Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert

madame bovary
gustave flaubert
c. 1856
342 pages
completed 6/28/2008

*may contain spoilers*

This is the second book by a 19th century French writer that I have read this year (the first being The Red and the Black by Stendhal). Both works were filled with the "hero" involved in devious and secretive acts which eventually were the "hero's" downfall. And both ended in their sad demise.

I put hero (I guess in this case it should be heroine) in quotation marks because in both novels the protagonist was so unlikeable. Emma's constant quest for romance and sophistication so blinded her that she couldn't see the love she had until her death. Her husband was quiet and simple. He wasn't the romantic, the hero, she wanted him to be. But he truly loved her.

I also found similarities between the character of Julien in The Red and the Black and that of Rodolphe in this novel. At least, similarities in their ideas of a mistress. For both of them, it wasn't that they fell in love (or even lust, really) and took a lover. Instead, it was like a contest. They wanted to challenge themselves. But where Julien quickly fell in love with his mistress, Rodolphe saw his whole relationship as a game to be played, like chess. Something where he had strategized his every move.

I really do think that Leon was in love with Emma. I think she was just in love with the romanticism the Leon could bring to her.

I hated that Emma not only ruined herself and eventually killed herself, but she also ruined Charles who did nothing but love her, though maybe he should have been a little more involved in the running of his house. And his mother made me crazy. Even if she turned out to be right about Emma sometimes, she was kind of out of control with her constant wailing that Charles loved Emma more than her. Creepy.

3/5

Penguin Classics

Yes, it's true. Despite the very real possibility that this is a totally unattainable goal, I have planned for some time now to someday read the Complete Penguin Classics. Except not really. Because I really don't like poetry. Or autobiographies. Or philosophy. Or travel logs. So in reality my plan is to someday read the Complete Penguin Classics: Novels, Histories, Short Stories, and Drama.
Penguin Classics - A

Penguin Classics - B

Penguin Classics - C

Penguin Classics - D

Penguin Classics - E

Penguin Classics - F

Penguin Classics - G

Penguin Classics - H

Penguin Classics - I

Penguin Classics - J/K

Penguin Classics - L

Penguin Classics - M

Penguin Classics - N

Penguin Classics - O

Penguin Classics - P

Penguin Classics - Q/R

Penguin Classics - S

Penguin Classics - T

Penguin Classics - U/V

Penguin Classics - W/Y/Z

And the end...

Penguin Classics - W/Y/Z
1. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
2. The War of the Worlds - HG Wells
3. The War with Hannibal - Titus Livy
4. Ward No. 6 - Anton Checkov
5. The Warden - Anthony Trollope
6. Washington Square - Henry James
7. Waverley - Walter Scott
8. The Way of All Flesh - Samuel Butler
9. The Way We Live Now - Anthony Trollope
10. The Wayward Bus - John Steinbeck
11. We - Yevgeny Zamyatin
12. The Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith
13. What Is Art - Leo Tolstoy
14. What Maisie Knew - Henry James
15. The Wild Ass's Skin - Honore de Balzac
16. Winesburg, Ohio - Sherwood Anderson
17. The Wings of the Dove - Henry James
18. The Winter of Our Discontent - John Steinbeck
19. The Whithered Arm - Thomas Hardy
20. The Winter's Tale - William Shakespeare
21. Wives and Daughters - Elizabeth Gaskell
22. Wolf Willow - Wallace Stegner
23. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
24. Women in Love - DH Lawrence
25. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - L Frank Baum
26. The Woodlanders - Thomas Hardy
27. Work: A Story of Experience - Louisa May Alcott
28. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

1. Young Lonigan - James T. Farrell
2. Youth, Heart of Darkness, The End of the Tether - Joseph Conrad

1. Zazie in the Metro - Raymond Queneau

It just keeps going...

