Books I Read in 2013

It looks like it’s time for my annual post! Yep, my book list. I was going to skip it, since I track what I read on Pinterest. But I found myself missing the recap of what I liked best and worst and what my general reading trend was for the year. I didn’t end up with as many titles this year as in years past, but I felt more engaged with my reading than I did last year. I also didn’t concern myself with not finishing book club titles if I didn’t feel like it, managing to get through just 5 of the 11. (As usual, I put book club selections in italics.) Red Earth, White Earth was my favorite of these, following two childhood best friends, one Ojibwe and one white, through change and turmoil in northern Minnesota. Only 8 of my books in 2013 were graphic novels, but that still puts me above my average rate of 16.9% per year. Batman: The Court of Owls is a marvelous new addition to the character’s story, filled with a broad range of current and past sidekicks and villains, as well as introducing a formidable new foe.

I read just one audio book and it really stuck with me: The Night Circus. I really want to read it with my eyes and see if I find it as affecting as it did reading it with my ears. Regardless, it was a fascinating way to read a new book. Previously I’ve only done audio for books I’ve actually read before, and just want a new experience while revisiting their worlds (Harry Potter and Harry Dresden). The best YA was The Bone Season. It was unlike your typical strong teenage female heroine finding her place in the world and proving her worth to herself and those around her. Though it was that, too! Yet it was also a dark, creepy and evil Hogwarts and an alternate history. I only read a handful of non-fiction in 2013 but it was all excellent. In the Heart of the Sea was a detailed analysis of the history, culture, and events that went into a terrible sea tragedy that inspired Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted was a detailed analysis of the history, culture, and events that went into the making of the Mary Tyler Moore show.

1 Bone: Eyes of the Storm Jeff Smith
2 Lost in Time Melissa de la Cruz
3 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 8 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
4 The Curse of Four Caitlin Kittredge
5 Reached Ally Condie
6 Bone: The Dragonslayer Jeff Smith
7 A Clash of Kings George R.R. Martin
8 Frost Burned Patricia Briggs
9 An Apple for the Creature Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner
10 The Tragedy of Arthur Arthur Phillips
11 Serpent's Kiss Melissa de la Cruz
12 Bone: Rock Jaw Master of the Eastern Border Jeff Smith
13 The Night Circus Erin Morgenstern
14 Caddie Woodlawn Carol Ryrie Brink
15 Kiss and Spell Shanna Swendson
16 A Fantasy Medley 2 Edited by Yanni Kuznia
17 Batman: The Court of Owls Scott Snyder
18 Dead Ever After Charlaine Harris
19 His Majesty's Dragon Naomi Novik
20 House of Secrets Chris Columbus and Ned Vizzini
21 In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex Nathaniel Philbrick
22 Rose: My Life in Service to Lady Astor Rosina Harrison
23 Rogue Touch Christine Woodward
24 A Hard Day's Knight Simon R. Green
25 Divergent Veronica Roth
26 Batman: The City of Owls Scott Snyder
27 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 9 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
28 Winds of Salem Melissa de la Cruz
29 Chimes at Midnight Seanan McGuire
30 Mary and Lou and Rhoda and Ted: And all the Brilliant Minds Who Made The Mary Tyler Moore Show a Classic Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
31 Red Earth White Earth Will Weaver
32 The Cuckoo's Calling Robert Galbraith (J.K. Rowling)
33 The Wind in the Willows Kenneth Grahame
34 Legends I Edited by Robert Silverberg
35 Insurgent Veronica Roth
36 Inferno Dan Brown
37 Eat More Vegetables: Making the Most of Your Seasonal Produce Tricia Cornell
38 Allegiant Veronica Roth
39 Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic Alison Bechdel
40 After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse Charlaine Harris
41 The Bone Season Samantha Shannon
42 A Kiss of Shadows Laurell K. Hamilton
43 The Case of the Time-Capsule Bandit Octavia Spencer

Books Read in 2012

So I completely fell off the blog bandwagon. I just don’t have the time to keep up with it. Pinterest is way more my speed these days. But I still felt compelled to post my 2012 reading list. It’s quite a lot shorter than in years past. Partly that’s due to my commute. But largely it’s been due to my complete lack of desire to read. I’m not sure what happened. No inspiration? Caught up on the paranormal series I started? Getting an ipad for Mother’s Day and the ensuing addiction to stupid app games? Whatever the reason, I also fell off the reading bandwagon.

As I said in my end of year meme on LJ, my reading this year has not been very highbrow. At all. In fact, I quit or just plain skipped over half of the book club selections for the year. (The ones I did read are in italics below.) Instead, I read an awful lot of semi-trashy, comedic celebrity memoirs. Tons of supernatural mystery serieses. And a handful of graphic novels. My favorite would have be my re-read of The Hobbit, which I read to the kids at bedtime over the summer, so we’d be ready when the movie came out. The story that sticks with me the most is WOOL, by Hugh Howey, because it was such a unique format and chillingly realistic dystopian future. The book that was most enlightening was Suffering Succotash, by Stephanie Lucianovic, because it opened my eyes about my son’s picky eating and helped me to not sweat it.

1 Make the Bread, Buy the Butter Jennifer Reese
2 Le Freak: An Upside Story of Family, Disco, and Destiny Nile Rodgers
3 One Salt Sea Seanan McGuire
4 Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) Mindy Kaling
5 Moon Called Patricia Briggs
6 Crossed Ally Condie
7 Farscape: Compulsions Keith R.A. DeCandido
8 Blood Bound Patricia Briggs
9 A Game of Thrones George R.R. Martin
10 Iron Kissed Patricia Briggs
11 Mercy Thompson: Homecoming Patricia Briggs & David Lawrence
12 Fired Up Jayne Ann Krentz
13 Bone Crossed Patricia Briggs
14 The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane Katherine Howe
15 To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
16 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 7 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
17 The Unnatural Inquirer Simon R. Green
18 Silver Borne Patricia Briggs
19 Cold Comfort Farm Stella Gibbons
20 Down These Strange Streets George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
21 River Marked Patricia Briggs
22 Just Another Judgement Day Simon R. Green
23 The Sandman: Preludes and Nocturnes Neil Gaiman
24 Fair Game Patricia Briggs
25 Guts: The Endless Follies and Tiny Triumphs of a Giant Disaster Kristen Johnston
26 The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie Muriel Spark
27 All There Is: Love Stories From StoryCorps Edited by Dave Isay
28 The Hob's Bargain Patricia Briggs
29 Growgirl: How My Life After The Blair Witch Project Went to Pot Heather Donahue
30 A Kiss Before the Apocalypse Thomas E. Sniegoski
31 Magic Burns Ilona Andrews
32 Deadlocked Charlaine Harris
33 The Hobbit J.R.R. Tolkien
34 Suffering Succotasch: A Picky Eater's Quest to Understand Why We Hate the Foods We Hate Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic
35 Dancing on the Head of a Pin Thomas E. Sniegoski
36 The Good, the Bad, and the Uncanny Simon R. Green
37 Much Ado About Magic Shanna Swendson
38 Shadow of Night Deborah Harkness
39 Ali in Wonderland: And Other Tall Tales Ali Wentworth
40 WOOL Hugh Howey
41 Blood Lite III: Aftertaste Edited by Kevin J. Anderson
42 No Quest for the Wicked Shanna Swendson
43 Most Talkative: Stories From the Front Lines of Pop Culture Andy Cohen
44 Hex Appeal Edited by P.N. Elrod
45 Bone: Out From Boneville Jeff Smith
46 Where Angels Fear to Tread Thomas E. Sniegoski
47 Ashes of Honor Seanan McGuire
48 Bone: The Great Cow Race Jeff Smith
49 Cold Days Jim Butcher
50 You're Not Doing It Right: Tales of Marriage, Sex, Death, and Other Humiliations Michael Ian Black
51 Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron Jonathan Strahan

Books Read in 2011

I used to keep my book list in a Word doc. Earlier last year I transferred the whole thing to Excel. I guess it finally hit me that this many years’ of books needed to be in a better format. It’s been fun to be able to filter the list and I’ve even created a couple of flags for myself. But how did 2011 stack up? Actually not too shabby! I’m down a few from 2010’s record high but I’m surprised I still hit such a big number. I started a new job in September, requiring me to drive to work instead of take the bus, and that’s seriously depleted my reading time. I guess it helps when I’m rarely tackling such dense tomes that require a month to slog through…

I killed some time last week with an end of year meme over on my LiveJournal. One of the questions was “What was the best book you read?” I can never just pick one. I reread Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle, which is a personal favorite and something I think any ancient history nerd should read. Ship Breaker by Paolo Bacigalupi was recommended for fans of the Hunger Games and was a fun and exciting young adult story, set in a ruined near future, an original story not requiring vampires or sequels. Matched by Ally Condie was a chilling young adult story that I found to be extremely prescient and could easily see that world happening if we keep on our current path. I recommended that one frequently. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness – finally! A supernatural tale written for adults that don’t want stupid love triangles *or* explicit sex! And I fell in love with three new serieses: the Trylle trilogy by Amanda Hocking, the Alpha and Omega spin-off series by Patricia Briggs, and the October Daye series by Seanan McGuire.

