"There were five of us--Carruthers and the new recruit and myself, and Mr. Spivens and the verger."

Again, I have to thank Teresa for suggesting that I pick this book up sooner than later. She guess correctly that this was a book that I would enjoy. Based on Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat, Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog is a time-travel comedy of errors with a touch of romance and a whole lot of Victorian manners and I loved it!

Ned Henry is a time-traveling historian who is on a tedious and seemingly impossible quest to find the location (in time and space) of something called a "bishop's bird stump" for the detailed rebuilding of the Coventry Cathedral in 2057. His quest is interrupted by the arrival of fellow historian Verity Kindle and the item she's brought forward from the past. Since it's not supposed to be possible to move anything through time, Ned is quickly dispatched to return the item to its place in Victorian times. Unfortunately, he's suffering from something called time-lag -- a condition related to excessive time travel that has such symptoms as Difficulty in Distinguishing Sounds, Tendency to Sentimentality and Drowsiness. So when he heads to the past, he is a bit confused as to what he is supposed to do, where he is supposed to go and, really, what one is supposed to act like in Victorian England. Some of the little information he has is what he knows from having read Three Men in a Boat -- a book that is about to be written. What follows is a complex and funny set of events that spans decades and may or may not cause Hitler to win the war.

I had such a great time with this novel. It was a mix of a couple of genres that I love and it could have gone totally wrong but it didn't. It was fun and addictive and, though it definitely won't be for everyone, I would hope that if it sounds interesting to you, that you would pick it up. I had it on my To Be Read list for far too long when it could have been on my list of favorite novels instead. (And yes, I do think it helped to have read Three Men in a Boat first but I don't think it's a requirement. But why not read two good books instead of just one?)

Stealing the bishop's bird stump again,
K


Support our site and buy To Say Nothing of the Dog on Amazon or find it at your local library. We borrowed a copy from the library, read it and then promptly went out and bought a copy for our home collection.

List Love: All TIME 100 Novels

In 1995, Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo picked their top 100 English-language novels (written between 1923 and 1995) for TIME Magazine -- 1923 because that's when TIME Magazine was founded. The full list is here.

Titles in bold are ones that I have read.

A - B
The Adventures of Augie March (1953), by Saul Bellow
All the King's Men (1946), by Robert Penn Warren (required reading in high school)
American Pastoral (1997), by Philip Roth
An American Tragedy (1925), by Theodore Dreiser
Animal Farm (1946), by George Orwell (required reading in junior high)
Appointment in Samarra (1934), by John O'Hara
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret (1970), by Judy Blume
The Assistant (1957), by Bernard Malamud
At Swim-Two-Birds (1938), by Flann O'Brien
Atonement (2002), by Ian McEwan
Beloved (1987), by Toni Morrison (required reading in high school)
The Berlin Stories (1946), by Christopher Isherwood
The Big Sleep (1939), by Raymond Chandler
The Blind Assassin (2000), by Margaret Atwood
Blood Meridian (1986), by Cormac McCarthy
Brideshead Revisited (1946), by Evelyn Waugh
The Bridge of San Luis Rey (1927), by Thornton Wilder

C - D
Call It Sleep (1935), by Henry Roth
Catch-22 (1961), by Joseph Heller
The Catcher in the Rye (1951), by J.D. Salinger
A Clockwork Orange (1963), by Anthony Burgess
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1967), by William Styron
The Corrections (2001), by Jonathan Franzen
The Crying of Lot 49 (1966), by Thomas Pynchon
A Dance to the Music of Time (1951), by Anthony Powell
The Day of the Locust (1939), by Nathanael West
Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), by Willa Cather (read for high school project)
A Death in the Family (1958), by James Agee
The Death of the Heart (1958), by Elizabeth Bowen
Deliverance (1970), by James Dickey
Dog Soldiers (1974), by Robert Stone

F - G
Falconer (1977), by John Cheever
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1969), by John Fowles
The Golden Notebook (1962), by Doris Lessing
Go Tell it on the Mountain (1953), by James Baldwin
Gone With the Wind (1936), by Margaret Mitchell
The Grapes of Wrath (1939), by John Steinbeck (required reading in high school)
Gravity's Rainbow (1973), by Thomas Pynchon
The Great Gatsby (1925), by F. Scott Fitzgerald

