November Wrap-up

Another month of reading done... my, how time flies. I feel like I haven't read anything this month, what with all of the schoolwork and such taking over my life, but I seem to have done pretty well! Good work, self. :) I'm on vacation right now, so I think I'll leave it at that and get back to the relaxing and the reading. Lovely times.

The numbers!

Days spent reading: 24
Books read: 9
...in fiction: 8
...in memoir: 1
...in mystery: 2
...in thriller: 1
...in fantasy: 4
...in classics: 1
...in young adult: 4
...in children's: 1

Series reads: His Dark Materials, Leviathan, The Amanda Project

Favorite book: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time 10/10

Challenges
My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge: +2 books for 9/12
The Baker Street Challenge: +0 books for 2/3
Back to School Challenge: +1 books for 1/4
Critical Monkey Challenge: +0 books for 1/6
Countdown Challenge: +6 books for 20/55

Support Your Local Library Challenge 2010

One more challenge, and then I think I'm done for a while (famous last words?). But
this one is practically not a challenge, as it simply requires me to check out books from the library, which I do, like, all the time. :) I am going to super-size myself and commit to checking out 100 library books next year — I probably have already done that this year, so no prob!

The list, as it happens:
1. First Lord's Fury, by Jim Butcher (Review)
2. The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness (Review)
3. The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
4. Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde (Review)
5. The Secret Hour, by Scott Westerfeld (Review)
6. Schrödinger's Ball, by Adam Felber (Review)
7. The Hidden Staircase, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
8. The Bungalow Mystery, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
9. Cake Wrecks, by Jen Yates (Review)
10. Boomsday, by Christopher Buckley (Review)
11. The Mystery at Lilac Inn, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
12. The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan (Review)
13. How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer (Review)
14. The Secret of Shadow Ranch, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
15. Wife of the Gods, by Kwei Quartey (Review)
16. Across the Nightingale Floor, by Lian Hearn (Review)
17. The Secret of Red Gate Farm, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
18. The Clue in the Diary, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
19. The Wide Window, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
20. The Miserable Mill, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
21. Cat Breaking Free, by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (Review)
22. The Austere Academy, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
23. The Ersatz Elevator, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
24. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag, by Alan Bradley (Review)
25. This World We Live In, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Review)
26. Nancy's Mysterious Letter, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
27. Meanwhile, by Jason Shiga (Review)
28. Déjà Dead, by Kathy Reichs (Review)
29. Lord Sunday, by Garth Nix (Review)
30. The Summer Before, by Ann M. Martin (Review)
31. Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn (Review)
32. The Pox Party, by M.T. Anderson (Review)
33. American Born Chinese, by Gene Luen Yang (Review)
34. The Maze Runner, by James Dashner (Review)
35. The Sign of the Twisted Candles, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
36. Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan (Review)
37. The Monstrumologist, by Rick Yancey (Review)
38. Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Review)
39. The Compound, by S.A. Bodeen (Review)
40. The Word Snoop, by Ursula Dubosarsky (Review)
41. The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (Review)
42. Thirteen Reasons Why, by Jay Asher (Review)
43. How I Live Now, by Meg Rosoff (Review)
44. The Earth, My Butt, and Other Big Round Things, by Carolyn Mackler (Review)
45. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (Review)
46. I Am a Genius of Unspeakable Evil and I Want to Be Your Class President, by Josh Lieb (Review)
47. Death Note Vol. 1, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
48. A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson (Review)
49. Last Exit to Normal, by Michael Harmon (Review)
50. Catalyst, by Laurie Halse Anderson (Review)
51. The Death of Jayson Porter, by Jaime Adoff (Review)
52. Death Note Vol. 2, by Tsugumi Ohba
53. Janes in Love, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (Review)
54. Almost Astronauts, by Tanya Lee Stone (Review)
55. I Hadn't Meant to Tell You This, by Jacqueline Woodson (Review)
56. Hold Still, by Nina LaCour (Review)
57. Password to Larkspur Lane, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
58. Death Note Vol. 3, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
59. In the Woods, by Tana French (Review)
60. The Clue of the Broken Locket, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
61. The Likeness, by Tana French (Review)
62. Faithful Place, by Tana French (Review)
63. The Chalk Circle Man, by Fred Vargas (Review)
64. Tell-All, by Chuck Palahniuk (Review)
65. The Physics of the Buffyverse, by Jennifer Ouellette (Review)
66. The Invisible Gorilla, by Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons (Review)
67. Heck: Where the Bad Kids Go, by Dale E. Basye (Review)
68. The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan (Review)
69. Foiled, by Jane Yolen (Review)
70. Death Note Vol. 4, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
71. Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters (Review)
72. The House of Tomorrow, by Peter Bognanni (Review)
73. The Black Minutes, by Martín Solares (Review)
74. The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss (Review)
75. Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins (Review)
76. Biting the Wax Tadpole, by Elizabeth Little (Review)
77. Mildred Pierce, by James M. Cain (Review)
78. The Quickening Maze, by Adam Foulds (Review)
79. High Fidelity, by Nick Hornby (Review)
80. Death Note Vol. 5, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
81. Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles, by Kira Henehan (Review)
82. Word Freak, by Stefan Fatsis (Review)
83. The Dead-Tossed Waves, by Carrie Ryan (Review)
84. The Postman Always Rings Twice, by James M. Cain (Review)
85. Double Indemnity, by James M. Cain (Review)
86. Y: The Last Man Book 1, by Brian K. Vaughan (Review)
87. The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (Review)
88. When You Reach Me, by Rebecca Stead (Review)
89. The Unit, by Ninni Holmqvist (Review)
90. Y: The Last Man Book 2, by Brian K. Vaughan (Review)
91. The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters (Review)
92. Earth (The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race (Review)
93. Y: The Last Man Book 3, by Brian K. Vaughan (Review)
94. Y: The Last Man Book 4, by Brian K. Vaughan (Review)
95. One For the Money, by Janet Evanovich (Review)
96. Mr. Peanut, by Adam Ross (Review)
97. The Night Bookmobile, by Audrey Niffenegger (Review)
98. The Vile Village, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
99. Behemoth, by Scott Westerfeld
100. The Hostile Hospital, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
101. The Carnivorous Carnival, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
102. The Alchemist, by Paulo Coelho (Review)
103. Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O'Malley (Review)
104. Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Review)
105. The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook, by Eleanor Davis (Review)
106. How to Be Alone, by Jonathan Franzen (Review)
107. Death Note Vol. 6, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
108. The Caretaker of Lorne Field, by Dave Zeltserman (Review)

