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Isadora : A Sensational Life by Peter Kurth

I ordered a used copy of this. My only reference to Isadora Duncan is the movie with Vanessa Redgrave from the late 60s that I saw several times as a child.

Isadora was part of that period in the arts before World War I that fascinates me and on a recent browse at Amazon.ca looking for biographies, I saw this.

So far it’s very good. I am enjoying the facts about her philosophy of dance and art and the family background. Without the references and index it’s 562 pages so will take me a while to get through.

The Mammoth Book of Modern Ghost Stories edited by Peter Haining

After I read a non-fiction account of the fight for the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines during WW II, I was asking people if there were any horror stories about war and the name of this book came up. It has a sub-section devoted to horror or ghost stories that take place during war. This could be world wars or civil wars.

I put in an interlibrary loan for it and to my surprise the library bought the book for their own collection. It’s a great collection with some of the old 19th and early 20th century classic, plus more modern stories. I am really enjoying it, it’s not cheesy or silly at all, just good writing.

Ulysses by James Joyce

This is a long-term read; I’m expecting to do about 10 pages per day on average, so I’ll probably be at it until June 2009.

I bogged down while ill for a month but hope to get back to this. I dislike the character of Stephen Dedalus, but Leopold Bloom and his faithless wife Molly are interesting. Bloom is one of those people that remind me of The Poor Soul character that Jackie Gleason used to do on his television show.

Well, here it is July and I’m only on page 300. Joyce for me is a great writer of sentences and paragraphs that are gorgeous, but his plotting and general flow overrides that. However, I do want to finish it as I find the book and characters meandering through my mind. Jumping Jack Joyce is bugging me to forge on. He’s been polishing his brogues, waiting and waiting for me to carry on, and so I shall. Maybe.

Ah, still there coming up to October. I’m getting bored so might get back to it for a few pages a day.

PREVIOUSLY ON 2009 BOOKS I AM READING

No Lovelier Death by Graham Hurley

I love this author’s books. This again was a real page-turner; I stayed up until 2:30 a.m. finishing the book in one day I could not put it down. Excellent.

Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood

I skipped this when it came out, but was compelled to read it after enjoying her newest book The Year of the Flood which I’ve written about below.

The Devils of D-Day by Graham Masterton

Not my usual kind of book, but after a recent read of the history of the Bataan death march during WW II, I asked some people on a forum if there were any horror books about WW I or II or other wars.

This was recommended and I put in for an inter-library loan for it, expecting it to be kind of cheesy and badly written. It was actually quite good, surprisingly so, and written in 1978. I am not familiar with the author but he has a good reputation. This book was 243 pages and written before the bloat meme got around and authors started churning out 800-page novels dripping with every kind of superfluous detail and violence and sex.

Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee by Charles J. Shields

I tried, but I just didn’t find her interesting. I read the last few chapters to find out why she never wrote another book after To Kill a Mockingbird and what happened to sour her friendship with Truman Capote.

Capote: A Biography by Gerald Clarke

I saw the movie and realized that I didn’t know anything about Truman Capote. I read In Cold Blood when I was 12 years-old and several times after that. I remember Capote on talk shows in the 70s and early 80s and he seemed like such a caricature. I was glad I read this, and I never realized what a tragic last 10 to 15 years he had.

The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood

I haven’t read an Atwood book since Alias Grace came out years ago. I do like post-apocalyptic of dystopian fiction. I loved this, I couldn’t put it down, and after reading this (which is a bit like a prequel) I borrowed Oryx and Crake from the library to catch up with the same characters.

Atwood is apparently writing a third book in this set and I will eagerly look forward to it. This is really good, she’s back in top form again.

Darwin’s Island by Steve Jones

This sounded like a goodie. My husband heard a review on CBC Radio and we subsequently bought our own copy with some birthday money he had.

It is a non-fiction book about Charles Darwin and the forty years he spent in England after his famous voyage on the Beagle. As well as writing his famous book The Origin of Species, Darwin wrote nineteen other books and thousands of letters dealing with his continuing explorations into natural history and science.