H - I
A Handful of Dust (1934), by Evelyn Waugh
The Heart is A Lonely Hunter (1940), by Carson McCullers
The Heart of the Matter (1948), by Graham Greene
Herzog (1964), by Saul Bellow
Housekeeping (1981), by Marilynne Robinson
A House for Mr. Biswas (1962), by V.S. Naipaul
I, Claudius (1934), by Robert Graves
Infinite Jest (1996), by David Foster Wallace
Invisible Man (1952), by Ralph Ellison

L - N
Light in August (1932), by William Faulkner
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe (1950), by C.S. Lewis
Lolita (1955), by Vladimir Nabokov
Lord of the Flies (1955), by William Golding (required reading in junior high)
The Lord of the Rings (1954), by J.R.R. Tolkien
Loving (1945), by Henry Green
Lucky Jim (1954), by Kingsley Amis
The Man Who Loved Children (1940), by Christina Stead
Midnight's Children (1981), by Salman Rushdie
Money (1984), by Martin Amis
The Moviegoer (1961), by Walker Percy
Mrs. Dalloway (1925), by Virginia Woolf
Naked Lunch (1959), by William Burroughs
Native Son (1940), by Richard Wright
Neuromancer (1984), by William Gibson
Never Let Me Go (2005), by Kazuo Ishiguro
1984 (1948), by George Orwell (required reading in junior high)

O - R
On the Road (1957), by Jack Kerouac
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962), by Ken Kesey
The Painted Bird (1965), by Jerzy Kosinski
Pale Fire (1962), by Vladimir Nabokov
A Passage to India (1924), by E.M. Forster
Play It As It Lays (1970), by Joan Didion
Portnoy's Complaint (1969), by Philip Roth
Possession (1990), by A.S. Byatt
The Power and the Glory (1939), by Graham Greene
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1961), by Muriel Spark
Rabbit, Run (1960), by John Updike
Ragtime (1975), by E.L. Doctorow
The Recognitions (1955), by William Gaddis
Red Harvest (1929), by Dashiell Hammett
Revolutionary Road (1961), by Richard Yates

S - T
The Sheltering Sky (1949), by Paul Bowles
Slaughterhouse Five (1969), by Kurt Vonnegut
Snow Crash (1992), by Neal Stephenson
The Sot-Weed Factor (1960), by John Barth
The Sound and the Fury (1929), by William Faulkner
The Sportswriter (1986), by Richard Ford
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold (1964), by John le Carre
The Sun Also Rises (1926), by Ernest Hemingway
Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), by Zora Neale Hurston (required reading in high school)
Things Fall Apart (1959), by Chinua Achebe
To Kill a Mockingbird (1960), by Harper Lee (required reading in high school)
To the Lighthouse (1927), by Virginia Woolf
Tropic of Cancer (1934), by Henry Miller

U - W
Ubik (1969), by Philip K. Dick
Under the Net (1954), by Iris Murdoch
Under the Volcano (1947), by Malcolm Lowry
Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
White Noise (1985), by Don DeLillo
White Teeth (2000), by Zadie Smith
Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), by Jean Rhys

Graphic Novels
Berlin: City of Stones (2000), by Jason Lutes
Blankets (2003), by Craig Thompson
Bone (2004), by Jeff Smith
The Boulevard of Broken Dreams (2002), by Kim Deitch
The Dark Knight Returns (1986), by Frank Miller
David Boring (2000), by Daniel Clowes
Ed the Happy Clown (1989), by Chester Brown
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid on Earth (2000), by Chris Ware
Palomar: The Heartbreak Soup Stories (2003), by Gilbert Hernandez
Watchmen (1986), by Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

I've read 22 of these which isn't bad. Nine were ones that I was required to read in school. Frankly, I thought that number would be higher. It's nice to know that I chose to read 13 on my own and I see a few more on the list that I'm planning on reading later as well!

Are you surprised by any of the choices on this list? I think I might be the only person who hates Bone because I always see people raving about it and it made it to this list but I thought it was complete crap.

If you had to choose one book on this list that I haven't read yet that I really should, which would it be?

