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Topic Started: Sep 18 2012, 03:33 PM (14,516 Views)
dai Cottomy
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tafkaj Today, 2:24 PM Post #1150


The Glass Bead Game, Hermann Hesse.
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Caro

Dreams from My Father - a Story of Race and Inheritance ~ Barack Obama
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Mobson
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Life with Father ~ Clarence Day
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tafkaj

One Day In The Life of Ivan Denisovich, Alexander Solzhenitsyn.
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dai Cottomy
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The Day of the Triffids ~ John Wyndham
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tafkaj

A Bad Day for Sorry, Sophie Littlefield.
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becky sharp
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Opus Maledictorum: A Book Of Bad Words ~ Reinhold Aman.
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waiting4atickle
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A Man For All Seasons ~ Robert Bolt

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tafkaj

To Serve Them All My Days, R. F. Delderfield.
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Mobson
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A Field Book of the Stars ~ William Tyler Olcott
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dai Cottomy
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A Foreign Field ~ Ben Macintyre
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tafkaj

Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ, Lew Wallace.
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dai Cottomy
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Sanders of the River ~ Edgar Wallace
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tafkaj

The Anderson Tapes, Lawrence Sanders.
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dai Cottomy
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Krapp's Last Tape ~ Samuel Beckett
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tafkaj

The Last of the Mohicans, James Fenimore Cooper.
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dai Cottomy
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The Last Days Of Pompeii ~ Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton
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tafkaj

Vril: the Power of the Coming Race, Edward Bulwer-Lytton. (From which we get the name Bovril.)
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dai Cottomy
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The Will to Power ~ Friedrich Nietzsche
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tafkaj

The Book of Dave, Will Self.
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waiting4atickle
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The Divided Self ~ R D Laing

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dai Cottomy
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The Selfish Giant ~ Oscar Wilde
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becky sharp
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Deleted ...you beat me to it,dai
Edited by becky sharp, Feb 23 2013, 04:52 PM.
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becky sharp
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Giant ~ Edna Ferber.
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dai Cottomy
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Sorry about that, Becky - I got gazumped three times the other day. Sometimes it feels quite eery how other people seem to post at exactly the same time.


Girl With Green Eyes ~ Edna O'Brien
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becky sharp
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Not this time,dai ..... :D

Tiger Eyes ~ Judy Blume
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Caro

The Tiger Who Came to Tea ~ Judith Kerr (Such an odd book, really, to be still in print years after I used to read it to my kids.)
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waiting4atickle
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The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul ~ Douglas Adams

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becky sharp
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Three Cups Of Tea ~ Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
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dai Cottomy
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The Three Musketeers ~ Alexandre Dumas
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tafkaj

The Codfish Musket, Agnes Hewes.
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dai Cottomy
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The Da Vinci Cod: A Fishy Parody ~ Don Brine
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Mobson
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<laugh> <ok>


Cod: A Biography of the Fish that Changed the World ~ Mark Kurlansky ....this is a good book!
Edited by Mobson, Mar 6 2013, 12:35 PM.
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tafkaj

So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, Douglas Adams.
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becky sharp
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Gould's Book of Fish: A Novel in Twelve Fish ~ Richard Flanagan
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Caro

The Twelve Little Cakes ~ Dominika Devy
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waiting4atickle
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The Little Prince (Le Petit Prince) ~ Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

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dai Cottomy
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The Prince And The Pauper ~ Mark Twain
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waiting4atickle
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Never the Twain Shall Meet: Bell, Gallaudet and the Communications Debate ~ Richard Winefield

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Mobson
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Days of Wine & Roses ~ Owen McCafferty (new version)
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becky sharp
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Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt ~ Chris Hedges and Joe Sacco.
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waiting4atickle
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Ten Days that Shook the World ~ John Reed

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dai Cottomy
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Around the World in 80 Days ~ Michael Palin
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tafkaj

