A Cedar Cove Christmas by Debbie Macomber

Series: related to the Cedar Cove series
Genre: Fiction
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 280
Challenges: None

Debbie Macomber releases a Christmas book every year. This year it’s related to, but not technically part of her Cedar Cove series. 8 Sandpiper Way ends just before Christmas and this book picks up right where that one left off.

It’s a fun retelling of the Nativity story in Cedar Cove. Mary Jo Wyse is very pregnant and looking to get in touch with her baby’s father, David Rhodes. David told her he’d be spending Christmas in Cedar Cove with his parents. Readers of the series will know that David is certainly not a man to be trusted, but when Mary Jo shows up in town on Christmas Eve, she manages to meet up with the kinder residents of town.

Mary learns that David is not in town (no big surprise) but it’s too late to get back home to Seattle and there’s not a hotel room to be had. With ‘no room at the inn’, Mary Jo finds herself staying in the apartment over Cliff and Grace Harding’s barn. Downstairs in the stalls are the animals that the Hardings are housing temporarily for the town’s live Nativity scene, including a camel and a donkey.

The story is rounded out with Mary’s three brothers (the 3 Wyse Men) driving to Cedar Cove to find Mary and of course, Mary goes into labor on Christmas Eve.

Fun to read during my holiday vacation and I managed to finish it up late on New Year’s Eve for my last book of 2008.

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The Support Your Local Library Challenge

J. Kaye is hosting a fun challenge for 2009. It’s The Support Your Local Library Challenge.

I love that she made it flexible so participation is easy no matter what your level of library usage. Here are the details:

Since we are all different, there will be three sizes of challenges.

** The first is to read 12 books from your local library in 2009.

** The second is to read 25 books from your local library in 2009.

** The third is to read 50 books from your local library in 2009.

You decide which one of the three challenges is best for you. Here are the guidelines:

• You can join anytime as long as you don’t start reading your books prior to 2009.
• This challenge is for 2009 only. The last day to have all your books read is December 31, 2009.
• You can join anytime between now and December 31, 2009.
• Our goal is to read 12, 25, or 50 books checkout from our local library in 2009. Please decide which when you sign up and don’t change it.
• These can be audios, downloads, children’s, YA. As long as it’s a book, format and target age group does not matter.

Looking back, it appears that I got about 60% of my books from the library in 2008. In addition all of my audiobooks came from the library. I work in one county and live in another so I have easy access to two excellent library systems. I had a hard time deciding whether to try for 25 or 50 books. Since audiobooks are included and 25 would just be too easy, I’ve decided to go for the 50.

I’m not going to post a list ahead of time, but will keep a running list on my sidebar throughout the year.

Thanks J. Kaye. I love my libraries and need no encouragement to use them, but this challenge was just too perfect for me to resist.

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Audiobook – The Diana Chronicles by Tina Brown

Genre: Biography
Publication Date: 2007
Read by: Rosalyn Landor

I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d finish this one before the end of the year or not. At 17 cds it’s a lengthy one. I’ve never been a big tabloid reader or royal watcher and frankly after Princess Diana’s death I kind of avoided all the books and tell all’s that showed up in the first couple of years.

Tina Brown is the former editor in chief of Tatler (a gossip magazine), and has gone on from there to Vanity Fair and The New Yorker. She did know Diana, but it’s pretty unclear from the book how close they were. This book came out 10 years after Diana’s death and has the advantage of hindsight and (hopefully) a bit of perspective.

Parts of this book were quite interesting. I did learn things I didn’t know, along with a lot of rehash of well known information. It feels a lot like a very extended magazine article. Part of the time Diana is portrayed as an innocent among the lions and part of the time she seems to come across as a savvy media manipulator. Perhaps that’s the thing that makes people want to continue to read about her. She really does seem to have been a woman of striking contrasts. Part spoiled petulant child, part a woman who wanted to create her own place in the world.

All in all, it was OK, nothing earth shattering in its revelations, but it made for interesting listening in small increments over the last two months.

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8 Sandpiper Way by Debbie Macomber

Series: #8 in the Cedar Cove Series
Genre: Fiction
Publication Date: 2008
Pages: 371
Challenges: None

This series is great for when I need something light and enjoyable. By this point in the series the residents of Cedar Cove are like old friends and neighbors. It’s like sitting down for coffee with a couple of friends and catching up on what’s been happening lately.

As always some of the established characters continue their storylines and the reader gets to know previously minor characters better as well as meeting some new folks. Cedar Cove is a pretty small town so there’s lots of interaction between well known and newly introduced characters.