Satisfying my list lust,

K

New Release: A Red Herring Without Mustard

The third book in Alan Bradley's wonderful Flavia de Luce series has just been released and I have just one word for you -- LOVE. After a stellar debut (The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie) and a strong second outing (The Weed that Strings the Hangman's Bag), I had nothing but the highest hopes for A Red Herring Without Mustard. I was happily not disappointed in the slightest.

Flavia de Luce is still eleven years old, living with her father and two sisters at Buckshaw, the decaying estate that they inherited from their mother. Things are financially tough for them but they are worse for the old Gypsy that Flavia meets at the local fête and who is almost killed on de Luce property the same night. When another body turns up in the yard the next day, Flavia gets tangled up in solving more than one mystery and has to dig into the past for some of the answers.

I read almost the entire 400 page book in one day. I didn't get the laundry done. I didn't make it to the grocery store. I took the book out to read during brunch. I only had a couple of minor complaints come up while I was reading but they aren't even big enough to mention here -- just little character elements. This is a fantastic novel that has Flavia maturing a bit and yet also showing a little more weakness. I wonder how much Flavia is going to age over the remaining three books. It's going to be a difficult wait for the next one!

Finding no mystery in why this series is beloved,
K


Support our site and buy A Red Herring Without Mustard on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

"There was a twinkle in the Nonesuch's eye as he scanned the countenances of his assembled relations ..."

I needed a nice, light read to get me past a small slump and so I chose The Nonesuch from my TBR stacks. It's a fairly standard Georgette Heyer romance and, though I had trouble getting into it at first, I ended up as yet another admirer of the Nonesuch.

If you have read every Jane Austen novel and are looking for something similar, this would be a good choice -- especially since the plot is quite reminiscent of Pride and Prejudice! A rich bachelor, Sir Waldo, heads to a country home that he has just inherited, accompanied by his kind and titled cousin, Lord Lindeth. They are immediately set upon by all of the mothers of eligible girls around. But, of course, Sir Waldo (known in the London Corinthian set as "The Nonesuch" -- meaning "ideal: model of excellence or perfection of a kind; one having no equal") falls for the smart and reserved Miss Trent, a mere governess/companion of gentle birth but with no fortune. Against her better judgment and her opinion of Corinthians (playboys), she also falls for him. But their romance will have to be put aside while they deal with the antics of the young heiress, Tiffany Wield, who is as spoiled and selfish as she is beautiful.

This summary is nothing like the one on the back of the book. This is because the one on the back of the book takes a situation that happens in the last 50 pages of the book and presents it as the entire plot of the book. Not only that, but it is inaccurate in what happens anyway (but that's a rant for another day). This was a light-hearted romance with enjoyable characters and one truly odious one, Heyer's specialty. Tiffany Wield is so despicable and self-centered that she has the reader rooting against her for the duration of the story! You will have to pick up this book to find out if she gets her just desserts in the end.

Riding off in a phaeton,
K


Support our site and buy The Nonesuch on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy.

Painting Your Friends

One of the picture books that made it to many "Best Of" lists last year was Art & Max by David Wiesner. Z got a copy for Christmas and has had a great time exploring this story of friendship and art.

Little lizard Max interrupts the sizeable Arthur while he is painting a picture of a friend. Max insists that he is also an artist and yet he can't decide what to paint. Art suggests "Well ... you could paint me." Max takes that a bit too literally and starts splattering Art with all different colors of paint. Art is less than pleased by this and he literally bursts from frustration -- his skin flies right off his body and he becomes a wispy figure of rainbow colors. When the colors start blowing and washing away, the lines come loose and Art loses his substance, Max has to recreate him. Arthur ends up different than he was originally but he's happy with the change.

While I've heard that younger kids have been a bit scared and worried while reading this book, Z loved it. The simple words and bright colors excited him and got him thinking about art. He even decided to write up his own version of the story. Enjoy!

"This is Arthur. His pictures are great. Max ran into Art-thur. Max can paint too. "What should I paint?" he asked Art. "Paint me." Art said. Max painted Arthur. "Art's a rainbow!" the lizards said.

Painting the world with our love of reading,
K and Z


Support our site and buy Art & Max on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy of this book.

