Books 41-45

41- My New American Life
By: Francine Prose
Genre: Literary Fiction
Three words: Albanian Nanny's Adventures

42- Bet Me
By: Jennifer Crusie
Genre: Chick Lit, re-read
Three words: Favorite Romance Ever

43- Super Sad True Love Story
By: Gary Shteyngant
Genre: Fiction, Dsytopic, Book Club
Three words: Social Media Dystopia

44- Faking It
By: Jennifer Crusie
Genre: Chick Lit, re-read
Three words: Forger Loves Conman

45- Wintergirls
By: Laurie Halse Anderson
Genre: YA Fiction
Three words: Poetic Anorexic's Journal

Books 36-40: 2011

36- Hot Money by Dick Francis (reread)
37- The Uncoupling by Meg Wolitzer
38- The Twin's Daughter by Lauren Baratz-Logsted
39- Matched by Allie Condie
40- Dangerous to Know: A Novel of Suspense by Tasha Alexander

Books 31-35: 2011

31- All in the Timing: 14 Plays by David Ives
32- Dead Reckoning by Charlaine Harris
33- Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard
34- Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
35- Rumors by Neil Simon

Books 26-30: 2011

26- The Titan's Curse
By: Rick Riordan
Genre: YA fiction
Three words: Percy Jackson continues
See previous entry regarding Percy Jackson. I am sure he continues to have magnificent Greek and Harry Potter inspired adventures...I just will not be reading them.

27- Hate List
By: Jennifer Brown
Genre: YA fiction
Three words: School shooting fallout
This YA novel, which we will be reading at my high school bookclub next year, follows Valerie, the girlfriend of the perpetrator of a school shooting as she tries to piece together her life in the aftermath. She returns to the high school after summer break. Her boyfriend is dead, having shot himself last, and the media has made her a victim, a hero, and a criminal. Valerie herself is unsure of which she is- while she had no idea what her boyfriend was planning, she did co-create the hate list, a notebook that included all of the victims and seemed the shooting's primary inspiration. I found it a compelling read, though the ending was a bit hurried and trite, and I'm eager to hear what my students make of it during book club. I would far prefer we could read Asher's 13 Reasons Why- same issues, more compelling book- but it has some inappropriate sexual content, so we're reading this instead.

28- Between Shades of Grey
By: Ruta Sepetys
Genre: YA fiction
Three words: Russian Anne Frank
This book details life in a Siberian work camp through the eyes of Lina, the daughter of a political prisoner. It's told in first person POV, and has a similar tone to Anne Frank's diaries; the focus is not just on the difficult times but how a teenager, specifically, behaves in these difficult times. Lina fights with her mother, worries about her father, and falls in love. It was an easy read and far brighter than most Holocaust fiction, but go read The Book Thief instead.

29- The Paris Wife
By: Paula Mclain
Genre: Fiction, Historical, Book Club
Three words: Hadley's Life Sucks
Seriously, this poor woman was a sickly, overprotected child. She meets the much younger, dashing writer Ernest Hemingway and is swept off her feet. They move to Paris where she has a child and they are blindingly poor. Once Ernest starts to become successful, he also starts having an affair with the couple's friend Pauline. He then blames the marriage's break-up on Hadley, because she didn't just ignore the affair. None of this qualifies as spoilers, because even if you don't know anything about Hemingway, Hadley tells you from the beginning that the relationship is doomed. Mclain vividly creates the world of the doomed couple, and if you're a Hemingway fan (like myself), it's fun to watch pieces of trivia you know pop up in the story. There are a few strange POV shifts that break the flow of the novel, but other than that it's an enjoyable, though not remarkable, read.

30- A Moveable Feast
By: Ernest Hemingway
Genre: Memoir, Literary Fiction
Three words: Drink, Starve, Write
I've had this novel since I visited Hemingway's Key West home years ago, but it took the inspiration of Mclain's novel to finally get me to read it. It was interesting to see how this book obviously influenced Mclain's novel and even how the oft besmirched Zelda Fitzgerald (slightly vindicated in Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin) rated in Hemingway's eyes (not well at all). Hemingway's memoir is the prototype for all the stereotypical descriptions of starving Parisien writers that have come after- so much, that it often feels like reading a cliche instead of the work that started the trend.

Book 21-25: 2011

21- The Oracle of Stamboul
By: Michael David Lukas
Genre: Fiction
Three words: I got nothing
Okay, because I am writing this way after the fact, all I remember is a vague whiff of exotic Orientalism...there was a little girl with some sort of power, though I think she mainly read a lot of books, and she advised the Sultan of Stamboul. I remember it being an enjoyable read, but nothing remarkable. Obviously. As I can't remember it. It had gotten a lot of positive reviews in various venues and I remember wondering why.

22- Beastly
By: Alex Finn
Genre: YA Fiction, retold fairytale
Three words: Alex Pettyfer's pretty
I'd actually been meaning to watch this before the film was announced, because I am a big fan of retold fairytales. If you've seen the preview for the movie, you know exactly what to expect from the book (although most of the previews leave out NPH as the blind tutor): Very Good Looking Rich Boy is actually a beast at heart, so one of the Olsen twins transforms him and he has a year to get the Hudge to love him. I've had the DVD from redbox all week and haven't watched it yet, despite Pettyfer's prettiness and NPH's brilliance. There are many better fairytale adaptations out there.

23- I Capture the Castle
By: Dodie Smith
Genre: Fiction, reread
Three words: Girl writer matures
I read this book for the first time last year and I adored it. To me, this book is magical. It is on the short shelf of books that I want to write. It's a very simple story about a young girl and her eccentric family, growing up in early twentieth century England. The girl wants to be a writer, and she falls in love. The plot is very simple, but it's the style and the characters that hook you.
*** The movie, by the way, is no good, despite the strong cast. Do not skip this book in favor of the movie.

24- Bobbed Hair and Bathtub Gin
By: Marian Meade
Genre: Nonfiction
Three words: Crazy Lady Writers
Another notch in my woefully unaccomplished goal to read one nonfiction book a month. This book followed the fascinating lives of Edna St. Vincent Millay, Edna Farber, Zelda Fitzgerald and Dorothy Parker as they tried to navigate the world of men, booze and literature in the roaring twenties. It was very interesting, but ultimately sad, as in the end, none of these women could really "have it all." It seems perhaps you could write or be happy, or neither, but you couldn't have both. The picture of Zelda was particularly interesting, as she continued to pop up in later books I read.

25- The Sea of Monsters
By: Rick Riordan
Genre: YA fiction
Three words: Percy Jackson...something
I attempted to read all of the Percy Jackson books because I was doing a presentation in my education class on portrayals of learning disabilities in Young Adult fiction, and the relationship between learning disabilities and heroism in these books is fascinating. Sadly, it is, for me, the most fascinating part of the books, so once I gathered enough material for my presentation, I stopped reading them.