I also read a lot of non-fiction. I’m not sure if it was intentional but I definitely fell into the habit of checking out odd memoirs that caught my eye when I read reviews of them. These ranged from celebrities with interesting lives to regular people with interesting lives. Stuntman! by Hal Needham is a must for any fan of Burt Reynolds and American on Purpose is perfect for fans of comedy, Anglophiles, and punk rockers. I think Concierge Confidential by Michael Fazio was probably the best of the non-famous people memoirs, and I didn’t even know most of the subjects he dished about while discussing how he essentially invented the modern concierge industry.

Book club had mostly good to excellent selections this year (in italics below), although I did give up on the November pick, Assassination Vacation, despite liking the subject matter because I was completely put off by the author’s voice. My favorites were the Steinbeck, the Gaiman, and the Greene titles. I can’t count the most excellent Down and Out in Paris and London because that was actually for 2009 and it just took me that long to get around to buying a copy and finishing it! I also read my usual dozen and a half or so graphic novels. The standouts there were Batwoman: Elegy, truly an amazing tale and incredible artwork, and The Griff, a unique riff on the apocalypse, told by Christopher Moore.

I don’t think I have any book related resolutions again. Last year I said I was going to sew more. That did not happen. At all. This year I’m going to try to bake something every week. I’m still getting a handle on gluten free eating and baking is definitely the area I’ve been most scared of. I’ve had some successes and some failures and mostly just middle of the road good-enough results. So even if it’s just a mix of gf Brownies from a box, I’m going to bake. And I’m going to get back my confidence. And buy xanthum gum and figure out what the hell it does.


1 Celestial Matters Richard Garfinkle
2 Palo Alto James Franco
3 Down and Out in Paris and London George Orwell
4 The Hound of the Baskervilles Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
5 Batwoman: Elegy Greg Rucka & J. H. Williams III
6 I Am Number Four Pittacus Lore
7 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 3 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
8 Ship Breaker Paolo Bacigalupi
9 Star Island Carl Hiassen
10 About a Boy Nick Hornby
11 Children of God Go Bowling Shannon Olson
12 Magic Bites Ilona Andrews
13 Bloody Valentine Melissa de la Cruz
14 Matched Ally Condie
15 The Help Kathryn Stockett
16 Something From the Nightside Simon R. Green
17 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 7 Twilight Brad Meltzer & Georges Jeanty
18 Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files Storm Front Vol. 2 Maelstrom Mark Powers & Ardian Syaf
19 Agents of Light and Darkness Simon R. Green
20 Nightingale's Lament Simon R. Green
21 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 4 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
22 East of Eden John Steinbeck
23 Angel: After the Fall Vol. 1 Brian Lynch & Franco Urru
24 Hex and the City Simon R. Green
25 Huntress Christine Warren, Marjorie M. Liu, Caitlin Kittredge, Jenna Maclaine
26 Concierge Confidential Michael Fazio
27 Farscape: Scorpius Vol 1 Let Sleeping Dogs Lie David Alan Mack & Mike Ruiz
28 The Pirates! In an Adventure with Scientists Gideon Defoe
29 Street Magic Caitlin Kittredge
30 Battle Royale Vol. 1 Koushun Takami & Masayuki Taguchi
31 Demon Bound Caitlin Kittredge
32 Ego & Hubris: The Michael Malice Story Harvey Pekar
33 Paths Not Taken Simon R. Green
34 Mister Wonderful Daniel Clowes
35 Dead Reckoning Charlaine Harris
36 Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth Simon R. Green
37 On the Edge Richard Hammond
38 The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie Alan Bradley
39 Bone Gods Caitlin Kittredge
40 The Girls are Coming Peggie Carlson
41 Hit List Laurell K. Hamilton
42 Switched Amanda Hocking
43 The Wreck of the Waleship Essex Owen Chase
44 Torn Amanda Hocking
45 A Discovery of Witches Deborah Harkness
46 Ascend Amanda Hocking
47 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 5 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
48 Stuntman! My Car-Crashing, Plane-Jumping, Bone-Breaking, Death-Defying Hollywood Life Hal Needham
49 Hell to Pay Simon R. Green
50 The Graveyard Book Neil Gaiman
51 Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 8 Last Gleaming Joss Whedon & Georges Jeanty
52 Ghost Story Jim Butcher
53 Serenity: The Shepherd's Tale Joss and Zack Whedon & Chris Samnee
54 Naked City: Tales of Urban Fantasy Edited by Ellen Datlow
55 Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil Deborah Rodriguez
56 The Witches of East End Melissa de la Cruz
57 The City of Ember Jeannne DePrau
58 The Member of the Wedding Carson McCullers
59 The People of Sparks Jeannne DePrau
60 Home Improvement: Undead Edition Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner
61 American on Purpose Craig Ferguson
62 The Prophet of Yonwood Jeannne DePrau
63 On the Prowl Patricia Briggs, Eileen Wilks, Karen Chance, Sunny
64 Cry Wolf Patricia Briggs
65 The Diamond of Darkhold Jeannne DePrau
66 Hunting Ground Patricia Briggs
67 The Florist's Daughter Patricia Hampl
68 Cowboys & Aliens Fred Van Lente
69 Hexed Ilona Andrews, Yasmine Galenorn, Allyson James, Jeanne C. Stein
70 Nerd Do Well Simon Pegg
71 The Sookie Stackhouse Companion Charlaine Harris
72 Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 6 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
73 Travels with My Aunt Graham Greene
74 Devil's Business Caitlin Kittredge
75 Rosemary and Rue Seanan McGuire
76 Farscape: Tangled Roots Keith R.A. DeCandido
77 A Local Habitation Seanan McGuire
78 Farscape: Red Sky at Morning Keith R.A. DeCandido
79 The Grace of Silence Michele Norris
80 An Artificial Night Seanan McGuire
81 The Griff Christopher Moore & Ian Corson
82 Late Eclipses Seanan McGuire

Libraries Rule

Never apologize for your reading taste.
-- Betty Rosenberg, Library Science educator

I’ve always loved this quote. I think it’s an important thing to keep in mind whether you’re a voracious reader or only read a handful of books a year. But it’s especially important when you find yourself “stuck in a rut”. Genreflecting is a legitimate way to find your next read and it’s OK to stick with what you already know you like.

Something else that’s important? Quitting a book that you don’t like. This is a tricky one. My aunt has been extremely influential on me with this one. She’s a professional librarian and so reads a lot. Like, a LOT a lot. And obviously even when you’re surrounded by books day in and day out, there’s still a limit to how much you can actually get read. So if it’s not making you happy, don’t waste your time. I’ve found it rather freeing to know that I *can* put down a book unfinished. But it took a long time to get to the point where I was comfortable actually doing so. And I still don’t do it often. Usually once or twice a year the book club selection will just plain not appeal to me but I’ll try it out for a few chapters, if only to get a feel for the writing and be able to explain why I didn’t like it and didn’t continue. Rarely will I quit a book that I picked out for myself.

Over the past year and a half or so I’ve tried to stay on top of modern publications by requesting books from the library as I read an intriguing sounding review in a magazine. Yes, usually they’re something I would normally be drawn to anyway but it’s a trick that has pulled me into new directions, too. Sometimes I don’t remember exactly why I was interested in the title and by the time it becomes available on the wait list it will be a complete surprise me to me. Typically a pleasant surprise. But sometimes I’ll take a look at the cover art and read the flap and find that for some reason, I don’t want to read it. So I return the book unread. That’s been a shock to me and it’s also been incredibly liberating. Still, it’s not the usual event. More often than not I’ll read the book anyway and be very glad I did.

Sometimes it’s not that I don’t want to read the book at all. It’s instead that I don’t feel like reading it right at that moment. Tastes change and like with movies, sometimes you just aren’t up to the in depth historical drama or the intricate character study. You just want a comedy or a thriller or explosions and action. So in those instances I’ve returned the book unread, but then re-requested it, putting myself to the back of the queue but still getting it again at a later date.

Now. Here’s where these habits are all starting to intersect. I’m starting to have repeat returns. My Shelfari shelf of I Plan To Read has several books that I’ve checked out and returned unread and re-requested more than twice. Which is silly. I’m trying to be realistic. I know I’m never going to finish Game of Thrones in time, especially with new interest due to the TV show; it’s just always going to have a wait on it making it impossible to renew. The Book Thief is ridiculously popular right now and I’m not entirely sure I’ll ever be “in the mood” for a YA Holocaust tale. But I’m sure it’s as good as they say. I’ve been meaning to read His Majesty’s Dragon for several years now but my library only has a single copy and for no apparent reason, it seems to have a lot of requests on it at all times. It’ll be interesting to see if I do give up on any of them. I finally realized I was never going to actually read The Kraken after the second time I checked it out and I haven’t requested it again since.

What am I reading mostly these days? Supernatural mysteries and YA dystopian futures. So books that fall into those bailiwicks I’m eating up with no problem. I picked out Journal of a UFO Investigator strictly based on that awesome title. All I knew is it was YA and had a great cover. What I’m finding is that it’s a somber coming of age story. And it’s really good. But I don’t know that I want to keep going with it. I haven’t decided yet if I’ll return it unfinished and request it again, or just give it up for lost. I think I would ultimately be satisfied with the read. But it’s hard and it hasn’t really grabbed me yet. And I have the next Nightside, as well as the next Black London, sitting on my bedside table. And I think I’d rather find out how John Taylor is going to track his mythical mother through alternate universes, or watch Pete Caldecott grow closer to Jack Winter as she learns how to control her newfound magicks and try to balance that with her mundane day job of a detective inspector.

And I’m not going to apologize for that.

