And Now For the Thrilling Conclusion of: In Which I Make a Meme

Now remember, these are not necessarily my all-time favorite books, but rather the best representatives of the best books on my shelves.

6. Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell. Here we represent literary fiction. I read Cloud Atlas for book club a few years ago; I was mad when they picked it, because the back cover uses the word “postmodern” to describe it, and that word makes my brain melt. And then I started the book, and found the first chapter, written in the style of a diary of an 1800s ocean journey, hard to read. And I really didn’t trust the author to pull of the overly clever structure he was using. But I fell in love with the simplicity behind the complicated structure, with the connections between different styles of storytelling, with the mainstreaming of science fiction, with the incredibly different ways of addressing the same themes.

I have a fairly low tolerance for standard “literary fiction,” which too often loses track of its story in the face of its ideas. But when an author does it right, it can be amazing. Mary Doria Russell does something like this with The Sparrow, Marilynn Robinson in Housekeeping. The People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks, is another novel that uses beautiful prose and historical research to tell a series of stories that are really one story, about tolerance and faith and history.

I choose Cloud Atlas here both because it’s one of my favorites, and because it brings in another element that I find fascinating—mainstream fiction that bridges the gap with science fiction. Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go is another of my favorite example of this—a story that people who “don’t read science fiction” would pick up and enjoy, but that is science fiction both thematically and in plot.

7. Arrows of the Queen, by Mercedes Lackey. This is mostly a nostalgia choice, but it also represents something important. First, there needs to be a decent amount of fantasy on this list, because that’s what it takes to reflect what I read. But this was the first fantasy novel that I ever read. For my twelfth birthday, my aunt sent me three novels. One was Trespasses, a solid World War II family saga; one was People of the Wolf, which I think she picked because I liked Clan of the Cave Bear, and one was Arrows of the Queen. I could not for the life of me figure out why she picked these books—with the exception of People of the Wolf, they were like nothing I’d ever read. Somehow, I never ended up reading People of the Wolf, but read Trespasses several times (though I haven’t thought of it in years). And Mercedes Lackey became one of my favorite authors. I gobbled up the rest of her work ,waited for the new ones to come out, searched for anthologies where her stories had been published.

Sad to say, I’ve grown out of her a bit lately, but I think it’s more a matter of us growing apart—as her books go along, they get more complex and, I think, more flawed. But her early, simple work I can still go back to with the fresh eyes of someone who can be amazed at the person who came up with a world where everyone has a psychic connection to a sentient horse. And dammit, I still love her for it.

8. Going Postal, by Terry Pratchett. Because good funny is hard to find, but vitally necessary in life.

9. The Nine Parts of Desire, by Geraldine Brooks. And here we come to nonfiction. Since I would say that at least 90% of what I read is fiction, I only get to put one of these on the list, but there’s a broad range in here. I choose this one because I learned so much from it that I carry with me today—though it was written more than 15 years ago, it’s an excellent guide to the Middle East, if you’re willing to exclude any current events and just look at history. This is where I learned about the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, and about what is said in the Koran vs. what is practiced by tribal cultures that have adopted Islam over the centuries.

My nonfiction reading is kind of all over the map, though. I like pop psychology books and memoirs (An Unquiet Mind, by Kay Redfield Jameson), books about how medicine works (Better, by Atul Gawande), autism memoirs (The Seige, by Clara Claiborne Park—I used to work in autism, and Clara Park was my advisor in college), and explorations of any subject that are either fun (Stiff, by Mary Roach) or titillating (Leaving the Saints, by Martha Beck). I’m a bit of a sucker, actually, for titillating when it comes to nonfiction.

10. Farthing, by Jo Walton. I think this is a good book to sum it all up, because it covers so much ground. It’s plain old good fiction. It’s thought-provoking, with an alternate-reality twist. It’s a mystery—I don’t read a lot of mysteries, but I’m loyal to a few: Colin Cotterill’s Dr. Siri stories, and the No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency books. It’s speculative fiction, which I would say is not anything as flat-out fantastical as science fiction or fantasy, but it comes back to bridging those gaps between genre and mainstream, like Never Let Me Go. The book is about a murder mystery set in an alternate 1940s England, where Hitler rules continental Europe, and England and the U.S. remain out of the war. Ideas about right and wrong, loyalty, fear, and bigotry are examined in great detail by a flighty socialite of a narrator. It’s a wonderful book, and represents so much of what I’m hungry for when I read. You should really check it out.