Book 16-20: 2011

16. The Aspern Papers
By: Henry James
Genre: Literary fiction, novella
Three words: No ghosts, children
Yup, the first Henry James story I've ever read that wasn't about ghosts, children, or some combination of both. I was inspired by Berendt's book and the similarities between this story and that of Exra Pound's mistress, detailed in the book. The entire experience was strongly connected to Berendt's book; they made excellent companion pieces. Other than that...well, it was Henry James. You either like him or you don't. As a Victorianist, I do.

17. Tender Morsels
By: Margo Lanagan
Genre: YA
Three words: Bear sexual assault
I heard about this book on SmarthBitches. Bitch magazine posted a list of "100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader." Tender Morsels was included and then removed "because of the way that the book validates (by failing to critique or discuss) characters who use rape as an act of vengeance." Now I have read this book and I can't see that it has a particularly strong feminist message or that it in any way validates rape. Rape happens in this book: rape, incest, and some particularly disturbing bear sexual assault. It is a very warped retelling of the Snow White and Rose Red fairytale. I don't find it empowering for women because the main character of the story is a perpetual victim and only ever able to escape the cycle of victimhood by living vicariously through her daughters. While she does survive her many ordeals, and that is certainly a triumph in itself, she is never able to create a life of her own. That being said, what a silly nonreason to remove this book from the list, which is what all the hullabaloo was about in the first place.

18. Darkest Mercy
By: Melissa Marr
Genre: YA
Three words: Fairy series ends
Yay, this series is over! Yes, I couldn't stop reading it, but it just kept dragging on and on, and I couldn't really enjoy it anymore either. It was kind of like LOST in that way. Except without any brainteasing whatsoever and all loose ends neatly tied. Anyway, it's over now.

19. Lord Perfect
By: Loretta Chase
Genre: Romance
Three words: Super boring romance
This book was incredibly boring. I was hoping it would hold up to the giddy magic of Last Night's Scandal, being that it details the intial meeting of the two main characters of that book. It took me many weeks to slog through the book, stopping in between to read other books. I only finished it, truly, because I wanted to add it to my count. So I'm off romances again, for awhile.

20. A Very Long Engagement
By: Sebastien Japrisot
Genre: Literary Fiction, Book club selection
Three words: So it goes
No one else from book club really liked this one; it was like Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five meets romance, detective story, and epistolary novel in a dark, French bar for a drink. Just like Vonnegut's novel repeats the refrain "and so it goes," this repeats "that's the way of the world" and it develops a horrifying picture of war and its aftermath. The book opens with five soldiers accused of self-mutilation and dumped over enemy lines instead of being executed. Years later, Mathilde, the wheelchair bound fiancee of one of the soldiers, tries to piece together the events before, during, and after and if any of the soldiers possibly survived.

Book 11-15: 2011

11. Plain Kate
By: Erin Bow
Genre: Young Adult
Three Words: Witches, Woodcutters, Gypsies
This YA novel read like a retold fairytale (I should know- I've read a lot of them), but no fairytale I've ever heard before. It told the story of Kate, a talented woodcarver, living in a superstitious age in some Eastern European country where anyone strange was suspected of witchcraft. I enjoyed it at the time, but there's little memorable to recommend it two months after my initial reading. I cried when one of the characters died; that's fairly unusual.

12. A Northern Light
By: Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: Young Adult, Book Club selection
Three Words: It's no 'Revolution'
I suggested this for book club because Donnelly's Revolution was so sublime, and this is the previous book that put Donnelly on the YA map. It was historical fiction based on the sensational murder of Grace Brown, which also inspired Dreiser's An American Tragedy, which I have not read. The main character, Maddie, was sympathetic, as she struggled to figure out her place in a world where women still had very few rights. Donnelly incorporated an interesting gimmick where she had Maddie choose a word of the day everyday, which was defined and anchored the chapter thematically. However, the story was somewhat predictable and nowhere near as compelling as Revolution. It made a poor choice for book club because there simply wasn't that much to discuss.

13. The Virgin Suicides
By: Jeffrey Eugenides
Genre: Literary Fiction
Three words: Narrators watch virgins
If you're reading this blog (and very few people are), you've probably already read this book. I feel I am one of the last people to join this particular party. Like critics before me, I was fascinated by the narrator(s), the unnamed boys giving us a voyeuristic look into the lives of the Lisbon sisters (not all virgins, despite the title). The relationship between the sisters and narrators is the crux of the book.

14. The City of Falling Angels
By: John Berendt
Genre: Nonfiction
Three words: Magical Venetian mystery
My second nonfiction book of the year- huzzah, me! I have had this book on my shelf forever, as my mother lent it to me right after it came out (oops). I found the book less linear than Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, but I still envied Berendt's easy assimilation into a foreign culture. It made me want to return to Venice, hang out with rich people, and read Henry James (the latter I did, shortly after).

15. River Secrets
By: Shannon Hale
Genre: Young Adult
Three words: Another Bayern book
I keep reading Hale's Bayern books because Goose Girl was so excellent, but nothing has lived up to it. I felt glad to finish this one, because I believed it to be the last (I was wrong). No matter how much I enjoy stepping into Hale's world, I don't feel like I bring anything back with me. YA can be so much more than cotton candy, but Hale's latest Bayern books are just that. They're fluffy. They dissolve. I don't know, that's the end of that metaphor and this review.

Books 6-10: 2011

6. Revolution
By: Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: Young Adult
Three words: Surprise Time Travel
Oh, this book.
I gushed about it enough that I convinced my book club to choose an earlier Jennifer Donnelly book, Northern Lights, as our first YA book club selection. The novel begins with Andi, a very angry, sad girl living with her crazy mother in NYC and attending one of those elite private schools that so often appear in the YA genre. At first I found the novel difficult to read because Andi was so very broken that her voice- the novel is first person POV- was difficult to endure. Soon I found the novel difficult to put down.

Andi's pain comes from the death of her younger brother, a death for which she feels responsible. When it looks like Andi may not pass her senior year, her distant scientist father swoops in, institutionalizes her mother (about time) and takes Andi to Paris with him for Spring Break, so he can monitor her progress on her senior project. In Paris, Andi's father is set to perform DNA testing on a preserved heart, thought to be that of the Dauphin, eight year old Louis-Charles. The parallels between Andi's dead brother and the Dauphin are hilighted when Andi discovers the lost diary of Alexandrine, an aspiring actress during the French Revolution who became the young Dauphin's companion. The book has romance, music, secret parties in catacombs, fireworks, intrigue, research among rare manuscripts, and surprise time travel. The time travel almost made me hate the book, but then I accepted it and became engrossed all over again.

7. Jane
By: April Lindner
Genre: Young Adult
Three words: Rochester as Rockstar
What if Jane Eyre was a modern day nanny and Rochester was a tortured, brooding Rockstar? Lindner's novel certainly offers a new look at the classic, giving it the same treatment that so many Austen novels have been receiving. Does it work? Sometimes, as Jane bonds with Rochester's daughter in an isolated Connecticut mansion or hears a song he wrote just for her (instead of a ghostly, disembodied voice drifting across the moors). But it requires a large suspension of disbelief as well. If you are at all familiar with Bronte's original novel, these will not be spoilers. But...keeping a schizophrenic locked up in your attic in this day and age because all asylums are evil and disturbing places? Attempting to commit bigamy in a time when you don't actually have to marry a girl to sleep with her? Leaving college to become a nanny because you have no other options (hello? student loans?)? The situation of a Victorian woman-- the lack of choices, the dangers of a tarnished reputation, the utter reliance on a man and/or family-- simply do not translate to a modern tale. Still, I wouldn't turn down a modern day Rochester- with or without the crazy wife.