This explores the domestic Darwin, and his journey of the mind in the years after his most known explorations. How could anyone resist?

Well, I wish I had. Honest to god, this is so poorly written, just a bunch of words thrown together when it could have been a great biography. My husband tried it too, and neither one of us could get through it.

Tuva or Bust!: Richard Feynman’s Last Journey by Ralph Leighton

Physicist and teacher Richard Feynman collected stamps when young and was always fascinated by the stamps from a country called Tannu Tuva. Forty years later, he and his friend Ralph Leighton try to get there. Just to see.

An inspiring look at where the innate curiosity of some humans, can lead them on remarkable journeys of both the mind and body.

Plus you can collect stamps!

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman

I re-read this and enjoyed it just as much as the first time. Anecdotes and learning from Feynman’s interesting life as a physicist and professor at CalTech, but also as a curious person getting through life and exploring and learning. He was a true eccentric but accessible.

The Casebook of Carnaki – Ghost Finder by W.H. Hodgson.

This edition, like the Collins one below is from Wordsworth Editions in the UK, who seem to be bringing some of these obscure stories and anthologies back into print. I read William Hope Hodgson’s House on the Borderland some years ago and didn’t care for it, so I thought I’d give him another try.

Bad decision. Stilted dialogue and characterization and just plain bad writing. I wonder that this man ever got published.

To parody Hodgson’s writing in the book:

I felt myself in such a funk, and was alarmed by the dreadful funk of the
writing, but I managed to forge on as I’m such a plucky little chap, by Jove!
I’m sure you chaps understand.

The Haunted Hotel & Other Stories by Wilkie Collins

I haven’t read Collins since I was a teenager and read The Moonstone and The Woman in White, his most famous novels.

This was a gothic/horror collection full of sensitive women and hinted at trauma–the usual, but Wilkie Collins is an able writer and made the characters and stories good. He had a neat story about the French Revolution I enjoyed, since my interest in that began in earnest two years ago. The main story was good and kept you guessing at the mystery until the end. Not bad, quite enjoyable for a change of pace. I don’t often read 19th century writers but now and then their particular atmosphere can be fun.

Haunted America by Michael Norman & Beth Scott

More true life ghostie stories, but this time the authors put in lots of interesting bits about American history, architecture, and cities which made it above the usual crap in this genre. I didn’t mind it.

The Big Book of Canadian Hauntings by John Robert Colombo

This is an anthology but I found the stories had too much sameness to them and not enough history and information about Canada. I read about a third of it, jumping around from back to front, and then tossed it.

Galore by Michael Crummy

In the realm of CanLit which I generally try to avoid for its dark, depressing angst, this seemed a bit different and involves medieval Newfoundland and subsequent history with fantastical elements. A family saga with a twist.

However, I found after 70 pages or so that it was just the same old thing about people I wasn’t too interested in after all, so I tossed this one. This sort of fiction is just not my thing.

Sisters in the Wilderness: The lives of Susanna Moodie and Catherine Parr Traill by Charlotte Gray

I’ve been meaning to get to this for years and when I saw it in the library I grabbed it. I’ve read some of Charlotte Gray’s other books, and she really makes history come alive. I didn’t realize that the sisters had been so deprived, I just assumed that they led the life they had in England. Not so.

I am finding this pretty gripping and have almost finished it–well worth a read.

My husband took the book up after I’d finished and is enjoying it so much that he wants me to get some of Catharine Parr Traill’s own books so he can read her original writing.

A Rage To Live by Mary Lovell

What an interesting man! This is a biography of Sir Richard Burton and his wife Isabel. He was the first English translator of One Thousand and One Nights, more commonly called The Arabian Nights in our Western world.

I’m up to the point of his college years and he had quite an upbringing, mostly in France and Italy with the occasional foray for educational purposes to England. He was quite, quite bright but because of his inability to blend socially was not as successful in some ways as he could have been. It’s too bad he is so forgotten these days. I am fascinated and can hardly put the book down.