Penguin Classics - U/V
1. Uncle Remus - Joel Chandler Harris
2. Uncle Silas - Joseph Sheridan le Fanu
3. Uncle Tom's Cabin - Harriet Beecher Stowe
4. Under Fire - Henri Barbusse
5. Under the Greenwood Tree - Thomas Hardy
6. Under Western Eyes - Joseph Conrad
7. Unto the Last - John Rushkin
8. Untouchable - Mulk Raj Anand
9. The Upanishads - Anonymous
10. Utopia - Thomas More

1. The Valley of Fear - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
2. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackery
3. Venus in Furs - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch
4. The Vicar of Wakefield - Oliver Goldsmith
5. The Victim - Saul Bellow
6. Victory - Joseph Conrad
7. The Village of Stepanchikovo - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
8. Villette - Charlotte Bronte
9. A Vindication of the Rights of Women - Mary Wollstonecraft
10. Vineland - Thomas Pynchan
11. The Vinland Sagas - Anonymous
12. The Virginian - Owen Wister
13. A Vocation and a Voice - Kate Chopin
14. Volpone - Ben Johnson
15. The Voyage of Argo - Apollonius of Rhodes
16. The Voyage Out - Virginia Woolf

Continuing the list...

Penguin Classics - T
1. Ta Hsueh and Chung Yung - Anonymous
2. The Tain - Anonymous
3. The Tale of the Genji - Murasaki Shikibu
4. A Tale of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
5. Tales from the Thousand and One Nights - Anonymous
6. Tales of Belkin - Alaxander Pushkin
7. Tales of Hoffman - ETA Hoffman
8. The Taming of the Shrew - William Shakespeare
9. Tarzan and the Apes - Edgar Rice Burroughs
10. The Tempest - William Shakespeare
11. Ten Days That Shook the World - John Reed
12. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - Anne Bronte
13. Tess of D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
14. A Texas Cowboy - Charles A Siringo
15. Therese Raquin - Emile Zola
16. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
17. The Thing on the Doorstep - HP Lovecraft
18. The Third Man and the Fallen Idol - Graham Greene
19. This Side of Paradise - F Scott Fitzgerald
20. This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen - Tadeusz Borowski
21. Three Gothic Novels - Horace Walpole
22. Three Plays - August Strindberg
23. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
24. Three Soldiers - John Dos Passos
25. Titus Andronicus - William Shakespeare
26. Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel - Jerome K Jerome
27. Three Plays for Puritans - Geroge Bernard Shaw
28. Three Tales - Gustave Flaubert
29. The Time Machine - HG Wells
30. Timon of Athens - William Shakespeare
31. To a God Unkown - John Steinbeck
32. To Jerusalem and Beck - Saul Bellow
33. Tono-Bungay - HG Wells
34. Tortilla Flat - John Steinbeck
35. A Tramp Abroad - Mark Twain
36. The Transformation - Franz Kafka
37. Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes and the Amateur Emigrant - Robert Louis Stevenson
38. Travels with My Aunt - Graham Greene
39. The Treasure of the City of Ladies - Christine de Pizan
40. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson
41. Tristan - Gottfried von Strassburg
42. Troilus and Cressida - William Shakespeare
43. Troilus and Criseyde - Geoffrey Chaucer
44. The Turn of the Screw and the Aspern Papers - Henry James
45. Twelfth Night - William Shakespeare
46. The Two Gentlemen of Verona - William Shakespeare
47. Two Lives of Charlemagne - Einhard
48. Two on a Tower - Thomas Hardy
49. Typhoon - Joseph Conrad

New lists...

Entertainment Weekly's 100 Best Books of the past 25 years. Those I've finished are crossed off, those I've read some of are italicized.

