fifty/fifty-two

It looks like I might actually hit my goal after all. I finished Steve Martin's Shopgirl last night. It was very short and a quick little read. I think I liked Martin's other novel better, but I can't quite point out why.

It was a little weird to notice his first work also had a character who was obsessed with connections and points meeting points, just like the main character in The Pleasure of My Company. A little hmm.

forty-nine/fifty-two

I'm cheating a little here: I finished all of Kelly Link's Stranger Things Happen except for the last few pages, and it's due back at the library, so I'm counting it as done. Exquisite and surreal; I think I'm developing a taste for dreamlike short stories. I used to hate them, but I enjoyed this collection more than I expected to. I'm looking to add it to my collection (and finish it 100%!) and check out her newer book, Magic for Beginners. By the way, you can download Stranger Things Happen for free from the publisher's website . . . I don't have the link on hand, but I'll add it later. For now, I think you can find it pretty easily if you Google it.

forty-eight/fifty-two

Following the Klosterman trend: Killing Yourself to Live, wherein Señor Klosterman visits the sites of a bunch of rock-n-roll deaths. Again, he allows himself to come off as kind of a dick at times, but acknowledges that he is doing so, which I guess is supposed to make it not so bad. It was an enjoyable read, but I'm glad it was a library book and I didn't pay for it.

forty-seven/fifty-two

Chuck Klosterman's Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. Oh, hipsters. It was good for what it was, but sometimes the tone got a little boring and way too self-involved. Granted, Klosterman ADMITS that he's totally self-centric, but that doesn't help sometimes, you know? It was basically a blog in book form. I'm not saying that negatively, but that describes it best, I think. I did enjoy it, although I know this review makes it sound like I didn't. I'm feeling rushed and always sound more negative when I'm rushed. If you're into popcult, you'll like this book.

forty-six/fifty-two

Okay, these next few reviews are going to be short and sweet and not too descriptive, because I'm playing catch-up (catsup, ketchup).

Amy bought me a copy of Sarah Vowell's Take the Cannoli as a cheer-up present, and I loved it. Loved it much more than Patriot, although that may just be because I was in the mood for her style this time and not last time. It was good, and I've already put her other stuff on my wishlist.

Okay, NEXT.

meh

Sorry it's been so long, I have just been incredibly book-less lately. Current events (and this month in general) are making it hard for me to concentrate on much. Being online helps because I can flit from topic to topic, so most of my usual reading time is being spent online.

I did pick up a few magazines today because I thought they might help get me back on course: domino, EW, and CHOW. I'm hoping the new Venus is in the po box; Ben is checking it tomorrow, er, today. I will probably review them just to get back in the habit.

I'm only a dozen or so pages away from finishing Stranger Things Happen (a fantastic read, by the way) -- I just have to get back into that zone. I'm hoping to be able to do it by the end of the week. Mostly becaus my to-be-read pile isn't getting any smaller. It's started glowering at me now. Gotta get it gone.

obsession 1 / karen 0

I probably shouldn't admit this, but instead of reading, I've been putting books into my library over at Bibliophil. It's way too much fun, and I'm really glad I found it before I got too far into doing my book catalog. This way there are pictures and it's searchable and you can arrange the books in different way, like by whether you own them or whether you've read them. You can arrange your library by author, book, rating, etc. And you can have "buddies" to whom you can recommend titles.

There are a few kinks, but it's free, so I'm not complaining too much. I'm sure it will all be worked out eventually. The best part, the part that makes me forget about any glitches, is that you can EXPORT YOUR LIST.

This is just what that book-obsessive part of me -- you know, the part that's always worried about having to replace my library and becoming overwhelmed and having no idea what was in it -- needed.

Here's the link to my library, if you're interested.

forty-five/fifty-two

I'll admit I picked up The Memory of Running mostly because of Stephen King's column on it. Back when it was only available as an audiobook, he wrote this glowing review about the writing and about how Smithy was one of the most memorable and original characters ever, etc., etc. He made the book sound really good, is what I'm saying.

I forgot about it for a little while then saw it on a list somewhere of good summer reads or something, and remembered King's enthusiasm, so I reserved it at the library. There was actually a waiting list, which is usually a good sign.

So the wee hours of this morning found me finishing Ron McLarty's The Memory of Running. It was good. I almost couldn't believe how good it was. It's the story of Smithy, this enormous guy who decides -- or it's kind of decided for him, really -- to go on a long cross-country bike ride. So there are a lot of mini-adventures there. It's also his sister's story, and that part of it is pretty sad. Once again I've made a book sound much lamer than it is, but it's written very well, and Smithy is the best kind of Everyman, accessible and mostly likeable without being cloying. And the story just flows from page to page, there are no slow parts.

So thank you, Mr. King. One day I'll read one of your books, too.

forty-four/fifty-two

A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You is a collection of short stories by Amy Bloom. Every story is as perfectly crafted as that title. Even the cover is perfect.

The stories are all about ordinary people doing semi-strange things, but the writing is so beautiful that even the most everyday details seem almost magical. The most horrible things people do in her stories seem strangely pretty when she writes about them.

I borrowed this one from the library -- I'm definitely adding it to my collection, though. And I'll be hunting down anything else by Bloom as well.

forty-three/fifty-two

I think the audiobook (cassette) version of David Sedaris's Me Talk Pretty One Day might have been abridged, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's still excellent. Remember back when I disliked David Sedaris? When I made the mistake of reading Holidays on Ice as my Sedaris introduction? That was pretty dumb, huh?

There were a couple of essays on here that weren't quite as good as the rest, but that's a pretty low bar to limbo under, so I won't count that against it. I actually saved this audiobook as a treat for the workweek, that's how much I enjoy listening to Sedaris read his own stuff. And the stuff is pretty good in its own right, as well. Like the piece about learning French -- that was one of my favorites. Of course, it was also pretty cool to HEAR Sedaris's Billie Holiday impersonation, so I'd rec this one even if you've already read the book, really.

A+++++!!!!, as they say on eBay.

forty-two/fifty-two

I am in love with audiobooks. I can't say it enough. Before I found out that my library has a rather decent selection, I dreaded the drive into and back from work -- a forty-five minute trip each way -- because it felt like such a waste of time. Now I feel like I'm actually getting something accomplished.

This edition of The Best American Travel Writing, edited by Frances Mayes, is a collection of the best travel writing from 2002. For the most part, the selections are read by their authors, which is cool. I love hearing authors read their own work. When they're not read by their respective authors, the pieces are read by Frances Mayes. She has a pretty voice, very Southern and soothing; however, it's such a soothing voice that I couldn't concentrate on the pieces she read, and my mind kept wandering, so that wasn't too great. The other authors (including David Sedaris!) mostly had good reading voices, with a few exceptions, but even the exceptions weren't horrible.

The selections themselves are a mixed bag; they were all okay, but half of them were too dry and static, full of long descriptions that might make for good reading but make for boring listening. The great ones, like "Forty Years in Acapulco," "In the Land of the White Rajahs," and "Home for Dinner," made up for it, though.

I would recommend getting this one from the library, but only if you already have an interest in travel writing. I wouldn't recommend buying it. I should also note that this is an abridged version of the book -- there are less than a dozen pieces on the four CDs that make up the audiobook, and the actual book has over twenty.

