pammab's 12 in 12 challenge

Off to 2012! My visible activity level here will unfortunately vary with how much time I have -- but trust that I enjoy reading your posts and writing my own. Looking forward to 2012!

I aim to read three books in each of the following categories. This should be (I hope) an achievable goal.

A. Spec Fic (Any)
B. Spec Fic (Female Authors)
C. New Female Authors
D. Not Straight
E. Authors of Color
F. Owned Yet Unread
G. Series Continuations
H. Graphic Novels
I. Professional & Personal Development
J. Continuing Education
K. Expected By Others
L. Just for Fun

Key to notes:
* - Available on Audible (which I have just given in and joined, having started to listen to the very edges of what I'm interested in at the local audiobook collection)
L - Available at library
? - Haven't checked Audible or library yet

I'm on the waiting list at PaperbackSwap for the others....

A. Spec Fic (Any)
I love this stuff, but it has been notably missing from my life.

1. Solitaire by Eskridge (2012.01.09): human strength, loneliness, and identity; I loved and was disturbed by this book ★★★★½ (review)
2. Spin by Wilson (2012.01.26): science fiction -- the stars suddenly go out. this book had high highs, but was spotty ★★★½ (review)
3. The Eyre Affair by Fforde (2012.05.07): fluff masquerading as substance ★½ (review)

Queued up:
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams - September Group Read
Good Omens - Neil Gaimain & Terry Pratchett
Daemon - Daniel Suarez
The Diamond Age - Neal Stephenson
Machine of Death - short stories
Poul Anderson
Quicksilver - Neal Stephenson
The Giver
Off Armageddon Reef
Year Zero

B. Spec Fic (Female Authors)
Here's hoping that an entire category of only women assists my eternal endeavor to improve my Male or Female? stats...

1. To Say Nothing Of The Dog by Willis (2012.01.09): quite fun intertextual and very soft sci fi romp through the Victorian era ★★★★½ (review)
2. Komarr by Bujold (2012.04.22): highly engaging sci fi brain snack ★★★★ (review)
3. Blackout by Willis (2012.11.26): good work - right up to the annoying cliffhanger ★★★½ (review)

Queued up:
New Amsterdam - Elisabeth Bear
Grass - Sheri Tepper
Child of the Hive - Jessica Meats
The Silver Metal Lover - Tanith Lee
Dangerous Space - Kelley Eskridge
Thirteenth Child - Patricia C. Wrede
Cyteen - C J Cherryh
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever - James Tiptree
China Mountain Zhang - Maureen F. McHugh
Divergent - Veronica Roth

C. New Female Authors
Women can write too, right? Then why do I read so many men?

1. We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Jackson (2012.01.08): spec fic questions within a disturbingly real reality ★★★★ (review)
2. Soulless by Carriger (2012.03.07): very (delightfully) fannish paranormal romance with steampunk and Victorians ★★★★½ (review)
3. Bloodshot by Priest (2012.08.03): super-duper potato chip book featuring vampires, drag queens, and government conspiracies ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
Flannery O'Connor
Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism - Natasha Walter
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea - Barbara Demick
La frontera / Borderlands - Gloria Anzaldua
Skin - Dorothy Allison
In the Mothers' Land - Élisabeth Vonarburg
Les Guérillères - Monique Wittig

D. Not Straight
Yep. Anything but.

1. Tipping the Velvet by Waters (2012.02.19): lesbian + Victorian (and nothing more) ★★★ (review)
2. Always by Griffith (2012.03.20): my love for the main character continues, but this book suffers from technical flaws ★★★ (review)
3. The Night Watch by Waters (2012.11.12): bleakly realistic: love and making do in 1940s London ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
The Gilda Stories - Jewelle Gomez
Trouble and her Friends
Fire Logic
Stone Butch Blues - Feinberg
China Mountain Zhang - Maureen F. McHugh

E. Authors of Color
This has been my stretch category in the past two years; I'd like to keep it up. Would love suggestion of non-literary fiction by authors of color -- I've found that almost impossible to find.

1. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center by hooks (2012.03.04): strong meditation on feminism as the purview of the white bourgeois, but long since incorporated into mainstream feminist thought ★★★★ (review)
2. In Search of Black America by Dent (2012.08.15): many anecdotes about being black in America, focused on the middle class majority ★★★ (review)
3. Interpreter of Maladies by Lahiri (2012.11.25): stories of relationships ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
Things Fall Apart - Chinua Achebe - April Group Read
The Bone People - Keri Hulme
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Zami - Audre Lorde
"Race," Writing, and Difference - Henry Louis Gates
La frontera / Borderlands - Gloria Anzaldua
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 1 - Fumi Yoshinaga
Someone Knows My Name - Lawrence Hill
Small Island - Andrea Levy
Samuel Delaney
Nalo Hopkinson
William Sanders
The Way of Thorn and Thunder - Daniel Heath Justice
Hellspark - Janet Kagan
Slonczewski
Lion's Blood
Wild Seed

F. Owned Yet Unread
In the hopes that I may one day only own books that fairly characterize me.

1. Alias Grace by Atwood (2012.01.05): gender, class, sex, insanity, pretty language, but a bit verbose ★★★½ (review)
2. How the Other Half Thinks by Stein (2012.05.12): perfect for junior high enrichment, not so perfect for anything else ★★★ (review)
3. For Hearing People Only by Moore and Levitan (2012.11.03): great Q&A intro to deafness and Deaf culture ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
Chaos: Making a New Science - James Gleick
Work Types - Jean M. Kummerow
Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
The Last Puritan - George Santayana
The Brothers Karamazov
The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists
Possession
The Wapshot Scandal
Dances with Wolves
Jane Eyre
Neurolinguistic Programming for Dummies

G. Series Continuations
Without this category I will shy away from series....

1. Stay by Griffith (2012.01.23): violent crime novel, suffused with grief and abuse and a personal journey ★★★★ (review)
2. Changeless by Carriger (2012.04.22): entertaining but not good literature ★★ (review)
3. Cetaganda by Bujold (2012.05.06): Vorkosigan political action story ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
Lois McMaster Bujold
Empire of Ivory - Naomi Novik
Behemoth - Scott Westerfeld

H. Graphic Novels
Expanding my literary palate.

1. Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned by Vaughan et al. (2012.01.20): interesting, short, I'm disturbed by liking it ★★★★ (review)
2. Persepolis by Satrapi (2012.03.28): dry and telling story of coming of age in the Iranian Revolution ★★★★ (review)
3. Starborn Vol. 1 by Roberson, et al. (2012.11.25): not enough there ★★★½ (review)

Queued up:
Fun Home - Alison Bechdel
Blankets - Craig Thompson
Therefore, Repent - Jim Munroe - free PDF
Jimmy Corrigan: The Smartest Kid On Earth - Chris Ware
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers, Volume 1 - Fumi Yoshinaga
Habibi - Craig Thompson

I. Professional & Personal Development
*is INTJ*

1. What Every BODY is Saying by Navarro (2012.01.18): very nice body language book, blending specific examples with principles ★★★★½ (review)
2. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind by Suzuki (2012.03.12): for those who already practice ★★★ (review)
3. Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office by Frankel (2012.04.11): gives permission to be more assertive -- highly useful, but not mindblowing ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense -- Suzette Haden Elgin
Unmasking the Face - Paul Ekman
Work Types - Jean M. Kummerow
Never Eat Alone - Keith Ferrazzi
Mindless Eating - Brian Wansink
Presenting to Win - Jerry Weissman
Confessions of a Public Speaker - Scott Berkun
The Four Pillars of Investing - William J. Bernstein
Nonviolent Communication - Marshal Rosenberg
The Science of Influence - Kevin Hogan
Buddhism without Beliefs - Stephen Batchelor
Reflections On a Mountain Lake - Ani Tenzin Palmo
The Brand You 50 - Tom Peters
Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data - Stephen Few
Envisioning Information - Edward Tufte
Visual Explanations - Edward Tufte
Visual Complexity: Mapping Patterns of Information - Manuel Lima
Women Don't Ask
Everything is Obvious

J. Continuing Education
It never ends. Nor should it.

1. Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age by Jacoby (2012.02.22): scary ★★★★ (review)
2. Data Theory and Dimensional Analysis by Jacoby (2012.08.17): methods of working with multivariate data ★★★★ (review)
3. Buddhism After Patriarchy by Gross (2012.09.06): important uniting of Buddhism and feminism, though rather heteronormative ★★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
Living Dolls: The Return of Sexism - Natasha Walter
Visual Methodologies - Gillian Rose
Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea - Barbara Demick
Publics and Counterpublics - Michael Warner
Deaf tend your - Byron Bridges
Metaphor in American Sign Language - Phyllis Perrin Wilcox
Reading Between the Signs - Anna Mindess
Brief History of Time - Stephen Hawking
The Trouble With Physics - Lee Smolin
Goedel, Escher, Bach
The Lucky Shopping Manual
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Quantitative Applications in the Social Sciences series
Inside Scientology

K. Expected or Suggested By Others
For those recommendations and gifts that can't be avoided, or that I take on with crossed fingers.

1. The Amulet of Samarkand by Stroud (2012.03.11): not-my-style fantasy + narrator untalented at 52% of population = given up early ★★ (review)
2. Revolution by Donnelly (2012.03.21): good YA fiction steeped in the upper class ★★★½ (review)
3. The Power of One by Courtenay (2012.04.18): great South Africa historical fiction with apartheid and boxing ★★★★½ (review)

Queued up:
The Last Puritan - George Santayana
Survivor - Chuck Palahniuk
Tomas Transtromer : selected poems, 1954-1986
Cloud Atlas

L. Just for Fun
Because that's what this should be.

1. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Yudkowsky (2012.06.01): Mary Sue fic written by a man -- but entertaining and a good example of the transformative power of fic ★★★½ (review)
2. Perdido Street Station by Mieville (2012.07.08): not my cuppa ★½ (review)
3. Basic Economics by Sowell (2012.10.09): just what it says on the can ★★★★ (review)

Queued up:
Star Trek and History - Daniel Bernardi
No Exit and three other plays - Jean-Paul Sartre
The Book Thief - Markus Zusak
Master and Commander - Patrick O'Brian
The Graveyard Book - Neil Gaiman
Love in a Time of Robot Apocalypse - David Perez
Phillip K. Dick
Impossible Things - Connie Willis
Science Ink - Carl Zimmer
In the Basement of the Ivory Tower
The Captured

Extras
If I'm lucky.

1. Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers by Datlow and Windling (2012.10.29): a few gems ★★ (review)
2. The Children of the Sky by Vinge (2012.11.02): disappointing ★★★½ (review)
3. The Diamond Age by Stephenson (2012.12.15): solid book of ideas, but occasionally tries too hard ★★★★ (review)
4. Skin Folk by Hopkinson (2012.12.15): not-my-style magical realism stories ★★ (review)
5. Survivor by Palahniuk (2012.12.20): tries too hard to be clever ★½ (review)
6. Good Calories, Bad Calories by Taubes (2012.12.27): everything you thought you knew about diet is wrong ★★★★½ (review)
7. Coraline: The Graphic Novel by Gaiman (2012.12.30): perfection ★★★★★ (review)

Nicely laid out, pammab

"gifts that can't be avoided" ::giggle::

Nice to meet you, CynWetzel!

I do try to give all gift books at least a fair shake.... But I've found that rarely do they actually match my tastes. :(

Hi Pammab, glad to see you back for 2012. I'm going to be exploring the world of graphic novels this year as well, so will have to keep an close eye on that category of yours. Wishing you the best for the holiday season.

Ooh, I see you have the Sartre as a possibility - nice! Looking forward to following your reading again!

Ooh, you have some good books on this list! I especially hope you enjoy To Say Nothing of the Dog as much as I did; and Fforde's series is pretty great as well!

Many of your possibilities are on my To Read Someday list so I look forward to following your reading this year. Good luck!

17 DeltaQueen50
The graphic novels ideas I have all come as recommendations from a friend who has been trying to get me to read more of them for years. I'm really looking forward to them -- the tricky part is going to be sticking on the waiting list to receive them at the library! I look forward to seeing what you read as well and broadening that list. Best to you and yours as well, DQ.

18 jfetting
You got me. :)

19 christina_reads
I just joined Audible and bought To Say Nothing of the Dog yesterday -- I am very excited to begin it tonight as I drive to a Christmas celebration! Fforde I just heard out about a few days ago, and sounds right up my alley.

20 HRO
Thanks, HRO -- and likewise!

Happy winter-related festivities and long weekends to all of you!

Looks like some interesting books you have lined up. (Psst - did you see that the latest Temeraire comes out in March? *hopping from one foot to another*)

22 mamzel

!! No, I hadn't! That is good reason to try to finish up the books in the series that I haven't gotten to yet!

Some great-looking lists here, with enticing candidates. Another year, another star!

As for the male/female ratio: A can totally relate. I kept a close eye on reading an equal number of male and female authors for several years. It was great, as it prompted me to find new writers, several of whom are now my favorites. But 2011 and 2012 I will allow some unbalance, in order to somewhat rectify more blokes on the TBR. Too few women in fantasy and science fiction, dammit! I always bear that factor in mind though. (I also took the Bechdel test for all my reading for a year. That was somewhat depressing...)

>24 GingerbreadMan: "Bechdel test"
I guess I've heard of this before, but, then again, maybe not. Or only just in passing. So, I just spent some time reading about it. I only found info with regard to movies. Not anything about how it turns out with books, except your comment implies it was similar.

