Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looks interesting in the March/April 2016 Bookmarks.

Rightful Heritage: FDR and the Land of America by Douglas Brinkley NF
The State We're In: Maine Stories by Ann Beattie
Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood
The Frangipani Hotel by Violet Kupersmith (short stories = SS)
Voices of the Night by Steven Millhauser (SS)
The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot by  Blaine Harden NF
The Expatriates by  Janice Y. K. Lee
Under the Udala Trees by Chinelo Okparanta
The Past by Tessa Hadley
The Improbabiity of Love by Hannah Rothschild
The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra
City of Thorns: 9 Lives in the Worlds Largest Refugee Camp by Ben Rawlence NF
The Road to Wanting by Wendy Law-Yone
Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish
Together Tea by Marjan Kamali
Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 

Best of 2015
A Little Life by Hanya Yangihara
The Story of the Lost Child by Elena Ferrante
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Purity by Jonathan Franzen
Sellout by Paul Beatty
A Manual for Cleaning by Lucia Berlin SS
A Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk
The Visiting Privilege by Joy Williams SS
Our Souls At Night by Kent Haruf
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Honeydew by Edith Pearlman
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Two Years Eight Months and Twenty Eight Nights by Salman Rushdie
Outline by Rachel Cusk
The Complete Stories by Clarice Lispector
You Too Can Have a Body Like Mine by Alexandra Kleeman
Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in the Nov/Dec and Jan/Feb issues.

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
Numero Zero by Umberto Eco
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
Fates and Furies by Lauren Groff
Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson (author of Orphan Master)
Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick de Witt (author of Sisters Brothers)
The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley
The Beautiful Bureaucrat by Helen Phillips
Kitchens of the Great Midwest by J. Ryan Stradal
Speak by Louisa Hall
Marriage of Opposites by Alice Hoffman (Pissarro in STT)
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa A; Aswany
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh
The Chimes by Anna Smaill
Barbarian Days: A Surfing Life by William Finnegan NF

In Other Words by Jhumpa Lahiri NF
Us Conductors by Sean Michaels (about theremin inventor)
Cloudsplitter by Russell Banks
Chang and Eng by Darin Strauss
Gold Fame Citrus by Claire Vaye Watkins
Planetfall by Emma Newman SF
Pacific by Simon Winchester NF

Bookmarks Magazine

This what looked interesting in the July/August and Sept/Oct. Bookmarks Magazine.

Two Years, Eight Months by Salmon Rushdie
Slade House by David Mitchell
Heart Goes Last by Margaret Atwood
World Order by Henry Kissinger NF
Quincunx by Charles Palliser
Lempriere's Dictionary by Lawrence Norfolk
Henry James' Midnight Song by Carol de Chellis Hill
The Diver's Clothes Lie Empty by Vendela Vida
The Water Knife by Paolo Bacigalupi
Book of Numbers by Joshua Cohen
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson SF
The Millionaire and the Bard by Andrea Mays NF
The Edge of the World by Michael Pye NF 
Armada by Ernest Cline SF
Born on a Blue Day by Daniel Tammet NF
Voices in the Night by Steven Millhauser
The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen
Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes
Little Black Lies by Sharon Bolton
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Aurora by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross
Three Moments of an Explosion by China Mieville 
Infamy by Richards Reeves NF

Bookmarks Magazine

Here's what looked interesting in the Nov./Dec. 2014, Jan/Feb 2015, Mar/ April 2015.

Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson
Tree of Smoke by Denis Johnson
Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
Boy, Snow, Bird by Helen Oyeyemi
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Humans by Matt Haig
The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton
Wolf in White Van by John Darnielle
Pow! by Mo Yan
Lenin's Kisses by Yan Lianke
The Bees by Laline Paull
How to be Both by Ali Smith
Look Who's Back by Timur Vermes
Min Kamp by Karl Ove Knausgaard
Skylight by Jose Saramago
Dublinesque by Enrique-Matas
The Truth About Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker
The Laughing Monsters by Denis Johnson 
Murder in Marais by Cara Black  
something by Nuruddin Farah a Somali author
something by Brian Doyle from Portland OR
The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber SF
The Three Body Problem by Cixin Liu SF
White Plague by James Abe SF
Black Moon by Kenneth Calhoun SF
The Peripheral by William Gibson SF 
World Order by Henry Kissinger NF
This Book is Overdue by Marilyn Johnson NF
Without You, There is No Us by Suki Kim NF
Double Cross or Operation Mincemeat or Agent Zigzag by Ben MacIntyre NF
Coctail Hour Under the Tree of Forgetfulness and
Leaving Before the Rains Come by Alexandra Fuller Memoir
The Chimp and the River by David Quammen NF
In Other Worlds: SF and the Human Imagination by Margaret Atwood NF 
The Innovators by Walter Isaacson or the Soul of the New Machine by Tracy Kidder or Fie in the Valley: The Making of the Personal Computer by Paul Freiberger NF

July/August and September/October Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in the July/August and September/October 2014, January February 2015 Bookmarks Magazine.