If you want it in book form instead of CD, The Best American Travel Writing 2001 is supposed to be better than this edition, so I think I'd try that one before seeking out the full 2002 edition.

forty-one/fifty-two

It's high time for a "Buffy" book, don't you think? The Lost Slayer is a four-part serial novel (aka "we can make you buy four books at three bucks a pop which is a third more dinero than if we stuck these all together in one book, hahaha!") written by my favorite "Buffy" novelist, Christopher Golden. Most of Golden's books are well edited, well plotted, and well characterized. A lot of "Buffy" books have serious problems with characterization, or horribly lame plots, or, worse, the saddest editing ever. Like names that are spelled wrong or facts that aren't actually facts.

ANYWAY, this one was good. Buffy and Co. have to fight the god of bats, and along the way Buffy gets sucked into a future that is extraordinarily of the bad. She has to fight to fix the badness as well as figure out how to get back to her present in time to stop herself from making the mistake that leads to this future.

This one has actually been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years; I'm glad I got around to reading it. It's most excellent.

crazy

The family whom Augusten Burroughs wrote about in Running with Scissors (I don't think I reviewed that here, but I liked it, although it was a little disturbing) -- you know, the insane family with the psychiatrist dad? -- is suing Burroughs over his depiction of their family.

It's weird, but I think I feel a little worse for him than I would have if I hadn't heard him talk on the audiobook. Bizarre.

(link via Bookslut)

forty/fifty-two

Let me start off by saying I read Nigel Slater's cookbooks like they're novels, devouring fifty pages at a time. He is, as I've noted here before, my favorite British cookbook writer. Yes, better than Nigella. I think it's because he has a lot less hype over here, although the Nigella hype seems to have died down a little, now that I think of it. But I still like him better. He has a great down-to-earth style that I really dig.

Anyway, Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger is Slater's memoir about his childhood. Everyone has to have one. I wasn't sure whether to read this or not, because it didn't seem like he had a very pleasant childhood (mother died when he was young, father was abusive at times, stepmother was a little messed up in the head), and I'm just . . . I don't know, delicate or something. So lame, but it's true. Well, the book wasn't as doom-and-gloom as I thought it would be, but I didn't connect with it at all. I know Slater says in the foreword that a lot of people told him that they had similar experiences growing up, that they felt like Slater was writing about their own lives, but I just couldn't get there.

It wasn't that it was badly written, it was just written in a way that you get it or don't. And I think in order to enjoy Toast, you have to get it. And I didn't.

But I'll still buy any cookbook the man puts his name on.

thirty-nine/fifty-two

Have I gone on long enough about my love for Ruth Reichl's writing? Really? Well then, I'll just say that Garlic and Sapphires was not a let-down at all.

The tone is different than the tone of her other two books, which seemed softer, even gentle in comparison. This is a no-holds-barred account, gossipy (in a good way) at times, of her time as a restaurant critic for the New York Times, where she used all sorts of disguises in order to avoid the VIP treatment that well-known food critics receive. She includes some of her reviews, the good and bad. And of course, there are more recipes; I've already tried one, for Spaghetti Carbonara, and it was simple and delicious.

At the end of this book, just as Reichl decides she wants out of the restaurant review business, Gourmet offers her a job. I can't wait for that memoir.

After you read the book and take in all the Times-related gossip, be sure to check out their review of Garlic and Sapphires. It's even more fun that way.

thirty-eight/fifty-two

I love it when a writer I follow in this sometimes-awkward online medium puts out a book. I think Wendy McClure's stuff on Pound is great (and I always love her BUST columns), so I picked up I'm Not the New Me for some light-ish vacation reading. It was even better than I expected it to be.

It's a memoir, mostly about weight loss, also touching on the weird things that happen when you have a website, and the weird things that happen when you have a love life. It's sometimes sad and sometimes messy, but most of the time it's damn funny. And the ending isn't all tied up in a bow, like it would be if this were a glossy movie instead of real life. McClure is very easy to relate to, and she has a way with the written word that makes the whole book fly by.

I know my description makes it sound like a bad chick-lit novel, but it really is good.

thirty-seven/fifty-two

What good is a vacation without at least one comic book? I still have that same old problem with falling asleep while reading in the van, but I've discovered that reading in small bites helps out a little bit. Embroideries, by Marjane Satrapi, is actually a small enough book that I finished the whole thing without dozing off.

The setting for Embroideries is a little gossip session between Satrapi's female family members and friends, and it covers all of the stuff that an Iranian woman's life is made of. The scope of is a lot smaller than that of the two Persepolis novels, and it seems more lighthearted, although the subject matter is serious at times. Satrapi seems to be showing rather than telling, which I like.

I did like the two Persepolis books more, but I think this book stands alone pretty well and doesn't suffer too badly in comparison. It's worth reading.

thirty-six/fifty-two

I was halfway through My Friend Leonard when we had to leave. Now, normally I don't take library books on long trips, because I have very bad luck with that sort of thing, and this was an especially long trip with two small children in the car. However, I couldn't let go of this story, so I said a special book prayer and took it along. And finished it with no book-binding-melting issues, THANK GOD.

There's a good article here that explains the plot, gives highlights, etc. Basically, this book picks up where James Frey's A Million Little Pieces left off, and it follows Frey as he rejoins the world outside of rehab. It's also about the relationship between Frey and his friend and sort-of-father figure, Leonard, who's a member of an unnamed large sinister-sounding corporation (yes, it's exactly what you think). It's quite an interesting relationship. Leonard's generosity is so grand that at times it almost sounds like fiction -- like the enormous dinners he buys for Frey and a handful of his friends. But Leonard seems to live that sort of expansive life, so in the end it's believable and he comes off sounding like a pretty good guy, even with his questionable career.

Once again, it took some time to get used to Frey's writing style, but once I got into it, it stopped seeming like bad editing and became a rhythm. I did love this book, and I think I can safely declare myself a Frey fan (freynatic? ha ha.).

He has a new website, too, by the way. I especially enjoyed the links to bad reviews of AMLP. The site isn't the prettiest one in the world, but it is nice and informative, which is the main thing I look for in an author's site. Now I'm not saying that authors with good websites get more love from me, but . . . oh hell, yes, I am saying it. Unless the author is, like, from the nineteenth century, in which case I cut them a little slack.

thirty-five/fifty-two

I'm cheating just a smidge here, because I'm not quite finished with this one, but it's an audiobook, I have to return it because someone put a hold on it, and I'm on, like, the penultimate track, so I know I'll finish it today. All I have to do is finish the bonus interview, which wasn't a part of the book, technically, anyway.

This book is a collection of essays about Burroughs's life, his whole life, from elementary school to adulthood. I've read all of his other books, and I think the best thing to say is that if you liked his other stuff, you'll like this. I love Burroughs's sense of humor, and he seems like a pretty cool guy. I'm not sure how to describe the book except to say . . . maybe Burroughs's could be compared to David Sedaris's collections, only rougher and with a lot more swearing. And maybe more confessional. (Yes, I know that every other review on Earth makes the same effing comparison, but it works for me. I haven't read a lot of humor collections, so I have a limited pool to choose from.)

I admit I had to skip a couple of essays, one that involved a rat being killed in a bathtub, and one about dental work -- animal suffering and oral pain, two things that always make me squirm way too much. But the rest of them were perfect. I'm not sure which one I enjoyed best . . . maybe "Debby's Requirements," about a psychotic cleaning lady recommended to Burroughs by a friend. Or the one where he expounds on his belief in magical thinking. They were all good, though.