So I wonder if this covers everything. You'll notice that I snuck a bunch more titles onto the list through the backdoor, but even there, I had to trim--Adventures in the Screen Trade, by William Goldman--humor, or nonfiction? A Gift Upon the Shore, by M.K. Wren--how do I work it into the text of #10? Sadly, I don't; there's too much great stuff out there. But here's a glimpse, and, for anyone who thinks they might like what I like, a little reading list. So, enjoy.

In Which I Make a Meme, Part the First

Inspired by a "15 Albums" meme that Mike did on Facebook, I've decided to start one of my own: 10 books. The idea is to create a 15 book reading list that will encapsulate and summarize my taste. A lot of them are my favorites, but not all the choices are my "desert island" favorites; I went for a representative corps, rather than the outliers. But the idea is that if you read this list, you should be able to go out and make an intelligent decision if you decided to, say, buy me a gift. (Which would be very nice of you. Thanks for even thinking of it!)

You'll notice that I sneak in a lot of other titles from the pool of work that each item represents. I'm cheap; sue me. Also, the post was really long, so this is the first half. More to come.

Okay, here we go!

1. In This House of Brede, by Rumer Godden. This book is representative of a few overlapping categories: nun books and detail books. In sci-fi and fantasy, there's an element of storytelling called worldbuilding, in which the author gives you the details you need to understand the world in which the story takes place. The details of day-to-day life in this nun book are exquisitely well-drawn, and a world as foreign as any imaginary one just springs to life. Most nun books (I'm not sure if this is a category acknowledged anywhere else in the world, except privately among readers of nun books) have as part of their appeal the sweet simplicity of a life outside of the world, and also the rigorous inner journey of someone who has chosen something difficult and meaningful to devote themselves to. (As the Mother General says in The Nun's Story, by Kathryn Hulme, my first and most cherished nun book, "In many ways it is a life against nature.")

Audrey Hepburn brought me to the movie The Nun's Story, which brought me to the book, which brought me to this book. Some of them are memoirs, some novels. And I'm not interested in racy exposés; though I don't demand all roses and sweet smiles, I'm in the nun books for the focus of these lives, and that's what I love to read about. I love to read about a life that is hard and worth it; as John Adams said (or something like it), there are only two kinds of people worth anything--those with a commitment, and those that require the commitment of others.

2. Miss Manners' Guide to Excruciatingly Correct Behavior, by Judith Martin. I am an advice junkie. Part of it is a creepy kind of voyeurism--other people's problems are titillating--of which I'm not proud. Part of it is the bald fact that great writing is great writing, and Judith Martin has a simple grandeur and vicious dignity that is pretty thrilling. And part of it is just the catharsis of being told exactly how one might go about living the perfect life, even if that is totally unattainable. Also, the question-and-answer format is very digestible. Fun fun fun.

3. Shining Through, by Susan Isaacs. Chick lit: I'm a female, and my taste in literature can in no way be defined as highfalutin', so there will be some chick lit. But I'm seriously picky about chick lit, since I secretly kind of hate anyone I see wearing sharp-pointy-toed shoes, even people I like. Which means I kind of hate a lot of people in chick lit books. But there are some books that make the cut--Megan McCafferty, some Elinor Lipman, the Bridget Jones books. Susan Isaacs takes the cake, though, and Shining Through is the best of the bunch. The life and loves of a sassy World War II secretary-turned-spy. Can't get better.

4. Preludes and Nocturnes, by Neil Gaiman. It’s so pedestrian of me to pick Sandman to represent comics in this lineup, but it’s incredibly famous and popular and classic for a reason. Besides graphic novels, this is also great fantasy, and an excellent example of a plot-driven story that is still full of and very much about important ideas--duty, honor, history, storytelling. It is so intensely up my alley (and, I guess, everyone else’s) that I can’t even articulate it, except maybe to say that this is one of those works that not only wish I could have written but feel lives in my brain as though it was there before I read it. You know what I mean? I love Hellboy, Castle Waiting, and a lot of great one-offs (The Last of the Independents, by Matt Fraction--anyone?), but The Complete Sandman would definitely be at the top of my desert island list, so I think it has to make this one.

