Links of the Week

The big brouhaha today is over Amazon's newest idiotic move... pulling all books from publisher Macmillan from its direct sales (you can still buy them from third-party sellers). Interesting commentary is available from John Scalzi and Cory Doctorow. Add this to the already long list of reasons I won't be leasing e-books anytime soon.

In case you need some awesome books to read, the Williamsburg Regional Library has put together a ridiculously extensive list of best books of 2009.

From the "news articles that are totally about me" file, here's one about social reading, my favorite thing! (via LISNews)

Now, I've never seen Jersey Shore, but I know some of you guys have, so here's something to delight you: a winter reading list for the show's cast, "if they actually read." (via The Book Bench)

This Confessions of a Book Pirate article is pretty interesting, especially this line: "Just because someone downloads a file, it does not mean they would have bought the product." I certainly would not have read 131 books last year if I had had to buy all of them (thank you, library!), and nearly all of the books that I buy these days are ones that I've read first, then decided to buy, not the other way around. (via The Guardian)

The Hidden Staircase, by Carolyn Keene

Oh, I am so excited about listening to the rest of these Nancy Drew books on audiobook. They are just the perfect length and easy reading level for me to enjoy them in the car and while I work out. Sweet!

The story: Shortly after the Secret of the Old Clock case, Nancy finds herself itching for a new mystery. (Un)luckily for her, she gets two: the first in the form of a haunted house, the second in the form of a threat against her father. That second one is not so delightful. However, Carson convinces Nancy that he's a grown man and can take care of herself, so Nancy goes off with her friend Helen to Helen's family's apparently haunted house. While there, Nancy meets up with the same person who warned her about Carson being in danger, and soon after Carson is totally kidnapped! It, of course, turns out that the two mysteries are actually one big mystery, and Nancy saves the day with her attractiveness and persuasiveness.

I don't know if I noticed it more because I was listening, or if it's just more in this book, but it seemed like there were a lot more references to Nancy's attractiveness in this book. It didn't affect her mystery-solving ability, though, so I guess that's okay?

Another thing that's more in this book is the extreme helpfulness of the police, who offer up an officer to watch the haunted house among many other services they provide for Nancy. I don't think an eighteen-year-old would get away with that these days. "What's that you say? That crazy old lady's 'haunted' house might just have a thief sneaking into it from some hidden passageway? Well, in that case, let's just send out an officer to earn quadruple overtime all night!" Yeah, no, not really.

Nancy is also slightly more amazing with her persuasiveness in this book; after the police have questioned a couple of people without getting any answers, Nancy just tells them that they should do the right thing and that they won't get in too much trouble (like she can promise that?) and the people are just like, "Oh, right then. Confession time!" As though the police didn't try that? I guess that's where the "attractive teen" bit comes in, yes?

Whatever, I still want Nancy on my team when there's a mystery to solve!

Rating: 7/10
(Nancy Drew Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge, A to Z Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Booking Through Thursday — Twist Endings

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is in two parts: "1. Do YOU like books with complicated plots and unexpected endings? 2. What book with a surprise ending is your favorite? Or your least favorite?"

I have certainly been known to enjoy a convoluted plot with a delightful twist! But unfortunately, many books that strive to be "twisty" miss horribly and end up at "terribly complicated plot that doesn't make any sense, with a 'twist' ending that I a) saw coming miles away or b) don't even care about anymore or even c) won't read because I've given up on the book already."

Ahem.

Examples! The best example I have of a bad sort of this book is, of course, Castle. The plot was sufficiently convoluted to keep me interested, but then the twist ending was so twisted that it really didn't seem to have anything to do with the rest of the book.

In super awesome twist endings, I would submit for consideration Shutter Island, the whole book of which was fantastic and even though I sort of saw the ending coming, I was still surprised by the details.

What about you guys?

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl

For all the reading I've ever done, the only Roald Dahl book I've read before this one is Matilda. Isn't that weird? I've seen pretty much every related movie to Dahl's books, but I have got to get on reading them proper!

So, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the 70's movie version of which is one of my favorite Gene Wilder films. Oh, Gene Wilder. Anyway, if you've seen that movie, or the more recent one, even, you've pretty much read the book. Charlie Bucket, a poor, starving child (I guess that part's not so much in the movie versions), hits it supremely lucky and finds one of five golden tickets that permit him entrance to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, a very secretive place. Charlie goes along with four other kids, all of whom are a little less than perfect: Augustus Gloop is a chocolate (and everything else) glutton, Veruca Salt is intensely greedy, Violet Beauregarde chews gum all day long for no apparent reason, and Mike Teavee, well, watches TV. One by one the children succumb to their faults and are removed from the factory (but live, I promise!), except for Charlie, who, as the last child standing, wins! Yay winning!

I was talking the book over with my husband last night after I finished and comparing it to my beloved Gene Wilder movie. The plot is entirely the same, of course, but there are some interesting differences in the story. The biggest difference is in how Charlie wins the crazy game that Wonka's playing; in the movie he is removed from the running after not following directions in the factory, but then gives back a piece of candy and is deemed trustworthy in Wonka's eyes, or something. In the book, however, Charlie is simply the last child standing and so wins — had he, in the book, gone after the fizzy lifting drinks (he does not), Mike Teavee could have been the winner. I think I like the movie ending better as a good story to tell your kids, but Roald Dahl does make a good case in the book for throwing out your television and installing bookcases, so that's a good moral, too!

Now to read another Dahl book; what do you all suggest?

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge)

See also:
Maw Books Blog

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

Musing Mondays — Borrowed Books

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "Where do you keep any books borrowed from friends or the library? Do they live with your own collection, or do you keep them separate? Do you monitor them in anyway."

I've actually briefly mentioned this before in the communal bookshelves Musing Mondays post; my only non-communal "bookshelf" is the one that holds my library books. :)

I would never mix in borrowed books with my own books, because I want to get books back to people as much as I want them back!

Here is a delightfully terrible picture of my "shelf", which lives under my desk and is therefore difficult to photograph:


The books inside the green box are library books I've borrowed, the one on top is finished and meant to be returned, and the books you can't recognize next to the box are the ones I've borrowed from friends (or, really, had thrust upon me). I should really get on reading those...

Links of the Week

Links for you, as I try to learn how to use Microsoft Access through a set of tedious tutorials. When I am through, I will be an EXPERT. Maybe.

I love Candide, and so, apparently, does the New York Public Library — they are having a whole exhibit about it! I love that they've made some of it available online for non-City-dwellers like me. (via ResourceShelf)

This whole classic-literature-meets-ridiculousness thing is getting out of hand. Android Karenina? I can't even get through the originals... (via The Book Bench)

This whole Twilight thing is getting out of hand. A graphic novel? Oy. It is, however, a must for the completist, as it apparently contains some scenes that were never in the book, as newly written by Meyer herself. (via Omnivoracious)

The title says it all: Poe's mysterious stranger misses annual grave visit.

Schrödinger's Ball, by Adam Felber

One of those things that is both a benefit and disadvantage of volunteering in a library three hours a week is that during those three hours, I see a lot of books. And often take them all home with me. This is one of them — I was sent to scour the stacks for short books with which people could kick off the Fifty Book Challenge (if you live anywhere near the TPL you should totes sign up!) and while doing so I found this bright green book with the weird name just waiting for me to take it home! I was even nice and put it in the short books display in case someone else felt it calling, but at 3 p.m. it was mine.

And it is a freakin' weird book. It doesn't really have a straightforward plot, so I will attempt to list the various things that happen early on in the book:
• We meet the President of Montana.
• We briefly meet a kid called Johnny as he is accidentally killing himself while cleaning his gun.
• We meet Dr. Schrödinger, who is magically alive many years after his death and who is explaining his cat theory to some people.
• We meet a girl having an orgasm. (Luckily, this orgasm thing is not really important after the first few pages.)
• We meet Johnny again as he's hanging out in a bar, and find out the point of the novel: "This was several hours after he accidentally shot and killed himself. But he hadn't been found yet, so he wasn't actually dead — he was both alive and dead, and neither alive nor dead, and he was drinking a beer."

