January reading highlights

 When I wrote up my reading highlights of 2013 all crammed together, I decided it would be better to do monthly posts in 2014.  So here I am, ready to talk about what I read in January.

That's a lot of books!  Ignore those two in the upper left - I finished them this month but I couldn't get a screen grab without them.  Still - I've read a lot of books already this year!

January stats

Graphic novels/comics - 7
Adult fiction - 3
Teen fiction - 4
Teen non-ficiton - 1
J audio - 2
Picture books - 1

There's a lot of good stuff here, I'm not even quite sure what to highlight over anything else.  I suppose I should start with the freakiest book of the bunch.

1970's Seattle - teens are contracting an STD that turns them into freaky mutants.  As if that's not bad enough, now there's a killer loose, murdering them off one by one...

Disturbing.  Classic art by Seattle artist Charles Burns.


Slightly less disturbing, but very thought provoking, we have Zone One by Colton Whitehead.  Who ever thought there could be an introspective zombie book?!!  After reading this one, I've decided that should the zombie apocalypse occur, I'd like to be infected soon and get it over with.  The fight is just too grim, and too futile.  Bite me now.

Let's talk about eating now, shall we?!

Some people have the luxury to savor every bite, and every action that goes into the preparation of the food that nourishes their bodies.  Other people find themselves in circumstances that push them to the very edge of acceptable behavior - and beyond - in the name of survival.  History can be personal, and it can also be public, especially if it involves highly publicized events.

Be glad you have food.  Enjoy your meals, and be glad you don't have to eat your sister.

It could be worse though!  You could have lived in England, in 1612!  You could have been accused of witchcraft, and thrown into a pit for months to await trial!

I must be reading bleak books because it's the bleak months of winter.  I haven't even gone into tongues cut out, pandemic diseases, death and grieving, or depression!

All things being what they are, I recommend every book in that montage above.  Not a dud in the bunch.  February is looking pretty good as well, though I'm not reading quite as many books.  Perhaps a bit cheerier!  Come back for the next roundup - it's sure to be interesting!

A year in reading - part three

Here it is - I know you've been waiting with baited breath for the last installment of my reading wrap-up.  Thanks goodness for Goodreads - how else would I keep track of all of this?  I actually find Goodreads to be a very useful tool when people ask for book recommendations, or when I'm looking for information about a book.

I read a lot in the last four months of the year - including some really good YA fiction.  Here's the list...


September - 7

• Picture This: The Near-sighted Monkey Book - Lynda Barry
• The Bartender's Tale - Ivan Doig
• The Dog Stars - Peter Heller
• Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore - Robin Sloan
• The Gallery of Regrettable Food - James Lileks
• My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs - Matthue Roth
• Carnivores - Aaron Reynolds

October - 14

• Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock - Matthew Quick
• Amphigorey Also - Edward Gorey
• Chiggers - Hope Larson
• More Than This - Patrick Ness
• Why Grizzly Bears Should Wear Underpants - The Oatmeal
• Everything, Vol. 1: Collected and Uncollected Comics from Around 1978-1982 - Lynda Barry
• Poopy Claws - Gene Ambaum
• Amelia Cole and the Unknown World - Adam P. Knave
• Everything I Need To Know I Learned From a Little Golden Book - Diane E. Muldrow
• Lost and Found: Three by Shaun Tan - Shaun Tan
• Maphead: Charting the Wide, Weird World of Geography Wonks - Ken Jennings
• Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Biruté Galdikas - Jim Ottaviani
• Walking Your Octopus: A Guidebook to the Domesticated Cephalopod - Brian Kesinger
• Vader's Little Princess - Jeffrey Brown

November - 13

• Far Far Away - Tom McNeal
• Should You Be Laughing at This? - Hugleikur Dagsson
• Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy - Nathan Hale
• Boxers - Gene Luen Yang
• Saints - Gene Luen Yang
• The Ghost Prison - Joseph Delaney
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals - Michael Pollan
• It's a Book - Lane Smith
• Farm Anatomy: Curious Parts and Pieces of Country Life - Julia Rothman
• Eleanor & Park - Rainbow Rowell
• Grumpy Cat: a Grumpy Book - Grumpy Cat
• Little Fish: A Memoir from a Different Kind of Year - Ramsey Beyer
• Two Boys Kissing - David Levithan

