March Booklist

I finished 18 books this month. Six of them were school books, so I had read a greater portion of those in previous months.

School books finished this month:

1. The Americanization of Edward Bok, by Edward Bok

2. Grand Illusions: The Legacy of Planned Parenthood, by George Grant

3. Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman

4. Hitler, by Albert Marrin

5. The Wilderness World of John Muir, edited by Edwin Way Teale

6. Get More Done in Less Time, by Donna Otto

Other Books:

7. Cranford, by Elizabeth Gaskell
I read this one while I was recovering from being rather sick. Elizabeth Gaskell wrote "Wives and Daughters," which is an excellent book. "Cranford" is very short, and a kind of quirky, but I liked it.

8. The Masqueraders, by Georgette Heyer
Georgette Heyer, I guess, would be *my* Grace Livingstone Hill, but Heyer is infinitely less sappy than Grace Livingstone Hill, AND she's funny. This one wasn't my favorite of hers, but I liked it.

9. Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
10. Dandelion Wine, by Ray Bradbury
11. Farenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

Hmmm. I didn't realize I had read three books by him this month until I was typing up this list. The first two were books that the DHM had checked out from the library and thought that I might like. They're a little bit odd, but I did indeed like them. Not everyone's cup of tea, but definitely mine. :-) Farenheit 451 was on my free reading list for school. It's a dystopian sort-of science fiction book, where the people rather resemble the characters in Huxley's "Brave New World."


12. Miss Pym Disposes, by Josephine Tey
13. Brat Ferrar, by Josephine Tey
14. The Franchise Affair, by Josephine Tey

I DID know I was reading three books by Josephine Tey. The first two were good mysteries, but they were both kind of sad. The last one was also good, but it wasn't as sad, so that was nice. It's a pity she didn't write more mysteries.

15. The Bear Nobody Wanted, by Janet and Alan Ahlberg
The HG bought this book for me in London. They wrote a book called "Each Peach Pear Plum," which I LOVED when I was little. (still do, in fact.) It was SOO sweet, and the illustrations were lovely. This book was about on the same level as the Paddington Bear books, but it still had lovely sketches in it, and the story was very sweet.

16. Cesar's Way, by Cesar Milan
You might know Cesar Milan as the "Dog Whisperer" on National Geographic. The Equuschick checked out this book from the library, and we both read it. I like his show, but the book is better because he can better get across what he means, AND it applies more to normal people than the stories presented on his show do. (I don't think the average dog owner can afford to have him out, for one thing...) He gets a bit new agey at times with all the energy stuff, but he *does* have a lot of good sound dog sense.

17. Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, by Lemony Snicket

This barely took 20 minutes to read through, as all it is is a book full of encouraging proverbs by the author of the Series of Unfortunate Events. Here are three of my favorites:

Taking one's chances is like taking a bath, because sometimes you end up feeling comfortable and warm, and sometimes there is something terrible lurking around that you cannot see until it is too late and you can do nothing ese but scream and cling to a plastic duck.

Many folktales portray Death as a cloaked figure who knocks on the doors of the souls he has come to whisk away, but that is not always the way of the world. Sometimes Death may approach the door very slowly and very loudly, so that by the time he knocks everyone in the neighborhood is aware of his approach, or he may prefer to pick the lock of the back door and sit up all night in your kitchen until yo stroll downstairs in your bathrobe and learn that he has been waiting for you, sitting in your favorite chair and rearranging your silverware when he got bored.

If an optimist had his left arm chewed off by an alligator, he might say, in a pleasant and hopeful voice, "Well, this isn't too bad. I don't have my left arm anymore, but at least nobody will ever ask me whether I am right-handed or left-handed," but most of us would say something more along the line of "Aaaaah! my arm! My Arm!"

There are a great many more equally funny ones, and so you will just have to check the book out and read it yourself.

18. Operation Garbo, by Jean Pujol and Nigel West
The HG checked this out for me from her school library. Jean Pujol was a British double agent in World War II. His code name on the British side was Garbo, and on the German side, Arabel. He was an amazing man who created many "notional" agents to feed information to the Germans. It was a really neat book, and it fit in with what I was reading for school.