September Wrap-up

What a month! I was right; school picked up like crazy, and wedding stuff took a lot of my time, but somehow I still managed to read 10 books this month! Yay! I hope I can keep this up.

Other fun things: I finished up the Summer Lovin' Challenge this month, which was a super fun time because I got to re-read some of my favorite books! Thanks to Jules for hosting it, and I hope she hosts another one soon, because I might not ever re-read a book again if she doesn't. :)

I also had my first book club meeting with my Mary and my Amy, and it was pretty good even though we neglected to come up with good questions to discuss about the book, and none of us were sufficiently thrilled with it to have strong opinions about anything. Now we know for next time!

A weird thing: Of the nine fiction books I read, only four of them were genre reads. I'm not used to reading so many books that can't be classified! It makes me twitch a little in my compulsive-organization mind.

Days spent reading: 24
Books read: 10
...in fiction: 9
...in speculative fiction: 2
...in mystery: 1
...in fantasy: 1
...in non-fiction: 1
...in young adult: 4

Series reads: A Wrinkle in Time, The 39 Clues

Favorite book: Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer 10/10 and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart 10/10

Challenges
Summer Lovin' Challenge: +1 books for 10/10 Completed!
RIP Challenge: +2 books for 2/4
My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge: +1 books for 5/12
The Baker Street Challenge: +2 books for 2/3
Orbis Terrarum Challenge: +1 books for 9/10
Back to School Challenge: +0 books for 0/4
Critical Monkey Challenge: +0 books for 1/6
Countdown Challenge: +4 books for 4/55

The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa (24 September — 26 September)

This was one of those books that I don't really get, but it redeemed itself by being all about math. :) Yay, math!

The unnamed housekeeper of the title tells the story of how she came to work for the unnamed professor, who is an older man who has only 80 minutes of memory for anything that happened after an accident several years previous. The professor, a mathematician, can still play with his numbers, so every time he "meets" the housekeeper he asks for her shoe size and birthday and various other numerical things and finds interesting connections between those numbers and others. The housekeeper and her son (whom the professor nicknames Root for his flat head [like the square root symbol]) become friends with the professor, even if the professor doesn't realize it.

That's really the whole story; there's not much in the way of plot but it is a very interesting character study of a man with little short-term memory and how people around him react to him. The housekeeper at first finds him a little off-putting, but soon learns to like him and even math because a) he's a great teacher and b) he can't get exasperated with you for taking a long time to learn something. And the professors cares very much for Root, as a ten-year-old boy, even though he can't remember him in particular.

And there's math, and you can't go wrong with that! :)

Rating: 7/10
(Orbis Terrarum Challenge: Japan, Countdown Challenge: 2009)

See also:
BookEnds
an adventure in reading
Thoughts of Joy

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays (28 September)

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Do you keep a book wishlist, either on paper, Amazon/etc, or via a book database site (Shelfari, GoodReads, LibraryThing)? If yes, do you share this list with others (especially coming up to Christmas)?"

Why, yes! Yes, I do. My GoodReads account serves as a repository for my TBR list, which I guess is my wishlist of books to read, and also for my "to own" list, which includes the books I love and must own. For my dear parents, I put together a Google Document wherein I ask for many things, including books, for my upcoming birthday and also that December gift-giving holiday.

Links of the Week

What a week! Seven days ago, I went and got married, yay!



This is one of the shoes I wore for the reception; I don't have a really good pic of both of them together. I will have to fix that.

And now this coming week is Banned Books Week, for which I'll be reading a few banned books I've not yet gotten to. On the shelf right now are The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Chocolate War, we'll see what else I have time to finish!

Speaking of... you'd think that book banning would be sooooo fifty years ago, but it's so not. A young adult author gets her visit to a middle school cancelled at the last minute because some parents complained.

And then, of course, some people aren't so excited about Banned Books Week. (via LISNews)

The Sweet Valley twins are hitting the big screen. Speaking of things that should be censored... (via The Book Bench)

Booking Through Thursday (24 September)

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is... "What’s the saddest book you’ve read recently?"

It's not really recent — I read it six months ago! — but the last book I read that was really sad all the way through was The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak. I was pretty much bawling for the last 50 pages. But it was a good bawling, I think.

The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart (22 September — 23 September)

Aaah I love this book!

That's what I wrote as a placeholder for this entry before I started it, but it's so true. This is one of those books that is thoroughly entertaining but sneakily makes you think about societal status quos and your own personal set of norms and it's all sociological and anthropological and fun. Well, if you're into that sort of thing, anyway.

Plot: Frankie Landau-Banks is an average teenager, starting her sophomore year at her not-so-average boarding school in Massachusetts. Things are going really well — she's taking fun classes, she's rooming with a good friend, and the boy she's been crushing on forever (well, teenage forever) totally asked her out! Yay! But she soon realizes that Matthew and his gang aren't really as into her as she is into them. Also they are part of an all-male secret society that Frankie's father was in, and Frankie's not too thrilled about that. She decides to start thwarting some of those aforementioned status quos, and it's pretty awesome.

