Mystery Book # 55 - Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

I had never heard of Rogue Male before, but now that I've read it I can say I'm glad it was on one of my lists. The story is narrated by an English gentleman that is an excellent hunter. He sets out to see if it is possible to get into his cross-hairs a famous world leader just for the fun of it (implied by the book to be Hitler), or so he tells himself. Unfortunately he is caught and savagely beaten by the leader's guards. Luckily though he manages to escape and most of the books is about his avoidance of everyone that is chasing him.  I was drawn into the story and found myself rooting that the main character would make it out of his predicament alive. Overall it was one of the better mystery books on the list so far. A.

Book # 171 - A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

The biggest surprise for me while reading A Christmas Carol is that even though I'd seen several film versions and was already quite familiar with the story I was still very entertained and enchanted by Dickens' tale. I guess there's a reason that this is considered a classic. There's no point in recapping this because it is one of the few stories that literally everyone knows.

 So even if you've seen countless movies based on this story it is still worth reading. A.

Mystery Book # 88 - The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett

You know how sometimes there's some movie or musician that based on your tastes that you should really like but for some reason just doesn't connect with you? Not that you think whatever it is is bad... just not the greatest thing in the world and is massively over hyped? For me this list includes Arcade Fire, Wes Anderson films, the Coen brothers, Blade Runner and now Dashiell Hammett. I read The Maltese Falcon probably some ten years ago and was disappointed... and now I give him another shot with The Glass Key and I liked this one even less.

The plot has something to do with the death of a senator's son and a bunch of mobsters and politicians. I couldn't really muster much enthusiasm for it. In the end most everyone dies or ends up in jail except for the "hero". Just thinking about the book again is boring me. At least it was short. C.

Book # 57 - A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving

I'm trying to think of the best way to quickly summarize A Prayer for Owen Meany and I'm not sure if that can be done. The narrator, John Wheelwright, tells us about his childhood and young adulthood in New Hampshire of which his friend Owen Meany plays a large part. Owen is extremely short for his age and has a very unique voice which is shown in the text with all capital letters. Everyone thinks that Owen is either weird or special in some way and he himself thinks that he was placed on Earth for some special purpose by God.

I enjoyed the book quite a bit and found the friendship between the two to be very genuine. I also liked that it just accepts some events that could only be explained as miracles. My biggest qualm would be that Owen is just so much more interesting of a character than the narrator. The narrator is kind of a boring guy and at times is too passive. Even when one of the narrator's main story lines is resolved (the revelation of the identity of his father) he admits that it is totally anti-climactic and disappointing. And the bits about the narrator's current life are totally unnecessary. I'll give it an A-.

Also worth mentioning... the book cover of the copy I read is just sooooo bad. Please don't judge this book on a cover that is just a picture of a dressmakers dummy. Such an item is actually an important part of the story but the text specifically mentions that it was always dressed and never left uncovered... yet the picture is of an empty dummy. Seriously, who picked this book cover.

Also there were eleven list book mentions :Animal Farm, 1984, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Pride and Prejudice, Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Wuthering Heights, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Anna Karenina !

Sci-Fi book # 8 - 2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke

2001: A Space Odyssey is one of my all time favorite films. The book is a bit unusual in that it was written alongside the movie... it wasn't an adaptation of the film and the film isn't based on the book either. Technically it is based on the screenplay of the film even though it has a few differences. So Stanley Kubrick deserves some credit here also. Anyway, since I love the movie so much it is hard not to also love the book. I had read the entire book series some time ago and I enjoyed revisiting the first book. What I find most interesting is that the film is open to a variety of interpretations and has an ending that can be seen in many different ways.... and the book somehow explains what goes on a bit more thoroughly but is still true to the spirit and weirdness of the movie. It reads like an un-filmable book but the movie somehow uses the same story and is just perfect. I'll have to give the book an A. Will I be rereading the sequels too? No... they're nowhere as good as the first book.