Arlene’s Comments (group member since Aug 23, 2009)

Arlene’s comments from the Pick-a-Shelf group.

Kazza wrote: "There's no limit on number of pages, D.G. - I believe there are picture book shelves... hhm, actually, I'm not sure if it made through the randomizer but I think there is one!! So yes, no limit o..."

I am not part of this game but I would like to recommend a cookbook, Presidential Cookies: Cookie Recipes of the Presidents of the United States. The commentary is wonderful as are the cookie recipes!

I pulled up the shelf and have already read the first 3! And I have #4 on my bedroom bookshelf so I will read The Girl Who Played With Fire to start. Then I'll probably read The Hunger Games and the newest J.D. Robb book, Indulgence in Death, and I don't even have to buy any of them!

There is a series of books by Susan Wittig Albert called "The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter. They are delightful little books but not on the "childrens" shelf.

I read Matilda for this challenge, I had never read any of Roald Dahl's books but my daughters loved them. I really enjoyed reading about Matilda, the precousious little girl who taught herself to read and multiply. Her first challenge was keeping herself entertained as a toddler. Her next challenge happened when she met the headmistress of the local school. It is really funny to see what she does.

My second book for the challenge was The BFG, the BFG stands for the Big Friendly Giant. He was the one giant who didn't go out at night to find "human beans" for supper. He did take Sophie one night because she saw him as he passed through her village giving dreams to little children. Together he and Sophie try to save the humans from the rest of the giants. Another great story from Roald Dahl.

I was on a roll so I read another of Roald Dahl's books, The Witches. The hero is a little boy who learns about witches from his Norwegian Grandmother. When they take their holiday on the English coast he discovers a large group of women with disastrous consequences.

I haven't ever read any of Roald Dahl books but my children loved them so I have started with Matilda.

Luann wrote: "I'm finally going to finish the Little House series! I can't figure out why I never read them all when I was younger. I read Little House in the Big Woods MANY times and also Little House on the Pr..."

I never read them as a child, I don't even know if I knew about them (back in the dark ages) but I watched the TV series with my kids and bought them a boxed set of the books. I, of course, read them. (I have been know to read cereal boxes if I didn't have anything else handy). As a child I read over 50 "Bobsey Twins" books! My sister, who really isn't much of a reader, picked up her daughter's set of
The Little House Collection and read them (she was in her 60's!) and decided that reading is good! She even asked me for suggestions. Oh well, better late than never.

Also, several years ago, I was at a Cookie Cutters Collector's Club Convention in LaCrosse, WI. While there I was able to buy a cookie cutter from the ones made by tinsmith Kitty Latane who has designed and made a commemorative cutter every year since 1992 for Laura Ingalls Wilder Days in Pepin, Wisconsin.

I just finished Gingerbread Cookie Murder
This is an anthology of gingerbread related short mysteries.
I enjoy reading Joanne Fluke because her heroine has a Cookie bakery and 2 boyfriends. She also includes recipes for some of the goodies she sells in her shop. She is always finding bodies in her frozen hometown of Lake Eden, Minnesota. This story is no different although Hannah is not a suspect even though several of her gingerbread cookies are found with the body when her neighbor is found with his outdoor music blaring and annoying the neighbors.
The second story in the book is more humourous even though there is also a murder here. Christmas in a Florida retirement community includes a play staring the local playboy as a gingerbread boy (think the Spirit of Christmas in a bad costume). It wouldn't be a mystery if there weren't so many suspects who hate the guy with good reason. The cat is the funniest character.
The third story is a darker one of a kidnapping a week before Christmas. Lucy is feeling depressed because two of her children have other plans for Christmas so she decides to help out a local family in need. When the child is kidnapped she tries to find him and solve the mystery

I think that if the shelf is called "anthology" but that there is another shelf that is called "anthologies" that they really are the same so we should be able to choose a book from either one. After all it is people like us who are "shelving" the books, not some panel of librarians, editors or lit teachers! I may have a shelf called mystery and someone else calls theirs mysteries. As we say here in Denver, "same diff". just saying!

