Bookshelves

I've been enjoying Kimbuktoo's Your Home Library project for awhile now. So, I thought it only right that I contribute a picture. Here's the larger version of my bookshelves. They're super-cheap particle wood shelves from Office Max, but I'm undertaking them as a DIY project for the fall. I'm going to paint them and add some molding/trim. I'll show y'all the after pics when I finish! In the meantime, here we go. :D



I try to keep my book collection small (I doubt it's more than 400), since I'm living with my parents and then joining the Peace Corps. After all, it's only polite that I fit them all in my room!

The left case is full of non-genre fiction: I have it divided into geographically and chronologically. Top shelf is for non-British classics: America, France, Russia, Greece. Next shelf is all British classics. The middle one is international contemporary fiction, followed by American and British contemporary fiction. The bottom shelf is my Southern collection (inspired by Maggie's challenge), poetry, and historical fiction. The middle case starts with genre fic: the top shelf is mystery, the next one a combo of spy/thriller and the beginnings of fantasy, and the middle one is all fantasy. Then, my foreign language stuff begins. One shelf for Russian: actual books as well as language reference volumes. The bottom shelf is French (not as extensive), and a touch of Italian. Then, the right case is full of non-fiction, sorted by genre. Top shelf is religion and tarot, next is all of my international relations books. Then, there's the bio/memoir section, history, and Russia. Underneath that is science, philosophy and 'general nonfic'-my catchall for everything else. The very bottom shelf houses my bookmooch inventory.

When I really look at it, my sorting seems haphazard, but it makes it very easy for me to find whatever I want, as well as browse my collection. The genres match up to the ones in my Excel sheet, so they've grown organically out of the books I own.

In addition to books, I keep a lot of souvenirs on my bookshelves. My dad does a lot of travelling for work, and I've done quite a bit of travelling growing up, so I have a pretty good collection from around the world. I also have pictures of my family and places that I've lived.

Double the Mystery, Double the Fun (The Door, Death in Holy Orders)

The Door by Mary Roberts Rinehard

I read The Door as one of my Summer Mystery Challenge selections. In was published in the late forties, and the edition I read was an omnibus I bookmooched that includes two other novels. This was my first experience with Rinehard, and I'm not sure whether I like her or not. It's definitely a cozy mystery-the reader is presented with a close circle of people, and must try to figure out who did it. The narrator was quite fun-a single, older woman who enjoys her independence and wealth. :) However, the entire novel was written as the narrator remembering events. This would have been fine, except the woman kept foreshadowing, almost the level of spoilers, which drove me insane. This was my only complaint with the book, but it is a large one. I'm willing to give Rinehard another chance, because she's great at characterization, and the plot would have been very enjoyable without all of the foreshadowing. Hopefully her other books are written in a different style!

Death in Holy Orders by P.D. James
This was a book on CD, which I don't normally discuss. However, this one was exceptionally good, and it has made me want to being collecting more P.D. James. This was my first novel of hers. It's set in a seminary-college (I'm Catholic, so I don't really know what the Church of England calls it) perched on the edge of the bleak, stormy sea. It's also an Inspector Dalgleish (sp?) book; the Inspector enjoys writing poetry and is generally quite introspective. I'm worried about discussing the plot at all, because the book unfolds slowly, so much of the action doesn't begin until about half way through. Suffice it to say, there is a string of murders that must be solved. Don't expect any Agatha Christie plots here-the killer becomes pretty obvious at least 3 CDs before s/he is arrested. Nevertheless, James creates stunningly human characters, who all seem ready to step off the page. She also evokes scenery very well; I felt like I was on a rocky British beach sometimes. It was a pleasure to listen to this book, and I plan to hunt down some more James very soon. If you enjoy mysteries, but don't mind a slower-moving, character-centric book, this one will hit the spot!