A Dozen Things I Love in the Book World

photo by k

Happy Valentine's Day! This is a holiday that we don't always make a big deal of in our home, at least on the day itself. This year I received some beautiful flowers last Friday and gave my hubby a book that night. So today is just going to be a quiet day for us. But there are still many things to love and celebrate today! Here are a dozen beautiful things I love in the book world --

Bookstores (especially ones with cafes where the scent of coffee mixes with the smell of paper),
Libraries,
Deckled Edges,
Bookmarks,
New Releases from a favorite author,
Matched Sets,
Faithful Film Adaptations,
Annotated Editions,
Entertainment during power outages,
Loving your first book from a prolific author,
Sharing favorites with your child,
and of course, Book Bloggers!

Mwah!

K and Z

Discussion: How Has Blogging Affected Your Reading?

photo by k

As I was writing up a review on a fairly good book last week, I started thinking about how picky I was being when just a few years ago I would have probably just enjoyed the same book without any real criticism. I was trying to decide if it's related to my blogging or not. Is it just because I am getting older and, having read more books in my life, have more good and bad novels to compare to? Is it because I am reading twice as many books a year and am just less patient with books that aren't perfect when there might be a perfect one sitting on my stacks? Is it that I am just thinking more critically about the books because I have to write about them, because I know others might decide to read the book based on my post?

I would hope that blogging hasn't made me less likely to enjoy a book on its own merit, especially because I am putting my thoughts out there for others to read (perhaps even the author). I don't want someone to avoid a book because I point out the flaws when, overall, I really did enjoy it. And yet, it seems unfair to not have at least a slightly critical eye while thinking about a book I have just read.


How do you feel blogging has affected your opinions of the books you read?


Working through my neuroses,
K

New Release: The Oracle of Stamboul

Michael David Lukas' novel, The Oracle of Stamboul, is the extraordinary story of a young girl living in the Ottoman Empire in the late Victorian era. It's a simple, somewhat cozy read that is nevertheless thought-provoking and fuels a desire to learn about the interesting city of Stamboul and its history.

Eleonora Cohen is born during a Russian attack on the city of Constanta (in Romania) and her arrival is surrounded by some strange signs, including a flock of purple hoopoe birds that takes up residence outside her home and follows her wherever she goes. Her mother dies in childbirth and her aunt moves in and marries her father. Eleonora turns out to be something of a prodigy, learning to read and do sums at a very early age. Her aunt, Ruxandra, is not supportive of her learning and demands that she hide her gifts from the world. Under this oppression, Eleonora dreams of escape and her chance comes when her father plans a trip to Stamboul to sell some of his textiles. She stows away in one of his trunks and embarks on a life-changing journey that leads to an audience with the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

I rushed through this novel in two days. It has wonderful pacing and language and Eleonora is a charming young heroine. The characters around her are also quite engaging, including her host in Stamboul, the charming but fatherly Moncef Bey. This is a fascinating point in history -- the slow disintegration of a once all-powerful empire. The character of Sultan Abdulhamid II was intriguing and I would love to learn more about him at some point.

The purple-and-white hoopoe flock plays an important role in the story and so, of course, I looked them up. They are usually solitary birds who live in Europe, Asia and Africa and they have a bending-wing movement like a butterfly when they fly. They are the national bird of Israel and the state bird of Punjab, India. They are mentioned more than once in the Bible and have been used by many cultures as symbols of such varying things as virtue and death. The flock in this story seem to be a combination of guardians and scouts. They also seem to be companions for Eleanor as she journeys toward her destiny.

This story has a touch of magical realism but it is basically the tale of an extraordinary child whose talents lead her to become entangled in a critical point in history. It's the sort of novel that has you impatiently waiting for the author's next offering.

Consulting the oracle,
K

This book is currently on a TLC Book Tour. You can see other reviews at the following sites:

One Girl Collecting
Confessions of a Rambling Mind
Booksie's Blog
A Book Blogger's Diary
Living Read Girl
Life is Short. Read Fast.

Other reviews will be linked up at the tour page over the next month and a half.

Support our site and buy The Oracle of Stamboul on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received an advance reader's edition from the publisher.

Sick Days

In case you were wondering, we're still alive but just a bit sick. Z had the flu for about a week and then was kind enough to share it with me. So, we are using our weight in tissues and spending a lot of time reading and watching movies. Hopefully we will feel up to blogging more soon because we have a lot of fun books to share!