Ok, does my comic book edition of "Donald Duck in Mathmagic Land" count for this category? I must admit that I don't think I have read any graphic novels since I became an adult except for that one! lol

For this shelf I read The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town. This book by lawyer and author John Grisham could be just another of his excellent legal stories but it is true. This amazing story is the biography of a man from small-town Ada, Oklahoma who is convicted of a grisly murder and sent to Death Row. Ron Williamson was a local baseball hero who doesn't make it to the big leagues. He is a hard drinking, hard smoking man who can't really take care of himself. He sinks into mental illness and after he was arrested his trial was littered with false witnesses and questionable evidence.
If this was fiction it would be disturbing but as a true story it is terrifying. The American promise that you are innocent until proven guilty just didn't apply in Ron Williamson's case and the truth is that if you are indigent you are in trouble.

I didn't get my books posted but I did read them during the month.
I finished The Shadow Dancer by Margaret Coel on July 19. The blurb on the front says "She's a master." Tony Hillerman. I definitely agree. The difference between their stories is that Margaret Coel's characters are an Arapahoe lawyer and a Jesuit priest and Tony Hillerman's are Navaho cops. The location of this mystery is the Wind River Reservation and Lander, Wyoming. I lived in Wyoming for 6 years and I love having it as a setting for a mystery.
Vicky is asked to have dinner with her ex but they end up having an argument in the restaurant, then the next morning he is found dead in a ditch. Father John is asked to find a missing young man by two of his elderly parishioners from the mission. The story follows their quest to find the murderer (and clear Vicky's name) and the missing man. I want to read more of this series

My girlfriend loaned me these two books. The Lost Bird is an earlier book in the Wind River series with Vicky Holden and Father John O'Malley. Vicky is hired to find the birth parents of a famous actress who thinks she was adopted from the reservation. Vicky knows that "the people" would never let a baby go out of the tribe so is reluctant to follow up on the quest. The actress's agent makes it public and Vicky is forced to continue the search. She discovers that there was a series of baby deaths the year that the actress was born so the mystery continues.

The next book I read was The Shaman Sings It is Colorado based and also involved tribal police. The town of Granite Creek, Colorado is shocked by the death of a promising physics student from the local college. Police Chief Scott Parrish is troubled because he saw the death in his dreams. The trail leads to the nearby Ute reservation where he meets the tribal cop, Charlie Moon. Charlie also introduces Scott to his aunt, Daisy Perika, who is a shaman. Daisy sees that Scott is one who has a gift of sight.

The last Western I read was The Shaman's Bones another of the Charlie Moon series. A young Native American couple stays at a broken down motel in a small Wyoming town near the interstate hiway. When they leave after paying for their room with a bad check, the owners file a complaint. The man assaults a police officer in Granite Creek, Colorado which brings Chief Scott Parris into the investigation. He again teams up with Ute tribal officer Charlie Moon. They discover the murder of the wife. Charlie's aunt Daisy, the shaman is brought in also because the man leaves their small daughter with her. This story follows murder and mayhem through several states. A very satisfying read.

I have The Innocent Man: Murder and Injustice in a Small Town on my bedroom bookshelf. I have read most of John Grisham and I just hadn't gotten around to this one. I may also tackle Atlas Shrugged because my daughter recommended it. I may also raid her bookshelf (she has a degree in International Studies and has read a lot of this kind of book)

Wow! This is a hard one for me, I rarely read non-fiction and it seems that most of the books on this shelf are that. I only found a few that I have already read. But I always try - that's why I joined this group!

Go for it Natasha - let's do one year and you pick a shelf!

