Peg Kerr's Journal

Jesse Galef, one half of "the world's #1 brother-sister blog about rationality, science, and philosophy" has compiled a list of what each Hogwarts house might read, here.

Includes booklists, with nice pictures of each House's bookshelf.

From the BBC: The fourth Harry Potter novel and David Beckham's autobiography are among the books least likely to be finished by Britons, according to a survey. Booker winner Vernon God Little was the least-finished fiction title, followed by Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Autobiographies by David Blunkett, Bill Clinton and David Beckham topped the non-fiction unfinished list.

A Teletext survey of 4,000 Britons found that almost half of the books they bought remained unfinished.

Some 35% of those who bought or borrowed Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre's story of a US high school massacre, admitted not finishing it.

The figure was 32% for the fourth instalment in the Harry Potter series, while 28% said the same for James Joyce's Ulysses, third on the list.

UNFINISHED FICTION
1 Vernon God Little, DBC Pierre
2 Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
3 Ulysses, James Joyce
4 Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis De Bernieres
5 Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell
6 The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
7 The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
8 War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
9 The God of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
10 Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky

Read the rest here.

Some of the comments from the survey are also pretty funny.

1. An Infamous Army by Georgette Heyer. This was a first time read, one of the books I acquired from my holiday wish list.

2. Faro's Daughter by Georgette Heyer. Re-read.

3. Duplicate Death by Georgette Heyer. First time read. Acquired this copy from sraun, thanks, Scott!

4. By the Great Horn Spoon! by Sid Fleischman. This was the book I have been reading aloud to the girls; they enjoyed it greatly.

5. Jane and the Unpleasantness at the Scargrave Manor by Stephanie Barron. Re-read. I just introduced this series to Kij, and she likes them, which pleases me.

6. Jane and the Man of the Cloth by Stephanie Barron. Re-read.

I am reading the third in the series, and will probably gallop through till the end and so will report then next month.

Comfort reading this month, I see. Badly needed.

Jane and the Ghosts of Netley by Stephanie Barron. First time read, although I've read all the others in this series. I WANT TO READ THE NEXT ONE RIGHT NOW. Ahem. In paperback. Too cheap to spring for hardback. But seriously, I do like this series, and will keep buying it. The ending packed an emotional punch.

The Virgin Queen: Elizabeth I, Genius of the Golden Age by Christopher Hibbert. Grabbed from my mother-in-law's shelf because I ran out of books on vacation. Pretty good, although heaven knows I've read books about Elizabeth before. But she had such an interesting life, multiple takes on it are welcome.

Book of Isaac by Margaret Frazier. First time read. A spin-off series starting with Joliffe as the protagonist (a secondary character in the Dame Frevisse mysteries). I liked it, although I like the Dame Frevisse books a bit better, since I like Frevisse so well, and feel more points of connection with her as a P-O-V character (sometimes too smart for her own good, drawn to religion yet painfully aware that it doesn't come easily to her).

Swiss Family Robinson, by Johann Wyss. Re-read. Didn't get the translator's name before returning it to the library, sorry. This was NOTHING like the translation I remember from my childhood. Was irritated by the truncations. I couldn't get Fiona to read it (it was a library book) but hope to get her to check it out again. A better translation though, hopefully.

Silverlock by John Myers Myers. Re-read. I already mentioned the Anglo-Saxon Ballad of Bowie Gizzard-Bane. But dammit, I wanted some truly developed female characters. Becky Sharp didn't hang around long enough. *sigh*

Treasure at the Heart of the Tanglewood by Meredith Ann Pierce. Re-read. I'm sure glad you introduced me to this one, sdn; I will probably have this one in my favorites rotation.

Girls Will Be Girls: Raising Confident and Courageous Daughters by Joann Deak with Teresa Barker. First time read. Advice to parent stuff. Useful. A loan from kiramartin.

Elfquest: Vols. 1-9. Re-read. God, it's been years since I've read these. Introduced them to Fiona, and now Delia's reading them, too.

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross. First time read. Another loan from kiramartin. I have mixed feelings about this one. The Pope Joan legend is intriguing--although I don't believe it is true, yet I wanted to suspend my disbelief while reading it. I mean, if it were true, what a story! But Joan seemed so modern in her mindset (in the ninth century) that it was difficult to keep that suspension of disbelief. I think Frazier does perhaps a better job of helping us to understand how really alien the 14th century mindset is, and here Cross is trying to evoke the 9th century. Still, a very interesting tale.

Even though she had to drag the guy love interest in. *Sigh* I suppose it was inevitable.

Hey, that's a lot of reading for one month for me, considering my schedule. Go me.

Freedom's Gate by naomikritzer. Fun. I will gladly read the next. First time read.

Merchant of Venus by Ellen Hart. First-time read.

The Grand Tour : Being a Revelation of Matters of High Confidentiality and Greatest Importance, Including Extracts from the Intimate Diary of a Noblewoman and the Sworn Testimony of a Lady of Quality by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer (1crowdedhour). Re-read. This is the book that I've been reading aloud to the girls for months; we finally finished it.