The parts about Speke and their expedition to Egypt are hard to read because Speke was such a rotter, a real liar, and he damaged Burton’s reputation, so I’ve been lagging a bit in this book.

Having picked it up again and got past Speke (the rotter!!) I have been enjoying the history and travel in this book. Vitally interesting people.

Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and Its Aftermath by Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman

Although I was familiar with this, I wasn’t too clear on the details and there are details aplenty in this book.

These days, most of the glow has come off the myth of General Douglas MacArthur, but I am still shocked at how inept he seems to have been–he almost lived in a fantasy in his mind, with no thought to the reality of ill-equipped and ill-trained men. (This would never have happened with Patton.) He received the Medal of Honor for his part in the Philippines. Unbelievable. After Pearl Harbor, the U.S. bases in the Philippines had the opportunity to strike back at the Japanese in Formosa and didn’t. They became sitting ducks.

The other interesting fact is that since the 19th century, plans had been made and remade for the defense of the Philippines by the United States, and the strategists basically came to the conclusion that they were indefensible and that men would be sacrificed. For fifty years or more that was the plan and it came to fruition. Very shocking. If they knew this, why did they believe the fantasies spun by MacArthur that he had thousands of men and equipment at the ready for an easy defense? Many men in the Filipino Commonwealth army had to wear coconuts on their heads and sneakers on their feet that fell apart in the wet and humidity.

Reading one book doesn’t make me an expert, but I am incredulous that this disaster was allowed to happen. To think that humans survived this and didn’t become insane with their terrible memories astounds me.

The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt

This is longlisted for the Booker Prize so I had to read it. I love this author as long as she isn’t writing books about Frederica and Co. This is a gorgeous story so far and I’m only on page 245. It should be shortlisted for the Booker, she has a real gift for writing and engaging the reader.

I have her book of short stories The Djinn In The Nightingale’s Eye which is adult fairy stories and in The Children’s Book, one of the main characters is an author of children’s books and fairy stories so Byatt weaves a few of those into the main text. I like it when she does stuff like that in novels. She did that with poetry in Possession and she is an expert on fairy tales and the genre so these stories she slips in throughout this new novel are terrific.

I feel I’ve been in another land for three days; I could not put this book down. It’s a wonderful story with wonderful characters and connection. I noticed in the Acknowledgments that Jenny Uglow was her editor, and Jenny Uglow was also the author of the biography of Thomas Bewick that I loved so much, Nature’s Engraver.

She also has some fascinating descriptions of puppetry and marionettes and puppet theatres which is a great interest of mine. Stories, people, puppets, love and death and war, and memory, haunting. I hope A.S. Byatt gets the Booker for this.

The Doomsday Key by John Rollins

I picked this up while on holidays for a fun read. It’s vaguely like The Da Vinci Code but more of an action/adventure/suspense novel like an old Robert Ludlum story.

It was a real page-turner and his characterization isn’t bad, but it is what it is: a “B” grade thriller, just right for racing through on summer holidays.

- The Lives of the Muses: Nine Women and the Artists They Inspired by Francine Prose

I just got this from the library–looks like a fantastic read.

And when I finally get to it, it is a fantastic read. Very engaging, not too heavy but enough information to satisfy my curiosity. I am finding it hard to put down. Unfortunately, some bimbo ripped out the first ten pages of the introduction and about seven pages in the last chapter which was about Yoko Ono and John Lennon. Apparently crazed Beatles fans still abound in the world.

There are more interesting and vital people than the Beatles as this book highlights.

Man Ray: American Artist by Neil Baldwin

I just received this from the library on inter-library loan. I’d be lost without the facility to order books, none of my local libraries ever has the stuff I want.

I’m really interested in this period of art as well as the history of photography, so I’m keen to read this one. It’s interesting to see how accepted he was when young by the established artists. He was also very much accepted by young artists when he became old.