It's always strange to hear male authors read their stories, it always throws me for a loop. I'm not sure if it's because when I read a book I'm applying one generic "male voice" to all male authors, or if it's because I'm thinking the words in a female voice, or what. Whatever. It's weird. It took me a while to get into Burroughs's voice, because it seems like he ends every sentence in a question, and he puts stress on different words than I would. After a while it's barely noticeable, though I do catch myself repeating phrases like I would say them, just to see where the difference is. Oh, and I had to keep the speakers in the back off because of all the swearing. Now, anyone who knows me well knows I have no problem with swearing, because in the swearing world, I am queen, but I was listening to the CDs in the car. With Rabbit. Who is in this phase where she repeats everything she hears, and we JUST got her off "damn it" so I really didn't want her getting any ideas.

That was very unfocused. Sorry. I liked the book, I like Burroughs, and I really like his website, which is everything an author's website should be. It's fabulous. Go look! It's the best one I've seen yet. And check out the bio/FAQ page if you've never read anything by him and want to sample his style.

Now I'm off for a week of hyperactive kids, frazzled and possibly drunk tourists, and staying up and reading books til dawn. And if I'm lucky, picking up some more. Books, not kids or tourists. Just wanted to clarify.

thirty-four/fifty-two

I just reread Monday's post. "Mysterious masterpiece" is quite probably the goofiest thing I've written in a month. I sound like a Scooby-Doo episode. Ignore my flawed prose and read the article, it's very good. I promise!

Finished the Otori trilogy. There's a website for the books, although it's not very substantial. That link is to the Australian website, the American site is here, but I think the Aussie version is set up better. This series seems to have had a massive advertising campaign -- there are five or six semi-fleshed-out sites -- although I never heard of it until I saw someone mention it on Chicklit not very long ago.

Uh, topic? Brilliance of the Moon is the name of the final installment. The beginning was kind of sloggy, but I finished the last half in one night. At two o'clock in the morning. On a work night.

In this one, all the stuff that was set up in the second book is settled. Takeo is basically working to fulfill the prophecy and seek revenge, Justice, whatever, at this point. Kaede finds trouble again, too. And we see Shirakawa again, so yay. I liked her. I think it's safe to say this is a series that should be read in order, or you will cry because there are so many characters and subplots.

The ending was nice and open-ended. Of course, the Afterword had to go and tie up all the loose ends, but I prefer to ignore that sort of Afterword.

The script is being written for the movie based on the first book, by the way. The whole trilogy does seem pretty movie-ready, so that's no big shocker. It should be a fun adventure flick, and I'm sure they'll actually be doing the whole trilogy eventually. It's always nice to see books I like adapted for the screen and try to pick out the differences. Unless it's a book that's become a pet of mine, like The Time Traveler's Wife (seriously, plotline = "man with a time-traveling gene uses his innate abilities to visit his lover at different points in her life"?). Then it's a kind of torture. But I think this one will turn out okay.

briefly

Two articles that have been on my mind recently:

The New Yorker details the restoration of the Unicorn tapestries, and how math is the key to restoring the mysterious masterpiece.

and

"The Writer Who Was Full of Grace" -- Yardley's article about Flannery O'Connor, which I enjoyed more than I think was fitting. After reading it, I felt an urge to go pull out the one O'Connor book I own and devour it. Unfortunately, it's in storage, like EVERYTHING ELSE.

When we get back from vacation, my first priority will be a bookcase and my second will be rescuing my poor books.

If anyone happens in here and knows of a good secondhand bookstore near either Orlando, FL or Savannah, GA, PLEASE let me know. I'm having a hard time finding one online. I'm going to keep searching, and will probly end up just walking around 'til I find one, but a rec would be so great. I'll make you cookies! (Toaster oven cookies, but cookies nonetheless.)

I forget so you don't have to

I always forget about Persephone Books until I see someone mention it at Chicklit. Then I drive myself crazy making lists of the ones I want.

One day I will be rich or the world will revert to a barter system and the currency will be either leaves or bad teenage poetry, both of which I have in spades. The first book I buy will be Kitchen Essays by Agnes Jekyll, because . . . I'm not sure why, honestly. It sounds good, and I like things that involve the kitchen. The second would probably be Katherine Mansfield's The Montana Stories because, ah, it's the second book I looked at. I'm not very knowledgeable when it comes to older authors and books, so it's fun to learn about these people I've never heard of. Although I'm sure that makes me sound very dumb. I'm learning, though, see?

I should just ask everyone to get me one Persephone book for xmas. Hahaha, like they'd get me books. It's a very strange phenomenon, actually -- I, the book addict, very rarely get books for xmas and birthdays. I think it may be because no one knows what I already have. One day I will introduce them to my Amazon wishlist. Is that tacky? Maybe I won't do it, I'll just hope they stumble on it. Although I am going to show Ben how to use it because he's asked me to do so before.

Whoa, I got off-topic. Anyway, I just discovered Amazon does actually have most of the Persephone Books listed (makes wishlisting them a lot easier), but you have to look them up individually. There's no way to just look up "Persephone Books" unless I'm missing something. This makes my life a lot easier, although I think I'd rather order them directly because of the little extras they include -- bookmarks and the catalog, which I must have in order to properly lust after the books.

for your eyes only

I got suckered into another book club -- all hardcover, 6 for $1 then 1 at half price, only 3 to buy in the next 2 years, etc.

I mostly found books that have only been on my wishlist for a week or so, making this some sort of twisted instant-gratification exercise:

* The History of Love by Nicole Krauss

* The Ice Queen by Alice Hoffman

* Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts

* The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco

* Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer

* Specimen Days by Michael Cunningham

and * The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini

All those hardbacks for only $24. I love online book clubs. Because I'm going to buy more than four books in the next two years anyway, so it's not like I'm spending money I wouldn't normally spend. Might as well get the almost-free books. Plus Smart Reader Rewards (blah name, but whatever) has free shipping if you spend $24. Much like Amazon except you can pay by check AFTER receiving your books, which is always a surefire lure for me. I'm not sure why, since Ben has a debit card that I can use, but there you have it.

THEN I went to QPB and took advantage of their buy one, get the rest half off sale. Although I like it better when they combine that sale with the "$24 or more gets free shipping" sale. Anyway, it was time to place my big summer order (I usually do one in summer, one in winter); ignore the fact that a few weeks ago I went crazy buying books for vacation. Here's the haul:

* The Jane Austen Book Club by Karen Joy Fowler

* Ariel: The Restored Edition: A Facsimile of Plath's Manuscript, Reinstating Her Original Selection and Arrangement
by Sylvia Plath

* a 6-volume set of Jane Austen books (Persuasion, Sense and Sensibility, Northanger Abbey, Pride and Prejudice, Mansfield Park, and Emma) -- believe it or not, I don't think I had any of these already, although I do have the BBC's Pride and Prejudice miniseries starring Colin Firth on DVD.

* Scribbling the Cat by Alexandra Fuller

* All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki -- have you read My Year of Meats? You should.