Like this article points out (about halfway through the main article), ""You don't notice it until you have it pointed out" -- I'll probably think of it often now. :D

I have been tagging my books with "Bechdel test win" and "Bechdel test fail" for a while now -- it is very interesting to me to see which ones fall where. Especially the ones I do like that are not very Bechdel test friendly, notably Scott Westerfeld's Leviathan and right now, Connie Willis's To Say Nothing of the Dog. I don't think I would have even noticed except that I was counting....

I completely see the issue with quality science fiction and fantasy written by women, though. I fight with that every year.... Always looking forward to seeing what you come up with, GBM and everyone else -- including the men!

What Bechdel does best, I think, is pointing out the "One single strong female character" scenario. It's uncanny how often you nod in agreement with a complex, cool woman and miss the fact that she's alone.

It should be stressed that I've discovered many great female writers of speculative fiction in the years since I re-discovered these genres: Steph Swainston, KJ Bishop, Catherynne Valente, Kelly Link, Octavia Butler and many others. And that there are many more (Elizabeth Bear, Ursula Le Guin, Sheri Tepper...) I've not even read yet. But they ARE outnumbered.

I'll be trying to keep this in mind if I go forward with rereading Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series. I feel like her books were very strong with female characters, but even so, they may not pass Bechdel.

Interesting --So far nothing I am currently reading passes Bechdel.

Wow never heard of Bechdel either, might keep a count next year. Luckily my last two out of three books match it.

Lots of interesting potentials - looking forward to following along!

-Eva-
(formerly bookoholic13)

27
You list some authors I haven't read yet, GBM -- will have to investigate them....

1. Alias Grace
Margaret Atwood
2012.01.05 / ★★★½ / 542 pages

Mid-1800s, near Toronto. Enter young beautiful orphaned servant girl. And murder.

Like the papers of the era, Atwood cashes in on the inherent titillation of the situation (albeit in a less taudry and recriminating way). Did Grace help the stable hand murder her employer? Did she murder the head maid, who was sleeping with the employer? If she did... why? Was it resentment? Jealousy? Covetousness? Powerlessness against the murderous stable hand? Love? Insanity?

So on the one hand, we have issues of gender, class, sex, and mental illness to explore through the shadow of a real-life historical mystery. On the other, we have some absolutely gorgeous language and writing. The characters' voices are some of the best distinguished I've ever read. All the characters have enough biting edge and flaws to render them real and to maintain the mystery of motivations through the end of the novel, and the writing is layered so deeply that it fairly begs for discussion and dissection.

But here's the thing. Like going to a party with people I'm not very sure of, I was never particularly excited at the prospect of picking up Alias Grace -- though I always had a decent time once I was there. Toward the end, I was also hit by the sense that a short story might have been a better vehicle into which to weave the most engrossing parts of this novel. (But then again, this is literary fiction. Perhaps the story's center is enshrouded with legion words just to make a meta-point about the difficulty of finding universal truth....) All in all, Alias Grace was a bit above average, and definitely nicely outside my genre fiction mainstays.

---
Category: Owned Yet Unread
Alternative Categories: Expected By Others

Like going to a party with people I'm not very sure of, I was never particularly excited at the prospect of picking up Alias Grace

Excellent comment and one I can relate to as I have yet to read Alias Grace. Your review has peaked my interest in this one... time will tell if I take the plunge and pick it up.

The Bone People is such an amazing novel; however, it can be hard to read sometimes. The writing style is a little different. Also, the story content is...difficult. But still, it's an enjoyable read. One I highly recommend.

>33 pammab: I've found exactly that to be the case with several Atwood books! Exceptions being the dystopias, which I've really liked. Alias Grace is on our TBR, and will remain so for a while longer I guess.

Interesting review of Alias Grace - it is on my pile for this year, too, and I'm having a hard time picking it up.

@ 34 lkernagh
I always remember my mom telling a pre-teen me who was whining about a friend's party, "oh stop, you'll like it once you get there!" And I always did. Alias Grace reminded me a lot of that. Whenever you get to it, I'm interested to hear your thoughts.

@ 35 owltype
Good to hear a recommendation for The Bone People! But it sounds like that is one I should time my reading of for when I am a solidly happy mood....

@ 36 GBM
Interesting that that's been your experience with Atwood as well.... I remember reading The Handmaid's Tale as a wee one, and loving it -- but this is my first foray into non-dystopic Atwood. For whatever reason (and it could well be just the literary fiction genre), I didn't find it quite as engaging.

@ 37 jfetting
I can't say it should rise to the top of the TBR pile -- but there are worse ways to spend a few hours reading than Alias Grace. I really did enjoy it while I was in the midst of turning pages.

2. We Have Always Lived in the Castle
Shirley Jackson
2012.01.08 / ★★★★ / 146 pages

My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been born a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length, but I have had to be content with what I had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death-cap mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead.

I want to read more Shirley Jackson. She's captured here the horror of the mundane and exposed the evil of daily life, normal people, and the rules by which society lives. By telling the short tale of insanity through the eyes of a narrator who stands apart from society, the story indicates that social rules are nothing more than flawed social convention, and the rules only immutable because so many people believe in them and sustain them. This story begs answers to who is insane, what is real, what is evil, what constitutes happiness, and whether we can ever know another person. It answers only that much unperceived harm can be done by helping others, and happiness is what you make of it. It's a testament to Jackson's art that she's able to pose and address so many meaningful questions within a disturbingly real short novel, when so many other authors struggle to take on these ideas even in epic spec fic.

---
Category: New Female Authors
Alternative Categories: Just For Fun

I love Shirley Jackson and really need to read more of her work this year. We Have Always Lived in the Castle sounds like a good place to start. Great review!

captured here the horror of the mundane and exposed the evil of daily life, normal people, and the rules by which society lives

That really can describe every single story she wrote. I'm in the middle of a big collection of her work right now, too, and I can't get over how creepy her stories are without having any sort of actual ghosts etc. I'm looking forward to Castle.

@39 I think that has always been of my favourite openings of a book ever!

That is a great opening! I've only ever read "The Lottery," so this one is definitely on the wishlist.

40 _debbie_
Thanks! Hope you enjoy as much as I did!

41 jfetting
I remember reading The Lottery and getting the same sense from it, but it's been so many years that I was chilled again by the way that Jackson pulls it off. I really like it. A collection of her work sounds wonderful.

42 & 43 clfisha and Eva
I know, right? I started grinning from the moment I finished the opening lines -- what a catching book hook.

That opening is wicked! Great review, I've had this book on my wishlist for a while, time to bump it up the queue. This group's a nightmare for my budget.

I am fantastically pleased that I accidentally(!) moved in to a place that is only blocks from a very well-endowed library.... I thank my lucky stars regularly, because I'm not sure what I would do were that not the case. Probably stress my budget more than I should as well. :-/

Shirley Jackson blew me away a couple of years ago, and that's the book that started it. Beautiful, beautiful stuff! Nice review.

Another good Jackson is the haunting of hill house and there's a great B&W film adaptation of it too

I just saw two copies of The Haunting of Hill House at the used book store! I may need to head back over and recover one of them....

In other news, I love my library. I haven't known where my card was for a few weeks now but figured it was in some pants or coat pocket and I'd eventually stumble across it. (I've been bringing a post-it with my card number with me in the meantime. ;)) But apparently I lost it for real, because today it appeared in the mail. That means someone actually returned it to the front desk, an employee bothered to find my address, and then the system spent $0.41 cents on my stupidity. I am full to bursting with love for these people, because that is a whole series of events that I have no reason to hope would happen at any institution in this area. But the library did it. <3 I just can't keep that kind of happiness to myself -- I have the urge to shout it from the housetops. Does anyone have ideas on how thank them for so completely surpassing my expectations about how people behave in cities?

3. To Say Nothing of the Dog
Connie Willis
2012.01.09 / ★★★★½ / 21 hours

A fun and upbeat romp through history splattered with diverse (and delightful) tidbits of intertextuality. Deus ex machina is used to good effect (and not as a lazy author device) as the characters work through their own mysteries wrapped in riddles shrouded in enigmas, or however that saying goes, to make history agree with what they know of it in the future.

But where we don't have to deal with deus ex machina in resolving the novel, we do have to deal with deus ex machina in magical computer models that calculate how history corrects itself when disturbed. I had a recurrent "ooh ick" reaction to this part of the novel. The thing is, you can't possibly model something without (a) knowing that it behaves according to laws, (b) knowing what those laws are, and (c) having massive amounts of appropriate data as input. Willis explains away (c) by setting up the Battle of Waterloo as having an unbelievable amount of recorded detail -- but she never actually establishes (a) or (b). In fact, (a) is completely thwarted by the book's vehement assertion that chaos is endemic to history, a point driven home repeatedly by our narrator, and (b) is thwarted by there only being a single theorist on these issues, with even that individual unable to conclusively identify a single theory on "what happens when someone messes with history". Maybe I'm too close to this stuff in real life, but I had to close my eyes, cover my ears, and sing "la la la" whenever these magic computer models came up and were so handily glossed over. Thank goodness it is clear Willis knows her limits in math and science and keeps to history and English; if those models had been in fundamental to the plot, I think I'd have been a goner.

And I do swear this book was designed for History and English double-majors. Time travel? Check. Victorians? Check. Three Men in a Boat? Check. Hercule Poirot? Interlude carried out in Middle English? Comedies of manners in the style of P. G. Wodehouse? Check, check, check. I really can't think of a better example of intertextuality done well. I quite enjoyed recognizing all the literary references with which this book is steeped, and I daresay I didn't even catch all of them. This is the softest science fiction I have ever read, and it is delightful.

I came to love the characters and their hijinks, and I so looked forward to reading a bit of this book each day that I rearranged my life so I could read more. Definitely recommended.

---
Category: Spec Fic (Female Authors)
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Series Continuations

Great review of To Say Nothing of the Dog, keeping in mind I have yet to read the first book in the series but wanted to also comment how much I enjoyed your story of the return of your missing library card.

>50 pammab: I love To Say Nothing of the Dog and have it planned as a reread for later this year. Have you read Blackout and All Clear? They're equally good.

> 49 - pammab, that is so cool! We need more people like that in the world! Kudos to your library people! :)

51 lkernagh

There is really no need at all to read the first book in the series -- the stories are set in the same universe, but they don't focus on the same characters or events in any way, and I believe they are set nearly half a century apart in time. And I love my library...

52 casvelyn
I haven't read either of those two yet, but I'd like to! I hear Willis is even better as a short story writer.

53 Neverwithoutabook
Isn't it? The library people had me smiling so broadly, and every time I think on it, I smile some more. :)

I hope you take time to tell them. Sometimes people in service only ever hear complaints and it's nice when they receive compliments. It can make their day, too! Email the director to make it official.

I second that, it's always nice to get a thank you card

@ 54 -- Re Connie Willis, I read her short-story collection Impossible Things last year and loved it! I'm definitely planning to get my hands on some more of her short stories.

You reminded me that I "owe" my local library-workers a muffin-basket. They are absolutely fantastic, so I ply them with pastries on a regular basis. Bribing is my forte. :)

Oops, accidental double-post.

Impossible Things is on the list, and I'm off to CVS tonight to replenish my thank you note stock! I do like the idea of baking, Eva -- it's great that you do that for them.

4. Solitaire
Kelley Eskridge
2012.01.09 / ★★★★½ / 368 pages

I loved this book. I devoured it.

I didn't think I was going to love the book. The first few pages told the backstory in a vaguely clunky, self-conscious way, and that backstory is quintessential science fiction exceptionalist kitsch. Ko is a corporate entity that functions like a country, there is an Earth Congress, our narrator is a member of a set of special, selected-from-birth people called Hopes.... Sigh. Thankfully the self-consciousness goes away once the main character breaks a friend's nose, and the backstory appropriately fades into the background as the real story gets started. And that story is not at all what I expected. There are multiple turns and jumps at points where I had no reason to expect anything to turn, which are not so much plot twists as the author taking advantage of the opportunity to tell an entire story about isolation and the human spirit and what it means to love and be loved and find oneself without getting dragged down. I love that. I also loved how well-developed even the characters who disappear after a few dozen pages are. This book has all the characterization and between-the-lines strengths of a short story at the same time as it has all the plot and depth of a novel.

I love how analytic, cold, and manipulative these characters are, and how there is nothing apologetic in that. The environment deliberately teaches people how to use psychology to their advantage and use it over and over. It's the upper echelons of people management in a high-functioning company, and it's celebrated. It's very INTJ.

The unapologetic analytic mind reminded me a lot of Nicola Griffith's work (which is a comparison I'm hesitant to make just because it is so tempting, being that the two authors are partners). However, it's only been in Eskridge and Griffith's work that I've seen that sort of character -- my sort of character -- fully embraced. In fact there are many similarities between what I've read of each author, down to the serious themes of loneliness and isolation and main character's partner being Nordic. The similarities between books leaves me feeling like they both write their lives. It feels voyeuristic. These characters feel too based in reality, for all that their environments and plots are fictional. These works all seem much more personal -- somehow -- than do the other authors I've worked my way through the ouevres of. It's strange, and it adds a whole different level on which to read the books.

Solitaire is scarily real world. It is tangible and utterly believable in the uncaring, efficient pain in which humans are treated as objects to be used in power plays and experiments. The possibility that the horrific occurrences in the book could be happening even now just make this story all the more disturbing. At the same time, it never gets *too* overbearing and has sufficient brightness to balance. Definitely among the most engaging books I've read in quite a while.