Right. So, basically, reading the whole book is like taking some sort of hallucinogenic drug laced with physics and it's really weird but also really awesome if you like physics. And if you don't like physics, here are some things you might like about the book:
• There is a cast of characters at the beginning.
• Every once in a while there is a list.
• One character is voiced entirely in diary entries about made-up history.
• About a third of the way in, the book gets stuck in an infinite loop and crashes.
• A few pages later the narrative is briefly written as a screenplay.
• Another character is voiced entirely in made-up Bible verse.
• Toward the end the narrative is written for a while as a Shakespearean play, with excellent iambic pentameter and puns and all.

The only thing that would make this book better would be footnotes. How were there not footnotes??

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2006, A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Booking Through Thursday — Unknown Authors

Today's Booking Through Thursday asks, "Who’s your favorite author that other people are NOT reading? The one you want to evangelize for, the one you would run popularity campaigns for? The author that, so far as you’re concerned, everyone should be reading–but that nobody seems to have heard of. You know, not JK Rowling, not Jane Austen, not Hemingway–everybody’s heard of them. The author that you think should be that famous and can’t understand why they’re not…"

This is a tough question, not because I don't want to proselytize for my faves but because I have no idea who everyone else isn't reading! I thought everyone wasn't reading Jasper Fforde, but the waiting list for Shades of Grey at my library, as well as the myriad interviews with the man that I read in the couple weeks before the book came out, would indicate otherwise. I thought everyone wasn't reading Jim Butcher's Codex Alera series, but comments to the copy of my post about First Lord's Fury on Facebook indicate otherwise.

The opposite is also true. I thought that everyone was reading Tana French because I first heard about her books on NPR, but mostly when I tell people about her I get blank looks!

But, since "everybody" and "no one" in this case are pretty subjective, here are some more authors you should read: Mary Doria Russell, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and Susan Beth Pfeffer.

You're welcome. :)

Musing Mondays — Reading in Public

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "When is it inappropriate to read in front of others? Is it ever appropriate?"

Well, I am pretty much always reading in front of people when I am stuck in a queue somewhere or in a waiting room or in the student lounge between classes. I'd say those are appropriate instances to whip out a book. But if someone started talking to me, I would definitely put the book down (no matter how hard it can be!) and chat with them, much in the same way I might stop typing on my computer or might tell the person I'm on the phone with that I have to go.

I think my most egregious example of reading in front of people is the time I was reading at a party. I know! But to be fair, everyone else was playing poker and I didn't know most of them, so I felt pretty validated using my alone time to finish up The Catcher in the Rye. Wouldn't you? Maybe?

The Secret Hour, by Scott Westerfeld

I've been delighted by Scott Westerfeld's writing since I picked up Uglies (though I found Leviathan more to my personal liking). He writes stuff that's fun and enjoyable and that doesn't make you think too hard, so far as I can tell. That's certainly true of this first Midnighters series book, but it took me a long time to really get going with it.

The plot goes like this: Jessica Day moves from Chicago to Bixby, Oklahoma at the beginning of the school year. Apart from being the new girl, she's also made uncomfortable by a couple of goth-y kids at school who keep looking at her like they know something about her. Which they do. We find out through one of them, Rex, that Jessica is like him and his friends — that is to say, a Midnighter who can walk around in the "hidden hour" that happens right at midnight and which for other people goes by in a blink. This is cool for Rex and company, because they don't have much fun during the day (the sun is too bright, the light isn't right, and for one of them everyone's thoughts are too loud) but Jessica doesn't have a problem with the day, just the scariness of the night when strange animals seem to come out to hunt her.

I know that this is the first of a trilogy, but really, it took so long to get to the part where Jessica knows what's going on and she's being chased and something is actually happening in the book. I almost put it down for good more than once, but it's such a quick read that I really wanted to find out what happened. And I'm glad I kept with it — the reveal on why the "darkling" animals are out to get Jessica is kind of okay, but the very very end is chilling and more than enough to make me want to pick up the next book.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2004, A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Booking Through Thursday — Flapping

Today's Booking Through Thursday question is... "Do you read the inside flaps that describe a book before or while reading it?"

If I've never heard of a book before, I'll check out the flaps to see if it looks interesting. But mostly I pick up books based on other book bloggers' reviews, and then I try not to read the flaps because I have had bad spoilage moments in the past that I would like not to repeat.