December - 9

• Concrete Island - J.G. Ballard
• Frankenstein - Rick Walton
• Letting it Go - Miriam Katin
• The Encyclopedia of Early Earth - Isabel Greenberg
• Bad Houses - Sara Ryan
• Mr. Wuffles - David Weisner
• Momentum - Saci Lloyd
• A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
• The Runaway Windmill - John R. Erickson

16 Graphic Novels/Comics
4 Fiction
4 Non-Fiction
10 YA Fiction
1 J Fiction
8 Picture Books

(2 Audiobooks)

Looks like I went crazy in October and November!  I must have been in need of some humor, as I see several of the books I read during this time period were humor.  No wonder, with the state of the world what it is!

My favorites of the year are definitely in this batch.  If I had to choose one book of the year to recommend to people, it would be The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan.

Very few books that I've read have had such an impact on my attitude about anything.  I think the only other book, which I read MANY years ago was Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television by Jerry Mander (yes, that's his real name).  Pollan's description of four very different meals, and they way in which their respective bits ended up on the plate is very interesting and eye-opening.  You'll never look at things the same when walking through the grocery store after reading this book!  Read it, then find your nearest sources of TRULY grass-fed, naturally raised meat and support them.

The YA fiction in this round was very strong.  Each year our library system holds a Mock Printz book discussion event - trying to agree on the best YA book based on literary merit.  The event is always fun, and after we pick our "winner" we wait to see if we were even close to what the award committee picks (it's all done very secretly).  We have a strong group this year, including these two:

Just read them!

I'm getting a little tired of talking about books, but wanted to finish this wrap-up of my year.  Next year I'll do a monthly summary, so I don't have to cram it all into a couple of days.

Happy Reading in 2014!

A year of reading, part two

Here we are, back again for round two of my 2013 reading wrap-up.  May through August!  I'm rather enjoying looking back at what I read through the year - I've got such a crummy memory I've forgotten half of it already!

Or maybe they just weren't memorable books...


May - 6

• Them: Adventures with Extremists - Jon Ronson
• Black Helicopters - Blythe Woolston
• Game Changer - Margaret Peterson Haddix
• Midwinterblood - Marcus Sedgwick
• Zombie Makers: True Stories of Nature's Undead - Rebecca L. Johnson
• A Red Sun Also Rises - Mark Hodder

June - 8

• Virtual Light - William Gibson
• Will & Whit - Laura Lee Gulledge
• Page by Paige - Laure Lee Gulledge
• A Matter of Days - Amber Kizer
• Scowler - Daniel Kraus
• Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping - Melanie Watt
• Scrivener's Moon - Philip Reeve
• Scaredy Squirrel - Melanie Watt

July - 6

• Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
• Islands in the Net - Bruce Sterling
• Singularity - William Sleator
• Sisters on the Fly: Caravans, Campfires, and Tales from the Road - Irene Rawlings
• You're All Just Jealous of My Jetpack - Tom Gauld
• My Cool Caravan: An Inspirational Guide to Retro-Style Caravans - Jane Field-Lewis

August - 4

• Little Century - Anna Keesey
• Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories - Kelly Link, ed.
• The Freddie Stories - Lynda Barry
• Trailerama - Phil Noyes

4 Graphic Novel/Comics
5 Fiction
4 Non-fiction
8 YA Fiction
1 YA Non-fiction
2 Picture books
(2 Audiobooks)

Okay then!  My reading habits really smoothed out in the spring, but fizzled out later in the summer.  No surprise!  It was very wet and rainy early on, and the sun finally came out and there were other things to do with my time.

Highlights.  Hmmm...

I decided to get back into audiobooks, seeing as our car has a CD player and radio stations either suck or have dodgy reception.  Great decision!  I started off with Scrivener's Moon, the third in a YA series by Philip Reeve that I really enjoy (and that's saying something - I usually only read the first book a series but can't be bothered to go back for the rest).  Anyhow, the reader was fantastic.  I looked for more by her, and that led me to my second audiobook of the year - another YA selection.