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Category: Spec Fic (Any)
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Female Authors), New Female Authors, Not Straight

>61 pammab: Great review. I haven't heard of Solitaire before, but I'm definitely adding it to the wishlist. Now I just have to find a place to squeeze it into one of my challenge categories!

Those darn challenge categories! Just a few weeks into the year and I am already glad I left room for spur of the moment picks, because somehow people are always reading great books that I want to try out too.... Darn. ;). Glad to contribute even a little bit to other people having this problem too!

@ 49

Thank you card now in the mail to the wonderful librarians of my local branch for mailing back my lost-unbeknownst-to-me library card, despite extra time and cost to them! I've sent an email as well, and next time I bake, I'll have to remember to split it between me, work, and library. ;) Thank you all for suggestions on how to appropriately thank a system that I love for little unexpected things like this.

Great reviews certainly sounds interesting

Twas! /Twere! ;)

@61 Sci-Fi that feels almost too personal seems a very interesting concept indeed! Thanks for a great review!

ETA: And yay for being nice to service people being nice!

And thanks for reading!

Gosh, you remind me how much I love my library. I may need to get a bumper sticker... ;)

5. What Every Body is Saying: An Ex-FBI Agent's Guide to Speed-Reading People
Joe Navarro
2012.01.18 / ★★★★½ / 250 pages

What a great book. I'm one of those people who was totally ignorant of the body language cues that other people pick up on effortlessly. This book is a revelation -- it points a large number of cues out, and does so with enough underlying body language principles that I come away with a sense that I understand the material, rather than just having a set of memorized poses with associated meanings. This is a book that I tried to read slow, giving myself time for the ideas to sink into my brain and be observed in the real world before moving on to the next section

It contains a very good balance of specifics and patterns, and I thought that the concept repetition in the book was minimal and very useful in building out underlying principles when it did occur. I've found overused repetition to be rife in non-fiction and self-help-style books alike, so this was a breath of fresh air. However, it doesn't say anything shocking or new, and therefore isn't a book for people who already "get it" innately; this is definitely a book for people who get something from intellectualizing normal social interaction.

What Every Body is Saying is not about detecting deception -- in fact, the author repeatedly notes that deception is extremely hard to detect -- but rather about detecting comfort and stress in others. Awareness of others' feelings of comfort and stress, especially those feelings of comfort and stress that they are struggling to keep politely quiet from others, provides an extra layer of information about many situations that is extremely useful. The author gives examples of job interviews, waning relationships, new employment, infidelity, belligerent children, and negotiations, in addition to many examples from the FBI. (The FBI examples are given in little call-out boxes that I first sneered at as indicating a severe case of business-book-itis, but grew to appreciate for their real-world significance.)

The downsides of this book are few and far between. There are academic citations throughout the book that are weird, out of place, and clearly tacked on; I repeatedly rolled my eyes, because they are irrelevant to this sort of popular work. They seem much more about asserting respectworthiness to people who are impressed by that sort of thing than improving content. The Foreword and first chapter were likewise very much full of business-book-style bragging and maneuverings for respect based on what others have said. Those both decreased in presence and annoyingness throughout the book, however; by the end they weren't noticeable. Really, the largest piece of information this book lacked was an appendix where the various examples from the book were organized by the principles they exhibit and their body location. If the book had had that, there would have been nary a thing to quibble about. As it is, I still have very little to quibble about (and I have notes that serve the same purpose as an appendix :)).

Recommended, but only to IxTJs and those who aren't particularly intuitive with social interaction.

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Category: Professional & Personal Development
Alternative Categories: Continuing Education

Another super cool book flying onto the TBR pile! I've never heard of this one before, and you can't believe how excited I am right now to see this one! My co-workers constantly tell me I should be working as a behavioral profiler or reconnaissance agent for some governmental agency. ~~Of course, I'm an INTJand can't get enough of this kind of thing! ;o)

#33 Hi pammab, even though you had mixed feelings about Alias Grace, you've reminded me how much I loved it and made me want to re-read it. I love Margaret Atwood's writing, even if I'm less tempted by her more recent, sci-fi-orientated novels. I guess they're more up your street?

Hi Deb,
So, I am a bit afraid to admit just how much time I invested in reading about all the body language books I could find here on LT, to find the one that would be the best and most interesting to really get the subject matter ... This was my finding. =D obsessive? Only a little... ;). You sound like a very interesting person, and I look forward to getting to know such a kindred INTJ better!

Hi Rebeki,
thanks for stopping by! I'm not sure, actually. I haven't read all that much Atwood, though everything I have read, I've enjoyed. She is one of those authors who can really get you involved with the characters, I think.

6. Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned
Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, and Jose Marzan, Jr.
2012.01.20 / ★★★★ / 127 pages

All the beings with a Y chromosome on the entire planet have died off, except for some dude Yorick and his pet monkey, who have mysteriously survived. What killed the people with Y chromosomes? What changes now that they have? How do things go on? I presume that as I continue to read the story that these questions will be answered.

I don't really have much to say on this one. I enjoyed it. The comic makes nice use of time to set the story, and I quite enjoyed the art. It was interesting to me that any reasonably strong women are strangely drawn with male bone structure or body shape (like transwomen -- or, in some stranger cases, so butch as to blur the line with transmen) -- though less powerful women look like regular women, and unpowerful women look like hot women. It raises questions of how the gender spectrum appears even within a single gender, in a way that couldn't be raised so artfully except in a graphic novel. It also draws on stereotypes I'm not so pleased with, and leaves me a bit bewildered as to how I should be feeling. It's very close to subverting and questioning norms, but falls a bit short and ends up just reinforcing them.

I'm also somewhat troubled by the premise. In a world of women, why does the story follow the only man? There aren't less male-privilege-y stories to follow in this intriguing world? I'm also uncomfortable taking pleasure in the beautiful illustrations, which include men dying rather gruesomely. Rather emotionally bewildering. But intriguing as well, and I expect I'll be back for more.

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Category: Spec Fic (Any)
Alternative Categories: Graphic Novels

Now I'm curious. My english isn't good enough to help me de-cipher "INTJ" and "IxTJ". What do the letters stand for?

As for Y:the last man I called it quits after the second volume. The stereotypes became too much for me, and I also had a hard time buying how people kept running into each other all the time - as if the American Atlantic coast was 200 yards long and 5o wide.

I definitely need a graphic novel or two for next year. Too many cropping up that are taking my fancy and Y: The Last Man is one of those.

Anders, they are from the Myers-Briggs personality type indicators.

Dangerous thread pammab!!! Added 4 books to the wishlist. Thanks a lot ... really!

The thing with Myers Briggs is that it all sounds like a bunch of malarky... and then I sit back and try to figure out people, and it works. The more I read on it, the more useful it becomes in understanding people and reaching them on their level. I do go through phases with it, though, and right now I'm in an intensively pro-Myers Briggs phase. I've decided that this year, when I get a bug in my ear about something, I'm just going to jump right in and let myself obsess a bit -- which is why I've got a book by Eskridge, then a book about body language, then a book by Griffith, and then, I expect, another book on intellectualizing social interactions after that. :)

Y: The Last Man was good. I'm going to keep it up for at least the next one, because I kinda expect some level of stereotype embracing and lack of feminist empowerment from comics.... (Sigh.)

Nice to meet you, Lisa! Would those be 4 of the 6 I've finished, or 4 of the eleventythousand I have listed at the top of the page? ;)

As a fellow INTJ, I believe I understand.

And the 4 were ones you've read - Solitaire, Y: The Last Man, We Have Always Lived in the Castel and To Say Nothing of the Dog. I have Alias Grace around here somewhere too.

I find the TBR pile grows without limit here.... I know I've already added half a dozen more books to the list just so far this year myself, from picking up on what other people are reading. Glad to contribute to giving as well as receiving!

@75 I was mystified too

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ

Thanks Wolfy!

7. Stay
Nicola Griffith
2012.01.23 / ★★★★ / 320 pages

Aud Torvingen blames herself for her lover's death from gunfire a few months ago (Aud wasn't fast enough, wasn't clever enough, and most of all, wasn't sufficiently aware of anyone but herself when the fight started up). She's been living apart from civilization, focused on the tangible project of making an old cabin habitable again, and seeing visions of Julia as she was before she died. When an old friend asks Aud to investigate the disappearance of his fiancee -- a woman Aud has never even liked -- she's torn between following her final promise to Julia to stay in the world, and continuing to mourn in isolation. She takes the case. In pursuing the mystery, Aud discovers what has happened and works to make it right, while battling personal demons and anxieties about much more than Julia's death.

Stay is violent and suffused with grief and abuse, but our hero triumphs in both plot and personal progress. The final emotions of the book are much more uplifting book than those of its predecessor, but the rest of the book is much darker. The whole thing felt to me like 20% Marlen Haushofer's Die Wand (The Wall) and 70% Larsson's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (neither of which was actually an influence on this book, by the way). If either the former's focus on physical labor to avoid heartbreak and facing life's futility or the latter's criminal abuse and detective mystery appealed to you, you should consider checking this book out. I loved it, but this is one of those books for which I expect my reaction may not be entirely representative of the population at large.

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Category: Series Continuations
Alternative Categories: Not Straight

8. Spin
Robert Charles Wilson
2012.01.26 / ★★★½

One night on Earth, the stars disappear. People expect to see the sun go out in their own lifetimes, and people change.

Fascinating ideas and world building, from the science of astronomy to the way in which religion comes to bear on great mysteries. But something fell flat. Maybe it was the pacing. Some moments had all my senses buzzing as yet another implication fell into place and was announced, but some parts just really didn't need to be there in such detail, or the context repeated so often. Additionally, some of the science had me raising my eyebrow; often, the less explanation was given the more believable the situation was (the final transformation and enlightenment of the man who dedicates his life to understanding the situation was believably non-scientific).

I was caught by turns enthralled and impatient. The world building is the real gem in this one, but the rest didn't quite hang together for me. Worth a read if world building is one of the primary things you turn to literature for.

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Category: Spec Fic (Any)
Alternative Categories: (none)

Hi pammab! Thanks for your comment. It's funny that we don't share very many books at all but many of the books in your queue are in my Mt. TBR. So we like some of the same types of books, we just don't read the same ones. :) Hopefully we'll share many interesting conversations in the future.

I found that to be funny as well, actually -- glad to meet you and I'm looking forward to seeing you around. :)

9. Tipping the Velvet
Sarah Waters
2012.02.19 / ★★★

A lesbian Victorian Bildungsroman. This is an engaging story of self-discovery and sexual growth, but I didn't quite realize that Tipping the Velvet was so closely tied to lesbianism and Victorian novels that it would lack legs beyond the intersection of those genres. Good and interesting, but transparent, and most of all, not quite what I personally read novels for. YMMV.

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Category: Not Straight
Alternative Categories: Series Continuations

10. Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age
Susan Jacoby
2012.02.22 / ★★★★

This book stands out as being both extremely disturbing and extremely important, and has been heralded as such across NPR and LT. It argues that aging is not, in fact, enjoyable. The societal myth that turning 65 will usher in the Golden Years if only you do things right only makes it more difficult economically, socially, emotionally, and physically, for both the old and their caretakers, when that inevitably turns out not to be the case.

My big take-aways from this book are the following: (1) No matter how physically and mentally spry you are, you will start watching more and more of the people you love die, more and more often, right up until you yourself die. I need to be emotionally prepared for that eventuality, and sensitive to it as a very real cause for depression in the old. (2) Dementia is a disease of old age -- and if you live long enough, it is very likely you will get it. Half of people over 85 have dementia. I should live as if I will become demented in time, and I should *expect* one or both of my parents to lose their minds as they age. (3) It is very hard and very rare to successfully exert control over your death, especially as your caretakers further infantilize you (whether warranted or not). I should make plans now, to avoid burdening my caretakers with what often amounts to an emotionally exhausting decision topped off with medical debt.

Scary, intimidating stuff. But important. And highly recommended for that reason.

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Category: Continuing Education
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors, Professional & Personal Development

A friend has told me over and over that I must read Tipping the Velvet and I plan to do so later this year. I hope I like it more than you did!

Oh, it was not at all bad! I definitely enjoyed it. It just wasn't what I was expecting (though if you ask me what I was expecting, I wouldn't be able to tell you....). I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to people who already enjoy lesbian or Victorian fiction, and I am sure you will like it as much as your friend. :)

@87 - wow something most people don't think about I guess...

> 87 & 90

But something we all need to think about. My father (who is 87) has mid-stage dementia and before I discovered there was a problem he had given away/spent all his savings except the equity in his house. Unless his overall heath deteriorates much more rapidly than I think it will he is going to run out of money and the assisted living facility doesn't take medicare assignment (there are fewer and fewer that do!). None of his children have more than they need to pay their own bills. In fact, for years, my father was paying many bills for my brothers. Guess who is stuck with straightening all this out?

I'm sorry to hear that, hailelib. All of this old age and dying material is very unsettling to think about, and I think that is part of the reason things end up being as difficult to deal with as they do. When people (me included) keep their heads in the sand the issues don't come to light until it is much too late to do anything about them.... That is why Never Say Day was good for me, though yeah, also disturbing, psutto.

