The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Thursday, January 31, 2008 by Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity
 Title: The Book Thief
Title: The Book ThiefThursday, January 31, 2008 by Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity
 Title: The Book Thief
Title: The Book Thief
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Printz,
Trish
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by Lightheaded
 This post is long overdue by about five or so months. I was too busy last year to come up with something resembling a post about this after I finished reading it. Let's hope I remember my feelings now that I'm finally posting. Hahaha!
This post is long overdue by about five or so months. I was too busy last year to come up with something resembling a post about this after I finished reading it. Let's hope I remember my feelings now that I'm finally posting. Hahaha!
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Lightheaded,
Newbery
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Wednesday, January 30, 2008 by gautami tripathy
 Crossposted from my blog. I read it in December and forgot to post it here.
Crossposted from my blog. I read it in December and forgot to post it here.
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Gautami reads,
Nobel Prize
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Sunday, January 27, 2008 by Nikki in Niagara

I lost my own father at 12 yr. of age and know what it is to be raised on lies and silences my dear daughter you are presently too young to understand a word I write but this history is for you and will contain no single lie may I burn in Hell if I speak false.
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Booker Prize,
Nicola
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Saturday, January 26, 2008 by gautami tripathy
 Cross posted from my blog..
Cross posted from my blog..
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Gautami reads,
Pulitzer,
Pulitzer Prize
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by Anonymous
 Set in New Crobuzon which is inhabited by humans, remade and a host of alien creatures including kephrin (insect people), cactacae (cactus people), garuda (bird people) and vodyanoi (water people) among others. The remade are usually fusions of humans or aliens and metal parts carried out as punnishments many times. For example one woman has been convicted for killing her baby and her punnishment is to serve 10 years in prison as well as having her babies arms remade on to her face as a constant reminder of what she did.
 Set in New Crobuzon which is inhabited by humans, remade and a host of alien creatures including kephrin (insect people), cactacae (cactus people), garuda (bird people) and vodyanoi (water people) among others. The remade are usually fusions of humans or aliens and metal parts carried out as punnishments many times. For example one woman has been convicted for killing her baby and her punnishment is to serve 10 years in prison as well as having her babies arms remade on to her face as a constant reminder of what she did.
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Arthur C Clarke,
Rhinoa
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Friday, January 25, 2008 by Nyssaneala
 Title: March
Title: MarchI promised her that I would write something every day, and I find myself turning to this obligation when my mind is most troubled. For it is as if she were here with me for a moment, her calming hand resting lightly upon my shoulder. Yet I am thankful she is not here, to see what I must see, to know what I am come to know. And with this thought I exculpate my censorship: I never promised I would write the truth. (p.4)
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Alisia,
Pulitzer Prize
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Thursday, January 24, 2008 by Holley T
 Holley’s Review #7 of 12
Holley’s Review #7 of 12
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Holley,
Pulitzer Prize,
YALSA Outstanding Books for the College Bound
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by 1morechapter
 Source: USA Today
Source: USA TodayKennedy, 42, will receive $50,000 for her novel, which the chair of the judging panel, author Joanna Trollope, called "perfectly, beautifully written."
"(It's) very witty, very lyrical, it's quite dark," Trollope said this week. "Her style is arresting. There's a shadow of James Joyce in it."
Candidates for the award included Simon Sebag Montefiore's Young Stalin, an account of the Soviet dictator's formative years; former teacher and postal worker Catherine O'Flynn's What Was Lost ; Jean Sprackland's poetry collection, Tilt ; and Ann Kelley's children's book, The Bower Bird.
Kennedy has published four previous novels and several short-story collections and performs regularly as a comic.
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Announcements,
Costa/Whitbread
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Wednesday, January 23, 2008 by J
Kalimpong is a hill town nestled in the Shiwalik Hills (or Lower Himalaya) in the Indian state of West Bengal.
