Space Station Mir

I love Wonder Books , I've been to their store in Frederick when I was younger and more recently ordered from them off Amazon. Yay used books!

51. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows I was captivated the first time I heard the title, and knew I had to read it. There is unfortunately little mention of Potato Peel Pie, but the characters of the Guernsey Literary Society are well-drawn and amusing. The book is a series of letters between a London-based author, Juliet Ashton, and the members of the aforementioned Guernsey Island society. The events take place in 1946, and recall the events of World War II, particularly the German occupation of the British Channel Islands. The place was unique enough that much of the historical information was new to me, despite my somewhat extensive knowledge of the time period. The book does not shirk, rather, it embraces, difficult material, but the focus is more on the characters and present events, so that it does not induce the heavy depression most Holocaust and World War II tomes aim at. This is an excellent book for all ages, it might be...

50. Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. All Kurt Vonnegut's books are the same. That is a blatant lie, and you should disagree with me. But his style, the sense of humor, the actual characters or at least the type of characters are the same, and the settings often are as well. There are always coincidences, rudely drawn pictures, and nothing makes any sense (just like real life). Breakfast of Champions at least delves into Vonnegut's most recurring character, Kilgore Trout. The best parts of the book, in my opinion, are the plots of Trout's stories. Like Vonnegut, Trout is a science fiction writer whose writing demonstrates the chaos of the universe. His books and short stories are illustrated with unrelated pornographic pictures and sold only in pornography shops. I was told that this book was difficult to understand, that there was confusing switching back and forth between narration. It was no more difficult than any other Vonnegut novel, in that regard. In fact,...

48. The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The first Gothic novel allegedly came to Walpole in a nightmare. That sort of surreal, look-over-your-shoulder feeling permeates this hundred-pager. It's set in the fictional kingdom of Otranto, where an ancient curse is about to overthrow the third-generation usurping ruler Manfred. Walpole writes in his second preface (in the first he claims to be merely the translator of some Crusade-era Italian), that he wished to make his characters "think, speak, and act, as it might be supposed mere men and women would do in extraordinary positions (8)." While the speech is the high-flown type that would be expected of a romance, I do think Walpole largely achieved this goal. While the coincidences and adventures are amazing, the characters seem like people I know. Manfred's submissive wife Hippolita behaves out of loving and motherly motivations, even though in a way modern women might decry. Their daughter Matilda is the shy, dreamy...

47. Anne of the Island by L.M. Montgomery When I got home for Thanksgiving, I didn't intend to fully reread this childhood favorite, but between last night and this afternoon, I did. Obviously, I'm not the one making the meal! I remembered the charming characters and events and wanted to revisit those passages that bore resemblance to my own experience at college. I'm afraid my social life has not quite lived up to Anne's, but it hasn't fallen too short either. I haven't received so many proposals yet, but that contributes more to my relief than anything else. Anne of the Island chronicles the college experience of Anne Shirley, formerly of Green Gables. Montgomery expresses many timeless sentiments through Anne and her "chums" and their house mother, Aunt Jamesina. They experience the pressures of studies and social lives, along with the rarely mentioned but present tension of being among few female students. Anne reflects on turning twenty, and ...

46. The Female Quixote by Charlotte Lennox What if Don Quixote's peculiarity were transported across the European continent and English Channel, from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the end of the eighteenth, into the person of a young noble woman? Charlotte Lennox, a female novelist making her way in an England only beginning to respect her profession in men, and still somewhat disdaining fiction in favor of history, tried to answer this question. Yet, her use of Cervantes' form and style is to comment on the absurdities of her own society and perhaps particularly the position of women. Arabella, the Female Quixote, is addicted to romances as the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance was to his novels of chivalry. She is raised in isolation, and only introduced into society at age eighteen, after the death of her father. Her uncle is appointed her guardian, and her male cousin Mr. Glanville falls in love with her, as her female cousin Miss Glanville envies her for he...

It is nearing the year's end, and I still have nine books to go. As I declared when I read The Ultimate Hitchhikers' Guide and counted it as one, I am not ashamed to go back and count those books as five. Accordingly, at this time, I am officially increasing my total to 45, in order to appropriately acknowledge that massive effort. I would also like to announce, lest anyone suggest I am shirking, that I am currently in the midst of; Northanger Abbey, Mrs. Dalloway, The Female Quixote, Brisingr, and The Famished Road. So, if I finish all of those, or the other book I'm scheduled to read before the end of the semester i.e. The Castle of Oltranto, or any other work, of course, I will have reached my goal. Support? Snaps? Something?

41. Pamela; Or Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson This eighteenth century classic barely dignifies notice. This is over five hundred pages, in the eponymous character's letters, of expostulation on the proper behavior of a servant whose master wishes to rape her. Worse, Richardson is in dead earnest. Oh, sure, social commentary on the contemporary relationship between rich and poor, and Victorian ideals for women can be found here, but the popular conduct manuals of the time are probably comparatively fascinating. Pamela is an insufferable heroine, obsessed with her Virtue, and yet not possessed of the sense not to marry a man who several times attempted to rape her. The would-be rapist, Mr. B, is a wimp as a villain, as he never actually commits his intended crime, and yet he expects the (albeit complying) Pamela to yield to his every wish the instant he presents her with the coveted ring. A single passage from this novel is enough to confirm its subject, any historical or liter...