The book is full of sociological- and psychological-type talk about feminism and classism and ageism and fitting into the society inherent in a New England boarding school. Frankie's not exactly a sympathetic character; she plays the same games that Matthew does and isn't the nicest person. But you can definitely understand why she does what she does, and I at least was totally rooting for her and wishing I had the ovaries (because balls is a masculine construction, as Frankie's sister points out) to pull off some of the pranks she does.

Oh, and there's some bonus Wodehouse love, and you can't beat that.

Rating: 10/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

See also:
The Bluestocking Society
Persnickety Snark
Book Nut
Library Queue

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

The Enthusiast, by Charlie Haas (14 September — 21 September)

The descriptions I've read of this book are very deceiving. I thought I was looking at a light-hearted romp through the life of a guy working for enthusiast magazines (like Kite Buggy and Crochet Life), but it's really only the second part of that.

We meet Henry Bay as an idealistic kid who wants to become a public-interest lawyer because of his dad, who got laid off when his company's management took all the money and ran. Fun! But he gets to college and starts working for a public-interest lawyer and simply isn't happy, so he takes an offer to come work for Kite Buggy, a magazine he once wrote an article for. But enthusiast magazines aren't exactly stable employment, and Henry ends up moving from magazine to magazine, never settling down, never caring much about settling down, and never really happy. Eventually he does settle down, just in time for his brother, the uptight scientist, to start cutting loose, which really changes Henry's perspective on life.

This book kind of reminded me of On the Road, what with Henry's transient-ness and the whole finding-yourself vibe and the real lack of plot. I was rather enjoying that, but then the part with the brother happened, and some really strange things happened that I'm not sure a) made any sense or b) added to Haas's story, except maybe to say that taking risks is bad? I don't know.

I'm actually really excited that this is the first book for my new book club; I wasn't too sure it was going to be good when I started reading it (and am still not sure!), but it's definitely raised a lot of questions that I'll be glad to get opinions on.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2009)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays (21 September)

Today's Musing Mondays question is: "Do you listen to music while reading? Does this change if you’re reading in or out of your house? Do you have a preference of music for such occasions?"

If I've already got my computer on when I start reading, I'll usually throw on a little background music for reading. But if it's off, I don't bother turning it on. And the music I pick is usually my "faves" list on iTunes, unless I've just gotten a new CD or something. When I've gotten somewhere early and am sitting in my car reading, I'll usually just throw on NPR for background "music" since I can tell time that way, too!

Links of the Week

I'm sure you've seen this already, but just in case: Book titles as if they were written today. (via kottke.org, where you can find more!)

Also, romance novels retitled based on their covers. (via tor.com)

How Agatha Christie wrote her books.

Totally fake Neil Gaiman facts. Is Gaiman the next Chuck Norris? (via tor.com)

Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and help set a record! (via LISNews)

BBAW — Setting Goals

Today's BBAW topic is short and sweet... "Write in 50 words or less…what do you like best about your blog right now and where would you like your blog to be a year from now?"

I love that I've settled into a good posting routine (usually once per weekday) and am participating in memes like Booking Through Thursday and Musing Mondays and this very event! I think that in a year I'd like to be better about commenting on others' blogs and writing more non-review posts on mine.

Booking Through Thursday (17 September)

Today's Booking Through Thursday asks, "What’s the most enjoyable, most fun, most just-darn-entertaining book you’ve read recently? (Mind you, this doesn’t necessarily mean funny, since we covered that already. Just … GOOD.)"

I'm going to go straight to the book I reviewed yesterday and say The Maze of Bones, the first in the 39 Clues series. It was a little ridiculous, but I finished it fast and I was entertained AND I learned things about Benjamin Franklin, like that he liked to electrocute (okay, more like "give a little shock to") his friends for funsies. I'm not sure I would have liked to be friends with Ben Franklin.

BBAW — The Almost Undiscovered Book

Today's BBAW topic is really interesting to me; it made me think a lot about how I find my books! Here it is:

Today we encourage you to blog about a book you read only because you discovered it on another book blog. Preferably, this will be a book you loved! You might also write a bit about the blog you discovered it on!

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have read The Hunger Games except that I read about it on, oh, every book blog I read! I haven't seen it on display at my library, I haven't heard about it on NPR, and the people I've heard about it from have all gushed about the love story, which I thought I would (and did) dislike.

But the blogs all told me about the better parts — the contest itself, the really interesting dystopian vision of the future — and I was definitely interested.

Similarly, the blogs have told me that Catching Fire is way more about the love triangle, so I know I won't be reading that.

I think that most of the books on my "to rescue from the library" list have been recommended by book bloggers, but then also recommended by friends and family and NPR and the like. I think participating in the book blogging community has just made me more on the lookout for book recommendations from everywhere! How about you?

The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan (15 September — 16 September)

Well. I picked this book up from the library yesterday because I'm thinking about buying it for my brother for Christmas and I haven't heard too much about it. And then last night I started reading the first pages, thinking if they were okay I'd get it. And then I read three quarters of it and finished it this morning. So... it's good.