The Lies of Sarah Palin, Geoffrey Dunn.
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dai Cottomy
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Tyrannosaurus Lex: The Marvelous Book of Palindromes, Anagrams, and Other Delightful and Outrageous Wordplay ~ Rod L. Evans
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Mobson
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P ~ Andrew Lewis Conn
Edited by Mobson, Mar 16 2013, 03:39 PM.
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becky sharp
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Life of Pi ~ Yann Martel.
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Mobson
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Life is a Fork in the Road ~ Don Shapiro
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waiting4atickle
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The Road To Wigan Pier ~ George Or well

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becky sharp
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The Dive From Clausen's Pier ~ Ann Packer. (not the runner) <wink>
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tafkaj

Mobson
Mar 25 2013, 03:26 AM
Life is a Fork in the Road ~ Don Shapiro
Careful no one sees you!

***********************************************

The Road to Wigan Pier ~ George Orwell.
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Mobson
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Hmmmm! <devi>;; .... only you sees me!


Pier Pressure ~ Dorothy Francis
Edited by Mobson, Mar 27 2013, 01:01 PM.
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waiting4atickle
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The last two posts are rather baffling, but heigh ho! - on with the motley...

Gaudy Night ~ Dorothy L Sayers

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becky sharp
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Little Night Reading: Twenty Tales of Horror and the Supernatural ~ Dave Allen (editor)
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dai Cottomy
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The Little Prince ~ Antoine De Saint-Exupery
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Mobson
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The Saint series ~ Leslie Charteris
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Caro

Saint Joan ~ George Bernard Shaw
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dai Cottomy
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Bette And Joan: The Divine Feud ~ Shaun Considine
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becky sharp
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Pope Joan ~ Donna Woolfolk Cross
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waiting4atickle
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The Rape Of The Lock ~ Alexander Pope

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dai Cottomy
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Essay concerning Human Understanding ~ John Locke
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tafkaj

On Human Bondage, W. Somerset Maugham.
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waiting4atickle
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Somerset Cricket: The Glory Years, 1973-1987 ~ Alain Lockyer & Richard Walsh

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dai Cottomy
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The Cricket on the Hearth ~ Charles Dickens
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Mobson
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Journey into the Heart: A Tale of Pioneering Doctors and Their Race to Transform Cardiovascular Medicine ~ David Monagan and David O. Williams
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becky sharp
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Journey to the Centre of the Earth ~ Jules Verne.
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Mobson
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The Incredible Journey ~ Sheila Burnford
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tafkaj

The Journeyman ~ Brad Hunt, Daniel Lapaine, Dash Mihok, Willy Nelson.
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dai Cottomy
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The Royal Hunt of the Sun ~ Peter Shaffer
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tafkaj

[Sorry about 267 :$ ]

The Hunt for Red October, Tom Clancy.
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dai Cottomy
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The Masque of the Red Death ~ Edgar Allan Poe
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tafkaj

Death on the Nile, Agatha Christie.
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becky sharp
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Conspiracy in Death ~ J. D. Robb.
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waiting4atickle
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Death Of A Salesman ~ Arthur Miller

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dai Cottomy
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Death In Venice ~ Thomas Mann
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tafkaj

Gravity's Rainbow, Thomas Pynchon.
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waiting4atickle
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Thomas The Tank Engine ~ Rev W Awdry

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becky sharp
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The Story of Thomas Alva Edison ~ Margaret Cousins.
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waiting4atickle
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Cousin Kate ~ Georgette Heyer

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becky sharp
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The Killer's Cousin ~ Nancy Werlin.
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dai Cottomy
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Cousin Pons ~ Honore De Balzac
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Caro

The Honour of the House ~ E.M. Channon (one of my favourite childhood books and with an excellent review here
Edited by Caro, Apr 26 2013, 10:26 AM.
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tafkaj

The House at Pooh Corner, A. A. Milne.
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becky sharp
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The House of Mirth ~ Edith Wharton
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dai Cottomy
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English Eccentrics ~ Dame Edith Sitwell
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waiting4atickle
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English Humour For Beginners ~ George Mikes

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tafkaj

A History of the English-Speaking Peoples, Winston Churchill.
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dai Cottomy
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Speaking with the Angel ~ Nick Hornby
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waiting4atickle
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A Rumor Of Angels ~ Peter Berger

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becky sharp
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Where Angels Fear to Tread ~ E.M. Forster.
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dai Cottomy
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Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas ~ Hunter S. Thompson
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tafkaj

State of Fear, Michael Crichton.
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Mobson
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State of Wonder ~ Ann Patchett
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Caro

Is it as good as her Bel Canto, which I absolutely loved?

