Thirteen Reasons Why... I shouldn't be allowed to catalog the books

No, seriously. My husband is threatening to buy me a new bookshelf so that I will have more space to store my LIBRARY BOOKS. This is bad news. But here's why:



These are books that I have cataloged, been intrigued by, put on hold, and retrieved from the library in the last six weeks. (These are not all of the library books I currently have in my house.) I have read... none of them, so far. In fact, one of them has to go back to the library tomorrow because someone else wants it, and I'll have to put it on hold all over again!

So this post is twofold — one, these books do look very interesting and I should share them with you while I have them. Two, I need to remember what they all are so I can eventually put most of them on hold again!

In approximate chronological retrieval order:

1. Before I Go to Sleep, by S.J. Watson. This is the one I have to give back, which is unfortunate because I've just started hearing really good things about it from the bloggingsphere! I didn't know much when I put it on hold except for the vague jacket copy: "Memories define us. So what if you lost yours every time you went to sleep? Your name, your identity, your past, even the people you love — all forgotten overnight. And the one person you trust may be telling you only half the story. Welcome to Christine's life." Spooky, right? I liked Memento, which has a similar premise and is mentioned in one of the author blurbs on the back, so you know I will eventually get around to this one.

2. The Mathematics of Life, by Ian Stewart. I like math, I think it's safe to say. I got a little lost at differential equations, but anything before that I was pretty darn good at. I also like popular science books, which is what this really is. It promises to talk about how math and life science are combining today, and I am intrigued.

3. Remembrance of Things I Forgot, by Bob Smith. "It's safe to say your relationship is finished if the only way you can imagine solving your problems is by borrowing a time machine." Yes, I would say so. You all know how I feel about sci-fi romps; this book about an apparently "wickedly comic, cross-country, time-bending journey" had to come home with me.

4. How the Hippies Saved Physics, by David Kaiser. Uh, well, I majored in physics. I like popular science, as I mentioned above. I am amused by the idea of using LSD to become more scientifically creative. On the shelf it goes!

5. The Interrogator, by Glenn L. Carle. This one I'm not actually sure I'll read, because I find memoirs very hit or miss. But The Interrogator is about... an interrogator... for the CIA who was also a long-time spy and basically a professional liar. And then he apparently took on a job that made even him question what the heck he was doing. It seems like it might appeal to the psychological-thriller-lover in me.

6. The End of Everything, by Megan Abbott. Edgar-nominated author, you say? A disappeared young friend, you say? The left-behind young friend taking up the case and also learning more than she wanted to know? Gimme!

7. The Shotgun Rule, by Charlie Huston. This is another I might not finish reading, but I'll certainly give it a try. The jacket flap promises teenage boys who race their bikes, get high, and steal neighbors' medications, and then one day they do something really stupid and steal some hard drugs from some "petty hoods." It is not at all my usual cup of tea, which is part of why I want to read it.

8. Happily Ever After, edited by John Klima. Oh, you know. Fairy tales. Retold. Neil Gaiman. Gregory Maguire. Charles de Lint. No big deal.

9. Dominance, by Will Lavender. There is a bloody ax made of books on the cover. There's a murderer teaching a college class called "Unraveling a Literary Mystery" from his prison cell. There is a secret game called "the Procedure" that may lead to death. I kind of want to go read this right now...

10. The Talk-Funny Girl, by Roland Merullo. An odd title is a sure draw for me, and although the other parts of this novel are less so — A dying factory town? A girl speaking "a kind of mountain hybrid of English"? Said girl becoming a stoneworker? I don't know — I am still intrigued. I may wait to hear more about this book before I delve into it.

11. Life on Mars, by Tracy K. Smith. I don't read enough poetry, and I've never read a collection like this that is a little more science-y. How science-y? The first stanza of the title poem goes like this:
"Tina says what if dark matter is like the space between people
When what holds them together isn't exactly love, and I think
That sounds right — how strong the pull can be, as if something
that knows better won't let you drift apart so easily, and how
Small and heavy you feel, stuck there spinning in place."
...Wow.

12. Raising Stony Mayhall, by Daryl Gregory. I found Gregory's Pandemonium enjoyable, and also: zombies. Specifically, a zombie baby raised by non-zombie parents who grows up and learns that he's not alone in the world. Creepy? Intriguing? Yes.

13. Like Bees to Honey, by Caroline Smailes. This is apparnetly a story of "family, redemption, and ghosts." I like that last one, but the first two are a little eh. I was wavering between putting it on hold and ignoring it, and I had decided to ignore it, but then I flipped through its pages and the formatting of the book is, like, weird and stuff and then I started reading the first chapter and I had to remind myself that I was at work and maybe I should go ahead and put that on hold. I'll tell you how it goes.

Anya's Ghost, by Vera Brosgol

I heard about this book over at the NPR a couple weeks ago, which makes this an incredibly fast turnaround, for me, for hearing about, ordering up, and reading a book!

It almost didn't happen, though. The first few pages of this graphic novel are all, "Wah, wah, I'm an immigrant child and I don't wanna be, I wanna be AMERICAN and get skinny by eating LOW FAT POP TARTS and I have crush on a guy with a GIRLFRIEND and I get so little allowance I can only buy ONE pack of cigarettes a month, wah wah," and then Anya falls down an abandoned well and I am like HAH YOU DESERVE IT THE END. And I closed the book, and was like, well, there's that then, but then I was like okay, fine, I'll stick around at least 'til the ghost. And then I didn't stop reading.

So, yes, there's all the immigrant stuff, which is rather like the other First Second book I read, American Born Chinese, and really, I shouldn't have doubted, because also like that book Anya gets hers for all the whining and becomes a much better person by the end. Spoilers? Probably not.

What happens is, she falls down this well and finds a skeleton and then finds a ghost, who is all, "I've been trapped down here for 90 years and really, couldn't you help me see the world a bit?" at first, and becomes very slowly more creepy and then menacing and the art is wonderful because you can literally see this change happening. And, as in all good horror stories, the creepy and menacing parts of the ghost are really just exaggerations of Anya's own life and potential future.

And even if you're not into finding-yourself stories or ghosts or whatnot, there's plenty of horrible high school stuff you can look nostalgically back on, like tests you haven't studied for and showing your British-style pants in gym class and finding out that the hot guy at school is a total loser, actually, and did I say nostalgically? I meant HOLY HECK AM I GLAD I AM NOT IN HIGH SCHOOL ANYMORE.

Recommendation: Right, so, yes. Give this one a chance!

Rating: 9/10

The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak

Another re-read for my book club! Luckily, since I knew going into it that the last fifty pages or so were going to make me bawl my eyes out, I managed to just cry a whole bunch instead. One tissue only, though! Still so, so sad.

This is a book told by Death, beginning with death, and ending with death, but it manages not to be about death.

The first part of that sentence was really difficult for a lot of my fellow book-clubbers, but I think if you're prepared and/or used to odd narrative styles, you'll be okay. Death is an interesting narrator, with its odd little view of the world that mostly involves dead people but also apparently involves being incredibly and possibly overly poetic about everything. I like Death, but it could tone it down a little.

And what's really cool about Death as a narrator is that hey, how does Death even know this story? Oh, right, because our protagonist wrote a story about her life and called it The Book Thief and then Death found it and read it and is now telling us the story. So you've got a frame story and some unreliable narrators and I am SO IN.

The titular thief is called Liesel Meminger, and she's a young German girl who gets sent off to foster care with her brother just before the start of World War II except that she's the only one who makes it to foster care on account of her brother dying awfully on the train there. That's a good way to start off the story, yes? But Liesel keeps going and makes a new sort of family and makes some excellent friends even if she doesn't know it sometimes and even though the war comes and makes everything pretty much absolutely terrible, she still keeps going.

And of course there are stolen books, hence the name, and there's some Hitler Youth fun times and some hiding a Jew fun times and some hiding in basements from the bombs fun times and it's all depressing, really, but you still come out of the book thinking that maybe things aren't so bad after all, and that's really amazing. I adore this book, maybe even more the second time around.

Recommendation: Bring some tissues. And an open narrative mind.

Rating: 9.5/10
(A to Z Challenge)

Death Note Vol. 7, by Tsugumi Ohba

Hey there, Death Note! How have you beeeeeen for the last seven months? Good? Good!

So when last we left off... um... stuff was happening. There was this notebook, and you could write people's names in it and they would totally die, and that was kind of interesting, and then this kid with God-aspirations was like, "I'm'a totally kill all the bad guys in the world" and that was pretty awesome except that there are, like, laws and stuff and so the police decided to go after God-kid, who happens to be the son of the police chief guy, which is all complicated, and then God-kid started having to kill some good guys, which is terrible, and then God-kid made with the crazy-ass LOGIC and PSYCHOLOGY and managed to escape the police largely by forgetting that he ever had this mysterious notebook in the first place.

Yes. That. That's totally what happened.

And I don't recommend forgetting all of that yourself before reading this seventh volume, because right from the start the writers are like, lets have some weird stuff happen that makes no sense but we'll explain it later! Which is good, except when I don't realize that I shouldn't already know what's going on and sit there with a confused look on my face instead of reading the five pages I need to get to the part with the explaining. Not that the explaining is very explainful. I'm still confused.

'Cause basically, in this one, God-kid, aka Light, remembers that he had the Death Note thing, and it turns out that he totally planned to remember this and that he's got some crazy logic/psychology plan to get his Death Note back without getting caught as the killer, and also to kill anyone who might ruin said plan. And it's brain-hurty but also awesome, and it mostly works, except that the killing-people part only encourages NEW people to come out of the woodwork to track Light down, like I didn't already have enough characters to keep straight. Which I did.

Luckily, I have the next two book in my possession now, so I might actually get around to reading them in a timely manner!

Recommendation: Oh, you should totally read this series (if you don't mind things that make your brain explode), but you should probably start back at the beginning. :)

Rating: 8/10
(A to Z Challenge, Global Reading Challenge: Asia)

Regarding Ducks and Universes, by Neve Maslakovic

How could I not read this book, with a title and cover like that? Impossible.

It also helps that the book is a bit of a sci-fi romp, a biiiiit like Shades of Grey or The Android's Dream with the science and the touch of satire and the all-around amusement the author obviously has with his/her own book. I'm a fan.

The fun science here is a bit baffling, but once your head gets around it it's pretty cool. Basically, in the late-ish 1980s of an alternate history (I mean, already alternate before this crazy thing happened), there was a Mad Scientist type who managed to split off the universe into a Universe A and a Universe B that share a timeline and population up to said split, but then anything that happens after the split is one-universe-only. So if this split happened tomorrow, there would be a You A and a You B who are exactly alike tomorrow, but in thirty years maybe one of you is a movie star and the other is not, or one of you lives in Iceland and the other in California, whatever. Awesomely, the Mad Scientist (I think, it could have been someone else) also invented a transporter thing that allows for people from the two universes to travel between them, provided they don't go seeking out their alters (i.e. You A seeking out You B) without permission from said alters.

Are you confused now? Good!

Because of this crazy science, the book is pretty exposition-heavy at the beginning, which is slightly annoying. But then you start getting into the plot part, and that's pretty darn interesting too. Here we have a Felix Sayers (who totally wishes he were related to Dorothy) off to visit Universe B ostensibly for funsies, but actually because he's just found out that he's really Felix A and that his parents lied about his birthdate for some unknown reason. He'd like to figure out why the lying, of course, but he'd also like to make sure that Felix B hasn't gone and written the mystery novel that Felix A has been meaning to get around to, someday, you know, maybe. Things only get stranger when two competing research teams start following Felix A around and he finds out that he might already be a bit more important to history than he ever hoped to be.

I had a lot of fun with this book. There's confusing science, of course, but there's also a healthy dose of vintage mysteries with Sayers and Christie, and some social commentary on environmentalism and social media and e-books that is amusing in small doses, though Maslakovic goes a little too far every once in a while. But! Anyway! Otherwise delightful. Also, there are fun side stories including some corporate espionage, violations of the Lunch-Place Rule, and illness by almost-dog. You know, normal stuff.

"There is something to be said about being unreachable, especially when you are trying to avoid being prodded by your boss to engage in regulation-breaking activities of the sourdough kind."

Recommendation: For fans of the sci-fi romp, Agatha Christie, and sourdough bread.

Rating: 9/10
A to Z Challenge

World Without End, by Ken Follett

Yessssss! I'm done! It's done! I never have to read this book again! Woohoo!

Ahem. That... that didn't sound right. Hold on. Let me try this again.

Did you know that thousand-page books turn into 36-disc audiobooks? Thirty-six. Three six. That is a lot of discs. And a lot of audio. And considering it took me two months to get through Pillars of the Earth while actually reading it, I'm happy it only took me five weeks to get through this sequel.

The problem, I find, with Ken Follett's books (well, the two I've read, anyway) is that sure, they are huge sweeping epics of time and place and they are quite beautiful in a big-picture sense. But. On a chapter-by-chapter basis? Soooooo repetitive. I summed up this book to my husband approximately like this:

Stuff. Sex. More stuff. More sex. Treachery and betrayal. Stuff. Awesome uses of logic and reverse psychology. Rape. Betrayal. Logic. Psychology. Sex. Psychology. Dude being flayed alive. Stuff. Sex. Plague. Etc.

The dude being flayed alive bit, I had not predicted. The other stuff? All the same from Pillars of the Earth. Well, not the Plague.

And so the plus side of the audio is that I can zone out while listening and pretty much not miss a thing, because few specific scenes are terribly important and if they are, Follett will, I promise, repeat whatever happened at least six more times, sometimes in the same chapter. The minus side is that I hear repetitions more easily than I read them, and so I couldn't listen to this book for more than a couple hours at a time, hence the taking forever.

Anyway, what's this book about, you say? Um. Well. It's this sweeping epic, right? And so it starts off with these kids and ends with these same kids as old men and ladies. One of the kids is the raping and pillaging and murdering type, two are creative and ambitious but one's a girl so she can't play with the nice toys, and one is of low self-esteem and comes from a ridiculous home life. And... they do their things.

Follett does an excellent job with the characters and how they interact and grow and change or not change, and I cannot say he doesn't bring the action or the drama, see Man Being Flayed Alive. I just wish he could be a bit more concise about it!

Recommendation: For fans of Pillars of the Earth and other sweeping epics, or people who need something to fall asleep to at night over the next several weeks. Definitely best read in small pieces.

Rating: 7/10
(TBR Challenge)

So Much Pretty, by Cara Hoffman

Here's another book that I didn't start reading until right before it was due — except this time it wasn't on purpose! I even had to pull a little fancy library trickery in order to return the book and get it back again so that I could keep reading it... and it was totally worth it.

At first, I wasn't sure. The book starts out with a narrator (the book has many) being all like, "Oh, I know you've heard the stories and know all about this HORRIBLE TERRIBLE TRAGIC EVENT that happened, which I had a hand in and which I totally regret and now I'm going to tell you the true story." And I'm like, "Right. That event. Yes, totally. What was it again?" And the narrator is like, "I'll get to that."

So, basically, the reader knows absolutely nothing about this something bad that happened for, oh, the first half of the book. And then? Well, then the reader knows what the bad thing is that has happened, but not why or how it relates to all these other narrators' story lines that have been woven in and these weird police evidence report things and strange interviews with people that make no sense until they start making sense and then the reader sees what's coming and is like, "Oh, hell," but there's no stopping it now. Well, that's how I saw it, anyway.

And so, necessarily, I don't want to give too much away, but I think it's safe to tell you that the first and somewhat primary narrator is a reporter from Cleveland (yay Cleveland!) who has up and moved to the sticks of upstate New York chasing down some big environmental story. Other narrators include a couple of neo-hippies from New York City who move out to the same sticks for some tree-hugging reason or another, and their young daughter who grows up learning trapeze and various philosophies — and whom you learn pretty early on is somehow involved in the Big Bad Thing.

It's a really well-put-together story, and even though I was struggling through the first half, once the story started to show itself I could not put the book down. There are a few bits that I found odd or irksome after finishing the book, but since they made reading the book super-interesting I will forgive them.

Recommendation: Not for those who need a solid grip on a story from the beginning. Definitely for those who like a multiple-narrator, back-and-forth-in-time, what-the-heck-is-happening-here setup.

Rating: 9/10