However, I'll admit to sneaking a peek at the flaps while I'm reading a book I'm not sure about; sometimes I just need some reassurance that the part I'm having issues with is not the main focus of the book. And if it is the main focus, then I have a reason to put down the book and walk away. :)

Shades of Grey, by Jasper Fforde

We all know I love Jasper Fforde, the creator of the lovely Thursday Next and Nursery Crime series. He writes novels that are ridiculous in just the right range to be delightful and crams in literary and cultural references in places that I did not know such references could exist. If you've read and liked his other novels, go read this one. You don't need any convincing. If you haven't read his other novels, a) what are you waiting for and b) you are so missing out.

Shades of Grey is the first in a new series with the same name — this one is officially subtitled The Road to High Saffron. In it we meet our hero, Eddie Russett, a "red" who is being sent out to East Carmine to conduct a chair census because he "needs humility," at least according to the badge he's required to wear.

I know, I know, you're like, "Um, a red? A chair census? Wearing a badge that says 'needs humility'?" And it's really hard to explain without just quoting the entire book, so go read it! But basically, Fforde has created a world in which people are mostly color-blind — some can see red (and are thus called Reds and get last names that are shades of red), some can see blue, some can see yellow, and some can see combinations of two, but no one can see all three, or even 100 percent of one. And of course some can see so little that they are simply called Greys. As to the chair census, well, this world is governed by about a billionty-six rules (er, Rules) that proscribe everything from the clothes one should wear while travelling to the number of chairs that should be available in a given area (1.8 per person, of course). And when certain Rules are broken, Rule-breakers get to wear a little badge that lets the world know what they've done. Wonderful!

Anyway, back to Eddie — he never gets his chair census done because as soon as he arrives in East Carmine, he starts to think weird things might be going on and to ask a lot of questions that let him know that, yes, really weird things are going on. Like, how did his new housemaid, Jane, beat him and his father from Vermillion to East Carmine when they took the train and she didn't? How did the town Swatchman (read: doctor) manage to fatally mis-diagnose himself, or did he? Are wheelbarrows made of bronze?

So, yes, it's all insane, but entertainingly so. Eddie is a great character who goes from uptight Rule-respecter (if not -follower) to slightly less uptight Rule-questioner to a man eaten by a yateveo tree, and Jane is just plain awesome with her threats of violence and cynical attitude (and has a cute retroussé nose), and I can't wait to see what Fforde has up his sleeve for the next two books.

Rating: 9/10
(A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
Shelf Monkey

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

Makers, by Cory Doctorow

As with Dracula before, I'm not really sure how much I can say about this novel, as I've spent six months reading it!

I mentioned in my post on these serialized novels that Makers was proving far easier to follow along with because its installments came out regularly, and that was certainly true. But I did rather often find myself being annoyed that another chapter was in my Google Reader, starring it, and then forgetting about it until the next one came, at which point I would star that one and forget about it, until I would work up the interest to go back and read them all at once.

That, I think, is a product of the fact that I wasn't really interested in the story. At the beginning it was good; two guys making cool stuff for shiggles and getting some nice attention for their troubles, a reporter going internet-based and making boatloads of money while fighting off a longtime rival. But then the story got really bogged down in business and lawsuits and fighting and I just sort of stopped caring until Disney showed up and then it was briefly engaging again and then it tapered off, again. I'll admit that on the whole, and especially when I was reading chapters one right after the other, the story intrigued me. I just don't think it worked for me in its serialized form. And the last few chapters are set ten years after the main story, which is a pet peeve of mine but which I won't hold against the novel proper.

The good stuff is in Doctorow's vision of the future, which is part of why I loved Little Brother; he's got his future world and how it looks and acts all figured out, and the reader gets to see that bit by bit. I will keep reading what Doctorow is writing... but maybe only in book form. :)

Rating: 7/10
(A to Z Challenge)

See also:
Blogging for a Good Book

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

Links of the Week

File this under things that delight me: the return of The Baby-Sitters Club! I absolutely loved the BSC and read all of the original series, plus all of the mysteries and super-specials, plus nearly all of the Little Sister series, PLUS the California Diaries because I loved Dawn. Oh, and I had the computer game. And probably some other BSC stuff that I can't even remember now. Love!