testing, please ignore!

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Nancy Drew Challenge

I don't know about you, but I was once obsessed with a certain girl sleuth. I have definitely read all of the books for this challenge already, but they are totally worth reading again (and they're short, so it shouldn't be too hard)!

The goal here is to read all 56 yellow hardcover versions of the Nancy Drew stories by the end of 2010. I'll plop them here in this post as I read them!

1. The Secret of the Old Clock (Review)
2. The Hidden Staircase (Review)
3. The Bungalow Mystery (Review)
4. The Mystery at Lilac Inn (Review)
5. The Secret of Shadow Ranch (Review)
6. The Secret of Red Gate Farm (Review)
7. The Clue in the Diary (Review)
8. Nancy's Mysterious Letter (Review)
9. The Sign of the Twisted Candles (Review)
10. Password to Larkspur Lane (Review)
11. The Clue of the Broken Locket (Review)

The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger (21 November)

So... I never read this in school. Ever. Which is apparently some kind of sacrilege on the part of my school district, because it seems like everyone else has read this! Alas. And I think my teachers' oversight has led to me not liking this book as much as the aforementioned "everyone else" seems to. I don't know.

I think that an appropriate subtitle for this novel would be "Three Days in the Life of Holden Caulfield," because (unless I miscounted the number of days, which is possible), that's what this book is. Holden gets kicked out of school, decides not to wait until the semester break to come home and skips out early, stays in a hotel in his hometown of New York City to avoid his parents until the official expulsion letter comes, decides to run off to the West Coast, and then doesn't.

I hope that didn't spoil it for you, but it shouldn't since the story is in the details. Example: Holden spends a lot of time at the beginning of the story describing just how ordinary (and lame) his school and his schoolmates are, including a very squick-inducing description of a boy with oozing acne lying down on Holden's pillow. -twitch- That's gross, dudes.

This book really reminded me of a compacted On the Road, with the general dissatisfaction with life and the grand plans that don't really come to fruition. It didn't quite resonate with me so much, though, which might be a function of being eight years older and wiser than Holden and thus having survived the crap that is high school. I don't know. Opinions?

Rating: 7/10
(Reading Dangerously Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Musing Mondays (23 November)

Today's Musing Mondays: What books did you read while in school? Were there any that you particular liked, or even hated? Did any become lifelong favourites?

This sort of goes off of yesterday's Flashback Challenge post... how convenient! I've read a lot of books for school, probably the same number that I've "read" for school, but I really only remember the ones I loved and the ones I absolutely hated. You know how that goes.