This list is so short that I wonder whether I missed noting any books finished in my (paper) journal, but I can't think of any others for June.

Very, very short list this month. I'm embarrassed:

Thomas Shippey J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century. I heard Phil Kaveny remark at Minicon that this book was the best piece of literary criticism he'd read all year, which was why he picked it up.

It was the best piece of literary criticism I'd read all year.

Neil Gaiman Sandman: Seasons of Mist. Yes, I want to keep reading them.

Naomi Kritzer Turning the Storm This is the sequel to the book I blurbed, Fires of the Faithful. I'm pleased to see that she finished off the story quite well. The character of Giavonni quite grew on me. Ever since reading Cyrano de Bergerac I've been a sucker for stories of silent, unrequited love.

Nancy Atherton Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday

Well, at least all of these were all new reads. But so few books to show for the month Tsk, tsk, Peg. Am now reading Kushner and Sherman's Fall of the Kings That will be on next month's list.

Peg

This month was devoted, to a large extent, to old favorites comfort reading. I think that this was a pretty transparent attempt to cope with war news stress by disappearing between the covers of some old reliables. Another factor: I have cut my lunch hour from 45 minutes to 15 minutes, which has eliminated a block of reading time in my day. (I did this so that I would have more writing time in the morning).

The Clerk's Tale by Margaret Frazer

The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens. This was his first (well, aside from Sketches by Boz) and so shows a beginning novelist's episodic structuring, of course, but you can certainly see the genius starting to bubble up. I was intrigued to find the germ story for The Christmas Carol in the middle of this.

Sylvester, or the Wicked Uncle by Georgette Heyer. Re-read.

Arabella by Georgette Heyer. Re-read.

The Novice's Tale by Margaret Frazer. Re-read.

Brian's Winter by Gary Paulsen

Brian's Return by Gary Paulsen. These were both sequels to his Hatchet, which I picked up from Fiona's reading stack from the library. I enjoyed these because I had always loved My Side of the Mountain when I was a kid.

Can anyone think of any book (YA) about a girl living off the land?

That's it for the month.

Cheers,
Peg

Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond. It took me quite awhile to plow through this one, and I almost gave up 1/3 of the way through, but then it began holding my interest more firmly. I was quite engrossed in it by the end. I would recommend this to any sf writer doing world building; it examines the relationships between the types of plants and animals available to a people, and how that determines the course of cultures, esp. agriculture, ability to wage war, development of diseases, etc. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, etc. Here's an excerpt from the Los Angeles Times review which give you a good capsule synopsis:

Jared Diamond...is broadly erudite, writes in a style that pleasantly expresses scientific concepts in vernacular American English and deals almost exclusively in questions that should interest everyone concerned about how humanity developed. . . .Guns, Germs, and Steel is his answer to a question proffered by his New Guinean friend, Yali: "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo [steel axes, umbrellas, matches, soft drinks, etc.- the material stuff of civilization], but we black people had little cargo of our own?" It is an obvious and important question, and one to which professional historians, including myself, tend to react as if we'd discovered a coral snake in the shower...we shy away from Yali's question because the easiest answer is one that many bray and bray about and others would rather die than utter. Race...

Jared Diamond had done us all a great favor by supplying a rock-solid alternative to the racist answer...

Thank You, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse. kijjohnson has raved to me about P.G. Wodehouse for years, but this was the first time I picked one up (finally!) She's right, of course, the comedy was wonderful. What was particularly interesting to me (aside from the author's brilliant use of language of course--and the casual racism, very common for the time it was written) was watching the technical job the writer was doing, to use a narrator who is really intellectually dim, but the reader still sees what Bertie Wooster is totally missing about the events he is relating. Reminds me of the similar use of Charlie Gordon (a retarded man) as a first person narrator in the various incarnations of Flowers for Algernon.

The Private World of Georgette Heyer, a biography by Joan Aiken Hodge. (I've read several of Hodge's novels.) Intriguing to see how a biographer handles a subject who felt so strongly about her privacy that she never granted a single interview. I've enjoyed Heyer's work very much, so was interested to see the sort of person she was. It sounds as though she could be a prickly person. It doesn't sound as though she had much respect for many of her fans, although that may be in part a reflection of how frustrated she was by how little respect the critics, in turn, had of her work since she was writing romances. Interestingly, as Hodge points out (and I hadn't really considered this before), actually, she wasn't a very romantic person at all. She had formidable research skills, and that was the part of the biography I really enjoyed, the excerpts from her research notebooks on the Regency period. She was quite a good artist as well, which was news to me--there are pages and pages of meticulous renderings of fashions, carriages, etc., of the period in which she was writing.

The Color of Water: A Black Man's Tribute to His White Mother by James McBride. I paid more attention to the story, which was absorbing, than the writing, which probably is a good sign. It is certainly an interesting enough story, about a Polish Jewish woman who immigrated to America soon after birth; as an adult she moved to New York City, leaving her family and faith behind in Virginia. She married a black man, making her even more isolated, and she ended up raising twelve children in the face of really daunting poverty. Her son, the author, writes of how his mother's complicated history affected his search for his own racial identity.