Amy and Dan Cahill, aged 14 and 11, attend their grandmother's funeral, sad that she is gone and intimidated by the several hundred people who are also there, most of them family. They aren't exactly expecting an inheritance, what with all those other family members, but they certainly get one! They are invited to take on a quest comprised of 39 clues, a quest that will allegedly change the fate of the world as we know it. And one that might also kill them, because the other people who take on this quest are ruthless. But they take it, because it would make their grandmother (and their dead parents) proud of them, and they end up hunting down information about Ben Franklin and jumping on a plane to France. And then, in the end [spoiler alert?], they find a second clue!

This, like yesterday's book, is meant for younger kids, so the plot is pretty much implausible and the pacing is quick. The clues — because the first clue only leads to more clues to find the second clue, like, come on, puzzle makers! — are all National Treasure-style hidden messages and such (and they're about Ben Franklin!), and of course Amy and Dan are the ones figuring them out first or best and being chased around by the other, allegedly older and wiser teams. But whatever. It's fun! I don't think I'll read the next book, but I think my little brother will.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

See also:
Blogging for a Good Book

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

BBAW — Reading Meme

Today's BBAW topic is a meme! You know I love those. I'm meant to be brief in my responses, but if you want to hear more about anything, just leave a comment.

Do you snack while you read? If so, favorite reading snack? I'm usually too focused on what I'm reading to do anything else!
Do you tend to mark your books as you read, or does the idea of
writing in books horrify you? I'll mark in books for classes, but not for pleasure reading.
How do you keep your place while reading a book? Bookmark? Dog-ears? Laying the book flat open? I'll grab anything handy (bookmark, receipt, credit card) to mark my place.
Fiction, Non-fiction, or both? Fiction. I have a terrible time focusing on non-fiction.
Hard copy or audiobooks? Hard copy. Audiobooks are also a focus problem.
Are you a person who tends to read to the end of chapters, or are you
able to put a book down at any point? If I can, I'll read to the end of a chapter and then stop, otherwise I'll just stop where I am and probably start up a few sentences back when I return.
If you come across an unfamiliar word, do you stop to look it up right away? If it's giving me trouble understanding the book, yes. Otherwise I juts hope I'll remember it for later.
What are you currently reading? Everything in my GoodReads widget to the left there.
What is the last book you bought? Questions and Answers: Knowledge and The Search for Vile Things, both for my brother's birthday in a couple months.
Are you the type of person that only reads one book at a time or can
you read more than one at a time? I'll only read one of a type of book at a time, but I can read a non-fiction book and a fiction book at the same time and be okay.
Do you have a favorite time of day and/or place to read? I take reading time whenever I can get it, but I usually read on our fun room couch or the recliner in our living room.
Do you prefer series books or stand alone books? Series.
Is there a specific book or author that you find yourself recommending over and over? The Phantom Tollbooth
How do you organize your books? (By genre, title, author’s last name, etc.?) I have a few bookshelves, so my books are sorted on to them by status: read and loved (next to my desk), read and not loved, and unread. Within those categories it's a mess.

BBAW — Interview Swap

Today for Book Blogger Appreciation Week we are swapping interviews with other bloggers. My interviewer/ee was Kerri from BookEnds. We had a fine time asking each other questions, both practical and silly, about books and blogging and how awesome we both are. :) Here are Kerri's answers to my questions; my answers to hers are up at her site!

1. I recognize only a few of the books you have read this year. What genres do you read most often, and what draws you to them?
I find I read a real mixture of genres. Before I started blogging, I bought almost all of my books at Costco and my selections were always based on an eye catching cover and a good blurb on the back rather than a particular genre. If I found an author I liked, I would continue to buy his / her books. My genres have expanded with some of the challenges I've signed up for. I just completed the Non-Fiction Five Challenge, and that was about five more non-fiction books than I read last year.

2. I notice that there are some reading group posts on your site along with your reviews and memes and the like. How does that group fit in with your site?
I used to belong to a really great book club during University, but once we graduated we found it hard to find a good time to all meet so we dissolved. I was looking for a way to still have meaningful discussions on books, so a few times I've tried a reading group blog. We pick the book at the start of the month and post questions at the end of the month. Participants would reply to the questions in the comments section. We had some great discussion on a few books but it lacks the charm and face to face of a real book club.

3. You participate in blog tours and receive ARCs. Is this something you wanted to do when you started your blog? How did you get started?
I originally started a blog called 'random' because I wanted to work on my writing but I found after a few witty posts on pop culture I was running out of ideas and forcing posts. I started adding a few book reviews for fun and the blog turned into BookEnds very quickly. As I started following other book blogs, I found out about ARCs. I've reviewed a few great books and a few forgettable books. I only accept one ARC a month. I've had two really great authors contact me directly and that is the most exciting to me. My interview with author Nadine Dajani about her book Cutting Loose is one of my favorites posts.