My Real Children by Jo Walton
Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen
The Cairo Trilogy by Naguib Mahfouz
Sea of Fertility Tetralogy by Yukio Mishima
The Power of One by Bryce Courtenay
The Storied Life of  A.J. Fikry by Gabrielle Zevin
The Blazing World by Siri Hustvedt
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August SF
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
The Three by Sarah Lotz SF
Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos NF re China
Tibetan Peach Pie by Tom Robbins NF

Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in the March/April and  May/June Bookmarks Magazine.

Cloud Splitter - Russel Banks, interesting to read with Good Lord Bird
Blood & Ice - Robert Masello (Antarctica)
1222 - Anne Holt
The Final Bet - Abdelilah Hamdouchi
The Devotion of Suspect X - Keigo Higashino
The Eye of Jade - Diane Wei Liang
Thursday Night Widows - Claudia Pineiro
Orfeo-Richard Powers
On Such a Full Sea - Chang-rae Lee
Americanah-Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Boy, Snow, Bird - Helen Oyeyemi, read Mr. Fox first
An Unnecessary Woman - Rabih Alameddine
The Wind is Not a River - Brian Payton
The Accident - Chris Pavone
What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
The Sea - John Banville
Middlemarch - George Elliot
A Highly Unlikely Hero - Rachel Cantor (SF)
Flappers - Judith Mackrell (NF)
Astoria - Peter Stark (NF)
The Oregon Trail - Peter Stark (NF)

Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in January/February 2014 Bookmarks Magazine.

The Circle by Dave Eggers
The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton
The People in the Trees by Hanya Yanagihara
The Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie - SF
I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai - NF

Art and Artists in Fiction

An Episode in the Life of a Landscape Painter by Cesar Aira
Painter from Shanghai by Jennifer Cody Epstein
The Lacuna by Barbara Kinsolver
Lust for Life by Irving Stone (Van Gogh)
Claude & Camille: A Novel of Monet by Stephanie Cowell
The Printmaker’s Daughter by Katherine Govier
The Jump Artist by Austin Ratner
Luncheon of the Boating Party by Susan Vreeland
The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani
An Artist of the Floating World by Kazuo Ishiguro
The Portrait by Iain Pears
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Portrait of the Artist as a Yound Man by James Joyce
A Painter of our Time by John Berger
The Birth of Venus by Sarah Dunant
It Happened in Boston? By Russell Greenan
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
A Month in the Country by J.L.Carr
Keeping the World Away by Margaret Forster
Exquisite Corpse by Robert Irwin
Life Studies by Susan Vreeland
Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut
The Sidewalk Artist by Gina Buonaguro
The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean
Stealing Athena by Karen Essex
Blue Nude by Elizabeth Rosner
The Raphael Affair by Iain Pears
The Flanders Panel by Arturo Perez-Reverte
Forgery of Venus by Michael Gruber
Among Thieves by David Hosp
Artists in Crime by Ngaio Marsh
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro
Sleep, Pale Sister by Joanne Harris
Duma Key by Stephen King
The Golden Key by Melanie Rawn, Jennifer Roberson and Kate Elliott
The Picture of Dorian Grey by Oscar Wilde
The Sun, the Moon and the Stars by Steven Brust
Mortal Love by Elizabeth Hand
The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag by Robert Heinlein
The Ghost Painter by Marilu Norden

Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in Nov/Dec 2013.
Valley of Amazement by Amy Tan
Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates
Middle C by William Gass
Life After Life by Kate Atkinson
Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
Round House by Louise Erdrich
Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat
Woman Who Lost Her Soul by Bob Shachochis
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood (read Year of the Flood first) -SF
Neptune’s Brood by Charles Stross - SF
Transcendental by James Gunn - SF
Age of Edison by Ernest Freeberg - NF
Hothouse (Farrar Straus & Giroux) by Boris Kachka - NF
The Telling Room (Cheese) by Michael Paterniti -NF
Lawrence in Arabia by Scott Anderson - NF

Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in May/June, July/August, September/October 2013 editions.