5. Ghosts I Have Been, by Richard Peck. If there is a compendium of all Peck’s Blossom Culp books out there, I’d pick that, but if I had to pick one, you have to go with the original. I twiddled with this part of the list a bit—I wanted to include some quality YA fantasy (Princess Academy, by Shannon Hale), and some indulgent Pez-type stuff (I actually wrote an explanation of why Goodbye, Stacey, Goodbye is my favorite Babysitter’s Club book), and I recently fell in love with something else again (Bloody Jack, by L.A. Meyer), but if I want to boil it down, I think my desert island choice in this category would be Blossom Culp.

I’d like to say I keep up on the kids’ stuff because of my hoped-for youth librarian-future, but the truth is, it’s the other way around. Librarianship looked like a good place to go, since I was already reading this stuff. I think fantasy writers and YA writers are doing some of the purest storytelling out ther; they can’t afford to lose the story--the characters, the plot, the events—to their ideas and themes and statements about life, but they have to include those elements. I think it makes for disciplined work, and I think that’s why so much YA material appeals to me. I’m a little surprised, actually, that it only got one spot on the list, but here you have it.

Okay, this is more than enough for now. Six through ten, coming at you soon. Stay tuned!

Up And Coming

I'm working on a big post with kind of a cool meme in it, but it's taking some time and energy, so I wanted to drop in and discuss my current reading list. But first, I want to point out the awesome-cool Goodreads widget that updates the images of the books I'm reading, with links directly to my Amazon Associates account. So feel free to click through those, if you'd like, or just admire the ever-changing list of books I'm reading, whether I actively blog them or not.

So, right now, I'm finally getting around to some Nero Wolfe, as recommended by my good friend Kris, whose taste is as eclectic as one might wish. It's got that fast-paced, workman-style mystery that you get in a noir tale, and I'm really loving it. I mean, it took me about two hours to read the first half, so it's not deeply profound or anything, but I have no idea what's going to happen, and I'm excited to find out. Nero Wolfe himself is kind of irritating, though. And has Orson Welles ever played him, 'cause he totally should have. It's called The Golden Spiders, by Rex Stout. (Pen name? I wonder.)

Because this is due soon, I put aside (at great emotional discomfort) the second Bloody Jack book, which I had made good progress on: The Curse of the Blue Tattoo. The reason this hurts so much is because I have FINALLY found the motherlode--a pirate book that is also about a girls' boarding school. I am absolutely swooning! And this reminds me of my fondness for boarding school books, and makes me ask: recommendations, please! Books, especially YA, that take place at boarding schools, especially of the past. Besides Charlotte Sometimes (more of a kid's book than YA) and the Great and Terrible Beauty Series (very satisfying), I'm practically stumped. Suggestions!

That's it for now. Look out for a more in-depth post in the next few days. No, really!

Ah, Young Love

Do you remember Sunfire Romances? Those historical young girls with a gleam in their eye and two chaste boys chasing them? My favorite was Cassie, a white girl raised by the Mohawk* tribe, in love with a trapper, pursued by a blacksmith, trying to be part of both worlds. It turns out that the author, Vivian Schurfranz, wrote another one, Josie, which is actually quite hard to get your hands on.

Hard, that is, unless your local library buys ten books a year, and the majority of their YA holdings were published before I was a young adult. There she was, just staring up at me from the paperback rack. So I brought her home.

And now I'm afraid to reread Cassie, because if Josie is any indication, these babies don't hold up too well. I remember Cassie as compelling, but Josie is somewhat disjointed. On many levels there's nothing more wrong with it than with any book written 20 years ago for 13-year-olds, but that is not to say that I need to want to read them.

Except, of course, the Babysitter's Club.

So I dipped my toe in that nostalgic pool, and came out...well, wet. But it's okay. I'm wrapping up Fieldwork, which has inexplicably taken me a long time to read, and about which I will have more to say as I finish. Until then, dear reader, read on!

*Correction: it was the Iroquois tribe, and I apologize to Cassie, Vivian Schurfranz, and Native Americans everywhere for not paying more attention.

Starring Sally J. Friedman as Herself

So the narrator of this novel I'm reading, Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski, is a character named Mischa Berlinksi. Mike's reaction to this information was, "So he read Everything is Illuminated." I feel for the guy, since he was probably working on this book five years ago when Everything came out, and he's going to be looked at as a Johnny-Come-Lately to the self-named narrator bandwagon, but I have to say his use of this is irritating me way less than Jonathan Safran Foer's did.