Steampunk! was a fun collection of short stories by well known YA authors - Cory Doctorow and Libba Bray included.


I can't go on without mentioning Scowler, by Daniel Kraus.  I'm not generally a reader of horror, but after reading Rotters and declaring it the BEST book I read in 2011, I couldn't wait to read Scowler.  It was not an easy read, that's for sure.  It was truly and completely horrifying.  And so well written.    In a sea of YA first-person narratives (I I I, me me me), it was so refreshing to read a book that not only had a story line with depth, but also had such well-crafted prose.  I cannot wait until his next book comes out, just for the sheer pleasure of enjoying his skill at putting words together.

I don't have much else to say about this lot, other than a few quick bits.

Them: Adventures with Extremists - despite the fact it was written a decade ago, Ronson's tales of his encounters with the fringe elements of society was highly entertaining - and still very relevant.

Cloud Atlas - a good read, I've heard the movie doesn't cut it  Stick with the book.

Zombie Makers - GROSS!  And so fascinating.  We need more books like this!

I think that's enough for now.  Stay tuned for part three tomorrow.  Lots of great books to talk about.

A year of reading, part one

I read a lot this year.  Not quite as much as I had hoped, but things picked up and I did fairly well.  I've decided to split my review into three parts.  January - April, May - August, and September - December (not done yet - three more days!).

I'm always kicking myself that I should read more.  Especially considering I'm a LIBRARIAN.  I had a couple of slow months, but did manage to step up my reading later in the year.  Part of it is dragging myself away from the computer, and part of it is finding a comfortable place to sit and read here at home (still working on it).  I determined halfway through the year that it was our couch causing the back pain I was experiencing.  No sitting on couch = no back pain!  When the weather was nice, I had a decent chair outside, and these days I sit on my computer chair for reading too.  Lame, but it's working out all right for now.  Perhaps that should be a major goal of 2014 - finding a decent chair to sit in!

Without further ado... my 2013 reading adventures, January - April.

• January - 3
• Zombies Hate Stuff - Greg Stones
• Flight Behavior - Barbara Kingsolver
• The Passage - Justin Cronin
• February - 12
• Chopsticks - Jessica Anthony
• Girl in Translation - Jean Kwok
• Me Write Book - Graham Roumieu
• In Me Own Words - Graham Roumieu
• Bigfoot, I Not Dead - Graham Roumieu
• Where'd You Go, Bernadette - Maria Semple
• The Number 73304-23-4153-6-96-8 - Thomas Ott
• Drinking at the Movies - Julia Wertz
• Battlepug, Volume 1 - Mike Norton
• Marbles - Ellen Forney
• Uses for Boys - Erica Lorraine Scheidt
• Altered - Jennifer Rush
• March - 4
• Maggot Moon - Sally Gardner
• The Twelve - Justin Cronin
• A Little Book of Sloth - Lucy Cooke
• Etiquette and Espionage - Gail Carriger
• April - 5
• The Lost Code - Kevin Emerson
• Diary of a Creepy Ass Doll - Stacey Leigh Brooks
• Flood! - Eric Drooker
• Orleans - Sherri L. Smith
• Lover's Lane - Rick Geary

12 Graphic Novel/Comics
5 Fiction
6 YA Fiction
1 Picture Book


Hmmmm, that's quite an interesting start to the year!  It almost looks as if I was reading lots of graphic novels to pad my numbers at the start of the year... ahem.

One (two) of the highlights was/were definitely Justin Cronin's books, The Passage and The Twelve.

Literature CRACK!  Everybody here at the house loved these books.

 


When will the third book be out?  Sometime in 2014, I hope!!!

And how can you go wrong with zombies - and clowns?!!!  You can't!  Straightforward humor.  I dare you not to laugh.

Flight Behavior was good, a classic Barbara Kingsolver - good story, strong environmental message.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette - if you're from Seattle or nearby, you'll really appreciate the mocking of the whole upscale high-tech culture.  I sure did!