* Case Histories by Kate Atkinson

* Animal Crackers by Hannah Tinti

* a 4-volume set of Ray Bradbury books (Fahrenheit 451, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Illustrated Man) -- I've never read Martian or Man, but I was really keen on the other two when I was younger.

and * The Secret Life of Bees and The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd

About $100, not too bad since there are two multi-volume (hardcover) sets in there. I realize this post is excruciatingly boring for anyone who happens in here, but a) I like lists, b) I like books, and c) I like to keep a record of my book acquisitions to look back on later (and probly feel guilty that most of these are still on the TBR shelf).

I really need to get my older books out of storage so that I can do an inventory.

(If only Blogger had post tags. I've been wishing they'd get some for a while. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to have an "acquisitions" or "inventory" tag? I have faith, though, if LJ's got them, I'm sure Blogger will hop on the bandwagon eventually.)

thirty-three/fifty-two

Just finished my first-ever book on CD: Steve Martin's The Pleasure of My Company, read by Mr. Martin himself. Now, I never read Shopgirl, although I know it's allegedly great and everything, so I wasn't sure what to expect. I thought maybe Martin's novels were crappy little vanity projects.

So I was pleasantly surprised to discover I liked Company. And I'm glad I listened to it instead of reading it, because Martin's voice fits the character of Daniel quite well.

Daniel is a neurotic guy in his late twenties, in love with a realtor he's never met. Which seems sort of creepy at first -- actually, it seemed creepy throughout his entire infatuation. I liked Daniel because he's a character you don't LIKE all the time; sometimes he seems like a jackass, sometimes a little creepy, sometimes way too melodramatic. But he can also be a very sympathetic character, charming in a nebbishy way.

The story was pretty good, too, it was fun to follow all the twisty turns it took. The ending was a little too neat for me -- I think I would have liked it better if the last chapter was left off -- but all in all, it was a thoroughly enjoyable novel. And now I'm on the hook for Shopgirl.

thirty-two/fifty-two

I was sitting there trying to figure out how to get to the next book in the Otori series without losing my momentum, when a huge Duh Lightning Bolt hit me and I checked out the library's catalog. They have both of the other books in the trilogy, although book two is categorized as YA and book three is not, which I find kind of weird.

So I've now finished Grass for His Pillow, also by Lian Hearn, and while it dragged a little in some spots, I still liked it a lot. I've seen a few complaints over the switch in voice -- from first person for Takeo's parts to third person for Kaede's parts -- but it doesn't really bother me.

Okay, in this one Takeo is trying to figure out how to fulfill all his obligations -- to the Tribe and as an Otori -- and he's also mooning over Kaede, of course. And Kaede has returned to her father's home to find everything completely effed up. The parts that drag are mostly the parts where Takeo is travelling somewhere; unfortunately, that's, like, half of his part of the book. Or it seemed that way, anyway. I just ended up skimming those parts, I'm such a lazy reader.

Hearn still kind of glossed the surface of Takeo's motivations and abilities, etc., but it kind of fits his (Takeo's) voice, so I'm not minding that so much, either.

I got about halfway through the book before anyone glanced over ironically. Then it was like Hearn had to make up for not using the word until then. Ach, I just find it funny now instead of being annoyed by it. Everyone needs a tic, right?

thirty-one/fifty-two

See? Told you I was still reading. But you didn't believe me, did you? I can't say I blame you.

Treinta uno: Across the Nightingale Floor (Tales of the Otori, Book One) by Lian Hearn (that's a pseudonym, by the way). All I have to say about this one is niiiiice.

The story is a historical fiction/fantasy/adventure mix set in an alternate-universe feudal Japan. The main character, Takeo, is pretty interesting, but he could be fleshed out more. The plot is pretty basic (for a fantasy novel, ha): Takeo is out to seek revenge from an evil warlord-type both for himself and on behalf of his new adoptive father. He has some special magical skills that aren't explained too well, but I'm hoping everything that was kind of glanced over in the first book will be drawn more deeply in the next two.

I liked the writing, too. The only thing that bothered me -- you know there has to be something -- was the overuse of the word "irony." I understand that it went well with the tone of the writing but by the end I was rolling my eyes everytime someone glanced over "ironically" or used an "ironic" tone of voice. But hey, I use certain words to the point that they keel over half-dead every time I post, so who am I to talk?

Before I was finished with this book, I was already trying to figure out the best way to acquire the next two in the trilogy. So yes, niiiice.

thirty/fifty-two

Still reading. Just ignore my snail-ishness.

Sarah Vowell's The Partly Cloudy Patriot is a collection of her essays; most of them have a political or historical bent. They were enjoyable; I didn't LOVE the book, but it was good.

I don't really have a lot to say about it, which is so evil of me, I know. I mostly read this because it was sitting on my TBR shelf and I was hearing so much about Assassination Vacation that I wanted to find out what Vowell's voice was like. I like her (writing) voice a lot, actually, she's very accessible without dumbing it down, and she's geeky without trying to hide it. Plus, sarcasm. Nothing bad there.

My own geek moment came when she mentioned that one of her friends was named Doug and worked on "Buffy" and I immediately knew who she was talking about. NERD!

Anyway, a good book, if not a life-changing book. I'm going to try out another of her collections, I think.

twenty-nine/fifty-two

Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return by Marjane Satrapi. Do you sense a theme here? I was afraid that the edition the library had (hardback -- the first one I read was paperback, set like a traditional comic book) would be hard to read, but it wasn't. I finished it in a few hours. I want more more more!

Otherwise, I've been reading lots of zines and trying to write one. It's ending up being a very wordy perzine; I'd like to add images or something but I feel inadequate. And I'm having problems making the tone informal because I can't get my head into non-report-writing mode for some reason. I mean, my writing's always a little formal because of my weird way of phrasing (not using contractions a lot of the time, for example), but this is really bad. I may just have to let it go the way it is, though, because my deadline is four days away.

I've also been reading too many magazines and spending too much time online. I hope to be over my online addiction by the end of the week, once the novelty of having a connection at home again wears off. For one, it takes up too much of the precious time-while-Rabbit's-napping that I have, and for two, the pockets of drama you find everywhere get old after a while.

So many things taking up reading time!

twenty-eight/fifty-two

(This one was actually read in April.)

I've been reading very very slowly, mostly light stuff or comics, as I've explained elsewhere (I feel like I've even explained it here, but I don't think I have), I've been crafting and doing springlike things and I probly won't be doing a lot of good reading until vacation or even fall. It just gets too hot in here to concentrate except at night, and my nights are filled with cookouts and crafting and (right now) season finales. Not that I'm forsaking books for tv -- this summer I'm not planning on spending much time camped out in front of the tube at all. We have a yard now, and damn it all, I will use it for good and not evil.

ANYWAY. Number twenty-eight was Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began by the talented Mr. Spiegelman. If I hadn't already bought it (my library didn't have it), I would be buying it right now. It's that good.

I really think everyone should read the Maus books. I don't feel that way about many books, but I think it's true here. Although most people have probly already read them.

Good books. That is all.

twenty-seven/fifty-two

Most recently, I read Maus: A Survivor's Tale: My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman. This, coincidentally, is the book that Marjane Satrapi said let her know it was possible to tell her story through a graphic novel. And I think everyone on Earth knows the details of this one, but just in case: Maus is the story of Spiegelman's father, a Holocaust survivor. There are tons of essays about this book and the issues it raises available online, if you're interested.

It completely blew me away. If you haven't read it, you should. That's all I can say without employing several overblown adjectives.

twenty-six/fifty-two

The next one was Lynda Barry's The! Greatest! Of! Marlys! I think I am in love with Lynda Barry, or at least her work. I liked One Hundred Demons a little tiny bit better, but I think that's just because I loved all the extra collage elements in that, as well as the autobiographical stuff.

This book is a collection of Marlys comic strips, loosely grouped according to subject. Marlys (the character) alternates between being intensely annoying and so kind it makes you want to cry. She and her world are interesting, and I definitely want to read more about them.

twenty-five/fifty-two

It's been way too hot in my house (spring weather + stolen AC unit = summer inside when it's spring outside), so I've been reading graphic novels, since they're easier to handle in the heat than dense prose.

First was Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi. It's the story of her life in Iran, after the Iranian Revolution in 1979. She was a teenager living with revolutionary parents, and the story is very well done. It's sweet and sad and I learned a few things about Iranian history that I didn't know.

I'm looking forward to reading Persepolis 2, so I guess it's safe to say I liked this one.

miscellany

I'm not going to count these in my book count, because I didn't read them straight through, I've just paged through them a lot.

You Grow Girl by Gayla Trail, the creator of YouGrowGirl.com. If you are into gardening at all, you must read this book. It made me feel like I can actually tackle this gardening thing without destroying the earth and all its inhabitants. (Yes, I find that happens often.)

Eat More Dirt: Diverting and Instructive Tips for Growing and Tending an Organic Garden by Ellen Sandbeck. The title says it all. Sandbeck has good tips and ideas, and explains them well, plus it's a very pretty book.

Leading The Artful Life: Interiors Designed With Artistic Intuition by Mary Engelbreit. Apparently Engelbreit has a magazine called Home Companion, and a lot of people were tetchy because this book reprints a lot of info from the magazine. I've never heard of the magazine, though, so that didn't bother me. Beautiful interiors, very inspiring. Some of the styles I didn't like so much, but the good ones made up for it. I'm looking for some other books like this, but can't find any that have the right mix, only stodgy ones that are not my style at all. I also checked out a little book of spring crafts that was done by Engelbreit, and now I know why I haven't seen much of her stuff before. It's just not something I'm into. I really liked Artful Life, though.

And I've been going through other gardening books, but none of them are especially interesting. Fitzgerald kind of stalled me out on fic for a while. I might try to pick something up tonight, but it's going to have to be GOOD.

twenty-four/fifty-two

Finished This Side of Paradise last week. It's another Fitzgerald, recommended on GetCrafty. I figured I'd give him a second chance while I was still in the early-20th-century mindset.

I am noncommital. I liked it, but I wasn't roaring to finish it. This one was about a guy named Amory (I thought he was named Anthony, like the protagonist in Damned, on first page-through, and I was so confused. Then I remembered how to read.) and was basically a coming-of-age story. Amory was nowhere near as annoying as Anthony, and I kind of liked him for the most part. The story was okay -- I was really interested in it at times, and at times I wanted to skim.

I think part of my problem with Fitzgerald's stories is that so much of them happens inside the characters' heads. I'm not one of those readers who has to have an Exciting! Adventure-Filled! Thrilling! plot in order to enjoy a book, but his characters just don't think in any way I can respond to except in an "uh-huh. And? . . ." manner.

He also seems to have a fascination with women curled up on sofa corners with pillows. How Roaring '20s of him.

All in all, more enjoyable than The Beautiful and Damned, but I think I'll put off reading any more Fitzgerald for a little while.

twenty-three/fifty-two

Ready for a long title? Here goes: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Presents: America (the Book). And as a special treat, here's a negative review of the book. I feel like I keep unfairly linking to good reviews of books I like, so there's a little change of pace for you.

But I liked it. It was like an extended Daily Show in book form, and that's exactly what I expected and wanted it to be. I laughed out loud a lot, which is something that almost never happens. And unlike Señor Reviewer, I think it stood up pretty well to a read-through, although I will admit to having an unhealthy fondness for satire. It was pretty smart, too; it was like reading a fun high school Government refresher course.

craving

I really, really, really wish my copy of Savage Beauty could be sitting on my bookshelf when I get home instead of in storage. Do you think if I wished hard enough a blue fairy would come along and make it happen?

(The title reminds me of the time I bought one of my best friends a Savage Garden cd and had to apologize to her mother after she found out, because it was evil Satan music. According to my dad, the music was not so bad, but the NAME? Baaaaad. I wonder if that makes this book evil as well. I suppose since it doesn't refer to vampires, no.)

twenty-two/fifty-two

Okay, so now that I've bitched and moaned all over creation about this book, it's not that hard to see which way this reviewlet's going to go.

Boo to F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned. Actually, now that I'm a few days removed from it, I have to say it wasn't that bad. Fitzgerald's writing took a while to get into -- it was really dense most of the time and he had a put in a lot of (dated, obviously) popcult references.

The characters, though, holy crap, I wouldn't be able to stay in the same room with them for more than two minutes, if that. Snobbish, lazy, disagreeable, with a giant hit of feeling the world owes them a living. The main characters (Anthony and Gloria), anyway. The secondaries seemed to be okay, if still a bit snobby at times.

I think Anthony and Gloria ruined the whole thing for me. I actually liked the story, though, and by the end of the book, I kind of enjoyed Fitzgerald's writing style; I think I'm going to try another of his just to give him a fair shake.

that easy procrastinating feeling

So while I'm avoiding Gloria and Anthony and their infuriating senses of entitlement, I'll name my current top three cookbooks:

3. It's All American Food: The Food We Really Eat, the Dishes We Will Always Love by David Rosengarten. This is not the best cookbook ever, but the diversity of dishes is lovely, and this weekend it's the only place I could find a good creamy sausage gravy recipe. Even the old Southern Hospitality cookbook didn't have one. It's All American Food is good for ideas if nothing else.

2. Jack Bishop's A Year in a Vegetarian Kitchen. My favorite vegetarian cookbook. This is actually the only one I have that I've cooked anything from yet. I like to look through Anna Thomas's The Vegetarian Epicure, but I LOVE to cook from Bishop's book. The recipes are accessible and so effing delicious.

1. Appetite by Nigel Slater. Oh, I wanted this book for so long, and it's one of those rare things that was worth the wait. I just looked through it Thursday and I've already made two dinners from it. And both of them were good.

I think Nigel Slater has replaced Nigella Lawson as my favorite British cookbook author. That might also have something to do with the story I heard on GetCrafty about Lawson acting snobbish when presented with a gift from a craftista. But I think I also am kind of tired of seeing photos of her swanning around looking sexy. It's like the food takes a back burner to her hotness. I mean, I think she's sexy, but that's not going to make the food taste better. And her recipes usually have one ingredient that I don't have and can't get, and it drives me batty.

Slater has a very down-to-earth writing voice, not cutesy, but not technical. I love it. And I love the way he puts food together. I liked Real Fast Food, too; it introduced me to the wonders of baked fruits last summer.

stalling

I'm reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Beautiful and Damned. It's not beautiful, and it's damned irritating. I want to make paper dolls of most of the characters so I can tear them up into little bitty pieces.

I hope that was what Fitzgerald was going for.

twenty-one/fifty-two

Back to the short stories . . .

Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You, by Laurie Lynn Drummond, is a collection of stories all told by female cops. (excerpt) I really like the way Drummond writes, and these stories were very compelling -- I couldn't put the book down. A few spots got a little too gruesome for me (the end results of torture, for example), but it wasn't like the whole book was nothing but cruelties. The stories are each narrated by one woman, and it was interesting seeing how Drummond wove all their stories together a little bit; for example, one narrator trains a rookie (whose name is mentioned in passing) who has a couple of stories later on in the book.

I've had a run of good reading luck lately. I have to finish a few more library/just-bought books, then it's on to my backlog of waiting books. I already have them sorted and ready to go (in my head, but that still counts, right?).

twenty/fifty-two

It may seem like I have tons of free time with all the reading that's been going on lately, but it's mostly due to the fact that Rabbit is taking an hour or more to get to sleep during her naptimes because of her meds, and after I read her a book a few times, I lay down next to her and read while she looks at one of her books until she falls asleep. So I've had some extra time to read this month.

I don't think I can say enough good things about Lynda Barry's One Hundred Demons. It was great. It's a graphic novel, or close enough to one to call it that, that addresses several of her "demons": dancing, dogs, hate, lost worlds, etc. I loved the stories; they seemed very honest and charming in a bittersweet way. My favorite part, though, was all the collage work throughout the book. Each chapter started with a collage that referenced that chapter's demon, collages that were made from paper, rick-rack, drawings, glitter, photos, fabric. They were beautiful.

This was a library book; it's one I want to eventually add to my collection, though.

nineteen/fifty-two

I very much enjoyed FOUND, from the folks at FOUND Magazine (namely
Davy Rothbart). It's (and by "it" I could mean the book or the magazine) a compilation of the stuff people find on the street, in restrooms, in abandoned buildings, hotel rooms, wherever. Found items. Some of it is the craziest crap.

Not really a lot to say about this one; it's either your kind of thing or not. I loved it.

the end of times

Sweet lord, they gave the Everyday Italian urchin her own book.

Where's my Apocalype emergency kit?

eighteen/fifty-two

The Bone Lady: Life As a Forensic Anthropologist (by Mary Manhein) is a quick little read; it was recommended to me after I said good things about Stiff, and I expected it to be along the same lines.

It wasn't. I liked it a little better, actually. This is closer to a memoir than an investigative piece of work -- it's like a memoir combined with a book of short stories. Manhein's cases are mixed in with the history of forensic anthropology and her own personal history, and the results are quite nice. You can tell that Manhein really digs (hehehe) her job.

I kind of wish the book had been longer, that's my only complaint. It seemed like an abridged version of a longer book. But really, if that's the worst I can come up with, how bad can it be?

trippy

I haven't read a book on a trip in a while, because our trips are by car and for some reason for the past few years I've been unable to read during long car trips. I either get too sleepy to read or I start feeling carsick. This was never a problem for me growing up, and it's really annoying now that we have to make three or four long trips (12 to 14 hours) a year. Bah. Sometimes I lay on the floor of the van and that works okay, but I'm too paranoid about car accidents to do it for more than five minutes. ANYWAY, I'd read long, complicated books that would take hold of you and not let go for a few hours if I could read during these trips. So here's my list (it would be longer, but I've misplaced my old book reviews and my memory sucks) of roadworthy books:

* Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
* The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
* The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
* The Other Boleyn Girl, The Queen's Fool, The Virgin's Lover by Philippa Gregory (in that order)
* The Secret History by Donna Tartt

and I hate that all my Already Read books are packed up, because I know there are more, but I can't remember them.

Of course, those are all kind of thick books and heavy if you're going by air and not car. On the fluffier/not-as-bricky side of roadworthy, I think:

* I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
* Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
* His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman

would all be good. And then of course there's the fluffy-fluffy stuff, but that's another list and one that's a lot more subjective. Chick lit vs. mysteries vs. graphic novels, you know?

seventeen/fifty-two

I am running out of things to say about books. Wow, that's bad. I just was not built for book reviews, and I think these have gotten longer than I meant them to when I started to do little reviewlets.

Okay. Book the seventeenth. Good Grief by Lolly Winston.

Sophie's husband, Ethan, died of cancer. (Hodgkin's, another fun disease to add to my List for Hypochondriacs.) She is struggling through depression and through all the other things losing the person you were closest to in all the world will do to you.

I expected it to be hideously chicklit-y, but it was actually really good. A keeper. Funny and sad and filled with characters I could actually sympathize with and like.

sixteen/fifty-two

Oh, man. I feel bad about this one, because I've read Zoe Trope's LiveJournal every now and then, and she seems like a pretty cool person.

So I read Please Don't Kill the Freshman. It's all angsty and full of veiled meanings and deep imagery and I liked it for the first 50 pages or so. But then I should have taken a break.

It's the story of Zoe's (it's a pseudonym, in case you didn't know) freshman and sophomore years in high school. She has tons of male friends, mostly gay, she falls in love with a girl who decides to be a boi, she deals with the perils of publishing after her chapbook (also named PDKTF) is successful.

The problem I had with it was getting bored with the prose. If I had taken it section by section, broken it up into four days' worth of reading instead of one, it would have been okay, I think. But I read it too fast, and it lost its charm. For me, personally, anyway -- I know there are people who would devour this in one sitting and want more more more.

I would have loved this book when I was seventeen.

fifteen/fifty-two

Ach, I've been putting off reviewing #15 and #16.

The first one, Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, was good, actually. The only thing that bothered me was the way he used the word "rape" in describing . . . uh, stealing food or something, I don't remember exactly what it was. Sorry. I read it about a week ago. Obviously it bothered me enough that the irritation stuck with me, though. I had no problem with his constant swearing throughout the book, it seemed real to me and not just thrown in there.

As for the book's purpose, it's about how Bourdain fell in love with food, started working with it, screwed his life up with drugs, got it back together, and became a pretty damn good chef. Interesting.

I'd been wanting to read this one for about a year now; I don't know if it was worth all that yearning, but it was good for what it was.

tic tic tic

I keep forgetting to mention this: one of the things I noticed about The Virgin's Lover that really annoyed me was the repeated use of certain adverbs. Mostly having to do with speaking. It would be okay if it was throughout the book, probly not even noticeable, but these were, like, within a page of each other.

I noticed it once at the beginning, although I can't remember what the particular adverb was; but I do know that it was Amy and Robert Dudley. Then it was obvious again about two-thirds of the way through the book, when one of the characters' wife says something "shrewdly," then on the next page, that character also says something "shrewdly."

Know what I mean? I thought it was odd that nobody had caught that in the editing stage. Maybe it's only annoying to me, maybe I'm just too persnickety.

fourteen/fifty-two

I kind of liked Haven Kimmel's Something Rising (Light and Swift) and I kind of didn't. I liked the story, for the most part -- Cassie is a pool player (a really good one), and this is her coming-of-age story.

Honestly, half of the characters seemed like assholes to me. There were large chunks of the book where it seemed like Kimmel was being obscure and dense just to make her writing seem more artsy, although I'm sure that's just my own perception of it. I mean, I get that Belle and Laura (Cassie's sister and mom, respectively) are on a different plane and their brains work strangely, and I could get where their "unique" perspectives were coming from most of the time, but sometimes it felt like a bunch of words were thrown together prettily and chewily regardless of their sense-making. Aside from that, I enjoyed Kimmel's writing.