JSF was my least favorite part of that book. It seemed at once self-indulgent and as though he was laughing at himself in order to laugh at the reader, somehow. Is this character you, or isn't he? This isn't an experience you had. Is it that you were imagining yourself in that experience? Is this really how you see yourself? But that's so sad; this was no Mary Sue situation. If it was a fictional character, why give him your name?

Berlinski is doing something different. I'm not 100% sure why he's using his own name, but it helps that I like the character, and that it is a believable rendition of someone writing about himself. He's not much of a character, either--one thing I love about this book is that it is, in large part, a reporting procedural. He heard about this interesting story and tracked it down, and the shape he is using to tell the story is the shape of his investigation into it. "He" being Berlinski the character, who is a writer and, so far, not much else.

Basically, I feel like, in Fieldwork, this gimmick is adding a layer of veracity, and I really am wondering how much of the time the author spent in Thailand is reflected here, how many missionaries and anthropologists and international teachers and hill tribesmen he met before deciding to write a novel around them. In Everything Is Illuminated, the trick was used to put distance between you and the author; it turned his third person narrator into someone unreliable, who either didn't really like himself or was lying outright about who he (thought he) was.

To be fair, though, Fieldwork uses way too many italics, which pitfall Everything managed to avoid. Credit where credit is due.

Whoops

I was really just returning things. Really. I had 21 books out; I was returning 4. But I ran into My Favorite Librarian, and we chatted, and I strolled into new nonfiction, which is a small section, not too tempting, right? And there's this book called The Wisdom of Whores. What's this? A sociological study of sex education in the red light districts of Eastern Asia? Well...it's not really something I....the author is cited as having a biting wit. And look at this first page--she's got an engaging style, all right. Well, I don't have to read it, I'll just check it out.

And, on display, Salman Rushdie's new book, for which I'd seen an interesting blurb somewhere. I've never read one of his books before. Ah, what the heck?

So...I now have 19 books checked out. Sigh. In my defense, two are for Mike, one for Marsha, and six are picture books for Adam, and one I've finished. That brings me down to 9 that I intend to read. Oh, oh, and one is a Sunfire Romance! It was on a rack in Medford. Josie, by the author of my favorite Sunfire, Cassie. It's all just so exciting!

Right now I'm reading Fieldwork, by Mischa Berlinski. So far, really surprisingly good--a reporting procedural Thailand mystery thing. Really engaging!

The Mystery Mystery

I don't read a lot of mysteries. I used to listen to audiobooks of the Kinsey Milhone alphabet series--A is for Alibi, C is for Corpse, etc. I like Sherlock Holmes. But at the library, there are only two reasons I'll go into the mystery section: Mma Ramotswe and Dr. Siri Paiboun.

What they have in common, besides the obvious quality of both taking place in other countries, is a sense of the lighthearted, and (not incidentally) of the actual mysteries being almost subplots. I couldn't even tell you what anyone is trying to solve in any of these books; the point is the characters, the cleverness, and the ambiance.

The two series are very different, though, and I was just thinking about those differences today. In the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency books, the country of Botswana is practically a character. The beauty of the land, the patient, the values and methodical mindset of most of the characters, and the dialogue are all intended to be distinctly Botswanan. I say "intended," because I have no context for saying whether it's accurate.

But simplicity is the main descriptor I would use for them. People say a lot of sentences like, "It is very bad when your car breaks down." Things are "bad" and "good." Simple observations are made, and a lot of conversation consists of agreeing with each other. I'm not sure if the simplicity is a little condescending, in presenting everyone as uncomplicated, maybe primative? I don't want to think so, and it's terribly charming, but sometimes I wonder.

Dr. Siri's communist Laos is very different. Of course, a communist nation in the '70s is inherently different from a modern African country, but there's more to it than that. Things are messier in Laos, and less pleasant, but the language is the big difference. Cotterill's characters use a lot of sarcasm, wit, cynicism, and complexity. There are still a lot of traditional cultural values represented--respect for elders, family taking care of each other by sending their money home, national pride. But the individual characters in the book come across as more complicated. I can't decide if my assessment that this is a good thing, that it's probably an accurate reflection of the internal life of people everywhere, that it's less condescending, is in itself a somewhat condescending Eurocentric way of looking at things.

So now I don't see anything for it but to learn Setswana and go to Africa to figure the whole thing out.

The Kicker

I finished The Buffalo Soldier, by Chris Bohjalian, today. In the last 100 pages, you can feel everything building to a climax--there's a storm like the one that killed the girls at the beginning of the book, and everyone's trying to drive home and really nervous about it, and we jump back and forth among our main characters very quickly. So you know something big is coming.

And for a minute, I got myself all turned around and thought I was reading a Jodi Picoult book, and I expected HER kind of twist ending--instead of the characters having to resolve their difficult quandaries, someone pivotal would die suddenly and no one would have to decide anything. I was totally expecting it--trying to figure out whose death would solve the most emotional and logistical problems within the story.

And then I realized that it wasn't her, and the story had a much more reasonable (if slightly convenient) ending. I actually feel very, very slightly let down, though, because I feel like he set up a very complicated moral conundrum and then resolved it by just sort of ignoring part of it. At least Picoult brings in a deus ex machina to tidy up the loose ends, instead of just pretending that they aren't there.

I hate to be so vague, but it was really such a good book that I don't want to give anything away about the ending! So, go read it and we'll talk more.

As an aside: it's interesting that authors who have very geographically centered novels often have one place that is their "away," where people go to start life over or escape or dream of. For Pat Conroy, it's Italy. For Chris Bohjalian, it's the American southwest.

Passing the Bux

I was a little worried that my huge volume of books in my physical queue (i.e. books that I already have checked out of the library) was maybe the reason I've passed on two books I had planned to read and picked up this week. But I don't think so, I think both were wise and liberating choices.

Adam's Navel sounded like an interesting bit of pop nonfiction--a "physical and cultural anthropology of the human body." I was a little intimidated by the density of the type and the thinness of the pages--god I'm shallow--but when I started reading I realized that yes, the density of this book is a problem. It's basically a brainstormed soliloquy on the human body. Every literary quote and scientific factoid about various body parts creeps into this story. It didn't really impress me, and did I mention the density? A pass.

Born on a Blue Day was quite the opposite. Daniel Tammet's autobiography/memoir about growing up with Asperger's Syndrome and synesthesia. I really wanted it to be interesting--who doesn't want to know more about what it's like to smell numbers? And the idea of peeking inside Asperger's Syndrome, which makes people hard to be around, is very tempting. Sadly, the author writes like someone who has Asperger's Syndrome. The language and style are there, but there is very little feeling--his memoir is a litany of facts about his childhood (as far as I got; I assume it proceeds into facts about his adolesence and adulthood). And there is no feel for synesthesia--I can sympathize with this; how can you describe sight to the blind? That must be what it's like for him to try to describe this to us. But I felt a lack of empathy in his telling that made it hard to read on.

So, no regrets. And yeah, I suppose part of that feeling of liberation relates to the fact that I have more than a dozen library books out. What of it?

This Is What We Mean When We Say You're Too Clever For Your Own Good

Lemony Snicket.

Specifically, The Unauthorized Autobiography of Lemony Snicket. It's really a series of stylish funny lines (not really jokes), cryptically captioned photos that someone picked up in the archives of an historical society, and elaboration on the mysteries within the Series of Unfortunate Events. I've only read the first three books in the series, so I'm really curious, now, whether a lot of the mysteries in those three books are resolved later in the series--that is, if this autobiography is elaborating on questions that are answered, or merely raised, in the series of books. I might have to ask Wikipedia, to spare me reading all 13 books.

Next up: Born on a Blue Day, the memoir of an autistic savant; or maybe Bloody Jack, a swashbuckling tale of an orphaned girl gone into piracy. I don't know that I can read The Buffalo Soldier right now--Bohjalian is always so...I won't say maudlin, but not for someone who's in a mopey mood.

I'm reading toward my due dates, at this point. I have several books due in a week or so--Adam's Navel, which is about body parts (nonfiction, thank heaven), something by Patricia McKillip...oh, it just goes on and on. I'm going to bed.

Local Branches

Local library branches are a challenge for me. I have two books on my "Check This Out Soon" list, and the only place to get both of them is at the main branch of the BPL. Before Baby, that would have made them easy to get, but getting downtown is a bigger deal now than it used to be, so I'm trying to decide whether I should order them for delivery to my local branch.