On the whole, this biography left me with puzzlement. Similar to artist Giorgio de Chirico, Man Ray was an enigma. I was fascinated that he was so derisive about photography since it’s his photography that most people speak of first.

The Black Angel by John Connelly

My husband read this and renewed it for me to read as he thought I’d like the biblical aspects of it. It’s a mystery, a private eye character amid the biblical supernatural. It’s not bad, kind of like a “B” Movie, and I’ve never read this author before, he seems to be very popular.

But he’s no Graham Hurley!!! In fact, I tossed this book rather than wade through it. Sometimes it’s better to realize your time is too precious to waste.

Alfred Stieglitz : A Biography by Richard Whelan

I was browsing the biography of Pamela Colman Smith in Stuart Kaplan’s The Encyclopedia of Tarot, Volume III, and it mentioned that she was the first non-photographic artist to have a show at Alfred Stieglitz’s gallery 291, so I have hauled out this biography of Stieglitz to read in the next couple of weeks. I’ve already read biographies of Georgia O’Keeffe and Edward Steichen, which both touch on Stieglitz of course, but I wanted to learn more about Stieglitz and his family, childhood, and early years.

So far it’s wonderful. There is lots of information on Manhattan around the time Central Park was being built, and information on early photographic processes and artists. I did once get an inter-library loan on the history of photography as it’s an interest of mine fueled by respect for Stieglitz, Steichen and Lewis Carroll as photographers.

I like the way the biographer sets the scene with learning about the times as well as the man. So many biographies skip this vital information. I am finding it a great read. Stieglitz is in his 60s now so the book is winding down, but it was terrific to read about the times and people.

Angels Passing by Graham Hurley

Surprise, I got another interlibrary loan of one of Hurley’s older books. This one is very good too.

Blood and Honey by Graham Hurley

Still catching up with his old mysteries while the new one is on hold. This was very good, again. I haven’t read a bad book by this guy yet.

Coraline by Neil Gaiman

This is a children’s book, but I’ve always wanted to read it. I loved the artwork by Dave McKean, and the story was good as you’d expect from Gaiman.

Cut to Black by Graham Hurley

I quite liked this and there was a twist at the end. He is able to blend several characters and situations and make everything interesting.

The Price of Darkness by Graham Hurley

Another winner, I liked this one better than One Under. Great plot, great characters, great writing. I’ve put an inter-library loan in for two more of his older books and my library has his new one, No Lovelier Death, which I have put on hold so my husband and I can read them and swap them around and catch up with Mr. Hurley.

Remember When by Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb

My husband liked this, so I’m giving it a try. Nora Roberts writes mysteries under the pseudonym J.D. Robb, that my husband loves, but they are merely okay to me. However, this has an antique store and a mystery in it and it seemed like something light I would enjoy. It has kind of a past and future angle to the mystery and that seemed appealing to.

Oh well, I tried. I tossed this one, just too simple and too much romance for me. Maybe I should read the Decameron that I recently bought.

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

This is a classic fantasy book and humorous. I bogged down a bit in the middle but the ending picked up and was good. I am not overly fond of “funny” books, so while I enjoyed the humour, it wasn’t as good a book as some people make out, for me at least. Very clever though, I loved the footnotes.

The Paper Grail by James P. Blaylock

This is a fantasy book. A fellow I used to know from one of my old SF book groups loved Blaylock so I bought this book and The Last Coin. This was good–a Fisher King type of story and the author gives a nod to his friend author Tim Powers for the story line. I enjoyed it but it felt repetitive.

One Under by Graham Hurley

I haven’t tried one of this guy’s mysteries before but my husband likes him. I’ve been ill this week so catching up on several mystery writers. I enjoyed this and it leads into the next book which we’ve got on hold at the library.

A Bridge of Years by Robert Charles Wilson

Much better than The Harvest–darn good read and characters, which is what I expect of Wilson.

Heat Lightning by John Sandford

A little different, focusing on the character of Virgil Flowers who was new to me in the last book. Not bad.