Redeemer by Jo Nesbo -S
Orphan Masters Son by Adam Johnson - S
Private Empire by Steve Coll - NF S
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell - S
Dinner by Herman Koch - S
Murder Bellow Martparnasse by Clara Black
Accursed by Joyce Carol Oates
Burn Palace by Stephen Dobyns
Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes
Upstairs Woman by Claire Messud
Interestings by Meg Wolitzer
House of Rumour by Jake Arnott
Lives of Tao by Wesley Chu
MaddAddam by Margaret Atwood
Goldfinch by Donna Tartt
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende
Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov
Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon
Magus by John Fowles
Lexicon by Max Barry - SF
Leviathan Wakes by James S. A. Corey - SF
Brilliant Blunders from Darwin to Einstein by Mario Livio - NF
Midnight in Peking by Paul French - NF
People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry - NF
Funny in Farsi by Firoozah Dumas - NF
On Gold Mountain by Lisa See - NF

Bookmarks Magazine

Here's what looked interesting in Jan/Feb and Mar/April 2013

Sweet Tooth by Ian McEwan - S & L
Gods and Beasts by Denise Mina - S
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell - S
Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson - S
Telegraph Avenue by Michael Chabon - S
The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith - S
The Art Forger by B.A. Shapiro - L& S
The Heart Broke In by James Meek - S
Back to Blood by Tom Wolfe - S
Tenth of December by George Saunders - S
Heads in Beds by Jacob Tomsky - S, NF
Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
Dog Stars by Peter Heller
Half-Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
The Prime of Miss Jean Bordie by Muriel Sparks
The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
The Monkey-Wrench Gang by Edward Abbey
Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach
Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr
Waiting by Ha Jin
The Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan
John Saturnall's Feast by Lawrence Norfolk
2013 Kim Stanley Robinson -SF
The Hydrogen Sonata by Iain M. Banks but start with Consider Phlebas - SF
Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone - SF
Joseph Anton by Salman Rushdie - NF
Van Gogh by Steven Naifeh - NF
Double Cross by Ben MacIntyre - NF
Wild by Cheryl Strayed - NF
Gravity's Engines by Caleb Scharf - NF
Spillover by David Quammen - NF
Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey - NF
Snow Leopard by Peter Matthiessen - NF
Four Fish by Paul Greenberg - NF

Bookmarks Magazine

This is what looked interesting in the Sept/Oct and Nov/Dec Bookmarks.

A Hologram for the King - Dave Eggers-S
Shakey: Neil Young's Biography - Jimmy McDonough - S
Sweet Tooth - Ian Mcewan - S
Dog Star - Peter Heller -S
Telegraph Avenue - Michael Chabon - S
Dearie:The Remarkable Life of Julia Child - Bob Spitz -S
Every Love Story is a Ghost Story:A Life of David Foster Wallace - D.T. Max - S
Life - Keith Richards-S
Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Muriel Spark
Palace Walk-Naguib Mahfouz
Wapshot Chronicle-John Cheever
Magnificent Ambersons - Booth Tarkington
Poet's Funeral - John M. Daniel
Devil's Hand - M.E. Patterson
Alif the Unseen - G. Willow Wilson
HHhH - Laurent Binet
The Red Book - Deborah Copaken Kogan
The Garden of Evening Mists - Tan Twan Eng (read The Gift of Rain first)
The Round House - Louise Erdrich
Angel of Repose - Wallace Stegner
The Whistling Season - Ivan Doig
Lonesome Dove - Larry McMurty
Gabriel's Story - David Anthony Durham
Daughter of Fortune-Isabel Allende
Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy
Where Did You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple
Prisoner of Heaven - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
In Sunlight & in Shadow - Mark Helprin
On Beauty - Zadie Smith
A Beautiful Mystery - Louise Penny (read Still Life first)
What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman
The Sea-John Banville
Leviathan or Moon Palace - Paul Auster
Apocalypse Codex - Charles Stross-SF (read Atrocity Archives first)
Map of the Sky - Felix J. Palma - SF- (read Map of Time first)
Existence - David Brin-SF
Private Empire: ExonMobil and American Power - Steve Coll - NF
Prairie Fever: British Aristrocrats in the American West - Peter Pagnamenta - NF
Van Gogh: The Life - Steven Naifeh -NF
Joseph Anton - Salmon Rushdie - NF
Double Cross:The True Story of the D-Day Spies - Ben Macintyre -NF (read Agent Zigzag first)
Gravity's Engines: How Bubble-Blowing Black Holes ... - Caleb Scharf - NF

Bookmarks Magazine

Here's what looked interesting in the Mar/April, May/June, July/Aug. Bookmarks Magazine. 

Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco
Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson
1222 by Anne Holt - S
The Retribution by Val McDermid - S
In One Person by John Irving - S
Vulture Peak by John Burdett - S
Fear Index by Robert Harris - S
The Inquisitor by Mark Allen Smith - S
Escape from Camp 14 by Blaine Harden - NF-S
Galore by Michael Crummey
Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan
Sacre Blue by Christopher Moore
Seed by Rob Ziegler - SF
Soft Apocalypse by Will McIntosh -SF
Rule 34 by Charles Stross -SF
Arctic Rising by Tobias S. Buckell - SF
Angelmaker by Nick Harkaway - SF
2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson - SF
Van Gogh, The Life by Steven Naifeh -NF
How Proust Can Change Your Life by Alain de Botton - NF
So Many Books by Gabriel Zaid - NF
House of Stone by Anthony Shadid - NF
Wanted Women by Deborah Scroggins - NF
Reading and Publishing in an Age of Abundance by Gabriel Zaid -NF
Turing's Cathedral by George Dyson - NF
The Idea Factory by Jon Gertner - NF

Bookmarks Magazine

Here is what looked interesting in the Sept/Oct., Nov./Dec. and Jan/Feb Bookmarks Magazine.

Damned by Chuck Palahniuk - S
Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein - S
Drood by Dan Simmons - S
The Informationist by Taylor Stevens - S
Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach - S
Prague Cemetery by Umberto Eco - S
The Leopard by Jo Nesbo -  S
Swamplandia by Karen Russell - S
Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta - S
Moonlight Mile by Dennis Lehane - S
Ragtime by E.L. Doctorow
Appetite City by William Grimes - NF
A Moment in the Sun by John Sales
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
something by J.G. Ballard
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
Lost in Shangri-la by Mitchell Zuckoff -NF
Tiger's Wife by Tea Obreht
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Embassytown by China Mieville
Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer - NF
Devil in the White City by Erik Larson - NF
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
The Women by T.C. Boyle
Clara and Mr. Tiffany by Susan Vreeland
Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi
The Cat's Table by Michael Ondaatje
The Night Strangers by Chris Bohjalian
In Other Worlds by Margaret Atwood -NF
11/22/63 by Stephen King
The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt -NF
A Thousand Lives by Julia Scheeres -NF
Among Others by Jo Walton
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
Pym by Mat Johnson
Pale King by David Foster Wallace
In the Garden of Beasts by Erik Larson - NF
On Writing by Stephen King -NF
The Bird Artist by Howard Norman
Love in Ruins by Walker Percy
We Others by Steven Millhauser
Luminarium by Alex Shakar
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Map of Time by Felix J. Palma -SF
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline - SF
Reamde by Neal Stephenson - SF
Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman - NF

Bookmarks Magazine

Here is what looked interesting in the May/June Bookmarks.

A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan - S
The Devotion of Suspect X, Keigo Higashino - S
The Troubled Man, Henning Mankell - S
Blood, Bones & Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton - NF, S
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Tom Franklin
The Magus, John Fowles
Human Croquet, Kate Atkinson
The Tiger's Wife, Tea Obreht
A Moveable Feast, Ernest Hemingway
The Paris Wife, Paula McLain
Swamplandia!, Karen Russell
Pym, Mat Johnson
The Age of Wonder, Richard Holmes -NF
The Discoverers, Daniel Boorstin - NF
The Information, James Gleick - NF
The Magnetic North, Sara Wheeler - NF
Moonwalking with Einstein - NF

2011 Wish List

I often send myself emails of books that sound interesting with the intention of adding them to my wish list. Apparently I have not gathered these random emails since April 2009 so thought I better do so.