These are the things that prey on me.

I just finished Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games, which was not quite as good as Graceling, but another big YA winner. In the distant future, people in the Capitol live lives of wealth, supported by the labor of the poor, hungry folk in the outlying Districts. And once a year, two young people are selected randomly from each district to participate in the Hunger Games, a fight to the death with only one winner. Overall, the book was quite compelling--even the premise seems less of an obvious setup the way it's explained--and my only complaint is that it ends with the words "End of Book I." The story is well wrapped up, but the personal relationships are not, and there's plenty of political turmoil to make another book, but I'm undecided as to whether or not I want to commit to this.

Now I'm reading an older post-apocalyptic distant future story, called The Chrysalids. I'm enjoying it so far, but I don't know what the driving force of the story will be yet, so I don't have a firm opinion.

I'm excited about this spring, though--Dooce's Heather Armstrong is coming out with It Sucked and I Cried, the story of her troubles with postpartum depression, which I'm very excited to read. She's an hilarious and sensitive writer, and I'm really interested in the topic. And Megan McCafferty is coming out with Perfect Fifths, the topper for her Sloppy Firsts series. I'm full of anticipation--I might even have to buy some of these!

Admitting Comeuppance

I was going to blog the other day about a book I had just started that was promising to be pretty mediocre. I wasn't going to specify the book, because 1) I now fear the self-googling of authors, and 2) though I don't know her, I went to school with the author, making it even more desirable that I not be found out.

The first four chapters were, in my opinion, pretty mediocre. The story begins in medias res, as is only proper--the main character and some of her friends are rescuing someone from the dungeon of a king. There are a lot of names introduced (the friends who are with her, the friends who are waiting elsewhere, the various royalty involved), which is a muddle, but one trusts the author to sort out a muddle of introductions in the first chapter, so fine.

This is followed by three or four chapters of "backstory." This was painful--it reminded me of that chapter at the beginning of all the Babysitters Club books where we learn that Stacey has diabetes and dresses really cool and Dawn is from California and an individual and Kristy's new stepfather is a millionaire. Ex Po Si Shun. Some potentially really good storytelling, actually--I suspect that the book was much longer and she was forced to boil all that down and tell-not-show the background. Oh, this girl has been a thug and then started a secret organization for righting cosmic wrongs. Check--now back to our story.

So I wasn't very hopeful. By the end of the book, though, I couldn't put it down (thank God the baby's been napping well), except when something so nerve-wracking was happening that I couldn't bear to watch. The characterizations that started out so heavy-handed ended up with some really nice character development. A number of fantasy cliches were avoided (some weren't, but if you read fantasy you really can't mind a few cliches). I really liked this book.

Graceling is the title. Thumbs up.

Drive-by

City of Thieves is by the author of 25th Hour which was an excellent movie with Ed Norton. Can't remember the author right now, but I'm enjoying the book very much. I belong to a message board with an online book club and this is the February book. I miss my book club--kind of. I don't miss reading all those books that I was only minorly interested in, especially now that so much of my reading time is stolen.

Also making my way through the short stories about English history, which is a good way to get the background without getting too bogged down, which is something I often find in historical nonfiction.

I'm terribly afraid that tomorrow I'm going to be checking out the latest Dr. Siri Paiboun mystery by Colin Cotterill. Also, possibly, the book Home by Marilyn Robinson, who wrote Gilead and Housekeeping, which are both very good.

Still on deck from the library: The Buffalo Soldier, Bloody Jack, Graceling, The Chrysalids, Adam's Navel, and The Tower in Stony Wood. The Hunger Games is in transit. There are two books called Bedside Manners about doctor-patient relations--I don't remember which one I wanted to read, and so I might have to read both.

Argh!

Addict

Oh, God. Just because I was having lunch with Jo didn't mean I needed to go to the library across the street from her office. It certainly didn't mean I needed to get two more books than I had half-planned, including one I've never even heard of. Never mind the fact that I have nine books out already, about three local (owned or borrowed) books that I'm very eager to read, and precious little time to meet these personal demands.

I can't stop, though. I drive by a library and I have to go in. Adam has been to three separate libraries in the past two weeks. (He sleeps like a champ in the Baby Bjorn.)

