Totals from the Valley, and that Campus in the Boonies. ;-)

Can you believe that Christmas is just around the corner?  I sure can't.  The good thing is we have this nice Holiday break to try to get up to speed with our reading totals again.  We just don't seem to be able to post the numbers that our wonderful colleagues at the other sites do. Not that we're complete slackers.  After all, we did have 7 readers, reading 27 titles for a total of 6905 pages.  Not bad, but there is room for improvement.  I don't know about anyone else, but I'm going to do some major reading for the month of December, so look out!

In case you're interested in what we read:

A Game of Thrones by George R R Martin

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

Pamela by Samuel Richardson

London Under: The Secret History Beneath the Streets by Peter Achroyd

Pride and Pyramids by Amanda Grange and Jacqueline Webb

Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow by John Mortimer

Rumpole Misbehaves by John Mortimer

The Odyssey of KP2: by Terri M Williams

Home Before Daylight: My Life on the Road with The Grateful Dead by Steve Parish

Live by Night by Dennis Lehane

Beautiful Mystery by Louise Penny

The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson-Walker

Haunting Rachel by Kay Hooper

Generation Loss by Elizabeth Hand

The End of Everything by Megan Abbott

Bent Road by Lori Roy

Never Mind & Bad News by Edward St Aubyn



Meramec November

The Meramec Team's nine November participants read 39 titles and 11,089 pages!
Betty led the pack in number of books (10), while Donna took top honors in page count at 2,239 pages.
 

Author	Title
Sherman Alexie	The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Kyung-Sook Shin	Please Look After Mom
E.R. Eddison	The Worm Ouroboros
Janet Evanovich	Wicked Business
M.C. Beaton	Hiss and Hers
Dustin Thomason	12.21
Daheim	The Wurst is Yet to Come
Sloan	Mr. Penumbra’s 24hour Bookstore
Balogh	Famous Heroine
Balogh	Plumed Bonnet
Falconer	Olivia and the Fairy Princesses
Pace	Vampirina Ballerina
Laurens	Lady Risks All
Norman	I Know a Wee Piggy
McElmurry	Mario Makes a Move
Stockdale	Bring on the Birds
Wolff	Baby Bear Sees  Blue
Castle	Frozen Heat
Child	Without Fail
Bach	Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Choi	Happy Birthday or Whatever
Martel	Life of Pi: a novel
Hill	The various haunts of men
Hill	The Betrayal of Trust
Erdich	Round House
Gruley	Starvation Lake
Gruley	Hanging Tree
Kingsolver	Poisonwood Bible
Wienek	Master of the Mountain: Thomas Jefferson and His Slaves
Hoffman	Illumination Night
Joyce	Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry
Donaghue	Astray
John Banville	Ancient Light
Joanne Harris	Peaches for Father Francis
Barbara Kingsolver	Flight Behavior
John Summers (ed.)	The Baffler No. 20
Alice Munro	Dear Life
Margaret Mazzantini	Twice Born

HPIR's November Totals

Our seven readers read a total of 8515 pages in November. Marian was the champion with 3090 pages, Sheila second with 2038, and Jim brought up third with 1136. Bring it, campuses! Here's what we read:

The Time in Between / Maria Duenas

The Sun (September 2012)                                                              

What's the Matter With Kansas? / Thomas Frank

Frozen heat / Richard Castle

Please Look After Mom / Kyung-sook Shin

In the garden of beasts / Erik Larson

Nightwoods / Charles Frazier (two readers read this)

Red Mist / Patricia Cornwell

World Without End / Ken Follett

Lost ark / J.R.Rain

Red Wolf / Liza Marklund

Decline of the Lawrence Welk Empire: A Novel / Poe Ballantine

The Forgotten / David Baldacci

True Blue / David Baldacci

Harper's (July 2012)                                                                             

The Cat's Table / Michael Ondaatje

Nothing With Strings: Short Stories / Bailey White

Pawprints In The Moonlight / Denis O'Connor

Wishbone: Poems / Don Share

The Scarlet Letters: A Novel / Louis Auchincloss

How to Build an Android: the true story of Philip K. Dick's Resurrection / David F. Dufty

A Southern Exposure: A Novel / Alice Adams

Manhattan Monologues: Short Stories / Louis Auchincloss

The Fifth Child: A Novel / Doris Lessing

Ben In The World: A Novel / Doris Lessing

The Book of Madness and Cures: A Novel / Regina O'Melveny

Sailing Lake Mareotis: poems / Eamonn Wall

A Dog's Life: fiction / Peter Mayle

Lantern Slides: short stories / Edna O'Brien

Couriers of the Sky: the story of pigeons / Mary Graham Bonner

Collected Sonnets / Edna St. Vincent Millay

The Black Box / Michael Connelly

Kiss the Dead / Laurell K. Hamilton

The Sisters Crusade / Binell, Mark. Rolling Stone. 11/22/2012, Issue 1170, p70-75. 6p