Non-Fiction Double Shot (Blink, Waiting for Daisy)

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell
Blink argues that the split-second judgements that people make are usually trustworthy. Gladwell is famous for The Tipping Point, which I haven't read, and in this follow-up he offers what I think of as pop non-fic. It's definitely non-fiction, and it has a thesis, but it would be laughed out of academic circles. I enjoyed parts of it, but Blink suffers from the same weakness I found in The Wisdom of Crowds and, albeit less obvious, Freakonomics. Namely, the author seems to think that if he makes a broad claim, and then gives me lots of anecdotal evidence, I'll believe him. While this method leads to interesting stories, it isn't calculated to make me agree. In fact, half of the time, it felt as if the anecdotes contradicted his thesis. For example, he talks about a psychological study where a professor recorded married couples having minor disagreements. Then, the professor (and his poor grad slaves, lol) deviced a way of ranking the emotions being expressed by each spouse and assigning them a number value. Finally, this value turned out to be a remarkable predictor of if the couple remained married. As Gladwell tells the story, he makes it clear that when a lay person watches a couple on the screen, s/he may think that the couple is in a great position, while the trained grad student would see a future divorce. This seems to undermine the idea that immediate judgements are correct, since it's only with minute analysis that the truth becomes clear. I wish I could discuss his arguments more, but unfortunately I had to return the book to the library. Suffice it to say, there were some interesting ideas, but nothing compelling.

Waiting for Daisy by Peggy Orenstein

This book was completely different species of non-fiction: the memoir. In this case, Orenstein is a feminist scholar who, in her mird-thirties, realises she wants to be a mother. This realisation engenders a whole host of crises: identity, physical, emotional, sexual. The book chronicles Orenstein's self-described trip into the insanity of infertility, and she explains how she found herself doing ridiculous things in order to have a child. I don't usually like memoirs, but this one is an exception. Orenstein mixes enough random facts (did you know that riding a bike kills sperm?) and hilarious moments into her recollections to keep things interesting. She also knows when it's time to wrap something up; I never found myself getting bored. Additionally, she's good at conveying emotions; I constantly empthathised with her, and a section where she's discussing Japanese shrines to aborted and miscarried fetuses really touched me. In short, this is everything I could ask of a memoir: witty, frank, self-aware, short, and with a happy ending!

Favourite Passages (From Waiting for Daisy)

"I guess I think of life as kind of like an amusement park," he said. "If you're going to go, you should ride every ride at least once. And having kids is like the big, scary roller coaster. You can have a good time without riding it, but you would've missed a significant part of the experience." (8)

As it was, at a tenuous five weeks gestation I'd already calculated my due date on a Web site, ogled pictures of "my baby's" development, and joined an Expecting Club on iVillage for November Mommies-to-Be. If the second IVF had taken, I would've taped that photograph of fertilized cells to the fridge. All of this encourages a mother-to-be to see the fetus as a person, at least in the psychological sense, at an even earlier stage. You tell friends. Names are bandied about. The baby feels real. Yet, if the pregnancy goes amiss, that personhood is abruptly revoked and you're supposed to act like nothing ever happened. (132)

Another thing I'd never noticed: there is no word in English for a miscarried or aborted fetus. How better to bury a topic than to make it literally unspeakable? In Japanese it is mizuko, which is usually translated as "water child." Historically, Japanese Buddhists believed that existence flowed into being slowly, like liquid. Children solidifed only gradually over time and weren't considered to be fully in the human realm until they reached the age of seven. Similarly, leaving this world-returning to primordial waters-was a process beginning at sixty with a celebration of a symbolic second birth. A mizuko lay somewhere along the continuum, in that liminal space between life and death but belonging to neither. (135)

I did know that a dog wasn't a child, though that, apprently, is not a commonly shared observation in Berkeley. In a town of people who have a tendency to be a mite zealous, the dog people are extreme. They successfully lobbied for an ordinance forbidding citizens to own pets-we can't even call them pets. We must refer to ourselves as the "guardians" of our "animal companions." (156)

Autumn Challenges (or, How Eva Went a Little Crazy)

Well, my main challenge for the rest of the year is obviously in non-fiction. It should be interesting; seven books a month will make up about half my reading! But for the other half, I've decided to join some of the challenges coming up and design a couple of my own: I'm listing them in the order that they start and including pics of the books I own....