Invisible Prey by John Sandford

I haven’t read his stuff for years but being sick this week I really enjoyed something light but good. Great characters and quite a page-turner.

The Speed of Dark by Elizabeth Moon

I had an interlibrary loan of this once and also took it out of my local library, but never got around to it, so this week I finally got into it. An excellent book, very compelling and interesting.

Bernard Shaw by Michael Holroyd

This was first published in four volumes but thankfully abridged by the author. Even so it’s 864 pages, so crammed with interesting things I’m sure. Having cleared a number of books I was reading, I can now start this–I’ve really been looking forward to it.

After 200 pages I am finding it a real eye opener. A strange man and certainly afraid of connecting to people, particularly women, which he always admitted. Having had several sexual affairs, he ended up in a marriage that was without sex. Hard to believe for a man. I keep thinking he must have been very hurt by his parent’s non-relationship. He seems to have formed several triangles with married women and their husbands in sort of a flirtatious, oddly disconnected role. He liked things that way. In our day everyone is supposed to hook up with some realized ideal of passion and connection with a soul mate, so GBS certainly is refreshing in his ability to skirt the issue. Pardon the pun.

This is a very ponderous book. I can’t imagine what the 4-volume edition is like. No one is that interesting, and Shaw certainly wasn’t. I’m plodding through, forcing myself to read it because I bought a new paperback of it.

Greenmantle by John Buchan

This is the second of Buchan’s books I own featuring the character Richard Hannay. I am rereading it from years ago.

The Harvest by Robert Charles Wilson

He is one of my favourite authors. This is a used paperback I grabbed off my TBR shelf–I needed something light and interesting. This was a real disappointment though–nothing seemed to happen.

The Nasty Bits by Anthony Bourdain

I got this from the library as I find Bourdain interesting and watch his television show No Reservations. The writing is just like the show scripts and contains some of the same material. A nice, light read. After a few chapters I took the book back to the library. I don’t think he translates well to the written word. Too many insider jokes and information.

Second Chances: More Tales of Found Dogs by Elise Lufkin

Another interesting book in the form of short letters and essays with a single photograph for each story about a dog. It is very reminiscent of the book Dogs and Their Women that I have in my collection. Very uplifting and inspiring.

The American Quilt: A History of Cloth and Comfort 1750-1950 by Roderick Kiracofe and Mary Elizabeth Johnson

This is going well, I’ve learned several new things and there are photographs in this book that haven’t been published before. My favourite is of the fabric album a young girl kept with pieces of cloth from dresses she wore. Some pieces are appliquéd figures like cats or leaves, with notations of the year and on what occasion she wore the dress. Great book I really enjoyed it.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

This is getting rave reviews, so I found a copy in my library. Will see how it goes. I rarely read mysteries any more, but this sounded quirky and interesting.

It was a bit gruesome in parts, and reminded me vaguely of another serial killer book from the 1990s, but I can’t remember the author. Not bad, I just wish it hadn’t been so graphic. A real page-turner.

Best Friends: The True Story of the World’s Most Beloved Animal Sanctuary by Samantha Glen

This is another interlibrary loan, and so far it’s quite enjoyable. It’s amazing how hard working people in animal rescue are, and for little money. A good book but a bit out of date. I checked their web site, they seem to be doing well and connecting with other groups.

Dogs I Have Met: And the People They Found by Ken Foster

While some of the anecdotes were interesting, I found it choppy. He kept mentioning his first book which made sense since many of the anecdotes and connections with people came about through that book, but still, to keep this book fresh and in stand-alone territory, he could have made a greater effort. He has limited skill in writing. I would never read another book by him.

Selected Stories of Philip K. Dick by Philip K. Dick

I needed a slightly lighter read while waiting for a few inter-library loans. I like Dick’s writing about 80% of the time and I love short stories so this is an enjoyable read. He does odd stories with twists in them and Everyman characters. I find it really appealing and bought several of his books and this short story collection after I read his novel Ubik which was very neat. Excellent read, one of the best anthologies I have.