4. I notice that most of your current challenges are of the random variety (A-Z, Take a Chance, Colorful Reading). How do these affect your reading -- do you seek out new books or find unread books on your shelf to fit the challenge? Also, do you end up liking the books you pick?
My TBR pile is a bit large right now, so I always make an effort to find my challenge books there first - but you're right - the random variety of the challenges has meant I've had to seek out some new books. Since I love to browse bookstores, I've put in a lot of effort to find books that fit the challenge requirements as well as seeming to be a book I would enjoy reading. This has not always worked out as planned, but for the most part I've liked the books I've picked. I've also read some authors and books that I LOVED that I never would have read had it not been for a challenge. My latest review of Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden is a great example.

5. You don't use tags on your blog. Why not?
Well that is a good question that I don't really have a good answer for. I suppose that brings more people to your blog? I'm going to read up on tags.

6. What is your favorite post that you have written?
I'm participating in the Take a Chance Challenge hosted by Jenners at Find Your Next Book Here. Challenge #9 asked you to write a book review in three different forms of verse: haiku, limerick and free verse. I spent a lot of time on this post as I hadn't attempted poetry since High School, but at the end of the day it was so much fun. My review was of The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.

7. Where do you get most of your books?
I still love browsing the book section at Costco. The rest of my books have been coming from giveaways or ARCs. Ocassionally I'll splurge at Chapters for a challenge book.

8. Have you always been a reader? What sort of books were you into when you were younger?
I have always been a reader, and I'm blessed with the ability to read in moving vehicles. Reading was the only way I could survive 8 hour road trips to my grandma's and grandpa's with two younger sisters. I liked books by Ronald Dahl - James and the Giant Peach in particular, Judy Blume, Choose your own Adventures, and then I moved on to Nancy Drews and Sweet Valley Highs.

9. Is there a book that, if it were the only book with you on a desert island, you would refrain from reading?
A Fine Balance by Rohinton Minstry - Oprah and my book club loved it. I could not stand it, the ending made me physically angry and it was about 600 pages to get there.

10. If you were, for some reason, not allowed to read books anymore, what would you do with that time?
I would happily give up reading if I could live somewhere warm and golf all day all the time. If I have to stay in Canada without books, I would be forced to watch more bad reality television and re-runs of CSI.

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeleine L'Engle (11 September — 12 September)

A Wrinkle in Time was one of my favorite books as a kid, probably because it has a cool girl protagonist and also a super-smart five-year-old, both of which I wanted to be/have been. :) I re-read it once in undergrad and I remember liking it, but I don't remember it going by so fast! I think I was also reading lots of the A Series of Unfortunate Events books at the time, so it probably didn't feel so rushed.

Anyway! Like you don't know (and if you don't, you should fix this immediately!), this book is about a girl called Meg Murry who has the hard life of any teenager, plus a little bit: she hates school, she's constantly picked on and getting in fights, and her dad has disappeared amongst rumors that he's left his wife for another woman. Fun! Meg doesn't believe that last one, so when her super-smart little brother, Charles Wallace, introduces her to some crazy old ladies who say they can help get Mr. Murry back, she's game. But, of course, this adventure requires some space-folding and other-planet-visiting and moral-learning.

Reading it now, I can see some problems with the book: namely, everything seems to happen in the span of a day and there's no time to digest what's happening before something else happens. And the moral-learning part is more than a little heavy-handed. But I think it's perfect younger young adult reading and the images of the book (especially the sameness of everything on Camazotz) have stuck with me since childhood, so that's a point in L'Engle's favor.

Rating: 8/10
(Summer Lovin' Challenge, My Year of Reading Dangerously)

See also:
Library Queue
Rhinoa's Ramblings

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

BBAW — Favorite Blogs

It's finally Book Blogger Appreciation Week! What fun! I'll be participating in the Daily Blogging posts, of which this is the first one, and I'll still be posting memes and reviews, so it's going to be a week chock full o' posts. Get ready!

Today's topic: Our favorite blogs that didn't make the awards shortlists.

It turns out that most of my favorite blogs did in fact make the shortlists, which either means I have very good taste or I don't read enough blogs. Both?

So what I'm going to do is spotlight some blogs that probably you've never read: my local library's staff blogs! I don't read all of them, and some aren't updated often, but I love the fact that the staff take the time to put them together, so a round of applause for them.

These I read regularly:
The Lair of the Undead Rat — This one is, actually, updated rather a lot, and I look forward to reading it. It focuses mostly on horror and mystery novels, and graphic novels of those genres, and I've added quite a few of them to my virtual TBR pile.
Death Becomes the Librarian — This one is updated not very often at all, but it's all about mysteries and it's a good time. A "recent" post that will make up for all the non-posting lists mystery novels that are also science fiction and fantasy.
The (Mis)Education of the Excitable Rat — More mysteries! This is totally a theme, isn't it?
Picks from the RAT Collective — Lists upon lists of books you should read, by theme.