Between 1986 and 1988, the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland and Kamtapur based on ethnic lines grew strong. Riots between the Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF), led by C K Pradhan, and the West Bengal government reached a standoff after a forty-day strike. The town was virtually under a siege, leading the state government to call in the Indian army to maintain law and order. This led to the formation of the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council, a body that was given semi-autonomous powers to govern the district. Though Kalimpong is now peaceful, the issue of a separate state still lingers. In July 2004, the generally tranquil town was catapulted into national and international headlines after Maninder Pal Singh Kohli, a murderer wanted by Scotland Yard, was traced and found to be residing in Kalimpong.
He could not talk to his father; there was nothing left between them but emergency sentences, clipped telegram lines shouted out as if in the midst of a war. They were no longer relevant to each other's lives except for the hope that they would be relevant. He stood with his head still in the phone booth studded with bits of stiff chewing gum and the usual FuckShitCockDickPussyLoveWar, swastikas, and hearts shot with arrows mingling in a dense graffiti garden, too sugary too angry too perverse-the sick sweet rotting mulch of the human heart.
If he continued his life in New York, he might never see his pitaji again. It happened all the time; ten years passed, fifteen, the telegram arrived, or the phone call, the parent was gone and the child was too late. Or they returned and found they'd missed the entire last quarter of a lifetime, their parents like photograph negatives. And there were worse tragedies. After the initial excitement was over, it often became obvious that the love was gone; for affection was only a habit after all, and people, they forget, or they become accustomed to its absence. They returned and found just the facade; it had been eaten from inside, like Cho Oyu being gouged by termites from within.
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Booker Prize,
J
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2
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by Petunia
 In the Heart of the Sea
In the Heart of the SeaLike the Donner Party, the men of the Essex could have avoided disaster, but this does not diminish the extent of the men's sufferings, or their bravery andextraordinary discipline.
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National Book Award,
Petunia
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Tuesday, January 22, 2008 by Laura
 March
March
"Then what, pray, is the point?" His voice was a dry, soft rattle, like a breeze through a bough of dead leaves.
"The point is the effort. That you, believing what you believed -- what you sincerely believed, including the commandment 'thou shalt not kill' -- acted upon it. To believe, to act, and to have events confound you--I grant you, that is hard to bear. But to believe, and not to act ... That is what would have been reprehensible." (p. 258)
Louisa May Alcott's classic, Little Women, describes a year in the life of a mother and her daughters, while her husband is away serving in the Union Army. The father is absent for most of the book. In March, Geraldine Brooks brings the father's character to life and tells the story of that year from his point of view. Mr. March is a clergyman, so while he does not experience combat directly, he ministers to the wounded and dying. Initially, after a harrowing battle scene, he finds himself on a plantation that he had first encountered as a young itinerant peddler. Old relationships are rekindled, and he is reassigned to another regiment, and transported to a Southern estate under Union occupation. The slaves on this estate were under Union protection, and Mr. March was to provide them with the basics of an education. The novel's pace picks up at this point, and becomes considerably more violent as the horrors of war are revealed. March eventually lands in hospital, is visited by his wife Marmee, and returns home for Christmas just as he does in Little Women. In March we gain much more intimate knowledge of how the war scarred him, both physically and mentally, and how it affected his relationship with Marmee.
I was hooked on this story from page 1. Scenes from the American Civil War were interspersed with narrative describing how Mr. March came to be married to Marmee, their participation in the Underground Railroad, and his motivation for joining the Union army. He wrote letters from the front but, reluctant to burden his family with his daily horrors, he masked the truth. Marmee, on the other hand. felt lonely and resentful: "I am not alone in this. I only let him do to me what men have ever done to women: march off to empty glory and hollow acclaim and leave us behind to pick up the pieces." (p. 211) Their reunion was touched with both sadness and hope. )
 )
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Laura,
Pulitzer,
Review
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Friday, January 18, 2008 by gautami tripathy