I also didn't realize that fewer and fewer facilities take Medicare. Thanks for sharing that, though I wish you had never had to learn it. This book focused more on how Medicare will pay for large interventions (like moving to a facility), but not for small ones that might be more helpful (like a nurse to visit for in-home care, thereby postponing a highly disturbing and confusing move for many old people).

A big problem has been that I live eight hours away. Some things are hard to do long distance!

Interesting and scary concept and book. I guess this used to be a perk of living in a place like Sweden - high taxation allowed us a worthy care of all our elderly citizens (which isn't to say ageing is a picnic because of that). This is beginning to change now, unfortunately. Lately, scandals in a few of the profit oriented private companies the government has sold out to has been shaking public debate here.

I live 500 kilometers away from my parents, and as they get older, this is something I think about quite a lot.

Would you say the book is universal in it's approach, or is it mainly dealing specifically with American conditions?

I think distance is a regular theme. When my grandmother moved in with my uncle a state away, my family would travel over every weekend to give them a break in caretaking and see her more regularly than we had previously been able. Those were long trips to make regularly -- maybe 4 hours each way. It is almost always hard.

I think the book is very much steeped in American politics, Anders. The author is highly political and makes no bones about thinking liberalism and European style socialism are the only real solution. The book is very much tied to the time and place it was written; I can't imagine it having much of an audience in 30 years, or even in Canada right now. Though the themes are universal, her treatment of them is very local.

@87 and following; I recently read (actually I didn't read it at all... I started it, after the tears began I gave it up) an essay about the way that our aging members of society are being mistreated by the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries.

However, like you, with two parents and two in-laws in their 80's, it's not something I can afford to ignore and deny forever. Thanks for your review.

*the essay was found in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2011 and was reviewed (commentated on) here

I remember that bit about the songbirds from your thread, Clif! Very disturbing...

Because February was a massive explosion of Other Stuff for me, I didn't manage to finish even a single Black History Month book during the month itself. :( (Similarly, no Fforde... :( ) But belated is better than never, and to that end, here are my thoughts on my first book by bell hooks:

11. Feminist Theory: From Margin to Center
bell hooks
2012.03.04 / ★★★★

The unpacking of feminism's relationship to upper class white women in this book was interesting but not earthshattering. I got the impression this book is still heralded because it broke some very new ground a few decades ago -- ground which by now has been pretty well incorporated into mainstream feminist thought. Some of the most intriguing parts for me were when hooks set the context for "this is what feminism looks like today (in the '80s)." Although there is a lot of discussion these days about how race and sex intersect, and how class and sex intersect, there is much less discussion about the details of feminism's sordid past.

I would recommend this book for classroom historical reading, but not much more. For most people interested in the intersections of race/class/gender, there are a number of blogs you can follow today that are equally or more articulate about these issues. There is nothing wrong with this book, but in a non-historical context, it doesn't add as much as I was hoping/had been led to believe to the modern canon.

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Category: Authors of Color
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors, Continuing Education

12. Soulless
Gail Carriger
2012.03.07 / ★★★★½

Why, this was fun. Soulless has got vampires and werewolves and Victorian England and steampunkishness and droll humor, as well as significantly more erotica than I was expecting (so much erotica that I was a bit taken aback, even for all its soft core-ness).

I was delighted by well this book fits into the genre of fannish writing. The laundry list of nouns in my first sentence all point to it fitting the delicious sensibility of fannish subculture, which for me is the following laundry list of adjectives:
-- intelligent
-- interstitial
-- self-aware
-- intertextual
Which I honestly wasn't expecting. Even the ending's unexpected visit from the Queen (which had me scratching my head) fits into a genre in which the author plots simply to get the characters into situations with which the author wants to see them deal. The fannish style of writing is almost impossible to find outside of the internet; I immensely enjoyed having found it so unexpectedly here.

Recommended to genre fiction lovers, and especially so to those who enjoy literary fanfic.

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Category: New Female Authors,
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Spec Fic (Female Authors)

It's on my Mt. TBR and I've heard a lot about it, but not about the "significantly more erotica than I was expecting"-part. Maybe I should put it right at the top of the pile. :)

Soulless is on my Mt. TBR too. Looks like I need to move it up in the pile. I keep hearing that it is a really fun book.

Soulless is on my Mt TBR as well! It's been moving up and up because I keep hearing good things.

Oh I love Soulless, less keen on the rest of series sadly

@ 100, 101, 102, -Eva-, cammykitty and The_Hibernator
Do! It's a short book, and well worth the time investment.

@ 100 -Eva-
I was surprised at how often Soulless, as not-erotica, verged on erotica territory. It is definitely a romance.

@ 103 Claire
I am disappointed to hear that... Perhaps I'll spend some time doing series continuations with Naomi Novik before I move on to Changeless then. :-/

13. The Amulet of Samarkand
Jonathan Stroud
2012.03.12 / ★★

I am letting this YA fantasy go after a disc and a half of listening. I was not hooked enough to get over the male-oriented, relatively traditional story that seemed in store for me -- or more problematically, an audiobook reader who cannot do female voices for his life.

It gets rave reviews, however. If you enjoy reading YA traditional fantasy using your eyes, I'd recommend you click on through and check it out in more detail.

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Category: Expected or Suggested by Others
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any)

oh that's too bad! There is a significant female character who appears in the second book I think (she actually shows up in the first book when Bartimaeous is on the run after stealing the amulet.. but it's a brief appearance). I actually enjoyed Simon Jones' reading ... but I don't recall any of his 'female' voices.

>105 pammab: and 106 The female character (Kitty) is strongest in the third book. Also, the prequel Ring of Solomon has a strong female protagonist. Really, I think The Amulet of Samarkand simply introduces Nathaniel as an annoying character so that he can annoy you more in later books. ;)

Simon Jones's male voices are heavenly. Seriously. That man has a beautiful voice. I could happily listen to him read the phone book. But it seemed to me like any time he couldn't use his heavenly voice, he was off doing silly nasal whiny voices, which was sad. :( I might come back to this one some day when I can read it on paper.... maybe skipping the first book entirely. :)

Ditto what Hibernator said - Nathaniel is a pain. Bartimaeus is the star. I wonder how the reader read the footnotes that appeared in the series. This took a little getting used to but once I understood the reasoning behind them I enjoyed them. I'm sorry listening to the book may have ruined this series for you.

14. Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind
Shunryu Suzuki
2012.03.12 / ★★★

This is a book for people who practice. I do not -- I am interested in starting to think about practicing -- therefore I am not its audience. I wish I had realized that before I started to duty read.

If I ever do start to practice, I may return to this book.

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Category: Professional & Personal Development
Alternative Categories: Authors of Color, Continuing Education

>104 pammab: I agree with Claire when it comes to the sequels. In my opinion, Changeless was extremely bland (also erotica-wise). I liked Blameless better though, and will go on with the series (of which I'm admittedly not the primary target audience.)

I tried reading Stroud too. He's ever so popular. I didn't get past the third chapter, if that even. Not for me. Male oriented says it, but it wasn't just that. Something else really turned me off. Perhaps a faux Arthurian feel.

Why wouldn't you be the primary audience, Anders? I'm surprised by that comment; I'd have targeted you for it. I suspect I will go on with the Carriger series myself.

Stroud was faux Arthurian, you're right, cammykitty. Perhaps that is part of what it was for me too. I'm having an increasingly difficult time with fantasy written by men these days, though the stuff by women still seems imaginative enough I am doing okay with it. Perhaps it is that the men tend to be writing more traditional fantasy, whereas the women tend to be writing something much closer to what I would term spec fic? I don't know....

That's funny, I've always prefered fantasy written by men because women writers tend to focus more on romance (and if it's an adult book) sex then I'd prefer. I don't mind a little bit of either, but I think too much sex distracts from the plot, and teen romance written by females very often has more than one guy involved. I have always been a one-guy-gal and simply can't relate to the ensuing confusion. So I simply get annoyed at the character. Though I do understand that this must be a common problem among teenaged (and adult) girls. Otherwise, why would so many books be written about it?

We must read different authors. :) I don't recall much sex in any of the books I've read in the past few months, male or female authors, with the glaring exception/surprise of Carriger's Soulless. Maybe I read too much non-fiction or issue fiction for that to be an issue? The vast majority seems decidedly on the asexual to PG-13 spectrum....

I know what you mean about the romance though. Especially in YA, I get the feeling that a lot of the romance plots are tacked on because something has to be the B plot, and it might as well be this straightforward romance thing.... Frustrating.

15. Always
Nicola Griffith
2012.03.20 / ★★★

When I first picked this book up, I was surprised at how long Always was compared to the first two in the series about the detective Aud Torvingen, whose penchant for violence would have had her labeled a thug if she had less money and social standing. Always, concerning a white collar crime on a film set and finding love again, made for an enjoyable revisitation of a character I've grown to love, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.

However, I was surprised by how conscious I was of this book's technical flaws. The surfeit of characters whose names I couldn't remember was distracting -- more than I ever remember Anne McCaffrey being -- and Always for some reason uses a two-stories-in-one technique without using it as a central conceit. Combining both stories in the same book didn't seem to have much purpose, as neither of the stories seemed to seriously affect Aud's psychology or the reader's. (The subplot about teaching with good intentions leading to bad consequences could easily and more successfully have been turned into a short story, with a question at its heart about whether Aud was truly ignorant of the stage for premeditated murder she was setting.)

This is one of those books you read because you love the characters and want to spend as much time with them as possible, even though some of that time is not as quality as it has the potential to be. It's not the place to start with this series.

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Category: Not Straight
Alternative Categories: Series Continuations

Thanks for the review of Always. I can tell by what you said that I would've had no patience for it!

As for the male vs female fantasy authors - who knows. I know a male fantasy author, and his editor kept pushing for a romance & he kept saying his main character wouldn't know romance if it bit him in the butt. I have to say my friend knows his character well. - It might be a gender thing, but there are definitely authors that appeal to both genders.

As for YA, yeah. Even the boys are into it, but they don't want to admit they are paying attention to the romance plot lines. I wouldn't say this except one time I was teaching summer school and quizing the kids on what they were reading. One boy described the entire romance plot of a book I'd already read (and in which the romance wasn't a big deal) without ever mentioning that the boy character was a werewolf and that magicals were killed in this particular society.

& a romance plot has to have a choice of paramours! Traditionally, one is totally unsuitable and the good one is someone who could be easily overlooked or discredited - see Pride & Prejudice. ;) It isn't a romance unless there is some possibility that the protag will run off with the wrong person or forever be parted from his/her dear.

What a great anecdote... Yeah, romance is definitely popular in YA books because there is an audience for it. Introducing characters just to play the role of the other man (or the other women) is sad to me though... :(

I think you can have a good romance story without introducing a second "wrong" romantic interest. For instance, you can just create other hurdles that the potential couple has to overcome.

Like in The Hunger Games (keep in mind I haven't read the Catching Fire or Mockingjay yet) the romance in the plot could be kept suspenseful without a second romantic interest at all. Katniss has enough on her mind to create romantic tension without having the second guy. That kind of spoiled the romance for me. And I don't see how either of these characters is "wrong" for her.

I also found Jakob a LOT more alluring than Edward in Twilight and was very disgusted with Bella throughout. As far as I could see, neither boy was "wrong" for her.

This issue also came up in all three of the female protagonists in The Forest of Hands and Teeth. But I was confused about which boys were "wrong." Personally, I think after the success of Twilight, writers are introducing multiple romantic interests only for the sake of confusion--they are losing sight of other ways to increase romantic tension.

I got halfway through Twilight -- before Jakob became a real romantic interest -- and the Edward/Bella relationship felt really abusive and controlling for all the ways it was "romantic". I don't know if that is just Bella's/Meyer's approach to relationships being wrong to me, so that the Jakob relationship would be similarly creepy, but I know I came out of that finding Edward to be a "wrong" romance.... But I agree that that series has had a profound impact on YA fiction in recent years.

Haha, I TOTALLY agree about the creepiness of Edward! He's controlling, crawled in her window at nights without her permission, etc. That (and him being a jerk in the second book) is why I liked Jakob better. But my point was really that if half the audience approves of a relationship with one guy and half the audience approves of a relationship with another guy, then half the audience (or both halves?) is eventually going to get disappointed! And I think this is what happened with The Hunger Games series, too, (though I haven't finished the books and don't really care which guy she ends up with). Disappointing (and/or confusing) your audience hardly seems to be the best writing! in Pride and Prejudice it was very clear which guy was "right."

But I'll stop whining now. :) I'll even point out that Harry Potter AND Ron Weasley ended up with the girls that I wanted them to end up with. :D

And I was just going to point to Harry Potter! I kinda think that even if the author didn't intend a romance, the audience will find one anyway....

>113 pammab: Sorry for this late reply! Behind on all threads at the moment. Why wouldn't you be the primary audience, Anders? Oh, not a gender thing! I'm just not generally big on the romance with tons of flirty banter and tongue in cheek hints genre. Which is one of the major issues I had with the second book - the endless neck nibbling annoyed the heck out of me. But, as I said: it gets better in the third, and I'll stick with the series.

I'll have to confess to "reading" Twilight via Alex Day on youtube - At one point Alex says, "Guys, don't get any dating advice from this book. And whatever you do, don't break into her house to get her car keys so you can go pick her up." & yes, I agree you can get enough romantic tension without throwing in rivals, but rivals are so much easier!