Alice's Adventure's in Wonderland ~ Lewis Carroll
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waiting4atickle
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A Town Like Alice ~ Nevil Shute

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dai Cottomy
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Anna of the Five Towns ~ Arnold Bennett
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Mobson
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Caro
May 3 2013, 10:21 PM
Is it as good as her Bel Canto, which I absolutely loved? in reply to "State of Wonder ~ Ann Patchett"
Not according to this June 2011 review in the New York Times Caro....quotes like "Ann Patchett’s most far-flung yet somehow least exotic book" OR... "Ms. Patchett delivers a homage to the film “Fitzcarraldo” and its director, Werner Herzog, the patron saint of all thrillingly ill-considered voyages into the unknown." ...OR "Perhaps the temptations of the Amazon are overwhelming for any writer with such a gift for animating her surroundings. Perhaps the shadow of “Heart of Darkness” is too long and the allusions to other works too thick on the ground. And “Lost Horizon” for American ovaries?" ... OR "Perhaps Ms. Patchett intends that as the jumping-off point for a moral argument. But it’s a little too loony to be taken seriously. And it’s a horror that would have given even Joseph “The horror! The horror!” Conrad pause."

State of Wonder (353 pages)
Anyway here's an excerpt from Chapter 1 ....

The news of Anders Eckman’s death came by way of Aerogram, a piece of bright blue airmail paper that served as both the stationery and, when folded over and sealed along the edges, the envelope. Who even knew they still made such things? This single sheet had traveled from Brazil to Minnesota to mark the passing of a man, a breath of tissue so insubstantial that only the stamp seemed to anchor it to this world. Mr. Fox had the letter in his hand when he came to the lab to tell Marina the news. When she saw him there at the door she smiled at him and in the light of that smile he faltered.

“What?” she said finally.

He opened his mouth and then closed it. When he tried again all he could say was, “It’s snowing.”

“I heard on the radio it was going to.” the window in the lab where she worked faced out into the hall and so she never saw the weather until lunchtime. She waited for a minute for Mr. Fox to say what he had come to say. She didn’t think he had come all the way from his office in the snow, a good ten buildings away, to give her a weather report, but he only stood there in the frame of the open door, unable either to enter the room or step out of it. “Are you all right?”

“Eckman’s dead,” he managed to say before his voice broke, and then with no more explanation he gave her the letter to show just how little about this awful fact he knew.

There were more than thirty buildings on the Vogel campus, labs and office buildings of various sizes and functions. There were labs with stations for twenty technicians and scientists to work at the same time. Others had walls and walls of mice or monkeys or dogs. This particular lab Marina had shared for seven years with Dr. Eckman. It was small enough that all Mr. Fox had to do was reach a hand towards her, and when he did she took the letter from him and sat down slowly in the gray plastic chair beside the separator. At that moment she understood why people say You might want to sit down. There was inside of her a very modest physical collapse, not a faint but a sort of folding, as if she were an extension ruler and her ankles and knees and hips were all being brought together at closer angles. Anders Eckman, tall in his white lab coat, his hair a thick graying blond. Anders bringing her a cup of coffee because he’d picked one up for himself. Anders giving her the files she’d asked for, half sitting down on the edge of her desk while he went over her data on proteins. Anders father of three. Anders not yet fifty. Her eyes went to the dates — March 15th on the letter, March 18th on the postmark, and today was April 1st. Not only was he dead, he was two weeks dead. They had accepted the fact that they wouldn’t hear from him often and now she realized he had been gone so long that at times he would slip from her mind for most of a day. The obscurity of the Amazonian tributary where Dr. Swenson did her research had been repeatedly underscored to the folks back in Minnesota (Tomorrow this letter will be handed over to a child floating downriver in a dugout log, Anders had written her. I cannot call it a canoe. There never were statistics written to cover the probability of its arrival.), but still, it was in a country, it was in the world. Surely someone down there had an Internet connection. Had they never bothered to find it? “Wouldn’t she call you? There has to be some sort of global satellite—”