East of Eden

It took over a month, and I read two novels and three graphic novels and one short story on top of it, but I finally finished all 601 pages of John Steinbeck’s epic East of Eden.

I’ve been slowly rediscovering Steinbeck thanks to book club. I guess “re”discovering is a bit of a misnomer. I read some in high school. For sure Grapes of Wrath, which I didn’t care for at all. Possibly also Of Mice and Men which left no impression. I never really understood what the big deal was. Then last year we read Cannery Row and I fell in love.

East of Eden is a big book. Much bigger in tone and reach than just page count. It covers three generations of two families, one being Steinbeck’s own maternal grandfather. The main family focus is the Trask family; I don’t know if they are entirely fictional or somewhat based in local legend and frankly I don’t know if it matters. As we follow these characters through time we also cross the continent, to the Salinas Valley of California, which is where the author grew up. His grasp of the land itself, not just the geography, is gorgeous and visceral. His narration of the lives of these families is occasionally interrupted by musings on humanity, which to me seemed to point the reader in the direction of that section’s theme and enhance and enrich the reading experience. And his characters themselves, while usually larger than life, still seemed real, even when clearly they were archetypes filling a role on an epic stage.

Essentially, East of Eden is a retelling of the Book of Genesis. The players change roles as they age and mature. The plot doesn’t follow the Bible’s order specifically. But there is sacrifice and love and hatred and betrayal and choice and learning. At times I felt like I was being hit over the head with allegory, “Look at me! I’m playing with Cain and Abel! Aren’t I clever!” But then the characters would actually discuss and dissect the actual verses of Cain and Abel and fascinating things would come of that. The writing felt extremely modern as did the handling of various social issues from Chinese immigrants (the reveal of manservant Lee’s innate intelligence was both hilarious and telling) to sexuality (Kate the evil whore’s brilliant blackmail scheme after she took over as madam).

In that way I both liked the book immensely and couldn’t love it entirely. It is clearly The Great American Novel. It’s beautiful and moving and brilliant and amazing. But it’s a little *too* good. It’s a little *too* perfect. It’s not lived in the way that Cannery Row was. Yet I was crying at the end. I would put the book down at points and be just completely exasperated by the characters, usually Cathy. There was never any question of me not finishing it. But it took time and I didn’t just fly through it. I wanted to digest the story. And I decided that the public school system is doing a disservice by making kids read Steinbeck so young. I think you need age and experience to fully appreciate these stories and this style of writing. I plan to go back and reread Grapes of Wrath and I expect to adore it.

Raise Your Hand if You Like Lists

I joined a Mom’s Group at the UU church and we meet about once a month. It’s been nice to get to know the other ladies there, especially since we’ve been so crap about actually going to service every week this winter. I still find it kind of unsettling to be attending any kind of organized religious anything but I think it’s important for the kids to get the experience. Going to church of any kind is a normalizing experience in the US and there are so many young kids in the small congregation. It’s really great seeing how much fun they have.

The common ground for all us moms is that we seem to all be big readers. So we decided that for our next meeting, we’d share our top fives. Obviously I couldn’t come up with just five...

Favorite Standalone Novels
Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien
I think this one is self-explanatory. Anyone that’s followed me over to LJ and read my various Farscape and Babylon 5 posts knows how much I love this book. I’ve probably read it at least a dozen times. It’s been a few years and I really need to delve into it again. I always find something new.
Celestial Matters by Richard Garfinkle
Possibly my favorite book of all time. Recently re-reading it again really cemented for me why this is such a tough one to recommend though. I'm pretty much the perfect audience: comparative religion. Ancient Western and Ancient Eastern history. Hard science. Speculative fiction. Lots of hand to hand combat. Space. I mean, who else fits that specific intersections of loves? No really, are you out there? Who else loves this book as much as I do?
The Years of Rice and Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson
Speaking of comparative religion, Ancient Eastern history, and speculative fiction…this is the pinnacle of alternative histories as far as I’m concerned. Let’s say that the Black Death killed 90% of Europe instead of “merely” 30%. That changes everything. And the way we get to travel through multiple eras in this new timeline is by following the same souls as they reincarnate into different characters in each period. It’s incredibly thought-provoking as well as a wonderful story.
Superfudge by Judy Blume
Sure, her other titles get more acclaim. But come on. “Eat it or wear it” is clearly the funniest scene of all time!
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
This is the first book I started re-reading on a regular basis, back in junior high. I haven’t been through it in a number of years but it’s still as vivid in my head as if I just finished it yesterday.

Favorite Series
Harry Potter by JK Rowling
Again, do I really have to explain myself? Long before I had even head of TWoP I joined the HPforGrown-Ups egroup, just for speculation. It was my first online fandom and I still love over-analyzing every aspect of it.
Dragonriders of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
I discovered this series back in the mid-90s thanks to a sort of unofficial book club with my field crew at the time. Someone loaned me the first trilogy and I was hooked. The dragons were awesome enough but then there are fire lizards, too? And everyone can have one? WANT! They’re like kitties, but psychic, and with teleportation. What’s not to like? Plus then the series turned out to have a sci-fi explanation for all the fantasy elements? LOVE!
Mars Trilogy by Kim Stanley Robinson
This is hard science fiction at its best. There’s a good reason this series is much loved by actual rocket scientists: this is what colonizing Mars would *actually* be like. But on top of the factual basis are some of the most compelling characters and exciting adventures. I wanted to sign up for a Mars mission for a very long time after finishing this.
Anne of Green Gables by LM Montgomery
Long before I ever knew what “shipping” was, I used to daydream about Anne and Gilbert finally getting together and living happily ever after. Thanks to a recent complete re-read, I can honestly say this series hold ups to your girlhood memories.
Dresden Files by Jim Butcher
Harry Dresden is a wizard for hire. No seriously. Look him up in the Chicago phone book. He’ll find your lost items but he doesn’t do love potions. Of course each book finds his seemingly innocuous case leading him into something much bigger and more deadly. The world building continues to grow and the sideline characters are being fleshed out in ways not often seen in such a long-running series. The most recently published title, punnily enough, changes everything, and I suspect the series is going to take a rather much more muchier epic tone as Butcher builds to his promised finale trilogy. The publication date of the next book cannot possibly get here fast enough.

Favorite Graphic Novels
The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen by Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill
Don’t give me any of that “But I don’t like comic books” crap. This is illustrated story-telling for literature nerds. Every single panel has a reference to something brilliant from some other source. Every single character is taken from a Victorian novel and set free from the constraints of their native pages to have adventures of their own. Mina Harker, Captain Nemo, the Invisible Man, Mr. Hyde, and Alan Quatermaine join together under the direction of Mycroft Holmes to fight steampunk baddies. It’s sheer brilliance.
Superman: Red Son by Mark Millar
Tremendously inventive reimagining of the Superman mythos: what if baby Kal-El landed in Soviet Russian instead of Kansas? All the usual suspects show up, from Wonder Woman to Lex Luthor and Lois Lane. Plus a twist ending that will make you gasp.
Hellboy by Mike Mignola
This is dark humor at its best. Hellboy is everything great about film noir and hard boiled detectives, all while also being the actual literal demon of the apocalypse. His personal story arc is moving and compelling and the side characters get their own focus in the continuation spin-off BPRD.
Mixed Vegetables by Ayumi Komura
Don’t let the “backwards” manga format scare you. These characters jump off the page. Hana and Hayato are students at a Toyko culinary high school. Hana dreams of being a sushi chef but her father expects her to take over his pastry shop. Hayato dreams of being a pastry chef but his father expects him to take over his sushi shop. Star-crossed lover antics ensue, along with lots of great follow-your-dreams messages and yes, a happy ending. Yay!
Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
The book that made the general public pay attention to comics. Every superhero trope ever set to page is turned on its head. The alternate 80s setting still resonates today. And the characters have as many flaws as we regularly expect from our serialized television dramas. Plus superpowers and aliens and world domination plots.

And now I find myself wondering what other sorts of categories I should do top fives for. Alternate Histories? Non-Fiction? Young Adult? Eighteenth Century Sailing Adventures?

BOOKS READ IN 2010

It looks like it’s time for my annual book list! Hard to believe another year has passed already. It’s also hard to believe just how many titles I have on here! Wow. I’m astounded at my 87 completed in 2010. Granted many of these were super quick; I read my usual dozen-ish graphic novels and manga. The Superman alt-history blew my mind and Library Wars managed to do the impossible and be even better than Mixed Vegetables. I caught up with the authors for three series (Anita Blake, Sookie Stackhouse, and Harry Dresden), including their various short stories, and now have to wait for new publications. I only re-read two books – Mostly Harmless and Around the World in 80 Days – until the end of the year when I did my typical pre-movie Harry Potter re-read.

The majority of my reading outside of those three series has been either Young Adult fantasy or non-fiction and memoirs. I find that an interesting dichotomy. My favorite of the latter was Cities of Gold, one of the trio of Spanish Colonialism books I read. The most all-consuming YA books were the Hunger Games trilogy. I still spend every night with thoughts of those characters and events occupying my thoughts as I fall asleep.

I only skipped a single month’s title for book club this year, which I think is a record. I put the book club selections in italics (exception is Holes which was a selection the year before I joined) just to see how they space out through the year. I’m trying to pick a favorite of those and can’t narrow it down, which I think is a good thing! The top of the pile is Changed Man, Kim, Cannery Row, and Babbit. Ooh, I never noticed that only one of those is a modern selection; the rest are all Classics! Well, they’re Classics for a reason I guess.