Biblio Mysteries
Here are some links to some great lists:
Green Chair Press Books on Books list

Manchester Public Library Death Among Books

Evanstan Public Library Bibliomysteries

Amazon List Top Biblio Mysteries

The Last Book by Zoran Zivkovic

Homicide in Hard Cover by Kate Carlisle (series)

Christmas at the Mysterious Bookshop by Otto Penzler (short stories)

Murder is Binding by Lorna Barrett (series)

Japanese Literature
Ryunosuke Akutugawa – Rashomon & 17 other stories – translator Jay Rubin

Hitching Rides with Buddha: A Journey Across Japan

The Old Capital by Yasunari Kawabata

Spring Snow' by Yukio Mishima

Japanese Science Fiction

Japan Sinks - Sakyo Komatsu

Paprika – Yasutaka Tsutsui

Shinju by Laura Joh Rowland

Science Fiction / Fantasy
Dark Universe – Daniel Galouye

Chasm City by Alastair Reynolds

The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson

Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat

Boneshaker by Cherie Priest

Palimpsest by Catherynne Valente

Lilith's Brood by Octavia E. Butler (Erika Bann recommended)

Viriconium by M. John Harrison

Cowboy Angels by Paul McAuley

Home Fires by Gene Wolfe

How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe by Charles Yu

Literature
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell

Ghostwritten by David Mitchell

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz

The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry

Lethem – Chronic City

Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan (about the Brontes)

Various Flavors of Coffee, A Novel by Anthony Capella

The Blind Contessa’s New Machine by Carey Wallace

Golden Tulip by Rosalind Laker

Death as a Side Effect by Ana Maria Shua

The Unburied by Charles Palliser

Scary Stories
The Beetle by Richard Marsh

Curios: Some Strange Adventures of Two Bachelors

Edited by Ellen Datlow:
Poe: 19 New Tales Inspired by Edgar Allen Poe

Lovecraft Unbound

Charles Stross - the Atrocity Archives (Lovecraft inspired)

Cory Doctorow – Someone Comes to Town and Someone Leaves Town – Project Guttenberg

The Red Tree by Caitlin Kiernan

Washington Post List

Amazon Listmania

Awards and Best of Lists
Locus Award Finalists

Man Booker 2009

Vandermeer Best of 2009

Best of the Decade

Best of 2010 Publisher Weekly

Time Best of 2009

Books on Books
How Reading Changed my Life by Anna Quindlen

List on Savage Reads

Time Was Soft There: A Paris Sojourn at Shakespeare & Co. by Jeremy Mercer

How to Read Novels Like a Professor by Thomas Foster

The Case for Books by Robert Darnton

Magic and Madness in the Library editor Eric Graeber

Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill

Book by Robert Grudin

Art Books
The Gardner Heist by Ulrich Boser

The Madonnas of Leningrad by Debra Dean

Making Mummies Dance: Inside the Metropolitan Museum of Art by Thomas Hoving

Provenance: How a Con Man and a Foger Rewrote the History of Modern Art

Post by Citizen Reader about Art Thrillers

About Van Gogh
Irving Stone’s Lust for Life, Adam Braver’s Crows Over the Wheatfield, Alyson Richman’s The Last Van Gogh and Sheramy Bundrick’s Sunflowers.

Antarctica
Polar Reading List

The Ends of the Earth: An Anthology of the Finest Writing on the Arctic and Antarctica

Antarctica: Life on the Ice by Traveler’s Tales

Nonfiction
Collapse by Jared Diamond

The Power of the Sea by Bruce Parker

The Siege of Shangri-la by Michael McRae

Bookmarks

Here's what looked interesting in the Jan/Feb and Mar/April Bookmarks Magazine.

The Hidden Reality by Brian Greene - NF
Life by Keith Richards - NF, S
The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey
The Beautiful Cigar Girl by Daniel Stashower
The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
Cut! by Denise Imwold - NF, S
The Risk Pool by Richard Russo - S
Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin -S & L
By Nightfall by Michael Cunningham - S
Luka and the Fire of Life by Salman Rushdie
read Haroun and the Sea of Stories first
World and Town by Gish Jen
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King - S
Three Seconds by Roslund & Hellstrom - S
start with The Beast
The Troubled Man by Henning Mankell - S
start with Faceless Killers
Girl in Hyacinth Blue by Susan Vreeland
Aurorarama by Jean-Christophe Valtat -SF
How I Killed Pluto and Why it Had it Coming by Mike Brown - NF

All seem to be available on the Kindle except, Daughter of Time, Risk Pool, Girl In Hyacinth Blue, Three Seconds, Troubled Man and Cut! seems to be out of print entirely.

Once Upon A Time V

Finally it is time for Carl V's Once Upon A Time challenge. I remember when I joined this challenge for the first time. I was new to blogging, new to challenges and didn't think that I actually liked fantasy. What I have realized is that fantasy is so much broader than magicians, fairies, dragons and knights and actually encompasses my favorite type of books - books that are not too constrained by reality such as those by Kafka, Murakami, Calvino and Saramago.

