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This month we are traveling back to read books that were written or popular in the 1990s. Which book or books did you decide to read? Did it fit into any of the challenges? Did you like it? Was it a book that you just picked off the list, or something you have been meaning to read since.....well, since the 1990s? Let us know.

In addition, don't forget to post:
*link to the book you've read
*a star rating -see below for template you can copy & paste ;)
*shelf nomination (see Shelf Lists for what has been and cannot be nominated)
*link to any PAS challenge/s you've fit this book into

Remember:
#Your nominated Shelf must have at least 1,000 books to qualify
#Entries for your nominated shelf will be calculated as follows;
+1 - posting the book you've read for this Monthly Shelf & star rating
+1 - word review (at least 3 sentences of your thoughts/feelings on the book)
+1 - link to another PAS challenge* where you've included this book

Star template:
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★�
★★
★★½
★★�
★★★�
★★★★
★★★★½
★★★★�

I finished Timeline by Michael Crichton, published 1999, read 3 Apr 2019
★★�

This is the story of several modern researchers who travel to the 1350's to save another time traveler who disappeared. Although I did enjoy the story, I thought the number of amazing escapes they made was just a bit too over-the-top. It was my first book by Michael Crichton, so I expected a better story from him. The historical part of the story was very interesting, however.


Nominated shelf: book club

I've read We Were the Mulvaneys by Joyce Carol Oates, which was originally published in 1996.

★★★★�

This book is hard to stomach. It portrays a "perfect" family in the state of New York: the Mulvaneys have it all - they are happy, brilliant, funny, very much in love. They don't lack a single thing in order to be the most admired and envied family of the town. And they are. Until, suddenly, they aren't anymore. Marianne, their only daughter (they also have three sons), gets raped at a school ball, and nothing will ever be the same anymore. Who is to blame? The raper, or maybe Marianne herself? Didn't she maybe ask for it? And after all, she was drunk (what does it matter if she was made to get drunk while telling her she was drinking an orange cocktail?). It is a very hard book, but I believe it should be read widely, because it lets us see how so many people are more prone to think the victim is to blame instead of the perpetrator. This is what very often happens in my country, too, so it most definitely is not something which happens only in the US at all. Unfortunately there are many narrow-minded and ultimately mean people who wouldn't blame a white guy coming from a good family in a million years. In their eyes, the guilty one just has to be the victim. I have to say I found this novel deeply disturbing and I was more scared than with many horror novels.

*

My nominated shelf: women

ETA: I've also used this book for LOST 2019.

I read: A is for Alibi which is shelved 1990s x 3 and rated it *4 STARS*

This a reread for me, but it was like I was reading it for the first time. I knew some big details but I didn't remember the finer points of this and I was able to enjoy it immensely. I love the narrator and her dry delivery of Kinsey. It fits her so well. I really enjoyed the story and getting to know her all over again, but I have to say that the book wrapped up rather quickly. After all the build up I felt let down with the way it wrapped up.

I think I'll be going down the alphabet all over again because I miss this series and I'm sad that we won't get a true ending.


I've used this book for:
Pick 'n' Mix Stage 7: Friends' Shelves and Seriously Serial '19


Nominated shelf: Kick Ass Heroine

I read Time and Again by Jack Finney [13-apr-19] 2 stars
It's shelved 1x as 1990 and was published in the 90's.

I was dissapointed about this book. After a great start it went downhill. I like the characters, but thought it was a bit confusing at times. I like the time traveling part and description of how the this were in the past. It was a shame that the part about the Titanic didn't came until near the end. I'd have liked if there had been more about the Titanic. The first book was much better.

I've used this book for:
- Bookopoly
- Pick and Mix - Listopia
- Seriously Serial

Nomimated shelf: suspense

Lusie wrote: "I read Time and Again by Jack Finney [13-apr-19] 2 stars
It's shelved 1x as 1990 and was published in the 90's.

I was dissapointed about this book. After a great start i..."

I agree, Lusie! I loved the premise but it was too confusing!

I read An Equal Music by Vikram Seth 2.5 stars
Shelved as 1990s by 5 users & was published in 1999

I think I could've liked this a lot more if it didn't involved an affair (ie. infidelity). I try very hard to avoid this in fiction so whilst I finished reading it, it fails to hold on to my interest. Everything else was actually rather lovely (descriptions of music and even of weather!).

Also fit into: MM-19 & PnM Awards

Nominating: music-fiction

I've read The Chalk Circle Man by Fred Vargas, a very quick read published in 1991 (also part of my Seriously Serial '19 list), a somewhat strange police procedural that takes place in Paris and is imbibed with the mixed feelings caused by the approaching end of the millennium.

It starts with Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg's first day as commissaire in Paris. He is a silent man full of contradictions, both suave and socially awkward, a loner and a lover whose heart has been broken. He's very intelligent but he relies in Danglard- one of his inspectors- to gather and analyze any important info in a systematic way and he's whimsical in his method, frequently following his intuition, more worthy of Magical Realism than of Crime Fiction. I found the mystery interesting but I think it's the main character who's truly memorable. I can't wait to read the next book in the series, Seeking Whom He May Devour.

Rating: 4 stars

Shelf nomination: Latin America

I read Parable of the Talents, which was first published in 1998. I give it 3.5 stars, and am having trouble deciding whether to round up or down in my review. My review here.

I am using this for Seriously Serial and for Pick n Mix (probably Stage 5).

I add my nomination to the shelf Refugees.

I read:

Fall on Your Knees by Ann-Marie MacDonald, 18 Apr 19

The story of four very different sisters growing up isolated with their father. I found it rather long and slow, but I don't have much time to read right now, so it might just have been a case of wrong book, wrong moment. There were a lot of passages I liked ... but it's the kind of book you have to concentrate on, and I wasn't in the mood to do that.