Of the ones I enjoyed, I'd have to put To Kill a Mockingbird, The Outsiders, The Giver, and Bridge to Terabithia at the top of my list. The first one I read in ninth grade, the second and third in eighth, and the last in, like, third. Not sure about that one. They are all wonderful in different ways, but I would recommend them to anyone.

On my hated list, which includes books that I've "read" (due to the aforementioned hate), I would put up Return of the Native as a strong first, then A Tale of Two Cities and The Power of Myth, all read or "read" at some point during high school. The last one's not even a proper book, for crying out loud!

Flashback Challenge

So, as we might recall from the Summer Lovin' Challenge, I am not much of a book re-reader.
Even when I love a book so much that I purchase it, it tends to take me a while (if ever) to get around to reading it again. This is a sad thing.

And now that I'm on GoodReads, I find myself marking down books I've read long ago but that I could not for the life of me tell you what they're about. Even the ones that I remember enjoying as a kid! No idea! Crazy! !!!

So I'm going to enter this challenge on the "Literati" level, which is the level in which I read more than six books... I'm going to try to read one per month, but I think "more than six" is a good goal. :)

A list of books that I should probably re-read:
The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett
Anne of Green Gables, by L.M. Montgomery
Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh
To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee
Life of Pi, by Yann Martel
Matilda, by Roald Dahl
Bridge to Terabithia, by Katherine Paterson
The Outsiders, by S.E. Hinton
...um, that's not 12, but I'm sure I'll think of more as I go. :)

The re-reads:
1. The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
2. The Wide Window, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
3. Life of Pi, by Yann Martel (Review)
4. The Giver, by Lois Lowry (Review)
5. In the Woods, by Tana French (Review)
6. Matilda, by Roald Dahl (Review)
7. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh (Review)

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon (19 November)

Okay, people, why weren't all of you telling me to read this book before?? I remember seeing this all over the place a while back (probably, say, six years ago, based on the publication date!), but apparently I never even stopped to read the jacket flap, because if I had I would totally have read this book already!

Said flap (or, at least, the back cover of the paperback): "Christopher John Francis Boone knows all the countries of the world and their capitals and every prime number up to 7,057. He relates well to animals but has no understanding of human emotions. He cannot stand to be touched. And he detests the color yellow.

This improbable story of Christopher's quest to investigate the suspicious death of a neighborhood dog makes for one of the most captivating, unusual, and widely heralded novels in recent years."

You know I'm a sucker for a prime number.

But I shouldn't make too much of the flap copy, because the book isn't really about the fact that Christopher knows a lot of things. Or really about the dog. But the dog is important.

The book opens with Christopher finding the dog, his neighbor's poodle, in his neighbor's front yard. The dog is not just dead, it's murdered, as it has a garden fork sticking straight through it into the ground. When the neighbor comes out of her house and finds Christopher cradling her dead dog, she calls the cops, and a misunderstanding between the cop (trying to pry the boy away) and Christopher (an autistic boy who doesn't like to be touched) leads to the latter spending a little time in a jail cell. Christopher decides that he is going to be a detective like his favorite, Sherlock Holmes, and solve the mystery of the dead poodle, even though his dad doesn't like him poking into other people's business (a phrase that Christopher doesn't even understand), but soon enough more mysteries turn up and Christopher is left to sort them all out.

I really loved Christopher; he is a fairly high-functioning autistic who is prone to some violent outbursts, which is bad, but who has some really insightful takes on humans and their silly emotions, like so: "All the other children at my school are stupid. Except I'm not meant to call them stupid, even though that is what they are. I'm meant to say that they have learning difficulties or that they have special needs. But this is stupid because everyone has learning difficulties because learning to speak French or understanding relativity is difficult and also everyone has special needs, like Father, who has to carry around a little packet of artificial sweetening tablets around with him to put in his coffee to stop him from getting fat, or Mrs. Peters, who wears a beige-colored hearing aid, or Siobahn, who has glasses so thick that they give you a headache if you borrow them, and none of these people are Special Needs, even if they hae special needs."

He may like his run-on sentences, but they are so good I will forgive them! There are also footnotes. And diagrams. And an appendix. It is a good time.

The story is really about how Christopher can reconcile the truths he knows with the lies that everyone else tells. Christopher doesn't lie — well, he has perfected the fine art of omission, but he doesn't outright lie — and even metaphors and novels leave him incredibly confused. So when certain truths pop up that contradict truths he thought he knew, well, that's no good. Time to count to fifty or groan or hit something.

I thought the autism aspect was really interesting; Haddon has apparently worked with autistic kids, so I'm going to assume that he's got a bit of an "in" to the autistic mind. And Christopher's thoughts aren't really different from the ones I might have, except that they aren't as fine-tuned to other people's emotions or to the dance of politeness that we tend to play. I could totally empathize with his confusion about what was going on in his world, and at the same time I could totally empathize with his father and the other people in his life who simply could not understand why he couldn't understand.