1. The Road , Cormac McCarthy (2006)
2. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, J.K. Rowling (2000)
3. Beloved, Toni Morrison (1987)
4. The Liars’ Club, Mary Karr (1995)
5. American Pastoral, Philip Roth (1997)
6. Mystic River, Dennis Lehane (2001)
7. Maus, Art Spiegelman (1986/1991)
8. Selected Stories, Alice Munro (1996)
9. Cold Mountain, Charles Frazier (1997)
10. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, Haruki Murakami (1997)
11. Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer (1997)
12. Blindness, José Saramago (1998)
13. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (1986-87)
14. Black Water, Joyce Carol Oates (1992)
15. A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, Dave Eggers (2000)
16. The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood (1986)
17. Love in the Time of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez (1988)
18. Rabbit at Rest, John Updike (1990)
19. On Beauty, Zadie Smith (2005)
20. Bridget Jones’s Diary, Helen Fielding (1998)
21. On Writing, Stephen King (2000)
22. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, Junot Díaz (2007)
23. The Ghost Road, Pat Barker (1996)
24. Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry (1985)
25. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan (1989)
26. Neuromancer, William Gibson (1984)
27. Possession, A.S. Byatt (1990)
28. Naked, David Sedaris (1997)
29. Bel Canto, Anne Patchett (2001)
30. Case Histories, Kate Atkinson (2004)
31. The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien (1990)
32. Parting the Waters, Taylor Branch (1988)
33. The Year of Magical Thinking, Joan Didion (2005)
34. The Lovely Bones, Alice Sebold (2002)
35. The Line of Beauty, Alan Hollinghurst (2004)
36. Angela’s Ashes, Frank McCourt (1996)
37. Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi (2003)
38. Birds of America, Lorrie Moore (1998)
39. Interpreter of Maladies, Jhumpa Lahiri (2000)
40. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman (1995-2000)
41. The House on Mango Street, Sandra Cisneros (1984)
42. LaBrava, Elmore Leonard (1983)
43. Borrowed Time, Paul Monette (1988)
44. Praying for Sheetrock, Melissa Fay Greene (1991)
45. Eva Luna, Isabel Allende (1988)
46. Sandman, Neil Gaiman (1988-1996)
47. World’s Fair, E.L. Doctorow (1985)
48. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver (1998)
49. Clockers, Richard Price (1992)
50. The Corrections, Jonathan Franzen (2001)
51. The Journalist and the Murderer, Janet Malcom (1990)
52. Waiting to Exhale, Terry McMillan (1992)
53. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon (2000)
54. Jimmy Corrigan, Chris Ware (2000)
55. The Glass Castle, Jeannette Walls (2006)
56. The Night Manager, John le Carré (1993)
57. The Bonfire of the Vanities, Tom Wolfe (1987)
58. Drop City, TC Boyle (2003)
59. Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat (1995)
60. Nickel & Dimed, Barbara Ehrenreich (2001)
61. Money, Martin Amis (1985)
62. Last Train To Memphis, Peter Guralnick (1994)
63. Pastoralia, George Saunders (2000)
64. Underworld, Don DeLillo (1997)
65. The Giver, Lois Lowry (1993)
66. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, David Foster Wallace (1997)
67. The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini (2003)
68. Fun Home, Alison Bechdel (2006)
69. Secret History, Donna Tartt (1992)
70. Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell (2004)
71. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, Ann Fadiman (1997)
72. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, Mark Haddon (2003)
73. A Prayer for Owen Meany, John Irving (1989)
74. Friday Night Lights, H.G. Bissinger (1990)
75. Cathedral, Raymond Carver (1983)
76. A Sight for Sore Eyes, Ruth Rendell (1998)
77. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
78. Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert (2006)
79. The Tipping Point, Malcolm Gladwell (2000)
80. Bright Lights, Big City, Jay McInerney (1984)
81. Backlash, Susan Faludi (1991)
82. Atonement, Ian McEwan (2002)
83. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields (1994)
84. Holes, Louis Sachar (1998)
85. Gilead, Marilynne Robinson (2004)
86. And the Band Played On, Randy Shilts (1987)
87. The Ruins, Scott Smith (2006)
88. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby (1995)
89. Close Range, Annie Proulx (1999)
90. Comfort Me With Apples, Ruth Reichl (2001)
91. Random Family, Adrian Nicole LeBlanc (2003)
92. Presumed Innocent, Scott Turow (1987)
93. A Thousand Acres, Jane Smiley (1991)
94. Fast Food Nation, Eric Schlosser (2001)
95. Kaaterskill Falls, Allegra Goodman (1998)
96. The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown (2003)
97. Jesus’ Son, Denis Johnson (1992)
98. The Predators’ Ball, Connie Bruck (1988)
99. Practical Magic, Alice Hoffman (1995)
100. America (the Book), Jon Stewart/Daily Show (2004)

Standing in the Rainbow - Fannie Flagg

standing in the rainbow
fannie flagg
c. 2003
544 pages
completed 6/18/2008

*may contain spoilers*

As a disclaimer before I actually review this book I want to point out that it was read primarily for the Southern Reading Challenge (see sidebar), however, during the reading of this book I learned that according to the author this book is NOT set in the South. I didn't realize Missouri wasn't considered the South. I have always considered it part of the South. Not the Deep South, like Alabama and Georgia and South Carolina, but the South none the less.