Miniature Books : 4,000 Years of Tiny Treasures by Anne C. Bromer

This is an interesting book with lovely photographs. It really augments the information on illuminated manuscripts from my book collection. I am enjoying it. My only complaint is that it’s too big to read in bed. I wish there had been more text as it was a short read, but very enjoyable.

Pilgrimage to the End of the World: The Road to Santiago de
Compostela by Conrad Rudolph

Thank goodness, a normal person with a brain rather than a New Age flake. I was despairing after the the last book about the Camino, but this fellow is at least a historian and art history professor specializing in medieval art.

Holy cow, a rational person with a keen mind walks the Camino and writes a literary book filled with spirituality, art and history. I ordered this on interlibrary loan, and although it’s short, he has lots of observations and suggestions. I like that he covered the French route from Le Puy too. That would be something to do a trek that long, but even he mentioned that will all his preparation and training his feet and knees were a mess after 1600 kms and 2.5 months of walking. Still. . .

Dylan Thomas: A New Life by Andrew Lycett

I just started this, and it’s fine. Nothing special so far but engaging to read.

After reading a few chapters at the beginning and the final three chapters, I gave up on the book and sent it back to the library. Mr. Thomas drank so much in his final months that he was a blithering wreck. I have no tolerance for alcoholics, especially talented ones who lose themselves. It’s an awful thing to be known for your wreck of a life and marriage, rather than your gift. He was very gifted, but not too steady as a human. I am haunted by the thought that he and Stravinsky were very keen to write an opera together, but Thomas died before they could start the project. Imagine.

Sue Kenney’s My Camino by Sue Kenney

Oh dear, another self-involved, New Age, we are One, sort of person. I really tried to like it, but it was more about excruciating navel gazing and Sue’s ad hoc hiking romance, than the Camino.

A Scientific Romance by Ronald Wright

My sister recommended this years ago and I nominated it for a reading group, but I’ve only just got to it myself. Some people think H.G. Wells is a great man, I think he was a plagiarist and wife beater, but never mind, the premise of this book is that an actual time machine developed by a mistress of Wells’ appears 100 years later. I like certain time travel books and the writing is good as is the characterization.

I am in between interlibrary loans and the cool breath of fiction is appealing

The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

I’ve had a used copy of this for years and finally found a moment to read it. It is a sequel to his bestseller from the 1970s My Name is Asher Lev which I’ve read many times. My sister used to scoff at me for reading Potok’s books, but regardless of the Hasidic Jewish characters and settings, he has a real feeling for people and poignancy that is good human condition stuff for anyone to enjoy.

I liked this book and it made me remember reading the first book during my teenage years when I wanted to be an artist. A nice read for a quiet day.

Graphic Classics Volume 4: H. P. Lovecraft – 2nd Edition

Well, some interesting graphics in this one. I found the necessary condensation of Lovecraft’s stories left the work kind of flat. Part of what makes Lovecraft’s work interesting is his lyricism and melodrama, and that seemed to get lost in this. It also has one of the creepiest of Lovecraft’s stories, Herbert West, Reanimator and I just don’t like the story, perhaps because West is such a psychopathic monster. Anything but Herbert!

All the Good Pilgrims : Tales of the Camino de Santiago by Robert Ward

This was interesting only because of the people he met. I felt the author was missing a connection to the spirituality of the place as he seemed very matter-of-fact and quite dispassionate as a writer. Perhaps he feels to be a good writer he needs to remain detached? In any case it made the book very ponderous and more like a hiking memoir or magazine article by a teenager. He seems to have a hard time dealing with emotions and the human condition in other than a cursory way.

Little Black Book of Stories by A.S. Byatt

Boy this lady always has something different in stories. I unfortunately don’t like the novels she wrote about the young intellectuals, Frederica and her friends; I tried to slog through Babel Tower, but I never liked any of these characters and gave up near the end of the book, yet she’s poured so much of her writing life into them.

I have a couple of used books of her stories in my collection, but this one is fantastical in parts (she does like fairy tales), and interesting.