13:100 Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

The play based on the Greek myth of the same name and eventually turned into the musical My Fair Lady. 

Eliza, a girl who sells flowers on the street, is taken in by Professor Higgins and Colonel Pickering in a bet to see if Higgins can teach her how to speak and act like a lady. 

I've lost track of how many times I've seen the movie with Rex Harrison and Audrey Hepburn and since much of the dialogue in the play was used in the movie, it wasn't really a new take on what I knew until we got to the author's notes at the end where we get his impression of what would have happened with Eliza after. The movie deliberately leaves it vague after she returns to the Professor's house after their row at his mother's.  I can't say that I was a fan of what the author thought would happen after, Eliza marrying Freddy and their starting a flower shop with her doing much of the work to support them both (with a lot of help from Col. Pickering) but at the same time, considering the time period that was probably the likely outcome.

Page count: 96p/ 3,219p ytd/350,609p lifetime

10:100 Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

 From my reading in 2018:

In April 1992, Chris McCandless walked into the Alaskan wilderness as the culmination of several years of soul searching.  His body was found in September of that same year.  This book focuses on Chris's life leading up to his decision to make that trek and the author's trying to piece together his final months.  By all accounts, Chris was intelligent and charismatic who was able to induce a parental protectiveness in several of the people he met as he was hitchhiking and wandering the country. His relationship with his parents is said to have been rocky but they were not abusive or ill-meaning.  There is nothing to suggest that when he embarked on this journey that his aim was death, in fact most of the evidence points in the opposite direction and that this was more about pulling a Thoreau than anything else.

This was part of the Hero's Journey literature unit we are doing for high school this year.  I think by the measure they are using, this does qualify. Chris was definitely trying to be true to himself and was ready to face daunting challenges in this quest. My biggest issue with this book was not in the story of Chris himself but the fact that the last 1/3 of the book the author inserted himself into the story in what I felt was an extreme amount.  We were regaled with stories of his climbing mountains and his father issues.  I get that he was trying to build more sympathy or understanding for Chris but for me, it failed and took away from Chris's story by making it more about the author.  The fact that the last chapter and the entire afterword were all about the author's trying to discover what exactly killed Chris and the lengths he went to again just seemed to be about inserting himself further into this story. I get that there is mystery and he was trying to solve it and maybe it's just the way he was telling it but it did not strike a good note with me.  I do think Chris's story was interesting and I enjoyed it, I just wish the author had done a better job of playing biographer.

Page count: 215p/2,478p ytd/349,868p lifetime

8:100 In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan

My Review from 2014:

"Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants."  

There you go, the secret of this book and he lays it out right in the first chapter.  So why read on?  Because what Mr. Pollan goes to do is lay out the problem with the Western Diet and how it's killing us.  We have become a slave to Nutritionism and not food.  Science keeps telling us to eat more of this miracle nutrient and less of this one over here and we will be healthy and all will be good.  But it doesn't work and then next week or year or decade, they realize that what they first told us was absolutely wrong and they reverse it.  The Low-Fat Diet is a beautiful example of this.  We were told to eat less fat because consuming fat was making us fat and leading to heart disease.  So industry came to the rescue and took the fat out of everything replacing it with sugar and sodium and things we can't pronounce.  And that made us fatter than ever. Heart disease didn't go down and now we are told that carbs are the problem.  Eat more fish! Omega 3s! Paleo! Atkins!  The list goes on and all it does is leave those who need to eat more confused then ever.  There are now organic toaster pastries with Omega 3s.  Are those healthy?  The obvious answer is no but since Fritos can now put on their packages that they are a "heart healthy" food, who knows any more, right?!  

This is the point of Mr. Pollan's book, helping to decipher what we have been being told for the past 40+ years (longer than my lifetime). He breaks down the studies and tries to help the typical person understand what is being studied and how and what the results most likely mean.  How studies are flawed and how that tweaks the results.  He has his own rules for eating that he lays out in the last section but really, what it boils down to is the words at the top.  I had already started doing this after some less than stellar lab work at the doctor's and while it will be a few months before I know conclusively if it is helping in that department, my body is already showing positive changes to the new way of eating.  I highly recommend this book and I'm so glad that my son's high school health course uses it.

Page count: 244p/1,918p ytd/349,299p lifetime

36:100 United States Government: Democracy in Action by Richard C. Remy, Ph.D.

Review from 2016:
High School government text book.  Provides a good well-rounded grasp of our system of government and it's various influences, how bills become laws, how laws can be challenged up to the Supreme Court, how the system of checks and balances are supposed to work.  Includes details on how things work at the local level and how parties work. Unfortunately, it was written before our government got as completely broken as it currently is so offers no insight on our current state of affairs or how normal people can actually affect real change, not that I was expecting it to but that's definitely something I think people should be educated on as well.

Page count: 898p/9,639p ytd/320,524p lifetime

14:100 Monkey: Folk Novel of China by Wu Cheng’en, Arthur Waley (Translator)

This is a translated and abridged version of Journey to the West, one of the 4 great novels of China, originally published in the 16th century after centuries of being passed on verbally.  It starts with the story of the Monkey King and his rise and then fall from grace through pride and how he then becomes a disciple of the holy monk who was chosen to go to India to fetch the writings of Buddha which results in his redemption.  The monk has other disciples as well who are also on their own redemption arcs but Monkey does seem to be the focus (as he would have it).

My son wanted to read this as part of his world literature studies this year and I wasn't about to tell him no. I really enjoy reading literature from around the world now (not always the case but I'm continuing to branch out) and this was definitely a fun read with a lot of depth and lots going on in many different levels.  Interestingly, as we read it, I realized that I had had a children's book detailing one of the stories when I was little and remembered it.  I don't know what ever happened to that book but I'm glad that my parents had it for me. 

The original Journey to the West is 100 chapters in total.  This version is about half as long but everything I read said that the stories that were cut out were fun but weren't really necessary to the overall story arcs and this was a good translation and compromise.  Of note, I looked everywhere I could think and asked many people to help me find an actual curriculum for it.  I feel that this is a serious issue in that we don't study the great works of other cultures much and yet, shared stories and seeing the common threads that weave through stories of all cultures is how we can bring people together.


Page count: 324p/3,622p ytd/314,527p lifetime

4:100 The Once and Future King by T.H. White

My Review from 3 years ago:

A 20th century telling of Arthur, Guenever, Lancelot, and the Knights of the Round Table.  The book itself is split into four different books that were actually published separately when originally published.  The first, The Sword in the Stone, chronicles Arthur's childhood meeting with Merlyn and the subsequent tutoring of him by Merlyn and ends with his drawing the sword from the stone and becoming king.  The second, The Queen of Air and Darkness, goes more into the daughters of Igraine, the feud between them and Arthur due to his father's actions, and we see how that plays into Arthur's tale.  The Ill-Made Knight is really the story Lancelot and Guenever and their love and how it plays out over many years.  It ends with The Candle in the Wind where Mordred driven by jealousy and hatred of Arthur is bent on destroying him and taking the crown.  The book closes with Arthur knowing that he will be facing Mordred in the morning and will not likely live out the day and he is working to set things in order.

So I've grown up knowing the basics of the Camelot and King Arthur. I loved Disney's Sword in the Stone and later the 1980s Excalibur (pretty and shiny).  I had always meant to read some of the stories but as usual, it took a kid reading it for school that got it in my hands.  I found this an interesting rendering as it's got a much more modern feel to things and the language is modern and easy to understand.  You can tell the author definitely had a thing against war (not a bad position in my opinion) and it comes across as almost heavy-handed sometimes.  I also didn't feel like the author had much affection for women as they are almost entirely portrayed as either manipulative, cunning, creatures who will do whatever they need to do to get whatever they want or they are simply a set piece to move a character.  None are full-fleshed characters such as we see with the knights which while I get it was still disappointing to see that not even Guenever was generally anything more.  Otherwise, an interesting take on the old tales and had me getting many of those older tales for my Kindle so I can read those.

Page count: 654p/1,435p ytd/312,340p lifetime

89:100 The Book of Money by Daniel Conaghan & Dan Smith

I was trying to find a simply but fairly comprehensive economics book and this certainly did the trick. This book provided basic economic principles in easy to understand ways and also made sure to show how they affect society and the people which I always find as a more effective way to grasp a concept.  Are there more indepth books out there, of course, but I think unless you are planning to go further in your economics studies this is really does a good job of laying out the basics.



Page count: 256p/16,345p ytd/308,361p lifetime

60:100 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Review from 2015:

Gatsby is the mystery millionaire that every one wants to be seen with but no one actually seems to know anything about.  He throws lavish parties but without actually seeming to participate in more than a cursory way.  Nick Carraway moves into a small shack next door and Gatsby makes it a point to get to know him.  It doesn't take long for Nick to learn why.  Gatsby fell in love with Daisy (a cousin of Nick's) years ago and has done everything he could for the past several years to put himself in a position to try and woo her away from her husband, the brutish Tom Buchanan.  Now that he has Nick in his court, he feels like his dream is finally on the threshold of becoming reality.  Unfortunately, not all dreams end with a Happily Ever After.

