52. The Great Typo Hunt

By Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson
Rated:  4 Stars
From:  Library

Thanks to Maudeen's tip I am currently The Great Typo Hunt; Two Friends Changing the World, One Correction at a Time, by Jeff Deck and Benjamin D. Herson. It's one opf those books I would never have found out about unless someone pointed it out to me.

 I have a lot of nerve snickering at other people's typos seeing that I am Queen of the Typos myself and also someone who has never really gotten a grasp on the correct use of comas and an even shakier grip on the proper use of apostrophes. But I have always loved badly worded signs and have a small inventory of them stored in my memory. One of my favorites is a sign I spied in Michael's in Ft. Worth, Texas that read "All flower arrangements must be returned the same day of purchase with receipt." Bringing it to the managements attention only caused them to look at me like I was crazy for asking what would happen to me if I decided to keep it. Another was in a local Mexican restaurant which read "Everyone eating must have plate including children."

 I Hope that I may have learned a little something about the use of the dread apostrophes and get a firmer grip on commas from this book. Anyway it's a very funny book and I'm enjoying it.

 Product Description

 "The Great Typo Hunt is the hilarious tale of the adventures and misadventures encountered on a quixotic cross-country trek to correct grammar and spelling mistakes. Over-the-top heroic tone and witty wordplay make this book endlessly amusing, without detracting from the larger point the authors are trying to make about the importance of clear and coherent communication. An overall fun read that will change the way you look at typos."

51. Museum of Thieves

By:  Lian Tanner
Rated 4 Stars
From:  Library

I don't read a lot of fantasy but I do dabble in the genre from time to time.  I had read so many good reviews of this book written by people whose taste generally runs with mine that I decided to give it a try.

What a fun read!  It's set in a world where children are sheltered by being chained to their parents in order to keep them safe from everything.  Dogs, cats, loose nails, broken glass and splinters.  Everything that might be remotely dangerous are  forbidden by law.

Goldie and boy named toadspit escape from this stifling environment and set out to save their world from an assortment of baddies.  A modern fairy tale, this book is a well written fun read that should appeal to readers of all ages not just children.

Publisher Summary

Welcome to the tyrannical city of Jewel, where impatience is a sin and boldness is a crime. Goldie Roth has lived in Jewel all her life. Like every child in the city, she wears a silver guardchain and is forced to obey the dreaded Blessed Guardians. She has never done anything by herself and won’t be allowed out on the streets unchained until Separation Day. When Separation Day is canceled, Goldie, who has always been both impatient and bold, runs away, risking not only her own life but also the lives of those she has left behind. In the chaos that follows, she is lured to the mysterious Museum of Dunt, where she meets the boy Toadspit and discovers terrible secrets. Only the cunning mind of a thief can understand the museum’s strange, shifting rooms. Fortunately, Goldie has a talent for thieving. Which is just as well, because the leader of the Blessed Guardians has his own plans for the museum—plans that threaten the lives of everyone Goldie loves. And it will take a daring thief to stop him. . . .

Dolley Madison - DVD

Rated:  5 Stars
From:  Library


What a treat!  Before seeing this DVD I knew very little about Dolley Madison as she is not a well know person in American history.  I knew she was First Lady when the British burned the White House in the War of 1812 and there are cupcakes named after her. But she was a very interesting lady who certainly deserves to be remembered. 


The film was beautifully done and the costumes and sets were gorgeous.  Dolley was obviously a lady of style and elegance.  I highly recommend this movie.


Product Description


"Born in relative obscurity before the American Revolution, Dolley Madison became one of the most influential American women of the early nineteenth century. As the wife of the fourth president, James Madison, Dolley Madison played an important part in the political and social experiment that was the early American Republic. Long before women held any overt political power, Dolley used her unelected position to legitimize the nation's new capital, to create a political and social style for the new country and to give Americans a sense of their own national identity." 

Middlemarch - DVD

Rated 2 Stars
From:  Library


I gave the movie 2 stars because at least I finished it.  But I had to force myself to watch it until the end. I formed no attachment, sympathy,  or love for any of the characters. I suppose if I had read the book I may have liked it more but this movie certainly isn't going to motivate me to do that.


However, it was beautifully filmed as all BBC productions are.  As a period piece it couldn't have been better.  Too bad the story didn't work for me.

Product Description

Chronicles the life loves foibles & politics of the fictional english town of middlemarch. This centers on the socially conscious but naive dorothea brooke whose disastrous match to the pedantic rev edward casaubon sets in motion a chain of events that will change middlemarch forever.

50. The Cuckoo's Egg

Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage

By:  Clifford Stoll
Rated 5 Stars
From:  Library
Book

This was a real page turner for me and unbelievably kept me up until midnight to finish it.   Even though all the technology was probably out dated I am computer illiterate enough for the technology bits to go flying over my head.  It was the chase that I found so fascinating.

