The Books List, Part 14

20 Books I Would Recommend Reading, 5 Books I Wouldn't, and 50 from my Reading List

The weather is starting to warm up and Memorial Day is right around the corner! Time for another Books List post, because we are gonna head to the beach and read our little hearts out!

My likes/loves: These are books that entertained me, moved me, taught me things, made me think, inspired me, and that I would heartily recommend. They are not ranked – they are merely in the order in which I read them.

1. Survivor – Chuck Palahniuk

2. Tokyo Travel Sketchbook – Amaia Arrazola

3. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov

4. Atonement – Ian McEwan

5. The King in the Tree – Steven Millhauser – read my review: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2023/08/review-of-king-in-tree-by-steven.html

6. Invisible Man – Ralph Ellison

7. What's Eating Us: Women, Food, and the Epidemic of Body Anxiety – Cole Kazdin

8. Marvel 1602 – Neil Gaiman/Andy Kubert

9. Bombshells vol. 1: Enlisted – Marguerite Bennett

10. Just After Sunset – Stephen King

11. JLA Earth 2 – Grant Morrison/Frank Quitely

12. The Shifting Tide – Anne Perry

13. The Face of a Stranger – Anne Perry

14. A Dangerous Mourning – Anne Perry

15. Defend and Betray – Anne Perry

16. My Headless Son Fred and His Head Baby Brother Headley: The Curious Tale of Filmon Trout – T. Hudson Roberts

17. Dietland – Sarai Walker

18. A Tale of Two Cities – Charles Dickens

19. The Mermaid Chair – Sue Monk Kidd

20. All that Remains – Patricia Cornwell

My meh/yuck list: Did not find these appealing for any number of reasons – some were boring; some had an interesting subject but did not do it justice; some were flat-out terrible. All simply left me cold in some way. Although I am likely to read multiple books by authors I like (you will see a lot of Dean Koontz, Haruki Murakami, Margaret Atwood, Charles deLint and Toni Morrison), I do not excuse those authors when they write a book I didn't like, so they might just show up here, as well.

1. The Pocket Powter – Susan Powter

2. Hillbilly Elegy – J.D. Vance

3. Lolita -Vladimir Nabokov

4. The Fountainhead – Ayn Rand

5. A Confederacy of Dunces – John Kennedy Toole

My Reading List: these are books I haven't read yet, so I don't have a reaction for you. However, I could semi-recommend them, based on the reasons they made it onto my list:

1. They were on one of those “100 Greatest Books” lists;

2. They are other books written by authors I really enjoy; or

3. I read a review, and it sounded like something I'd like.

#1 can be a bit hit-or-miss; #2 is almost (but not always) foolproof for me (but maybe not for you), and #3 usually works out pretty well, as it's a combination of the first two. As always, your results may vary, but consider them suggestions. These may tend to come in chunks of stuff by author (apologies).