The Reluctant Widow, by Georgette Heyer. Re-read. I picked this one up again because I had mentioned in my LiveJournal that it was one of the few Georgette Heyers I've read that I really don't like, and I was curious to find out whether I still had as much antipathy to the heroine as I remembered. Yep, I do. What a shrew. I can't see why the hero wanted to marry her in the end.

And that's it for the month. I note that only one this month is a re-read, which is good. A shorter list than usual, but I had two longer books that usual, Guns, Germs, and Steel, and right now am in the middle of Charles Dickens' Nicholas Nickleby, which I picked up for the first time after seeing the movie (which I certainly recommend). I am finding it to be an absolute orgy of joy. I will report on it at length at the end of next month.

Cheers,
Peg

Rob forgot to take the computer with him to work today. Negative: I have to wait yet longer to have my DVD drive fixed. Positive: I can post my end-of-the-month list of books on time.

A College of Magics by Caroline Stevermer. Re-read. I heard Caroline talking about the system of magic in this book at World Fantasy, which is what made me pull it out again. I was surprised to find how little memory of the book I had, which is quite unusual for me. I'm glad that a sequel will be released soon.

North to Freedom by Anne Holm. Re-read. Actually, the original title which was used for this book's release in Europe is much better: I am David. World Fantasy prompted this read, too: I was on a panel at WFC on influential books read as a child, and this one sprang right to mind. This book holds up well, no matter how many times you re-read it. I read it to the girls this month, too.

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Kate Bernheimer, ed. A collection of essays. Was particularly impressed by the ones by Terri Windling, A.S. Byatt, and Linda Gray Sexton and . . . oh, there were a whole host of good ones. (Alas, also one or two that were just unreadable, but out of 28 essays, they were few. The book was well worth the money).

The Lord of the Rings: The Making of the Movie Trilogy by Brian Sibley. Because yeah, I'm a fan.

The Nonesuch by Georgette Heyer. Re-read. Because it's getting cold again, which means I'm starting to make butterscotch pudding in the microwave at night, and for some reason, every time I eat warm butterscotch pudding, I want to read Georgette Heyer. A very odd but extremely strong correlation. This is the only Georgette Heyer I picked up and read cover-to-cover, but I dipped and skimmed through a number of others this month (all over bowls of butterscotch pudding), including The Toll Gate, A Civil Contract, The Foundling and Cotillion.

Jane and the Prisoner of the Wool House by Stephanie Barron. I really like these books and think they are well written. The author purports to have "discovered" some hitherto unknown Jane Austen manuscripts, and Jane is a detective uncovering murder mysteries. If you love Jane Austen's novels and are very familiar with them as I am, you will be delighted to see the lines that "pop" out of the text which you recognize as coming from Jane's published work. The books are following Jane's biography (and seem to be carefully researched) and you see what inspires Jane's fiction. This one is in the newest in the series; number six or seven I think. Great fun.

Four Story Mistake by Elizabeth Enright. Re-read. Another favorite from my childhood that I pulled out to read to the girls.

The Sandman: Prelude and Nocturnes by Neil Gaiman. First time I've read this, I'm ashamed to say, thanks to kijjohnson who lent me her copy. I am happily reading on in the series.

Here's one book that I only had an opportunity to read about half of before I had to return it to the lender, but I'm including it because I thought quite a bit about it this month:

Sticks and Stones: The Troublesome Success of Children's Literature from Slovenly Peter by Jack Zipes.

Hmm. I note with disapproval that I'm not doing enough research reading for the new book. Must address this next month.

Peg

The Snow Queen by Joan Vinge. First time I've read this one. Interesting to read another novel-length take on a different Andersen tale. It took so long for me to finish, an unaccustomed experience for me.

[unnamed non-fiction book] by [author who wishes to remain anonymous]. This book has to be kept secret at the request of the author. This was interesting, one of the few times I've been asked to vett a non-fiction work. Instead of paying attention to stuff like the logical progression of the plot, you have to look at the logical progression of the argument. Interesting change of pace. It's a bit rough in the final chapters, and he wanted more examples, but I'm sure it will shape up well in the final stages--this author is quite experienced. I was pleased that I was able to think of several good examples for him, which I hope he will find useful.

Tea with the Black Dragon by R.A. Macavoy. This was a re-read. I gulped this down in less than a day. I don't remember quite why I picked it up . . . oh, now I remember. It had an example that I wanted to give to the author of the previous book. And I decided to re-read it as I like her style. I know I've read the sequel, too, although I don't have a copy of that, and the name escapes me.

River Rats by Caroline Stevermer. First time read. I dunno why I haven't gotten around to this book until now. I've read other books of her that I've enjoyed quite well. I picked it up because I was scanning the shelves, in a hurry to grab something before dashing to work, and it was there, and I'd always meant to read it. Also because I'm interested in other SF/Fantasy writers' treatment of fiction set here in Minnesota.

That's it for the month. Very short list this month, but then I've been distracted by HP Education Fanon stuff and ahem, starting my own next novel. So I haven't been exactly loafing.

Cheers,
Peg