My reading resolution last year was to read more books that are already on my shelf, already in my collection. I failed. Only about a half-dozen were books that had been sitting around, waiting to be read. About the same number were books I bought to be read immediately or were re-reads. Clearly I need to cull the stuff I haven’t read yet because it’s just not happening. Instead, I got into the habit of immediately requesting books from the library if I read a review of them that I found compelling. About 8 or 10 were based on reviews. Most were varying degrees of hits but These Children Who Come at You with Knives was my second most hated read of the entire year (Blood Lite getting the dubious honor of being the hands-down worst thing I read). I allowed my current read to direct my next read for another handful of titles (for instance I read both Astrid Lingrens because of Dragon Tattoo). I haven’t let that happen in a couple of years and I forgot how pleasant it can be and how many fun surprises it can dig up.

I’m not making a reading resolution this year. I’ve decided to make a sewing resolution instead: Sew More. Or, more specifically, Finish Existing Sewing Projects Before Starting New Ones. We’ll see what happens…


1. Mostly Harmless Douglas Adams
2. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 5 Ayumi Komura
3. Incubus Dreams Laurell K. Hamilton
4. Around the World in 80 Days Jules Verne
5. Artemis Fowl Eoin Colfer
6. Blood Rites Jim Butcher
7. Micah Laurell K. Hamilton
8. Strange Brew Edited by P.N. Elrod
9. Trouble with Lichen John Wyndham
10. Holes Louis Sachar
11. Danse Macabre Laurell K. Hamilton
12. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 5 Predators and Prey Joss Whedon
13. And Another Thing… Douglas Adams’s Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Part Six of Three Eoin Colfer
14. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 6 Ayumi Komura
15. The Harlequin Laurell K. Hamilton
16. A Changed Man Francine Prose
17. Must Love Hellhounds Charlaine Harris, Nalini Singh, Ilona Andrews, Meljean Brooks
18. Blood Noir Laurell K. Hamilton
19. Dead Beat Jim Butcher
20. Kim Rudyard Kipling
21. Jim Butcher’s The Dresden Files: Welcome to the Jungle Jim Butcher
22. Farscape Uncharted Tales: D’Argo’s Lament Keith R.A. DeCandido
23. Proven Guilty Jim Butcher
24. Skin Trade Laurell K. Hamilton
25. Farscape: The Beginning of the End of the Beginning Keith R.A. DeCandido
26. White Night Jim Butcher
27. Farscape Strange Detractors Keith R.A. DeCandido
28. Small Favor Jim Butcher
29. My Big Fat Supernatural Honeymoon Edited by P.N. Elrod
30. Year of Wonders Geraldine Brooks
31. Backup Jim Butcher
32. Flirt Laurell K. Hamilton
33. Turn Coat Jim Butcher
34. Mean Streets Jim Butcher, Simon R. Green, Kat Richardson, Thomas E. Sniegoski
35. Bite Me Christopher Moore
36. Changes Jim Butcher
37. Dead in the Family Charlaine Harris
38. The Horror Writers Association Presents Blood Lite: An Anthology of Humorous Horror Stories Edited by Kevin J. Anderson
39. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 7 Ayumi Komura
40. Cannery Row John Steinbeck
41. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 6 Retreat Jane Espenson
42. Crimes by Moonlight: Mysteries from the Dark Side Edited by Charlaine Harris
43. Highlander: An Evening at Joe’s Edited by Gillian Horvath
44. Bullet Laurell K. Hamilton
45. Bitter Grounds Sandra Benítez
46. A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World Tony Horwitz
47. Farscape: Gone and Back Keith R. A. DeCandido
48. B is for Beer Tom Robbins
49. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Stieg Larsson
50. Ivanhoe Sir Walter Scott
51. Star Wars Infinities: A New Hope Chris Warner
52. Pippi Longstocking Astrid Lindgren
53. Superman: Red Son Mark Millar
54. Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest Douglas Preston
55. Bill Bergson, Master Detective Astrid Lindgren
56. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 8 Ayumi Komura
57. Orange is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison Piper Kerman
58. Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 1 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
59. Because of Winn-Dixie Kate DiCamillo
60. Nim’s Island Wendy Orr
61. Cities of Gold: A Novel of the Ancient and Modern Southwest William K. Hartmann
62. One Day David Nicholls
63. Dark and Stormy Knights Edited by P.N. Elrod
64. Keys to the Repository Melissa de la Cruz
65. The Freddy Anniversary Collection Walter R. Brooks
66. The Windows of Brimnes Bill Holm
67. These Children Who Come at You with Knives Jim Knipfel
68. Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files Storm Front Vol. 1 Mark Powers
69. The Hunt for Red October Tom Clancy
70. Library Wars: Love & War, Vol. 2 Hiro Arikawa & Kiiro Yumi
71. Death’s Excellent Vacation Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner
72. Rules of Engagement Peter Morwood
73. Babbitt Sinclair Lewis
74. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix JK Rowling
75. Side Jobs: Stories from the Dresden Files Jim Butcher
76. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince JK Rowling
77. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows JK Rowling
78. The Hunger Games Suzanne Collins
79. Medium Raw: A Bloody Valentine to the World of Food Anthony Bourdain
80. Nightshade Laurell K. Hamilton
81. Firelight Sophie Jordan
82. Catching Fire Suzanne Collins
83. Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making it Work Tim Gunn
84. The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise Julia Stuart
85. Misguided Angel Melissa de la Cruz
86. Mockingjay Suzanne Collins
87. Star Wars: Tag and Bink Were Here Kevin Rubio

Nightshade

My friend Peachy Keen discovered that Laurell K. Hamilton wrote a Star Trek novel! Naturally we were aghast and titillated, imagining vampire sex orgies on the Enterprise. Since she doesn’t have decent library access, I was tasked with tracking down a copy of Nightshade (Star Trek The Next Generation No 24).

Nightshade takes place largely on planet Oriana where Picard, Troi, and Worf make up the ambassadorial team sent to help end a 200 year civil war. The fighting has so thoroughly destroyed the planet the opposing forces are willing to meet for peace talks simply because their self-annihilation is imminent. Naturally Picard gets accused of murder and Worf has to take over as Federation Ambassador. The B story takes place on an alien vessel where the Enterprise has been called on a rescue mission. Geordi, Crusher, and Data are working to repair the damage and save the crew.

At first, I found myself paying far closer attention to the writing style than the story itself. I was fascinated with trying to get a glimpse of Anita Blake in the text of this book published in 1992, a full year before Guilty Pleasures came out. This novel switched perspective too many times for my taste. Certain of the characters were much weaker but thankfully Troi, Geordi, and Worf were written very well. Perhaps because they got the most “screentime”. Troi in particular was fully formed right from the start. Hamilton is always great at showing how being so short and small affect Anita’s view of the world and that came through for Deanna. I never particularly connected with that character on the show but here she seemed much more than a drinking game “I can sense his anger, Captain” joke. Hamilton also excels at describing what altered states look and feel like and how various powers affect the users and those around them. Again, this seemed perfectly suited to Troi and her Betazed empath abilities. I thoroughly enjoyed all the passages where she was sensing the emotions of those around her, whereas that shit bugged hard on the show. Unexpectedly, the ability to clearly show other mindsets worked well for Worf and Geordi as well. Worf’s Klingon-ness and Geordi’s VISOR sight were relevant in ways I would not have expected but they were absolutely perfect for the story.

I did find some of the Trekkie jargon to be jarring. It was as though Hamilton was given a dossier and checked off character and episode references as she worked them into the narrative. I suppose it might have been some sort of fan-service but knowing that this was an actual novel-for-hire project makes the check list scenario more likely. And the alien names were definitely unwieldy. I glossed over “Orianian” because it just never flowed off my mental tongue. Some of the alien character names too were just silly. But that’s a minor quibble. The biggest Trek issue I had was the heavy-handed moralizing and allegory. But again, that seemed to me like part of the assignment and not any kind of message from the author. And it certainly fits in with Star Trek’s MO from the very start.

There were some very gruesome moments and Hamilton’s panache for gore really served the story well. Without being explicit, she was able to imbue a sense of dread and horror into the places it was most needed.

Hamilton’s ability to write about how characters rely on each other without having to discuss it aloud was also a strength in this story. Because it was underscored throughout by Troi’s and Worf’s relationship. Since the book was published a full year before my beloved “Parallels” even aired, I have to wonder if that was her own decision or part of the franchise mandate to set up the shipping to come. I loved everything about their interactions with each other, their complete trust and reliance on each other, the care and affection they showed each other. Yes, a part of me would have loved to read Incubus Dreams-era Hamilton’s take on a raunchy Troi/Worf sex scene. But I know it was better this way.

Ultimately, Nightshade served to remind me of what Hamilton can do when she actually tries. Oh, the writing wasn’t perfect. She used some of the phrases that drive me nuts in the Anita Blake series (Riker relaxed a muscle he didn’t know he was tensing / Anita let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding) and as I mentioned above, the switching between perspectives was neither successful nor consistent. But it did make me put the new Blake novel Hit List on my library wait queue for when it’s published next year. It should be interesting to see if my opinion of that series changes for having read this foray into sci-fi.

The Hunt for Red October

The Hunt for Red October is possibly the most successful book-to-screen adaptation I’ve ever witnessed, and it is precisely because of the myriad changes from the page that make it work so well.

Anybody that knows me knows I’m a big fan of reading books that I know have or will have movie versions made. I delight in anticipating the changes that will have to take place to move the action along, predicting which characters will be condensed or eliminated, guessing which sections of dialogue will be lifted wholly from the source. Usually I like to read the book first. Not because of some high-brow “the book is always better” attitude but just because I like playing the mental script-writing game so well. Sometimes it’s hard for me to concentrate on the page if I know the movie version particularly well, like when I read Auntie Mame, after having watched the movie probably at least 50 times from the point where I discovered it in junior high.

I think the first time I really relished the difference between the book and film was with Howard’s End. I saw the Merchant Ivory adaptation first and then read the EM Forster book. I was enchanted with how the story came alive in front of me on the page. Over the years I’ve sought out many kinds of adaptations, successful and wretched, and enjoyed comparing them to the source. I think I’ve done a pretty good job of keeping an open mind when things are wildly changed for the screen. As disappointing as it was to not see the super soldier suits, Starship Troopers got the world right; the feel for the politics and the military was spot on. The only one in recent memory that was a complete and utter failure was League of Extraordinary Gentlemen.

Which brings me back to Sean Connery. I think Marko Ramius is one of his best roles. It seems like he’s playing it over the top and yet there are moments where the character is just so real it’s palpable. His shock when he receives the morse code message – he quickly closes the periscope and you can see his thoughts flying through his head as he processes what he just read and how he will react. It’s spectacular. I also think that Alec Baldwin’s is the best of the movie Jack Ryans. He nails the out of his depth manner while still proving competent and capable.

There are certain character short cuts that the movie took for the two leads. I liked that Ryan was made into a Ramius expert. It worked better to have him be confident about the defection specifically because of his knowledge of the man. I also liked how we got to see Ramius’ amazing captaining skills, instead of just being told about them second-hand. It was very exciting to be onboard Red October, in the sea trench, evading their own navy’s torpedo.

And yet the expanded story in the book works just as well. Clancy details how the intelligence is gathered and processed and analyzed and I got a real sense of the actual pace. We get to spend much more time in Ramius’ head and learn details about his past and his motivation for defecting that of necessity had to be put into shorthand for the movie. I loved the moving of all the chess pieces into place in the Atlantic – on both sides of the Cold War. It gave a very full picture of just how unusual the Soviet fleet deployment was, how the US and UK countered the movements, and how both sides used the interactions as a chance to mess with each other, coming up just this side of actually starting a firing war, while still showing off what they were capable of. There were so many small tales that all fit into the big picture. But you’d never be able to include that in a movie and it was smart to concatenate it. To eliminate the British carrier entirely. To eliminate the other US submarine entirely. To eliminate the other Soviet submarine entirely. And especially to change around Skip Tyler’s role so that it included the rescue sub.

The movie expanded on the story in as many wonderful ways as it streamlined it. I loved Sam Neill’s XO and his desire to live in Montana. That small bit of humanizing made his character so much more real than he had been in the book. The aforementioned time spent running the trench past Thor’s Twins. Giving Jonesy an ensign to teach and thereby download sonar exposition to the audience while still keeping things tense and exciting.

I find myself unable to pick which version I liked best, and I think that’s proof of a wonderful adaptation. The movie contained the essence of the story, with all the pacing necessary to an action movie, while the book was able to spend time on detail and still be an intense political thriller. I’ve found myself enthralled with the Ryanverse and intend to read more of Clancy’s books. I doubt any of the subsequent film versions will be as successful as this first one. I certainly don’t remember any of them being something I needed to see more than just the once.

Conquistadores

Recently I’ve found myself obsessed with learning about the Spanish exploration of America. As a holder of an Anthropology BA and former professional archaeologist, I like to think of myself as reasonably well rounded in my Western Hemisphere history. Obviously I know the broad strokes of the conquest of the Aztecs and the Incas and it’s really colored my impression of the Spanish. I hated them. For breaking so many truly amazing civilizations with their stupid Catholicism and never-ending quest for gold. Fuck the Spanish! You could get me to go off on the Spanish at the drop of a hat.

But as I’ve gotten older I’ve seen the other side of the argument. The one that remembers that to the Spanish of the time, the empires they destroyed were EVIL. It’s hard to think of another religion that indulged in as much institutionalized human sacrifice as the Aztecs. And the Mexica had themselves conquered the previous empire as had those that came before as had those that came before. It was not a long-lived regime. The Mayan empire was already in collapse long before Tenochtitlan was even built.

The start of my new conquistador fixation came from reading Tony Horwitz’s A Voyage Long and Strange: Rediscovering the New World. I’ve read all of his books and love how he mixes travelogue with historical information. In this one, he visits the sites of all the pre-Pilgrim explorations into America, starting with the Vikings in Newfoundland. It was reading the chapters on the various Spanish expeditions, such as De Soto in Georgia, that I learned about the Black Legend of the Spanish. The slanderous one that said that *all* the Spaniards did was torture and maim and rape and burn alive and enslave and desecrate. Oh sure, that happened. A lot. Especially in Peru. But that was more the minority than I had in my head. As I kept reading I found myself thoroughly engrossed by the chapters about the American Southwest. Specifically about Cabeza de Vaca and about Coronado. Horwitz had two books in the suggested reading that caught my eye, both called Cities of Gold.

Cabeza de Vaca was one of four ultimate survivors of a shipwreck on the Gulf coast of Florida in 1527. Originally a large number of the crew survived, made rafts, and made their way to Texas. There, separated from the others now lost at sea, their raft and one other shipwrecked again, on Galveston Island, where they were enslaved by the Indians. Cabeza de Vaca, Dorantes, his slave Esteban, and Castillo escaped, and then wandered their way back west and south to Spanish territories. Wandered for years. Upon their return, they were heralded not only for the extraordinary tale of their survival but also for bringing back news of an even greater empire to the north. This empire was what Coronado then attempted to locate and annex for the Kingdom of Spain.

I’ve previously read a couple of books by Douglas Preston but they were both fiction. Cities of Gold: A Journey Across the American Southwest was non-fiction. Preston moved to New Mexico from the east coast, got interested in the Spanish explanation, and in the late 1980s, decided to go check it out for himself. So the author and his weirdo artist buddy actually retraced a section of Coronado’s route, from the Mexico/Arizona border to Pecos, on horseback. Very intrepid. He gave lots of great historical information – cowboy, Spanish, and Native – in between the amazing tale of his adventure. I actually would have liked to learn more about the Spanish themselves but the book was truly fascinating and it was great getting such a grab bag of historical anecdotes related to each point along the trail. Preston has a very engaging voice and struck just the right tone when bringing up sensitive issues, with land use or Indians or whatever.

The fabled Seven Cities of Gold turned out to be Zuni Pueblo, then called Cíbola. Vázquez de Coronado had been following a route scouted for him the year before, 1539, by a Franciscan friar from Nice, Fray Marcos de Niza. Marcos didn’t actually make it all the way to Cíbola. And he himself had been following behind none other than Cabeza de Vaca’s fellow survivor, the black Moor Esteban. Esteban was killed and Marcos turned around within sight of the pueblo to report back that it existed and was just as awesome as described by Indians. Ever since, there’s been non-stop controversy. The lush route Marcos described was not what Coronado’s army encountered. And the city was hardly the rich capital he had been promised. Coronado had invested much of his personal wealth, not to mention all of his political clout, in this mission and wasn’t about to go back to Mexico City empty handed. He continued his expedition all the way into Kansas, still chasing after a prize worth the effort of his army’s travels.

Currently I’m reading Cities of Gold: A Novel of the Ancient and Modern Southwest by William K. Hartmann. As the subtitle implies, it’s fiction and Hartmann switches between a modern narrator and historical narrative. The first person narrator in 1998 is telling the story about his own past as an urban planner in Tucson in the late 1980s. He’s caught up in the mystery of attempting to unravel the motivation behind Fray Marcos’ supposed deception in his reports back to New Spain about the Seven Cities of Cíbola. The historical chapters follow Marcos on his mission to both scout a route to the fabled Cities as well as report back to the viceroy on the location of the west coast. The author is obviously sympathetic to the Franciscan, finding his reputation as a liar and fraud undeserving. Thankfully it doesn’t come across as heavy handed by using the device of having the narrator believe that Marcos was wronged. And it’s definitely an engaging tale. I am very curious to see how the ultimate descriptive discrepancy is explained away in the end. Hartmann has quoted a lot of primary sources from the 1500s and onward the narrative which help to accentuate the changing opinions of scholars from many eras. I do find it a bit jarring each time the perspective switches and yet I am engaged with both the modern and ancient stories.

Unfortunately, Esteban himself never wrote down any account of his travels. He was killed before Marcos managed to catch up to him on their scouting trip so yet another mystery remains unsolved regarding just exactly what happened. I find it poetic irony that the first “European” to explore into the future US was an African slave. Esteban was said to be quite the dandy and was definitely a hit with the ladies. He had been the main translator for Cabeza de Vaca’s group. They survived their wanderings by becoming, essentially, rock stars. They were considered great healers and developed a literal following. Hundreds of people roamed with them as they made their way across the continent. The four survivors became quite sympathetic to the Indians’ way of life and were horrified when their followers were captured as they entered Spanish territory. Cabeza de Vaca wrote a detailed account of their experience which I intend to read as I continue my exploration of Spanish exploration.

The other one I would like to read was written by Pedro de Castaneda. He was one of the soldiers in Coronado’s army and wrote an account of the exploration after the fact. It came to be considered a key anthropological record of the native peoples they encountered. Castaneda went beyond just a sympathy to the Indians and instead developed what is now called cultural relativity when describing differences of customs and practices. His is often the only record of Pre-Colombian life as many of the tribes and cities and villages were wiped out thanks to the germs that came along with the Spaniards. When later settlement took place en masse, there were vast empty spaces where there once lived flourishing peoples.

Stories

Despite the ongoing video gaming in our house (Mr. b and his son purchased Crystal Skull yesterday; then again I may or may not have downloaded the free Batman demo the night before), Ronnie is more and more interested in books. And not just to destroy them. I’ve already removed all the books with actual paper pages from their bedroom because I was sick of the carnage. I need to go through the drawers of board books and see what’s salvageable and come up with some kind of a creative art project to use the rest. At any rate, she’ll toddle up to me with a book in her hand and demand that it be read to her. She’s getting better about actually listening, too, and not just trying to turn pages at her own incredibly fast and completely random pace. She seems to have a few favorites picked out, though that might be just because they’re the least damaged…

One of Kirk’s favorite activities (besides playing Lego video games, yes) is to listen to stories of his parents’ childhoods. He truly revels in the tales of us getting hurt, getting into trouble, or just having something interesting happen. Obviously Mr. b is a better storyteller than I am and he also has a way better and more clear memory than I do. So the bulk of the narration ends up being about growing up in SoDak. Kirk will appropriate anything from any of our stories into his own stories about himself. My dad was telling him about a taco eating contest with my uncles before I was born and soon Kirk had a story about a taco eating contest with his best friend E. The trouble with all the story telling is that now nothing can be just a short little anecdote anymore. If I have a quick snippet about something I wanted to share at the dinner table Kirk’s response is, “Tell the rest.” If Mr. b is filling me in on something I missed Kirk’s response is, “Tell the rest.” No matter how mundane and pointless: “Tell the rest.” “There is no rest.” “Tell the rest.” “The end.” “Tell the rest.”

I’ve been reading a lot of short story collections again the past two years (seriously, it’s not all video games, that’s a new development). It’s because I was being a completist about both the Sookie Stackhouse and the Dresden Files series. I had forgotten just how much I enjoy a well crafted short story. But it can be incredibly tricky to achieve the right balance when you’re writing for a series of novels. You have to give just enough background knowledge so that a reader understands the world you’ve already built but not so much that it overwhelms the story you’re trying to write and yet not so little that you’re making assumptions the reader is coming in already knowing everything. Because of that I found that I generally preferred the stories written by authors that were either telling a one-off tale or using tertiary or unique characters set in the world of their main series characters. The absolute best were the straight mystery authors cajoled into contributing to a supernatural collection; they always ended up with a delicious Twilight Zone vibe. I’ve dipped my toe into a lot of supernatural, fantasy, and mystery series now by sampling so many different authors in so many different anthologies. I actually have a couple of full blown series that I think I’d like to check out. But for now, my self-imposed vampire hiatus continues. Nothing new until I take a nice long cleansing break, even if that means I’m missing out on something.

Bums & Whores

Like most kids in the US, I read Grapes of Wrath and Of Mice and Men in high school. They were fine. I mean yeah, they were obviously Good Books, deserving of the awards and lauds, but they didn’t really grab me. I remember learning in college about how the Beat Poets collectively adored John Steinbeck and I just didn’t get it. I couldn’t see an obvious disconnect so I chalked it up to a generational thing, a different era.

This weekend I finished reading Cannery Row. I loved it. When I saw we had a Steinbeck on deck for book club this year I wasn’t particularly enthused. But this book was amazing. I finally understand the Beat love. This book made me want to go back and reread Big Sur. It made me want to go and pull the more obscure authors that I never got around to reading in college. I have a Brautigan title on extended loan from a friend I plan to dig up presently. And more than that, I intend to read everything else by Steinbeck set in Monterey.

This book was hyper real. The imagery was such a beautiful ode to the mundane, like calling mess left in a frying pan “fried egg lace”. The characters were fleshed out in a way you just don’t get anymore, and yet it felt brilliantly modern while obviously set in the past. I got a better feel for life in the 30s than anything I’ve ever seen or read previously. There was a simple plot about throwing a party for a central character and yet there would be frequent interludes focusing on a different person never heard from again. And instead of being jarring and taking me out of the moment, it only made the story richer, building the world and turning the inhabitants from sketches to living, breathing, heavily drinking kooks, lay-abouts, madams, shop owners, and friends that genuinely cared for each other.

I had no idea this book was part of a loose series. A collection of titles with cross over characters, all in the same universe. It’s what Christopher Moore does and I love that. So much of my experience reading Cannery Row was a sequence of revelations. Doc invented beer milkshakes! I guess that means the creators of “Red Dwarf” must be fans. Hazel intentionally lost a fight just to see how it felt. I guess Chuck Palahniuk must be a fan. And then I found out that my father-in-law is a huge fan and that Mr. b himself loves the 1982 movie version. Yep, it’s been added to my Netflix queue.

Bye Bye Boobie

I guess Ronnie is officially weaned. I didn’t really notice it happening, which is probably a good thing. I didn’t need to make some big pronouncement or anything. At some point last week, not even sure which day, she had her last nigh-nigh boobie.

It’s not like she was even actively nursing. But for the last month or six weeks she’d have her bedtime bottle and then still fall asleep on the boob. It was just easier that way. And if she woke up in the middle of the night I was still bringing her into bed with me. I started to give her a bottle in the middle of the night and put her back into her crib. I mean, her father had always been doing that if he was the one the get up with her but I was the slacker hold out.

During the day Mr. b had started laying Miss Ronica down in her crib for naps before she was even fully asleep. This was radical news to me. We never were able to quite crib train her the way we did with Kirk. We couldn’t let her just “cry it out” with him in the room with her! It wouldn’t be fair to disturb his sleeping. Hence the nursing her to sleep and putting her away already passed out. But if she was able to fall asleep on her own for naptime then that meant I needed to jump on her new skill set and let her fall asleep on her own for bedtime.

It didn’t work every time but for the past couple of weeks I’ve been able to put the Bundle to bed with her still awake. She might fuss a little bit but she’d rustle about and then be asleep by the time her brother and I tiptoed in a half hour or hour later for his bedtime. But the nights it didn’t work, it really didn’t work and I would give up and stick a boob in her mouth. I noticed the last few times that nursing her felt weird. Like, physically it didn’t feel the same. Probably because there really isn’t anything in there for her to actually eat anymore! There was a great line in Kim by Rudyard Kipling. The old high caste widow was convinced that mothers shouldn’t be allowed to raise children, only grandmothers, because mothers are too close to the pain of childbirth and the pleasure of nursing. That really resonated with me. The pleasure of nursing. It really was a pleasure. I’m so glad I had the chance to experience that fully. But it was time to end it.

So now I have to really start watching what I eat. It would be bad to unconsciously keep ingesting nursing calories when I clearly no longer need them.

Bring out cher dead!

I really thought that when I stopped pumping at work that my reading habit would go down. But I seem to be ahead of my pace for even last year’s record haul. I just started title #33 this morning, which is exactly half of my total last year. And, true to form, I totally fell down on book reviews, last discussing a single volume over twenty titles ago.

My book club selection for this month was Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks. I haven’t read anything of hers before but I have read nearly all of her husband’s books – my favorite travel writer Tony Horwitz. I hadn’t put together that she was *that* Geraldine until I read the dedication at the start of her book! I really enjoyed her writing style and I think I’ll read more of her books.

This book was historical fiction dealing with the imagined events in a real village in England, Eyam, that really did close its own borders in 1665-1666 to try to contain an outbreak of the Plague. The story follows a young woman, Anna, as she grows as a result of this crucible of change. I found it fabulous. Oh, I couldn’t take it out of the house to read in public until I was well over halfway through because I knew I would be bawling. But it was wonderful.

The book club ladies universally enjoyed the book as well except for the last chapter and the epilogue. I found the location of the epilogue to be unsurprising, knowing the background of the author. There was one element that was perhaps a bit deus ex machina, but not so much that it took me out of the story. In fact, there was a nice bit of symmetry with the protagonist’s ending as compared to Anna’s beginning. The last chapter didn’t bother me either. I was expecting the pat happy ending we seemed to be getting – and I would have been very fine with that! – so I was completely blindsided by the turn things took. In a good way. It perhaps retroactively altered my opinion of another character but not so much that I was disgusted by wasted time or anything of the sort.

The other complaint I’ve read is that the book is anachronistic. I actually found it to be extremely well researched and accurate. At least according to my memory of my college course on women’s life in Medieval Europe! Anna had some very modern ideas and thoughts and yet to me they seemed to follow naturally based on her experiences and observations. This was, after all, a time of great changes in philosophy and politics. Nature gained popularity over Fate as Science started to gain over Religion. I found it to be a very thoughtful way to explore that paradigm shift in a manner that made such a heady topic accessible to the average reader.

So Five Minutes Ago

I’ve decided that I need to take a break from vampire serieses. I’ve been reading through so many of them my brain can’t really process it anymore. First I’ll finish out the series that I’m on. And there are a couple of due-to-be-published titles coming out this year I’ll read. But then that’s it.