1. How We Think – John Dewey

2. Humboldt's Gift – Saul Bellow

3. Humphrey Clinker – Tobias Smollett

4. Hyperion – Friedrich Hölderlin

5. I Capture the Castle – Dodie Smith

6. I Hate Other People's Kids – Adrianne Frost

7. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou

8. I, Robot – Isaac Asimov

9. Idyls of the King – Alfred Tennyson

10. If Not Now, When? – Primo Levi

11. If On a Winter's Night a Traveler – Italo Calvino

12. If This Is a Man – Primo Levi

13. Ignorance – Milan Kundera

14. I'm Not Stiller – Max Frisch

15. Impressions of Africa – Raymond Roussel

16. In a Free State – V.S. Naipaul

17. In a Glass Darkly – Sheridan Le Fanu

18. In a House of Dreams and Glass – Robert Klitzman

19. In Parenthesis – David Jones

20. In Sicily – Elio Vittorini

21. In the Forest – Edna O'Brien

22. In the Heart of the Country – J.M. Coetzee

23. In Watermelon Sugar – Richard Brautigan

24. Independent People – Hallidor Laxness

25. Indigo – Marina Warner

26. Inside Mr. Enderby – Anthony Burgess

27. Intimacy – Hanif Kureishi

28. Invisible Cities – Italo Calvino

29. Ironweed – William Kennedy

30. Islands – Dan Sleigh

31. Jack Maggs – Peter Carey

32. Jacob's Room – Virginia Woolf

33. Jacques the Fatalist – Denis Diderot

34. Jahrestage – Uwe Johnson

35. Jazz – Toni Morrison

36. Jealousy – Alain Robbe-Grillet

37. Joseph Andrews – Henry Fielding

38. Journey to the Center of the Earth – Jules Verne

39. Journey to the End of the Night – Louis Céline

40. Jude the Obscure – Thomas Hardy

41. Julie, or The New Eloise – Jean-Jacques Rousseau

42. July's people – Nadine Gordimer

43. Junkie – William Burroughs

44. Justine – Lawrence Durrell

45. Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami

46. Keep the Aspidistra Flying – George Orwell

47. Kidnapped – Robert Louis Stevenson

48. King Lear of the Steppes – Ivan Turgenev

49. King Solomon's Mines – H. Rider Haggard

50. Kingdom of this World – Alejo Carpentier

That's all for now; hope you find these lists useful as you think about things you might like to read. If you want more, more, more, you can find the previous lists at these links:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-books-list-part-one.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-books-list-part-two.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-three.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-four.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-books-list-part-five.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-books-list-part-six.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-books-list-part-seven.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-books-list-part-eight.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-books-list-part-nine.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-books-list-part-10.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-books-list-part-11-20-books-i-would.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-books-list-part-12.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2026/04/the-books-list-part-13-20-books-i-would.html

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-dslr-camera-on-white-sand-near-brown-woven-bag-8093191/

The Books List, Part 13: 20 Books I Would Recommend Reading, 5 Books I Wouldn't, and 50 from my Reading List

 

Ah, spring! Time for sunshine and rain and flowers and loopy, loopy weather. Nothing will brighten a rainy April shower like curling up with a good book. I bet you'll forget the weather completely! Without further ado, here's another Books List. Maybe you'll find your new favorite below!

My likes/loves: These are books that entertained me, moved me, taught me things, made me think, inspired me, and that I would heartily recommend. They are not ranked – they are merely in the order in which I read them.

1. Infidel – Ayaan Hirsi Ali

2. The Great Train Robbery – Michael Crichton

3. The Stories of Eva Luna – Isabel Allende

4. Eat to Live – Dr. Joel Fuhrman

5. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark – coll. By Alvin Schwartz

6. More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark – coll. By Alvin Schwartz

7. Scary Stories 3: More Tales to Chill Your Bones – coll. By Alvin Schwartz

8. Draw Your Weapons – Sara Sentilles

9. Sam's Letters to Jennifer – James Patterson

10. How to Learn Any Language – Barry Farber

11. Where the Sidewalk Ends – Shel Silverstein

12. Year of Yes – Shonda Rimes

13. Confessions of a Carb Queen – Susan Blech

14. Cows on Parade in Chicago – Mary Ellen Sullivan

15. Psychology – Carol Wade and Carol Tavris

16. Your Head is a Houseboat – Campbell Walker

17. F*ck Your Diet and Other Things My Thighs Tell Me – Chloé Hilliard

18. The Witches Are Coming – Lindy West

19. Shrill – Lindy West

20. Race Records – Wendy Hayton

My meh/yuck list: Did not find these appealing for any number of reasons – some were boring; some had an interesting subject but did not do it justice; some were flat-out terrible. All simply left me cold in some way. Although I am likely to read multiple books by authors I like (you will see a lot of Dean Koontz, Jonathan Kellerman, Margaret Atwood, Charles deLint and Toni Morrison), I do not excuse those authors when they write a book I didn't like, so they might just show up here, as well.

1. The Elements of Style – William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White

2. The Riddle and the Knight – Giles Milton

3. The Story of O – Pauline Réage

4. White Noise – Don deLillo

5. Be More Wonder Woman – Cheryl Rickman

My Reading List: these are books I haven't read yet, so I don't have a reaction for you. However, I could semi-recommend them, based on the reasons they made it onto my list:

1. They were on one of those “100 Greatest Books” lists;

2. They are other books written by authors I really enjoy; or

3. I read a review, and it sounded like something I'd like.

#1 can be a bit hit-or-miss; #2 is almost (but not always) foolproof for me (but maybe not for you), and #3 usually works out pretty well, as it's a combination of the first two. As always, your results may vary, but consider them suggestions. These may tend to come in chunks of stuff by author (apologies).

