52. The Book of Dragons

The Book of Dragons - Edith Nesbit

A book of classic dragon tales.

Too immature for me to enjoy.

Too mature for my little girls to enjoy.

Probably well suited to 10-12 year old boys who really like to read.

43. On Loving God

On Loving God - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

Another one of those outstanding Christian classics that get lost in all the horse poop interpretations and modernizations of modern writing.

I enjoyed it. Not as much as All Of Grace, but more than The Practice of the Presence of God. Worth a read.

42. The Adventures of Pinocchio

The Adventures of Pinocchio - Carlo Collodi

This is definitely not your Disney Pinocchio! Yes, Disney adapted the story, so, technically this is the Disney Pinocchio. What I mean is that the story is much different. It is not so kid friendly. It is dark and mean and full of stuff that would never be in a Disney flick.

Pinocchio is hung from an oak tree until he dies so a gang of deviant con-man animals can steal his money.

Pinocchio is sold as a donkey to a circus trainer that abuses him until he is lame. He is then sold to a man who tries to drown him in the ocean so he can use his hide to make a drum.

Gepetto is abusive, jailed, and eaten by a huge shark.

The talking cricket (Jimeny in the movie) is killed by Pinocchio when he throws a hammer at the little fella.

Pinocchio is purchased as a slave by a farmer. He is tied to a dog chain outside and is told to bark if some weasels come and try to steal the chickens.

Lampwick is sold as a donkey and works very hard until he dies.

A serpent laughs at Pinocchio's misfortunes in some mud. He laughs so hard his heart bursts and he dies.

Pinocchio finds Gepetto inside a giant shark...which just happens to be asthmatic and has a weak heart so it has to sleep with it's mouth open.

These kinds of things made the story great for me. They are definitely not Disney. There are many similarities and some common story lines, but the book is much much better...for an adult.

40. The Practice of the Presence of God

The Practice of the Presence of God - Brother Lawrence

This is a collection of letters written by a Carmelite monk and the recollections of some of his speakings in the 1600's. It is a bit repetitive, but I guess the idea was important to him.

How do you get and stay in the presence of God? Practice, of course. How do you practice? Think about God. Read about God. Talk about God. Pray to God. Constantly strive to include God in everything. His presence in your life will become habit. :-)

This is no "All of Grace". OK, but no revelation from this one.

39. All Of Grace

All Of Grace - Charles H. Spurgeon

One of the best books I have ever read. I loved this one. I will read it again...right now.

38. The Mystery Of The Yellow Room

The Mystery of the Yellow Room: Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph Rouletabille, Reporter - Gaston Leroux   An old mystery novel first published in 1908. Think Agatha Christie who-dun-it detective novel and you will be dead on.   This one is about a crime committed that is impossible to solve, but it does get solved eventually. There is the massive explanation in a court of law to save the day and prevent the conviction of an innocent man...all in the nick of time. Whew!   It was a good story and a decent who-dun-it. I could not figure it out at all.   Once again though, a detraction for me was all the French words and name pronunciations. French really bothers me for some reason. It is probably due to bad memories from Miss Roberts class in Junior High School and not actually caused by anything with a rational explanation. :-)

37. The Diary of a Nobody

The Diary of a Nobody - George and Weedon Grossmith

Originally published in 1892. Funny. Nothing really happens other than the normal day to day grind of an average guy. Still, it is funny.

35. The Cossacks

The Cossacks - Leo Tolstoy

Bah. It bored me. Too much soap opera drama garbage to keep me interested. Good writing, but not interesting. Maybe I was looking for something else.

34. Dracula

Dracula - Bram Stoker

Outstanding!

Although, after loving the buildup...and the chase...and the total suspense of the final showdown... what a bummer that it ended so fast and so easily.

I loved this story, except that poor Lucy got screwed. Other than that it was great. I can't believe I spent 49.5 years having not read this book. Silly me.

32. The Three Musketeers

The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas

This was a great book. I loved it. I thought it got a little soap-operaish at times, but other than that it was fantastic. BIG, and fantastic. All the French words made me mad.

30. The Turn of the Screw

The Turn of the Screw - Henry James


Henry James was definitely a guy who liked words. He uses a lot of them. A thought that could be conveyed with ten words takes James thirty. That being said, it is my only "complaint" with this book.

It was suspenseful and interesting....and old.

26. The Odyssey

The Odyssey - Homer


EPIC!

22. Anna Karenina

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

This is a seriously long book. I was never going to read the written word, so I downloaded the book and listened to it in audio format.

The writing is amazing. The characters are some of the most well defined I have ever encountered. That probably comes easily when you use a zillion pages. I think the reader did an outstanding job with this humongous task.

So, why is it just OK? Because the whole book is just total soap opera. Ugh.

Tolstoy's writing is awesome. Tolstoy's story? I found it laborious and uninteresting. But, I am a man living in 2012.

20. Four Weeks in the Trenches

Four Weeks in the Trenches: The War Story of a Violinist - Fritz Kreisler

This was an outstanding and quick read. It was only fifty pages, but it was fantastic.

The story is an autobiographical account of Mr. Kreisler's experience as a member of the Imperial Austrian Army fighting against the Russians on the eastern front in 1914.

The book sticks to the first hand experiences of the author. It does not elaborate on political themes. I really enjoyed that. Nothing but the guts of the front line and a recollection of this one man's experience.