Since I’ve read so many of these damn things I’ve inevitably started comparing them all. I think everyone in the world knows about my disdain for Twilight, despite my initial love and addiction. I found that the Sookie Stackhouse series, while enjoyable, wasn’t as good as the television series based upon it. By the end I was reading them more to expand my understanding of True Blood than anything. Anita Blake I initially started reading after stumbling across this webcomic. That sounded too hilarious and titillating to pass up! I haven’t quite finished that series yet but so far it’s the one I like best. Even with all the sex. Or not just because of all the sex?

If these serieses were schools, then Twilight is Junior High, Sookie is High School, and Anita is College.

Anita Blake’s an urban fantasy series. It’s set in St. Louis. Unlike the True Blood-verse, where vamps have just made themselves known, in this universe vamps (and shifters and witches and whatnot) have always been known. Vampires recently were made legal in the US and there’s a big Church of Eternal Life as well as all kinds of strips clubs and other businesses. Anita is a licensed vampire executioner and works with the police department and FBI on all sorts of freaky supernatural monster crime. She’s totally badass. She’s also a zombie animator, a natural talent she’s had since she was little. She works at a business specifically to raise zombies, so lawyers can double check wills or loved ones can say good bye or whatever else may be required.

Awesomely, nearly every title in the series is also the name of a place of business that Anita visits during the course of that book’s case, which makes it a nice shorthand to remember what exactly happened. I can never remember which book is which out of the Sookie Stackhouse titles. This series has a bad rap but I think that’s a little bit unfair. Anita’s powers develop very naturally as a result of the events of each book, her interactions with the bad guys or supes, and are fully explained within the confines of the world that has been built. It just plain makes sense. And besides the preternatural stuff, there’s just so much heart-pounding action!

But nevermind the guns and the gore and the terror. Nearly everyone focuses on the sex so I thought I’d make a little guide. Books 1 through 5, Guilty Pleasures through Bloody Bones, are nearly completely chaste. Book 6, The Killing Dance, has one single sex scene. Book 7, Burnt Offerings, is back to being sex-free. Though Anita is no longer celibate, we just don’t read it on the page. Book 8, Blue Moon, again has one single sex scene. Book 9, Obsidian Butterfly? That’s right, nada. So far, no reason to get bent out of shape. And that’s over half of the currently published titles! Books 10 and 11, Narcissus in Chains and Cerulean Sins, both have a handful of sex scenes. Maybe 3 or 4 each. But again, nothing that I found excessive and certainly nothing outside of the norm established for the characters involved. Then we have book 12, Incubus Dreams. Hooboy. I completely lost track. This one definitely fits the “all sex and no plot” profile. It was kind of a mess. But then along comes book 13, Micah, and it dials everything back down. There’s only one single sex scene and more than that, it’s a return to the “simpler” bad guys of the earlier books, instead of a demi-god or a lunatic shapeshifter. Books 14 and 15, Danse Macabre and The Harlequin, seem to have found their way back to the handful of scenes level, though the former also included group sex instead of just one-on-one. And that’s as far as I’ve read.

I think the reason the dirty stuff doesn’t bother me is that while it may be complicated to explain, the series is truly about Anita’s relationships with her men. There is a lot of introspection and self-analysis going on that fits with all the characters developing in a believable manner. I don’t know that I’d recommend them for everyone I know but I definitely think they’re better than those dismissing the series as smut and nothing else.

Lichenin

Good science fiction should be thought provoking. You should be presented with ideas that make you really consider the way the world around you works currently. Allegory isn’t necessary but is often useful to use as a prism, to focus on something you might not have noticed around you. Too often today we think science fiction means robots and space and aliens and rockets. Instead, I hold to the old Scientific Romance definition, where you expound and expand upon a technological breakthrough and explore what that would mean for society.

Trouble with Lichen by John Wyndham was one of the most thought provoking books I’ve read in a long time. It took a long, hard look at the ramifications of extreme longevity. Robert A. Heinlein touched on some of those ideas in his Lazarus Long books but Lazarus is primarily an action figure so the same depths are not achieved. I enjoyed the thought experiment of how people really would react when offered the chance to double or treble their lifespan.

There was a feminist aspect to the book, too, which I found fascinating because of several inherent disparities. First of all, it was published in 1960. So even though the female protagonist was rather radical and wanted women to break free of their domestic routines if only they had enough time to live up to their potentials, it was all cast with the pall of the woman being a mere appendage to a man, whether her father or her husband. Like watching original series Star Trek now and being appalled at the sexism while trying to remember that it was actually ground breaking at the time. Another disparity was the fact that the author is a man. I often found myself wondering if he was poking fun or being serious about all the second-gen suffragetting about the place. I have to believe that he thought he was serious. However, I was reminded that in his The Day of the Triffids, which I read six years ago, the independent female character by the end was just happy to have a man. Maybe the fact that it was published almost a decade earlier made the difference? Or maybe Wyndam truly believes that even if a woman is smart and strong she still is “just” a woman. But I’m not offended by that possibility and instead relished the chance to really examine the current state of my gender in society at large.

The narrative started a little slowly but it continued to build and the last forty or fifty pages were definitely exciting. The climax had me tearing up with hope for humanity and righteous pride in womankind. And the twist in the dénouement I didn’t see coming until it was right on top of me.

H2G2

I love the Hitchhiker’s Guide. The books, the newest movie, the BBC mini-series, everything. I love the way that each version is different from the other and it doesn’t matter. Douglas Adams himself didn’t worry about contradicting anything he wrote previously so why should I? I love that it’s all canon.

This December lis and I decided to do a complete reread of the entire series. I started out strong. Obviously Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is the one I know best, since that’s the one that was more or less adapted for screen. I found myself visualizing Mos Def as Ford Prefect but still had the BBC actor in my head for Arthur. I had a hard time remembering what happened next as I got into Restaurant at the End of the Universe. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen the mini and I just didn’t remember all the stuff that happened after they actually left Milliways. Life, the Universe, and Everything was even more of a blank for me. I would remember things as I got to them but I wouldn’t have been able to come up with any of the plot on my own. The sad thing is, as I was posting my earliest book list for posterity, I realized I had reread them only as far back as 2005!

It wasn’t just that I couldn’t remember enough to distinguish one book’s plot from the other. I also didn’t find them to be that funny. Which is odd because they are known as some of the funniest writing there is. I’m honestly not sure what’s the blame for the lack of humor. Maybe I’ve read them too many times? Maybe they seem funnier in retrospect than when you actually revisit them? Maybe you need to hear them and I should get audio books? I really don’t know. So by the time I got to So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish I was considerably less impressed. It didn’t help that I found that book to be rather extraneous. I was happy with Arthur living on Krikkit and flying. I didn’t need any more. OK great, he finally got some action with Fenchurch and he finally found his way back to Earth but it all seemed just superfluous. And the space travel scenes with Ford struck me as intentionally obtuse. I feel like the only point of the whole thing was to kill off Marvin.

Now, the volume that we own doesn’t have the fifth book of the “trilogy” so I had to check Mostly Harmless out of the library. I was completely certain I had never read it until I kept being plagued by déjà vu while reading. Mr. b convinced me I read it once, back in the late summer of 1993. And this book felt even more egregiously unnecessary. Fenchurch was unceremoniously removed so that Arthur was back to being lost and alone. Ford was on a futile quest to save the Guide. And suddenly Trillian came back, only rather out of character and there was also another version even more out of character than the original. What was the point? To erase them all from history? I didn’t need that ending. It made me wonder if the publishers had demanded yet another sequel and Adams had been contractually obliged but didn’t want to have to do it ever again. I don’t actually know any backstory gossip but it really didn’t feel like his heart was in it.

Still, I put myself on the library waitlist for book six, just published and written by Eoin Colfer. I’ve never read anything of his (hers?) so I don’t know what to expect. I have no idea if Adams had left notes for another book or had even started one before his sudden death. And even though I’m somewhat soured on the stories at the moment, I still love them and am curious to find out just what could possibly happen next.

BOOKS READ IN 2009

For the third year running, I managed to read more books than the previous year. And last year I was astounded at the increase over 2007! (Which was itself double 2006. Hmm, I should backdate a post with my lists for earlier years. You know, for posterity.) I don’t think I’ll be able to keep up the trend. Heh. It helps that I continued to not read anything “hard”. I thought my reading would dwindle once the baby had been born but titles 11 through 17 were read while on maternity leave. I guess that might be the key to my ridiculous output: I had a lot of time to sit since I was nursing. And pumping! I was pumping twice a day at work for most of the year which gave me nearly an extra hour of reading on top of my bus commute every day.

I also read a lot of series this year. Some I completely finished and others I’m still working on. Several I caught up to the author and now have to wait for new titles to be published. Regardless, it was easy for me to pick out my next book when I was in the middle of a series. I used to try and wait a couple months between series titles, just as a palate cleanser I guess. But I found myself waiting sometimes only one or two books before returning to whatever series – and not even that when I was finishing off Sookie Stackhouse. Essentially I spent the year just switching off between Katie Chandler, Schuyler Van Alen, Hanayu Ashitaba, Sookie, Anita Blake, and Harry Dresden.

I did make some good discoveries this year though. Pete Hautman was a new find thanks to book club and I read several of his other young adult titles as well. I do hope to finish going through his work because I think he’s a fabulous author and really captures the essence of being a teenager. There weren’t any duds in our book club selections this year. I’d have to pick Guernsey as my favorite but I really enjoyed Birchbark House and Latest Grievance as well.