I have done some research and apparently it is one of the border states, like West Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware, something to do with them being part of Southern region of the US according to the Census Bureau but they didn't secede from the Union during the Civil War. So sometimes Missouri is part of the South and sometimes it's part of the Midwest. I guess they get to pick and choose. Being as I was born in West Virginia and grew up in Delaware I feel I also get to pick and choose and since my roots are in South Georgia and North Carolina, I like to think of myself as a bit of a Southerner. And for the purpose of this challenge, Missouri gets to be Southern, too.

I'm not going to lie, I was a little wary going into this book seeing as I wasn't totally thrilled with the other Fannie Flagg novel I tried, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (despite my total love of the film), but it turns out I was pleasantly surprised. One of my main issues with Fried Green Tomatoes was it's lack of structure, that each chapter jumped from story line to story line and jumped back in forth in time. The book similarly jumped between characters and story lines, but seemed to follow a much more stable flow of time. Time was always moving in basically one direction.

I thought this book was mostly very sweet. Most of the characters were completely lovable. There was no big plot, just little life stories from people in a small town. I think I loved reading about Mackey and Norma and their Aunt Elner the best. The Oatmans were a little too much at times, but I think that was part of their charm. The Smith Family was charming and entertaining, especially the misadventures Bobby would get himself into as a child.

I think probably the most involved storyline was that of Hamm Sparks and Betty Raye and the political races. This was a little unfortunate since this was the storyline I liked the least. I just couldn't like Hamm Sparks. I thought there was just nothing redeemable about him. I think the author tried to portray him as someone honest and unbiased in politics, but I think she fell short of that goal. The author tried to portray him as honest in his politics, but he lost all credibility to the reader for continually not keeping his word to his wife and eventually taking a mistress. And he was supposedly unbiased towards this "little man" (I know he said there's no such thing as the "little man"), but his politics continually painted those who were well off as nothing but evil and corrupt which is a bias in itself. And I think his character really unraveled at his speech about the Vietnam War at (I think) UC Berkley, though I actually think (due to the reaction of the people in the story) that the author intended for his speech to make him look better. To me, it made him seem uneducated and thoughtless.

Even when Hamm Sparks first made his appearance, I thought he was a little too slick. His courtship of Betty Raye was not romantic, it was borderline harassment. Yes, at the end of the courtship the author said Batty Raye was in love, but I almost think she wasn't. That she said yes partly out of exhaustion or not knowing what else to say. Also, I thought from that first Valentine's Day during her senior year in high school that Betty Raye should someday marry Jimmy. I like to think that they did in the end, when he went to live with her in her little red brick house.

One other part of the book that bothered me was the character of Cecil Figgs. I didn't like his depiction. To be honest, I was at times a little offended. I...THINK he was supposed to be a gay character, but this was never expressly said. If I remember correctly, I think when we went to New Orleans it was mentioned that he wanted to stay because of the pretty boys. But I didn't like that he was on more than one occasion referred to as a fairy. And he was portrayed as annoying, not really a man, obsessed with decorations and planning events. And then he ended his life by pretending to be dead so he could recreate himself as Mrs. Boom Boom and headline a nightclub. As if that great joy was the best thing a gay man could aspire to. I don't know. I wanted to like his character, but he got more and more ridiculous as time went on. And maybe I'm reading to much into his character.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. I enjoyed that it was basically a series of anecdotes, almost as if you were reading the "best of the neighbor Dorothy show."

4/5

The one hundredth...

100 posts. Yea for me!! I had a quick conversation last night at dinner, that I'm sure I've had with several people during my lifetime, but it always manages to make me pause for a second. We were talking about books, and I asked K what kind of books she likes to read. Her answer was something along the lines of "Well I've only recently really started to read much. I never read as a kid. I hated it." I've never understood that. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not being judgemental and saying she was wrong for feeling that way as a kid, I'm just saying it's something I don't understand. If reading was hard for someone as a child, like it was something they struggled with in school, then I understand not liking to read. Just not liking it because it doesn't interest someone, that is what I don't understand. My childhood was filled with books. My aunt worked for the Little Brown publishing company and so almost on a regular basis we were sent boxed filled with new books to read. And my sisters and I were regulars at our local library. In fact my older sister has grown up to be a librarian. I discovered Ben Gunn with Jim Hawkins. I was friends with all the girls in the Baby-Sitter's Club. I would get in trouble with Brother and Sister Bear and their Cousin Fred. I lived with Cimorene in the dragon's den. And I braved the prairie with Laura Ingalls. I can't imagine a childhood without books.