These I read less regularly, so you get to have the official Heights Library description:
Non Sequiturs from the Tree of Irony — Becky Katzenmeyer reads a little of everything--both fiction and nonfiction. Special interests are religion, biography, literary fiction, gentle 'cottage fiction,' popular science and books about autism and other learning disabilities.
The Luminous Page — Carole Wallencheck reads fantasy (one of her special loves is Terry Pratchett), fiction dealing with art as well as nonfiction art books along with alternative health and spiritual biography.
Literary Journeys with the Travelin' Rat — Raidene Hebert enjoys literary fiction, travel, the more gentle mysteries, culinary mysteries and fiction with exotic settings. She also reads general nonfiction, culinary and travel memoirs and enjoys books having a strong sense of place.

In case you're wondering about the "rat" theme, the Heights Library system calls these guys their Reader's Advisory Team Services. It's not 'cause they're smelly, I promise. :)

Musing Mondays (14 September)

Today's Musing Mondays: "Do you find yourself forming trends in your reading? Is this a conscience act, influenced by either your own interests or current publishing fads?"

Back in July I read a bunch of thrillers because BookPage had done a write-up of some in one of their issues and the ones I requested all came in to the library at the same time, it seemed. But then I had to send some back unread because I read too many thrillers all at once.

And I've been re-reading books lately, because of a challenge. And sometimes I get caught up in series and just have to read the next one even though I totally meant to read something else.

And "current publishing fads" usually make me vomit a little (metaphorically, I promise) and then I totally don't read about vampires or zombies or whatever the "cool" thing is that season.

But I did fall for those wizard shenanigans pretty hard, so I guess I can't say it never happens!

We Have Always Lived in the Castle, by Shirley Jackson (8 September — 10 September)

What a delightfully creepy book! The book is narrated by our protagonist, Mary Katherine Blackwood, who opens the book with the statement that everyone in her family but herself and her sister Constance is dead. That's no fun. Mary Katherine also remarks on some library books sitting on a shelf: "I wondered whether I would have chosen differently if I had known that these were the last books, the ones which would stand forever on our kitchen shelf." What?? What has happened? Mary Katherine will tell you.

The story jumps back five months to explain just how those ended up being the last books, and also why the Blackwoods are nearly all dead, and there's some good story in between those two stories and it's all just wonderful. I don't want to say anything else lest I spoil this short, entertaining book!

Suffice it to say that even when I had the story figured out, or thought I did, Jackson managed to keep me on my toes, and everything in the story just has this strange, creepy vibe to it that makes you wonder just what is really going on in this house. I'm going to have to find some more Shirley Jackson stories, stat!

Rating: 9/10
(RIP Challenge)

See also:
BooksPlease
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?
things mean a lot
books i done read
A Striped Armchair

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Quick notes

One: LeVar Burton was on Talk of the Nation yesterday reminiscing with callers about the death of Reading Rainbow. I was kind of disappointed that they didn't really address the reasons for the show's cancellation, but I was glad that people called in in support of the show. And really, he was only on for fifteen minutes so I'm just happy to have heard his pleasant voice.

Two: I generally tell people that if they really want me to read a book, they should put a copy in my hands because then I'll feel more obligated to read it and return it. But maybe I should stop that, because I came home from my friends' house last night with six books to add to that pretty sidebar over on the left. We'll see how long it takes to get their books back to them!

Three: Online course are difficult and annoying because I'd really rather be reading right now than watching four hours (I hope that's an exaggeration) of taped lectures about how to buy a computer.

The Countdown Challenge 2010

Whoo! Time to take the old Countdown Challenge off the sidebar and add in my new friend, Countdown Challenge 2010! Oh, what a good day. The rules:

1. The goal of this challenge is to read the number of books first published in a given year that corresponds to the last digit of each year in the 2000s — 10 books from 2010, 9 books from 2009, 8 books from 2008, etc. The total number of books required, therefore, is 55.
2. This challenge lasts from 9/9/09 through 10/10/10.
3. Crossovers with other challenges are allowed and your lists may change at any time.
4. Sign up using Mr. Linky.
5. Have fun reading!

Woohoo! I'm not even going to pretend to know what I'm going to read, but here's the chart for the 55 books I'll have read by thirteen months from now.

My list (55/55)

2010 (10/10)
1. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, by Alan Bradley (Review)
2. This World We Live In, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Review)
3. Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga (Review)
4. Lord Sunday, by Garth Nix (Review)
5. The Summer Before, by Ann M. Martin (Review)
6. Faithful Place, by Tana French (Review)
7. Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk (Review)
8. The Invisible Gorilla, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (Review)
9. Foiled, by Jane Yolen (Review)
10. The House of Tomorrow, by Peter Bognanni (Review)

2009 (9/9)
1. The Enthusiast, by Charlie Haas (Review)
2. The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa (Review)
3. Liar, by Justine Larbalestier (Review)
4. Her Fearful Symmetry, by Audrey Niffenegger (Review)
5. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, by Alan Bradley (Review)
6. Mischief Maker's Manual, by Sir John Hargrave (Review)
7. Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld (Review)
8. Top Producer, by Norb Vonnegut (Review)
9. Invisible I, by Stella Lennon (Review)