Just enjoyable and perfect for a busy time of year.

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What’s in a Name 2 Challenge

I loved Annie’s clever What’s in a Name Challenge this year and was happy to see she’s tweaked it a bit to keep it fresh for 2009.

Here's the scoop on the What's in a Name 2 Challenge

*Dates: January 1, 2009 through December 31, 2009

*The Challenge: Choose one book from each of the following categories.

1. A book with a "profession" in its title. Examples might include: The Book Thief, The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Historian

2. A book with a "time of day" in its title. Examples might include: Twilight, Four Past Midnight, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

3. A book with a "relative" in its title. Examples might include: Eight Cousins, My Father's Dragon, The Daughter of Time

4. A book with a "body part" in its title. Examples might include: The Bluest Eye, Bag of Bones, The Heart of Darkness

5. A book with a "building" in its title. Examples might include: Uncle Tom's Cabin, Little House on the Prairie, The Looming Tower

6. A book with a "medical condition" in its title. Examples might include: Insomnia, Coma, The Plague

*You may overlap books with other challenges, but please don't use the same book for more than one category.

These are the books I’ve chosen to read for this challenge:

Profession – The Bookman’s Wake by John Dunning
Time of Day – Murder on a Girl’s Night Out by Anne George
Relative – Aunt Dimity Digs In by Nancy Atherton
Body Part – Buried Bones by Carolyn Haines
Building – Hammerhead Ranch Motel by Tim Dorsey
Medical Conditiion – Delusion by G.H. Ephron

Thanks for hosting this one again Annie. I love the new categories.

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2009 TBR Challenge

This has been one of my favorite challenges for the past couple of years. I’m glad that Jenn is hosting it again for 2009.

Here are the rules:
* the challenge is to read 12 TBR books in 12 months -- you can read those all in one month if you want, or one a month, or however you wanna do it.
* you need to have a list posted somewhere for others to see (even if it's in a comment here)
* you CANNOT change your list after January 1st, 2009!!!
* you can create an Alternates list of MAXIMUM 12 books, if you want, in order to have options to choose from (you can read these in place of books on your original list).
* audiobooks and e-books ARE allowed
* re-reads are NOT allowed, as they aren't TRUE "TBRs"
* you CAN overlap with other challenges

I decided several months ago that for the 2009 version of this challenge I was only going to list books that are ‘the next book’ in the many many series that I’m in the process of reading. So all 24 of the books that I’m listing are part of some series I’ve started but not completed or caught up to the current release.

I’m listing 12 primary and 12 alternates. My not so secret plan is to read all 24 but I’ll consider the challenge completed if I read at least 12.

Primary List:

• Love Lies Bleeding by Susan Wittig Albert
• Aunt Dimity Digs In by Nancy Atherton
• Coyote by Linda Barnes
• Cross Country Quilters by Jennifer Chiaverini
• Chamomile Mourning by Laura Childs
• Hammerhead Ranch Motel by Tim Dorsey
• The Bookman’s Wake by John Dunning
• Delusion by G.H. Ephron
• 4th of July by James Patterson
• Buried Bones by Carolyn Haines
• Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling
• Pardonable Lies by Jacqueline Winspear

Alternate List:

• Stalking the Angel by Robert Crais
• The Apprentice by Tess Gerritsen
• Lost City by Clive Cussler
• Mary, Mary by James Patterson
• Deadly Decisions by Kathy Reichs
• Reunion in Death by J.D. Robb
• Cold is the Grave by Peter Robinson
• Play Dead by David Rosenfelt
• Beyond Reach by Karin Slaughter
• To Darkness and Death by Julia Spencer-Fleming
• A Body to Die For by Kate White
• Higher Authority by Stephen White

Thanks to Jenn for hosting this one again. I’m looking forward to it.

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Howie says Merry Christmas

Ho Ho Ho and all that crap.
Now take it off my head and let me go back to sleep!

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Challenges: My approach for 2009

This is a post that actually started out as a comment on Amy’s post about reading goals. It worked well as a starting point for my own post about my approach to challenges for 2009.

I have now completed all 16 of the reading challenges I joined in 2008. While I have enjoyed every challenge (although not every book), I really want to scale back the challenges for next year. I'm going to limit myself to a handful of favorites.

I love to read about new challenges and even those I’ve never considered actually joining have often inspired me to look at books that might fit the challenge criteria. I’ll start by looking at my TBR list to see what I already want to read that would work for the challenge or I might start browsing the library catalog or Powell’s website for possibilities. I might even add a book or two to my TBR list from what I see other bloggers listing for the challenge.