@ 124 -- Your comment re: Twilight made me look for that YouTube video, and it's hilarious! Thanks for sharing. :)

16. Revolution
Jennifer Donnelly
2012.03.21 / ★★★½

Revolution is YA fiction for precocious rich kids. Following the violent death of her brother, a bright girl becomes depressed and (heavens forbid) might not write her senior thesis. Her absentee father arrives back on the scene, sends her mother into a mental hospital, and whisks the girl off to France. In France she continues enmeshed in music, the only thing that still ties her to the world, and comes to find herself again through experiencing the reality of revolutionary history.

This book engages the universal adolescent core themes, simultaneously self-centered and social. In doing so, it tells a very entertaining story and educates its readers about the French Revolution. I loved that, and Revolution must be a dream for librarians in rich school districts. However, the book is so steeped in class-specific privilege that I can't imagine it being very engaging to kids who don't go to or aspire to private schooling.

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Category: Expected or Suggested By Others
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors

17. Persepolis: The Story of A Childhood
Marjane Satrapi
2012.03.28 / ★★★★

Self-aware humor and matter-of-fact anecdotes about growing up in Iran during the Revolution -- a very good graphic novel. Following all the hype, I was not disappointed (but neither was I blown away).

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Category: Graphic Novels
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors, Expected or Suggested By Others

18. Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office: 101 Unconscious Mistakes Women Make That Sabotage Their Careers
Lois P. Frankel
2012.04.11 / ★★★★

Very useful, not because any piece of advice is mind blowing, but because it lists a variety of acceptable habits in one place and vehemently supports why they are acceptable (say no to taking notes or making coffee more than once, don't bring in baked goods for fun, dress the part, become comfortable with silences, don't apologize, don't over-explain, ask forgiveness rather than permission, and so on). This book affirms tactics to be taken seriously as a competent employee and manager/leader and gives readers license to use them; it's nothing shockingly new. It seems to be the sort of book that would be worth rereading every 6 or 12 months. Very quick to get through, easy to read, and doesn't suffer from useless quizzes or pompous/grandiose writing. It does, however, have an embarrassing title.

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Category: Professional & Personal Development
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors

Revolution is YA fiction for precocious rich kids

Yup, I can see that connection! ;-)

Not a bad book for that, though!

19. The Power of One: A Novel
Bryce Courtenay
2012.04.18 / ★★★★½

The Power of One follows Peekay, a white English boy in South Africa in the 1930s, '40s and early '50s, as he survives an abusive boarding school and goes on to succeed in life and the boxing ring. He receives help from a chicken, a boxer, a pianist, black African prisoners, a young con artist, and many others as he repeatedly earns the respect and support of all the feuding tribes of Africa (black and white).

This book engaged me completely with material I knew next to nothing about: 1) South Africa, 2) race relations and attitudes under apartheid, and 3) the techniques and beauty of boxing. (Don't let skepticism of boxing keep you off this one -- coming to appreciate that sport as a sport was highly enjoyable in itself.)

Although I found it in the YA section, this is not YA genre fiction. The themes are those of adults. All but the very most worldly and mature YA readers are likely to miss the depths explored in the themes of universal complicity to racism, universal capitalization on the weak and weak-minded (exploited just as thoroughly by Peekay and Hymie as by the powerful white men in charge of the institutions of their lives), and the cultural context and legacy of apartheid. The abhorrent racism in the book has a pitch-perfect portrayal as run-of-the-mill and unremarkable. For that reason as well, this book is not for kids.

Although Peekay is a bit too perfect and his supporting cast is a bit larger than life, somehow it works. This book is epic. It tells a legend. It's so epic that the ending felt abrupt and tacked on, like the author realized he'd gone on for a few too many hundred pages for a single YA book and decided he should find a thread to tie up and call it done. The abrupt ending didn't spoil the book for me, though -- quite possibly because again, it's the skilled world building of post-World-War-II South Africa that blew me away in this one.

Universally recommended to all readers. Consider reading it on audiobook -- it was delicious that way, and I'd warrant that the book's understated irony, wry humor, and race relations come through all the more clearly.

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Category: Expected or Suggested By Others
Alternative Categories: (none -- I had been hoping for Authors of Color when it was initially described to me, but nope, the author is a white Australian born in South Africa)

20. Komarr
Lois McMaster Bujold
2012.04.22 / ★★★★

Highly entertaining science fiction mystery. Bujold has a knack for writing well-rounded characters, solid plots, and detailed worlds -- Komarr is no exception. In Komarr, our hero Miles begins filling into his new Imperial Auditor role, investigating the explosion of a mirrored satellite designed to warm a world for terraforming. He also meets Ekaterine, delightfully fleshed out and humanized as she works through whether to stay or leave her bad marriage -- a tricky subject with which to have a new main character grapple.

Somehow Bujold's work feels quintessentially sci fi and quintessentially series-based without suffering for it. She is rapidly becoming one of my favorite authors to nip from when I'm in the mood to enjoy a story I know I'll like without mental gymnastics.

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Category: Spec Fic (Female Authors)
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Series Continuations

21. Changeless
Gail Carriger
2012.04.22 / ★★

Entertaining enough second novel in the vampire and werewolf world of Gail Carriger, but not especially engaging or novel. The innuendo-laden humor is a bit old, and the central mystery was of the "sit back and watch the antics, waiting for the cause to be revealed" variety. I do not regret spending time on it, nor do I regret reaching the last page.

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Category: Series Continuations
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Spec Fic (Female Authors), Expected or Suggested by Others

I'm reading Soulless right now and I'm really liking it. But I can already tell that I couldn't sit down and read the series straight through. I need to separate humorous books from eachother so that I don't get tired of them. Because, let's face it, each author has his or her own sense of humor and it's not going to change from book to book...so if I read them too fast I get bored of it really fast. I'll probably stretch this series out for quite a while, even though I'm really loving the first book. :)

I felt very much the same about Changeless. It's not often I find myself wishing for explicit sex scenes, but that neck nibbling and gown-tossing wink wink geddit geddit? got so incredibly old in the second book, it just annoyed the hell out of me. It does pick up in the third book though, and I've decided to stick with the series.

I just finished Soulless and although I want to continue the series, I too am taking a little break in between, thanks to what the others say about the innuendos and the humor. I did like the characters a lot, though, and that's a key ingredient!

Speaking as a fan of the Parasol Protectorate books, I agree that it's good to spread them apart. While I think the series is a lot of fun, Carriger's schtick can definitely get repetitive!

Heheheh, and now I feel the urge to justify myself with a "I wouldn't have ever early the second one so quickly but I was facing undue pressure from a girlfriend who got through them all in a matter of weeks and couldn't wait to discuss the next one with me, so literally sat me down with nothing else to do and made me read" excuse! :)

I'll probably find myself needing to wait especially long before starting the third one now, unfortunately.

I'm reading Soulless now too, on audio. The reader does an especially bad voice for the alpha-were. Worse fake Scottish accent than Scottie on Star Trek! I'm really enjoying it, but yes I can see the humor getting old and I also keep finding myself thinking too hard about the world and finding it just doesn't make sense. Really! What does being soulless mean? If having soul mean having creativity, where does her creativity come from??? & hey, why is that airship there? Just because it's pretty??? Or because every steampunk novel needs an airship? That said, I'm still really enjoying it - although that bad voice for the were is really bad!

Lots of good reviews here Pam! I wish you'd reviewed The Power of One last year when I had a category for South African writers! It's going on the WL.

His fake Scottish accent actually quite grew on me -- possibly because he is one of my more favorite characters of the novels. :) The series is a bit too consciously steampunk, though. *half-wrinkles nose*

The Power of One was recommended to me when I walked into the children's section of my local library and told them I'd run out of audiobooks, could they recommend me some please, and yes, in this section, really. I got a bunch of very good recommendations, and the librarian was particularly effusive about The Power of One.

>140 pammab: I just tried that out. I don't have enough muscle precision to half wrinkle my nose. It's either wrinkled or not. You must be very skilled.

*takes a bow and laughs*

Hmmm... I think I can wrinkle up the left side while stretching out the right side of my nose - no mirror at the moment, but it feels as though the effect must be hideous.

I'm starting to mind the fake Scottish accent a little less now, but oh yes, ever so steampunk. Impossible to take serious, and I do see why Gingerbreadman would say they just need to get on with it.

22. Cetaganda
Lois McMaster Bujold
2012.05.06 / ★★★★

Lord Miles Vorkosigan saves the Cetagandan Empire from certain internal turmoil, despite its ongoing tensions with his own planet. The beginning verged on too political and info-dumpy for my tastes, but the machinations were quite fun. Lovely characters, as always, and altogether an enjoyable braincandy read.

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Category: Series Continuations
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Spec Fic (Female Authors)

23. The Eyre Affair
Jasper Fforde
2012.05.07 / ★½

In The Eyre Affair, a female detective foils both (a) a mastermind's attempt to kidnap Jane Eyre, and (b) a psychopath contractor's attempt to win an everlasting war, thereby ensuring the world is safe for books, peace, and fated heterosexual marriages.

This book's playing with alternative histories and alternative storylines sounded perfect for me! But I found it incredibly shallow and unsubtle. The names are the worst of this. ("Jack Schitt"? Really?) The Eyre Affair also lacks character motivations based in anything but abstract principle. Our heroine is motivated out of respect for Our Literary Heritage and Love. Baddie #1 is motivated by Pure Evil. Baddie #2 is motivated by Money.

But who needs characters with depth when you've got an awesome world? Oh, but wait. All the fundamental principles got used up on the characters. There are none left over to create a logical world. The scientist Mycroft's inventions -- like carbon paper that translates into multiple languages and a device to predict the number of pips in an orange -- just don't make sense as inventions. And most bothersomely, the book's central plot device is based on a blatantly faulty analogy. There is simply no meaningful similarity between altering a written manuscript after millions of copies have been made and editing genetic code prior to reproduction. Using that analogy as an explanation is a rather offensive sleight-of-hand (and lazy plotting).

And oh, the plot. I can only think I missed some of the craftsmanship on this one. I found myself constantly playing catch-up, trying to understand what was happening and why. At one point in particular, our heroine explicitly jumps 31 years into the future, and then a few sentences later we're back at the plot we had had before the jump. I never came to understand how that happened.

So, despite high hopes, I was not impressed. I am clearly not the intended audience of this book. YMMV.

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Category: Spec Fic (Any)
Alternative Categories: (none)

(And I've completely missed Fforde February. *blush*)

>145 pammab: Fun review! I read and enjoyed Shades of grey - even if I wasn't blown away - but guess I'll stick to that series for now.

There are too many books with those words in it at this time and making things confusing for my poor head.

Shades of Grey: The Road to High Saffron by Fforde
Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James (shame on those libraries for pulling this off their shelves - as if they don't have any other soft porn already there!)
Between Shades of Gray by Sepetys, a fabulous YA book

Come on, you authors! Come up with new titles!

I looked for Shades of Grey too, and came up with the same long list! I wouldn't have thought it was such a common title.

24. How the Other Half Thinks: Adventures in Mathematical Reasoning
Sherman Stein
2012.05.12 / ★★★

This book would make a fantastic middle school gifted and talented textbook. I'm thinking a summer enrichment class. I know exactly how I'd set such a class up: each class or pair of classes do one of the 8 chapters, having the students do the "experiments" individually and in small groups to get a good understanding of the central question, then talking through the proof together, prompting the students to figure it out for themselves, and then sending them home to read the proofs and solidify their understanding of mathematical reasoning (and how straightforward and unscary proofs are). Perfect.

Outside that application, I don't see much point for this book. It purports to explain some basic points in mathematics to people who never got beyond high school math, but I don't see that that audience would be interested in the book. There aren't very many explanations of "and this is actually relevant because" -- though I'm sure the author thought he was putting them in, they fit very much a mathematician's idea of applications, not a lay person's. For anyone who has been exposed to some math since high school, it's review, and not particularly entertaining review at that. And that is why it needs a teacher and a junior high school audience. A good teacher can make the material come alive to students who still don't know that math is beautiful or that there are multiple sizes of infinity. Bang, a five star class with a perfect textbook.

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Category: Owned Yet Unread
Alternative Categories: Continuing Education

145 thank you! I thought I was the only one who just didn't quite get it.

Yeah. :-( I was surprised to be disappointed.

25. Beguilement
Lois McMaster Bujold
2012.05.16 / ★★★

Fawn Bluefield gets knocked up and leaves her family who wouldn't understand. After a little while on the road, she finds herself embroiled with a monster -- and then embroiled even more deeply with a monster hunter.

Engaging world, but, this is just a love story? I thought I was going to get an adventure, with just a little love on the side. And the age difference and speed of marriage rather skeeves me out -- it echoes sharply of a youthful girl latching on tight to the first person she sees who has a brain outside the limited world in which she grew up. I won't be continuing.

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Category: Spec Fic (Female Authors)
Alternative Categories: (none)

26. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality
Eliezer Yudkowsky
2012.06.01 / ★★★½

This story's fundamental premise is that Harry Potter is a smart kid raised by academics. He enters Hogwarts at the age of 11 with a trained mind, ready to question everything, and much less abused and malleable than the Harry Potter of J. K. Rowling. Bang, completely different story surrounding Harry Potter's relationship with Voldemort, Dumbledore, Quirrell, and Ron Weasley (and some laugh-out-loud scenes in which Harry Potter does things like frustratedly explain fundamental attribution error to those who praise him on his first trip to Diagon Alley).

