring tribes who committed "ecocide" in their insatiable desire for ever more statues, leaving Rapa Nui devastated.  Jared Diamond used this narrative as a dire warning in his famous 2011 book Collapse (which I have not read).  He was also completely wrong. Hunt and Lipo were running some minor archaeological studies in the early 2000s, and they weren't actually after the moai at first; they were looking for some other things, and they ex...

Goodreads has been a big help to me in figuring out what I read this year and what the best parts were.  I'm very good at forgetting these things, but looking at a chart helps.  Here are my highlights of 2015 reading--- New authors: So many!  This year was the first time I read Robert Heinlein.  I met a bunch of Eastern European authors I didn't know: Karel Capek, Bruno Schulz, Bohumil Hrabal.  I read my first Wallace Stegner novel!  I finally read the excellent historian, Anne Applebaum.  I met several others, including Miles Franklin and Thomas Mofolo.  Lots of people, really. I failed at some things this year, too.   I discovered that Henry James' The Wings of the Dove is well-nigh unreadable for me, and that Marxist interpretations of the slave-owning South in Roll, Jordan, Roll are not my cup of tea.  It also turns out that I can't read Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow .  (Funny: I happened upon a Classics Club survey from t...

Here's a rundown of my plans for 2016, in which I tried, as always, to not sign up for ten-plus challenges.  I think I mostly succeeded.  I'm going to have to prioritize my Classics Club list!  Looking forward to a fun year of reading with you all as company. :) January Event: Vintage Science Fiction, hosted by the Little Red Reviewer. I've got a pile all ready to go--a couple of Heinlein, an Asimov I haven't read in 20 years, a new translation of Roadside Picnic , and an Ursula K. LeGuin I've never read (I never did get into her books).  Looking forward to it! Classics Club, hosted by The Classics Club I've only got a year and three months left before my deadline, and about 35 books still to go, mostly difficult ones!  Oh no!!  I'm going to try to focus on this one in 2016.  The CC is also hosting a special women's event for 2016. Back to the Classics, hosted by Karen at Books and Chocolate. I haven't chosen any titles to fit t...

So how did I do this year with my challenges?  Let's take a look. The Classics Club: I read something around 27 titles from my CC list!  But I have 35 left to go. o's Reading England 2015 Challenge : I read 25 books in 23 counties. Pretty good! The Journey Through Wales and Description of Wales, by Gerald of Wales (Herefordshire) Agnes Grey , by Anne Bronte (Yorkshire) Sister of the Angels , by Elizabeth Goudge (Somerset) To Say Nothing of the Dog, by Connie Willis (Warwickshire)  Three Men in a Boat, by Jerome K. Jerome (Berkshire)  Little Dorrit, by Charles Dickens (London)  The Last Chronicle of Barset, by Anthony Trollope (Wiltshire)  King Lear, by William Shakespeare (Gloucestershire) Henry V, by William Shakespeare (Hampshire) Dr. Wortle's School, by Anthony Trollope (Northamptonshire) The Dean's Watch, by Elizabeth Goudge (Cambridgeshire) Can You Forgive Her? by Anthony Trollope (Rutland)  Poetry by Wordswor...

 OK, I still have four books on my pile and no time, so I declare a mini-review post.   The Old Wives' Club , by Arnold Bennett Two sisters, young in the mid-Victorian era--their lives diverge for many years.  One stays at home, marries the assistant, and has a small family.  The other makes a runaway marriage and lives in Paris for 30 years.  In their later years, they reunite. Lots of realism here--Bennett was an Edwardian with no interest in conveying a message or finding meaning in his novel.  The sisters live their lives and wonder what it was all for. I do like this novel for its mention of fancy clothing for children!  What we now call heirloom sewing--a hobby of mine, and a particularly oddball one--gets a whole page pointing out that it is really kind of ludicrous.  I cannot disagree; in fact, the first time I saw an heirloom sewing magazine, my thought was "how incredibly impractical!"--and then I got hooked anyway. This book ...

O at Behold the Stars is continuing her Reading England Challenge next year, with some new twists and twiddles added.  Head on over there to check out the options and the rules--it's so long that I'm not going to quote her. I've enjoyed participating this year, but I probably read too many--over 20 titles!  I'm going to pull back and only read a few books this time, and I'll try to find ones from counties I haven't already done. PS I still wish somebody would do this with another country!