A poster on Bookflurries said that she had seen the author at a book reading and that he was the most entertaining author she had ever seen.  She said that he was so hyper-energetic that she jokingly compared it to someone mainlining caffeine.  I googled and found a 2007 interview on youtube and I concur with the poster completely.  But it is easy to see how someone with that kind of personality would hang on so tenaciously  in order to catch the person who was invading "his" computer system so brazenly and, getting away with it.  By the end of the book I felt like I too had a personal stake in finding the hacker.

Publisher's Description:


A 75-cent discrepancy in billing for computer time led Stoll, an astrophysicist working as a systems manager at a California laboratory, on a quest that reads with the tension and excitement of a fictional thriller. Painstakingly he tracked down a hacker who was attempting to access American computer networks, in particular those involved with national security, and actually reached into an estimated 30 of the 450 systems he attacked. Initially Stroll waged a lone battle, his employers begrudging him the time spent on his search and several government agencies refused to cooperate. 

49. To Say Nothing of the Dog

Or How We Found the Bishop's Bird Stump at Last

By Connie Willis

Rated:  Pending

From: audible.com

Audio Book

I am still listening along to this book.  It's a long audio book.  20 hours and 58 minutes.  Audible had it on sale for $4.95 and it was too good a bargain to pass up.  Other books keep getting in my way but sooner or later I will finish it.  I kind of have to be in the mood for Connie Willis.

Publisher's Summary

Connie Willis' Hugo and Nebula Award-winning Doomsday Book uses time travel for a serious look at how people connect with each other. In this Hugo-winning companion to that novel, she offers a completely different kind of time travel adventure: a delightful romantic comedy that pays hilarious homage to Jerome K. Jerome's Three Men in a Boat.

When too many jumps back to 1940 leave 21st century Oxford history student Ned Henry exhausted, a relaxing trip to Victorian England seems the perfect solution. But complexities like recalcitrant rowboats, missing cats, and love at first sight make Ned's holiday anything but restful - to say nothing of the way hideous pieces of Victorian art can jeopardize the entire course of history.

44.. Pirate King

By: Laurie King
Rated: DNF!
From: Audible
Audio Book


I did not finish this book!  I can't believe this happened to me.  I tried.  I tried three or four times but I just couldn't get into it.  Finally I just started hopping through the story clicking here and there hoping to find something going on that would grab me.  In desperation I finally  clicked about ten minutes from the end and listened to the ending.

It seemed to me that Laurie King had gotten The Pirates of Penzance stuck in her head and couldn't let go of it.  The story was all fluff and no edge.  Holmes only put in a token appearance in this book and I for one don't blame him.  The whole thing was very un-Holmes like.  Not his kind of thing at all.

I sincerely hope that this was not a harbinger of where King is planning to go with this series.  If so she has just lost a faithful reader in me and I would truly hate for that to happen.  Oh well . . . . .

Publisher's Summary

New York Times best-selling author Laurie R. King’s books have received high praise from critics and have earned the Edgar, Creasey, Wolfe, Lambda, and Macavity awards. As Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes embark on their 11th adventure together, they find themselves immersed in the world of silent filmmaking. Here, the pirates are real—and unlike the shooting done with a camera, this sort can be deadly.

In England’s young silent-film industry, the megalomaniacal Randolph Fflytte is king. Nevertheless, at the request of Scotland Yard, Mary Russell is dispatched to investigate rumors of criminal activities that swirl around Fflytte’s popular movie studio. So Russell is traveling undercover to Portugal, along with the film crew that is gearing up to shoot a cinematic extravaganza, Pirate King. Based on Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Pirates of Penzance, the project will either set the standard for moviemaking for a generation - or sink a boatload of careers.

Nothing seems amiss until the enormous company starts rehearsals in Lisbon, where the 13 blond-haired, blue-eyed actresses whom Mary is bemusedly chaperoning meet the swarm of real buccaneers Fflytte has recruited to provide authenticity. But when the crew embarks for Morocco and the actual filming, Russell feels a building storm of trouble: a derelict boat, a film crew with secrets, ominous currents between the pirates, decks awash with budding romance—and now the pirates are ignoring Fflytte and answering only to their dangerous outlaw leader. Plus, there’s a spy on board. Where can Sherlock Holmes be? As movie make-believe becomes true terror, Russell and Holmes themselves may experience a final fadeout.

Downton Abby - DVD

Rated 5+++++ Stars
From:  Library
DVD


Absolutely Marvelous!  Even without finishing it I am giving it 5+ stars.  It is so my kind of thing.


I am rationing it out so as to draw out the fun.  Eventually I am going to purchase the DVD and I know this is one I will want to re-watch.  The sets, the clothes, the atmosphere are as appealing to me as the story is.  I just love this kind of thing.  Oh, I said that already haven't I. :)




Publisher's Summary


Set in an Edwardian country house in 1912, Downton Abbey portrays the lives of the Crawley family and the servants who work for them. In the drawing rooms, library, and beautiful bedrooms, with their tall windows looking across the park, lives the family, but below stairs are other residents, the servants, as fiercely possessive of their ranks as anyone above.