“She won’t use the phone, or she says it doesn’t work there.” As close as they were in this quiet room she could scarcely hear his voice.

“But for this—” she stopped herself. He didn’t know. “Where is he now?” Marina asked. She could not bring herself to say his body. Anders was not a body. Vogel was full of doctors, doctors working, doctors in their offices drinking coffee. The cabinets and storage rooms and desk drawers were full of drugs, pills of every conceivable stripe. They were a pharmaceutical company; what they didn’t have they figured out how to make. Surely if they knew where he was they could find something to do for him, and with that thought her desire for the impossible eclipsed every piece of science she had ever known. The dead were dead were dead were dead and still Marina Singh did not have to shut her eyes to see Anders Eckman eating an egg salad sandwich in the employee cafeteria as he had done with great enthusiasm every day she had known him.

“Don’t you read the reports on cholesterol?” she would ask, always willing to play the straight man.

“I write the reports on cholesterol,” Anders said, running his finger around the edge of his plate.

Mr. Fox lifted his glasses, pressed his folded handkerchief against the corners of his eyes. “Read the letter,” he said.

She did not read it aloud.

Jim Fox,

The rain has been torrential here, not unseasonable yet year after year it never ceases to surprise me. It does not change our work except to make it more time-consuming and if we have been slowed we have not been deterred. We move steadily towards the same excellent results.

But for now this business is not our primary concern. I write with unfortunate news of Dr. Eckman, who died of a fever two nights ago. Given our location, this rain, the petty bureaucracies of government (both this one and your own), and the time sensitive nature of our project, we chose to bury him here in a manner in keeping with his Christian traditions. I must tell you it was no small task. As for the purpose of Dr. Eckman’s mission, I assure you we are making strides. I will keep what little he had here for his wife, to whom I trust you will extend this news along with my sympathy. Despite any setbacks, we persevere.

Annick Swenson


From “State of Wonder” by Ann Patchett. Excerpt courtesy of Harper, the publisher.
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Edited by Mobson, May 5 2013, 10:35 AM.
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Mobson
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dai Cottomy
May 4 2013, 10:11 AM
Anna of the Five Towns ~ Arnold Bennett


Total Recall: My Unbelievably True Life Story ~ Arnold Schwarzenegger
Edited by Mobson, May 5 2013, 10:37 AM.
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dai Cottomy
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Recall: What Is Real? ~ Philip K. Dick
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Caro

The Real Inspector Hound ~ Tom Stoppard. (We watched the first episode of Parade's End last night, adapted by Stoppard who must be getting on a bit by now since I studied The Real Inspector Hound at university in the early 70s. It was pretty solid viewing which I am not good at, usually having something to read on my lap at the same time, or a Sudoku style puzzle to meander through.

Thanks for the info and excerpt from the Ann Patchett, Mobson. Hard to tell from a little passage what you will think of a book though.)
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Mobson
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Tom Stoppard is 75 - I have seen him a few times, usually at the National Theatre; he's a very imposing man although losing that lovely shock of black hair; he's just penned an original play new play for the BBC to mark the 40th anniversary of Pink Floyd's album, The Dark Side of the Moon.
I enjoyed Parade's End when it premiered here on the BBC last August...so much so that I bought the series on DVD....the link shows details of the episodes, characters and clips ... http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01m7rn8


The Hound of the Baskervilles ~ Arthur Conan Doyle

Edited by Mobson, May 6 2013, 12:09 PM.
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