1. Fools of Fortune – William Trevor

2. Forever a Stranger – Hella Haasse

3. Fortunata and Jacinta – Benito Pérez Galdós

4. Foucault's Pendulum – Umberto Eco

5. Foundation – Isaac Asimov

6. Franny and Zooey – J. D. Salinger

7. Fruits of the Earth – André Gide

8. Fugitive Pieces – Anne Michaels

9. Fury – Salman Rushdie

10. G – John Berger

11. Gabriel's Gift – Hanif Kureishi

12. Gargantua and Pantagruel – François Rabelais

13. Giles Goat-Boy – John Barth

14. Giovanni's Room – James Baldwin

15. Girl with Green Eyes – Edna O'Brien

16. Glamorama – Bret Easton Ellis

17. Go Down, Moses – William Faulkner

18. Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick – Peter Handke

19. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater – Kurt Vonnegut

20. Gone – Lisa Gardner

21. Good Omens – Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

22. Good Morning, Midnight – Jean Rhys

23. Goodbye to Berlin – Christopher Isherwood

24. Gormenghast – Mervyn Peake

25. Gösta Berling's Saga – Selma Lagerlöf

26. Great Apes – Will Self

27. Great Expectations – Charles Dickens

28. Grimus -Salman Rushdie

29. Group Portrait with Lady – Heinrich Böll

30. Growth of the Soil – Knut Hamsun

31. Hadrian the Seventh – Frederick Rolfe

32. Hallucinating Foucault – Patricia Duncker

33. Hangover Square – Patrick Hamilton

34. Hard Times – Charles Dickens

35. Harriet Hume – Rebecca West

36. Hawksmoor – Peter Ackroyd

37. He Knew He Was Right – Anthony Trollope

38. Hebdomeros – Giorgio di Chirico

39. Henderson the Rain King – Saul Bellow

40. Her Privates We – Frederic Manning

41. Herzog – Saul Bellow

42. Hideous Kinky – Esther Freud

43. High Rise – J. G. Ballard

44. Homo Faber – Max Frisch

45. House Mother Normal – B. S. Johnson

46. House of Leaves – Mark Z. Danielewski

47. Housekeeping – Marilynne Robinson

48. How Late It Was, How Late – James Kelman

49. How It Is – Samuel Beckett

50. How the Dead Live – Will Self

That's all for now; hope you find these lists useful as you think about things you might like to read. If you want more, more, more, you can find the previous lists at these links:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-books-list-part-one.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-books-list-part-two.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-three.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-four.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-books-list-part-five.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-books-list-part-six.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-books-list-part-seven.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-books-list-part-eight.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/the-books-list-part-nine.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-books-list-part-10.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2026/01/the-books-list-part-11-20-books-i-would.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-books-list-part-12.html

Image credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/book-and-lighted-candle-near-glass-window-13945391/

Review of The King in the Tree by Steven Millhauser

 

Steven Millhauser is a very accomplished author with a body of work spanning back to 1972, when his debut novel, Edwin Mullhouse, was published. His book Martin Dressler has won a Pulitzer. Both of these titles are on my reading list, but I happened to have purchased The King in the Tree a while back, and my aim is to read the books I already have before getting any new ones. So, this is my jumping-off point into the work of Steven Millhauser. And I like where I landed!

The King in the Tree (2003, Knopf) is a book composed of three novellas, entitled Revenge, An Adventure of Don Juan, and The King in the Tree. Each story has a different setting, different characters, and a different tone. The three are united, however, by similar subject matter: love, longing, and betrayal.

Revenge, the first novella, starts the book off with a bang. The premise of this story is of a woman who is showing a potential buyer around her home, which is for sale. As we progress through the story, the seller reveals bits and pieces of the real story, which is about far more than selling a home. It's written in a kind of first person/second-person hybrid, because there is a narrator, but she is speaking to the unidentified (at first) buyer, which feels like she's talking to you. We're experiencing the story from the point of view of the buyer, although that person never gets a single line of dialogue, because we are passively listening to the narrator unwind the story, room by room. And yet, we are also experiencing the story from the point of view of the narrator, because she is sharing all of her feelings with us. It was absolutely spellbinding, and when I finished, I basically had to sit and go “Whoa”. I love stories that make me do that!

The second novella, An Adventure of Don Juan, is told in a more traditional third-person style, although we are fully inhabiting the point of view of Don Juan Tenorio, the famous seducer. This ended up making me uncomfortable, because he turns out to be a seriously vile person, wrapped up in the pretty packaging of his handsome face, wealth, and courtly ways. In this tale, Don Juan becomes bored with his self-indulgent lifestyle in Venice and travels to England on the invitation of a casual friend, Augustus Hood, a creative prodigy whose lovely wife and striking, enigmatic sister-in-law are given the care of their guest, with increasingly dire consequences. The conclusion of this story was harrowing, but satisfying.

The 'title track' of the collection, The King in the Tree, is the longest of the three, and packs even more twists and turns than the prior stories. It is based on the legend of Tristan and Yseut/Yseult/Isolde/Isolt, in this version spelled Ysolt. Anyone familiar with the legend knows that it is the classic “doomed lovers” tale, but this version, narrated by the king's advisor and bosom friend, Thomas, gives us a far more subtle view, showing us how the love affair between King Mark of Cornwall's nephew, Tristan, and his queen, Ysolt, is dealt with (or at times not dealt with) by the king, who deeply loves them both.

I enjoyed this book so much. The writing is just exquisite. Millhauser knows how to set a scene, hatch a plot, and keep things moving, but what I loved best is his ability to thoroughly inhabit his characters – the wounded, vindictive unnamed character in Revenge, the cocky, jaded, Don Juan, the gentle, faithful Thomas – giving us a full immersion into the story through their eyes. I can't wait to read more Millhauser!

