Reading List 2013
Hello, March. A new month, a new section on the list. I swear I have a life outside of reading. Just... not a big one.
January:
1. Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation
2. Matthew Cody - The Dead Gentleman
3. Jules Verne - Journey to the Center of the Earth
4. Milan Kundera - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
5. C.N. Edwards - Love Poems
6. Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
7. Flannery O'Connor - Everything That Rises Must Converge
8. Jessica Gregson - The Angel Makers
9. Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky
10. Veronica Roth - Divergent
11. Eoin Colfer - The Atlantis Complex
12. James Joyce - Dubliners
13. Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
14. Mira Bartok - The Memory Palace
15. Shel Silverstein - Every Thing On It
16. John Lithgow - Poet's Corner
February
17. Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire
The second of the Hunger Games trilogy. I haven't seen the first movie yet, but I figured I could at least prepare for the second movie and all the people talking about it. Again, it's okay. If I had encountered this series when I was younger, I'd probably be dazzled by it because I wouldn't have been used to dystopian fiction. But because dystopia is everywhere these days, it's not as impressive. This book was a little harder to readily accept because of friends killing friends for the government, and favorite characters being tortured, and all that jazz... Winds of change in this book, and I am curious to see how it all ends.
18. Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
Mike was surprised when I told him I'd never read this play. The story was very predictable, but the quips and sarcasm were great. Wilde seems to enjoy introducing that one character who is a bit off the map and loves to rant about society.
19. Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
The narrator of this audiobook started to sound like Colin Firth halfway through. It was bizarre. Otherwise, decent story. I can understand why Dickens is considered to be one of the best narrative writers. Back when writers told stories and pondered subjects in the writing. It was as if the narrator was talking to the audience, instead of just describing events. I am curious to learn which parts of this novel were autobiographical. And I had the subplot with Agnes pegged about the time that David was in love with Doris.
20. Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
The narrator of this audiobook occasionally sounded like Michael Cain, and that was really weird. Another classic that I should have read long ago. No wonder my Shakespeare professor kept mentioning this story when we read The Tempest. Shakespeare is all through this novel. And, it wasn't all that shocking. Even all the revisions of sexual encounters throughout childhood. Not sure how I feel about young children making out in the bushes with each other, though. He took an intriguing stance on society by flipping it and taking what people considered to be taboo and making it mainstream and proper. It was like staring into a warped mirror in a Fun House. Those last couple lines haunt me though... freaking turning feet.
21. Paulo Coelho - Brida
I expected more from this novel. It's a disappointment. It's an interesting progression of spiritual beliefs with magic, sure, but... it was more like a long fable than a novel, and it seemed to lecture. There was more plot in The Alchemist than there was in this one. And the fact that the characters were Irish and that everything was set in Ireland was almost irrelevant. This could have been set anywhere in a country town. Maybe that was the point, that universality. But if that was the case, Coelho wouldn't have made it repeatedly clear that it was all set in Ireland. The Irish flavor was missing from this and I think that and the storytelling mishaps were what disappointed me most.
22. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl - Beautiful Creatures
I listened to this to prepare for the movie, because I wanted to see it but just don't have the money. It was interesting having it be told from the boyfriend's perspective. And the casting of Jeremy Irons for Macon Ravenwood was perfect (of course it was, because the authors had him in mind when writing the character). But... I didn't buy the love between the main characters. The connection and reliance, yes, but not the love. It was almost as if the love was a given instead of developed, though their developing intimacy (which wasn't much) was nicely paced. And the system of magic was intriguing. And I hated some of the characters, so that's a mark of good writing.
23. Lisa Malvarose - Psychic
A friend contacted me a while back about one of her friends who was self-publishing through Amazon. She asked if I could help that friend with publishing questions, and I agreed. She mostly had copyright questions that I couldn't answer confidently. When I asked her if she'd had an editor go through it, she said she had an English teacher friend edit it. That's when all my red flags about this story exploded. I almost offered my services. However... if I did, she'd have to stop the publishing process even though it was halfway done. In fact, I might have discouraged her so much that she'd stop the process altogether. I'm not being conceited here, either. I made her cry the first night we talked because I overwhelmed her with publishing information, and she said that all she wants to do is get the story published. She couldn't understand the need for a proper editor. When I told her about quality, she cited Stephanie Meyers and asked that if critiques hated her stories but that sold millions, then why did she (the girl I was talking to) have to worry? I couldn't argue with her. So I held my tongue and the story was published, and I downloaded it on my Android Kindle on a day when it was on sale for free. It took a while to get through it. It's marketed as YA because the characters are seniors in high school, but their mentalities and actions fit 12-14-year-olds better. Between that and the writing style, it should have been marketed as a tween novel instead. But I'll stop talking about it now. It's receiving high reviews on Amazon (from friends or strangers, I don't know) and after this post, I'm leaving well enough alone. If she asks me what I thought of it, I won't know what to tell her. Especially because there's a sequel in the making...