Politely sneezing onto our sleeves,
K and Z

"Reuben Walrus was too restless to sit down at first."

I've just finished reading the second book in Tim Dayvs' Mollisan Quartet and it couldn't have been more different than the first. While Amberville was a dark crime novel, Lanceheim is a story about faith, religion and loss.

If you have forgotten my first review, I'll remind you that Mollisan Town is a place populated by living, breathing stuffed animals. Alternating between two narratives that intersect only at the very end, we follow Reuben Walrus, a conductor and composer who is quickly becoming deaf, and Wolf Diaz, the "recorder" and companion for an unusual creature who may be the savior of Mollisan Town. Reuben's story follows his search for this healer, hoping for a miracle to give him his hearing back. Wolf's story is the history of the mysterious Maximilian, who is in the world but not of it.

This is a sad pair of stories but they are also very thought-provoking. It was a much more mature novel than Amberville and seemed more like an allegorical tale than the first.  Now I'm even more curious to see what the themes and tone are in the third novel, Tourquai (which is being released next week). I don't believe that there is a necessary order in which to read these novels so if you see one, pick it up. You'll take a very unique journey through a bizarre but familiar world.

Contemplating faith, hope and love,

K

Support our site and buy Lanceheim on Amazon or find it at your local library. We received an uncorrected proof from the publisher for review.

"It was dark where she was crouched but the little girl did as she'd been told."

Despite a similar disappointment with the mystery element that I also experienced with Kate Morton's first novel, The Forgotten Garden was an enjoyable tangled-web of a story. It begins by showing us an abandoned four year old girl on a ship from England to Australia. At first, she keeps her identity a secret as part of a supposed game but then she hits her head and actually forgets her name and her family. She is adopted by a kind couple in Australia and is raised in complete ignorance of her history. When she turns twenty-one, her father finally reveals that she is not their actual daughter. It is then Nell's obsession to find out who she really is and why she was put out to sea. It turns out to be a tale that won't be fully revealed for generations.

This novel is a bit confusing as it moves through time--from 1900 to 1913 to 1930 to 1975 to 2005--with plenty of back-and-forth and other times in between. Eventually, though, it all fits together in a satisfying way. Like I mentioned earlier, the big mystery of the story is given away rather early if you are paying attention but it is the unfolding of the events that is the real focus of the book. Some of the character decisions are quite unbelievable, there are a few slightly-supernatural moments and the tie-in with Frances Hodgson Burnett and The Secret Garden is a bit tenuous, but, then again, this is a story of fairy tales and so I suppose a suspension of disbelief is assumed. I really enjoyed reading about Brisbane and this has renewed my goal of reading more Australian-set fiction.

Have you read any Kate Morton novels? Do you figure out the mysteries early?

Finding the garden unforgettable,
K


Support our site and buy The Forgotten Garden on Amazon or find it at your local library. We bought our own copy of this book.

List Love: 1001 Children's Books

There's a new challenge out there to read books from the 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up list. I'm not taking on any challenges this year but I thought it would be fun to go through the list and see how I've done and what I have left to read before I grow up.

Listed are the books I've read or at least remember reading. There were a lot that I read as a kid that I don't remember the titles of now. I've put the ones we own in bold because they're the ones easily available to Z. Ones with stars are the ones Z has already read too.