Such a great book. I'm glad I finally got around to reading it!

Rating: 10/10
(Back to School Challenge, Countdown Challenge: 2003)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Top Producer, by Norb Vonnegut (16 November — 17 November)

Mary: Don't read this. I don't care what Google Reader tells you to do!

So. I, um, I really didn't like this book. To reference my least favorite book ever one more time, because it's just really useful for comparisons: Castle I kept reading because even though the writing hurt my brain, the plot line seemed to be going somewhere. Of course, then the plot line went somewhere worse than I could ever have imagined and then I was rather upset that I'd bothered to read on.

Top Producer, on the other hand... the writing hurt my brain (examples to follow), and the "plot line" was tenuous at best, but I soldiered on because it was a book club book and I was not going to let it defeat me. Then the solution to the mystery was actually pretty okay, and I was not terribly upset about having read the book, and then the end bit was crap and now I'm just feeling incredibly ambivalent about the whole thing.

Right. Story. Grove O'Rourke is a "top producer" (shocking), which I promise you you will never forget because I'm pretty sure those words are placed together at least twice on every page. Ahem. Sorry. A top producer, apparently, works at a... brokerage firm? I'm not clear on that part... and helps people manage their money possibly by trading stocks but also possibly by putting it into funds, but also possibly by swearing at people a lot. Or something. Anyway. Grove's friend Charlie Kelemen throws this big birthday bash for his wife at the New England Aquarium at the beginning of the novel, and pretty soon a bunch of men are wearing burqas and Kelemen is swimming with the sharks. And then eaten by them. Mmmm, finance guru is delicious in the evening.

Grove is understandably upset, as his wife and child were killed in a car accident 18 months earlier. I would call this a spoiler, but as soon as he started being vague about that thing that happened 18 months ago (which continues for many pages before resolving, and then for many pages after that) I knew that his wife had died. Right. So when Charlie's wife Sam phones up saying that she's somehow got just $600 to her name (as opposed to the $53,000 she claims that her husband could spend in a month), Grove naturally dives in to help, both because Sam is a friend and because he has apparently decided that he's a detective. I don't know.

And, of course, as these money things go, not everything is as it seems and suddenly — wait, no, wrong book — very slowly Grove finds out that maybe Charlie isn't the person everyone thought he was. Goody.

I think that the biggest problem with this book, the biggest, is that the finance and lingo in it is really really really dumbed down, to the point where Vonnegut feels the need to explain that "sitch" means "situation" or that holding your hands six inches apart and palms in is a nonverbal indication of size or even (and often) that top producers make so much money because their jobs are stressful and difficult.

Oh, and Vonnegut throws in gems like this, which make me hope beyond hope that he wrote this as a satire: "Brevity was a time-honored tradition on Wall Street. A one-name greeting spoke volumes. It said in effect, I'm really fucking busy. So quit screwing around and get to the point. Time is money, and I'm not here for my health or your small talk. Now, what do you have?" -twitch-

Things I liked about this novel: the end was okay. Vonnegut doesn't really do that red herring thing where everyone is a suspect and then they aren't; he just sort of builds up to the reveal and then the reveal is more than you expect, and I appreciated that. But then he does that thing I hate where he does the "Now, slightly into the future, here's what all of my characters are doing!" rundown, and throws in a completely unneccesary and not fully realized love story that serves no purpose but to help make this book about 200 pages longer than it really should have been. Brevity, my right foot.

Mary: I told you not to read this! No complaining at me, you still have to read the book.

Rating: 2/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2009)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld (14 November — 15 November)

Um. I loved this book. A lot. I really didn't expect to. I mean, I read Westerfeld's Uglies series, and I thought it was pretty okay — entertaining, adventurous, and the like — but this is some seriously excellent stuff!