If you enjoyed these, please check out my other book reviews: 

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2023/05/the-best-in-writing-half-asleep-in-frog.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/review-of-your-head-is-houseboat-by.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-review-of-boston-darkens-by-michael.html

The Best in Writing: Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas

One of my favorite literary passages appears in the book Half Asleep in Frog Pajamas by Tom Robbins. This book could perhaps be best described as a mystical screwball comedy about the stock market. I know that’s a lot to accommodate as a concept, but Robbins handles it deftly. His dialogue is creative and funny, his deeply flawed characters are maddeningly well-developed and his plot is twisted, yet consistent. But this is not a book report, Dear Reader. This is my review of one jewel-like passage that outshines not only the rest of the book but also the complete works of many other authors.

Okay, that’s a lot of hyperbole, but now you may judge for yourself. The story is set in Seattle, that bastion of dampness (yes, they have a stock market there), and in one rather long but deliciously sensory paragraph, Robbins sums up the endless, permeating rain:

This is Seattle, the brief, bright spring has stalled, and the rains have returned. They have stolen down from the Sasquatch slopes. They have risen with the geese from the marshes. It rains a chattering of totem teeth. It rains a sweat lodge of ancient vapors. The city, with its office towers and electricity, has been somehow primitivized by the rain: every hue darkened, every wheel slowed, every view foreshortened, every modern, commercial mind-set turned in on itself, forced to rub shoulders with the old salamander who sleeps in the soul. Hour after hour, the rain will fall; apartments, decorated to be showplaces, will take on the character of burrows or nests; and espresso carts, the little pumping stations of Seattle’s lifeblood, will glow beneath their umbrellas like the huts of shamans. Drops spiral from every cornice, every antenna, every awning. Drops glisten on each plate-glass window, each tailgate, each inch of neon that sizzles in the mist. Dense, penetrating, and modifying, the rain narrows the gap between nature and civilization. Forgotten longings stir in the crack.

I love the way Robbins captures the relentlessness of the drenching Seattle rain. Indeed, the use of one long paragraph mimics the never-ending effect of an all-day soaking rain. The onomatopoeia of “a chattering of totem teeth” evokes the nonstop ticking of rain on every surface, and the metaphors of the sweat lodge of ancient vapors and the espresso carts like the huts of shamans keeps to the ancient and mystical theme of the rain “primitivizing” the modern city with its timeless embrace. More onomatopoeia: drops glisten, neon sizzles. Robbins ends the passage by restating the triumph of ancient Nature over the edifices of modernity and the awakening of the deeper self, perhaps the “old salamander who sleeps in the soul”. In my personal opinion, this is masterful, and I hope you enjoyed it, too.

Other literary reviews you might enjoy: 

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-duma-key-by-stephen-king.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/05/a-review-of-boston-darkens-by-michael.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-historian-by-elizabeth-kostova.html

Image Credit: https://www.pexels.com/photo/water-dew-in-clear-glass-panel-125510/

The Books List, Part Nine

20 Books I Would Recommend Reading, 5 Books I Wouldn't, and 50 from my Reading List

As we start to come out of winter, days are getting longer and warmer. Your results may vary, but whether you're reading curled up under a blanket or sitting in the park, it's always time for another Books List post!

My likes/loves: These are books that entertained me, moved me, taught me things, made me think, inspired me, and that I would heartily recommend. They are not ranked – they are merely in the order in which I read them.

I have written reviews for several of these, for which I will include links within the list, if you are interested in getting more of an in-depth (but spoiler-free) look at the books and my impression of them.

1. The Last Days of Dogtown – Anita Diamant

2. 3^rd Degree – James Patterson and Andrew Gross

3. Step on a Crack – James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge

4. Rape: A Love Story – Joyce Carol Oates

5. Uncollected Stories – Kate Chopin

6. You've Been Warned – James Patterson and Howard Roughan

7. Death Comes for the Archbishop – Willa Cather

8. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Green Living – Trish Riley

9. The Worst Thing I've Done – Ursula Hegi

10. The Power and the Glory – Graham Greene

11. A Short History of Nearly Everything – Bill Bryson

12. Duma Key – Stephen King

    Here's my review of Duma Key: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-duma-key-by-stephen-king.html

13. The Historian – Elizabeth Kostova

    Here's my review of The Historian: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-historian-by-elizabeth-kostova.html

14. Dali – Paul Moorhouse

15. Prodigal Summer – Barbara Kingsolver

    Here's my review of Prodigal Summer: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-prodigal-summer-by-barbara.html

16. Dexter in the Dark – Jeff Lindsay

    Here's my review of Dexter in the Dark: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/01/review-of-dexter-in-dark-by-jeff-lindsay.html