2008 (8/8)
1. The 39 Clues: The Maze of Bones, by Rick Riordan (Review)
2. The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart (Review)
3. The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Review)
4. Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look (Review)
5. Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher (Review)
6. Let it Snow, by John Green, Maureen Johnson, and Lauren Myracle (Review)
7. The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness (Review)
8. Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan (Review)

2007 (7/7)
1. The Yiddish Policemen's Union, by Michael Chabon (Review)
2. Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley (Review)
3. The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (Review)
4. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher (Review)
5. In the Woods, by Tana French (Review)
6. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss (Review)
7. Biting the Wax Tadpole, by Elizabeth Little (Review)

2006 (6/6)
1. The Madonnas of Leningrad, by Debra Dean (Review)
2. Schrödinger's Ball, by Adam Felber (Review)
3. Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Review)
4. The Pox Party, by M.T. Anderson (Review)
5. American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang (Review)
6. The Physics of the Buffyverse, by Jennifer Ouellette (Review)

2005 (5/5)
1. The Case of the Missing Books, by Ian Sansom (Review)
2. Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman (Review)
3. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, by David Lubar (Review)
4. The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan (Review)
5. Cat Breaking Free, by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (Review)

2004 (4/4)
1. A Midsummer Night's Dork, by Carol Gorman (Review)
2. Measle and the Wrathmonk, by Ian Ogilvy (Review)
3. The Bermudez Triangle, by Maureen Johnson (Review)
4. The Secret Hour, by Scott Westerfeld (Review)

2003 (3/3)
1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (Review)
2. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (Review)
3. Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane (Review)

2002 (2/2)
1. The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold (Review)
2. The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert (Review)

2001 (1/1)
1. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel (Review)

Booking Through Thursday (10 September)

Booking Through Thursday this week is, "What’s the most informative book you’ve read recently?"

I have to giggle a little bit, because the answer to this question is not what I thought it would be. I was thinking I'd go to the archives and I'd see one of those non-fiction books I read so infrequently, but actually, the most recent informative book I've read is... B is for Beer, a silly novel written in a children's style about a five-year-old who becomes intrigued by beer. The author throws a lot of facts about beer and beer-making into the story, capped off by a drunk brewery tour! I was constantly turning to Scott and saying things like, "Did you know that there are 39 billion gallons of beer sold every year?" So informative!

So... yeah! Moral of the story is, sometimes you learn more things from children's books than you do from literary criticism.

The Magicians, by Lev Grossman (5 September — 7 September)

I was really super-interested in this book, which was billed to me as "What if Harry Potter were really real, but the students all had to go work in the non-magic world when they graduated?" A depressing thought indeed! And that's a pretty okay billing, but the book is more like "What if you spent your whole childhood hoping for magic, and then you got it, and then you realized that it was pretty boring, and then you resigned yourself to real life, but then the non-boring magic you'd hoped for happened, but then it was nothing like Narnia anyway?" Two depressing thoughts indeed!

Unfortunately, though I really liked the book as I was reading it, I was left with a sense of annoyance at the end. I think it was because of the disjointed mess that is the plot as described above. There are a lot of good ideas here, but they don't all fit together as well as they maybe could. I don't want to say that Grossman didn't do his best, because I honestly don't know how he could have told this particular story differently, but I think maybe he should have told a different one.

The beginning is excellent. Our hero Quentin gets to a Princeton interview to find the interviewer dead, but the paramedic on the scene has envelopes for him and his friend James. Only Quentin takes his, and, after opening it, he finds himself on the grounds of what he thinks is Fillory, Grossman's version of Narnia and the setting for Quentin's most favorite books ever. It's not, though, it's actually a school called Brakebills and Quentin is there for the entrance exam. After a really long exam and some argument among the professors, Quentin is admitted. He spends the next four years learning magic, making friends, and doing some stupid things that don't turn out nearly as well as he hopes.

But then Quentin and pals graduate, and are learning to deal with the real world, which I think is an entirely interesting premise to begin with, but Grossman throws in a free trip to Fillory and suddenly the book is a quest novel. And then it gets weird, and I don't want to say anything to spoil it because it gets interesting, but it's also disappointing in the end and I just don't know. And there are a whole bunch of guns in the first act that totally fail to go off in the third even though they could have been very very very interesting plot points, and that frustrates me immensely.

As I'm typing this I'm realizing that I liked the book even less than I thought I did! This is terrible. It's not that I hated it; I was riveted to the pages every chance I could get because I really liked the characters and the setting and the writing. But if I could, I'd go back in time and tell myself to skip it.

Rating: 5/10

See also:
Blogging for a Good Book

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Back to School Challenge

I was never a big fan of required reading in school (nor are some teachers, it seems), but I did read some excellent books that way, like The Giver and To Kill a Mockingbird and Invisible Man and okay, maybe I did like required reading. But not Return of the Native. I hated that book.

Anyway. All this is to say that now I'm older and wiser and like common reading, and also that now there is a whole challenge devoted to it! You know I'm a sucker for challenges.