My reading resolution for this year is to read the books that are already in my house. I have several shelves filled with To Be Read titles. Some I’ve bought used. Some I’ve bought new. Some people have loaned to me and probably forgot where they got to since I’ve had them so long. Some people have just given to me because I can’t say no to books and then they can clear off their own shelves. There’s lot of good stuff for me to discover. But first I need to finish Anita and Harry.


1. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 1 Ayumi Komura
2. The Tales of Beedle the Bard J.K. Rowling
3. The Birchbark House Louise Erdrich
4. California Demon: The Secret Life of a Demon-Hunting Soccer Mom Julie Kenner
5. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 3 Wolves at the Gate Joss Whedon
6. Blue Bloods Melissa de la Cruz
7. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 2 Ayumi Komura
8. Dead Until Dark Charlaine Harris
9. Grave Peril Jim Butcher
10. Masquerade Melissa de la Cruz
11. The Laughing Corpse Laurell K. Hamilton
12. Revelations Melissa de la Cruz
13. Leaving Home Anita Brookner
14. Living Dead in Dallas Charlaine Harris
15. The Optimist’s Daughter Eudora Welty
16. Circus of the Damned Laurell K. Hamilton
17. Rainbow Valley L.M. Montgomery
18. Godless Pete Hautman
19. Club Dead Charlaine Harris
20. The Lunatic Café Laurell K. Hamilton
21. Wyrd Sisters Terry Pratchett
22. Fool Christopher Moore
23. Sweetblood Pete Hautman
24. Bloody Bones Laurell K. Hamilton
25. Summer Knight Jim Butcher
26. Once Upon Stilettos Shanna Swendson
27. Dead to the World Charlaine Harris
28. Witches Abroad Terry Pratchett
29. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince J.K. Rowling
30. Damsel Under Stress Shanna Swendson
31. All Rivers Flow to the Sea Alison McGhee
32. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 3 Ayumi Komura
33. Rilla of Ingleside L.M. Montgomery
34. Bite Laurell K. Hamilton, Charlaine Harris, MaryJanice Davidson, Angela Knight, Vickie Taylor
35. Don’t Hex with Texas Shanna Swendson
36. Dead as a Doornail Charlaine Harris
37. Powers of Detection: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy Edited by Dana Stabenow
38. The Killing Dance Laurell K. Hamilton
39. Many Bloody Returns Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner
40. All-in Pete Hautman
41. Three Men in a Boat, to Say Nothing of the Dog Jerome K. Jerome
42. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
43. Definitely Dead Charlaine Harris
44. Mixed Vegetables, Vol. 4 Ayumi Komura
45. Night’s Edge Charlaine Harris, Maggie Shayne, Barbara Hambly
46. Burnt Offerings Laurell K. Hamilton
47. FlashForward Robert J. Sawyer
48. My Big Fat Supernatural Wedding Edited by P.N. Elrod
49. No Limit Pete Hautman
50. The Van Alen Legacy Melissa de la Cruz
51. All Together Dead Charlaine Harris
52. Blue Moon Laurell K. Hamilton
53. How Green Was My Valley Richard Llewellyn
54. My Latest Grievance Elinor Lipman
55. From Dead to Worse Charlaine Harris
56. Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery & Fantasy Edited by Dana Stabenow
57. Dead and Gone Charlaine Harris
58. Obsidian Butterfly Laurell K. Hamilton
59. The Lost Symbol Dan Brown
60. Wolfsbane and Mistletoe Edited by Charlaine Harris and Toni L.P. Kelner
61. Death Masks Jim Butcher
62. Narcissus in Chains Laurell K. Hamilton
63. Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 4 Time of Your Life Joss Whedon
64. The More Than Complete Hitchhiker’s Guide Douglas Adams
65. Cerulean Sins Laurell K. Hamilton
66. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal Christopher Moore

Dead TV

I’ve always been a fan of reading the source material for movies. Not just sci-fi and fantasy but anything really. I think I first developed the habit after seeing “Howard’s End” and then equally adoring the book. I enjoy rereading each Harry Potter before its movie comes out and trying to guess the changes that the screenwriters had to make. It’s gotten to the point where I will read something I’ve been vaguely aware of or “meaning to” get to and once I hear that an adaptation is in the works then I’ll hurry up and check it out of the library.

I’ve been stuck in a vampire fiction rut for a good year now. It’s easy. And there are so many series to choose from that once I start one I don’t have to think very hard about what my next book will be. Check out the next one in the list!

Well, now it seems these two things are converging on me. Only not movie adaptions but rather television. The only television series that I’ve also read the source books from is The Dresden Files. I saw the show before I started reading the books and I haven’t gone back to rewatch the episodes to see how closely they hewed to the novels. I am aware of some character changes but I’ve got the two mentally categorized as fairly separate entities so it doesn’t really bother me. Plus, since I am already in the habit of doing mental script adaptations, I think I’m much more accepting of necessary alterations than the typical rabid fanatic.

I started reading the Southern Vampire Mysteries, also known as the Sookie Stackhouse series, once I found out that HBO’s show True Blood was based on them. The DVDs of the first season just came out and I’m excited to start watching. I’m hesitant, however, because I don’t wait to spoil myself – for the show or for the books! I’ve only read the first three and I don’t know how much the show has deviated from the plots. This should be my first experiment. The next series to be adapted is Anita Blake. I’ve gotten through the first four of those and the mini-series-as-series-pilot hasn’t even been filmed yet. So I should be quite a ways into it by the time it airs. The final series, however, I think I’ll skip entirely. I think I might be past the suggested read-by age for The Vampire Diaries. Sure, I devoured Twilight but then I turned into an LOLfan after that ghastly fourth offering. And the CW show they’re basing on the books seems just too…Twilight angst times Gossip Girl teens and I don’t know that I can take it. Boone on Lost did nothing for me so having him cast as a vamp is just not enough of a draw. Should be interesting to see if it makes as big of a splash in the zeitgeist as Twilight did.

Ojibwe, Demon Hunters, and Socialites

This month's book club book was The Birchbark House by Louise Erdrich. I loved it to bits. I was honestly shocked to find that most of the ladies at book club didn't feel the same. It's Young Adult and the protagonist is a young Objiwe girl. It follows a year in the life of her family, Lake Superior band Ojibwe, in 1847. I was thoroughly engrossed by the descriptions of life during that time frame, even the harsh reality of a smallpox epidemic, especially with the knowledge of what was to come. Minnesota would achieve statehood in just a few short years. That band would move west. But even more than that, I loved the familiarity. I've discussed already the familiarity of a book set in Minneapolis and a book written by someone I know. This was yet another kind: the familiarity of language. The terms used for family members, household items, everyday objects, so many words and phrases have made their way into our common language as Minnesotans. I had no idea that Nokomis meant grandmother. To me it's always just been one of the lakes on the south side of town. And because of my background in archaeology, I had familiarity with the material culture. Going to school in Minnesota meant knowing Ojibwe kids from elementary school on up but once I started college at the U of M then I actually took Indian Studies. I actually went through the collections in the basement of the Anthropology building to follow NAGPRA mandates. And so perhaps all of these elements are what made me enjoy the book so much when the ladies found it too academic and wished the focus had been on the adults instead of the girl.

I read California Demon by Julie Kenner after the recommendation of a friend. It's billed as a sort of what if: What if Buffy grew up and retired from slaying and had a family and then got pulled back into the fight? The protagonist, Kate, hunted demons as a child and didn't have a high school experience and wasn't the only hunter and married one of her co-fighters and worked for a secret arm of the Vatican but honestly, that What If shorthand is pretty spot on. And it was a really great take on both "chick lit" and the sort of gothic fantasy I seem to gravitate towards these days. There were a few plot twists that I saw coming from afar but it was a quick, fluffy read and thoroughly enjoyable. I especially appreciated all the mommy details and wonder if that would be as interesting to a non-mom? The only thing that perplexed me was the constant references to events that took place 3 or 4 months prior to the action of the book. I thought perhaps it was a way to get around the rote requirements of an origin story but I wasn't sure. Once I finished it I found out: yep, this was book 2. Oops! Frankly, I don't think I missed anything by skipping the first book, Carpe Demon. I mean, most everybody read The Da Vinci Code before reading Angels and Demons and it didn't affect our enjoyment or ability to follow what was going on! I don't think I'll go back and read the first one. I would much rather continue on and find out what happens with Kate and her family next.

Blue Bloods by Melissa de la Cruz was another recommendation by the same friend. She described it as "Gossip Girl" with vampires. Not watching that show I only have Entertainment Weekly's reviews to go by but it seems pretty accurate. You see, all the Old Money in New England is actually families of vampires that came over on the Mayflower. That makes total sense to me! HA! This was hands down the most original take on vampire mythology I've ever read. I don't want to go into detail because it's slowly explained throughout the course of the book and it was fun putting it all together. It's obviously Teen Fiction but I blasted through it in a single weekend because I was completely caught up in the action. It takes place in an elite prep school and the characters are learning about their true heritage while romancing and angsting and shopping and club hopping and making out and partying and oh yeah, being hunted by Something Bad. The only frustrating thing is that the ending was so abrupt! The mystery remained unsolved! I had oh so many theories about the potential bad guys and it just ended. Then again, if I had had the next book out from the library, I would have just kept on reading and not gotten any sleep last night at all.