48. Enigma

By:  Robert Harris
Rated 4.5 Stars
From Library
Hardcover Book

Well here I am, once again reading on Connie's coat tails.  I watch her lists very carefully.  I always find at least one book that I wouldn't normally find out about that turn out to to gems and this is one of them. Very well written and extremely atmospheric.

Publisher Summary:

 A fictional account of the desperate efforts to break the Nazi's Enigma code takes place in a British railway town, a struggle that becomes complicated by the pivotal disappearance of a beautiful cryptographer. A member of a top-secret team of British cryptographers, Tom Jericho succeeds in cracking "Shark," the impenetrable operational cipher used by Nazi U-boats, but when the Germans change the code, Jericho must break the new code before the traitor among his group can stop him.

47. Waterloo, A Captain Richard Sharpe Adventure

By:  Bernard Cornwell
Rated:  5 Stars
From:  audible.com
Audiobook

I have loved this series for a long time and it's a little sad that this is the last book.  But as Douglas McArthur said "old soldiers never die they just fade away" Richard Sharpe certainly deserves to sheath his sword and fade away into comfortable retirement.   If I have missed any of the books in this series it was by sheer accident.  If I was really, really rich I would collect them all in audio format to listen to when I am in a nursing home and beyond reading. :)

But Cornwell certainly ended the series with a great big bloody bang with this book.  His battlefield descriptions were about as graphic as I have ever read.  And his description of William of Orange's character made me go running to Wickipedia to see if this was the same William of Orange that was the scourge of Ireland and despised by Clan McDonald.  He wasn't.  That King William reigned in England with his wife Mary from 1689 to 1694.  The William of Orange that Cornwell is writing about in this book was born in 1792 and was subsequently King of the Netherlands.  He may or may not have been the jerk Cornwell protrays him as but after the hatchet job he did on Alfred the Great in his Saxon series I don't entirely trust him.  What I do trust is his accuracy as far as events are concerned and anyway this is fiction so Cornwell can write whatever he pleases.  But I can grumble about it. :)

Publisher's Summary

With the emperor Napoleon at its head, an enormous French army is marching toward Brussels. The British and their allies are also converging on Brussels - in preparation for a grand society ball. And it is up to Richard Sharpe to convince the Prince of Orange, the inexperienced commander of Wellington's Dutch troops, to act before it is too late. But Sharpe's warning cannot stop the tide of battle, and the British suffer heavy losses on the road to Waterloo. Wellington has few reserves of men and ammunition, the Prussian army has not arrived, and the French advance wields tremendous firepower and determination. Victory seems impossible.

In this, the culmination of Richard Sharpe's long and arduous career, Bernard Cornwell brings to life all the horror and all the exhilaration of one of the greatest military triumphs of all time.

46. Absolute Truths

By Susan Howatch
Rated:  At least 5 Stars
From:  audible.com
Audio Book

This is my first attempt in my current plan to listen to all of these books that I can find in audio format this year.  I have, for no logical reason started with the last book. (!)  It's a variation of the old "Read the Last Page of the Book Syndrome."

Audible has Glamorous Powers, Mystical Paths and Scandalous Risks as well as this one available.  Glimmering Images and Ultimate Prizes are available at outrageous prices in cassette tape format.  I think I will pass on them but I will reread them in book format.

I re-read these books every once in a while.  I am always amazed at how much I am attracted to these books because they are not the kind of books that generally appeal to me.  I think it's the writing.  Susan Howatch is a magical writer.  I don't really like most of the characters in these books but the sincerity of their faith and the fact that they really really try to be good Christians comes shining through.  It is non judgmental Christianity without the meanness and bigotry that has become so much a part of what passes for Christianity today.   It's almost enough to restore one's faith.

Publisher's Summary

Charles Ashworth, the bishop of Starbridge, is a man of great accomplishment, confidence, and conviction, with a reputation as a no-nonsense bishop - until his beloved wife dies. Bereavement overwhelming his spiritual equilibrium, his strict morality is quickly revealed to him to be nothing more than a facade. Spiralling downwards, Ashworth knows he must find his way out of the maze of his own psyche. In doing so, he must face the absolute truths - both good and bad - of his past that may be the only keys to his future.

45. When the Emperor Was Devine

Julie Otsuka
Rated: 4 Stars
From:  Library

A very interesting story and a shameful part of our nation's history.  But sad, very sad.  Our government succumbed to public hysterics' after Pearl Harbor and . . .  dare I even say it, then to greed.  I seriously doubt if any of the U.S. citizens of Japanese ancestry were ever reimbursed by as much as one penny on the dollar of what was robbed from them.  I blush to think of it.

Myself, I am of thirty one thirty seconds German ancestry and no one messed with my family during WW2.  Because we didn't look different.  Racism is not just a recent phenomena

Publisher Summary The story is told from five different points of view--a mother receiving the evacuation order, her daughter on the train ride to the camp, the son in the desert internment camp, the family's return home, and the final release of the father after years in captivity--chronicles the experiences of Japanese Americans caught up in the nightmare of the World War II internment camps.