I appreciated that Cassie's coming-of-age tale was not focused on finding a man; I'm always wary of female coa stories because the boyfriend hunt usually plays a fairly major role, and it gets old after a while.

It was good enough to talk me into trying another of Kimmel's books, just to give her a fair shake, but by the end of this one I was only reading out of a feeling of duty.

thirteen/fifty-two

Now, when I said I was "enjoying" A Million Little Pieces, I didn't mean that in a frolicky springtime day way. James Frey's story of recovery (from addiction to all sorts of nasty stuff) is very, very hard to read at times. He is quite blunt about all the gross stuff that happens when you abuse your body as much as he did. Also, his writing style (as I mentioned below) is difficult to get into at first. It seemed pretentious and overly precious and annoying for the first few chapters, and it distracted me from the story (perhaps a good thing?) for a while. It starts to become kind of rhythmic after a while, though, and I think it works well with the story. (I've read somewhere [it's mentioned in the linked article above, too] that he wanted the writing to draw readers in, to help them feel what it's like to be addicted themselves, and I think it accomplishes that.)

I won't get into the whole AA good/bad debate, because I have no deep knowledge of it myself.

All in all, a good book, I wouldn't go so far as to say it's "the War and Peace of addiction," as Pat Conroy's back cover blurb claims, but it was good. Didn't glorify addiction, didn't mince words. Also, the design of the copy I have (softcover) is very nice.

a warning

I'm in the middle of James Frey's A Million Little Pieces. Have you read it yet? If you have, you probably know where I'm going here.

EVERY SINGLE TIME I've tried to write something today, I've written it, looked at it, and realized I've written it like I'm trying to be James Frey. Then I've rewritten it, because I'm not up in here writing about being an addict. (I just had to delete the capital "A" from "Addict" -- see what I mean?)

If you haven't read the book, here's a parody of Frey's writing style in AMLP.

(For the record, I'm enjoying the book a lot more than I thought I would.)

(link via TrudyJ on Chicklit's forums)

twelve/fifty-two

When Did You Stop Loving Me by Veronica Chambers, and no, I didn't leave off the question mark.

Okay, that thing that sticks with me the most about this book is the design. It's beautiful. The story's narrator, Angela, is the daughter of a magician, and every chapter begins with a few words tumbling out of a top hat. The paragraph breaks are card suits -- hearts, spades, clubs, diamonds. It could be considered cheese-licious, I guess, but I love it. Even the typeface is pretty.

The story: Angela's mom leaves Angela (age 11) and her magician dad, and they learn to cope. That's basically it. It's a good, quick read, and it doesn't feel like you wasted your time after you're done. I especially enjoyed all the popcult references (and there are many).

There's an in-depth bookreporter.com review here, if you want more details.

eleven/fifty-two

Sometimes I worry that I'm reading too much, that there's a set amount of words you can read in your lifetime, and I'm burning too fast, burning through the pages, and I'm almost done, and I need to slow down.

But then I remember that I'm a overanxious freak, and I get on with my life.

Seriously, it's been a few years since I've read this much, and I'm enjoying it enormously. The latest victim of my voracious reading habit was Ann Patchett's Truth & Beauty, the story of her friendship with Lucy Grealy, a poet (and author of Autobiography of a Face) who survived cancer as a child, which left her with a disfigured jaw. She and Ann sort of became friends in college, and this book covers everything from there until Lucy's death in 2003. It's a sad read for the most part, and there's one paragraph near the end where I sat there, read it again, and said, "Well, that's it then, that's how it's going to end, and there's no way anyone could stop it." and it was crushing but real. Real life is a bitch sometimes.

I say it's a sad read for the most part, but that may be a bit too sweeping. It's also very sweet and touching and all that stuff, it's just that when it's real life, and you know that the ending is sad, everything becomes tinted a little bit gray. But Patchett writes well, and it wasn't a mind-crushingly depressing read, please don't get that idea. A lot of it was funny, and I like that Patchett wasn't afraid to tell the truth of Lucy (or of herself, for that matter), all the bad parts along with the good parts.

p.s. Here's an article that Patchett wrote that's basically a condensed version of Truth & Beauty, if you're interested. I think I'm falling a little bit in love with Patchett's writing, it's so beautiful and perfect and everything's in just the right place.

(link via cheesedip.com)

ten/fifty-two

I first got into historical fiction back toward the end of middle school, with Ann Rinaldi's books, which would commonly take a significant historic event and look at it through the eyes of a teenage girl from that time. They were addictive. I still have one of them: A Break with Charity, I believe.

Philippa Gregory's books, I think, are my grown-up Ann Rinaldi novels. They are enjoyable to read, easy to get into, interesting and based in fact enough that they don't feel like total fluff, and as a bonus, they make me want to learn more about the history they cover.

The Virgin's Lover, which I just finished, is Gregory's latest contribution to the genre. It follows her other novels: The Other Boleyn Girl was basically about Anne Boleyn and King Henry VIII's affair, The Queen's Fool about Queen Mary's rise and fall, and The Virgin's Lover about Queen Elizabeth's reign and affair with Robert Dudley (who was also a key player in The Queen's Fool).

Dudley's wife, Amy, was also a major character in this novel, and while she was painted as kind of an insane shrew in The Queen's Fool, in The Virgin's Lover, Gregory paints her as a most sympathetic betrayed woman. That was the only issue I had with the novel, although I'm sure there's a lot of playing fast and loose with facts going on in there. I don't know enough of the history to know for sure yet, and I don't mind that, because Gregory's novels always lead me to read more factual accounts. That, for me personally, is the mark of good historical fiction.

I'm tempted to read Gregory's Wideacre trilogy, but I'm not sure if it's worth it. I'll have to look into that. In the meantime, I'm looking for good books about Mary's and/or Elizabeth's England.

nine/fifty-two

Instead of watching the State of the Union address and clawing at the screen like an angry badger, I read a book Wednesday night. It was a small one, a thin little memoir. Exactly what I needed to take my mind off of all the badger-making stuff.

Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern has a blurb on the front cover that says, "How I Saved Myself by Becoming an EMT" and that pretty much covers it all. I had heard Stern's name mentioned in passing before -- in connection to different kinds of food writing, especially offbeat food writing -- but had never read any of her work. I really enjoyed this book; in it, Stern shares how she conquered her depression and anxiety by becoming an EMT in her small town's volunteer service. It was good, well written and funny and Stern isn't afraid to make fun of herself or let herself look a little bad.

And hey, it's supposedly being made into a Lifetime movie starring Kathy Bates, so how bad can it be? I think Kathy Bates is an excellent choice, actually. And even if it ends up being bad, you know, there's nothing quite as good as a disastrously bad Lifetime movie.

eight/fifty-two

Numero ocho: Barbara Vine/Ruth Rendell's A Dark-Adapted Eye.

As far as mysteries go, this was pretty tame. It won an Edgar award in 1986, which I didn't know until I read a review after reading the book. (I'm glad I read the review afterward, because the cover on the book they chose to show kind of gives away one of the main plot points.)