3 stars

I'll add a nomination for the Women shelf /shelf/show/...

I've also read Hygiène de l'assassin (Hygiene and the Assassin) (1992).

The novel is a dialogue between a famous award-winning obese writer that has only a couple of months to live and the five journalists allowed to interview him before he passes away. The interviews start almost always bad and continue to worsen for different reasons, following the will of the writer that not only has very unpopular opinions on many subjects but that- we soon realize- enjoys torturing the young journalists. But not all the journalists fall into his traps and slowly we start discovering more and more about the writer's life and secrets.

It's not one of the best Amelie Nothomb books I've read nor one of the worst, but in my mind it's 100% Nothomb for sure, the absurd dialogue, the implacable characters, eating disorders, the analysis of names, the decadence of nobility. I've read around 12 short novels by the author and I mentally divide them in two groups: Fables and unreliable-autobiography (almost autobiographical-fiction...), this one belonging to the group of fables. I usually prefer those in the second group.

That said, I enjoyed reading it but, if asked, I would be hard pressed to name one friend to whom I would recommend this book. And even though it's the first novel the author ever wrote, I don't think it's a good place to start reading her. I think Fear and Trembling is a better place to start, followed by The Character of Rain perhaps or by Tokyo Fiancée and Happy Memories.

Rating: 3.5 stars

Shelf nomination: Gothic

Checked all books I've read so far this month and found one that's been shelved as 1990s - it was published in 1996

Bad Debts (Jack Irish #1) by Peter Temple

I've only rated 3 stars because I just couldn't get into the audiobook. I may have enjoyed it better if I read a physical book, I think. It was quite complicated and if you didn't pay well enough attention, you got lost in the plot a bit. The MC himself is a rather interesting character so I'll be giving the rest of the series a go.

Fit into: SS19 & PnM Award

Nominating: tv

I read The Secret History for this month's shelf.

I gave it 3.5* but rounded down for GR rating. It had a slow start for me, was tedious after the death, and, although it was more interesting toward the end when I knew who each of the characters were, I was glad to be done with the story.

This story is set in a small New England college. It is the story of six Classics majors, their professor, and their inter-relationships which led to the ultimate death of several of them. It is about the angst and emotional trauma of that age and about the emptiness of their lives.

Fit: PnM Friends

Nominating: Coming of Age

I read Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn, 28 Apr 19

I'm not posting a review because I don't want to have to nominate a shelf. Too much stress!

Rosemary wrote: "I read Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn, 28 Apr 19

I'm not posting a review because I don't want to have to nominate a shelf. Too much stress!"

You don't have to, if you don't want to, Rosemary. It's not a 'must' really but just a condition that if you want to nominate a shelf, then you'll have to have read at least 1 book for the month's shelf plus a star rating (not even a review!). But, if you don't want to nominate a shelf, you just have to say so (I may add this to next month's post & amend the instruction).

I read Kissing the Witch: Old Tales in New Skins by Emma Donoghue.



Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar, and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time. Acclaimed Irish author Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances--sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.

A beautifully written, sometimes haunting and sometimes sweet collection of fairytales done better than before and all connecting in a seamless way. I loved the different interpretations of the stories we already know and I of course love the queer-ness of the entire thing.

I nominate Morocco

Besides reading The Devil's Domain (5 stars!) written in 1998 but not included in the 1990's list, I've read Seeking Whom He May Devour by Fred Vargas, published in 1999 (included in the 1990s shelf and useful for my Seriously Serial '19 challenge), a 2nd installment in the Commissaire Adamsberg series that ended being even better than the previous one.

The book starts with Commissaire Adamsberg lying low in Paris to avoid being shot by a deranged widow, what gives us the chance to follow Camille, his old flame, instead, as she settles down in a small French town with her new Canadian boyfriend, Johnstone, whose job is to film the wolves in the Mercantour National Park. But something starts slaughtering the local sheep- apparently a wolf of unnusual size- and the inhabitants start speaking of taking justice into their own hands and butchering the wolves in the reserve. The situation escalates when one of Camille's friends is found dead, so she decides to help two farm workers that are trying to get to the bottom of the matter, following a hunch the gendarmes dismiss as laughable. But will they be able to do it without any additional help or will they end being slaughtered by the giant wolf?

I found it a very entertaining read though perhaps a little unusual in its genre, more character driven, with a slower pace, less focused on the police procedure than one would expect, choosing instead to give an ample description of life in rural France and the intricacies of human motivations.

Rating: 4.5 stars

Shelf nomination: Space

PUBLISHED 1991 (how it fit in).

The Summer of the Danes by Ellis Peters 3.5 stars

Brother Cadfael travels back to Wales to serve as translator for the young Brother Mark, a former helper of his. Cadfael ends up a prisoner of the Danes along with a young Welsh woman in a dispute between a pair of Welsh brothers. I will say no more since there is a book description, but to say that even at book number 18 I'm still enjoying these novels. The setting and story make for a different type of story than most as well.

Shelf nomination: : Canadian Author

Finished on time though I'm posting super late at night. I read Bridget Jones's Diary. I give it ★★★★� . I absolutely thought it was hilarious and identified with the main character's ranting on several incidents *cough* throwing the dinner party that makes you hate everyone showing up *cough*. I have been meaning to read this forever and am glad I finally got around to it.
This book was also on my Moving Mountains challenge.

If me posting this review after it is technically the next day (3:30am) does not disqualify it, then I put my points towards Aliens. If it is too late then at least I got a good book out of it. :D