8. Last Night's Scandal
By: Loretta Chase
Genre: Romance
It's been awhile since I read an actual Romance novel, and I picked up this one at the recommendation of the Smart Bitches, who rarely steer me wrong. It was fluffy and fun and, literally, a joy to read. Romance novels offer few surprises. As my sister says whenever she flips through one: "That's one page closer to getting together. One page closer to getting together." True. But this book actually had me smiling, sometimes laughing outloud, as the two main characters did the will they/won't they (of course they will!) dance. I'm not sure why. They bantered. They resisted. Situations arose that forced them together. Nothing new there. They described each other's looks a lot, and always in the same way, which was a little annoying but did serve a purpose. Normally I read romances in a distracted manner, the way you eat lowfat popcorn in front of the television, shoving one piece after another into your mouth and not really registering any taste. But Chase made me really root for her characters and really become invested in their relationship. This is an element so often missing from romance. I think I will try some more Chase in the future.

9. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
By: Rebecca Skloot
Genre: Nonfiction
This is a book club selection, for my teacher book club at school. Nonfiction is not my bag, though I do want to try and read more of it this year. It's one of the most talked about nonfiction books of the year, and though I have no real basis to judge nonfiction (see above), I can see the appeal. There is so much to debate with this book, which purportedly is about Henrietta Lacks, an African American woman from Baltimore who had her cells taken at Hopkins without permission (a standard practice at the time); these cells became the first immortal cell line, used-- and eventually bought and sold-- by scientists all over the world. It is also the story of Henrietta's family, first ignorant, and then struggling to make sense of their mother's scientific contribution. It is also the story of Rebecca Skloot, young, intrepid, white and priviledged reporter, struggling to find the information she needs to tell Henrietta's story. The question of exploitation is at the heart of her story. Were Henrietta and her family exploited? Are we all exploited, to some degree, by the medical community? Is Skloot's novel itself a tribute or an exploitation? Once people have been exploited, can that ever be made right? Though sometimes I would find my interest drifting, especially in some of the more scientific sections, overall the human interest angle kept my attention. And it made me realize I need to learn facts, not just stories.

10. The Mistress of Nothing
By: Kate Pullinger
Genre: New Literary Fiction
Based on the true story of Lady Duff Gordon and her maid, who set up house in Luxor, Egypt when Duff Gordon's tuberculosis could not withstand the cold, English climate. The maid, Sally, falls in love with their Egyptian dragoon, as one does. Difficulties, based on class, gender, culture (those Victorian pitfalls) and race ensue. Life is not easy for a Victorian lady's maid (which those of us enamored with Downton Abbey already assumed).

Books 1-5: 2011

1. I am the Messenger
By: Markus Zusak
Genre: Technically Young Adult
Three words: slacker seeks puppetmaster
You'll find this book classified as young adult, but I found it a very sophisticated story. The same can be said for the first Zusak book I read last year, The Book Thief, a book about the Holocaust, narrated by Death Himself. The plot of Messenger follows Ed Kennedy, an underage cabbie slacker, who becomes a sort of secret-vigilante super hero when he is sent a set of playing cards dictating humanitarian missions. Beyond the general condemnation of the secrets of small town life, the novel examines how much we really know the people in our lives and how responsible we are for their happiness and well-being. It ends up surprisingly post-modern, and that's all I'll say about that angle. Overall, a hopeful book and an enjoyable read.

2. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake
By: Aimee Bender
Genre: Literary Fiction, Magical Realism
Three words: whimsical, sad, metaphorical
There's been a lot of hype surrounding this book, which makes it difficult to gauge my reaction. I have trouble separating my feelings about a book from my reaction to its hype. The facts: At a young age, the heroine (Rose) discovers that she can taste her mother's despair in a piece of lemon cake. Rose goes on to discover emotions in all her foods: home-cooked meals, bakery cookies, school lunches, vending machine snacks. She learns to subsist on overly processed foods so she only has to taste the mechanic metal of the factory. Her relationship with food leads to a social ostracism that may or may not be self-imposed. Meanwhile, Rose is trying to cope with a depressed mother and brother and an emotionally detached father. Rose's talent, or curse- her relationship with food- becomes a far from subtle extended metaphor for how children can learn to cope with a difficult family life. Still, as Rose grows into adulthood, the metaphor developed a complexity, making the ending chapters more interesting than the beginning. My biggest problem with this book was that, just as Rose had difficulty making emotional connections to those around her, I had difficulty making any kind of emotional connection to Rose. I can't tell if this was Bender's intention or not.

3. The Cookbook Collector
By: Allegra Goodman
Genre: Literary Fiction
Three Words: Sisters, dot-com, food
This is a book club selection, suggested by myself. Like Sad Cake up there, it has been on a lot of "best of" lists for 2010. Unlike Bender's book, Goodman's furnished almost too many characters with which to form an emotional connection (not too many characters for me, but there have been complaints). I loved this book. Some reviewers compared it to Sense and Sensibility and, as there were two sisters- one romantic and one logical- what I really expected was a retelling of that novel. Which it was not. The Austenian comparisons remain apt if you think of Austen as someone who wittily portrays a slice of society in 3rd person omniscient. And Goodman's characters are also very concerned with money, marriage and class, so there is that.

The novel follows sisters Emily and Jessamine and the many characters orbiting their lives. Emily and fiance both run successful internet start-ups in the late nineties, so you know where this is going. Overnight they become millionaires, as do their friends and co-workers, and a lot of the book centers around how people dealt with the economic boom and the recession that followed. Jessamine is a perpetual grad student, studying philosophy, working at a used bookstore, and living with tree huggers (though she, herself, is afraid of heights). The bookstore's owner, George, is himself an internet millionaire, who got out early and uses the bookstore (and his beautiful house, cooking, and extensive wine collection) to tackle his ennui. I really wanted to have George's life problems. The eponymous Cookbook Collector comes into play when George finds a collection of antique cookbooks and hires Jess to catalogue them. Like Jess, I became fascinated with these books- a mixture of recipes sometimes delicious, sometimes archaic (sometimes both) and literary allusions. I have already spent too much space writing about this book, so to sum up: it is layered, nuanced, lovely. The book alternates between sucking you into foreign lands- the hush of a redwood forest, the challenge of the cookbooks, the bustle of an internet startup, the rituals of Jewish mysticism- and yanking you back to the real world of the nineties we all remember. Definitely worth the read.