And on this note, I'd like to shout out to Molly Collins, a truly awesome YA librarian whose job is in jeopardy due to budget cuts at a local library. She runs a really wonderful YA room (it's always packed with kids), and it would suck for her AND for the town if she got laid off. Good luck, Molly!

How Long Has It Been?

Jeez, have I really not posted in 10 days? It's true what they say about kids making time fly.

Anyway, you can tell I'm obsessive because I'm upset that I've only read four books so far this month. I'm now reading a really interesting nonfiction book called The Forger's Spell, which is about an art forger who created a bunch of fake Vermeers and pulled a fast one on the Nazis. It's really interesting--the things I'm learning about Holland, Nazis, forgery, and the art world in general are just amazing, and the book is a lot of fun to read. And there was a cameo by none other than Leo Baekland! (Inventor of Bakelite, the plastic that changed the world.)

I also finished David Rakoff's Don't Get Too Comfortable, which was a book of very amusing essays, made even better by his incredibly dry, delicate reading. I highly recommend the audiobook. It was abridged and (did I mention my obsession with my statistics?) so I had to check out the book itself from the library to read the four essays that were omitted. I really am a nut, huh?

I also just got a book from the library, Graceling, which sounded interesting and has been on my list for a while. Come to find out it was written by someone I went to college with, Krisitin Cashore. No one I knew, but now I'm feeling pretty unaccomplished.

Deep sigh. This blog reveals my innate weirdness. Ah, well, what can you do?

Starting Again

Plain Secrets, the Amish book, was very good. It was an excellent use of a personal account to tell a broader story about a society. It's a little strange that he opens with a preface about how everyone who talks about the Amish gets it wrong and has their own agenda--either about oppressive religious societies or about the wholesome goodness of leaving behind our consumer culture. But I have to say, his story isn't that different. He sees the good points and the bad points, and you could say that his occasional waxing philosophical about being in touch with the earth is not so much idealizing as...well, I can't think of a better term. He does acknowledge the restriction of Amish life, but not in any kind of real critique.

I also finished Ever, another by Gail Carson Levine. It's a pretty good YA book, and I enjoyed it very much--a sweet romance about two young people who need to find themselves. But the most interesting part, I thought, was a really interesting angle on religious critique that it takes. It's a story told from two points of view; one is that of a girl who lives in a monotheistic culture, who's been promised as a sacrifice to their somewhat overbearing God who is everywhere and nowhere. The other protagonist is actually a god from another country, where the gods are more of the Greek and Roman variety--they have powers, but limited (he can see and hear from far off, and as god of the winds has control of them and can fly. That's about it.) They go among their worshipers occasionally, and are much more humanistic.

He's pretty sure her God doesn't exist, and, being in love with her from afar, is angry that she's going to be sacrificed and wants to do something about it. But he can't be absolutely sure that her invisible God doesn't exist, so his options for action are limited. The agnosticism of a god is a whole new take on theological debate; it was interesting.

And now I'm not in the middle of anything. I've just started a religious memoir and the English history book I have, but neither of them seems quite light enough to match my current attention span. I have Hogfather, but I can't plow through Terry Pratchett--it's like being caught in a funhouse. I have The Buffalo Soldier, by Chris Bohjalian, but that's going to be very sad and solemn.

So maybe I'll have to dive into my Personal Library Renaissance now. I have American Gods, by Neil Gaiman, and World Without End, which Brenda recommends (and lent me, and I still have), and Children of God by Mary Doria Russell. So many things to choose from, but any involves beginnings. I'm not great at beginnings.

You Were Wondering, I'm Sure

So I returned The Explosionist. It just kept getting to be more and more about ghosts and less about alternate history, bombs, or girls' boarding schools. And while I'm not opposed to ghost stories, I don't like them enough to be pleased when they're the end product of a bait and switch game.

But I have to say I'm feeling gleeful, because I'm reading THREE interesting books right now, and they balance each other very well. I'm still working on Terry Pratchett's Hogfather, and that's nothing but fun. It can also be taken in small bites, because the plot tends to be so convoluted that you can easily follow the big points and really can't follow the small ones no matter what. It's all about the funny, anyway.

Then I'm reading Ever, which is another by Gail Carson Levine, whose Fairest I enjoyed recently. This one does not appear to be a retelling of any story I know (though it could be--Lord knows I didn't see it coming in her other books). This is pretty straight fantasy, YA and romance. It's sweet and fast and nice.