It's interesting because I've been reading about this time in US History as part of our high school history course and excess is the big thing they keep talking about in that book and it is readily apparent in this as well.  Excess is everywhere with no regards to consequences.  It's sad to see and sadder to see how little we've learned since then.  It definitely seems like a cautionary tale of the time and one that seems to be misunderstood by many who just watched the movie.  Speaking of the movie, I want to find time to watch it so I can compare.  Yeah, yeah, I know it won't be as good as movies so rarely are but there can be good adaptations and I'm curious.


Page count: 180p/10,398p ytd/302,416p lifetime

23:100 American Vision published by Glenco

Review from 2015:
High School History Text Book.  A look at American history starting with a brief overview of how people came to the Americas and Native American culture (seriously, 16 pages on all of this), and then n it starts in on the colonization by the Spanish and moves on from there.  It does do a better job than my high school history books in that it looks at more than colonization, the Civil War, and WWII but it still tends to be glossed over certain areas and the writing is drab and not very engaging.  This one only goes through 2003 with a special 2004 election update so it will be the last time I use this edition and I'm curious how the Iraq war and Bush's presidency will be portrayed in the next edition I get.

So I thought that would be the last time that I would use that edition but the new updated course from my preferred high school curriculum has switched over to a new format where it is not tied to a book but wants you to do research based on the questions in the syllabus.  While I like that style of learning for things like science, I think it's problematic for something like history for a variety of reasons.  First being that when you are searching for answers like that in terms of history, it's very easy to miss a lot of the nuances and surrounding issues that affected things.  Second, in this day and age of the internet it is very easy to be sucked down into holes of things that are factually incorrect but are doing a very good job of looking like authentic trustworthy sites.  So I prefer a textbook when it comes to history and so I stuck with this edition and will see what happens when I circle back around to this course for the last time in about 5 years.

Page count: 1138p/5,184p ytd/297,205p lifetime

21:100 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Janie was born to a young girl who was not ready to be a mother and so was raised by her Nanny (grandmother) but Nanny is aging and has been a slave to men and seen what her daughter went through and wants a better life for Janie so arranges for her to marry a wealthy man who can keep her in comfort.  Janie has thoughts of her own about this but does as Nanny wants and it's ok for a little while.  There is no passion and it's a dull life but Janie thinks that these things will grow but instead the longer she is married to her first husband, the more he starts demanding of her and demeaning her.  This leads her to runaway with Joe who promised her passion and vitality and that he was going to make something of himself in a big way.  And he did become a successful businessman and mayor of a small town but he was also controlling and demeaning of her and she was still miserable until he died.  After that, Janie was not sure she wanted another husband who would control her every move.  She was finally enjoying her freedom but then Teacake came along and taught her to play chess and shoot a gun and all sorts of things that are generally thought to be for men only and he made her laugh and she fell in love.  They were married and Teacake treated her more like an equal and partner than anyone else ever had and she loved it and him.  They were good together and she grew into a whole person and more sure of herself.  Unfortunately, nothing that good can last.

I had never even heard of this book or author until this year's new literature course.  I read reviews talking about how the dialect made it difficult to understand and I can see that.  I found that I definitely had to slow down when reading it to make sure I was understanding it properly but it was the right fit for this story.  The imagery in the prose was masterfully done and the characters were well fleshed out and realistic.  I'm very glad to have read it.

Page count: 219p/3,749p ytd/295,770p lifetime

11:100 Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer

In April 1992, Chris McCandless walked into the Alaskan wilderness as the culmination of several years of soul searching.  His body was found in September of that same year.  This book focuses on Chris's life leading up to his decision to make that trek and the author's trying to piece together his final months.  By all accounts, Chris was intelligent and charismatic who was able to induce a parental protectiveness in several of the people he met as he was hitchhiking and wandering the country. His relationship with his parents is said to have been rocky but they were not abusive or ill-meaning.  There is nothing to suggest that when he embarked on this journey that his aim was death, in fact most of the evidence points in the opposite direction and that this was more about pulling a Thoreau than anything else.

This was part of the Hero's Journey literature unit we are doing for high school this year.  I think by the measure they are using, this does qualify. Chris was definitely trying to be true to himself and was ready to face daunting challenges in this quest. My biggest issue with this book was not in the story of Chris himself but the fact that the last 1/3 of the book the author inserted himself into the story in what I felt was an extreme amount.  We were regaled with stories of his climbing mountains and his father issues.  I get that he was trying to build more sympathy or understanding for Chris but for me, it failed and took away from Chris's story by making it more about the author.  The fact that the last chapter and the entire afterword were all about the author's trying to discover what exactly killed Chris and the lengths he went to again just seemed to be about inserting himself further into this story. I get that there is mystery and he was trying to solve it and maybe it's just the way he was telling it but it did not strike a good note with me.  I do think Chris's story was interesting and I enjoyed it, I just wish the author had done a better job of playing biographer.


Page count: 215p/1,892p ytd/293,913p lifetime

97:120 Kidnapped by Robert Louis Stevenson

David Balfour had led a fairly sheltered life so it was surprising to him when his parents died that his uncle instead of taking him in as family should rightfully do instead sold him off to a ship bound for another land. When the ship takes on another passenger, Alan, and David hears of plans to kill that passenger for his money, he decides to take a stand with Alan and together they are able to defeat the leaders but then end up shipwrecked on the rocks in a part of Scotland that David is unfamiliar with and where Alan is a wanted man. David must follow the clues to find Alan and a way home through Scotland with his head still intact. Much easier said than done.

Read this for a high school English class with my 16yr old as part of his Hero's Journey studies. The story was fairly simple but I will admit that a bit more knowledge of the revolution that was going on in Scotland and England at the time would have helped me understand more of the characters interactions better I think.  Reading the Scottish brogue was not my son's favorite part and I'm thankful to have enough of an acquaintance with it that I didn't find it distracting from the story. 


Page count: 217p/18,352p ytd/289,705p lifetime

73:120 House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

Set in a future where Mexico has given over a stretch of land that separates them from the US to the drug dealers, a land now called Opium and ruled mostly by the House of the Scorpion, the house of El Patron.  Matteo has led a sheltered life in the little house in the poppy fields with his caregiver Celia. She has told him that he must always stay in the house when she is not home and not let anyone see him but one day when he was 6, heard the voices of children outside and couldn't stand it any longer so he showed himself to them. Next thing he knows, he is taken to the main house and everything changes.  He finds out that he is a clone of El Patron, the head of the family, but that clones have no status and are generally despised. He is luckier than most in that he has the special favor of El Patron who eventually comes to his rescue and demands that he be given an education and treated at least civilly. It doesn't completely matter as the household, except Celia and his bodyguard Tam Lin, decide that ignoring him will do well enough although there is one son, Tom, who torments Matt as he torments everyone else and there is a cousin, Maria, who does actually want to be his friend but thinks of him as more of a pet than a person.  What makes matters worse is when he learns that most clones are lobotomized upon birth as their only function is to serve as a source of organ donation for their original.  That was to be Matt's fate but that was before Ceclia and Tam Lin came up with another plan for him.

While Matt is definitely the "hero", there are times as he is growing that you can see the person El Patron is now trying to take root in Matt but you can see the struggle that Celia and Tam Lin are going through to try and mold Matt into a different person than the horrible head of the family.  This is his journey, to choose what kind of person he wants to be, the DNA does not have to dictate who he will be.

I hadn't even heard of this book prior to seeing this in my 11th graders English class where we are studying the Hero's journey.  I really enjoyed the story and can see why it has won and been nominated for so many awards. It is well written, the world and characters are rich and complex, and the plot gripping.


Page count: 400p/14,591p ytd/285,723p lifetime

58:120 House of Light by Mary Oliver

A book of poems which my high school junior will be reading a handful of for his English class this year, so of course I read the whole thing.

The poems were very nature oriented with a feeling of reverence surrounding it. I generally felt at peace reading many of them, as it seemed to be a free-flowing stream of conscience noticing the world around oneself.  I have a feeling that I will end up reading this book again for deeper and deeper meanings.


Page count: 80p/11,998p ytd/283,002p lifetime

34:120 Glencoe World History edited by Spielvogel

My review from 2014:

High School History from beginning of man through 2004 all crammed into one year of study, a-g university approved textbook.  My opinion, this is exactly why the majority of kids hate history and a good deal of what is wrong with our educational model.  We spend an entire year on the 350 years of "US History" but the exact same amount of time covering the entire world's history and even then, the second half of the book covers from WWI through present with a lot of US History in it (and there's a lot in the first section too).  I am doing Ancient World History with my middle-schooler as well and we took an entire year to get from beginning of planet through about 400CE.  That was lovely, interesting, informative, and thought-provoking.  This couldn't even be bothered to tell you that Henry the VIII had 6 wives and that it was his wanting a divorce from his first that led to the split with the church and the founding of the Church of England which is kind of a big deal for that country.  That is just one of the hundreds of issues I had with this book.  There was very little cause and effect going on and even less cultural appreciation or understanding.  It was names and dates with some dry, boring facts.  We can get that from the internet.  What we need is to teach our children the hows and whys and make it interesting for goodness sake!  I have a mild interest in history and this bored me to tears.  I homeschool and wish we had better options of high school history.  Why should the middle school grades get wonderful texts and the high school years be filled with things that suck the life and fun out of learning?

Yep, this book continued to suck all the fun and interesting bits out of history for me.  Blech!

Page count: 1,058p/6,549p ytd/281,024p lifetime

12:120 Anthem by Ayn Rand

My review from 2014:
High School English.  I have a hard time writing up a synopsis of this one.  My understanding is that it's a typical, if short, example of Ayn Rand's basic philosophy that working together and community is the greatest evil ever perpetrated by man and that the ego and self are all important.  It's simplistic in style, propagandist crap and I wish it wasn't in our curriculum but at the same time, I think it's good for kids to be exposed to other points of view and how to analyze them so unfortunately that means I'll be reading it at least two more times.  *sigh*

So yeah, my opinion hasn't changed.  This is written from an extreme angle as propaganda and not well written at that. Instead, we are now seeing what extreme individualism mixed with corporate greed is bringing us and I am not a fan.  I have said before and will continue that any kind of extremism is going to be bad and I stand by that opinion.  Society and civilization depends on balance between many different forces in order to function well for all.

Page count: 92p/2,746p ytd/277,221p lifetime

9:120 A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry

More money than the Younger family has ever imagined is due to come any day due to the passing of their patriarch.  Now the decisions of how to use it to their best advantage are being fought about with Mama wanting to use it as a down payment on a real house in a suburb and some for her daughter's college as she dreams to be a doctor but her son wants to use it all on to go in with friends for a liquor store.  His dreams and his vision of himself are as low as can be but things are about to change for the family...

A timeless story of a middle class family who struggles to make ends meet let alone try to better their situation for their children.  It's easy to understand their hopes and dreams and frustrations.  What can not be understated is the fact that this is a black family in Chicago during extreme racial segregation and prejudice. The thought of Benethea, becoming a doctor seems like a pipe dream to Walter Lee, the son. He is a chauffer for a well-to-do white man while Ruth, his wife, cleans houses and works in kitchens.  This play focuses really on Walter's despair at this place in life but in the end there is a glimmer of hope that we all need to keep going and you have to hope that things will turn out well for this family.


Page count: 151p/2,122p ytd/276,597p lifetime

89:120 The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

The tale of Huck Finn after he runs away from his pa and chooses to travel down the river with the runaway slave, Jim.  It details their adventures which are many and don't generally show Huck in a good light but he always gets away with it and seems to have his head screwed on a bit better by the end of the story.

I'm of so many minds about this book.  I know intellectually that the treatment of Jim throughout the book is tame considering our history but I still hate it (although that makes it a good reason to read the book).  The dialects do add a lot of flavor to it but sometimes make for harder reading for my high school student.  I found myself shaking my head over the many times that Huck thinks about doing the right thing but then shrugs it off and then there is Tom's plan for rescuing Jim which just Ugh!  That part was just painful to read through.  I think historically it continues to be a must read book for high school but it will never be one of my favorites.



Page count: 225p/23,635p ytd/272,785p lifetime

68:120 A Separate Peace by John Knowles

Read for 10th grade English which means I get to read it a total of four times.  Here is my review from September 2009:

<i>A story of growing up in a boys school during WWII, we follow Gene and his struggles with his friendship with Finny.  We find in Finny, an intense character who seems to have little insight but is long on charisma and energy.  His perceptions of the world are shallow but at the end we see that it was only by making things fit in his perception that kept him from fearing the unknown.  Gene finds it impossible to have his own will when in the presence of Finny and much of the story is Gene's figuring out how to deal with his relationship with Finny, trying to categorize it and create reasons for Finny's behavior that are mostly only in his own head.  When at last he breaks free of Finny, albeit unconsciously, it is with dramatic consequences.

I liked the pace of the book in that it was neither too slow to be plodding nor too quick so that it lost it's believability.  An easy read on the surface with a lot of deeper undertones.</i>

Page count: 204p/18,984p ytd/268,134p lifetime

51:120 United States Government: Democracy in Action by Richard C. Remy, Ph.D.

High School government text book.  Provides a good well-rounded grasp of our system of government and it's various influences, how bills become laws, how laws can be challenged up to the Supreme Court, how the system of checks and balances are supposed to work.  Includes details on how things work at the local level and how parties work. Unfortunately, it was written before our government got as completely broken as it currently is so offers no insight on our current state of affairs or how normal people can actually affect real change, not that I was expecting it to but that's definitely something I think people should be educated on as well.


Page count: 898p/14,073p ytd/264,033p lifetime