+I'm doing a sequel to the Reading Across Borders challenge that I completed earlier, to go from August through December. However, I'm going a little easier on myself this time and including one book from Italy and one from the Commonwealth.
If on a winter's night a traveler by Italo Calvino (Italy)
Yes, it's Italy, but I haven't read Calvino before, and I refuse to put him off any longer. :D
The Last Kabbalist of Lisbon by Richard Zimler (Portugal)
I heard about this via the Amazon adult school feature (so much fun!), and then I mooched it. It's kind of violating my rule, in that I prefer for the book to be set in a country that the author is native to. However, it's historical, and it's about the Portugese Jews, and Zimler is Jewish, so that's how I'm justifying it.
The Moor's Last Sigh by Salman Rushdie (India)
I haven't read Rushdie in way too long. So, despite the fact that he's one of my favourite authors, and thus not really a stretch for me, I'm putting him on the list. Have I mentioned how much I love Rushdie? I'm working my way through his oevre, so this should be fun!
Daughter of Fortune by Isabel Allende (Chile)
I decided to read another book by Allende, since I love House of Spirits and Zorro (I have the latter on cd-it's so much fun!). Plus, the library has a copy.
Snow Flower's Secret Fan by Lisa See (China)
I've heard lots of good things about this, and the library has a copy. I actually checked it out before but didn't get to it in time.
Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton (South Africa)
I'm looking forward to a book set in South Africa, and I've heard that this one is quite fair to both sides. And, once again, the library has a copy.
Bliss and Other Stories by Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand)
I have an embarassing confession: I've never read a book set anywhere near Australia or New Zealand. High time to correct that!
Embers by Sándor Márai (Hungary)
I never seem to read books set in continental Europe. This one seems very interesting, and I could book mooch it!
War of the Saints by Jorge Amado
So, I knew that I wanted to include a Brazilian author on the list. I also knew I wanted to bookmooch it. This ended up narrowing the field to two Amados: this one or Dona Flor and Her Two Husbands. I agonised over the decision, but in the end I went with this one because an African goddess comes to life through a statue of Saint Barbara. How awesome of a plot is that?!
In the Eye of the Sun by Ahdaf Soueif
I wanted a book from the Middle East on the list as well, and I love Egypt (I got visit for ten days a few years back). I was hoping to grab the sequel to Mahfouz's incredible Palace Walk, but it wasn't at bookmooch. So, I decided to go for a woman author, and this one sounds fascinating. I had to decide between this and Map of Love; in the end, I went with this one because it's longer!


+Then, I'm doing a personal short story challenge. My goal is to read at least five short story collections and ten famous individual short stories before the end of the year (this also starts now). My selections are
Case Histories: A Novel by Kate Atkinson
This is a book of three connected stories centered around one detective. I read Behind the Scenes at the Museum a long time ago, and it'll be interesting to see what Atkinson does with this material.
Orsinian Tales by Ursula K. le Guin
I've heard good things about her over the years but never picked up any of her work. I'm looking forward to checking it out.
The Veteran by Frederick Forsyth
This is a collection of five thriller stories. It sounds interesting!
Two Good Collections Here
As you can tell, this list isn't fleshed out yet. I'm going to try and find three great collections at the library, but I wanted to leave myself some browsing room. Open for suggestions
Best American Short Stories of the Century
I'm hoping this will be the source for most of the individual stories-library has it.


+First of the 'real' (i.e.-hosted)challenges, the Books to Movies challenge, which beings in September and gives the participants three months to read three books that have been turned into movies. My choices...
Mariette in Ecstasy by Ron Hansen
I saw this as a rec by a Duke professor, and when I read about it it seemed very interesting. So, when I saw it had been made into a movie and my library has it, I knew we were destined. :D
The Mirror Crack'd by Agatha Christie
I love Agatha Christie, specifically Miss Marple. So, I've taken the opportunity to bookmooch this one, since I plan on owning all the Miss Marples one day.
The Russia House by John le Carre
I've enjoyed the le Carre that I've read so far, but I think that his old stuff is far better than his new stuff. The library has this one as well, since bookmooch doesn't have it in the cover I want (yes, I value the covers of books I own).
alts, in case the library misplaces something, are
Hannibal Rising by Thomas Harris
Mom got this for me in hardcover a few months ago (I've really enjoyed the rest of the series), but then I saw the movie, so I haven't had much of an impetus to read it. This is the only book on the list that I've seen the film for.
The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
I bookmooched this, since I want to own all of Eco's work eventually, and I read it a few years ago and really enjoyed it. It'd be fun to reread it, since I don't remember much about it.