Here are some interesting thoughts on culling your book collection, from people who would know. My favorite bit of advice is near the beginning: "If a country, like Czechoslovakia, no longer exists, it’s unlikely that you’ll want to take the travel guide along with you when you go." (via Omnivoracious)

If you're instead looking to buy more books, check out the Book Sale Finder site, which lets you click on a state and find all of the upcoming book sales there as well as big sales in nearby states. I probably shouldn't have clicked on this link; anyone want to come to a book sale with me? (via She Is Too Fond Of Books)

This list that stereotypes readers by their favorite author isn't exhaustive — I couldn't find an author I'd consider a favorite — but it is certainly entertaining. (via kottke.org)

I'm not sure if I could bring myself to use these pencils, but I wouldn't mind becoming them.

I love the title on this post: Big Box Retailer Refers Customers To Indie Bookshop, Earth Shifts on Its Axis. (via The Book Bench)

The Secret of the Old Clock, by Carolyn Keene

Man. I don't think that getting through 56 of these books is going to be very difficult; I tore through this in less than two hours! I've requested the next one from the library in audiobook form; it'll take longer to get through but I'll be able to listen to it on my commute! Genius!

I mentioned on the Twitter that "I swear the Nancy Drew books were less hokey when I was six," which is obviously not true but it certainly seems that way! Take, for example, the first two paragraphs of this little book:

"Nancy Drew, an attractive girl of eighteen, was driving home along a country road in her new, dark-blue convertible. She had just delivered some legal papers for her father.

"'It was sweet of Dad to give me this car for my birthday,' she thought. 'And it's fun to help him in his work.'"

Oh, dear. Luckily, once I remembered that I initially read these books starting when I was six and that therefore I could not expect terribly complex writing, I was mostly able to ignore how formal/stilted/duh the narrative was.

If you've never read this (shame on you!), the story is thus: Nancy Drew, an attractive girl of eighteen, has a lawyer father who lets her help out with some work he does. One day, after delivering some legal papers for her father, she rescues a girl who has fallen off a bridge (no, really) and returns her to her guardians, who, in 1930s fashion, are delightful and hospitable and go telling all their business to random teenagers who rescue small children. Nancy learns that the family was thisclose to getting some inheritance money, but the will they thought existed never turned up and some bratty rich family is getting the entire estate instead. Nancy, ever the optimist, sets out to see if the dead guy, Crowley, really did write another will.

That's... pretty much the whole idea. Nancy finds some clues, goes looking for a clock, gets locked in a closet, finds the clock, and [spoiler alert?] saves the day. It was exciting when I was six!

I wish I could have read this book in the original 30s version; I know that the books were rewritten in the 60s much like Goosebumps and the Baby-Sitters Club books are being today and it would be interesting to see what the "real" Nancy Drew is like. But definitely this Nancy is a decent female role model — although her outfits and appearance are often mentioned for no apparent reason except to tell us how pretty she is, never in this book is she derided for being a girl or for being too young. She helps out several families and interacts with the police on a few occasions, and everyone just goes right along with it. I love that. What's crazy is that according to Wikipedia, which knows all, people felt that the "real" Nancy was much more outspoken and authoritative. How do I get my hands on one of those, outside of finding a will conveniently hidden in an old clock?

Rating: 8/10
(Nancy Drew Challenge, A to Z Challenge, Flashback Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Booking Through Thursday — Christmas Gifts

Today's Booking Through Thursday asks, "What books did you get for Christmas (or whichever holiday you may have celebrated last month)? Do you usually ask for books on gift-giving occasions or do you prefer to buy them yourself?"

I was really excited for books this Christmas, but I only got two: The Eyre Affair (delightful!) and Gaudy Night (which I hope is delightful!). This leads into the next answer: I got them because I asked for them.

This Christmas was all about getting what I asked for; my parents got a GPS for me and Scott to go geocaching with, and my younger brother the elder got me the books. The little one got me a purple wooden hanging thing that says "All-Star Sister" and has a soccer ball on it, which I didn't ask for, but I guess the Holiday Shoppe is still limited in its selection.

However, I am signed up for several of those points-earning websites, and two of them came through for me just a couple of weeks ago, so soon I will have $15 to Borders and $25 to Barnes and Noble which will get spent basically as soon as I have the money in my hands. :) It's like a Christmas bonus!

