Holiday Reading List and Other Rambling Thoughts

Well, I kicked off the "holiday reading" list as of the first day of Advent with the book
The Gift of Hope: Advent and Christmas Reflections in the Holy Cross Tradition. The guy at the local Catholic Book Store (DeSales!) assured me that this was his favorite advent companion. I had gone in to look for an Advent Wreath that I had my eye on several years back... but, not surprisingly, they no longer had that specific one. Instead, I was forced to purchase a bunch of books (how cruel these bookstores are) -- including this one. I had intended to purchase an Advent companion at some point and this one looked like a likely candidate.

I'm enjoying it; it's a good daily reminder of the season, and each reading takes about half a minute. In fact, they're almost a little too short -- I finish reading almost before I've totally got in the mood to read, and then I'm tempted to read ahead a few days and have to stop myself... So I really wind up re-reading the day's entry twice or three times, to make sure I've got the gist of it. I'll post a review once I've finished the thing.

So far, the handful of books that I've got on my holiday reading list are as follows:

1. Gift of Hope: Advent and Christmas Reflections in the Holy Cross Tradition - By Andrew Gawrych

2.The Man Who Invented Christmas: How Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol Rescued His Career and Revived Our Holiday Spirits - By Les Standiford

3. The Stories Behind the Great Traditions of Christmas -- By Ace Collins

4. The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus - By L. Frank Baum

5. An Unknown Christmas Mystery -- By Mary Higgins Clark

(No, that's not really the title for #5. I bought that book the other day, set it on my shelf... and absolutely can't remember what it's called. I even tried looking it up online (thinking she must only have a limited number of Christmas mysteries and therefore I could surely figure it out by process of elimination), and failed. All I know for certain is that it's not The Christmas Thief -- 'cause I read that one last year. OH WELL! I will tell you what book it is in a different blog entry.)

It's not a very long list this year... but I'm trying to be realistic about how much time I have, how fast I read, and trying very hard not to do unseasonal reading. (I am much annoyed that I had to read Jan Karon's Shepherds Abiding earlier this year. I had to read it then because it was the next chronological book in the series and I was eager to get along with that -- but then, too late, discovered that it was a Christmas story! I'm kind of cheesed about that right now because I'm very much in the mood to read a Mitford novel, but I've officially run out of them at this point. I could read Home to Holly Springs, but I tried that a month or so ago and so far I'm just not getting into it. Perhaps I'll re-read At Home in Mitford -- that one was the best!) -- Mrs. Hall

The Only Time I Will Ever Mention Kanye West in This Blog

Here's an article I'd like to direct you to -- "Live Your Life" - by Dave Cowen. Normally I don't read things from The New Yorker (I find said publication a touch... pretentious), but this article, pointed out by a facebook friend, is amusing. It's an essay by an author who appears to have been somewhat piqued by Kanye West's recent remarks on reading: "I am not a fan of books. I would never want a book’s autograph. I am a proud non-reader of books. I like to get information from doing stuff like actually talking to people and living real life."

Mr. Cowen does a good job of addressing the situation; however, I'd like to point out (in case you miss it) that Kanye made these remarks while promoting his new book.

As a side note, I don't think Mr. Cowen addresses Kanye's assertion that he "would never want a book's autograph." I, personally, would like a book's autograph as normally books do not have a consciousness of self (nor, indeed, any way of holding a pen) and therefore getting a book's autograph would be quite remarkable.

On an unrelated note: Dictionary.com released its list of the top searched-for words of '09. I'm glad that the term Callipygian finally made some well-deserved gains this year, although I find it a little sinister that a significant number of people had to look up a definition for the word "love." -- Mrs. Hall

One More Christie Down

I finished reading Lord Edgware Dies. It was a quick-moving, entertaining book, and as far as Christie books go, I can recommend it. It wasn't the best Agatha Christie novel I've read (that would be Ten Little Indians) -- but it was infinitely better than her later endeavor, By the Pricking of my Thumbs (which, after four long months, I am still struggling to finish).

For Hercule Poirot, this brings me up to one that I've been hugely anticipating -- Murder on the Orient Express! Who hasn't heard of this book? Even non-Christie fans, even non-MYSTERY fans have heard of Murder on the Orient Express. I'm not only excited to read it -- but excited that, after having read it, I'll be open to watching the movie!

I've also started my next The Cat Who... book, which happens to be The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts. It sounds intriguing -- which is a problem, since (as ever) I have two review books that I should be reading... -- Mrs. Hall

So Much for Seasonal Reading

I have begun to plan my holiday reading -- but I'm not going to talk about it yet, because I refuse to give in to the forces that would have us begin celebrating Christmas BEFORE HALLOWEEN. Yes, I do go with the Ebeneezer Scrooge philosophy of "keeping Christmas in my heart, and trying to keep it all the year" -- but I'm drawing the line at reading Christmas books or putting up the tree any time soon. There are twelve whole days of Christmas (starting December 24th) -- why celebrate yourself out during November so that when it's REALLY Christmas you're tired of celebrating?

I did attempt to do some Halloween reading this year. Unfortunately, I didn't read the The Cat Who...books fast enough to have Halloween coincide with The Cat Who Talked to Ghosts: but I did pick up a book of supposedly spooky Daphne du Marier short stories: Daphne Du Maurier's Classics of the Macabre. Unfortunately, I can't really post a review of this book -- because I wound up only reading one story from it, Don't Look Now. It began promisingly enough, but the ending was a bit of a fizzle... Then I began reading the next story, which I think was called The Apple Tree -- and was fairly interesting, but didn't hold me enough to keep me reading the book. Back to the library went Classics of the Macabre. So much for seasonal reading! -- Mrs. Hall

Okay... an official FAIL

Remember my short little rant about not being able to find Lord Edgware Dies?

That day, I received a notice that a library reserve book had come in for me. I went and picked it up -- and it was Lord Edgware Dies.

Never mind that I don't remember placing this hold. (It wouldn't be the first time I completely blanked on something like that.)

But it did lead me to suspect that I confused Lord Edgware with a different Agatha Christie book that I can't find, because I clearly recall searching all my normal book venues for a particular Agatha Christie book and not finding it... The question is, What Book Would That Be? It's not the next Miss Marple, as I see the Library certainly has that (They Do it With Mirrors). Now I have no idea what book I was so upset about not being able to find.

Regardless, I have chalked up an official blog fail. Unfortunately, there wasn't a camera handy (to take a picture of my face when I saw what book was being held on reserve for me) so that I would have something to offer to FailBlog. -- Mrs. Hall

I Can't Find "Lord Edgware Dies"

Here's a mystery for you: how come I absolutely can't find the next Hercule Poirot mystery, Lord Edgware Dies? Bookstores don't have it. The library doesn't have it. Other libraries don't have it.

That's what Wikipedia lists as the next book in the Hercule Poirot series. I'm trying to read them in order (order of series, not chronological-by-release-date order).

But nobody has it! So I'm stymied. -- Mrs. Hall

My 2008 Book List

Just for the heck of it (and to find a good place to store it, since I'm taking it down off my Librarything profile) -- here's my 2008 reading list... Somewhat color coded. Green for Jan Karon, dark orange for James Herriot, and red for Agatha Christie (not because there's a lot of her -- just because I wanted to point out I only read one of her books last year). And so on.