The "Back to School" Challenge asks of its participants the following:

1. Choose! Any four reading-list books [ones you never got around to reading or ones you want to re-read].
2. Sign up! Sign the Mr. Linky, grab a button, and write a post detailing the books you have chosen for this challenge. If you don't have a blog, leave a comment here!
3. Read! Between September 1, 2009, and December 31, 2009 [only one book a month!].
4. Post! Your comments/reviews on your blog or in the comment section of this post.
5. Check back! Read other blogs and discover what others have to say.

Right, so, totally easy!

Because I could, I found my high school's current summer reading list on the internets and I'm going to read from there. The books on this list that I haven't read are...

1. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, by David Lubar (9th grade)
2. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck (9th grade)
3. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (11th grade)
4. On Writing, by Stephen King (11th grade AP)
5. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (12th grade)
6. Atonement, by Ian McEwan (12th grade honors)
7. The Face of Battle, by John Keegan (12th grade honors)
8. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (12th grade AP)

That looks like a good list to me!

Books read:
1. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon (Review)
2. Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, by David Lubar (Review)
3. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (Review)
4. Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe (Review)

Sherlock Holmes Was Wrong, by Pierre Bayard (4 September — 5 September)

I don't remember where I heard about this book, but it was promised to be a re-examination of The Hound of the Baskervilles that gave proof of a different killer. And... it was, sort of. I guess.

Bayard spends about a quarter of the book summarizing the novel, and then some pages establishing his process of "detective criticism", e.g. not just finding fault with the book but then figuring out what really happened. Then he spends another quarter of the book talking about the relationship between Sherlock Holmes and Arthur Conan Doyle (in a word: antagonistic), which doesn't really have much bearing on the question posed by this book.

And even when Bayard is actually working with the question of what really happened in The Hound of the Baskervilles, he spends more time saying "We must disbelieve this!" and "The only thing we can do here is question that!" which might be true on a can basis but certainly not a must.

What I found really odd and frustrating about this book was that Bayard's concept that Holmes is wrong and his eventual declaration of a different murderer are really quite reasonable and believable ideas, but so many of his facts are mistaken or just plain wrong that you wonder how he managed to get a decent thesis in the first place! This might be because of the fact that Bayard is French and read a translation of Doyle and then wrote this book and then someone else translated it into English, and in fact there are a couple of translation things noted in the footnotes. But I don't know.

There's also a quote at the beginning from my beloved Jasper Fforde, whose concept (well, it's probably not his, but it's the one he uses in his books) of fictional characters doing whatever the heck they want while not on the page is referenced often by Bayard as the reason there's a different murderer. Which just doesn't make sense, because Bayard offers evidence from the novel that I think very well proves his alternate murderer theory, and he certainly doesn't need to think that Thursday Next (or some other character) popped in to the novel to cause Doyle's murderer to be accused. Does that make sense? Probably not. I don't know what to make of all this.

Rating: 5/10
(The Baker Street Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Musing Mondays (7 September)

Today's Musing Monday is... "What is your preferred method of listening to audio books? Where and when do you listen to them?"

I don't read many audiobooks, because I'm pretty bad about zoning out when reading and I need the safety net of being able to go back a few sentences or paragraphs to where I stopped paying attention.

But Scott likes having audiobooks to listen to while he's playing video games and whatnot, so I've been trying to get more interested in them. We had success a few weeks ago with The Bad Beginning, probably because it's short and not very complicated and also I'd already read it. Oh, and it's narrated by Tim Curry and I could listen to him read the phone book. I've checked out The Reptile Room, and perhaps soon we will listen to that together as well.

Links of the Week

Links links links! If you've any fun ones to share, put 'em in the comments!

An interactive map of book challenges over the past couple years. (via The Book Bench)

Don't forget to take your bookmarks out of those books you're getting rid of... they might end up on the internet. (via Just One More Page...)

I'm not gonna lie, my favorite part of this video is the fact that Jeffrey Tambor is not a terrible-looking woman. (via The Book Lady's Blog)

The Hound of the Baskervilles, by Arthur Conan Doyle (2 September — 3 September)

I'm finally getting a start on that Baker Street Challenge I've been neglecting! Yay! (And it's a mystery and kind of creepy, really, so I'm gonna throw it in with RIP as well.)

This is one of those books that I've never read but that I feel like I've read because I saw a version of it on television, though it was many many years ago and it was the Rescue Rangers "Pound of the Baskervilles" and I don't remember it very well but I don't think it was much the same. :) It might have been, though.

In the novel, a Dr. Mortimer seeks Sherlock Holmes's help in a supernatural mystery; Mortimer's patient and friend Sir Charles Baskerville has died in mysterious circumstances that fit in with the family legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles. This Charles was declared dead of a heart attack, but Mortimer believes that a large hound was involved, judging by some footprints a ways away that the police didn't care about. If that wasn't bad enough, the last remaining Baskerville, a Sir Henry, is on his way to take over the estate and Mortimer fears for Henry's life.

Holmes, as ever, does some deducting and sends Watson out to the moor with Sir Henry to watch over him and report back. While there, Watson encounters some rather odd things that make him wonder if there isn't a spectral hound out to get the Baskervilles!