For more thoughts on people buying me books, check out this Musing Mondays post from November.

The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness

I'm not sure what I want to say about this book. Right after I finished it (in practically one sitting), I was like, "That was pretty darn good," but now I'm more like, "Eh, that was all right, I guess." I think it's telling that I have the book right next to me while I'm writing this because I am not entirely sure I could tell you what happened in the book without looking some of it up.

But! What happens is that we're on another planet, sometime in the future, and we're following along with the last boy in Prentisstown, Todd Hewitt. He's the last boy because a Noise germ wiped out the female population of the planet a while back and also made it possible for all of the men to hear each other's thoughts, all the time, no filters, no way to stop yourself from giving up your thoughts to everyone else.

Todd is just a month away from his 13th birthday, when he will finally become a man like everyone else in Prentisstown, when he stumbles across a patch of quiet out in the swamp. A patch of quiet that moves, even. By the time he gets home, the whole town knows what he's found, and his adoptive parents are shooing him out the door with a rucksack, map, and instructions to go back to the swamp and run.

I liked how Ness worked the idea of information overload into his story... until he made it incredibly explicit. And I was really intrigued by the backstory to Prentisstown, especially after I found out there were other towns on the planet and that Todd clearly didn't know anything about the reality of Prentisstown, but the reveals came way too late in the story, especially the one from Todd himself which should have made, I think, at least one of his actions a lot different. And the whole last fight/battle/argument/something scene between Todd and the church leader made approximately zero sense to me, probably mostly because just reading the descriptions of the fighting was taking up all of my attention. Finally, I was so close to loving the ending, which was so close to being ambiguous and enticing me to read the sequel, but then someone showed up and ruined it all for me.

So I guess, in the end, I only just liked this book. It was certainly entertaining, and it had a good premise to it, but I was just not a fan of Ness's execution of said premise. As with The Hunger Games, I think I'm going to wait for a few more reviews of the sequel before I decide if it's worth my time.

Rating: 7/10
(Countdown Challenge: 2008, A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
Library Queue
Medieval Bookworm
Persnickety Snark
books i done read
things mean a lot
Blogging for a Good Book

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

First Lord's Fury, by Jim Butcher

-pout- So it turns out that this is the last book in the Codex Alera series. After the last book I was all, oh no, I'm going to be caught up and then I'll have to wait for books, but no, there's no waiting, 'cause it's OVER. Blast.

I'm sort of miffed at how the series went out, though. From that last book link above, you know that the big vord fight hadn't really ended and I was miffed then; well, if you're looking for a really long novel that's all about a big vord fight, this is the book for you. Seriously, nothing else happens in this book. Tavi's fighting the vord with his troops and the Canim, Bernard and Amara are basically leading the rest of Alera to fight the vord, Isana and Araris get kidnapped by the vord but still manage to be fighting them... everyone is fighting the vord except a few freemen who surrender early so as not to die. The book is 400-plus pages of various people fighting the vord in various ways.

Now, the fighting is as well-written as any other fighting the series has seen, so it's good, I'm not against that. But a lot of what I liked about the series was getting to know the characters, and there is just no character development at all in this book. Everyone pretty much ends up the same way they started, but with some extra babies thrown in and some new neighbors as well. I guess we get to learn more about the vord queen, but not enough to make me really care about her or [spoiler alert? probably not] the fact that she gets all killed and stuff in the end.

All in all it was a good, engaging, entertaining novel, and if you've read the rest of the series you pretty much have to read this one, but I'd say don't spend hardcover money on it if you do. The library is your friend!

Rating: 6/10
(A to Z Challenge, Support Your Local Library Challenge)

See also:
[your link here]

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

Musing Mondays — New Year's Resolutions

Today's Musing Mondays question is... "With the New Year here already, do you have any reading resolutions or goals (challenges aside) for 2010? Perhaps a new author? Genre? Want to read more non-fiction? Write more reviews?"

My main New Year's Resolution (or new semester resolution, really) is to get more library science posts up in here. I've done a few sporadically, but I'm going to try to do at least two per month this semester, which should be easy since I'll have four classes and a research assistant positon from which to draw inspiration.

I've also neglected the Links of the Week posts I used to do, mostly because I haven't had a lot of good links to put up lately! Perhaps I'll get back to doing those as well.

The other thing I think I'll be doing is sprucing up my stats in each wrap-up post I do, though I haven't decided how yet. If you have suggestions, let me know!

Year in Review

Hello, 2010! You're looking nice today. Can I call you "oh-ten" for short? No? Blast. Well, I'm glad you're here anyway; I've noticed that every year just gets better and better so I'm expecting you to be pretty darn spectacular. I mean, just look at what 2009 gave me:

First, I managed to read 131 books. That is simply ridiculous. In 2008 I was all, "I want to read 60 books in 2009!" Ha. Take that, wimpy 2008 self. Of course, that reading activity was strongly helped by five months of unemployment that involved spending my days looking for jobs and reading and another seven months of being a library science student but still not having a job and therefore spending my days going to class, doing homework, looking for jobs, and reading. Now that I've got a job, at least through August, I'm guessing that that reading thing might fall a little bit by the wayside, but I'm going to try not to let that happen. My goal for you, 2010? Just 100 books. But they'd better be spectacular.

Second, I did read a lot of wonderful books this year. My favorites: I absolutely loved the first two books of the Moon series, which answer the question you never asked about what would happen if the moon moved just a titch closer to the Earth. Answer: Um, lots of bad things. I can't wait for the third one to come out this year!

Elantris was a total surprise love for me; it is a wonderfully written and perfectly fantastical look into the dilemmas of culture and religion. And there is magic! You can't go wrong with magic.

The Old Man's War series didn't get my highest ratings as individual books, but I would definitely put the whole series in the "Go read this now. Why are you still looking at your computer? I'm serious. Go read this now." category. It's humorous military science fiction, which sounds ridiculous but is amazing.

And lastly, I want to highlight The Manual of Detection, a book that I read in March but which I am still in awe of today; that trade paperback is MINE as soon as it comes out. Berry's writing is spectacular and his story of a Watson-turned-Holmes is delightful. (My other top-pick books can be found under the rated 9-10 tag.)

Third, etc.: I managed to complete eight reading challenges of awesomeness, participated in Book Blogger Appreciation Week, and read six books in 11 hours for the Read-a-thon. Oh, and I started an online book club with a couple of dear friends and have had a lot of fun yelling about bad books, though if we could get some excellent books going that would be great, kthx. :-D

And now, by the numbers!

2009, in review
Days spent reading: 295
Books read: 131

...in fiction: 118
...in speculative fiction: 25
...in fantasy: 22
...in mystery: 18
...in humor: 8
...in thriller: 8
...in short stories: 7
...in classics: 4
...in historical fiction: 3
...in memoir: 2
...in non-fiction: 12
...in popular science: 2
...in young adult: 29
...in children's: 13
...in graphic format: 3

New favorite authors: John Green, Mary Doria Russell, John Scalzi, Susan Beth Pfeffer
Authors I'll be keeping an eye on: Jedediah Berry, Maureen Johnson


Month by Month

January
Books read: 11
Favorite: Old Man's War, by John Scalzi (Review) 8.5/10

February
Books read: 9
Favorite: Elantris, by Brandon Sanderson (Review) 9.5/10

March
Books read: 13
Favorites: The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak (Review) 9/10
and The Manual of Detection, by Jedediah Berry (Review) 9/10

April
Books read: 8
Favorite: An Abundance of Katherines, by John Green (Review) 8/10

May
Books read: 9
Favorite: People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks (Review) 8/10

June
Books read: 10
Favorite: Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow (Review) 9/10
and Woman With Birthmark by Håkan Nesser (Review) 9/10

July
Books read: 15
Favorite: The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster (Review) 9/10

August
Books read: 13
Favorite: The Time Traveler's Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger (Review) 10/10

September
Books read: 10
Favorite: Life As We Knew It, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Review) 10/10
and The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by E. Lockhart (Review) 10/10

October
Books read: 13
Favorite: The Dead and the Gone, by Susan Beth Pfeffer (Review) 10/10

November
Books read: 9
Favorite: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon (Review) 10/10

December
Books read: 11
Favorite: Shutter Island, by Dennis Lehane (Review) 9/10