20,000 Leagues Under The Sea - Jules Verne
Adventures Of Huckleberry Finn - Mark Twain
The Adventures Of Tom Sawyer - Mark Twain
Aesop's Fables - Aesop
Alexander And The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day - Judith Viorst *
Alice's Adventures In Wonderland - Lewis Carroll *
Amelia Bedelia - Peggy Parish
Anne Of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery
Are You My Mother? - P.D. Eastman *
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret - Judy Blume
A Bear Called Paddington - Michael Bond *
Bedtime For Frances - Russell Hoban *
The Berenstein Bears - Stan Berenstain *
The Best Nest - P.D. Eastman
The BFG - Roald Dahl *
Black Beauty - Anna Sewell
The Black Stallion - Walter Farley
Blueberries For Sal - Robert McCloskey
Book Of Nonsense - Edward Lear *
Bridge To Terabithia - Katherine Paterson
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See - Bill Martin, Jr. *
The Call Of The Wild - Jack London (own but haven't read yet)
Caps For Sale - Esphyr Slobodkina *
The Cat In The Hat - Dr. Seuss *
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl *
Charlotte's Web - E.B. White
Charmed Life - Diana Wynne Jones
The Children Of Green Knowe - L.M. Boston
A Child's Garden Of Verses - Robert Stevenson
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Clifford The Big Red Dog - Norman Bridwell *
Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs - Judi Barrett *
Corduroy - Don Freeman *
The Cricket In Times Square - George Selden *
Crictor - Tomi Ungerer *
Curious George - H.A. and Margret Rey *
Dear Zoo - Rod Campbell *
Don't Let The Pigeon Drive The Bus - Mo Willems *
The Emperor's New Clothes - Hans Christian Anderson
The Enormous Crocodile - Roald Dahl *
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury
Freight Train - Donald Crews *
From The Mixed Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - E.L. Konisburg
The Giving Tree - Shel Silverstein
Go, Dog, Go - P.D. Eastman *
Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown *
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Green Eggs And Ham - Dr. Seuss *
Grimms' Fairy Tales - Jacob Grimm
The Gruffalo - Julia Donaldson *
The Hardy Boys 1 - Franklin Dixon
Harold And The Purple Crayon - Crocket Johnson *
Haroun And The Sea Of Stories - Salman Rushdie (own but haven't read yet)
Harriet The Spy - Louise Fitzhugh
Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban - J.K. Rowling
Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone - J.K. Rowling
Harry the Dirty Dog - Gene Zion *
Haunted House - Jan Pienkowski *
The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
The Hound Of The Baskervilles - Arthur Conan Doyle
I Capture The Castle - Dodie Smith
I Will Not Ever Never Eat A Tomato - Lauren Child *
If You Give A Mouse A Cookie - Laura Numeroff *
In The Night Kitchen - Maurice Sendak
The Incredible Journey - Sheila Burnford
The Indian In The Cupboard - Lynne Reid Banks
Inkheart - Cornelia Funke
The Invention Of Hugo Cabret - Brian Selznick
James And The Giant Peach - Roald Dahl *
Johnny Tremain - Esther Forbes
Journey To The Center Of The Earth - Jules Verne (own but haven't read yet)
The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling (slowly reading on iPhone)
Just So Stories - Rudyard Kipling
A Kid For Two Farthings - Wolf Mankowitz (own but haven't read yet)
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale - Mo Willems *
Lemony Snicket: The Bad Beginning - Lemony Snicket
Leonard The Terrible Monster - Mo Willems *
Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse - Kevin Henkes
The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe - C.S. Lewis
The Little Engine That Could - Walter Piper *
The Little Mermaid - Hans Christian Anderson
The Little Prince - Antoine De St. Exupery
Little Toot - Hardie Gramatky
Little Women - Louisa May Alcott
Lord Of The Flies - William Golding 
Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien
Love You Forever - Robert Munsch *
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile - Bernard Waber *
Madeline - Ludwig Bemelmans *
Make Way For Ducklings - Robert Mccloskey
Miffy - Dick Bruna
Mike Mulligan - Virginia Lee Burton *
Millions Of Cats - Wanda Gag
The Mouse And The Motorcycle - Beverly Cleary *
Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of Nimh - Robert O'Brien
My Father's Dragon - Ruth Gannett (own but haven't read yet)
Northern Lights - Philip Pullman (a.k.a. The Golden Compass)
The Nutcracker And Other Tales - E.T.A. Hoffman
Oh, The Places You'll Go - Dr. Seuss
Pat The Bunny - Dorothy Kunhart *
Peanuts - Charles Schulz
Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens - J.M. Barrie
The Phantom Tollbooth - Norton Juster
Pippi Longstocking - Astrid Lindgren *
A Pocket For Courduroy - Don Freeman
Prince Caspian - C.S. Lewis 
The Quangle Wangle's Hat - Edward Lear *
Ramona The Pest - Beverly Cleary
The Red Pony - John Steinbeck
The Scarlet Letter - Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Secret Of The Old Clock - Carolyn Keene
Skippyjohn Jones - Judy Schachner *
Smith - Leon Garfield (own but haven't read yet)
The Snowy Day - Jack Ezra Keats *
Stone Soup - Marcia Brown *
The Story About Ping - Marjorie Flack
The Story Of Babar - Jean de Brunhoff *
The Story Of Doctor Doolittle - Hugh Lofting
The Story Of Ferdinand - Munro Leaf *
Stuart Little - E.B. White 
Superfudge - Judy Blume
Swimmy - Leo Lionni
The Swiss Family Robinson - Johann Wyss (own but haven't read yet)
The Tale Of Jemima Puddle Duck - Beatrix Potter
The Tale Of Mr. Jeremy Fisher - Beatrix Potter
The Tale Of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter *
The Thirteen Clocks - James Thurber
The Three Robbers - Tomi Ungerer
Through The Looking Glass - Lewis Carroll
To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
Tom's Midnight Garden - Philippa Pearce
Treasure Island - Robert L. Stevenson (own but haven't read yet)
The True Story Of The Three Little Pigs - John Scieszka *
The Ugly Duckling - Hans Christian Anderson
The Velveteen Rabbit - Margery Williams
The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle *
The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader - C.S. Lewis
We're Going On A Bear Hunt - Michael Rosen *
What Do People Do All Day - Richard Scarry
Where The Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein *
Where The Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak *
The Wind In The Willows - Kenneth Grahame
Winnie The Pooh - A.A. Milne *
The Wolves In The Wall - Neil Gaiman
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz - Frank L. Baum
A Wrinkle In Time - Madeleine L'Engle

So, it looks like I've read 140 and Z has read 55 of these so far. We have eight more of them waiting for us on our shelves too! There are also a few of these that I need home copies of too like Little Women and Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. Many of the titles on the list are new to me and I'm not sure that they're even all available in English so I'm not sure if I'll really set out to make progress on reading more of the titles other than those we already own.

Have you looked through the whole list? How many have you read?

Making every effort to postpone growing up,
K and Z


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"There were four of us -- George, and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency."

The other day I was talking with Teresa of Shelf Love on Twitter about books that make you think of other book bloggers while you're reading them. I was in the middle of one that I knew another blogger would have issues with. We chatted for a bit about that and then she mentioned that she had just finished Connie Willis' To Say Nothing of the Dog (read her review here) and thought that I would love it as much as she did. Well, that one has been on my "to read" list for years but before I read it, I wanted to read the book that inspired it -- Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat (subtitled To say nothing of the Dog!).

Jerome K. Jerome (his actual name -- his father was Jerome C. Jerome) set out to write a guidebook, which was the popular thing at the time, and ended up with a hilarious but thoughtful story of the adventures of three men and a dog on the Thames. The narrator, J., is a take-charge type -- he likes to have the responsibility of telling other people what sort of work they should be doing. His companions George and Harris are a bit lazy and daft but they decide together that they all need a break from their daily routines and a boat trip on the river sounds just the thing.

George said:
'Let's go up the river.'
He said we should have fresh air, exercise and quiet; the constant change of scene would occupy our minds (including what there was of Harris's); and the hard work would give us a good appetite, and make us sleep well.
Harris said he didn't think George ought to do anything that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous. He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now, seeing that there were only twenty-four hours in each day ..."

After the trouble of making lists, packing and a late start on the first morning, they are off to row, tow and sail up the Thames. Between the items that they forget to take (a can opener) and the things they should have left behind (a banjo), they are in for an interesting trip. Mixed in with the narrative of the current adventure, J. tells stories of past boating adventures and second-hand stories from other river travelers. He also dishes up a bit of philosophy along with a boat-load of humor.

Written in 1889, this novel definitely seems to be transitioning in language from the Victorian to the modern. It's an easy read and Jerome's timing is perfect. If I started quoting all of the passages I found witty or hilarious, I would copy about half of this 170 page story. This one was a pleasure to read and I'm excited to see how Connie Willis' time-traveling protagonist fares when faced with a Victorian outing and only his knowledge of Jerome's story to guide him. I will also be reading the further adventures of J., George and Harris as they attempt a bicycle tour of Germany in Three Men on the Bummel.

Off for adventure,
K


Support our site and buy Three Men in a Boat and Three Men on the Bummel on Amazon or find it at your local library. We borrowed a copy from the library but will be purchasing our own copy soon!