So, now I have read this book, and it was good! And, I will admit, the atmosphere and the case were just creepy enough that I was a little jumpy toward the end of the book and in fact was briefly scared by Scott holding a Wiimote over my head. And then I was just confused. :)

Rating: 7/10
(Baker Street Challenge, RIP Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Booking Through Thursday (3 September)

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is... "What’s the biggest book you’ve read recently? (Feel free to think “big” as size, or as popularity, or in any other way you care to interpret.)"

Let me check my recent posts... hmm... I think I have to go with The Time Traveler's Wife, which I re-read in August. It is pretty long (over 500 pages in my trade paperback) and when I read it it was rather popular, what with the movie coming out and everything.

I could (and will!) also list Princeps' Fury, which is not a chunkster like some of its brethren but is part of one of those epic fantasy series (though not as epic as some).

Speaking of sweeping epic fantasy series, Scott is trying to get me to continue on with the Wheel of Time series, of which I have read the first book, more than a year ago. I would maybe be interested, but I feel like those are the sort of books you have to read at least rather close to each other or else lose the thread of the story. What do you think? If I'm not planning on reading more than, say, one every two months, is it worth getting into?

Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (1 September)

Wow. Just... wow. This book was excellent. Amazing. Wonderful, even. So good that when I described it to Scott, he told me to let him read it next, and this guy usually has to be begged and pleaded to read a book I like. So, yeah.

The novel is presented as a series of journal entries from our protagonist, Miranda, and starts off like the journal of a normal teenager — her dad is having a kid with his new young wife, there are tests that must be studied for, she's growing apart from her friends, her teachers are giving all sorts of extra homework because of some asteroid that's going to hit the moon. You know. The asteroid thing is supposed to be pretty cool to watch, so there are lots of block parties and things like that, but when the event actually happens, there is panic. See, those astronomer fellows who said that everything was going to be okay misjudged the mass of the asteroid and it ended up pushing the moon rather closer to the Earth. Uh-oh. (I don't know if this could really happen, but that's what speculative fiction is for, yes?)

At first, nothing seems much different except that the moon is huge in the sky. But soon reports are coming in about stronger tides taking out coastal areas everywhere, including some offshore oil rigs. Everyone panics and buys out the supermarkets; the cost of gas goes up right quick; the electricity starts to blink out. But still Miranda has to go to school... until the school, with no electricity and no food and a decreasing student population, closes early. And then things get worse.

I loved this book and devoured it in just a few hours. Pfeffer could have gone for the "people helping people" saccharine view, or the "people murdering people" depressing view, but instead she wrote this incredibly realistic account of what you and I would probably go through if suddenly something like this happened. I was sympathetic not just to Miranda but to her mother and brothers and her father's new family and her friends who've gone weird but who are still her friends, and I cried a whole bunch when some bad things happened to these good people.

And apparently there's a sequel! Oh, goody! I love it when excellent books turn into series. It's like some excellent whipped cream on an excellent scoop of vanilla ice cream. Mmm, ice cream.

Rating: 10/10

See also:
Book Nut
Hey Lady! Whatcha Readin'?
things mean a lot

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.

Happy Belated Birthday to Me!

Oh no! I've been sitting here thinking that I started this blog sometime in September of last year, because I'm crazy and a) did not make a "look at this blog I started!" post and b) copied over the reviews from my hand-made site to fill up space and make my blog look less lonely. And somewhere along the way I got the idea that I started it in the middle of September, though now that I have the correct info I have no idea where I went wrong.

But! Anyway! Looking over at my LiveJournal, I see that actually, I made my first post here on 26 August 2008, a stunning review of The Stepford Wives. So... yeah. Happy 371 days of blogging to me!

The Little Road Trip Handbook, by Erin McHugh (27 August — 30 August)

Speaking of wanting to go on a road trip... this book is really making me long for one! Scott and I go on "road trips" all the time, driving a long way to get places, but this book is more to get you ready for a Kerouac-type trip — maybe you have a destination in mind, but there's plenty of time to stop and see anything and everything else along the way!

McHugh sets out the important things for a road trip: who and what to bring (and NOT to bring!), what music to listen to, how to assign duties for your fellow road-trippers (from Driver to Mapper to Point Man), and even what games to play when you get bored. And, of course, the obligatory "weird state laws section":

Ohio
• Getting a fish drunk is unlawful.
• A driver must honk the horn when he or she passes another car. (This is totally in the driver's ed manual, but I have never heard anyone do it, ever.)
• No one may be arrested on Sunday or the Fourth of July. (Mmhmm...)

Newark, NJ
• Selling ice cream after 6 p.m. is illegal unless the customer has a note from his doctor.

Tennessee
• Daring a child to purchase beer is against the law.

And more, of course, but those are the ones I enjoyed. :)

I definitely need to buy a copy of this book and put it in my glove box.

Rating: 8/10

See also:
Dreadlock Girl Reads

Pass me yours, if you've got 'em.