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Gautami reads,
World Fantasy
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Thursday, January 17, 2008 by Wendy
 "How big is my baby?" Selina would demand, senselessly. "How big is my man?" The child would momentarily cease to poke plump fingers into the rich black loam. He would smile a gummy though slightly weary smile and stretch wide his arms. She, too, would open her tired arms wide, wide. Then they would say in a duet, his mouth a puckered pink petal, hers quivering with tenderness and a certain amusement, "So-o-o-o big!" with the voice soaring on the prolonged vowel and dropping suddenly with the second word. - From So Big, page 2 -
"How big is my baby?" Selina would demand, senselessly. "How big is my man?" The child would momentarily cease to poke plump fingers into the rich black loam. He would smile a gummy though slightly weary smile and stretch wide his arms. She, too, would open her tired arms wide, wide. Then they would say in a duet, his mouth a puckered pink petal, hers quivering with tenderness and a certain amusement, "So-o-o-o big!" with the voice soaring on the prolonged vowel and dropping suddenly with the second word. - From So Big, page 2 -
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Pulitzer,
Wendy
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 The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of Genly Ai, a human envoy to a far-off planed that he names Winter.  Genly is in Winter as a representative of the Ekumen, an association whose aim is to promote communication and trade between worlds – not just commercial trade, but trade of ideas, philosophies, experiences, beliefs, cultures. Before Genly’s arrival, the inhabitants of Winter, the Gethenians, were not aware of the existence of other inhabited worlds. Genly’s mission is to convince them that he is trustworthy, and that it would be in their best interest to join the Ekumen. This is not an easy task, because most won’t even believe that he is an alien.
The Left Hand of Darkness tells the story of Genly Ai, a human envoy to a far-off planed that he names Winter.  Genly is in Winter as a representative of the Ekumen, an association whose aim is to promote communication and trade between worlds – not just commercial trade, but trade of ideas, philosophies, experiences, beliefs, cultures. Before Genly’s arrival, the inhabitants of Winter, the Gethenians, were not aware of the existence of other inhabited worlds. Genly’s mission is to convince them that he is trustworthy, and that it would be in their best interest to join the Ekumen. This is not an easy task, because most won’t even believe that he is an alien.When you meet a Gethenians you cannot and must not do what a bisexual naturally does, which is to cast him in the role of Man or Woman, while adopting towards him a corresponding role dependent on your expectation of the patterned or possible interactions between persons of the same or the opposite sex. Our entire pattern of socio-sexual interaction is nonexistent here. They cannot play the game. They do not see one another as men or women. This is almost impossible for our imagination to accept. What is the first question we ask about a newborn baby?Or:
It is a terrible thing, this kindness that human beings do not lose. Terrible, because when we are finally naked in the dark and cold, it is all we have. We who are so rich, so full of strength, we end up with that small change. We have nothing else to give.And:
How does one hate one country, or love one? Tibe talks about it; I lack the trick of it. I know people, I know towns, farms, hills and rivers and rocks, I know how the sun at sunset in autumn falls on the side of a certain ploughland in the hills; but what is the sense of giving a boundary to all that, of giving it a name and ceasing to love where the name ceases to apply?I can see this book growing on me as it sinks further in. I can see myself looking back at it with more and more fondness as time goes by. I really liked the ending, for example – it was hopeful and sad, full of gain and loss. I think this is a book that will stay with me. But if you were to ask me right now how much I enjoyed it, I still wouldn’t know what to say. However, if the question were if I’m glad to have read it, the answer would be a definite yes.
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Hugo,
Nebula,
Nymeth
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by kookie

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Hugo Award,
kookiejar
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by Lightheaded
 Louis Wu is old, 200 years old in fact, but this is the future so it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Louis Wu is also bored as hell and itching for an adventure.
Louis Wu is old, 200 years old in fact, but this is the future so it doesn't really matter. What matters is that Louis Wu is also bored as hell and itching for an adventure.
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Hugo,
Lightheaded,
Nebula
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0
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Tuesday, January 15, 2008 by equiano
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Equiano,
Somerset Maugham,
Whitbread
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0
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Monday, January 14, 2008 by Trish @ Love, Laughter, Insanity
 Title: Atonement
Title: Atonement
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National Book Critics Circle Award,
Trish
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1 comments
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by 1morechapter
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Newbery,
Printz
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1 comments
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Sunday, January 13, 2008 by raidergirl3
 From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E.L. Konisburg
From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs Basil E Frankweiler by E.L. Konisburg The Remains of the Day by Kazou Ishiguro
 The Remains of the Day by Kazou Ishiguro
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Booker Prize,
Newbery,
raidergirl3
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Saturday, January 12, 2008 by BookGal