The story has garnered quite a following online and hasn't been completed yet, but for me, it has two huge flaws: (1) it's a technically iffy unbeta'ed Mary Sue fic (I know), and as such the writing is rough around the edges, and (2) it is clearly written by a man who reads a lot of meta, plays board games like Diplomacy and Settlers of Cataan, and has an axe to grind about rationality being next to godliness. As fanfic goes, I've read similarly intriguing themes, but better written, with characters who act their age, and without an agenda.

That said, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality held me rapt for something like 1700 pages because of the ideas it explored. It certainly illustrates the transformative power that good fanfic can have on audiences and the source text, a form of artistry and expression that can't be achieved any other way. It also opens up to less-discerning Harry Potter fans some of the dark sides of the book that close readers of the text had been decrying for years -- Dumbledore being a scary and manipulative old man, Lucius being one of very few parents who is actually involved in his child's education and safety, the amazing power of love not actually being that important, the fundamental irrationality of the wizarding world, and so on. It also apparently introduces cognitive and social psychology to the general public, which is an important good in itself if ever I saw one, and which audiences seem to appreciate. I'd recommend it as an introduction to understanding the foibles of human brains and the transformative power of fanfic (but please -- don't take it as a shining example of community-based fic).

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Category: Just For Fun
Alternative Categories: (none)

>153 pammab: I don't have enough love for the original HP (not that I dislike him or anything) to want to spend 1700 pages looking at him from another angle. But a great review!

hey what's wrong with Settlers of Catan?? I love that game!

@ 155 -- Me too! My brother and I have extended Cities & Knights tournaments.

1700 pages of fanfic? That's some dedication, both in writing and reading.

Heheheheh, nothing is wrong with Settlers of Cataan! I would in fact love to have some people to sit down and play with :)

And yeah, 1700 pages. One of those epic ones you just read at odd moments because it is on the internet and always in your pocket, or at least that is what I do. I had no idea until the end when I did the word count / 350 words a page thing.

27. Perdido Street Station
China Mieville
2012.07.08 / ★½

I wavered between disgust and apathy on this book. Then I gave myself permission to give up, despite having bought an audio edition at twice the usual cost. The "gritty" parts about fetuses and blood and head rape by bugs don't appeal to me, and I struggled to feel the slightest bit engaged with the seedy protagonists or their seedy world. New Weird and urban fantasy appear not to be my cup of tea. :(

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Category: Just for Fun
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any)

Sorry to learn that Perdido Street Station wasn't a hit for you but it is nice to see reviews on the other side of the spectrum. Things would get boring really quickly in the world if everyone had the same tastes in books!

wow - although not my favourite of his books it is one I've really enjoyed (enough to re-read)!

would be interested to know just when you gave up - first time I read it I found it a bit slow to get into....

Oh, what a shame - Perdido Street Station is one of my favorites and I naturally want everyone else to love it too. However, if you're not comfortable with "gritty," then it's not going to be a good match no matter how you turn. If you do want to try another Miéville, Un Lun Dun might be a better option - it's technically a YA-book, so the seedy is kept to a minimum.

ETA: For Un Lun Dun, I'm recommending a paper copy since it's illustrated.

I was partway through disc 9 of 19 when I realized I wasn't reading anything at all because I felt like I should be finishing Perdido Street Station if I were going to read -- and when I realized how unhelpful that attitude was. :( I really wanted to like it. Perhaps in a few years it will be a better match for me, but in June it and I didn't fit together. Thanks for the recommendation, Eva. I'll have to look for Un Lun Dun -- illustrated YA for adults with a gritty edge does sound like something I might get into.

I'm looking forward to reading reviews now, to see the other side of the spectrum. I feel a bit adrift, having not been swept away in this one.

I hate that feeling.. that you must finish a book you are not really enjoying and so you don't read anything else but you don't read that book either! Crazy really :)

I like Perdido Street Station (I think it can be easily stated I love grit and darkness) but I am not sure I could cope with it as an audio book.. its so wordy and meandering!

Tis crazy to do that, I absolutely agree, but I seem to do it pretty often. :-/

I'm off to two pieces of nonfiction, both of which I'm doing better on -- a feminist reading of Buddhism (fascinating) and a bestseller from about 2000 looking at middle class Black America (and how it is continually being discovered as if it is a new thing). So I'm back to book love, which is nice. It has been a while.

Wow. The amazement you feel when someone you feel you share book tastes with utterly hates a book you utterly love. Perdido street station was the book that made me realise there was streaks of "fantasy" for little ole elf-hating me to enjoy. I'm forever grateful for it, and it remains my favorite Miéville. So sorry it didn't do it for you!

I had the same reaction to Altered Carbon. It isn't as much loved a book as Perdido Street Station, but it is loved and has ideas in it that I usually would be interested in. I just couldn't take the violence because it was in a world where every body part, or even the complete body and brain, was replaceable. Therefore, there was no limit to violence.

I know other science fiction fans (and even published writers) who don't like Perdido, so yes you're allowed to hate it - and from your review, I suspect I'd hate it too. Maybe - sometimes I can take stuff like that, and sometimes I can't. It depends on how the author handles it, and on my world at the moment. When the kids at school are studying the holocaust and various other ghastly periods in history, I've got less tolerance for ghastly. I'll read Mieville eventually, but perhaps I should start on a different novel. :)

I tried Miéville a while back ... started with Kraken, abandoned after 100 pages. Like you Pam, I really wanted to like it (although I think I disliked it for a different reason). I have Perdido Street Station lined up to read on my kindle ... and will give it a try. But now I'm a little less optimistic.

I'm also with you cammyk on Altered Carbon. I finished it, and it was a good story, but I never felt any compulsion to search out and read the sequels. More or less similar reactions to Terry Goodkind's Wizards First Rule & Scott Lynch's The Lies of Locke Lamora ... both very highly regarded and loved first books of series ... and a reason I've avoided supposedly very good books by Joe Abercrombie.

Eep! I didn't know I had responses here. *bad pammab*

@166 GBM
I know. :( Perdido Street Station made my list because you and so many other people have enjoyed it, GingerbreadMan -- and part of why I waited so long to give up on it was because I felt I had to be missing something. Perhaps I was. I think if/when I try Mieville again, I'll do him on paper.

@167-168 cammykitty & clif_hiker
I don't really like violence in my books, either. For me to accept it, it has to be there for a plot reason, and it can't be described in terribly gritty detail or from a first person perspective. It's something in the imagery -- it makes me feel personally violated and uncomfortably injured, even when I'm actually just lying on the cushy couch.

Thank you for the heads up about Altered Carbon. Takeshi Kovacs came highly recommended to me by someone whose taste in books I almost perfectly overlap with, but I haven't picked any of the novels in that series up yet because the cover art doesn't do it for me (truly -- this is the only reason -- they seem rather too psychedelic/trying too hard/too masculine/too angry). Your comments make me even more wary... I'll continue to choose other things for now.

28. In Search of Black America
David J. Dent
2012.08.15 / ★★★

Middle class black America has always existed, and it is robust. Many anecdotes ensue.

Seeing so many examples of middle class African Americans was very good; the media tends to represent especially successful black people as surprising anomalies rather than as having always existed. Unfortunately this book doesn't offer much more than anecdotes (not that it purports to). It also surprised me in the extent to which it ignored sexual diversity among middle class African Americans despite embracing all other forms of diversity -- although this may have had something to do with the book being noticeably dated to the 1990s.

Not a bad read, and worth the time, but not shiny.

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Category: Authors of Color
Alternative Categories: Continuing Education

A more full review for those interested:
After crisscrossing the U.S. for more than four years and taping hundreds of hours of interviews, Dent, a professor of journalism at New York University, has produced a startling overview of the middle-class majority of America's black population (62% of African-Americans have middle-class incomes and 17% make more than $50,000 annually). Attempting to offset the media's view of black life, which in Dent's view is dominated by images of black celebrities and inner-city rage, he balances the entertaining narrative of his travels with solid reporting, based on historical and sociological analysis and observation of a wide range of individuals and milieus. In Gallia County, Ohio, he interviews Elaine Armstrong, a woman who makes a living selling antique collectibles of racist images because she "feels compelled to directly confront the past." In Detroit, he speaks to George N'Namdi, an art dealer who sells paintings by black artists to a primarily black clientele. In a series of chapters, he charts the life of Gabrielle Hilson, who dropped out of the historically black Spellman College when she became pregnant and decided to become a single mother, move in with her parents and continue her education at another school. Never avoiding the institutionalized or personal racism that his subjects face, Dent manages to convey how it is both omnipresent and yet peripheral in their everyday lives. Candid and consistently engaging, Dent's work contributes to a better understanding of the role of race in American life. <from Publishers Weekly>

29. Data Theory and Dimensional Analysis
William G. Jacoby
2012.08.17 / ★★★★

Very helpful short overview of data theory and dimensional analysis techniques for the social sciences. Rather than detailing how to perform each, Jacoby gives some overarching frameworks, describes how each method fits in and how it relates to other methods, and gives some heads-ups and gotchas for working with each methodology. It also has incredibly helpful diagrams. This would be a useful book to read completely through before planning a multivariate data analysis project (e.g., on psychological item-response data).

A lay overview of this book's topic: We often collect data on rows representing items and columns representing variables, with each cell value containing the value for that item on that variable. Sample data could be a set of regular shapes on which we collect a set of variables. When we have 2 variables (like area and perimeter), then we call the collected data "2-dimensional" -- the data could be visualized and understood using a 2-D graphic in each axis represents a different variable and a dot appears at the position of each item. When have have 3 variables (like area, perimeter, and number of sides), we can still do the same visualization and conceptualization; however, now we have to work in 3-D space. Most of the time when we collect data, however, we collect on many more variables than just 2 or 3 -- this book describes approaches to deal with the higher dimensionality of common data.

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Category: Continuing Education
Alternative Categories: Professional & Personal Development, Expected By Others

Definitely avoid Altered Carbon. Not a bad book, but from your reviews on other books I can tell it is not for you. Plenty of other books that are begging to crowd onto your shelves.

Thanks! In that case, I shall.

>170 pammab: Not a book I'm ever likely to read, but that was a very consise and to the point review. You're good.

Thanks, GBM. The sentiment is wholeheartedly returned.

30. Bloodshot
Cherie Priest
2012.09.03 / ★★★★

Highly entertaining action thriller tale. Our clever and somewhat amoral heroine, a droll vampire thief, pairs up with a drag queen, a blind man, and a ghoul to defeat an evil government conspiracy. Though this story felt rushed toward the end and never approached "deep" on the literary scale, I really couldn't put it down. The characters, scenery and plot were well drawn even when they weren't true to life, and the plot was utterly engaging. I look forward to reading more by Cherie Priest. Like maybe that other book that everyone raves about. ;)

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Category: New Female Authors
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Spec Fic (Female Authors), Just for Fun

31. Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism
Rita M. Gross
2012.09.06 / ★★★★★

An academic book -- the reconstruction of Buddhism from a feminist perspective. This is the sort of book that has a small but devoted audience (I loved it). Gross argues meaningfully for the revalorization of women within Buddhism, first outlining a "usable" past that illustrates how Buddhism has had a place for women, and then outlining the ways that Buddhist precepts do not inherently denigrate the female. Throughout the book she clearly operates from a position as both an "insider" and an "outsider", owning her biases and not giving in to the fallacy that purity in approach is required (or even possible).

One of the most intriguing arguments addressed the potentially fruitful relationship between Buddhism and feminism. Gross argues that Buddhism can be too complacent in simply accepting non-ideal situations, and that Buddhists can learn from feminism's willingness to act to change "things as they are". She also argues that feminists become emotionally exhausted when progress is inevitably slow, and that feminism can learn from Buddhism's methods that teach how to do the right thing while being minimally emotionally invested in the rewards it will bring. The restorative synergy here is palpable, and the excitement that Gross brings to uniting these disciplines is contagious.

Notably for me, in addition to being highly insightful, this book is highly heteronormative. It is quite frankly shocking how unselfconsciously the book assumes a purely straight human being, especially given that its purpose is to deconstruct assumptions of a purely male human being. A place for women in Buddhism is not dependent on whether one believes that male and female represent two halves of a sexual and spiritual whole -- Gross succeeds in everything except articulating that final point.

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Category: Continuing Education
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors, Owned Yet Unread

Interesting review on Buddhism and Patriarchy, especially comparing the methods/energy of feminism and Buddhism.

It was a very interesting argument... Feminism does tend to breed anger (and get bogged down it in). Good food for thought.

My first Early Reviewers book! Unfortunately it wasn't focused on culture the way I was hoping.

32. Man Up: Cracking the Code of Modern Manhood
Carlos Andres Gomez
2012.09.29 / ★★

This book comes off like a blog: entertaining, but self-aggrandizing, young (think 22-year-old Paul McCartney singing "Yesterday"), and inadvisably self-revelatory. It relies on the audience being unaware that "traditional gender roles hurt men too" to give weight to a series of anecdotes.

It isn't a bad read, but there's no "there" there. Read if you like gossip, drama, and true life stories.

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Category: Authors of Color
Alternative Categories: Expected by Others

I'll pass, thank you.

Sorry to see the ER book was a bit of a dud. It happens. I know I have had a few which have been balanced out by some good ones but it is hard to gauge the books based solely on the descriptions the publishers provide.

Ugh - sounds like the perfect book for a precocious prepubescent girl.