Maybe I forgot to tell myself that I love steampunk, I don't know. Leviathan starts right at the beginning of World War I, immediately after Franz and Sophie are assassinated (by poisoning, this time). The usual suspects go off to war, but it's not trench warfare on the menu today, but a machines vs. nature showdown. See, in this world, there are Clankers and Darwinists (and neutral people, of course, but they aren't as exciting). The former love their giant walking machines; the latter love their giant whale zeppelins. And when I say whale, I mean that oh, also, Darwin has figured out DNA in this world and the Darwinists evolve their zeppelins and the like by splicing together interesting bits to make battle animals and flying implements that are alive. That's pretty darn cool. Let's work on that. :)

So the background of the story is excellent, and then the two main characters, who share chapter-time, are pretty awesome themselves. We first meet Alek, the only son of Franz and Sophie, who is whisked away in the middle of the night to go hide from the people who'd rather he be dead. Of course, he's fifteen, so he's not too good at the "shut up and hide" aspect of this whisking. Our other protagonist is Deryn, a girl who is passing as a boy (called Dylan) so that she can join the Air Service and go flying. She is also fifteen and a titch full of herself, but she thinks awesome things like, "Hey, all you sods, I can fly and you can't! A natural airman, in case you haven't noticed. And in conclusion, I'd like to add that I'm a girl and you can all get stuffed!" Deryn's kind of a badass.

Oh. And the illustrations are magnificent. As are the endpapers. Keith Thompson is my new artist-crush. :)

This is the first in another trilogy, I think; I can't wait for the next one!

Rating: 9/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2009)

See also:
Blogging for a Good Book

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

Musing Mondays (16 November)

Today's Musing Mondays: With the holiday season now upon us, have you left any hint – subtle or otherwise – for books family and friends might buy you for Christmas? Do you like to receive books, or do you prefer certificates so you can choose your own?

Hmm. Well, I do like getting books, that is a fact, but for some reason people never seem to know what to get me! I've taken to giving my parents selections from my to-own list, so as to spend less on books myself, and of course there's always a person or two throwing a gift card my way.

As to preferring books or gift certificates... that is a really tough one! Let's weigh the pros and cons:

Books: 1) Are awesome. 2) Mean that the gifter has actually thought about what I would like! 3) Give me new things to read that I might not have got for myself.

Gift certificates: 1) Are also awesome. 2) Mean that I don't have to worry about returning books I've already got. 3) Don't give me that sense of obligation to read something because someone gave it to me.

Well. Blast. I think I do prefer books overall, mostly for that number 3. Generally, when I buy books for myself they are books that I've already read and loved; when I get books from other people I get to have shiny new stories! And if the book is a dud, I can trade it in for credit at Mac's Backs and then I can have shiny new stories for used-book prices! Delightful.

A to Z Challenge

Right, so, we've already established that I'm a masochist, yes? Good. Then you won't be surprised to hear that I'm going to take on the equally ridiculous A to Z Challenge, in which I will read not 1, not 2, not 26, but 52 books throughout 2010. Oh boy.

The official options are these:
Authors -- Read alphabetically by author. Commit to 26 books.
Titles -- Read alphabetically by title. Commit to 26 books.
Authors & Titles -- Commit to reading 52 books.

So... yes. I'm going to need some help from you, dear readers, to let me know what authors are out there whose last (or first, if it gets desperate) names begin with Q or what books you've heard of whose titles start with an X. Because dude, I have trouble finding those on street signs while road-tripping; I don't expect to fare better at the library. :)

And... the list of completed books! (Or, you know, there'll be some here starting in January.)

Authors (23/26):
A — The Pox Party, by M.T. Anderson (Review)
B — First Lord's Fury, by Jim Butcher (Review)
C — Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins (Review)
D — Makers, by Cory Doctorow (Review)
E — One For the Money, by Janet Evanovich (Review)
F — Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde (Review)
G — The Last American Man, by Elizabeth Gilbert (Review)
H — Across the Nightingale Floor, by Lian Hearn (Review)
I — Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (Review)
J — The Haunting of Hill House, by Shirley Jackson (Review)
K — The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
L — How We Decide, by Jonah Lehrer (Review)
M — Cat Breaking Free, by Shirley Rousseau Murphy (Review)
N — The Night Bookmobile, by Audrey Niffenegger (Review)
O — Death Note, by Tsugumi Ohba (Review)
P — This World We Live In, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Review)
Q — Wife of the Gods, by Kwei Quartey (Review)
R — The Lightning Thief, by Rick Riordan (Review)
S — The Miserable Mill, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
T —
U —
V — The Game On! Diet, by Krista Vernoff (Review)
W — The Secret Hour, by Scott Westerfeld (Review)
X —
Y — Cake Wrecks, by Jen Yates (Review)
Z — The Caretaker of Lorne Field, by Dave Zeltserman (Review)

Titles (23/26):
A — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, by Lewis Carroll (Review)
B — The Bungalow Mystery, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
C — Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl (Review)
D — Déjà Dead, by Kathy Reichs (Review)
E — The Ersatz Elevator, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
F — Faithful Place, by Tana French (Review)
G — Going Bovine, by Libba Bray (Review)
H — The Hidden Staircase, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
I — If I Stay, by Gayle Forman (Review)
J — Janes in Love, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (Review)
K — The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness (Review)
L — Life of Pi, by Yann Martel (Review)
M — The Mystery at Lilac Inn, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
N — Nancy's Mysterious Letter, by Carolyn Keene (Review)
O — Orion You Came and You Took All My Marbles, by Kira Henehan (Review)
P — The Plain Janes, by Cecil Castellucci and Jim Rugg (Review)
Q — The Quickening Maze, by Adam Foulds (Review)
R —
S — Schrödinger's Ball, by Adam Felber (Review)
T — Tender Morsels, by Margo Lanagan (Review)
U — The Unit, by Ninni Holmqvist (Review)
V — The Vile Village, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
W — The Wide Window, by Lemony Snicket (Review)
X —
Y — Y: The Last Man Book 1, by Brian K. Vaughan (Review)
Z —

The Golden Compass, by Philip Pullman (8 November — 14 November)

I have really got to stop watching movies based on books before I read the books themselves. Because really, the books are usually way better, and even so I still spend too much time comparing the book to what I remember of the movie.

Such is the case with The Golden Compass, the movie version of which I really don't remember much from. But many times in the book I felt like something was "wrong" compared to the movie, and then I had to be all, "Self. Shut up and read." So it took a while to get through.

But it was pretty good. The story is of Lyra Belacqua, an orphan in the care of Jordan College in Oxford. Of course, her Oxford is much different than ours, seeing as it's in a whole other universe altogether, where people have daemons in animal form that follow them around and act as sorts of guardians of their humans. Lyra is getting along well at Jordan College until one day her uncle shows up and peeves off a bunch of Scholars, and then next thing Lyra knows she's off to be personal assistant to someone who is kidnapping children. Fun? Lyra, of course, escapes, and then she finds out lots of truths (some from people, some from her "golden compass" that tells you the answer to anything you want to know) that she doesn't really like, and then ADVENTURES happen. There are bears, and hot-air balloons, and witches, and oh my, it's pretty darn exciting.

This is a banned book, because it paints the Church out to be pretty awful (which, in this other world, at least, it kinda is), but from all of the talk I thought it would be more anti-Church than it is... maybe it gets worse in the rest of the trilogy?

Nonetheless, I liked the world that Pullman put together (though I am so over prophecies these days, which is not his fault), and I thought that Lyra was true to a 12-year-old, which doesn't happen often in books like these. She was kind of stupid sometimes, and kind of genius sometimes, and was generally willing to believe anything she heard (which is a little of both). I liked her. :) But the story itself... eh. It was exciting and adventurous, as I've said, but I'm not itching to go out and find the next book. We'll see, I guess.

Rating: 7/10
(My Year of Reading Dangerously Challenge)

See also:
Just One More Page...
books i done read
Blogging for a Good Book
Back to Books

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

Booking Through Thursday (12 November)

Today's Booking Through Thursday is something I deal with a lot!

"Life is too short to read bad books.” I’d always heard that, but I still read books through until the end no matter how bad they were because I had this sense of obligation.

That is, until this week when I tried (really tried) to read a book that is utterly boring and unrealistic. I had to stop reading.

Do you read everything all the way through or do you feel life really is too short to read bad books?"

I don't often put aside books; if I've gotten enough pages into one I feel like I have trundle on even if it makes me a little angry. (See: Castle) Of course, since I generally try to read only books that interest me, that sort of thing doesn't happen too often (thank goodness). And I will set aside books that just completely don't interest me or novels that don't have a strong narrative; it's really when I'm looking at books that I'm reading in an otherwise reading-material-less space (at the beach, on an airplane, in the car on a roadtrip) that I find myself continuing to read books that I don't care for.

Anansi Boys, by Neil Gaiman (1 November — 7 November)

I have to admit that I wasn't actually planning to read another Neil Gaiman for a while. I mean, I liked the books of his that I'd read, but I wasn't super-excited about them... whatever, you know? But then I got roped into (not really, it was kind of exciting!) being in a podcast all about Neil Gaiman, and even though I say like ten words in it, it was fun. And before we started, Beth was going on and on about Anansi Boys and how great it is and how the audiobook is the most greatest thing ever and I was like, okay. I guess I could check it out.

And... I'm still not that excited. Again, it was a good book, like his others, and it was completely different from his other books that I've read, and it was interesting, but I'm just not that excited about having read it. I'm not sure why.¹

Anyway. In this story we find ourselves following along in the life of Fat Charlie Nancy, who, despite all attempts to remove that first word from his name, cannot get rid of the nickname that his father gave him as a kid. His dad's just got a way with words like that. But then Fat Charlie's dad dies! Oh no! Fat Charlie goes back to his childhood home in Florida (from his adulthood home in London) to pay his respects and his told by his old and possibly a bit batty neighbor that he has a brother. And that if he wants to meet up with this dude what went away so long ago that Fat Charlie can't remember, he should just talk to a spider. No big deal. Also, Fat Charlie's dad was a god. The god Anansi, in particular.