+Next up is the Unread Authors Challenge, which also begins in September. You choose six books to read by February of 2008. Since a lot of the fiction I've mooched is new authors, this one works out well!
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
This was one of my very first mooches, since I think I'm the only one in the blogging community that hasn't read it yet! It keeps calling me from the bookshelf, but I've been distracted by challenge reads. It's time to make time to see what all the fuss is about. :)
A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters
I mooched this, because it sounded like a great mystery! I'm always ready to discover another good series.
That Night by Alice McDermott
I mooched this after a good review by litlove (I think it was litlove). It's a skinny read, but I'm looking forward to it.
Kim by Rudyard Kipling
I recently realised that the last Kipling I read was that mongoose story in 7th grade. Shame on me. Plus, I have to include at least one classic in the list!
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
The heft of this one makes up for the slimness of the McDermott. A friend recommended this to me, and I'm very excited to actually get around to it. My bookmooched copy is just gorgeous!
The Stolen Child by Keith Donahue
I'm super excited about this one, so I wanted to include it on one of my challenges. The only problem will be waiting until September. :)


+Then there's the 2nds challenge. It doesn't start until October, but since I'm listing challenges, I might as well list them all! Joy is hosting this one, and since I didn't participate in the Non-Fiction 5 (kicking myself now), I definitely want to do this one. The idea is that you pick 3 new authors who you enjoyed, and read a second book by them. I think the point is to deepen your connection with authors you've recently discovered. :D I'm going with...
The Little Country by Charles de Lint
I first read de Lint for the Once Upon a Time challenge, and I loved him. So, I bookmooched this copy a couple months ago, and it's been patiently waiting for me. I can't wait to return to his gorgeous writing style and awesome worlds.
Lost in a Good Book Jasper Fforde
This is a follow-up to The Eyre Affair, which upon second reading turned out to be great fun. I mooched this at the same time as the first one, and I hope that it'll be as good.
Road Rage by Ruth Rendell
I first read Rendell for the Summer Mystery Challenge and had a lukewarm reaction. But, I really want to give her another go. This is another bookmooch-if I mooched a book from a user, I could pick one free. This was my freebie.

Poetry Challenge Wrap Up

The Poetry Challenge was organised by Ted at bookeywookey. Participants were asked to choose four poems: one from pre-1900, one 1900-2000, one post-2000, and one from any time period that gave them difficulty. Then, during the week than included the 1st of August, all of the participants posted their poems as well as commentary on them.
I posted all four poems that I chose for the poetry challenge on time...
"Daddy" by Sylvia Plath
"Reading the Entrails" by Neil Gaiman
"Tomorrow's Wind" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
"A Cradle Song" by William Blake

The best poem: "Tomorrow's Wind" and "Daddy"
What poem could I have done without? I like them all!
Any new poets? Blake
Poems I did not finish: none!
What did I learn from this challenge? I gained more self confidence about discussing poetry, and I realised how important it is that I take the time out to read it.

(Note: thanks to Nyssaneala for the idea to have questions!)

"Daddy" by Sylvia Plath

Tonight is dark and stormy. Too rainy to really go out, which is perfect Sylvia Plath weather. So, as my last poem for bookeywookey's challenge, here we go. Don't forget to go to his site, where you can see all the participants!

"Daddy" by Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that, no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

I chose this poem as one that's difficult for me. But, let's be honest. It's an incredible piece of writing. The rhythm alone-the words just throb. Throb with ache, and pain, and rage. Then there's the imagery. Stunning. From the Nazi-Jew to the vampire, Plath never lets up. The images just get darker and darker, bringing the reader into a deeper hole. The last stanza gives me goosebumps. I just keep repeating it to myself over and over.

I think that I'm going to end the analysis there. Plath knew how to write. She channeled all of her emotions into words that make the reader understand what she's going through. And so I'm going to let the poem stand for itself; I don't see any room for improvement.

Odds and Ends

Whew-the poetry challenge is fun, but posting the poems makes it difficult to do my regular blogging posts! So, I'm double-posting. :D

+In case y'all don't know about Dogeared, it's the blog recording a super-cool project. Sonya is travelling around the US by Greyhound and taking pictures of people reading! Lately, she posted an entry that was an extended interview with the owner of an independent book store. I highly recommend it: go here and be prepared to smile!

+You might have noticed the Nonfiction Challenge button appear in my side bar. This is a personal challenge for me; in order to get anywhere near the fic:nonfic ratio I wanted back in my New Year's resolution, I need to read seven nonfic books a month for the rest of the year. So, that's what I'm attempting to do.

+Speaking of which, here is the latest bookpile! A mix of bookmooch, book store, and library. One thing in common: they're all nonfiction. :)



From Book Mooch: Joseph Campbell's The Power of Myth. I love Campbell, and this edition of the book is just gorgeous; it has tons of pictures.

From B&N: all summer, they've been displaying the 3 for 2 table, but there've never been 3 books that I wanted. But, finally there were! Confessions of an Economic Hitman (because I'm an international relations-i.r.-major), Spook (it's all about science trying to figure out the afterlife; I also have Roach's Stiff on the way via bookmooch), and The Ancestor's Tale (I enjoy pop science).

From the Library: I went browsing through the non-fic stacks, since I don't know the Dewey system that well (too used to LC). I found: The Persian Puzzle (once again i.r.), Waiting for Daisy (about adoption-I've always been interested), A Gentle Madness (all about people like us! that is, bibliophiles), The Supreme Court (trying to become a good citizen), and Does America Need a Foreign Policy? (did I mention I'm an i.r. girl?).

I also really want to review The Witching Hour and America's Secret War. *sigh* I suppose that'll have to wait until next week!

"Reading the Entrails" by Neil Gaiman

This is my third entry into bookeywookey's poetry challenge. In the challenge, he specified that one poem be from 2000-2007; I'm concerned about the copyright violations on this one. So, I have the poem up, but if anyone thinks it's a problem, please let me know and I'll take it down.

"Reading the Entrails: a Rondel" by Neil Gaiman

They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate-
The cards and stars that tumble as they will.
Tomorrow manifests and brings the bill
For every kiss and kill, the small and great.
You want to know the future, love? Then wait:
I'll answer your impatient questions. Still-
They'll can it chance, or luck, or call it Fate,
The cards and stars that tumble as they will.

I'll come to you tonight, dear, when it's late,
You will not see me; you may feel a chill.
I'll wait until you sleep, then take my fill,
And that will be your future on a plate.
They'll call it chance, or luck, or call it Fate.

I mainly chose this poem to give myself a break; I also love Neil Gaiman, so I wanted to give him some blog time!

A rondel is a poem form: it has two rhymes and goes ABbaabAB abbaA. So that explains the fixed feeling of the poem. In the beginning poetry writing class that I took (see Blake post), we had to play with forms a lot, so I've written rondels, villanelles, sestinas, and sonnets. I feel that this makes me more appreciative of reading form poetry, since I know how difficult it is to match the parameters of the poem and still make it sound natural.

As far as "Reading the Entrails" goes, it doesn't really flow naturally; it definitely sounds like a poetic form. However, I think that the slightly-stilted manner works, since the narrator is a fortune teller. You expect psychics to speak differently than normal people.

Honestly, I think that this is just the kind of poem that is best read aloud and savoured for atmosphere. Any more analysis seems kind of silly. :)

Edited to add: I loved one of the comments, so I'm tacking it on to the post. Heather from Errant Dreams basically summed up my feelings about Gaiman:
He experiments with some of the more complex poetic forms, and makes them elegant and breathtaking

Yep-that's all I have to add. Go Heather.

The Eustace Diamonds, Candide, The Scarlet Pimpernel (thoughts)

The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
I'm not a huge Dickens girl; I love A Tale of Two Cities and Pickwick Papers, but I could leave the rest of his books I've read. However, after reading The Eustace Diamonds, I think that Trollope is my Dickens. lol Trollope writes the same kind of character-rich, diversion-full, multiple-plot books that Dickens does. But, for some reason, Trollope and I get along perfectly. I enjoyed his little sidenotes to the reader, and I hated his villains and loved his heroes just like he expected me to. :D His writing kept the book moving, even when he meandered from the plot. His passages when characters go fox hunting are simple stunning. If you enjoy sprawling Victorian lit, Trollope might just be for you!

Candide by Voltaire
I went in knowing that this was supposed to be a philosophical novel. So I expected it to make a point. But, honestly, it just wasn't enjoyable. I see how other people would enjoy it, but for me the only good thing about it was that the chapters and book itself were short. The B&N edition that I read just didn't have a good enough intro (half the intro just summarised the book, chapter by chapter, how dumb is that?) for me; the intro didn't give me any info I didn't already know. I was also horrified by the pictures; they were very gruesome, which matched the gruesome violence throughout the story. The only chapter I enjoyed was the El Dorado chapter; I've always like utopias. I'm glad that I read this book, but I won't be keeping it.

The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy
Best. Adventure Novel. Ever. It was so much fun! First of all, the characters swear with words like "Egads!" and "Zooks!", lol. The villain is deliciously heartless; the main heroes are all clever and brave and, of course, handsome. It was a ton of fun. I'll be looking into the sequels.

Favourite Passages

Now she desired to be so in love that she could surrender everything to her love. There was as yet nothing of such love in her bosom. She had seen no one who had so touched her. But she was alive to the romance of the thing, and was in love with the idea of being in love, (Trollope, 81)

"She is the greatest vixen in all London."...
"There is no word in the English language," she said, "which conveys to me so little of defined meaning as that word vixen. If you can, tell what you mean, Clara." (Trollope, 119)

But poor Lizzie Eustace had no Binns and no Pouncebox. They are plants that grow slowly. There still too much of the mushroom about Lady Eustace to permit of her possessing such treasures. (Trollope, 226)

...I am content with almost nothing." The nothing with which the dean had hitherto been contented had always included every comfort of life, a well-kept table, good wine, new books, and canonical habiliments with the gloss still on; but as the Bobsborough tradesmen had, through the agency of Mrs. Greystock, always supplied him with these things as though they came from the clouds, he really did believe that he had never asked for anything. (Trollope, 362)

There are men in whose love a good deal of hatred is mixed; - who love as the huntsman loves the fox, towards the killing of which he intends to use all his energies and intellects. (Trollope, 410)

She understood that the task she had in hand was one very difficult to be accomplished-and she did perceive, in some dark way, that, good as her acting was, it was not quite good enough. Lucy held her ground because she was real. You may knock about a diamond, and not evenscratch it; whereas paste in rough usage betrays itself. Lizzie, with all her self-assuring protestations, knew that she was paste, and knew that Lucy was real stone. (Trollope, 628)

But it has always seemed to me that it must be heavenly to be loved blindly, passionately, wholly...worshipped, in fact..." (Orzcy, 52)

"Virtue, alas!" sighed the Prince, "is mostly unbecoming to your charming sex, Madame." (Orzcy, 88)

He laughed, as Dante has told us that the devils laugh at the sight of the torture of the damned. (Orzcy, 186)

Summer Reading Challenge Wrap-Up

For the Summer Reading Challenge, participants could choose any number of books to read between June 1st and August 1st. I decided to make it into another classics challenge and chose ten books from England and France. After a last-minute rush, I finished all but one of the ten classics I chose to read for the summer reading challenge with no substitutions...
The Eustace Diamonds by Anthony Trollope
Candide by Voltaire
The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orzcy
Emma by Jane Austen
Les Liasons Dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos
Cousin Bette by Honore de Balzac
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (I didn't get around to reviewing it, which is weird, because I loved it)
The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (I didn't review it, because I didn't really enjoy it)

I started Evelina, but I really don't like epistolatory novels, so I knew I wouldn't finish it in time.

The best book: I can't choose! There're about five tied-the Bronte, Balzac, Orzcy, Austen, and Trollope.
What book could I have done without? Candide by Voltaire. Ugh.
Any new authors? Several: Anne Bronte, Balzac, Orzcy, Trollope, and de Laclos.
Books I did not finish: Evelina, because I just ran out of steam. I plan to get to it eventually.
What did I learn from this challenge? How cool Trollope was! He's like Dickens, only more my style. :)

(Note: thanks to Nyssaneala for the idea to have questions!)