And more...

Penguin Classics - S
1. The Saga of the Volsungs - Anonymous
2. Sailing Alone Around the World - Joshua Slocum
3. Saint Joan - George Bernard Shaw
4. Salammbo - Gustave Flaubert
5. The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
6. The School for Scandal and Other Plays - Richard Brinsley Sheridan
7. The Science Fiction of Edgar Allen Poe - Edgar Allen Poe
8. The Sea, the Sea - Iris Murdoch
9. Sea and Sardinia - DH Lawrence
10. The Sebastopol Sketches - Leo Tolstoy
11. The Secret Agent - Joseph Conrad
12. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
13. The Secret History - Procopius
14. Seize the Day - Saul Bellow
15. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
16. Sentimental Education - Gustave Flaubert
17. A Sentimental Journey - Laurence Sterne
18. Seven Viking Romances - Various
19. The Shadow Line - Joseph Conrad
20. She - H Rider Haggard
21. Shirley - Charlotte Bronte
22. The Shooting Party - Anton Chekhov
23. The Short Reign of Pippin IV - John Steinbeck
24. Sickness unto Death - Soren Kierkegaard
25. Siddhartha - Herman Hesse
26. The Sign of Four - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
27. Silas Marner - George Eliot
28. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight - Anonymous
29. Sister Carrie - Theodore Dreiser
30. Six Records of a Floating Life - Shen Fu
31. Sixteen Satires - Juvenal
32. Sketches by Boz - Charles Dickens
33. The Small House of Allington - Anthony Trollope
34. The Song of the Lark - Willa Cather
35. The Song of Roland - Anonymous
36. Sons and Lovers - DH Lawrence
37. The Sorrows of Young Werther - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
38. The Soul's of Black Folk - WEB du Bois
39. South - Ernest Shackleton
40. Speaking of Siva - Anonymous
41. The Spoils of Poynton - Henry James
42. The Spy - James Fenimore Cooper
43. The Storm - Daniel Defoe
44. Storm of Steel - Ernst Junger
45. The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde - Robert Louis Stevenson
46. The Street of Crocodiles - Bruno Schulz
47. A Study in Scarlet - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
48. Studs Lonigan - James T Farrell
49. Summer - Edith Wharton
50. Sunjata - Bambo Suso
51. Swann's Way - Marcel Proust
52. Sweet Thursday - John Steinbeck

More...

Penguin Classics - Q/R
1. The Queen of Spades and Other Stories - Alexander Pushkin
2. The Quest of the Holy Grail - Anonymous
3. Quicksand - Nella Larsen
4. The Quiet American - Graham Greene

1. Raffles - EW Hornung
2. Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward - Horatio Alger Jr.
3. The Rainbow - DH Lawrence
4. The Ramayana - Anonymous
5. Rameau's Nephew and D'Alembert's Dream - Denis Diderot
6. The Recognitions - William Gaddis
7. The Red Badge of Courage and Other Stories - Stephen Crane
8. The Red and the Black - Stendhal
9. The Red Pony - John Steinbeck
10. Redburn - Herman Melville
11. Resurrection - Leo Tolstoy
12. The Return of the Native - Thomas Hardy
13. The Return of the Soldier - Rebecca West
14. Revelations of Devine Love - Julien Norwich
15. Richard II - William Shakespear
16. Richard III - William Shakespear
17. The Riddle of the Sands - Erskine Childers
18. Riders of the Purple Sage - Zane Grey
19. Rob Roy - Walter Scott
20. Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defoe
21. Roderick Hudson - Henry James
22. The Romance of Tristan - Beroul
23. Romantic Fairy Tales - Various
24. Romeo and Juliet - William Shakespear
25. Romola - George Eliot
26. A Room with a View - EM Forster
27. Roxana or the FortunateMistress - Daniel Defoe

A classic lady...

Also new this month The Classics Challenge 2008! We all know I am working on become much more versed in the classics and so this is the perfect opportunity to work on that! I have chosen Option 1. Read five classics between July 1 and December 31. Period. And I'm going to be adding the bonus (a book chosen from the participant's list of "will be classics one day") as well. Now I'm crossing over a bit with my list from the Decades Challenge (see sidebar), but there will be two not from any other challenge, but off the Penguin Classics list, as well as the bonus.