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BookGal,
Pulitzer
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2
comments
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by 1morechapter
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NBCC
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1 comments
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by raidergirl3
      Posted in: 
      
midpoint progress,
raidergirl3
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0
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by BookGal
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BookGal,
midpoint progress
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by Petunia

He was an old man who fished alone in a skiff in the Gulf Stream and he had
goneeighty-four days now without taking a fish.
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Petunia,
Pulitzer
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0
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by Petunia
      Posted in: 
      
midpoint progress,
Petunia
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by Laura
I enjoyed all of these, but I rated Interpreter of Maladies as one of my top 5 books for 2007. So far it's my favorite of this challenge. Still to come:
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Laura,
midpoint progress
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by Lizzy Siddal
      Posted in: 
      
midpoint progress
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0
comments
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Friday, January 11, 2008 by 1morechapter
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3M,
midpoint progress
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0
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Thursday, January 10, 2008 by krin

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Edgar,
krin
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      Posted in: 
      
Arthur C Clarke,
krin
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Wednesday, January 9, 2008 by Bridget
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Bridget,
National Book Critics Circle Award
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0
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Tuesday, January 8, 2008 by Petunia
 The line on the bottom of the front cover says "A beautiful and majestic fictional panorama." And it's true. This may be one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Which is not to say pleasant. The subject matter, adult themes and the violence of war, are certainly difficult to get through at times. But they are all a necessary part of the journey.
 The line on the bottom of the front cover says "A beautiful and majestic fictional panorama." And it's true. This may be one of the most beautifully written books I've ever read. Which is not to say pleasant. The subject matter, adult themes and the violence of war, are certainly difficult to get through at times. But they are all a necessary part of the journey.
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National Book Critics Circle Award,
Petunia
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0
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by Heather
 Holes
Holes“Stanley was not a bad kid. He was innocent of the crime for which he was convicted. He’d just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“It was all because of his no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather!
“He smiled. It was a family joke. Whenever anything went wrong, they always blamed Stanley’s no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing-great-great-grandfather…”
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Heather,
Newbery
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0
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by Anonymous

      Posted in: 
      
Giller Prize,
Rhinoa
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0
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Monday, January 7, 2008 by Ana S.
 Ellen Kushner’s novel Thomas the Rhymer is a retelling of the old Scottish ballad of the same name – the story of a Harper who, after kissing the Queen of Elfland (and in some versions, more), is spirited away to Faerie where he lives as her lover/slave for seven years. After that time, he returns to the world of men with two cruel gifts: the gift of foresight, and “the tongue that never lies” – the complete inability to tell lies.
Ellen Kushner’s novel Thomas the Rhymer is a retelling of the old Scottish ballad of the same name – the story of a Harper who, after kissing the Queen of Elfland (and in some versions, more), is spirited away to Faerie where he lives as her lover/slave for seven years. After that time, he returns to the world of men with two cruel gifts: the gift of foresight, and “the tongue that never lies” – the complete inability to tell lies.But the question had been asked; the hole had been opened in the fabric of things, and there is something about a hole, a tear, a rent in anything that is irksome to people of character. One wants to fill it, to mend it, to close it. I have heard Elves say that humans' greatest strength and weakness both is their curiosity, which leads them to invention. Elves are not very good liars; they're not even very good storytellers, as we account storytelling: most of it is not invention, for with the rich stuff of Elfland in their hands, they've no need to invent.One of my favourite moments in the novel is a brilliant scene in which Tam Lim, another Scottish ballad about a young man and the Queen of Elfland, is sung and played in Thomas’s hall. But of course, explaining the full significance of the scene without giving away the whole plot (which goes beyond the plot of the ballad) would be difficult.
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Nymeth,
World Fantasy
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