24. Bruno Bettelheim - The Uses of Enchantment
I've had this book since an undergrad freshman. Got it for a College Writing II paper when I wrote about various fairy tale syndromes. For whatever reason, I haven't touched it since. It's all about the psychoanalysis of fairy tales. It's fascinating, but took me a while to read... I started it as research for my NaNoWriMo novel, and it gave me some things to think about... and apply to other novels. Sometimes, though, it felt like the author was grasping at straws in order to make the fairy tale fit with his theories.
25. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment
I'm not sure what to say about this one. I made that internet meme comment on Facebook regarding a scene from this book, and another comment regarding a possible connection between the novel and Star Trek. But otherwise... I suppose the story was as expected with some psychology and philosophy tossed in. I'm glad I listened to it instead of read it, though. It would have taken me a month to read it, easily, otherwise.
26. Sherman Alexie - The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian
For whatever reason, I thought this was a memoir. It's not. It's a semi-autobiographical YA novel. He has a way of being blunt with his truth about living arrangements and psychology on an Indian reservation. And the lessons in this book are perfect for teenagers who are trying to figure out their lives, who they are, and their place in the world. And if you ever wanted to feel shitty from a good, well-written book, this is the one for you. Alexie also narrates the audiobook, so it was cool hearing the sing-song Indian inflections and accents. Easier to hear the voice of the main character that way. The character is "part-time" because he lives on the reservation but managed to convince his parents to let him go to the white high school 22 miles away, off-rez.
January:
1. Sam Harris - Letter to a Christian Nation
2. Matthew Cody - The Dead Gentleman
3. Jules Verne - Journey to the Center of the Earth
4. Milan Kundera - The Book of Laughter and Forgetting
5. C.N. Edwards - Love Poems
6. Jonathan Swift - Gulliver's Travels
7. Flannery O'Connor - Everything That Rises Must Converge
8. Jessica Gregson - The Angel Makers
9. Paul Bowles - The Sheltering Sky
10. Veronica Roth - Divergent
11. Eoin Colfer - The Atlantis Complex
12. James Joyce - Dubliners
13. Stephen Chbosky - The Perks of Being a Wallflower
14. Mira Bartok - The Memory Palace
15. Shel Silverstein - Every Thing On It
16. John Lithgow - Poet's Corner
February
17. Suzanne Collins - Catching Fire
The second of the Hunger Games trilogy. I haven't seen the first movie yet, but I figured I could at least prepare for the second movie and all the people talking about it. Again, it's okay. If I had encountered this series when I was younger, I'd probably be dazzled by it because I wouldn't have been used to dystopian fiction. But because dystopia is everywhere these days, it's not as impressive. This book was a little harder to readily accept because of friends killing friends for the government, and favorite characters being tortured, and all that jazz... Winds of change in this book, and I am curious to see how it all ends.
18. Oscar Wilde - The Importance of Being Earnest
Mike was surprised when I told him I'd never read this play. The story was very predictable, but the quips and sarcasm were great. Wilde seems to enjoy introducing that one character who is a bit off the map and loves to rant about society.
19. Charles Dickens - David Copperfield
The narrator of this audiobook started to sound like Colin Firth halfway through. It was bizarre. Otherwise, decent story. I can understand why Dickens is considered to be one of the best narrative writers. Back when writers told stories and pondered subjects in the writing. It was as if the narrator was talking to the audience, instead of just describing events. I am curious to learn which parts of this novel were autobiographical. And I had the subplot with Agnes pegged about the time that David was in love with Doris.
20. Aldous Huxley - Brave New World
The narrator of this audiobook occasionally sounded like Michael Cain, and that was really weird. Another classic that I should have read long ago. No wonder my Shakespeare professor kept mentioning this story when we read The Tempest. Shakespeare is all through this novel. And, it wasn't all that shocking. Even all the revisions of sexual encounters throughout childhood. Not sure how I feel about young children making out in the bushes with each other, though. He took an intriguing stance on society by flipping it and taking what people considered to be taboo and making it mainstream and proper. It was like staring into a warped mirror in a Fun House. Those last couple lines haunt me though... freaking turning feet.
21. Paulo Coelho - Brida
I expected more from this novel. It's a disappointment. It's an interesting progression of spiritual beliefs with magic, sure, but... it was more like a long fable than a novel, and it seemed to lecture. There was more plot in The Alchemist than there was in this one. And the fact that the characters were Irish and that everything was set in Ireland was almost irrelevant. This could have been set anywhere in a country town. Maybe that was the point, that universality. But if that was the case, Coelho wouldn't have made it repeatedly clear that it was all set in Ireland. The Irish flavor was missing from this and I think that and the storytelling mishaps were what disappointed me most.
22. Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl - Beautiful Creatures
I listened to this to prepare for the movie, because I wanted to see it but just don't have the money. It was interesting having it be told from the boyfriend's perspective. And the casting of Jeremy Irons for Macon Ravenwood was perfect (of course it was, because the authors had him in mind when writing the character). But... I didn't buy the love between the main characters. The connection and reliance, yes, but not the love. It was almost as if the love was a given instead of developed, though their developing intimacy (which wasn't much) was nicely paced. And the system of magic was intriguing. And I hated some of the characters, so that's a mark of good writing.
23. Lisa Malvarose - Psychic
A friend contacted me a while back about one of her friends who was self-publishing through Amazon. She asked if I could help that friend with publishing questions, and I agreed. She mostly had copyright questions that I couldn't answer confidently. When I asked her if she'd had an editor go through it, she said she had an English teacher friend edit it. That's when all my red flags about this story exploded. I almost offered my services. However... if I did, she'd have to stop the publishing process even though it was halfway done. In fact, I might have discouraged her so much that she'd stop the process altogether. I'm not being conceited here, either. I made her cry the first night we talked because I overwhelmed her with publishing information, and she said that all she wants to do is get the story published. She couldn't understand the need for a proper editor. When I told her about quality, she cited Stephanie Meyers and asked that if critiques hated her stories but that sold millions, then why did she (the girl I was talking to) have to worry? I couldn't argue with her. So I held my tongue and the story was published, and I downloaded it on my Android Kindle on a day when it was on sale for free. It took a while to get through it. It's marketed as YA because the characters are seniors in high school, but their mentalities and actions fit 12-14-year-olds better. Between that and the writing style, it should have been marketed as a tween novel instead. But I'll stop talking about it now. It's receiving high reviews on Amazon (from friends or strangers, I don't know) and after this post, I'm leaving well enough alone. If she asks me what I thought of it, I won't know what to tell her. Especially because there's a sequel in the making...
24. Bruno Bettelheim - The Uses of Enchantment
I've had this book since an undergrad freshman. Got it for a College Writing II paper when I wrote about various fairy tale syndromes. For whatever reason, I haven't touched it since. It's all about the psychoanalysis of fairy tales. It's fascinating, but took me a while to read... I started it as research for my NaNoWriMo novel, and it gave me some things to think about... and apply to other novels. Sometimes, though, it felt like the author was grasping at straws in order to make the fairy tale fit with his theories.
25. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment
I'm not sure what to say about this one. I made that internet meme comment on Facebook regarding a scene from this book, and another comment regarding a possible connection between the novel and Star Trek. But otherwise... I suppose the story was as expected with some psychology and philosophy tossed in. I'm glad I listened to it instead of read it, though. It would have taken me a month to read it, easily, otherwise.
26. Sherman Alexie - The Absolutely True Story of a Part-Time Indian
For whatever reason, I thought this was a memoir. It's not. It's a semi-autobiographical YA novel. He has a way of being blunt with his truth about living arrangements and psychology on an Indian reservation. And the lessons in this book are perfect for teenagers who are trying to figure out their lives, who they are, and their place in the world. And if you ever wanted to feel shitty from a good, well-written book, this is the one for you. Alexie also narrates the audiobook, so it was cool hearing the sing-song Indian inflections and accents. Easier to hear the voice of the main character that way. The character is "part-time" because he lives on the reservation but managed to convince his parents to let him go to the white high school 22 miles away, off-rez.