R.I.P VI Sign-up

I am signing up for the R.I.P. VI Challenge hosted by Carl V. The challenge runs through September 1st through October 31st.

The purpose of the R.I.P. Challenge is to enjoy books that could be classified as:

Mystery.
Suspense.
Thriller.
Dark Fantasy.
Gothic.
Horror.
Supernatural.

I am signing up for the Peril the First level reading four books that come under these categories. I have already read the first two. Here is the list of books I am reading
Dead Simple by Peter James
Live Wire by Harlan Coben
Senseless by Mary Burton
Not Dead Enough by Peter James

The Case of the Lamp that Went Out by Augusta Groner

The case of the lamp that went out by Augusta Groner and translated by Grace Isabel Colborn was published in an Omnibus in 1910. The story takes place in Vienna. A man is found murdered in a quite street in Hietzing. The murdered man's watch and purse are missing. The motive of the murder seems to be robbery. Joseph Muller, the famous detective who does not have an impressive frame like Sherlock Holmes but is frail is called to investigate. Joseph Muller is very humble and "the kindest-hearted person in the world". The introduction provides a character study of Joe Muller. So that the story goes straight to the point without divulging much into his character and traits. How Muller goes about solving the case and "the lamp that went out" is interesting. And before you know the murderer is found. The story does not end there. Muller is in a dilemma should he reveal the identity of the killer. He is worried about the consequence of the murderer's imprisonment on his family and honour. A very different kind of detective than my favourites Holmes and Poirot. Probably like Father Brown? Can't say. It has been a good while since I read Father Brown. Time to read some GK Chesterton again.
I downloaded this book from Gutenberg. There is not much information about when the book was published. After some research I found that it was compiled in an Omnibus in 1910 so it should have been published before that. There seems to be some confusion about the authorship too. While the Gutenberg mentions Augusta Groner as the author and Grace Isabel Colborn as the translator. Manybooks and goodreads mention Colborn as the co-author. According to goodreads the book is republished in 2003 but I am surprised I couldn't find the original publishing year anywhere on the Internet. Overall, an interesting very quick read.

E-book reading challenge 2011

I am reading some ebooks these days so googled for a Ebook reading challenge. I found that ladybugreads is hosting 2011 Ebook challenge. I am signing up for the Fascinated – Read 6 e-books -level.

Live Wire by Harlan Coben

Live Wire is the latest Harlan Coben book featuring Sports rep Myron Bolitar, who has now diversified and represents musicians and others too. There are the usual entourage of characters sociopath/psychopath Win, exotic Esperanza, Big Cyndi and the Ache brothers.
Suzze T, ex-tennis star is eight months pregnant with the first child of her rock star husband Lex Ryder. A Facebook post questions the paternity of the child and Lex disappears. Suzze asks for Myron's help to find out who posted it and why and find Lex. In his search for Lex, he also finds his estranged sister-in-law, Kitty. Where is his brother?
Despite of repeated requests from various people not to interfere, Myron interferes. Does his interference solve problems or increase? Myron is a "funny guy" always with a quick retort. In Live Wire most of the characters come up with a witty retort "everyone's a wiseass" as Coben himself comments. The conversation between Win and Myron is funny as always but what was the need for two page jokes about Mee and Yu.
The first half looks like Coben is just stalling the story with repartees and pop philosophy. And by the time this occurs to you there is a remark on how Myron is stalling instead of facing the truth.
The latter half of the book delivers as a thriller with Harlan Coben's trademark twist and turns and surprises. This book serves as a introduction to Mickey Bolitar, new teen detective(?) to feature in Coben's latest book Shelter. After James Rollins with Jake Ransom and John Grisham with Theodre Boone, Coben has joined the bandwagon of thriller writers catering to young adults. Wonder when Michael Connelley will join the bandwagon, Bosch already has a teenage daughter, isn't it?
This book just reminds me why I love Coben's standalone better than Bolitar series. Bolitar books are fun but his standalones are better.

Book Beginnings on Friday

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Katy at A Few More Pages.
To participate all you have to do is:
Share the first line (or two) of the book you are currently reading on your blog or in the comments section. Include the title and author of what you're reading. Then, if you are so moved, write your impressions on that first line and if you did or did not like that sentence. Link up each week at Katy's place.

Here is mine from Senseless by Mary Burton.
"Duct tape muffled the woman's hoarse moans as a hooded figure stoked the glowing embers in the basement hearth"

Banned books

I found this in Bevs myreadersblock who found it on Sherrie's Just Books, who found it at Heather's Books and Quilts.

List of the top 110 banned books (of all time). Bold the ones you’ve read. Italicize the ones you’ve read part of. Underline the ones you specifically want to read (at least some of). Read more. Convince others to read some.
#1 The Bible
#2 Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain
#3 Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes
#4 The Koran
#5 Arabian Nights
#6 Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
#7 Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift
#8 Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer
#9 The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne
#10 Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman
#11 The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli
#12 Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe
#13 Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank
#14 Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert
#15 Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens
#16 Les Miserables by Victor Hugo
#17 Dracula by Bram Stoker
#18 Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin
#19 Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
#20 Essays by Michel de Montaigne
#21 Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

#22 History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
#23 Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
#24 Origin of Species by Charles Darwin
#25 Ulysses by James Joyce
#26 Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio
#27 Animal Farm by George Orwell
#28 Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell
#29 Candide by Voltaire
#30 To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
#31 Analects by Confucius
#32 Dubliners by James Joyce
#33 Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck
#34 Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
#35 Red and the Black by Stendhal
#36 Das Capital by Karl Marx
#37 Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire
#38 The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
#39 Lady Chatterley’s Lover by D. H. Lawrence
#40 Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
#41 Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser
#42 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
#43 Jungle by Upton Sinclair
#44 All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
#45 Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx
#46 Lord of the Flies by William Golding
#47 Diary by Samuel Pepys
#48 Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway
#49 Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy
#50 Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury
#51 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak
#52 Critique of Pure Reason by Immanuel Kant
#53 One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey
#54 Praise of Folly by Desiderius Erasmu
#55 Catch-22 by Joseph Heller
#56 Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X
#57 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
#59 Essay Concerning Human Understanding by John Locke
#60 The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison
#61 Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
#62 One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#63 East of Eden by John Steinbeck
#64 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
#65 I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou
#66 Confessions by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#67 Gargantua and Pantagruel by Francois Rabelais
#68 Leviathan by Thomas Hobbes
#69 The Talmud
#70 Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau
#71 Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson
#72 Women in Love by D. H. Lawrence
#73 American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser
#74 Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
#75 Separate Peace by John Knowles
#76 The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
#77 The Red Pony by John Steinbeck
#78 Popol Vuh
#79 Affluent Society by John Kenneth Galbraith
#80 Satyricon by Petronius
#81 James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl
#82 Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov
#83 Black Boy by Richard Wright
#84 Spirit of the Laws by Charles de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu
#85 Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut
#86 Julie of the Wolves by Jean Craighead George
#87 Metaphysics by Aristotle
#88 Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder
#89 Institutes of the Christian Religion by Jean Calvin
#90 Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse
#91 The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene
#92 Sanctuary by William Faulkner
#93 As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner
#94 Black Like Me by John Howard Griffin
#95 Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
#96 Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
#97 General Introduction to Psychoanalysis by Sigmund Freud
#98 The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood
#99 Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
#100 Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess
#101 Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman by Ernest J. Gaines
#102 Emile Jean by Jacques Rousseau
#103 Nana by Emile Zola
#104 The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier
#105 Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin
#106 Gulag Archipelago by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
#107 Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein
#108 The Day No Pigs Would Die by Robert Peck
#109 Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark
#110 Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes

WWW: Wednesdays

I am playing WWW: Wednesdays hosted by MizB @ Should Be Reading.

To play along just answer the following three questions....

*What are you currently reading?
*What did you just recently finish reading?
*What do you think you'll read next?

What are you currently reading?
I am about to finish Harlan Coben's Live Wire. Considering it is a thriller, it is more funny than thrilling. Last 100 pages to go, hope it becomes gripping. I love Myron Bolitar books, hope this doesn't disappoint me.

What did you just recently finish reading?
I finished reading Amethyst Box by Anna Katherine Green. I downloaded the ebook from Gutenberg. It is a very short whodunit. Not a racy, page-turner but with a story with some twists and turns. An interesting read.

What do you think you'll read next?
I want to read Mary Burton's Senseless, a thriller. I enjoyed reading Burton's I'm watching you. Hope this delivers too.