Graphic novels (non-fiction!) may seem like fluff, but there are some good ones out there that really pack a punch.   Marbles, for instance - which deals with the author's experience with her bipolor life.  Light and fluffy?  Not even.

Nothing too stellar in YA fiction, but nothing bad either.  I read some much better books later in the year, and will talk about them in the next two posts about this year's reading.

Duds - what about duds?!!

Diary of a Creepy Ass Doll for sure!  What could have had great potential just seemed like an overworked, trying too hard attempt at dark humor.  And it totally missed the point.

Don't bother!

Fall...

Well folks, there's no going back. Summer is winding down and autumn is here to stay for a bit. Today was really lovely though. The sun came out for a while this afternoon, and I took some time to just sit in the yard and enjoy a book. I figured it could be a while before I can do that again. Maybe we'll get another nice day when I'm not working, but the chances grow smaller and smaller every day.

The sky was full of crows and starlings flying here and there, calling and twittering. Twice a large flock of starlings flew over, the only sound the swish of their wings. Very cool.

I'm reading several books right now. Some for work, and some just for pleasure.


First up, Ratner's Star by Don DeLillo, recommended to me by Michael (who so far has hit the nail on the head with his suggestions). It's the story of a 14 year old math genius, who is brought to a surreal scientific compound to help figure out what is certainly a message from a distant planet orbiting Ratner's star. The characters are strange, and though they talk to each other it seems as if nobody really listens to what each other is saying. As I'm getting into the book, the people and conversations just seem to get stranger, and stranger...



Next up, Sunshine, by Robin McKinley. Yet another in a long, endless line of vampire books for teens. I've read the entire Cirque du Freak series by Darren Shan, and those were good. I liked his take on vampirism - there are two types (those that feast on humans, and those that don't) - and the battles between them, between good and evil. I was really pleased at how the series ended, and yes, I even cried a bit at the end of it all. More recently I read Twilight, and not even half of the second book, New Moon, by Stephanie Meyer. I realize not everyone will know that these books are huge - right up there with the Harry Potter books. The hype and excitement over the series is massive. Teenage girls just looooooove Bella and Edward (though some of us prefer Jacob, the werewolf - I am team Jacob all the way, if I must pick a team). I should read the whole series, but I just don't know if I'll be able to stomach them. Bella goes on and on about how beautiful Edward is, and I want to slap her on just about every page. It is more than this girl can take! I've never been one for the mush. Anyhow. On to Sunshine - which I picked up because some of my fellow librarians liked it. Not to mention I figured I should be at least somewhere versed in vampire literature for teens! Ha. Just a mere 75 pages in, I can say I like it MUCH BETTER than Twilight. Did I say I like it MUCH BETTER?!! Just wanted you to understand that point. It is better written, the main character isn't a twit, and it's a little tough to tell where the story is going. I'm so glad I'll have something good to recommend to the teens!


Sticking with our seasonal theme of vampires, we have Sundays With Vlad, by Paul Bibeau. After a near marriage ruining honeymoon in which he takes his wife to visit the real castle of Vlad Tepish (which turns out to be nothing more than a pile of rubble up a very steep trail outside of a very dicey Romanian town), he decides to investigate the myth that has become the Dracula we know and love today. Bibeau's writing is hysterical, and I find myself laughing on every page. Oh yeah - this is definitely non-fiction. Though the stories Bibeau uncovers, and the people he encounters along the way are probably stranger than anything your imagination might come up with.



Right then - just a glimpse at my current reading list. Honestly, I wish I had an extra head and pair of arms, just for reading. There are so many books to read, and so many I should be reading for work. How on earth am I supposed to keep up?!!!

In other news, I am completely reloading the music into my iTunes. It had become a dreadful mess, and somewhere along the way it lost the pathway to a bunch of songs. I suppose it didn't help that I had my music spread between umpteen folders on two hard drives... Anyhow, I bit the bullet this morning and cleared iTunes. Now I'm loading everything back in, slowly but surely. It will be a chore, yes - but I will be able to decide what I really want in there and what I want to delete. And once it is done it won't be so messy. Much better.

Have a good one!

We Call Upon the Author - Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds