Whitcoulls Top 100 list Nov 15 08 - Nov 15 09

From here:

Whitcoulls challenge


Read Your Way Through The Whitcoulls Top 100 List.

Time:
* From November 15th, 2008 to November 15th, 2009.

The Rules:
* Pick one of the 4 "Top 100" lists linked below and decide how many books (at least 4) you want to read from that list.
* The initial 4 have to be 'new' reads (new to you, that is).
* Books beyond the initial 4 may be rereads.
* All books may be cross-overs for other challenges.
* Audio-books are A-OK :)
* You may change your list at any time.
* If you read enough books to actually complete one of the "Top 100" lists, I'll make a post in your honour!

The Lists:
1998, 2002, 2006, 2008


I chose the 2008 list and picked my first 4 reads plus the ones I want to read after the minimum. I already own all of these books except 3 and I have not read any before.

Initial 4:

1. The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
2. Nineteen Minutes by Jodi Picoult
3. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
4. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

Extra:

1. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
2. Into the Wilderness by Sara Donati
3. The Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen
4. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time by Mark Haddon
5. Perfume by Patrick Suskind
6. The Thorn Birds by Colleen McCullogh
7. London by Edward Rutherford
   

R.I.P. challenge complete

I finished the R.I.P. challenge already with 4 books from my list:

Ghost Story by Peter Straub
The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout
The Haunting by Shirley Jackson
Shapeshifter by J.F. Gonzalez

2 really good books, 1 ok book and 1 really bad one. However, I will definitely do this again next year as I still have alot of books in my TBR pile that fit the Halloween genres.

The Graveyard Book

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

copyright = 2008
pages = 312
source = purchase
date completed = 10/26/08

Of course I read this in 2 nights. It was a very quick read but thoroughly entertaining. I'm sure everyone knows the story by now so I don't need to go into it. But this is definitely a keeper.

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny

copyright = 1993
pages = 280
source = library
date completed = 10/23/08

This was a delightful book! It's written from a dog's point of view, Snuff, who is companion to Jack the Ripper. Other notorious characters appear: Dracula, Frankenstein, Sherlock Holmes, etc. Each chapter is a day in the month of October detailing Snuff's adventures which include preparations for the return of the Elder Gods. That threw me for a loop, but pleasantly. In the course of the month, Snuff has to work with the other animal companions, most closely with Graymalk the cat. They have to obtain certain items for the ritual, spy on the other humans and companions, and try to figure out who is going to be working as an opener of the gate to the Elder Gods and who is a closer. They also have to keep an eye out for who might be trying to kill their humans.

I read this in 2 nights so it's definitely a quick read, but mostly cause I found it so entertaining. Definitely recommended.

The Haunting by Shirley Jackson

The Haunting by Shirley Jackson

copyright = 1959
pages = 246
source = purchase
date completed = 10/20/08

In this book Dr. Montague leases Hill House, a known haunted house, for the summer. He invites several people to join but only two respond--Theodora and Eleanor. He is also required to have a member of the family that owns the house there--Luke. The Doctor's intention is to scientifically examine the psychic phenomenon that occur in the house. However his method is mainly just to have the inhabitants observe and take notes.

I found this story pretty spooky but short. It almost seems unfinished even though the house does claim it's victim. The interactions among the characters were strange--like they already knew each other, but they had just met. And I could never figure out if there was some tryst going on between Theodora and Luke, Eleanor and Luke, or Theodora and Eleanor. Perhaps it's just because of the decade it was written in--they all seemed too friendly. Overall I liked the story and put the original movie on my Netflix list to see how it compares.

Shapeshifter by J.F. Gonzalez

Shapeshifter by J.F. Gonzalez

copyright = 2008
pages = 323
source = purchase
date completed = 10/18/08

This novel is the story of Mark Wiseman and how he has to deal with being a werewolf. He gets caught on his company's security cameras shifting and the CEO just happens to see it. He uses the tape to blackmail Mark into killing other members of the company board to prevent a merger. And that's about as complicated as it gets.

I always look forward to finding a werewolf book because they seem scarce these days. But I shouldn't have wasted my money on this one. The CEO is typical--embezzling money, doing his secretary, arrogant and thinks money can buy anything. There is no explanation at all for Mark being a werewolf--just one day he gets mad and suddenly he's a wolf. He's had "control" over the condition for years and one day at work he just shifts for no reason. Mark conveniently ends up hooking up with the CEO's secretary (gorgeous blond rumored to be sleeping her way to the top but she's really a smart, caring woman underneath--again, typical). She finds out about the blackmail and the killing and stays with him! She repeatedly says she will never leave him. Hmmm...killer, werewolf, no control--sure, stay. Beyond that, the writing was terrible in some cases and full of cliches. Here are some examples:

"They were like two kids in a candy store."
"When it passed again he regarded the body with bated breath..."
"His body still felt like it had been put through the ringer."
"The road ran before him like a long, black tongue."
"John Wayne Airport in Irvine was a quick hop, skip, and a jump away."
"There had been a short, pregnant pause."

Overall, not worth full price. Snag it used if you want to try it.

The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout

The Turning by Jennifer Armintrout

copyright = 2006
pages = 379
source = purchase
date completed = 10/11/08

This is the story of Dr. Carrie Ames' transformation to a vampire. Her change is quick and impersonal--done by a a John Doe she thought was dead in the morgue. After she posts online about being attacked by a vampire, she hooks up with Nathan, another vampire in the city who owns an occult store. He informs her of The Movement, an organization that seeks to kill other "bad" vampires and tells her she has to join or die. She negotiates some time to think it over and ends up meeting her sire. The rest of the novel is about her conflict of staying with her sire or going back to Nathan and The Movement.

This was a very quick read but I didn't enjoy it all that much. There wasn't much depth to the characters and Carrie was very weak. One minute she's a doctor, trying to save lives, and the next she's just plain fine with vampire violence and killing. She gave the impression that as long as SHE wasn't doing it, all was ok. Overall, it was an ok book but the characters need more development. Since this is a series, maybe that starts happening later. I might read book 2 just to see what happens, but it's not on my priority list.

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

Ghost Story by Peter Straub

copyright = 1979
pages = 567
source = library
date completed = 10/07/08

Ghost Story is a spooky tale of some residents in the town of Milburn. Sears James, Ricky Hawthorne, John Jaffrey and Lewis Benedikt are a group of old men who sit around telling ghost stories every couple of weeks, calling themselves The Chowder Society. A previous member of the society died the year before and they've spent the last year suffering nightmares and hallucinations which they haven't told each other about. Finally when it comes out, they decide to write to the dead man's nephew, Don Wanderley, who is an author of a book which apparently explains some of the spooky things happening to them. Don comes to town which sparks a whole series of events--mysterious animal deaths, people committing suicide, strange deaths--that the society men now find themselves entangled in.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a slow start, but I got hooked and couldn't stop reading. One night after reading I was so weirded out I had to read a magazine afterwards to try and get the images out of my head. The story is a bit hard to follow sometimes being that Straub switches between calling characters by their first and last names and there are just so many different characters to follow. There are also alot of hallucinations that get kind of confusing, but overall, it's a good story and very creepy.