Fat Charlie, not really believing any of this, nonetheless tells a spider to go find his brother. The spider does, the brother (who conveniently calls himself Spider) shows up all demigod-like, havoc is wreaked, Fat Charlie tries to get him to go away, adventures ensue!

It was a good time, for sure, and once the adventures started happening, I was hooked. I also liked all of the references to the Caribbean god stories, though they got a bit heavy-handed in the end (like all such stories do, I suppose). I think part of my problem with the book is that there's a person in it who dies and comes back as a ghost, and after the disappointment that was Her Fearful Symmetry I was just not amused. Ah, well. I will say that if I could have a house inside my spare room, that'd be just brilliant. Can we work on that?

¹ An aside — Neil Gaiman is kind of like the Johnny Depp of novel-writing, isn't he? It's like, in general, everything he writes is pretty good and totally worth reading, just like almost everything Depp acts in (with some very notable exceptions) is pretty good and totally worth seeing. Clearly the two of them should get together. [A quick search of the internets tells me that this almost happened; maybe the universe is preventing it somehow?]

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2005)

See also:
things mean a lot
Rhinoa's Ramblings

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

Dracula, by Bram Stoker (6 May — 6 November)

Wow... I spent six months reading this book! That's gotta be a record. I mean, I'm not like Slowpants McGee over here; see, the book was written as a series of dated letters, so some crazy blogger put up the entries as though they were just posted this year. It was a pretty neat concept, and it was kind of fun to read it in "real time", as it were, but unfortunately I couldn't tell you much about how the book goes because, well, see the first sentence up there. And the fact that I read it in my Google Reader, so the shorter entries didn't stay in my brain much longer than my Dinosaur Comics, which I love and adore but could not repeat to you except in general terms. Sigh.

So. Um. I think I'm going to skip out on reviewing the book proper; but I'll say that I enjoyed reading it and you should, you know, check it out. It's a classic for a reason.

Rating: 7/10

See also:
book-a-rama

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

Musing Mondays (9 November)

Today's Musing Mondays question: "Does your house have a communal bookshelf? If not, is your bookshelf centrally located so everyone has access to it?"

We've got three communal bookshelves in our house! Granted, they're not very large or anything so it's not really all that many books, but they exist. The main bookshelf is in our "fun room", where the computers and video games are, and it holds Scott's giant fantasy novels as well as my non-fiction collection and a few books that are awesome or at least look awesome. :) Then we have two other bookshelves in the spare room that stay kind of hidden; they contain my TBR piles as well as the books I don't care much for and also the rest of Scott's books and some old textbooks.

The non-communal bookshelf hides under my desk in the form of a green box; it holds all of the library books I have checked out (at least, all the ones that fit) so that I can't lose them as easily.

Story on that: I once lost a library book for something like six months. The last thing I remembered doing with it was taking it to work (on my last day!) and back; we cleaned the house but could not find it anywhere. We checked the cars, the basement, the spare room, under every bit of furniture, nothing. I figured I must have somehow left it at work even after cleaning out my space and gave the library their money. Then, one day, Scott's sister came over to our house and wanted to "borrow" (read: take and never return) some books of Scott's that she had found in a box. Guess what was at the bottom of that box? The book! I hadn't liked it that much, so I gave it back to the library. :)

Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher (2 November — 5 November)

Well, I finished up that book I was talking about yesterday and it did not disappoint. Scott even listened to it with me and enjoyed the stories even out of context. Good times.

Wishful Drinking is Carrie Fisher's memoir about... lots of things. Growing up with Debbie Reynolds, being Princess Leia, enjoying drugs and alcohol a titch too much, having a friend die in her bed (no, really, and jeez, that sucks). The stories are a little bit all over the place and I got confused a couple of time while listening to it when I missed her reading a new chapter title. :) Oops!

Listening to the book was fun, though. The first few chapters/tracks/whatever are a little stilted, kind of like listening to a graduation speech, but soon Fisher relaxes and starts getting into her narrative and, um, she's really good at swearing so you probably don't want to pick up this book if you're sensitive to that (though I think they were all fairly appropriate uses of cussing, if there is such a thing). Her "uggghs" and pointed pauses really made her stories that much more hilarious.