For more information on this challenge that focuses on fantasy, folklore, fairy tales or mythology go here and for the review site go here. It runs from March 21 to June 20, 2011.

I have so many books that I could read for this challenge. I bought Jeff Vandermeer's Finch last year and then decided to save it for this year so I had time to savor Shriek, so I will definitely be reading Finch. I also have had The City and the City since it came out so I definitely will be reading that. I also enjoyed the Calvino and Ajvaz so much last year that I would like to read more of them. And I of course have more Saramago to read. So here is a pool of books to chose from.

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer
The City and the City by China Mieville
The Castle by Franz Kafka
The Alchemist and the Executioness by Bacigalupi and Buckell
Jonathan Strange and Mister Norrell by Susanna Clarke
Stone Raft by Jose Saramago
The Baron in the Trees by Italo Calvino
The Golden Age by Michal Ajvaz
The Library by Zoran Zivkovic
The Last Book by Zoran Zivkovic
Gormenghast by Mervyn Peake
Observatory Mansions by Edward Carey
The Wood Wife by Terri Windling
Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladamir Nabokov
The Narrator by Michael Cisco

And if that isn't enough there is always Jeff Vandermeer's Best Fantasy of 2010 review to get inspiration from.

I am going to sign up for the Journey because I appreciate the flexibility and lack of stress which means that I will read at least one book but I might read more. I did the Journey last year and ended up reading four. I also plan on watching Midsummer Night's Dream on DVD and I hope to do a few short story weekends with Jorge Luis Borges. Thanks Carl for hosting another great challenge.

Reading Deliberately 2011

Last January I decided to try and read more deliberately. I believe the quality of the books that I read in 2010 was much higher than in 2009. I think this is in part due to my leaving my real world book club (and therefore cutting out books I didn't really want to read) but also reading some great books that I have intended to read for a long time but never seemed to get to. I therefore am going to try it again this year.

Books I intended to read in 2010 and still intend to read in 2011:

Gold Bug Variation by Richard Powers
The Castle by Franz Kafka
The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner
Satanic Verses by Salman Rushdie
Lost City of Z by David Grann (nonfiction)

There are also books that I have that would be perfect for challenges that I intend to participate in:

Finch by Jeff Vandermeer - Once Upon a Time
The City and the City by China Mieville - Once Upon a Time
Historian by Elizabeth Kostova - RIP

In addition I would like to read a book about Art, a book about Food, a book about Books or Reading, a nonfiction book as well as something from the Modern Library's 100 Best Novels List which I am extremely slowly working through (The Sound and the Fury is on it).

This is a shorter list than last year but perhaps I can complete it this year and I reserve the right to add to it as I am sure I am leaving something important out.

Bookmarks

Here is what looked good in the November / December Bookmarks Magazine issue.

C, Tom McCarthy
Room, Emma Donoghue
Bitter in the Mouth, Monique Truong - S
Hunger, Knut Hamsun
Percival's Planet, Michael (about discovery of Pluto)
What is Left the Daughter, Howard Norman (set in Nova Scotia)
The Bird Artist, Howard Norman
The Dreaming Void, Peter F. Hamilton - SF
The Dervish House, Ian McDonald - SF
Pattern Recognition, William Gibson
Zero History, William Gibson
Fall of the House of Walworth, Geoffrey O'brien -NF

All books appear to be available for the Kindle.

Bookmarks

Here is what looked interesting in the September/October 2010 Bookmarks Magazine.

The Man Who Invented the Computer, Jane Smiley
The Daughter of Time, Josephine Tey
Passage, Connie Willis
The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, Reif Larsen
The Tattooed Map, Barbara Hodgson
The Incident Report, Martha Baillie

Contemporary Russian Literature:
Something by Boris Akunin
Dream Life of Sukhanov, Olga Grushin
The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books, Elif Batuman -NF
The World to Come, Dara Horn
Moscow Rules, Daniel Silva

Visit from the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan - S
Riddley Walker, Russell Hoban -SF
Cookbook Collector, Allegra Goodman - S
Deep Creek, Dana Hand
The Thousand Autums of Jacob de Zoet, David Mitchell - S
Kraken, China Mieville -SF
The Passage, Justin Cronin - SF
Blood Oath, Christopher Farnsworth
Operation Mincemeat, Ben Macintyre - NF