Neoliberalism in the Academic Borderlands: An On-going Struggle for Equality and Human Rights / Educational Studies: A Journal of the American Educational Studies Association

Meditation: an indepth guide / Ian Gawler and Paul Bedson

LATE AGAIN, AND WITH LOW NUMBERS TO BOOT. :/

Well, Flo didn't do all that well this month.  The Valley seems to be slipping in our reading.  Thank goodness for our colleagues at the other campuses that still keep our stats for the state challenge, high!

This month we are reporting a total of 22 books and mags, read by 8 people for a total of 6905 pages.

I don't know gang, we need a little motivation to crack some spines.  lol

Our beloved Abby, out in Wildwood did a spectacular job (as always) by consuming 5 books worth a total of 2180 pages.  The woman can READ!!  :)

Some of the titles we read:

The Dave Store Massacre by Ron ebest

My Secret Garden by Nancy Friday

No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt by Doris Kearns Goodwin

Hiss and Hers by M C Becton

The Gift of Pets: Stories Only a Vet Could Tell by Bruce Coston

The Inner Voice: The Making of a Singer by Renee Fleming

Least of Evil by J M Gregson

The Small House at Allington by Anthony Trollope

Guy Noir and the Case of the Straight Skinny by Garrison Keilor

Whores: An Oral biography of Perry Farrell and Jane's Addiction by Brendan Mullen

The Red Hot Chilli Peppers: an Oral and Visual History by Brendan Muller

Ghost Train to the Eastern Star by Paul Theroux

Zero Day by David Baldacci

Gone by Randy Wayne White

North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell

All Over but the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg

The Beautiful Mystery by Louis Penny

Night Watch by Linda Fairstein

And When She Was Good by Laura Lippman

Q Road by Bonnie Jo Campbell

Sovereign by C J Sansom

The Twelve by Justin Cronin.

Several issues of Newsweek Magazine as well



October at Highland Park

What would you campus peeps do without us at Highland Park? We do all the behind-the-scenes work to keep your libraries well-stocked, and we kick your behinds every month in MO Book Challenge (and pump up STLCC Libraries' numbers). Our SEVEN readers read a total of 10,225 pages. Marian, the perennial champeen reader, read 2869 pages; Sheila came in second with 2160; Jim was third with 1648. I was fourth, BTW, with 1451 pages, but we won't mention fourth place. Here's what we read: 
  
Caught / Harlan Coban
Back Fire / Catherine Coulter
The Wind through the Keyhole / Stephen King
Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion / Jeffrey St. Clair & Joshua Frank (ed)
The Race / Clive Cussler
Those Who Save Us / Jenna Blum
The Happiness Project / Gretchen Rubin
Creole Belle / James Lee Burke
11th Hour / James Patterson & Maxine Paetro
The Outlook (October 8, 2012) / S&P
The Brass Verdict / Michael Connelly
Harper's Magazine (September 2012)                            
The Sun (June 2012)                                                              
Low Pressure / Sandra Brown
The Outlook (October 15, 2012) / S&P
The Boy in the Suitcase / Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis
The Racketeer / John Grisham
The Outlook (October 22, 2012) / S&P
Salt Dancers: a novel / Ursula Hegi
The Rainbow: a novel / Pearl Buck
Plant Dreaming Deep / May Sarton
Alaska: a novel / James A. Michener
As They Were: Essays / M.F.K. Fisher
The Dog Who Came in from the Cold: a novel / Alexander McCall Smith
In Revere in Those Days: a novel / Roland Merullo
Wish You Were Here: a novel / Graham Swift
War Stories: Poems About Long Ago and Now / Howard Nemerov
Grand and Arsenal: Poems / Kerri Webster
The Porcupine: a novel / Julian Barnes
The Voice of the Poet: Poems / Elizabeth Bishop
Rite of Passage: a novel / Richard Wright
Playing Through: a Year of Life and Links Along the Scottish Coasts / Curtis Gillespie
World Without End / Ken Follett
The Time in Between / Maria Duenas
Girlchild / Tupelo Hassman
Corduroy Mansions / Alexander McCall Smith
Presidents Club                                                                       
In the garden of the beasts / Erik Larson
God Clobbers Us All / Poe Ballantine
What's the Matter With Kansas? / Thomas Frank