I finished The Shadow Dancer last night. The blurb on the front says "She's a master." Tony Hillerman. I definitely agree. The difference between their stories is that Margaret Coel's characters are an Arapahoe lawyer and a Jesuit priest and Tony Hillerman's are Navaho cops. The location of this mystery is the Wind River Reservation and Lander, Wyoming. I lived in Wyoming for 6 years and I love having it as a setting for a mystery.
Vicky is asked to have dinner with her ex but they end up having an argument in the restaurant, then the next morning he is found dead in a ditch. Father John is asked to find a missing young man by two of his elderly parishioners from the mission. The story follows their quest to find the murderer (and clear Vicky's name) and the missing man. I want to read more of this series.

D.G. ~Vile Temptress~ wrote: "Arlene wrote: "I used a combination of scientific techniques to find the randomly selected shelf picker this month. I made a list of everyone who reviewed in June then had to eliminate several of ..."

Actually, I put each book reviewed into a spreadsheet so I could sort by member's name. (a little OCD) see my post at the end of June's post reviews with the books and the tally!

I used a combination of scientific techniques to find the randomly selected shelf picker this month. I made a list of everyone who reviewed in June then had to eliminate several of the most prolific reviewers because they had been recent shelf pickers. So for August the shelf picker is:

*drum roll*

Natasha!

A Louis L'Amour book that I had on my shelf is May There Be a Road.
This is a collection of stories that Louis L'Amour wrote over the years. Some of them were previously published and some were never published.
The title story tells of a young Khan in Tibet who leads members of his tribe over a treacherous mountain pass and a swinging bridge over a deep gorge. I has taken 4 years to rebuild the bridge, during which the tribe was isolated on a high plateau. The first trip over the new bridge is to claim his bride. However, when he arrives at his bride's home, they discover that the Han Chinese had moved in. The military leader wants to find the path over their pass that will lead into India.
Several of the other stories tell about fighters and vividly describe the fights that they make. L'Amour was a prize fighter in his younger days and these stories are particularly descriptive. In "Wings Over Brazil" L'Amour tells about a freighter captain who fights against the Nazi's to try to stop them from taking over Brazil during WWII. Several of the stories are classic "Westerns".
All together a very satisfying collection.

I read Powder River. It wasn't on anybody's shelves so I put it on the Western shelf myself. It is almost a cliche because of all the Wyoming themes it talks about in the 15 years that it covers.
This book is not about Utah it is about Wyoming, so whoever wrote the blurb on the back of the book must not have read it! I is the story of two sisters, Rebecca and Katie, and the men who love them. Katie is left a widow with a young son. She goes to the Wind River country of Wyoming, near present day Lander, and builds a sheep ranch. Her sister Rebecca has lost a fight in a court in Utah to try to get a divorce from her Mormon husband. She was forced into a polygamous marriage as a teenager but now is married to Devlin Woodson, a gifted surgeon. Rebecca's dream is to go to medical school to become a doctor also.
The period covered is post-civil-war, after the railroad has been built across the country. It touches on all the Wyoming stories of that time: Indians wars, sheep and cattle ranchers, Women's suffrage, blizzards and droughts, Texas longhorns and cattle drives, the Wyoming Cattlemen's Association, the settling of the place and the building of the towns and cities. It also touches on the life in Washington, DC of the time and introduces some of the characters who come there including Ann Eliza Young, the famous 27th wife of Brigham Young. Others introduced were General Grant and the germ theory of Lister.

Dee wrote: "finished up Chronicle in Stone: A Novel - I didn't actually realize it was on the list and started it late last month, but it turned out to be an interesting read - set in Albania dur..."
Dee wrote: "finished up Frozen Assets last night - enjoyed it - but corporate espionage really isn't my thing...but his writing style was intriguing enough that I'll pick up the next one in the ..."

I think that if a book is not on the shelf but you think it fits - go ahead and add it yourself! I am currently reading a book for July that nobody had put on any shelf, I don't know why, so I added it to the Western shelf myself! (it really is a classic Western)