Vine's novel is pretty mannered and the sentence structure can make it a little hard to get into (it's set in England in 1940) unless you're used to that sort of writing. The story itself was pretty good; it's mainly about two sisters, one of whom is hanged, and the reason for that is slowly revealed as you go further into the novel. I liked The Brimstone Wedding better, but this one was okay.

because I forget like a mofo

I just want to post these here because I ALWAYS forget links.

Literary Vamp.

lex's LJ.

One of these days I will get a links thingie worked out. Probly the same day I do a flat-out site redesign, ha.

seven/fifty-two

Do you remember how much I disliked David Sedaris's Holidays on Ice? How I couldn't wait to finish the damn thing and put it away? Well, I read some reviews, and overwhelmingly the reviewers recommended Sedaris's other work as a better introduction to his writing.

So I picked up Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim and hoped they were right. And they were. I loved this collection of short stories. Sedaris is funny and dry and tells a good story . . . and you've probably heard this all before.

six/fifty-two

I remember reading Lorrie Moore's Who Will Run the Frog Hospital?, thinking, "Okay, I know this is good, I know this is supposed to be brilliant writing and I'm supposed to be wowed, but I just don't get it. I don't like it, it doesn't work with my brain." That's the exact same way I felt reading Things You Should Know by A.M. Homes.

I know I should love this book, this should be one of those "This was a great short story collection, and I loved it because . . . " reviewlets, but I didn't like it, it didn't touch me, I didn't get it. The stories were dark and sometimes strange, bizarre things happened in them, and they all seemed to revolve around need. Sounds like something I'd like, but no. I read the whole collection, but only because they were short stories and I'd just given up on another book, and I didn't want to start a book-quitting trend.

correction

Bookslut's blog is still there, so I'm not sure why I couldn't find it a month or so (?) ago. Probably just because it's not linked from the main page.

five/fifty-two

Gave up on The Fasting Girl: Too dry for me, like a textbook without the fun.

So I reread The Time Traveler's Wife. Is this cheating? I don't care! The whole point of the thing is to READ BOOKS. And I read it. And I loved it just as much, if not more, than I did the first time I read it. I may be idealizing the book, kind of like a crush, only literary, but it is only the third or fourth book I've read as an adult that I've loved with this much fervor.

four/fifty-two

Ah, I love a good non-fiction account that draws me into an event that I normally would not give a rat's ass about.

The Devil in the White City mixes two things together: the story of the 1893 World's Columbian Expedition and the story of a serial killer who used the Fair to his advantage. Erik Larson wrote the book, and he wrote it well. The story was interesting -- a little bit melodramatic as far as the writing style goes, flowery adjectives and the like, but it was good melodrama. Pretty words.

If you go here, you can find some information about the debut (and eventual demise) of the Ferris Wheel, which I found to be one of the more interesting parts of the Fair that Larson discussed. There's also a good review of the book on that site, written by someone who has just a leeetle more knowledge than I do about the subject.

three/fifty-two

I was incredibly disappointed in this selection, so I'm not even giving it my normal smallish review space. Instead, it gets a haiku:

A book I should love:
Bill Bryson's Lost Continent.
Too dick-y for me.

I really love Bryson's other work (the books I've read already, anyway), especially A Walk in the Woods. I forced myself to finish this one, in hopes it would get better. It didn't. Snark can only take you so far, man.

But then, I am a delicate Southern flower. Hee.

two/fifty-two

Ann Patchett's Bel Canto: beautiful, brilliant, I wish I hadn't read the last two chapters. Not because they were bad, but because they broke my heart.

The story: Some rebels break into a fabulous dinner party ("somewhere in South America" -- the country is never named) and take everybody hostage. The guest list includes many people from all over the world, and one very famous opera singer. Their captors are not especially brilliant at their jobs, and eventually the whole thing becomes like one big sleepover -- with guns. I loved the way the characters were written and described; sometimes it's hard for me to imagine the way characters look, but Patchett described them so well it was as if they were sitting next to me.

This is one of those books that I think would make an excellent movie, although the characters' inner dialogues might be lost a little too much in the translation.

I'm really looking forward to reading Patchett's other work now.

sometimes I hate the English language

I'm reading Bel Canto and really enjoying it. HOWEVER, someone needs to wake up an editor somewhere and let her/him know that it's not a VILE of medicine, it's a VIAL. I actually had to sit back for a minute after that one and take some deep breaths. Maybe I shouldn't read so late at night (I have little to no patience at the end of the day), but I was really liking Patchett's story. Damn typos.

Sometimes I wish they didn't bother me so much. Other times I get a little bitchy because I don't see why someone's getting PAID to miss so many glaring errors.

For example: the BtVS story I read a couple of years ago that had so many typos, including incorrect spellings of MAJOR CHARACTERS' NAMES and "facts" about the major characters that were way off-base, that I seriously considered writing to somebody and offering to go through the thing and send them a marked-up copy. I mean, someone approved the thing. WHY? I know seven bucks is not a fortune, but I don't pay for books so that I can sit down for three hours and grind my teeth.

(I want to say that the book was The Wisdom of War, but I'm not 100% sure. It had "sea monsters" in it, but I don't remember it being one of Golden's books. Unless I've blocked that part out because I still want to like Golden.)

so much for that

At least I already finished my book for this week. I'm giving up on Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat. Reading about all the things that can go wrong with your brain is not for someone who's already paranoid about those sorts of things. Plus my copy had way too many typos for its own good. Cool discovery, though: Someone clipped an article about the success of the book and left it tucked between the pages. I love finding stuff like that. If I would stop being so picky and buy used books more often, I'd probly find more things like that, but these days I much prefer new books.

So I just spent more than I should have on some new ones because I'm running low, and the odds of finding these laying around in a used bookstore here are slim to nil. At roughly $8 a book because of a good 50% off sale, I got:

* Ambulance Girl
* Good Grief
* A Million Little Pieces
* Persepolis
* Something Rising (Light and Swift)
* Truth & Beauty
* The Virgin's Lover
* When Did You Stop Loving Me?

and two copies of The Time Traveler's Wife -- one for me because Rabbit pretty much destroyed my copy, and one for giving away.

one/fifty-two

Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith (excerpt) is the story of Mormonism and Mormon Fundementalism. It's also the story of the murder of Brenda Lafferty and her infant daughter, Erica, by two of her brothers-in-law, carried out because the Lafferty brothers believed God wanted this woman and baby to die.

I would have never expected a book on Mormonism to hold my interest all the way through, as this one did. And, really, Under the Banner of Heaven is far more an exploration of the Mormon faith than a true-crime story, even though Jon Krakauer goes into horrifying detail as far as the Lafferty murders are concerned. Its focus on the religion and the faith it inspires makes sense, given that Krakauer's original intent was to explore that faith.

It was all the more fascinating to me since this is new information for me; I know very little about any faith except the one I was raised in due to the bubble that forms around you when you're in the church (especially when you're in a church-school). In any case, this was a book I'd been wanting to read for a while, so I was looking forward to it; it ended up being even better than I expected.

mmm, apples

My last book of 2004: Comfort Me with Apples, by Ruth Reichl (excerpt). It's a continuation of Reichl's story, which she began in Tender at the Bone. Apples is every bit as good as Bone, if not better. It focuses less on her mother and more on her relationships with various men, and it's perfect. Anything I say is going to sound really fawning, so I'll just leave it at that. Love. It was a great book to end 2004 with.