4. Dash and Lily's Book of Dares
By: Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Genre: Young Adult
Three words: dreams, dares, diaries
I have loved Cohn and Levithan, writing either together or seperately, since I discovered Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist (the book, which is infinitely better than the movie). This book was not as good, but it was a fun read. It opens with Dash finding a red moleskin journal left in The Strand bookstore, in the Salinger section. The book leads him on a journey of dares around the store. By the end, he's hooked and he sets up his own dare for the book's writer, Lily. The two teenagers spend the winter holiday sending each other on dares throughout New York City, wondering if their falling in love without ever meeting. It's a charming story, but for me it's most notable for Lily. Dash is typical Cohn-Levithan fare. Savvy, city-smart, and cynical, well-read in literature and pop culture. Dealing with an absent family. Lily, however, is an innocent, cockeyed optimist surrounded by a loving family. I enjoyed watching her adventures unfold, simple because she was such a different character for this duo to create. I also enjoyed The Strand. I miss The Strand.

5. V for Vendetta
By: Alan Moore and David Lloyd
Genre: Graphic Novel
Three words: Vigilante vs. 1984
I recently found myself at a party dicussing how I find most graphic novels disappointing because I started with The Watchmen, and it really doesn't get any better than that. So I went back Watchmen's creator...and I'm still disappointed. The Watchmen has its aloof, invulnerable superheroes, but its emotional core is Daniel and Laurie. This book was like having Rorschach as an emotional core, which does not work. I need comics I can emotionally connect with...I'm not an adolescent boy, after all. So I found V lacking. I did enjoy it for its post-apocalyptic viewpoint, as I have been reading a lot of that genre recently (mostly in young adult). And I'm still going to try some more of Moore this year.

Books of 2010

This year, I kept track of all my reading material. I read 80 books. Quite a few are repeats (I read each book in the Hunger Games series numerous times), but I counted them as well.

The Official List:
(in the order I read them)
- League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 2 by Alan Moore
- The Lioness Quartet by Tamora Pierce (reread)
- The Shoe Queen by Anna Davis
- The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett
- The Book Thief by Mark Zusak
- Coraline by Neil Gaiman
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- Honest Illusions by Nora Roberts
- Tamlin by Pamela Dean (reread)
- Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenberg
- The Trickster Books by Tamora Pierce (reread)
- I'm not the New Me by Wendy McClire
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
- The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
- Chanda's Secret by Allan Stratton
- The Uglies Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld (reread)
- Passion by Jude Morgan
- The Help by Kathryn Stockett
- The Hunger Games (reread)
- Catching Fire (reread)
- Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr (reread)
- Luna by Julie Anne Peters
- Cane River by Lalita Tademy
- Dead in the Family by Charlaine Harris
- Fragile Eternity by Melissa Marr
- The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls
- Life as we Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer
- The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan
- Unwind by Neil Shusterman
- Little Bee by Chris Cleave
- The Magicians by Lev Grossman
- Wild Ride by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer
- 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- Another Faust by Daniel Nayeri
- The Dead and the Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer
- One Thousand White Women by Jim Fergus
- Chalice by Robin McKinley
- Dragonhaven by Robin McKinley
- Radiant Shadows by Melissa Marr
- To Sir Phillip, with Love by Julia Quinn
- Runaway by Meg Cabot
- A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick
- Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce
- The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
- One Day by David Nicholls
- The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi W. Durrow
- The Ask and the Answer by Patrick Ness
- The World We Live in by Susan Beth Pfeffer
- The Betrayal of the Blood Lily by Lauren Willig
- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (book club)
- The Passage by Justin Cronin
- Tears of Pearl by Tasha Alexander
- The Hunger Games (reread)
- Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
- If I Stay by Gayle Forman
- The Romantics by Galt Niederhoff
- Maybe This Time by Jennifer Crusie
- Insatiable by Meg Cabot
- Every Last One by Anna Quindlen (book club)
- City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
- Ape House by Sara Gruen
- Feed by MT Anderson
- The Group by Mary McCarthy (book club)
- The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (book club)
- Mockingjay (reread)
- The House on Durrow Street by Galen Beckett
- Peeps by Scott Westerfeld
- Candor by Pam Bachorz
- The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
- Fables 13: The Great Fables Crossover by Bill Willingham
- The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
- Grave Secret by Charlaine Harris
- Marvel 1602 by Neil Gaiman

The Breakdown:
Number of Books: 80
Rereads: 15
Young Adult (not including rereads): 27
Weird books about twins: 3
Nonfiction: 2
Comics: 3
Romance or Chicklit: 9

Top Ten Favorite Books of 2010:
(in no particular order)
- The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen Beckett
- The Book Thief by Mark Zusak
- I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
- The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
- Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
- The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho
- The Magicians by Lev Grossman
- 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher
- The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson
- The Passage by Justin Cronin
- Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
- Ape House by Sara Gruen

Okay, 12. The Hunger Games trilogy was the best. If you haven't read it already, read it. I Capture the Castle was the biggest surprise. I adored that book.

And that's it. See you, 2010. I'm going to try for 100 books in 2011.

Third Reading List- June 2009-?

I have decided that reading lists will contain twenty books only. Then it's time for a new reading list. Official blog policy from now on. So without further ado...

1- Bloodhound
by: Tamora Pierce
Classification: YA
This is Pierce's second book in what, I believe, is set to be a trilogy. Beka Cooper has all the ingredients of a typical Pierce heroine: courageous woman in dangerous man's job, super-intelligent animal friends, favor of the gods, inability to fit into polite society, relationship with King of Thieves that is bound to blossom into romance...Still. Not my favorite of Pierce's series. I enjoy it. And I'll gobble up the entire thing. But something's missing. I think it may lie in Pierce's switch to first person narrative for this book. We're inside Beka's head for the entire story, and I think it limits both the reader and Pierce. Pierce can do more in third person limited, and I hope she returns to it for her next plucky heroine.

2- Welcome to Temptation
by: Jennifer Crusie
Classification: Chick Lit, ReRead
If my reading lists haven't made it clear by now, let me spell it out: I can't get enough of Jennifer Crusie. I love her characters, plot and dialogue. She's a writing role model and that's one of the reasons I'm (re)reading so much of her right now. Inspiration, baby. Here she makes good use of the rich boy meets girl-from-the-wrong-side-of-the-tracks trope.

3- Dogs and Goddesses
by: Jennifer Crusie, Anne Stuart, Lani Diane Rich
Classification: Chick Lit Collaboration
Thus far, I have the same complaints I had about the last collaboration: 1) the reader does not get enough time with any of the characters to really get to know them, especially the three male romantic leads and 2) it feels like a Nora Roberts trilogy (a formula with which I've become disenchanted).

4- Airhead
by: Meg Cabot
Classification: YA
An awkward looking teenage outsider technically dies and has her brain transferred to a teen supermodel's body! But she can't tell anyone outside her family, according to a contract her parents signed before the operation! So she has to live her life as a teen supermodel! Hijinks ensue! Actually, it's an effective way for Cabot to examine the relationship between identity and physicality in a very literal way that teens and preteens can easily identify with.

5- The Runaways Comics
by: various
Classification: Comics, YA
I am surprised that this series has not been made into a TV show or movie yet. It's kid-friendly and accessible, character driven, action-packed, and suitably comic book geeky (it incorporates a lot of old Marvel characters, for example). Definitely a light read but a fun one.