Unfortunately, as a completely terrible auditory learner, I can't really remember many of the stories Fisher told, but I can promise they were all at least moderately entertaining. Oh, and the one about what she did when a fan at a show told her to go [bagpipes] herself is pretty much the weirdest story I've ever heard. Actually, I'm not sure you want to have that image stuck in your head. Maybe you can skip it.

Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

See also:
The Outlaw Culture Group
Books 'N Border Collies

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

Booking Through Thursday (5 November)

Today's Booking Through Thursday: "Which do you prefer? Biographies written about someone? Or Autobiographies written by the actual person (and/or ghost-writer)?"

I think I've mentioned before that I'm not the biggest fan of biographies or autobiographies/memoirs. Both can be really dry and boring and cause me to think, "Who cares?" So I guess the answer is that I like biographies and autobiographies that are written to entertain, that have funny or thoughtful stories, and that are written by or about people I do have an interest in.

Case in point: I'm currently listening to the audiobook of Wishful Drinking, by Carrie Fisher. I've seen Star Wars, so I have a passing interest in Ms. Fisher (who was Princess Leia, if you don't know that already) — nothing that would cause me to go out and get this book simply because she wrote it. I don't really care much about people recovering from drug addiction. But! My dear friend Mary read and loved the book, citing its hilarity, and who am I to pass up funny things? I'm nearly done and I must say that even when Fisher is talking about things that would normally make me go, "Who cares?", I'm cracking up because she is just a funny lady.

The LIS ramble

We interrupt your regularly scheduled book review post to bring you: Alison's study break! That's right, it's Finals Time: Round 1 and I am cramming into my head all of the information I didn't have time to put in there for the last five weeks. Sigh. It's actually working out pretty well; it helps that I have Dr. Llewellyn C. Puppybreath III to amuse me. I wish I were kidding. :)

Since I haven't been doing much in the last week that hasn't involved the words "library science," I figured I'd give all of you out there in Internet-land an update on my studies. I'm at the beginning of the end of my second semester of library school; one of my classes ends tomorrow, another next Tuesday, and another... in December, so I guess I don't have to worry about that one yet.

It has been an interesting semester in that two of my classes were online and I was very worried ten weeks ago that this was going to be a terrible, horrible thing, that I wouldn't meet anyone and that I'd forget to do all of my homework. I guess that last part happened once or twice, but I definitely managed to meet people! I joined up with the ALA student chapter and took on a small role as a publicity committee member, but when your friend's the president, there are really no small roles! I ended up agreeing to plan a social event for the winter and... well, we'll get to that in a second.

I went to my first library conference, one for the Academic Library Association of Ohio, last Friday, and it was, you know, a conference. Pretty lame, not leastly because my ride decided we were going to leave at 3am to get there. No, really. But I stumbled my sleep-deprived way through the conference, met some awesome people, and got some swag, so all is good. Then, on the way home, the three of us in the car decided that what would be really awesome would be to have our own student-led conference. In the spring. That we are going to plan. I know!

So I'm pretty excited, but having been to not many conferences in my life, I need your help! We want to make this conference specifically the least boring conference ever. What have been your favorite things about conferences (of any sort) that you've attended, ever? Was it a keynote speaker? Breakout session? Snack table? Was there anything you ever thought would have improved the conference you attended if only someone on the planning committee had thought of it? Please share it here!

Okay, back to studying. Thanks for letting me ramble!

Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things, by Lenore Look (26 October)

Okay, this book I am getting for my brother's birthday... in fact, I went out and bought it within a few days of reading it! It's really cute.

The book is basically a series of stories about all of the things Alvin Ho is scared of... he can't talk in class (literally, he gets so scared he can't talk); he can climb up a tree but can't climb back down; when he hears that his new piano teacher might like to eat children, he runs away screaming. But he's a good kid at heart, and just wants to make friends, so parts of the book are about Alvin trading away really awesome baseball cards to his bully to gain his friendship and bringing in his dad's FAVORITE TOY EVER to show and tell (and, of course, breaking it in the process).

There are also delightful illustrations, so you can't really go wrong there. :)

Rating: 8/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008)

See also:
Book Nut

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

Musing Mondays (2 November)

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "How much of your reading do you share with others (outside of blogging?) Do you belong to a book or library club? Do you trade books with friends? Do you tell others what you’re reading?"

Well, of course Scott gets to hear about all the things I read, because he's usually around when I finish them. :) And when I read books that I think other people will like, I make a point of mentioning it to them. I also, you know, go to library school, so I often find myself talking about books to someone or other!

I also recently started a book club with some friends — we've read two books so far and it's been pretty fun. Especially with the most recent book, The Madonnas of Leningrad, it seems that I end up liking the books more after I've talked them through!