Mystery Book # 17 - The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

The Mask of Dimitrios, by Eric Ambler, follows a mystery writer as he tries to uncover the history of a murdered criminal. Of course that doesn't turn out to be the smartest thing to do since he quickly discovers that other people are also looking for the criminal and he ends up in a dangerous situation. I'd give it an A-. It was a bit different than the usual mystery type book and even though the criminal's history is long and complicated the author was able to always keep everything clear.

So by finishing this book I'm now a quarter of the way through my top mystery books list. Here's how I'd rank them.

1. The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

2. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie

3. The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins

4. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco

5. Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

6. The Talented Mr. Ripley by Patricia Highsmith

7. The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain

8. The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris

9. Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household

10. Red Dragon by Thomas Harris

11. The Mask of Dimitrios by Eric Ambler

12. Fletch by Gregory Mcdonald

13. Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

14. A Morbid Taste for Bones by Ellis Peters

15. The Witness for the Prosecution and Other Stories by Agatha Christie

16. The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey

17. Bank Shot by Donald E. Westlake

18. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy by John le Carré

19. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution by Nicholas Meyer

20. The Thirty-Nine Steps by John Buchan

21. Crocodile on the Sandbank by Elizabeth Peters

22. The Innocence of Father Brown  by G. K. Chesterton

23. The Steam Pig by James McClure

24. The Glass Key by Dashiell Hammett

25. The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald

Mystery Book # 57 - The Innocence of Father Brown by G. K. Chesterton

The Innocence of Father Brown is the first book in the Father Brown series and is made up of a dozen or so short stories. In each story Father Brown, a Catholic priest, somehow happens upon a murder or mystery and to the surprise of everyone at the scene he is the only one that is able to make sense of what really happened. The stories were okay... nothing really that memorable. I think in general I just have a problem with a mystery series that involves a character that isn't a detective of some sort always just happening upon some type of murder by random chance. It just seems so unlikely that I can never get past it. I know Lucinda loves TV shows of that sort (Murder She Wrote, Hart to Hart) but whenever I watch them I always think that Jessica Fletcher has the worst luck because she can't take a trip somewhere without someone being murdered. B-

Book # 90 - I, Claudius by Robert Graves

I, Claudius, by Robert Graves is written as if it is the autobiography of Roman Emperor Claudius but really for most of the book he's just in the background and giving a history of the Romans though the reign of Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. I found most of it fascinating but there is just so much information here that it is a lot to take in. Basically everyone in his family underestimates Claudius his whole life and looks down upon him. And since this is a family where they're always killing each other to become the next emperor this serves him pretty well since by the end most everyone else in his family that could have been emperor is dead and he's the only one left. I'd say the book was entertaining and also educational. I'll have to find out how accurate the information in the book is now. A-.

Book # 2 & Sci-Fi Book # 3- 1984 by George Orwell

Somehow I had forgotten just how dark and bleak 1984 by George Orwell is. I'm sure that as time passes this novel will sadly become more and more relevant. The novel follows Winston Smith in a dystopian future where the government puts people under constant surveillance, changes history to match their goals and attempts to make everyone think in a specific way. He tries to rebel, gets caught and is tortured until he changes his way of thinking.

There are a lot of concepts discussed but the one I found most interesting was doublethink, which is the ability to hold two contradictory beliefs at the same time. This seems to have become a mainstay of current politics. I could name examples but really all you'd have to do is turn on the news and see someone spout something that totally contradicts itself. Even though it is a bummer, it gets an A+.

Book # 6 - The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

This is the third time I've read The Grapes of Wrath and I always have the same thought.... what kind of a name is Rose of Sharon? Anyway... the book still remains relevant to our times. Someone once mentioned it to me as the polar opposite of Atlas Shrugged and during this reading it seemed especially true.

The novel follows the Joad family as their Oklahoma farm is taken away from them by a bank and they travel across the country to California to become fruit pickers only to find that the price of labor is kept so artificially low by collusion among farm owners that they barely can make enough money to feed themselves. So it is pretty much a take down of unregulated free market capitalism. Did the scenes where policemen would bust up potential unions remind me a little bit of Wal-Mart... or the bank literally plowing over the Joad's house of the housing market collapse? Yeah a little bit.

Yep, one of my favorite books. A+

So after finishing this book I'm 60% of the way though the initial top 100 list and a third of the way though the top 200. So here's my updated rankings of the top 200 I've read so far.

1. The Lord of the Rings 2. Dune 3. Les Misérables

4. Invisible Man

5. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

6. Don Quixote

7. The Hobbit

8. A Farewell to Arms 9. The Big Sleep 10. The Grapes of Wrath 11. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

12. The Trial 13. The Magic Mountain

14. David Copperfield

15. Great Expectations

16. Harry Potter

17. The Stand

18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest

19. Pale Fire

20. The Handmaid's Tale

21. Perfume 22. A Christmas Carol 23. Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

24. The Chronicles of Narnia

25. The Name of the Rose

26. The Great Gatsby

27. The Sound and the Fury

28. Frankenstein

29. Pride and Prejudice 30. Lord of the Flies

31. The New York Trilogy 32. The Color Purple

33. Things Fall Apart

34. Tristram Shandy 35. Wind in the Willows

36. Anne of Green Gables

37. Rebecca

38. Lucky Jim 39. Atonement

40. One Hundred Years of Solitude

41. Native Son

42. Anna Karenina

43. Sons and Lovers

44. War and Peace

45. A Passage to India

46. A Prayer for Owen Meany 47. The Kite Runner 48. Watership Down 49. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 50. The Count of Monte Cristo

51. The Scarlet Letter

52. Winnie-the-Pooh

53. Emma

54. Charlotte's Web

55. Wuthering Heights 56. The Iliad 57. On the Road

58. Remembrance of Things Past

59. Possession 60. Bleak House

61. His Dark Materials

62. Absalom, Absalom

63. The Ambassadors

64. To the Lighthouse

65. Mrs. Dalloway

66. Gone with the Wind

67. Atlas Shrugged