And finally, I just started Plain Secrets: An Outsider Among the Amish, by Joe Mackall. This is a nonfiction account of the author's friendship with an Amish family in his neighborhood (in rural Ohio, needless to say). They belong to a particularly insular order of the Amish, and he describes their lives very well. It's much more about the story of one family, rather than trying to make them "typically" Amish. It reminds me of the parts in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, where Barbara Kingsolver describes a family of farmers with whom her own family is close, only explaining near the end that they are Amish.

After these, I have a true story of someone who forged a bunch of Vermeers and almost got away with it, a memoir by an Episocopalian minister who leaves her post but not the church, a Chris Bohjalian that I still haven't read and am excited about, and a book that appears, at first glance, to tell short, engaging stories about great events in English history. You hear that, Kris? I'm going to know one Henry from another soon!

Pro v Con

I'm completely stymied by this book, The Explosionist, by Jenny Davidson.

Pro: An alternate history YA novel about Scotland in the 30s, where terrorists are blowing up buildings.

Con: It appears to be about spiritualists and mediums more than political upheaval.

Pro: Thrilling cover.

Con: Confusing inside cover flap copy. Possibly supplemented by confusing plot.

Pro: So far I like the main character.

Con: Ghosts are real. Or maybe they're not. It's unclear. And what does this have to do with things exploding, anyway?

Pro: Girls' boarding school!

Con: Main character is a day student.

Pro: It's a fairly quick read.

Con: It's 450 pages long.

I've gotten to page 50, which is about my 10% rule, and I really can't decide if I want to read it yet. Grr! And to complicate the question, a lot of the other books I have to read are nonfiction, which is a big psychological jump to make. Humph.

PS: Thanks, JLMC, for the confirmation that I really don't want to read that book!

Failed Renaissance

Sigh. I really meant, on returning all those library books today, to seize the moment and read some of my own books. Alas, it is not to be. And not because I was distracted and surprised by things on the shelves (or, not entirely so), but because I was so excited to go to the library that I immediately went through my list of books to read and found all the ones that were in stock at Malden.

So, after I finish Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (at least that one is PLR--it's Mike's copy) and The Explosionist by Jenny Davidson, I have five new books to read. One is a religious memoir, for which I'm a sucker, and one is a collection of short retellings of stories from English history (because God help me, I don't have it in me to read a whole nonfiction book about Oliver Cromwell). Then Ever, by Gail Carson Levine, whose Fairest I just finished and really liked. And something by Ursula Leguin that was, unsurprisingly, near it on the shelf. And The Buffalo Soldier, by Chris Bohjalian, which is, sadly, the last of his books that I think I want to read.

I blame this on The Double Bind, which I couldn't get into, so I read spoilers for it, and I'm glad I didn't read it and a bit nervous of his new stuff. Then he did a Holocaust book, which might or might not be good.

At home, I have something called World Without End waiting for me--high fantasy that Brenda highly recommends. Also Neil Gaiman's American Gods, and Children of God (do you see a theme in these titles? It's an accident, I swear), the sequel to The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell. Plus I have a new Gaiman book that I got for Christmas.

In December, so far, I've read five books, and I think that's all it'll be. Not bad; below my average, but you know, new baby. I cut me some slack.

So, onward! I'll report back soon.

A Very Vampire Christmas

13 Bullets, by David Wellington. I spent Christmas reading a pretty good vampire book, and doing some thinking about my relationship with vampire stories in general. The conclusion I've come to is that I have little use for stories that are about the tortured inner lives and sensual, lustful natures of these misunderstood sex-godlings. This is why I will not read or see Twilight. What I like in a vampire story is a monster story--they can be like animals or like zombies or whatever, but they're not sexy, and they don't wear frilly collars.

In 13 Bullets, they're mostly naked. They have intelligence, but it's definitely a monster story, not a romance. It wasn't a perfect story, but it had a lot of great action and a pretty cool twist near the end. The last page was kind of a let down--it seemed like it was leaving us open for a sequel, when the rest of the story tied up pretty neatly. But that's one page, and kind of a subplot that was treated oddly. In general, this was a pretty cool story, action-packed, detective-style.

Only don't read the back cover copy. It's misleading, or at least confusing. I'd love to write back cover copy for a living. What kind of job do you think that is? How do I get it? Anyone?