6- Laura Rider's Masterpiece
by: Jane Hamilton
Classification: Literary Fiction
This has been on countless booklists lately, so I thought I'd give it a try. I really enjoyed it. Hamilton's sophisticated prose was a nice trade-up after all the YA I've been reading, the characters were complex and interesting, and the plot was right up my alley. It's all about writing and identity and how we create our idenities and human relationships and genre. Good. Worth a read.

7- One Hundred Years of Solitude
by: Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Classification: Classic, IN PROGRESS
so far, so good

The New Reading List, Winter to Spring 2009

I've miss keeping track of my reading since abandoning last summer's list. Thought I'd give it another try (though Winter and Spring Reading List does not have the same ring to it).

1- Babylon By Bus
by: Ray LeMoine, Jeff Neumann, Donovan Webster
Classification: Non-fiction, IN IRAQ (so not finishing anytime soon)
I heard Ray and Jeff talk about this book on NPR and it sounded fascinating, so I picked up a copy. It's about two twenty-something guys who travelled to Iraq in 2004 and got jobs they were underqualified for working with NGOs. So far I am having trouble getting into it...possibly because I never read non-fiction, because I have trouble getting into it. Also, there are so many acronyms for all the organizations working in Iraq that it gets kind of hard to follow.

2-How to Eat Like a Hot Chick
by: Jodi Lipper and Cerina Vincent
Classification: Diet book
The tone was reminiscent of the Skinny Bitch books, except these authors seemed to like me a lot more, and the emphasis was on happiness, not veganism. I bought this book as my freebie at the buy 3 used books, get 1 free sale, and I'm glad I did. While a lot of it contained simplistic, common-sense advice, it also focused on having a healthy relationship with food...pretty much the "hot chick" of the title is a woman with self-confidence who has that healthy relationship. The reason I have currently been shying away from diets, even though I'd like to lose some weight, is because I am trying to build a healthier relationship with food, so I feel like this gave some good pointers.

3-Round Ireland with a Fridge
by: Tony Hawks
Classification: Non-fiction, Travel, IN-PROGRESS
Also courtesy of the used book store. I've read the first chapter of it, so now that I'm back from Ireland there's little hope of me finishing it anytime soon.

4- Your Scandalous Ways
by: Loretta Chase
Classification: Romance
My first Chase romance. A British spy and a courtesan meet in Venice. Shenanigans, hijinks, and sex in an old bell tower ensue.

5- Watchmen
by: Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Classification: Graphic Novel or, if you'd like, comic book
And the world of reading will never be the same...This genre creates an entirely different reading experience, a different relationship between reader and text. Super intertextual, philosophical, psychological, postmodern, deconstructionist...I want to enroll in a course where I can discuss every aspect. It was absolutely incredible. And now I'm hooked. Now I'm one of those chicks who goes to comic bookstores. It's fantastic.

6- Fables: Legends in Exile
by: Bill Willingham and various
Classification: Comic
Once you declare yourself as a new comic fan, the recommendations start pouring in. This was the first one I chose, because who doesn't want to read about fairytale characters living in a closed communicty in New York City? I am now up to about volume 60 of this one. While Watchmen took days for me to read, a book of ten to twelve issues of this comic takes me about an hour. It's a romance novel to literary fiction, a box of donuts to a three-course meal at a fancy French restaurant...but lovely, delicious little donuts. Also, I have now realized that comic books are an expensive habit. Luckily, I have a friend who owns almost the entire series.

7- Persepolis
by: Marjane Satrapi
Classification: Graphic Novel
The comic about the girl coming of age during the Iranian revolution that made a big splash a couple of years ago and was then turned into a movie. Quite good.

8- The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, vol. 1
by: Alan Moore
Classification: Graphic Novel
In a nutshell-- not as good as Watchmen but far, far better than the movie. I am interested in reading the rest of the series.

9- The Importance of Being Married
by: Gemma Townley
Classification: Chick Lit
Imagine this book, based on its title. Yup, that's pretty much it. But it was a fun bit of fluff to read on the plane coming home from Ireland.

10- A Fatal Waltz
by: Tasha Alexander
Classification: Historical fiction
Victorians, mysteries, and a strong, educated heroine who studies Ancient Greek and scandalizes society by drinking port with the men after dinner...yeah, I pretty much want to write this series.

11- Howards End
by: EM Forster
Classification: Classic, IN PROGRESS
I have every intention of picking this up again. Really. I love me some Forster. And a good Norton Critical Edition. But it was so much more interesting to read about English/Scottish history while I was over there...

12- The Other Queen
by: Phillipa Gregory
Classification: Historical Fiction
Amazon informs me this is not available in paperback in the States yet, so I guess I got the jump on this one. Anyway, this is not one of Gregory's best. It tells the story of the imprisonment of Mary Queen of Scots in England from three POVs: Queen Mary; her captor, George Talbot; and his wife, Bess. For almost the entire story, they were all stuck together in the same house...resulting in three characters telling the reader the same thing over and over again. Kind of dull. Also, a foregone conclusion, though that really didn't bother me.

13- This Charming Man
by: Marian Keyes
Classification: Chick Lit
For some reason, despite all the very blatant signs, I was not prepared for the climax of this book. Perhaps I, too, was seduced by the charming man? Is this intentional or just me being dense? Not sure. Anyway, another good Keyes read with interesting characters navigating serious societal issues. My only problem was with the switching POVs. I liked that we got the story from multiple character's POV...I didn't like that some of these were told 1st person and some were 3rd.

14- What Would Emma Do?
by: Eileen Cook
Classification: YA
Saved meets The Crucible.

15- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies
by: Jane Austen and that guy
Classification: postmodern mishmash?
IN PROGRESS
Maybe I will pick this up again some day. Also, this is the first thing that pops up when you start typing "Pride and pre..." in amazon's search.

16- Dead and Gone (Sookie Stackhouse book #9)by: Charlaine Harris
Classification: Fiction
I still love the characters in this universe, but this time Harris really seemed to be phoning it in. Originally the plots were convoluted, in a good way, but I felt this one could have been sketched out on a post-it note. Maybe now that True Blood is such a success, Harris' time is taken up developing the series for TV instead of books. Anyway, I read the entire thing in an afternoon, and I'll read the next one, too, but...eh. I expect more.

17- Meridon
by: Philippa Gregory
Classification: Historical Romance
Last book of the Wideacre trilogy, which I first picked up the summer after college. First book to not include incest. First half of the book, when Meridon was a Victorian circus performer, was intriguing. Second half, when she became Lady of the Manor...passable. Much slower.

18- Unmanned (Y: The Last Man, volume 1)
by: Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra
Classification: comic books
Intriguing concept, interesting plot and characters. Reads too quickly, so it's not worth buying again but I'll be getting the rest of the series out of the library.

19- Fast Women
by: Jennifer Crusie
Classification: Chick Lit, Reread
I've decided to include rereads in the list, since it only exists to keep track of what I'm reading anyway. I've read this book at least half a dozen times (probably more) and it shows. Crusie is one of my writing role models and what I looked for this time was the details: the china, the vibrant vegetables purchased at the farmer's market, the look of Nell's new house, the clothes...Crusie is very good at details. I need to become very good at details.

20- The Unfortunate Miss Fortunes
by: Jennifer Crusie, Eileen Dryer, Anne Stuart
Classification: Chick Lit, Collaboration
I loved Crusie's sections but some of the others drove me crazy. Also, it seemed like a Nora Roberts trilogy: three sisters (or women who end up like sisters)meet men and explore their powers, then combine to fight a great evil. All they needed was to build some sort of store together and name it after women power. And (despite how blah her last series was) Roberts would have done it better.


FINAL TALLY:
Finished: 16
Unfinished: 4

Nonfiction: 2 (both unfinished, coincidentally)
Diet book: 1
Romance: 1
Comic/Graphic Novel: 5
Chick Lit: 4
Historical Fiction: 2
Classic: 1 (unfinished)
YA: 1
Postmodern mish-mash: 1 (unfinished)
Fiction: 1
Historical Romance: 1

Not the most refined tastes. Ah well.

Summer Reading (Keeping Me Honest)

So, in an attempt to ensure that I do some quality reading this summer instead of just junk, I am keeping a running list of the books I consume...starting about a week and a half ago, when part of me gave up on reading for my thesis and started lusting after regular books. This list will updated regularly and a link will be available on my sidebar all summer.

1- Names My Sisters Call Me
by: Megan Crane
Classification: Chick Lit
Starting off with chick lit is not the best of signs, but I love Megan Crane (author of grad school centered book, "English as a Second Language"), so I'm not sure I feel the need to excuse her. Also, the MC has my name, which NEVER HAPPENS, and she is trying to get over the ex-love of her life who has a name that may be very familiar to some of my readers as well...
2- The Midnighters, Book 1
by: Scott Westerfeld
Classification: YA
Read at the youngest sister's recommendation. Not as good as the Uglies series, but I'm still planning on reading the whole set.
3- Duke of Shadows
by: Meredith Duran
Classification: Romance
Okay, I may be straying out of acceptable literature here, as the cover of this books does show a man's naked chest. I picked this one up because these gals gave it a decent review and because someone, somewhere related it to this book (also possessing a naked man cover), which I loved. Also, I suppose, one of the first romance novels I ever read was about the Indian revolt (Victoria Holt's The Indian Fan , which I discovered in Reader's Digest Condensed form) and who doesn't love a romance about the Victorians? And maybe that's enough justification for the one romance novel on my list thus far.
4- Anybody out there?
by: Marian Keyes
Classification: Chick Lit
Love Marian Keyes. This is not my favorite book of hers about the Walsh sisters, but it was a quick read and rather moving at parts.
5- Gingerbread
by: Rachel Cohn
Classification: YA
Rachel Cohn is the co-author of one of the best books I read in the past year, Nick and Nora's Infinite Playlist. I'd been meaning to read Gingerbread for awhile, and I found a $2 copy at a local used bookstore. Huzzah! It was pretty darn enjoyable- Cohn creates eccentric and compelling characters- and I'm looking forward to reading the two sequels this summer.
6- Jinx
by: Meg Cabot
Classification: YA
Maybe this will be my summer of YA reading instead of quality reading. I am attempting to become a high school English teacher AND write a YA novel this summer so, professionally, the choices make sense. I've been looking forward to getting my hands on Jinx for awhile and I found it at the local library and snagged a copy. Not Cabot's best YA book (in my opinion, that would be Avalon High), and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone who isn't a Cabot YA fan, but it was a quick, decent read.
7- Everything Else in the World (Currently Reading)
by: Stephen Dunn
Classification: Contemporary Poetry
I'm hoping that reading a bit of contemporary poetry will inspire me to get back into the writing of it myself. I've been a fan of Dunn ever since I read "Poe in Margate" in his Local Visitations my sophmore year. I fell a little in love with the first two poems in this book and though none of the others have packed the same punch, I've enjoyed reading most of them. I like poetry occasionally, as a change of pace, and I prefer poems that deal not so much with The Human Experience as my human experience.
8- Shrimp
by: Rachel Cohn
Classification: YA
Sequel to Gingerbread (see number 5)and just as good. Can't wait to get my hands on the third and final book in the series.
9- Women: A Novel (ABANDONED)
by: Charles Bukowski
Classification: Literature with a capital L
Fifty pages into this book I'm still not seeing what all the hype is about, but I'm going to keep persevering...One hundred and some pages and I have left it in Maryland so I can read more entertaining things while in NYC. Hopefully will finish on my return. I like Bukowski's prose...just not his story. Update: Returned to the library, unfinished. Good prose could not win out over story.
10- Tantalize
by: Cynthia Leitich Smith
Classification: YA
A YA novel of the "OMG, Everyone around me is being turned into a vampire!" variety. Enjoyable but not fantastic. Read it on the bus on the way to NYC.
11- Sense and Sensibility (Currently Reading)
by: Jane Austen
Classification: Classic
To my great shame, I fell in love with this story through the movie, so now I'm giving the book a try.
12- Blood Brothers
by: Nora Roberts
Classification: Romance
First in Nora Roberts new trilogy. I wasn't crazy about it. The entire thing just seems very familiar. Stale. Read it anyway, because it's Nora Roberts, but I hope I'm not outgrowing her. Still, didn't stop me from reading...
13- The Hollow
by: Nora Roberts
Classification: Romance
Better than the first book. Still, not that exciting, which it should be, considering all the demonic possessions and blood curses and what not. I'm sure I'll read the third book when it comes out, but I'm in no hurry, and I'm not keeping the series around for a re-read.
14- The Midnighters, Book 2: Touching Darkness
by: Scott Westerfeld
Classification: YA
Now that I'm familiar with the premise, I didn't find this book as exciting as I found the first one. But I like Westerfeld and his ideas a lot. Also, didn't feel like reading this book next, but I had to so my little sister could return it to her friend. Will definitely read the third in the series.
15- Pop Princess
by: Rachel Cohn
Classification: YA
I continue to pretty much adore Rachel Cohn (she is, thus far, the author of one fifth of the books on this list- a statistic that will soon change, no doubt). I love her character names, too: the protagonist in this book is Wonder Blake, and her other series has Cyd Charisse and Shrimp. How can you not like an author who thinks, "Convention be damned, these are my special characters, and I will name them whatever special thing I want?"
16- The Host
by: Stephenie Meyer
Classification: They're calling it fiction for adults, but it deserves the same label as the Twilight books, so YA.
I really enjoyed this book- like the Twilight series, it was a quick read, with engaging characters. It does worry me slightly that Meyer seems to find a legitimate way within the plot to get her female characters severely beaten, often by the men they love, and that achieving love often requires great change/sacrifice on the part of the female character only. Feminist issues aside, Meyer just knows how to tell a good story, and this book also fixes one of the major problems I have with the series thus far (can't go into more detail, as it would be a major spoiler). If you want to give her a try without slogging through all the teen-angst vampire drama of her more famous series, I definitely recommend this book.
17- A Crazy Little Thing Called Death
by: Nancy Martin
Classification: Mystery
I had every intention of picking up something hefty- something brimming with literary merit- after The Host. I read the first few pages of Shriver's critically-acclaimed The Post-Birthday World. I thumbed through the critical darling Johnny One-Eye, a book I had reserved at the local library- a book I went on a waiting list for. Instead, I chose Martin's fun and frivolous series about the Blackbird sisters, centering on Nora Blackbird, a fallen Philadelphia socialite who is forced to make a living as a society columnist, while solving murders and dating mobsters on the side.
18- Daring to Dream
by: Nora Roberts
Classification: Romance
A friend and I were recently discussing our favorite Roberts' books (in light of the Blood Brothers trilogy and other disappointments) and she listed the Dream series, which I could not remember reading. So I picked up the first one at the library, started to enjoy it, and a couple of chapters into it, realized that while I didn't know the story, I knew small details about the characters' lives; at some point, I had read this book. Still, I didn't remember, and I did a re-read, so it counts.

Reflection 1: Keeping a list of my reading sins is supposed to encourage me to read works of greater literary merit this summer. Obviously, this plan is not working thus far, as looking back ath the list, it contains mostly romance, chick lit, and YA novels. Here's the thing: I don't feel at any way ashamed of my reading preferences. I just want to make sure I read something of quality this summer.

19-And Only to Deceive
by: Tasha Alexander

20-A Room with a View
by: EM Forster

21-Queen of Babble in the Big City
by: Meg Cabot

22-Queen of Babble Gets Hitched
by: Meg Cabot

23-From Dead to Worse
by: Charlaine Harris

24-Death on the Nile
by: Agatha Christie

25-Midnight Brunch
by: Marta Acosta

26-Where Angels Fear to Tread
by: EM Forster

27-Wicked Lovely
by: Melissa Marr

28-Again the Magic
by: Lisa Kleypas

29- Water for Elephants (Currently Reading)
by: Sara Gruen

Summaries to follow

OMG! The Return of the Wakefields!

I am endlessly fascinated by the reissuing of the Sweet Valley High books. They're back, and they're back with style. According to reputable sources, the twins now wear big name brands, text message their gossip, and are a size four instead of the old "perfect size six."

I would love to get my hands on a new and old copy and do a side by side comparison- it would be another excellent way to avoid writing my paper.

But without the old book or the press to guide me, I'm not sure that I'd actually note the changes. I read Sweet Valley High, but I wasn't devoted to it like The Babysitter's Club. It was just easily available.

Growing up my friend/neighbor's father bought her every and any book she wanted to read, a priviledge that made me twitch with envy. Any and every book. I begged my parents to offer me the same deal but they said, and rightly so, that my then early bibliophilia would put them out of house and home. My friend needed incentives to read. I did not. And the books she chose were The Babysitter's Club, followed by Sweet Valley High.

As they were there, I shrugged and read some of them. The only ones that stick with me today are the specials, such as the Wolfman trilogy, which I loved so much that I went out and bought my own copies (the very realistic installment where the Wakefield twins get summer internships in London and end up dating minor royalty and a werewolf- brilliant. If they'd all been like that, I would've been hooked). I related more to Elizabeth- the good and studious twin. I wonder if everyone did; to me, Jessica generally seemed very unlikeable.

The Sweet Valley books were not particularly well written, steeped in cliche, and, if I remember correctly, not very exciting (except the aforementioned specials). I can't think they'll be well-received in today's book market, with the Children's Literature Renaissance we are experiencing at the hands of such geniuses as JK Rowling, Rachel Cohn, David Leviathan, and Scott Westerfeld. Even Gossip Girl, arguably today's Sweet Valley High, is far racier and has a television show to accompany it. Why would anyone pick up a Sweet Valley High book when there are so many better alternatives for today's preteen?

Atwood's Brilliance Continues...

I just liked that title because it's all A-B-C.

Today, on the subway en route to an interview, I started Margaret Atwood's The Tent, which was a late birthday present from a fellow Atwood-lovin' friend. I'm still working on The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters (which is HUGE and NEVER-ENDING), but I thought reading Atwood would look more intellectual, in case anyone at the job interview judged me on my reading material.

Of course, no one did.

Most of my experience with Atwood has been her novels. This is a book of short essays, illustrated by Atwood herself. I don't know how it's possible to fill so few pages with such substance, with such beautiful phrasing that it seems almost like poetry. I'm including one essay here, entitled "Encouraging the Young", that I found absolutely chilling. If you want to read more of the essays (and you SHOULD) go out and buy them or borrow them. Here goes:

I have decided to encourage the youth. Once I wouldn't have done this, but now I have nothing to lose. The young are not rivals. Fish are not the rivals of stones.

So I will encourage them open-handedly. I will encourage them en masse. I'll fling encouragement over them like rice at a wedding. They are the young, a collective noun, like the electorate. I'll encourage them indiscriminately, whether they deserve it or not. Anyway, I can't tell them apart.

So I will stand cheering generally, like a blind person at a football game: noise is what is required, waves of it, invigorating yelps to inspire them to greater efforts, and who cares on what side and to what ends?

I don't mean the very young, those who can still display their midriffs without attracting derision. Boredom's their armour: to them I'm a voice balloon with nothing in it.

No. It's the newly conscious young I mean, the ones with ambition and fresh diffidence, those who've learned the hard way that reach exceeds grasp nine times out of ten. How disappointed they are! And if and when they succeed for the first time, how anxious it makes them! They develop insomnia, or claustrophobia, or bulimia, or fear of heights. Now they will have to live up to themselves. Bummer.

Here I am, happy to help! I'll pass round the encouragement, a cookie's worth for each. There you are, young! What is a big, stupid, clumsy mess like the one you just made- let me rephrase that- what is an understandable human error, but a learning experience? Try again! Follow your dream! You can do it!

What a fine, shining person I am, so much kinder than when I'd just finished being young myself. I was severe then; my standards were exacting. The young- I felt- were allowed to get away with far too much, as I had been. But now I'm generosity itself. Affably I smile and dole.

On second thought, my motives are less pure than they appear. They are murkier. They are lurkier. I catch sight of myself, in that inward eye that is not always the bliss of solitude, and I see that I am dubious. I scuttle from bush to bush, at the edge of the dark woods, peering out. Yoo hoo! Young! Over here! I call, beckoning with my increasingly knobbly forefinger. That's it! Now, here's a lavish gingerbread house, decorated with your name in lights. Wouldn't you like to walk into it, claim it as your own, stuff your face on sugary fame? Of course you would!

I won't fatten them in cages, though. I won't ply them with poisoned fruit items. I won't change them into clockwork images or talking shadows. I won't drain out their life's blood. They can do all those things for themselves.

Margaret Atwood. The Tent. Doubleday. 2006.

Weird Like Me

Note before I officially begin post: Something in my office smells like baby formula. There are no babies here. Conclusion: Someone's lunch smells like baby formula. Why would anyone eat something that smells like baby formula?

I've gotten stranger since I left college. Maybe even since I moved out of my parents' house one year after college. Strange in a I-role-play-on-the-weekends-wanna-see-my-Magic-cards kind of way. Except I don't roleplay. What I do is watch the Sci-Fi channel. Some of it. Like Firefly reruns, Battlestar Galactica (which I'm pretty much obsessed with), and the occasional Doctor Who.

And I've started reading paranormal romances. Which basically means vampires and anyone other supernatural being that happens to be befriending the vampires.

I haven't been too worried about this outlandish behavior, as my college roommate (who, ahem, needs to start posting again) independently took up Sci-Fi and vamps around the same time.

Turns out, however, it's just college grads in the suburbs of Bmore who are getting stranger. It's everyone! Paranormal romance is the new pink. It isn't just that, now that I read vampire romances, I suddenly see them popping up everywhere...they really are popping up everywhere. Which just proves that America obsesses over strange things...and now I'll probably grow bored of the entire thing.

For instance: I read everything about the Titanic disaster I could get my hands on until the movie came out and the market was flooded with an overabundance of Titanic books. Then I lost interest.

Anyway, if you wish to be inducted into the vamp-romance phenomenon, I have a few recommendations:

1)Dead Until Dark by Charlaine Harris
This is the series that got me hooked. Harris creates a world where, thanks to synthetic blood, vampires and humans can peacefully co-exist. Her heroine, Sookie Stackhouse, is so great that HBO is creating a television series about her. My former roomie prefers the Mary Janice Davidson books, but I think the Southern Vampire series is much smarter and more engaging.

2) Happy Hour at Casa Dracula by Marta Acosta
This is a fun, chick-lit type vampire romance only recently released. I found it made an excellent beach read. Check out a full review here.

3) Guilty Pleasures by Laurell K. Hamilton
I've only read the first chapter of this book (so take this recommendation with a grain of salt), but I've been trying to get ahold of the book ever since. Hamilton is, apparently, the Queen of the Undead books, so it should be pretty good. If I ever get it.

And if you want to get into Battlestar Galactica before the start of Season 3 in October, get going...there's a lot of space fighting to frakkin' get through! Though I'm pretty sure once I got hooked it only took me about two weeks to catch up. Yup, I'm a big, strange geek. And lovin' every minute of it.

Happy Birthday, Ernest Hemingway!

"Always do sober what you said you'd do drunk. That will teach you to keep your mouth shut."

“Oh, Jake,” Brett said, “we could have had such a damned good time together.”
Ahead was a mounted policeman in khaki directing traffic. He raised his baton. The car slowed suddenly pressing Brett against me.
“Yes,” I said. “Isn’t it pretty to think so?”

~ The final lines of The Sun Also Rises

"I know the night is not the same as the day: that all things are different, that the things of the night cannot be explained in the day, because they do not then exist, and the night can be a dreadful time for lonely people once their loneliness has started."

~ A Farewell to Arms

"If two people love each other, there can be no happy end to it."

"Never write about a place until you're away from it, because that gives you perspective."

"Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime."

~ Ernest Hemingway, 1899-1961

Also, Happy Kafka's Birthday!

"We need the books that affect us like disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea inside us."
~ Franz Kafka

Remember the what?

I first fell in love with the musical Les Miserables when I was in fifth grade. My aunt would play her tape in the car while we were driving to play practice (she was the director, I had the role of Helena...and I hated all the kids who told me I only got a good role because my aunt was the director. I can act, okay?) and tell me everything she could remember about the musical.

Soon after, I tackled the 1,463 page book. I don't remember exactly when, but I remember that people were impressed.

I found the entire thing wonderfully romantic: Eponine's unrequited love leading to her death, Marius and Cosette in love at first sight, the life and death of little Gavroche, being imprisoned for stealing a loaf of bread, and all those students dying at the barricades during the Student Uprisings of 1832. Everyone was poor and suffering in garrets. Sigh.

I was a little too young to have all the points really hit home.

For instance, I loved the final scene with Grantaire and Enjorlas at the barricade. Grantaire finally redeems himself for his horrible drunkeness and asks Enjorlas if he can be executed beside him.

"Turning to Enjorlas gently, [Grantaire] said to him, 'Will you permit it?'
Enjorlas shook his hand with a smile.
The smile was not finished before the report was heard.
Enjorlas, pierced by eight bullets, remained backed up against the wall as if the bullets had nailed him there. Except that his head was tilted.
Grantaire, struck down, collapsed at his feet."

That's page 1252 in the Signet Classic edition for those of you reading along at home.

All of those handsome (so I imagined) young students willing to lay down their lives on the barricades! Willing to die for their beliefs! Sigh and double sigh.

And then I got older and realized Hugo's point: but they didn't accomplish anything.

They were faced with insurmountable odds. They knew they were going to be killed. And they said, "Woohoo! Let's stay here and die!" (except in a much more eloquent and romantic fashion).

Yesterday morning I found myself at the scene of a similar occurrence that happend only four years later in Texas. It was the 170th anniversary of the fall of the Alamo.

The stories are very similar: the wait for volunteers who never come, the decision to die to send a message, the slaughter of every man who fought.

And I was walking around the beautiful gardens of the Alamo and thinking, "How utterly stupid. How stupid to just die for what you believe in."

I can understand impetuous sacrifice that has immediate consequence. Leaping in front of an oncoming bullet, for instance (though wouldn't it be smarter to dive and roll, taking the person down with you?). Undergoing a dangerous operation so a loved one can live. Understandable.

But thinking to yourself (in romantic and eloquent language), "Hey. A bigger stronger army is on it's way to kill us all. There is no doubt they will succeed. Let's stay and die." Where does that line of thinking come from? And where does it get you?

Well, dead.

RUNAWAY!

I intended to write this blog merely to ridicule the Alamo and ridicule the Texans who are so in love with it. But here's the thing: I still find the whole idea STUPID as anything. It would be much better to stay alive and fight then die en masse as a symbol of resistance. But reading over Les Miserables to find that quote, I realized: I still find the whole idea wonderfully romantic.

What's wrong with me?

Comfort/Non-comfort

There are comfort foods that always stick with you. Chocolate. Mashed Potatoes. But then I also have comfort foods that vary from week to week: my Trendy Comfort Foods. This week's Ginger Ale. Mmm. Would definitely pass up a big bar of chocolate for Ginger Ale right now.

I think it's because I equate Ginger Ale with being taken care of. Growing up, whenever I was sick, my Mom gave me a nice glass of Ginger Ale. It didn't matter whether I had an upset stomach (Ginger Ale made sense) or a cold (no sense at all). Now that I'm 23 (ew), when I get sick, I have to take care of myself. But with Ginger Ale, I can still capture the feeling.

As my friend R says, "I believe in the healing powers of Ginger Ale."

Last night, at 1:30 AM (which means it was pretty good), I finished a book called "Rachel's Holiday" by Marian Keyes. It was a chick lit novel about a 28 year old in a rehab center. And it made me panicky: Do I drink too much? Do I drink too much?

I don't. I know I don't. But it gets in your head and swirls around in a scary way. Something to think about, at least.

I don't know what would happen if I read James Frey.