My books:

Little Woman: Louisa May Alcott
Daisy Miller: Henry James
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson
Adolphe: Benjamin Constant
The Adventures of David Simple: Sarah Fielding
*BONUS* American Gods: Neil Gaiman

I think The Librarian will be proud I'm trying to read Gaiman.

Summertime, when the living is easy...

Rock Creek Rumblings is hosting the 2008 Summer Reading Challenge. Just like her Spring Reading Challenge (see sidebar) I have recently finished, the basic idea is to make a list for the summer and try your best to stick with it. I didn't finish last season's list (one and a half books to go), but I'm going to try for the same number of books again this time.

My booklist:

June...
The Sanctuary Sparrow: Ellis Peters
Standing in the Rainbow: Fannie Flagg
Madame Bovary: Gustav Flaubert
Saturday: Ian McEwan
Searching for Dragons: Patricia C. Wrede
July...
Looking for Salvation at the Dairy Queen: Susan Gregg Gilmore
Little Women: Louis May Alcott
The Devils' Novice: Ellis Peters
Quite a Year For Plums: Bailey White
Daisy Miller: Henry James
August...
Blonde: Joyce Carol Oates
Calling On Dragons: Patricia C. Wrede
Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde: Robert Louis Stevenson
Dead Man's Ransom: Ellis Peters
The Third Chimpanzee: Jared Diamond

We'll see how I do this time!

To be read...

Throughout the past month, I've been keeping a list of all the books I've read about on other people's blog that I now want to read. Who knows when I'll ever get to them since I'm not a very fast reader, but here's the list...
The Art of Racing in the Rain - Garth Stein
The Girl in Saskatoon - Sharon Butala
Belong to Me - Marisa de los Santos
Moose: a Memoire of Fat Camp - Stephanie Klein
The Crimson Petal and the White - Michel Faber
God's Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips
The Year of Living Biblically - AJ Jacobs
On Chesil Beach - Ian McEwan
The Big Over Easy/The Fourth Bear - Jasper Fforde (2 books)
The Teahouse on Mulbery Street - Sharon Owens
The Virgin of Small Plains - Nancy Pickard
The Crusade - Michael Alexander Eisner
The Gathering - Anne Enwrite
Broken Paradise - Cecilia Samartin
Innocent Traitor - Alison Weir
Into the Wild/Out of the Wild - Sara Beth Durst (2 books)

The Romanov Bride - Robert Alexander

Jim the Boy/The Blue Star - Tony Early (2 books)
21 new books to add to the list!

One more wrap up...

May Poll Results: Favorite Jane Austen Novel Emma:1 Lady Susan:1 Mansfield Park:0 Northanger Abbey:0 Persuasion:1 Pride and Prejudice:5 Sense and Sensibility:0 Only 8 votes, but an huge majority for Pride and Prejudice.

At the finish line...

As we have finished with the month of May, so have we finished with the Book Binge. I did not read many books this month, but was okay with the amount anyway.

My books and ratings were:

1. The Red and the Black - Stendhal 4/5
2. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 4/5
3. The Virgin in the Ice - Ellis Peters (reread)
4. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (reread)
And working on 5. The Sanctuary Sparrow - Ellis Peters

Also finished is the Spring Reading Challenge!

My plan for this challenge was to read 15 books during the months of March, April, and May and while I didn't reach my goal, I got pretty close. I'm in the middle of book 14 and will finish it hopefully tomorrow.

My books and ratings were:

1. The Saffron Kitchen - Yasmin Crowther 3/5
2. St. Peter's Fair - Ellis Peters (reread)
3. Dealing With Dragons - Patricia C. Wrede (reread)
4. Cast Two Shadows - Ann Rinaldi (reread)
5. Love in the Time of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez 4/5
6. The Leper of St. Giles - Ellis Peters (reread)
7. Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard - Kiran Desai 2/5
8. The Last Silk Dress - Ann Rinaldi (reread)
9. The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera 5/5
10. The Red and the Black - Stendhal 4/5
11. Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte 4/5
12. The Virgin in the Ice - Ellis Peters (reread)
13. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson (reread)

And last of all, finished with the Heart of a Child Challenge!

For this challenge we had to reread some of our favorite books from our childhood.

My books were:

1. Dealing With Dragons - Patricia. C. Wrede
2. The Last Silk Dress - Ann Rinaldi
3. Treasure Island - Robert Louis Stevenson

Wow. A lot of wrap ups!