From the publisher description, I couldn't tell whether Man Up was going to be poetry, memoir, or cultural studies. I thought I'd take a chance anyway, not having read much poetry recently and loving cultural studies (and some memoirs)... but it didn't work out so well this time. A bit thin. Ah well -- hopefully the next one will be better! It's a free book on a new topic, after all; can't be too choosy. :)

And it probably would be quite good for a precocious prepubescent girl. ;)

Oh, I can be choosy about ER books! There are free books at the library too, and those you can return unread. I haven't gotten duds very often, although I have gotten some books that are outside of my usual fare. & I'm sure your next ER book will be bright shiny and interesting.

That's a very good perspective -- I do love my library.

Because my library isn't an exhaustive catalog of my interests, one of the things I struggle with in ER is showing that the things I'm requesting are actually interesting to me. Over time this will get better and better, but it is frustrating in the meantime!

I know!!! It's almost impossible to get a book unless you have a similar book already - a big wishlist helps. :)

33. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy
Thomas Sowell
2012.10.09 / ★★★★

Very useful introduction to basic economic principles and their implications. I picked this book up to remedy what I expected was a hole in my education; I'm glad I did. Although it took me about 80% of the book to finally buy into the idea that international trade is not a zero-sum game, coming to terms with that in itself is worth the price of entry.

That said, there's something eerily religious about economics. This book implicitly asks readers to stop being in-group-centered beings and instead focus on the improvement of humanity as a whole. The underlying principle that "the good of the many outweighs the good of the few" comes through particularly strongly in the book's negative discussion of unionization. I was slightly surprised (but keen) to see the moral philosophical screed between its lines (a screed that is inherent in the field rather than the book). The intricacies of how belief systems become self-reinforcing are impossibly engaging to me, and apparently economics falls right beside stellar worldbuilding in engaging that part of my brain.

Everyone should be familiar with fundamental economic principles regardless of the underlying value system. This book is a very reasonable place to start.

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Category: Just for Fun
Alternative Categories: Professional & Personal Development, Continuing Education

>176 pammab: I've only read that book by Priest, and wasn't totally convinced, even if I found more than enough to make me want to continue to search out her work. This is set in a different world than her steampunk civil war America, yes?

>177 pammab: Interesting that a religion putting such emphasis on reincarnation and the changes our energies thus undergo over time, is so set on traditional gender roles as your review inclines. I don't know if there's such a thing as queer buddhism (as in "we'll all be all possible positions sooner or later anyway"), but I think it might be a very interesting path of thought to explore.

>180 pammab: There's actually a book like that in Swedish, which succeeds where it sounds like this one fails. Med uppenbar känsla för stil is the only book on feminism for men I've ever read that actually works, that you could give to most any bloke and make him see certain things in a new light, without losing on analysis. It isn't cutting edge then it comes to gender studies as a science field, but it has a good, solid platform in theory. It's a shame it isn't translated into English!

Hi GBM!

Yes, Cherie Priest's Bloodshot is a completely different world from Boneshaker. Bloodshot is our world (with vampires, clearly) -- not at all steampunk. I really enjoyed that main character.

This book, and the others you read, make me want to learn Swedish! Perhaps some day....

34. Sirens and Other Daemon Lovers
Ellen Datlow & Terri Windling (eds.)
2012.10.29 / ★★

On the whole, I was disappointed. The stories were rather repetitious and only marginally engaging. I suspect there were too many stories given the number of themes.

For me, two of the twenty-two stories surpass the four-star mark:
★★★★★ "Ashes on Her Lips" (Edward Bryant): coming to terms with a lover's death (absolutely haunting)
★★★★½ "The Eye of the Storm" (Kelley Eskridge): an original metaphor for love, with great characterization

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Category: Extras
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Just for Fun

>190 pammab: I'm sure there are many more useful languages to learn! But thanks :)

I got an ER by Kelley Eskridge about a year ago and was quite impressed. Sorry the anthology wasn't better. Usually Windling/Datlow make a great editorial team.

So I have a confession... I only picked up the collection because Kelley Eskridge was in it.... :)

I just finished the sequel to A Fire Upon the Deep, which I read last year.

35. The Children of the Sky
Vernor Vinge
2012.11.02 / ★★★½

Entertaining, but nowhere close to what I was expecting. I came in wanting more about How Amoral People Have Substantive Disagreements and What Happens When Races Are Fundamentally Different in Nature and in Nurture. But Vinge seems to go out of his way to make the points that True Evil Exists On All Scales, and that Nothing Is Truly Alien. Alas.

In better judgements, this book is the first in its series to pass the Bechdel test with flying colors, and I found some sections of drama incredibly engaging.

Unfortunately, overall, it doesn't come close to competing with the peers in its series.

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Category: Extras
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Series Continuations

36. For Hearing People Only: Answers to Some of the Most Commonly Asked Questions about the Deaf Community, Its Culture, and the "Deaf Reality"
Matthew S. Moore and Linda Levitan
2012.11.03 / ★★★★

One of the best deaf life and culture books I've read -- it runs the gamut from incredibly basic knowledge to new-to-me cultural details. This book should be on the shelves of people who are starting to interact with the Deaf community, and it should also be thumbed through by people who are already comfortable in the community. Be warned, however: because its starting point is "you're reading this because you know absolutely nothing" (as in, one question addresses whether Braille is the written form of sign language), the exhortative tone may be off-putting to readers who feel defensive about their Hearing status.

At nearly 800 pages long and in question-and-answer format, it is worth the cost, but repetitive to read straight through. The authors suggest thumbing through the index and reading only the questions that jump out; it's a good suggestion, and it helps ensure the book is appropriate for all levels of incoming knowledge.

Highly recommended for parents of deaf babies, coworkers of Deaf people, and hearing students at mainstreamed schools.

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Category: Owned Yet Unread
Alternative Categories: Continuing Education

So close to done! I need a graphic novel and an author of color to fill out the challenge, in addition to finishing the two books I am partway through -- but I think I can do it! (So much for being ahead of schedule. ;))

Right now I'm thinking Starborn Vol. 1 off my shelf (rather than any of the graphic novel tomes I'd envisioned a year ago -- I'll save those for later). I'm also leaning toward Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies as my author of color -- but does anyone else have a suggestion?

Four books left to complete your challenge is awesome! I have seen great reviews for Interpreter of Maladies but haven't read it yet myself. I am a newbie to graphic novels and have a category for GN's next year.

I scanned my author gallery in LT to see if anything would jump out at me as suggestions for your author of colour category and I was stunned to my reading tends to lack that group of authors. Will need to consider an authors of colour category for my 2014 challenge since my 2013 is already set!

.... in desperation, should you decide to abandon Lahiri's book, I can recommend Lawrence Hill's Book of Negros which is also known as Someone Knows My Name or Andrea Levy - Small Island was a good read for me. Of course, I can also recommend Chinua Achebe's Things Fall Apart.

Interpreter of Maladies is on my WL too. I don't think you can go wrong with that one. Good book by person of color - that's such a broad category I don't even know where to begin!!! Beloved is a good choice too.

For Hearing People Only sounds very informative. One of my friends teaches ASL so I always meet a lot of deaf or hard of hearing people at her events and I have learned a lot about that culture, but I would really like to know more. Interpreter of Maladies is on my Mt. TBR so I'm looking forward to hearing what you think if you choose it.

@ Lori, 198
Thanks, Lori! Someone Knows My Name and Small Island both look very good as well -- I'm going to add them to the ongoing possibilities list! It's quite nice that they both intersect with non-USA regions as well. I have high hopes for Interpreter of Maladies, so hopefully I wouldn't actually be inclined to abandon it.... (By the way, I seem to recall Things Fall Apart being discussed as highly depressing -- but on a click-through to the book page, that seems to be misinformation. Perhaps I should I reconsider it?)

@ Katie, 199
I read Beloved a year or two ago and enjoyed it -- though I wish it had been as part of a group read, because I think there was a lot more to it than I was able to pick out myself. I'd like to do more Morrison as a group read.
Even though it's a horribly broad category, it is still quite a struggle for me to consciously fill it! It's quite sad. I think part of the problem is that the only books by people of color that get talked about are Big Works that win Big Prizes -- so my usual non-literary spec fic is left by the wayside. :(

@ Eva, 200
I got my copy of For Hearing People Only from paperbackswap.com -- I tried a host of libraries and it just doesn't seem to be that available (probably because it isn't published by a huge press). It's definitely worth trying to secure a copy, though, for both you and your friend -- or maybe enlist your friend to get it "for her students". ;)

Some find Things Fall Apart a depressing read as it portrays the demise of a traditional culture and has some 'cringe factor' culture clash interactions depicted.

I emailed my friend to check if she had a copy and she said the college library has one that she'll check out for me when I come to visit next time - good to have friends in the right places. :)

I just saw over the weekend that Achebe has a new book coming out about Biafra called There Was a Country. I don't know if I'm going to rush out to find this one!

That isn't the sort of depressing I was expecting. I'll have to give some renewed thought to Things Fall Apart.

I hope you get something useful from it, Eva! I expect you will.

Mamzel, how did you find out about Achebe's new book?

There was a review in the San Francisco Chronicle.
You can read the article here.

Ooooo - spec fic - try Steven Barnes - I've read Great Sky Woman and have Lion's Blood on mount TBR. Lion's Blood is supposed to be awesome. If you haven't read Octavia Butler, you have to.

Ooh! Steven Barnes looks great! I'm especially intrigued by Lion's Blood -- onto the list he (and it) go! Thank you, Katie!

I've read Butler's Kindred, which I liked but wasn't especially enamored with. I was toying for a while with trying her vampire book Fledgling, but decided not to because I had a suspicion I'd find it hard to suspend disbelief for the vampires. However, since I've recently read a vampire book by Cherie Priest that I quite enjoyed, perhaps it shouldn't be such a big worry.... Did you have any of Butler's work in particular mind?

I'd either go for Wild Seed or her short stories Bloodchild. Warning: The title story "Bloodchild" has an extremely high ick factor. Fledgling has gotten tons and tons of praise, but personally, I was disappointed with it. It didn't seem that special, and she'd explored a lot of what happens in Fledgling in the series Wild Seed starts. Wild Seed works well as a stand alone. You don't need to read the entire series, and as a matter of fact, the rest of the series is completely different than Wild Seed.

Glad Barnes looks interesting to you. We had him and his wife Tananarive Due as guests of honor at Diversicon this year, so I've met him. Super articulate, super energetic. I think you'll like his work.

I'm sold. I think I've seen Wild Seed at the library -- I'll have to look for it there again. I'm honestly quite excited by the number of authors who are coming out of the woodwork. I'm hoping to finish up this year and get into the next year and meet a host of new authors.

I have a friend soon to be in the Twin Cities who is into the con scene -- I've been wanting to head out for Convergence for some years now. Perhaps I'll see if I can do a trip for a visit her and combine it with one of the cons out there. I love Minnesota. And I think Barnes is quite up my alley.

I'm thinking I need to go to CONvergence soon too. If you decide to go, let me know. We could have an LT meet up.

Will do! I won't be able to make it this year because it seems the hotels have already sold out, but perhaps next.

That's what DS was saying. She got a room across the street from the CON.

37. The Night Watch
Sarah Waters
2012.11.12 / ★★★★

The war changes everyone. Helen and Viv work at a matchmaking agency in 1940s London, attempting to re-pair the disappointed despite sharing their clients' disaffection. As the book opens, Helen phones her roommate and friend Julia, needing to hear her voice and fearing she no longer loves her back. Helen's coworker Viv is in her sixth year of an affair with a married man; she's only beginning to see how much of a cad he is. Viv's brother Duncan was recently released from prison; he lives with a much older man and is a disappointment to his family. Kay, a butch woman who drove an ambulance during the war, can't seem to recover from her experiences. Kay stands apart from everyone, watching from a distance and alone in crowds.

The Night Watch tells four interconnected stories in three backwards-arcing acts. The plot is tight, the implications are fraught, and the characters are allowed to breathe. It is bleakly realistic. There's no way to root for one character's happiness without wishing pain on another. No one's actions are entirely justifiable. No one is a hero. No one is wholly likeable. Waters captures the quiet desperation of lives torn apart and rebuilt through her descriptions, her dialogue, and her characterization -- sometimes (as with the casual brutality with which a sleepy Helen forgets her birthday present) inducing physical pain.

But although the book deals with the ways that love can cause secret anguish, it leaves quite open the hope of redemption and a happier future. The ending is conclusive but not constrictive, and every time I thumb through the story, I find more food for thought.

This is one of those books that lingers for days. Recommended especially to those with an interest in Londoners' lives during WWII, strong women, and thought-provoking realism.

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Category: Not Straight
Alternative Categories: Owned Yet Unread

(Also? I may have something of a crush on Kay.... *ahem*)

I've been finishing up Connie Willis's Blackout at the same time as The Night Watch. I'm loving how both of them focus on Londoners during WWII (and how they're dealing with very different strata of society). It's quite amazing how people lived through such never-ending bombing. I'm going to have to go find some more London-during-the-War books to feed this newfound interest -- any chance someone here can suggest more? You guys are very good, you know. :)

Great review of The Night Watch. I have that waiting for me on my TBR bookcase. The only Waters book I have read so far is The Little Stranger but I do hope to read more of her books. I love her writing style.

I cannot recommend anything focused on Londoners during WWII, but I can recommend Helen Humphreys Coventry, set in Coventry instead of London, it also has characters engaged in night watch for German bombers.

Another book set in WWII Coventry Graham Joyce's The Facts of Life.