17. Almost Green: How I Saved 1/6^th of a Biliionth of the Planet – James Glave

    Here's my review of Almost Green: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2016/04/review-of-almost-green-how-i-saved-16th.html

18. Unless – Carol Shields

    Here's my review of Unless: https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-unless-novel-by-carol-shields.html

19. Seven Wild Sisters – Charles de Lint

20. Promises to Keep – Charles de Lint

My meh/yuck list: Did not find these appealing for any number of reasons – some were boring; some had an interesting subject but did not do it justice; some were flat-out terrible. All simply left me cold in some way. Although I am likely to read multiple books by authors I like (you will see a lot of Dean Koontz, Jonathan Kellerman, Margaret Atwood, Charles de Lint and Toni Morrison), I do not excuse those authors when they write a book I didn't like, so they might just show up here, as well.

1. A Night in Acadie – Kate Chopin

2. A Lost Lady – Willa Cather

3. The Awakening – Kate Chopin

4. The Professor's House – Willa Cather

5. Lord Jim – Joseph Conrad

My Reading List: these are books I haven't read yet, so I don't have a reaction for you. However, I could semi-recommend them, based on the reasons they made it onto my list:

1. They were on one of those “100 Greatest Books” lists;

2. They are other books written by authors I really enjoy; or

3. I read a review, and it sounded like something I'd like.

#1 can be a bit hit-or-miss; #2 is almost (but not always) foolproof for me (but maybe not for you), and #3 usually works out pretty well, as it's a combination of the first two. As always, your results may vary, but consider them suggestions. These may tend to come in chunks of stuff by author (apologies).

1. Absolute Beginners – Colin MacInnes

2. Ada – Vladimir Nabokov

3. Adam Bede – George Eliot

4. Adjunct: An Undigest – Peter Manson

5. Aesop's Fables – Aesopus

6. After the Death of Don Juan – Sylvia T. Warner

7. After the Ice: A Global Human History, 20,000-5000 BC - Steven Mithen

8. After the Quake – Haruki Murakami

9. Against the Grain – Joris-Karl Huysmans

10. Agnes Grey – Anne Bronte

11. Aithiopika – Heliodorus

12. Albert Angelo – B.S. Johnson

13. Alias Grace – Margaret Atwood

14. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll

15. All About H. Hatterr – G.V. Desani

16. All Quiet on the Western Front – Erich Remarque

17. All Souls Day – Cees Nooteboom

18. Amateurs – Donald Barthelme

19. Amelia – Henry Fielding

20. American Gods – Neil Gaiman

21. Amerika – Franz Kafka

22. Amok – Stefan Zweig

23. Amongst Women – John McGahern

24. Amsterdam – Ian McEwan

25. An Anthropologist on Mars – Oliver Sacks

26. An Artist of the Floating World – Kazuo Ishiguro

27. An Obedient Father – Akhil Sharma

28. Anagrams – Lorrie Moore

29. Anna Karenina – Leo Tolstoy

30. Another Bullshit Night in Suck City – Nick Flynn

31. Another World – Pat Barker

32. Anthem – Ayn Rand

33. Antic Hay – Aldous Huxley

34. Arcadia – Jim Crace

35. Arcanum 17 – Andre Breton

36. Ariel – Lawrence Block

37. Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne

38. Arrow of God – Chinua Achebe

39. As If I Am Not There – Slavenka Drakulic

40. Asphodel – H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

41. At Swim, Two Boys – Jamie O'Neill

42. August is a Wicked Month – Edna O'Brien

43. Austerlitz – W.G. Sebald

44. Auto-Da-Fe – Elias Canett

45. Autumn of the Patriarch – Gabriel Garcia Marquez

46. Back – Henry Green

47. Battlefield Earth – L. Ron Hubbard

48. Bel-Ami – Guy de Maupassant

49. Belle de Seigneur – Albert Cohen

50. Ben-Hur – Lew Wallace

That's all for now; hope you find these lists useful as you think about things you might like to read. 

In case you missed any, here are the other books lists:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-books-list-part-one.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-books-list-part-two.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-three.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-four.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-books-list-part-five.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-books-list-part-six.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-books-list-part-seven.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2021/12/the-books-list-part-eight.html

Image from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/green-plant-on-white-ceramic-pot-4153146/

Review of Duma Key by Stephen King

 

Stephen King is one of the most prolific and successful writers in history. He has penned classics like The Stand and has had some not-so-great moments, as well (more on that later), but Duma Key is a great standalone book. This scary tale of suspense is narrated by its protagonist, Edgar Freemantle, a man who became successful and wealthy in the building trade, but whose career was cut short by a terrible jobsite accident that took one of his arms, severely damaged a leg and his vision, and, perhaps worst of all, rattled his brain enough to cause lapses in his memory and language skills and left him dealing with sudden bursts of rage.

Steeped in an agonizing stew of anger, frustration and despair, suffering constant torment from his physical wounds, and dealing with the impending divorce from his wife of 25 years, Edgar embraces a plan of suicide. Fortunately, this idea is headed off by Kamen, his therapist, who suggests a change of scenery. This results in Edgar's trading the impending winter cold of Minnesota for the tropical sunsets of Duma Key, Florida, where he ends up in a large pink house that hangs out over the water and seems to extend a special welcome to him.

From the very first day in "Big Pink", Edgar starts to make noticeable progress toward recovery. He finds his pain and stiffness diminishing, and he begins to practice walking on the beach without his cane, going farther every day. His also previously-undeveloped artistic talent emerges in a big way, so much so that in a few months, he has a studio full of drawings and paintings that leave people awestruck, as well as a little spooked. He develops close friendships with his young assistant, Jack Cantori, and with the only year-round residents of the Key, a man named Wireman and his employer, the gracious yet mysterious Elizabeth Eastlake, who also know a thing or two about trauma, both physical and mental. Buoyed by these relationships and by supportive emails from his adoring daughter, Ilse, and riding a powerful creative high as his artistic talent "unbottles", Edgar is happier on Duma than he thought he ever could be, but then things start to get creepy...

Don't they always? What's the point of a Stephen King book if they don't, right?

King had had several missteps, in my opinion, in the period of time prior to this work -- the abysmal Lisey's Story and the last two books in the Gunslinger series come immediately to mind -- but Duma Key is a good return to form; it kept me turning pages (and there are 609 of them) with a minimum of exasperated snorts--and even some actual eek! moments.

He still sticks somewhat to his formula: Domestic animals, for example, are not safe around Stephen King; he murders yet another beloved pet in this story. It happens early on and is dispensed with fairly quickly, but it is not really necessary to drive the plot forward, and I'm thinking Mr. King could do us all a favor and keep his animal issues to himself. It was understandable in Pet Sematary, but not since. (Eh-hem. Sorry, soapboxing a bit, there.) The other thing the author does with consistency is kill off main characters of whom you've grown fond, and, as if to add insult to injury, usually tells you about it in advance. Unlike the animal cruelty, however, I can live with this as a trademark of his style that I might miss, even though it has made me swear aloud more than once.

Also true to King's style, though, are fully-developed characters, with individual personalities and interesting histories, who do completely understandable things and make completely plausible observations. It is this firm grounding in reality that allows you to hang on when the creepy winds start a-blowin', and to suspend your disbelief when they get to gale-force. I'm especially impressed by King's ability to pace the reader through a very long book by keeping it interesting the whole time. As with any particularly engaging yarn, the length of the book is a treat, not a burden, because the journey's as much fun as the destination -- maybe more so.

I don't know if "fun" is the right word for the delicious terror of a well-written Stephen King book, but Duma Key is "shivery good"!

Another scary page-turner you might like: 
https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-historian-by-elizabeth-kostova.html

Review of The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

 

I just finished reading Elizabeth Kostova's supernatural thriller, The Historian, and I'm like, whoa. Okay, that is possibly the most un-erudite thing you've ever read in a book review, but it's my immediate and visceral reaction. I will try to be more precise forthwith:

The Historian is the tale of our narrator, who when she is sixteen years old finds a curious book and a packet of letters in her father's study. When she questions him about it, he is extremely reluctant to discuss it. However, as she accompanies him on his travels around Europe as a cold-war-era diplomat, she slowly begins to draw a tale from him that seems unbelievable, at first, yet it is supported by the letters, written by his former doctoral advisor, Professor Bartholomew Rossi. Professor Rossi disappeared under mysterious and terrifying circumstances immediately after passing the letters to his advisee, the narrator's father.

As she gets more pieces of the puzzle over the course of a couple of years, our intrepid narrator begins to do her own research into the supernatural historical mystery that caused her father the loss of his cherished friend, Rossi, and possibly the loss as well of her own mother, who died when the narrator was an infant--also under mysterious circumstances that her father will not discuss. She continues to chase clues until her father also disappears abruptly, leaving her in a race against time to find him and to find out what happened to her mother before all is lost to a predator who seems to be stalking them as readily as they stalk him.

This book succeeds in the unlikely task of making historical research, cold war politics and European history fascinating by interweaving it with a scary, thrilling chase that is paced so well, the reader is lead almost breathlessly through the entire six hundred-plus pages to the amazing denouement and skin-crawling epilogue. We follow three successive generations of historians (Professor Rossi, the narrator's parents, and the narrator herself) as they each contribute piece after piece of the mysterious puzzle, following a trail that leads from Amsterdam and France to Romania and Istanbul and through Soviet-controlled Hungary and Bulgaria. In every new location, we learn more about the history of the area, from medieval times through the '30s, '50s and '70s of the 20th century. Everything from the Ottoman Empire to the library systems of various universities and monasteries is explored in the most fascinating way.

One of the minor mysteries of the book is the question of to whom the title refers. Is the Historian Rossi, a highly celebrated and much-published professor in the History department at Oxford, and the originator of the supernatural investigation? Or is it Paul, the narrator's father, who was a doctoral student in that same department until ending up as a diplomat, after the loss of his wife cut short his own search? Is the Historian the narrator, who joins the search, and is, after all, the main character? Or could it be one of the many professors, archivists and librarians who help our investigators along the way, sometimes to their own fatal outcomes? Near the end of the book, the identity of the Historian is revealed, and I guarantee it will make you shiver to your very bones. I highly recommend Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian , an excellent, scary read that will take you along for the white-knuckle ride!

Here are reviews for some more creepy/mysterious books you might enjoy:

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-unless-novel-by-carol-shields.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-duma-key-by-stephen-king.html

Review of Unless: A Novel by Carol Shields

Unless: A Novel (HarperCollins, 2002) is the story of Reta Winters, a 44-year-old writer living in Orangetown, Canada, a suburb of Toronto. Reta has all the trappings of an idyllic life: a respectable career; Tom, her partner of 26 years; their three smart, kind teenaged daughters; and a rambling old farmhouse that Reta loves.

However, Reta is struggling with the unexpected loss of her eldest daughter, Norah, not to death, but to an existence completely separate from her family and from the life she so happily lived before: Norah has suddenly and inexplicably dropped out of school and seemingly from life in general, choosing to sit on a street corner in Toronto with a handmade sign hanging around her neck that says one word: goodness. She subsists on handouts from passersby, and any attempts by Reta or her family and friends to talk to Norah or to persuade her to come home are met with silence. They can only leave things for her, knowing that she will give away most of what is given her to other street people.

We are shown a slice of Reta's life as she copes with this heartbreaking situation, surprisingly with a lot of humor. We are introduced to Reta's family and friends, her fellow female writers, her relationships with them and to the world of writing, from passive-aggressive interviewers to sycophantic-yet-overbearing editors, and there is an ongoing theme of a woman's place in the world of writing, as well as the world in general. Reta writes scathingly funny, yet poignant, letters to assorted individuals as a kind of exercise to try to figure out why her daughter "dropped out" of life. Did she withdraw out of a sense of powerlessness, putting herself in such a position of vulnerability and passivity as a way to "claim" that absence of power? Everyone seems to have a theory, but nobody can get Norah to explain her decisions.

Reta spends her days working on a novel of light-hearted, romantic fluff, which serves to distract her, although she begins to see her characters more deeply than, perhaps, she should, as she views them through the focusing lens of the balance of power in male-female relationships. She is drawn sympathetically to the female lead, while the male character becomes ever more bothersome to her. This coincides rather hilariously with her brand new editor's desire to make an artistic statement out of the book, which is intended to be a sequel to a prior light comedy, and to make the annoying, selfish male character practically the sole focus. Those of us who have had editors say they absolutely adore our manuscript before requesting that we change, oh, everything, can sympathize.

I found this book a very absorbing read. Shields has a great way with language, especially dialogue, and she knows when to lighten things up in a realistic way when the subject matter threatens to get ponderous. Reta's letters are interspersed throughout as a kind of food-for-thought snack break, and they are highly entertaining. Shields offers Norah's situation as a storyline to fascinate us with its abnormality, yet folds it into the larger text of relationships and anxiety about one's place in society, to which we can all relate. I would recommend this novel, and I am looking forward to reading other work by Shields, as well.

Here are some reviews for other books you might like: 

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-prodigal-summer-by-barbara.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2022/02/review-of-james-pattersons-quickie.html

The Books List, Part Seven

20 Books I Would Recommend Reading, 5 Books I Wouldn't, and 50 from my Reading List

Ah, spring! Nice enough to get outside for reading on the porch, a hammock, or what-have-you. Time for another Books List post!

My likes/loves: These are books that entertained me, moved me, taught me things, made me think, inspired me, and that I would heartily recommend. They are not ranked – they are merely in the order in which I read them.

1. Stolen Lives: 20 Years in a Desert Jail – Malika Oufkir

2. Affluenza – John de Graaf, David Wann, Thomas Naylor

3. YOU: The Owner's Manual – Dr. Mark Roizen and Dr. Mehmet Oz

4. Shotgun Alley – Andrew Klavan

5. Damnation Street – Andrew Klavan

6. The Da Vinci Code – Dan Brown

7. The Consumers' Guide to Effective Environmental Choices- Michael Brower and Warren Leon

8. The Clan of the Cave Bear – Jean Auel

9. The Kite Runner – Khaled Hosseini

10. Widdershins – Charles de Lint

11. Anansi Boys – Neil Gaiman

12. Phobias and How to Overcome Them – Gardner and Bell

13. The Dress Lodger – Sheri Holman

14. Howard's End – E.M. Forster

15. London Bridges – James Patterson

16. Beach Road – James Patterson and Peter de Jonge

17. Judge and Jury – James Patterson

18. Someplace to Be Flying – Charles de Lint

19. Right, Wrong, and Risky – Mark Davidson

20. Forests of the Heart – Charles de Lint

My meh/yuck list: Did not find these appealing for any number of reasons – some were boring; some had an interesting subject but did not do it justice; some were flat-out terrible. All simply left me cold in some way. Although I am likely to read multiple books by authors I like (you will see a lot of Dean Koontz, Jonathan Kellerman, Margaret Atwood, Charles de Lint and Toni Morrison), I do not excuse those authors when they write a book I didn't like, so they might just show up here, as well.

1. Everything Bad is Good for You – Steven Johnson

2. Cell – Stephen King

3. Lisey's Story – Stephen King

4. Silent Partner – Stephen Frey

5. The Deep End of the Ocean – Jacquelyn Mitchard

My Reading List: these are books I haven't read yet, so I don't have a reaction for you. However, I could semi-recommend them, based on the reasons they made it onto my list:

1. They were on one of those “100 Greatest Books” lists;

2. They are other books written by authors I really enjoy; or

3. I read a review, and it sounded like something I'd like.

#1 can be a bit hit-or-miss; #2 is almost (but not always) foolproof for me (but maybe not for you), and #3 usually works out pretty well, as it's a combination of the first two. As always, your results may vary, but consider them suggestions. These may tend to come in chunks of stuff by author (apologies).

1. Evil – Lance Morrow

2. Moon Pies and Movie Stars – Amy Wallen

3. The Untouchable – John Banville

4. Killing Time – Linda Howard

5. Hypocrite in a Pouffy White Dress – Susan Jane Gilman

6. Sick Puppy – Carl Hiaasen

7. The Painted Veil – W. Somerset Maugham

8. Wicked: The Life and Times of The Wicked Witch of the West - Gregory Maquire

9. Never Have Your Dog Stuffed – Alan Alda

10. The Devil of Nanking – Mo Hayder

11. Gods in Alabama – Joshilyn Jackson

12. Early Bird – Rodney Rothman

13. A Long Way Down – Nick Hornby

14. Soapsuds – Finola Hughes and Digby Diehl

15. You Shall Know Our Velocity – Dave Eggers

16. The Adventures of Augie March – Saul Bellow

17. American Pastoral – Philip Roth

18. Apointment in Samarra – John O'Hara

19. Loving – Henry Green

20. Lucky Jim – Kingsley Amis

21. Money – Martin Amis

22. The Assistant – Bernard Malamud

23. At Swim-Two-Birds – Flann O'Brien

24. The Berlin Stories – Christopher Isherwood

25. The Big Sleep – Raymond Chandler

26. The Blind Assassin – Margaret Atwood

27. Blood Meridian – Cormac McCarthy

28. The Bridge of San Luis Rey – Thornton Wilder

29. The Movie Goer – Walker Percy

30. Never Let Me Go – Kazuo Ishiguro

31. The Painted Bird – Jerzy Kosinski

32. A House for Mr. Biswas – V.S. Naipaul

33. I, Claudius – Robert Graves

34. Infinite Jest – David Foster Wallace

35. Ubik – Philip K. Dick

36. Undre the Net – Iris Murdoch

37. Under the Volcano – Malcolm Lowry

38. Watchmen – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

39. White Noise – Dan DeLillo

40. White Teeth – Zadie Smith

41. Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys

42. Call It Sleep – Henry Roth

43. Pale Fire – Vladimir Nabokov

44. Play It as It Lays – Joan Didion

45. A Passage to India – E.M. Forster

46. Portnoy's Complaint – Philip Roth

47. The Confessions of Nat Turner – William Styron

48. The Corrections – Jonathan Frantzen

49. The Crying of Lot 49 – Thomas Pynchon

50. A Dance to the Music of Time – Anthony Powell

That's all for now; hope you find these lists useful as you think about things you might like to read.

In case you missed the prior lists, here and the handy links: 

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/03/the-books-list-part-one.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/04/the-books-list-part-two.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-three.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-books-list-part-four.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/09/the-books-list-part-five.html

https://bucketofuseful.blogspot.com/2020/11/the-books-list-part-six.html

Image from Freepik https://www.freepik.com/free-photo/stack-red-green-books-with-dry-flowers-pink-warm-knitted-sweater_13820266.htm#page=1&query=books&position=5