One of the insights that I found interesting was this: Mr. Kreisler says that as time passed in the trenches and you could see the enemy faces through field glasses (binoculars) that the hatred faded. When it is one army fighting against another it is done with hatred in the heart. As time went on and he "got to know" the other side, the hatred diminished and it became more like a sporting event that both sides wanted to win. He even went as far as to say that when a member of the other side was taken down that he felt a sadness for the loss experienced by the other side. That was a very interesting perspective.

I loved this little read.

19. Utopia

Utopia - Sir Thomas More

This book was originally published in 1516. That makes it one of the oldest books I have ever read. It is quite possibly the first of it's kind, those books describing a "perfect" society. Who knows?

I liked reading it. I didn't see much that was new to me, but did see how all those common themes keep coming up in so many other books where there is a supposed perfect society.

I also think this book must have had some influences on Marx and Engels. That is just my opinion.

Some interesting little tidbits I learned while reading...

Raphael Hythloday (a narrator)...his last name, in Greek, means "speaker of nonsense".

The Greek word for Utopia means "noplace". There is another interpretation that says the Greek word was actually Eutopia, meaning "good place". I don't know which one is true.

It was an interesting book, but I can't say it was very fun or even enjoyable to read. It was different. I kept going because it was so stinking old. I kept reminding myself that this was written over 250 years before the Communist Manifesto (not that it is exactly the same, but the principles definitely are). That made it interesting.

18. Babbitt

Babbitt - Sinclair Lewis

I read this review of Babbitt a long while back and said I would read it. Yes, it took three years, but I got it done.  :-)

Anyway...that review was correct. Babbitt pretty much sums up the problems with societal conformity en-mass. George Babbitt politically thinks exactly what his Republican Senators tell him to think. George Babbitt religiously thinks exactly what his Presbyterian minister tells him to think. George Babbitt socially thinks exactly what his friends in the boosters club tell him to think. He regurgitates all those thoughts throughout his life.

Stuff happens...he takes a walk on the wild side...then he comes back to the comforts of conformity. End of story.

It is a funny book in a way. It made me laugh as George was cramming his thoughts and ideas down other people's throats.

One of my favorite lines, or conversations, or pieces of dialog, or whatever you want to call it...George was talking about his children. His son didn't want to go to college. He wanted to be an auto mechanic. Needless to say, George was less than thrilled. Then he was talking about his daughter, who was into the arts and attended many gatherings for cultural events. George's opinion was that all she wanted to be was "some kind of Socialist agitator". I thought the way he said that was hilarious.

Anyway, Sinclair Lewis is an outstanding writer. His characters are real. I thoroughly enjoyed Babbitt and hope to read Main Street and Arrowsmith some day. If you have not read Babbitt, you should.

13. Helen's Babies: With Some Account of Their Ways Innocent, Crafty, Angelic, Impish, Witching, and Repulsive, Also, a Partial Record of Their Actions During Ten Days of Their Existence.

Helen's Babies: With Some Account of Their Ways Innocent, Crafty, Angelic, Impish, Witching, and Repulsive, Also, a Partial Record of Their Actions During Ten Days of Their Existence. - John Habberton

This is a humorous novel published originally in 1876. I like old books sometimes.

It is considered a children's book, but it along the lines of The Jungle Book, Peter Pan or Narnia. Definitely not a child's book as far as reading, but probably pretty entertaining for a child if it is read to them.

This one is about a man who lives in the city who gets a letter from his sister asking if he will spend a few weeks at their country home with her children while she goes on vacation with her husband.

He agrees. The children are five and three year old boys. They are feisty little buggers and get into a bunch of boy trouble. It is quite funny.

Oh, and the uncle falls in love with a country girl and moves to his own little plot and starts a whole new kind of life. Whatever.

It was fun reading this book and living in a different era for a while. The kids had a cart pulled by a goat. What fun that would have been growing up. Darn.

11. Dubliners

Dubliners - James Joyce

This is some awesome writing. It must be. The stories sure didn't keep me captivated. It was all about making the scene come to life reading this book. That is what kept me interested.

8. Play Ball: A Tribute to Our National Pastime

Play Ball: A Tribute to Our National Pastime

This time of year is hard for me. I am a huge baseball fan and I really miss it in January. Football is OK, but it is winding down as the playoffs proceed. Hockey is ongoing, but it is not a huge deal in the south and is tough to follow here. Basketball, well, I don't like it or care about it at all. NASCAR is just beginning to show signs of life with the very first runs at Daytona. Even that is way too early to give it more than a passing glance.

So, I start looking toward baseball and hope that teams will start talking about the upcoming spring training. Who will be playing where? What are the expectations? But, alas, it is still too early. I miss my game.

I tried to give myself a baseball booster shot by listening to this audio book. Maybe it would help me get through these winter baseball doldrums. It failed to do what I hoped it would. I miss the game even more now that I ended up teasing myself. Can you say "backfire"?

The audio book was cool though. Some pretty famous voices read some of the classic baseball writings. Baseball is dramatic to begin with. These guys made it even more so.

Casey at the Bat was written by Ernest Lawrence Thayer and read by Len Cariou.
Jinxes and What They Mean to a Ball-Player was written by Christy Matthewson and read by Charley Steiner.
Shoeless Joe was written by W. P. Kinsella and read by Grover Gardner.
An excerpt from If I Had a Hammer was written and read by Hank Aaron.

These were just a couple of the classics on these discs. They stirred my emotions with stories of the game I love about the legends of that game.

Damn, I miss baseball.

1. Warlord Of Kor

Warlord Of Kor - Terry Carr

Humans travel to a distant planet and explore the primitive civilization. Interesting Sci-Fi published in 1963. Nothing special, but it was fun.

Welcome to 2012.