Even when I do actually join a challenge, I’m not sure which part is more fun, the planning or the doing. I love making lists of possibilities and adding books to my TBR list. I also really like the feeling of accomplishment when I’ve completed a challenge and put together my wrap up post.

On the other hand I feel like for the past couple of years I’ve been committing myself to too many challenges. It’s not that I’ve committed to more than I could do because I have completed all that I joined. I changed my tactics a bit this year and really looked for ways to overlap books and count them for more than one challenge. I did that pretty successfully and my record is counting Peter the Great for 7 different challenges. I think my frustration is that participating in too many challenges takes some of the spontaneity out of my reading choices and I miss that.

So for 2009 my challenge related goals will include:

1. signing up for only a few favorite challenges – I’m going to try to keep it to 5 or 6 at the most.


2. viewing the other challenges I see as opportunities to create possibilities rather than commitments.


3. focusing on continuing the many series I've already started (for the TBR challenge my list will be all series books from series I've started).


4. keeping lots of room for spontaneous reading choices.

In other words . . . "becoming a damn fine drifter" when it comes to my reading choices.

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2nds Challenge Completed

This was one of my favorite challenges last year, so I was happy to see Joy hosting this again for 2008 and didn’t hesitate to join again.

WHO: Anybody
WHAT: Read 4 books by authors that you have only read one other
WHERE: "Thoughts of Joy..."
WHEN: September, October, November and December, 2008WHY: Because we love to read...why else?

When scanning my TBR list for books for this challenge I found the same thing as last year – it took me all of about 3 minutes to find plenty of authors with book #1 marked as read and book #2 as not read.

These are the books I read for this year’s challenge:

• The Solace of Leaving Early by Haven Kimmel – her first novel is quite different from her memoir A Girl Named Zippy, but I really enjoyed it.
• Death du Jour by Kathy Reichs – an interesting medical mystery series that can be a bit detail heavy at times, but the mystery is interesting.
• The Treatment by Mo Hayder – Hayder’s books are not for the faint of heart, but if you survived Birdman, read this.
• Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George – I’m wishing I started reading this series years ago, but it gives me lots to look forward to.

I had fun with this challenge and enjoyed all of the books I read. Thanks for hosting this one again, Joy.

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Payment in Blood by Elizabeth George

Series: #2 in the Inspector Lynley series
Genre: Mystery
Publication Date: 1989
Pages: 413
Challenges: 2nds Challenge #4

For some reason I’m a latecomer to this series, but I’m so glad I finally started after hearing for years that it was a great series.

In this second book, Inspector Lynley and his partner Barbara Havers are sent to Scotland to investigate a murder. No one seems to know why Scotland Yard has been called in when the local police didn’t ask for help. Playwright Joy Sinclair is found dead at a secluded estate where all of the guests have known each other for years. The reason for her death is unknown as well as the identity of the murderer. Surprisingly, one of the guests (and therefore one of the suspects) is Lynley’s longtime friend (and love?), Lady Helen Clyde.

The interconnected cast of suspects makes for a mystery with lots of twists and turns. I changed my mind several times about who I thought was the murderer. Also interconnected are the recurring characters and the gradual revealing of their pasts and the evolving of their present relationships keep this series about much more than the current murder case.

As I said, I’m a latecomer to this series, but I’ll definitely be working on catching up. I really enjoyed this one.

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Happy Holidays

despite the weather. I'm really not fond of snow and ice, but the Christmas lights covered with snow looked pretty cool.

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A to Z Challenge Completed

Joy sucked me into this one. In 2006, way back before I started my blog and joined my first reading challenge, I did my own alphabetical challenge. I read (in order) an A to Z by title list of books, followed by an A to Z by Author list. It was fun and I said I probably wouldn’t do it again. Then last year, Joy posted that she was hosting an A to Z reading challenge for 2009. I wavered back and forth for a while and finally decided to give it a shot. I liked the idea of not limiting myself to reading the 52 books in order, but just filling in my list as I finished the books. The requirements really weren’t that strict.

~ align the author's last name or the title of a book (excluding "the", "a", etc.) with its corresponding letter in the alphabet
~ enter a different book for each author and title (total of 52 books)
~ complete the alphabet lists anyway that suits your fancy (i.e.: complete each list separately in alphabetical order, read both "A" entries, then "B" entries, fit whatever you're reading into either list, etc.)
~ complete the challenge in the year 2008
~ enjoy the experience!

Doing this for a second time was a fun experience. I enjoyed most of the books I read. I was able to include many books I was reading for other challenges and only had to really search for a few authors or titles to fill in the blanks.

My list of completed books is here (links are to the reviews on this blog)


Author List

1. Atkins, Ace - Leavin’ Trunk Blues
2. Barnes, Linda - The Snake Tattoo
3. Cussler, Clive - White Death
4. Dorsey, Tim - Florida Roadkill
5. Ephron, G.H. - Amnesia
6. Forster, E.M. - A Room with a View
7. Gruen, Sarah - Water for Elephants
8. Hammett, Dashiell - The Maltese Falcon
9. Ishiguro, Kazuo - The Remains of the Day
10. Jordan, Hillary - Mudbound
11. Koryta, Michael - Tonight I Said Goodbye
12. Levin, Ira - Rosemary’s Baby
13. Macomber, Debbie - 74 Seaside Avenue
14. Notaro, Laurie - The Idiot Girls’ Action-Adventure Club
15. O’Farrell, Maggie - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox
16. Pasternak, Boris - Doctor Zhivago
17. Quinlan, Patrick - Smoked
18. Rosenfelt, David - Dead Center
19. Schein, Elyse - Identical Strangers: A Memoir of Twins Separated and Reunited
20. Tarkington, Booth - The Magnificent Ambersons
21. Uruburu, Paula - American Eve
22. Van Ryn, Don and Susie - Mistaken Identity: Two Families, One Survivor, Unwavering Hope
23. Wood, Patricia - Lottery
24. Xi, Xu - The Unwalled City
25. Yarbrough, Steve - The End of California
26. Zellnik, M.J. - Murder at the Portland Variety

Title List

1. Aunt Dimity’s Good Deed by Nancy Atherton
2. Black Wind by Clive and Dirk Cussler
3. City Boy by Herman Wouk
4. The Diamond by Julie Baumgold
5. Echo Burning by Lee Child
6. Faithless by Karin Slaughter
7. A Great Deliverance by Elizabeth George
8. The House at Riverton by Kate Morton
9. The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
10. The Jasmine Moon Murder by Laura Childs
11. The Kitchen Boy by Robert Alexander
12. London Bridges by James Patterson
13. The Monkey’s Raincoat by Robert Crais
14. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
15. Out of the Deep I Cry by Julia Spencer-Fleming
16. Peter the Great by Robert K. Massie
17. Queen Victoria: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert
18. Rueful Death by Susan Wittig Albert
19. Smonk by Tom Franklin
20. Them Bones by Carolyn Haines
21. Undercurrents by Ridley Pearson
22. Vanishing Acts by Jodi Picoult
23. The Winter Queen by Boris Akunin
24. X-Treme Dating by Cathy McDavid
25. The Yellow Lighted Bookshop by Lewis Buzbee
26. The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman

It was enjoyable to do this alphabetical challenge a second time. I probably won’t do it again any time soon since I’ve now done it in slightly different formats twice within 3 years. For those who haven’t tried this yet, I’d encourage you to give it a shot at least once. You’d be surprised how many you’d get just by random selection of your normal reading and you never know when you’ll discover a very good title or author you wouldn’t have read without needing “that letter”.

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Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult

Genre: Fiction
Publication Date: 2007
Pages: 455
Challenges: A-Z Reading #52 (N Title)

Jodi Picoult tends to take on emotional and difficult subjects. This time around it’s school shootings. As usual, she presents multiple sides of the story and leaves me thinking.

In Nineteen Minutes there is less of the story of the actual shooting incident and more of what took place both before and afterwards. The small town of Sterling, New Hampshire is shocked by the shootings at the local high school. In the aftermath, the parents of the shooter are trying to come to terms with what has happened and their child’s part in it. The daughter of the judge hearing the case was not shot, but was at the school and a friend of many of the victims. As a child she’d been friends with the shooter. Lives that were intertwined in the past become that way again.

As usual, Picoult presents the story from multiple viewpoints and also from different points in time. What makes a kid do such a thing? Is it ever really explainable? Expectations play a big part in this book. What are we supposed to be and how are we supposed to act? How can you know that you’ve interpreted correctly what you think your parent, child, friend, or teacher expects from you? When is what you’re seeing a mask or act and when is it the real person? Can you ever really know for sure?

I liked that Picoult brought back a couple of characters from previous books in this one. Jordan McAfee is a defense attorney I’d want on my side and it’s good to see Picoult bring him back again.