44. Boomtown - Nowen N. Particular
43. Catering to Nobody -- Diane Mott Davidson
42. Ocean Wide, Ocean Deep -- Susan Lendroth
41. Whose Body?-- Dorothy Sayers
40. A Bear Called Paddington -- Michael Bond
39. The Cereal Murders -- Diane Mott Davidson
38. Holding Fast: The Untold Story of the Mt. Hood Tragedy -- Karen James
37. In This Mountain -- Jan Karon
36. The Mitford Snowmen -- Jan Karon
35. A Christmas Story -- Jean Shepherd
34. Bell, Book and Scandal -- Jill Churchill
33. Garcia Marquez in 90 Minutes -- Paul Strathern
32. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice -- Laurie King
31. Mistletoe Murder -- Leslie Meier
30. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- Mark Haddon
29. All Things Wise and Wonderful -- James Herriot
28. Christmas Cookie Murder -- Leslie Meier
27. "A" is for Alibi -- Sue Grafton
26. The Leprechaun's Kingdom -- Peter Haining
25. The Gift of Peace -- Cardinal Joseph Bernadin
24. Pissing in the Snow & Other Ozark Folktales -- Vance Randolph
23. All Things Bright and Beautiful -- James Herriot
22. The Pleasure of My Company -- Steve Martin
21. Murder at Hazelmoor -- Agatha Christie
20. A Common Life -- Jan Karon
19. A New Song -- Jan Karon
18. Home Sweet Rome -- Scott Hahn
17. Out to Canaan -- Jan Karon
16. The Annotated Alice -- Lewis Carrol
15. All Creatures Great and Small -- James Herriot
14. Songs for the Missing -- Stewart O'Nan
13. An Autumn Sowing -- E.F. Benson
12. Little Altars Everywhere -- Rebecca Wells
11. The Canterbury Tales -- Geoffrey Chaucer
10. The Strange Case of Doctor Jekyll and Mr. Hyde -- Robert Lewis Stevenson
9. Eats, Shoots and Leaves -- Lynne Truss
8. Catcher in the Rye -- J.D. Salinger
7. The Great Gatsby -- F. Scott Fitzgerald
6. The Seven Storey Mountain -- Thomas Merton
5. A Light In The Window -- Jan Karon
4. These High, Green Hills -- Jan Karon
3. Eleanor Roosevelt: A Public and Private Life -- J. William
2. Padre Pio: In My Own Words -- Padre Pio (St. Pio)
1. The Thin Man -- Dashiel Hammett

The thing that immediately becomes apparent from this list is that last year I had a whole lot more variety in my reading last year -- and that Jan Karon and James Herriot were the only real "repeat" authors of the year. This was due to the fact that I was very desperately missing small-town life at the time... Upon moving back to Missouri (not necessarily to a small town, but to a town considerably smaller than Chicago) this intense need slackened a bit. Of course, I also ran out of Jan Karon novels, but I still have like three James Herriot books to read and they're just sitting untouched on my shelf.

My favorite books of 2008 are definitely: The Seven Storey Mountain, Eats, Shoots and Leaves, and The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.

Runners up (which nonetheless had problems) are: The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Songs for the Missing, and Canterbury Tales. Beekeeper's wound up good in spite of taking a while to get going, and having a sort of dull spot in the middle. Songs for the Missing was really well-written, with a lot of very vivid emotional imagery which sticks with me to this day -- but there was such a lack of a moral in that book. Well, not so much a "moral" perhaps as a point. The book just flat out told the story of this girl's kidnapping and how her family reacted -- and that's all. The End. It was kind of like being dropped into another person's mind and getting to experience their life during this really difficult time -- and then just being plucked out again, without being told why you were put there in the first place. As for Canterbury; well, the problem was that it was in old-timey talk and therefore took a certain amount of concentration just to make sense of what was being said. It lifts itself above the crowd, though, by being unexpectedly funny, bawdy and entertaining.

LEAST favorite books of 2008: The Great Gatsby, Holding Fast and Boomtown. Gatsby I hated because it was about horrible people living horrible lives. Holding Fast, I disliked more and more upon reflection. Boomtown was simply disappointingly put-together -- it was a children's book all about acceptance, at the end of which the main character completely fails to be accepting.

I'll sum-up favorites, least favorites and runners-up of this year at the end of 2009, or early 2010. -- Mrs. Hall