Typical for Picoult, the ending comes with a twist. I figured there was one on the way, and I’d read some of the hints correctly, but it was still a twist. I can see why some reviews I’ve seen have said “I thought it was good until the ending”, but I didn’t feel that way. I just thought it was good.

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BCS: Beyond Common Sense

I'm seeing this all over the place, but haven't been able to determine the original source. Nevertheless, it makes me laugh.

BCS Declares Germany Winner of World War II

US Ranked 4th

After determining the Big-12 championship game participants, the BCS computers were put to work on other major contests and today the BCS declared Germany to be the winner of World War II.

"Germany put together an incredible number of victories beginning with the annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland and continuing on into conference play with defeats of Poland, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium and the Netherlands. Their only losses came against the US and Russia; however considering their entire body of work--including an incredibly tough Strength of Schedule--our computers deemed them worthy of the #1 ranking."

Questioned about the #4 ranking of the United States the BCS commissioner stated "The US only had two major victories--Japan and Germany. The computer models, unlike humans, aren't influenced by head-to-head contests--they consider each contest to be only a single, equally-weighted event."

German Chancellor Adolf Hitler said "Yes, we lost to the US; but we defeated #2 ranked France in only 6 weeks." Herr Hitler has been criticized for seeking dramatic victories to earn 'style points' to enhance Germany's rankings. Hitler protested "Our contest with Poland was in doubt until the final day and the conditions in Norway were incredibly challenging and demanded the application of additional forces."

The French ranking has also come under scrutiny. The BCS commented " France had a single loss against Germany and following a preseason #1 ranking they only fell to #2."

Japan was ranked #3 with victories including Manchuria, Borneo and the Philippines.

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It's a Weathergasm

The storm is still over the ocean and it's full on weathergasm mode here.

My prediction . . . about 10 snowflakes.

Usually when they get all goofy days ahead of time it fizzles into nothing more than a few snowflakes that melt in the heat of 14 live news trucks lights on the Sylvan overpass.

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Smoked by Patrick Quinlan

Smoked by Patrick Quinlan
Genre: Fiction/ Suspense
Publication Date: 2006
Pages: 276
Challenges: A-Z Reading #51 (Q Author)

Admittedly I picked this book because I needed a Q author, but I liked this debut novel enough that I’ll seek out Quinlan’s second book.

Smoke Dugan is a man with a past and it’s a past he’s kept hidden from his much younger girlfriend. Smoke used to build bombs for the mob. Now he’s living in Portland, Maine and his girlfriend thinks he’s a retiree who makes toys for special needs kids. Smoke’s girlfriend, Lola has had a rough life too. She grew up in the projects in Chicago and was brutally raped as a teenager. Since then, she’s studied martial arts and can certainly defend herself. In fact the book opens with a pretty brutal scene involving Lola and a couple of con-men/porn filmmakers.

Before long, Smoke, Lola, those con-men and a couple of mob hit-men are all involved in a round robin chase of each other.

It all sounds like something like a Quentin Tarantino film and that’s exactly how it reads. It’s a fast paced chase/suspense book that has lots of twists along the way. Not all of them are believable, but it’s a fun, quick read. There are some pretty brutal scenes, so if you’re sensitive to that sort of thing you won’t like this.

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The Unwalled City by Xu Xi

Genre: Fiction
Publication Date: 2001
Pages: 309
Challenges: A-Z Reading #50 (X Author)

This is one of those books that left me with mixed feelings. I can honestly say that without needing an X author for the A-Z challenge I would not have checked this book out from the library. Now that I’ve read it I can’t decide whether I liked it or not.

The book follows a handful of characters in Hong Kong in the years leading up to the handover to China in 1997. Andanna is a young local girl from a wealthy family who wants to be a Canto-Pop singer. Vince de Luca is a New Yorker who is living and working in Hong Kong as his second marriage is failing. Gail Szeto is a Eurasian single mom with a successful career and a mother whose contact with the here and now is tenuous. Colleen Leyland-Tang is an American who became fascinated with China at a young age and is now married to a wealthy businessman from a fairly traditional Chinese family.

These 4 people lead both separate and intertwined lives in and around Hong Kong. There’s a lot of interaction between them despite the differences in their lifestyles and goals. Hong Kong in it’s last days as a British colony is the setting.

I found the book to be rather noir-ish, and something that would have been a great context for a detective story, but what was missing was the detective story. The story is instead about these 4 characters coming to a better understanding of their pasts as well as their futures.

I didn’t love it, nor did I hate it. I think I have to let it simmer in my head for a while before I can come to a final conclusion.

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The Chunkster Challenge Completed

This challenge was pretty much a no-brainer for me. I love big fat chunky books. I remember when I was a kid I’d go to the library and browse the shelves for the fat books. I think that’s what helped develop my liking for biographies and historical fiction

Dana hosted this year’s version of THE CHUNKSTER CHALLENGE 2008

These were the guidelines:
To qualify the book must be 450 pps regular type OR 750 pps large text.
You must read FOUR chunksters (one each quarter), you OBVIOUSLY may read more
The Challenge will run Jan 7th, 2008 - Dec 20th, 2008 . . . BUT any chunkster started after Jan 1 qualifies.

I listed 6 books to read for this challenge. I’ve actually read 12 books so far this year that were longer than 450 pages, (and have at least one and maybe two more before the year is out) but I’ll post the ones I had specified to read for the challenge here.

• Faithless by Karin Slaughter – book # 5 in her Grant County series. It’s a brutal but well written series that I continue to enjoy despite the cringeworthy aspects and one character that I really don’t like at all.
• Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - a classic that I’d never read (nor have I seen any movie version). I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great wintertime read.
• Peter the Great by Robert Massie - a huge sweeping biography of a fascinating man.
• Black Wind by Clive and Dirk Cussler – another one of my brain candy series.
• The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone - Biographical fiction about Michelangelo and his work.
• Trinity by Leon Uris - big fat chunky historical fiction about Ireland in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s

Thanks Dana – this was an easy challenge for me to complete. I appreciate you taking it on and hosting it this yearl

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Decades 08 Challenge Completed

3M hosted another Decades Challenge this year – appropriately named Decades 08. I didn’t participate in the 2007 version of this, but the rules for the 2008 version made it just too hard to pass up:
The rules were simple:

1. Read a minimum of 8 books in 8 consecutive decades in ‘08.

2. Books published in the 2000’s do not count.

3. Titles could be cross-posted with any other challenge.

4. You could change your list at any time.

I started with a list of 11 books from the 1880’s through the 1980’s. I knew that somewhere along the way I’d read a 1990’s book to round out a dozen decades.

These are the books I read for this challenge:

• 1880’s - Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson – a fun classic.
• 1890’s - The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells - A Science Fiction Classic that I’m very glad I finally read.
• 1900’s - A Room With a View by E.M Forster - I really enjoyed this book and the movie too.
• 1910’s - The Magnificent Ambersons by Booth Tarkington - an American classic about changing times.
• 1920’s - The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse - lighthearted humor that has withstood the test of time.
• 1930’s - The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett - a classic of noir detective fiction that I should have read ages ago.
• 1940’s - City Boy by Herman Wouk - a charming tale of growing up with a bit of humor tossed in with the heartwarming stuff and nostalgia.
• 1950’s - Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak - a classic that I’d never read (nor have I seen any movie version). I thoroughly enjoyed it. A great wintertime read.
• 1960’s - The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone - Biographical fiction about Michelangelo and his work.
• 1970’s - Trinity by Leon Uris - big fat chunky historical fiction about Ireland in the late 1800’s to early 1900’s.
• 1980’s - Peter the Great by Robert Massie - a huge sweeping biography of a fascinating man.
• 1990’s - Florida Roadkill by Tim Dorsey - Pulp Fiction takes Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride through Florida – only for those with a twisted sense of humor

Many, many thanks to 3M for a wonderfully organized challenge and challenge blog. I had a great time. If you haven’t done a Decades challenge yet, I strongly encourage you to give it a try with Decades 09.

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The Idiot Girls’Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro

Genre: Humor/ Essays
Publication Date: 2002
Pages: 225
Challenges: A-Z Reading #49 (N Author)

Laurie Notaro used to write a humor column for an Arizona Newspaper. This collection of essays wasn’t as funny as some of the reviews indicated it might be, but it was a quick reading in short 3-5 page stories that was perfect for my holiday weekend reading which only occurred in short bursts.

I wanted this to make me laugh more than it did. About the best I could do was an occasional smirk or giggle. The 39 chapters were too heavy on the retelling of drunken exploits for my taste. I only finished it because it was such a quick read and every time I almost put it aside I came across a chapter that I thought was truly funny. The revenge on the date who stood her up was perfect and the chapter on Public bathroom etiquette was one of the few that did make me laugh.

Overall my feeling is ‘meh’ and I’m glad I got this from the library instead of buying it.

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