Great review of The Night Watch. It'll have to go on the WL. I also read The Little Stranger and loved it. Quite the gothic.

Another thumbing for The Night Watch review! I've yet to read anything by Waters, but The Little Stranger is on the nightstand waiting to be started. :)

Thanks, guys.

The Facts of Life link initially brought me to something about AIDS in Britain! I was confuzzled for a moment, but now I've found the right book. Both that and Coventry look right up my alley. Throw in The Little Stranger and I've got three more book bullets. :)

LOL! I'm sure there are tons of books called The Facts of Life! Pretty sure the bombing of Coventry predates the time when some little virus mutated into the AIDS virus. ;)

38. Starborn, Vol. 1
Stan Lee, Chris Roberson, Khary Randolph
2012.11.25 / ★★★½

This book contains the first four comics of Starborn bound into one volume. Here, a down-on-his-luck sci fi writer finds that his stories reflect forgotten early childhood truths rather than an overactive imagination. He is the heir to a intergalactic legacy. All the races he thought he'd imagined are real, and they are at odds with one another -- and with him.

I liked this comic. It was self-aware and genre-aware, its baddies have realistic motivations (it is quite possible to root for them), and the humor is appropriately understated. However, I didn't feel like we actually got anywhere in this first volume. Since my library doesn't own the series, I'll have to buy a few more $15 volumes to make progress -- and I suspect I have better uses for that $50+. Alas. If not for the cost of entry, I'd be willing to give this more of a whirl.

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Category: Graphic Novels
Alternative Categories: Just for Fun

Sigh - isn't that the problem with comics! They take a while to go somewhere, and they aren't cheap.

It is indeed the problem. :( Sometimes the art recommends a comic over and above, but Starborn's art seemed about on par with what I would expect.

39. Interpreter of Maladies
Jhumpa Lahiri
2012.11.25 / ★★★★

Delicate, well-characterized stories of belonging, told from a wide variety of points of view. "A Temporary Matter", the first, was my favorite -- following the stillbirth of their child, a couple silently falls apart. "When Mr. Pirzada Came To Dine" focuses on the strength of relationships we forge, recognizing that powerful impressions can be had even by short-term relationships. "Interpreter of Maladies" and "Sexy" consider the power of the new to replace the old. "A Real Durwan" and "The Treatment of Bibi Haldar" reflect the ways we treat the aberrant, with pessimistic and optimistic endings respectively. "Mrs. Sen's" seems to address whether it is better to grow up with some imperfect love, or to grow up with safety. "This Blessed House" is about being the center of attention, and "The Third and Final Continent" is about aging, making one's own happiness, and living a good life, however it happens. This is altogether an enjoyable collection.

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Category: Authors of Color
Alternative Categories: New Female Authors

Interpreter of Maladies has been on my WL for a long time. Good to see a review of it!

40. Blackout
Connie Willis
2012.11.26 / ★★★½

Rules governing questionable time travel in Oxford have become looser over time, and at least four (4!) natives of 2060 are currently observing WWII England. Eileen is watching evacuated children, Polly is working in a London shop in the midst of the Blitz, Mike is an American reporting on the evacuation of Dunkirk, and at least one other person is in the midst, observing British intelligence. When -- to no surprise of readers of the series -- their drops back home become dysfunctional, our cast is trapped in their dangerous assignments. Fretting ensues.

I found Blackout quite enjoyable, but after 15 CDs of a breathless narrator, I expected a conclusion -- not just a cliffhanger for the second book! Surely some of the duo's combined 1200 pages could have been abridged. There was certainly enough fretting and historical lecturing in the middle section for multiple non-Willis books. However, though the plot and pacing fell short of expectations, the setting and characters are winsomely drawn. A more directed, self-contained book would have made for a much better overall experience.

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Category: Spec Fic (Female Authors)
Alternative Categories: Series Continuations

Challenge completed (with a month left to go)!

I'm planning to read whatever I like for the rest of the year (how novel!) and continue to post reviews here through the 31st. Plus, if I can finish up the two books I have had on loan from friends for months now, I'll consider this an *extremely* successful year. :)

Hmmm, you're putting me off Blackout. Plenty of other books out there to read.

Congrats on finishing!!!

@225
I picked up Interpreter of Maladies first to fill out my Authors of Color category, but I also have a collection of short stories by Nalo Hopkinson in my current library loot, and I'm waiting for Lion's Blood to be returned to the library. (I'm so excited to start branching out from the literary fiction!)

I'd say Interpreter of Maladies is definitely worth reading. I didn't come out raving, but some of the stories really packed a punch, and all of them left me thinking and engaged, exactly the way a good short story should.

Congratulations on completing your challenge!

Hopefully I can get to Interpreter next year. I've been planning on reading Nalo for years too but never have. I've read a short story or two of hers in anthologies, and stuff she's edited, but never one of her own books. Here's to 2013!!!

Congrats on completing your challenge!

Big congrats on finishing with time to spare for "free" reading! :)

Congratulations!

Congratulations!

Thanks! I'm really looking forward to it.

Congrats, pammab! I just finished Blackout myself and have gone straight into All Clear. I knew going in that the two books are really one story, so I was prepared for that. I agree that this story probably could have used a lot of editing, but I am absolutely amazed by the amount of research Willis has put into her setting. I'm learning so much about WWII, and it's fascinating!

Having recently finished reading a book set in London during the Blitz and seeing the reviews of Blackout reminds me of Robert Westfall's book Blitzcat that I read many years ago.

Congratulations on completing your challenge. Glad you are continuing to post your reads here as I am a frequent lurker!

Catching a month's worth of posts here. Congratulations on finishing your challenge! Glad you're sticking around!

@237 christina_reads
I wish I had known -- I'm trying to figure out how to fit All Clear in now! So much for needing other WWII books to fill the itch. ;) I loved the depth of her research too. I learned quite a lot from Blackout, though I suspect most of it is old hat to people who grew up in the UK and had all this material over and over again in history class.

@238 thornton
Blitzcat sounds like the sort of book I would have devoured as a youngster if it had been available to me. Drat. :)

@ everyone:
Thanks!

Congratulations!

41. The Diamond Age: Or, A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
Neal Stephenson
2012.12.15 / ★★★★

Although cognizant of the inherent paradox, Lord Finkle-McGraw commissions a nanotechnological magic book to teach independent thinking to his young granddaughter. Before it can reach her, however, the book -- the eponymous Young Lady's Illustrated Primer -- falls into the hands of four-year-old abused slumchild Nell. The book starts by teaching Nell to read, telling Nell stories about evil stepmothers with vile boyfriends, and then begins raising and educating her through increasingly challenging interactive quests. Over the next twelve years, the book facilitates Nell's transformation into the Princess Nell of her first stories.

The themes of the book -- appropriate education, cleverness and virtue, social class, relativism, artificial intelligence, and the meaning and impact of culture -- are just as intriguing as the well-executed plot. Its world building, a highly disaggregated society post-material needs but still facing just as many class barriers, is equally delightful. There is a lot here to chew on, impressingly presented without bogging down the story in pretentiousness. Although I could have done without a scientifically-dubious and sexually-gratuitous subplot related to the birth of a game-changing technology -- it felt like Stephenson was trying far too hard -- the central story of Nell and her primer are valuable enough to make up for it.

This book is clearly Neal Stephenson, betrayed by its raucous enthusiasm for tossing out dozens of lofty ideas, developing them to varying levels of believability, and then kluging them all together into a scientifically thin (and somewhat emotionally thin) ending. The Diamond Age is not flawless work, but it is smart, prescient, and highly enjoyable nevertheless.

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Category: Extras
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any)

Thanks, paruline -- I apologize for missing you until now!

Woot!!! The Diamond Age sounds like a hoot! I'll have to go looking for it.

I keep telling myself to read more of Neal Stephenson's work but they're just so durned big! I have a few on the tbr shelves but that's not one of them unfortunately.

The Diamond Age sounds really interesting.

And a belated congrats on making your reading goal for the challenge.

Like Dave said - only in my case, I need to start reading Stephenson. The Diamond Age sounds like the perfect book to start with!

Stephenson's books are *huge*! Usually he delivers, but it's always flirting between lots of intellectual ideas -- like a cross between the enthusiasm of a puppy and a teenage boy. I started with Snow Crash, which is pretty short. I would recommend Snow Crash, but it's actually the least favorite of what I've read by him (its denouement made the least logical sense). The Diamond Age takes the world of Snow Crash to its logical conclusion, and I'd recommend it more. (I found Anathem to be the most believable of all of his books that deal with these themes -- but it is also by far the hugest.)

Good to know. Thanks!

Snowcrash was my starter (and only so far) for his work too and found it very accessible. I've been saying for a while that I'll pick up Cryptonomicon next so then I can get to the Baroque Cycle.

Welcome! I find I read a lot of Stephenson -- he's easy to find on audiobook.

I recall loving the more realistic world of Cryptonomicon and the math and cryptogeekery of it. I look forward to hearing what you think of it and the Baroque Cycle when you get to it, Dave -- that's one of the next works of his on my list.

catching up and finding several to add to my lists

I enjoyed Blackout & All Clear although they may have suffered from being audible books (and thus spread out over a much longer time frame ... kept losing the thread of who was doing what and where) ... John Lawton has written a series of books set in London during WW II, I've enjoyed the two that I've read so far ...

re: Stephenson, I read Snow Crash & Cryptonomicon earlier this year and like most of us, have vowed to read MORE ... I have Diamond Age, but I will probably try the Baroque Cycle next.

edited to add: just noticed (remembered) that Lawton's first Inspector Troy novel is also called Blackout

Hi clif_hiker! I need to get All Clear from Audible soon so I can finish up that series. I'm going to look into Lawton too -- his Black Out looks like a nice mystery/thriller potato chip-style book.

42. Skin Folk
Nalo Hopkinson
2012.12.15 / ★★

I wanted to like Skin Folk, a collection of magical realism stories tied to the Caribbean. Unfortunately it just isn't my style:

-- Each story is prefaced with a few sentences describing why the story came into existence (rendering the most powerful lines simply trite)

-- Transcribed dialogue abounds, and sometimes the entire story is written through dialogue (I understand she's going for authenticity with this, but it gets tedious to slog through story after story)

-- The stories have the vibe of oral retellings, circling around a center idea with much repetition of phrases and ideas (here, a statement by C. S. Lewis comes to mind -- something along the lines of "a writer has his own means of bringing out the key words, different from those of the spoken form, and ought to use them")

-- Short, italicized flashbacks are ample (stylistically youthful, or maybe just not something I've seen much of since my youth)

There are some very striking stories included here, but my reaction overall is rooted in my personal tastes and stylistic pet peeves. I might also add that I was predisposed to be skeptical given the genre -- if I had realized this was a collection of magical realism stories, I probably wouldn't have picked it up. YMMV.

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Category: Extras
Alternative Categories: Spec Fic (Any), Spec Fic (Female Authors), New Female Authors, Not Straight, Authors of Color

43. Survivor
Chuck Palahniuk
2012.12.20 / ★½

Our narrator -- a cult member kicked out of the fold and still guilty about never living up to cultish expectations -- is alone on a doomed plane, waiting for lack of fuel to crash him into the Australian outback. As he waits, he talks to the plane's black box about the life that brought him to this point, in incoherent and somewhat unreliable fashion.

This book tries too hard to be clever. This is true for both style (reminded me of a neurotic unhappy pot head) and content (jejune lampooning of modern religion, fame, diet, riches, and the like). The twist ending isn't even surprising. I'll be passing on more Palahniuk, for all that I found Fight Club ingenious in movie form.

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Category: Extras
Alternative Categories: Expected By Others

(But I'm really enjoying more Stephenson on audiobook -- Reamde this time around!)

Ah - I have Skin Folk on my shelves and plan to read it soon... or maybe not really soon. It didn't make it into my Caribbean section for 2012 even though I've owned it for years. I've heard others complain about the dialect. I'll consider myself forewarned about the prefaces. I'll skip those!

Yes, do avoid the prefaces! I think they'd work much better as mini-afterwords to each story.

For what it's worth, I suspect these stories might actually be up your alley, cammykitty. My dislike of Skin Folk felt extremely situated in what I was bringing to the stories, rather than in the book itself.

Might be - I'd like to like it since I've met plenty of people who actually no Nalo and she's got a reputation as being a very intelligent, kind and helpful person. I'm a bit nervous about it though because someone else that I usually agree with hated it too. We were wondering if some of the issues couldn't be cleared up by an audio version. I'll let you know what I think when I finally get around to it.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on books that weren't so good. I believe it keeps the ratings honest and allows others to avoid the books. You gave good reasons for not liking them.

I have a friend who adores Palahniuk so I have tried but I just don't get it. Fight Club the movie was interesting, but since I saw it right after watching Primal Fear, the ending wasn't a surprise and that pretty much ruined the twist. :)

Stopping by to wish you a happy holiday season and all the best in the new year!

@260 cammykitty
I think I agree with you and your friend... Some of the issues probably would have been cleaned up by an audio version.

@261 mamzel
I try to be very cognizant of why I don't like a book -- a lot of times I can tell that I'm unique in reacting with dislike, and I try to moderate my reviews accordingly. Sometimes I just despise a book though. I'm not really one to not say anything at all, though, at least not in this forum; I'm writing these reviews for me most of all, so that in ten years I can remember what I thought of each book.

@262 Eva
Yes! That's exactly my reaction. Though I suppose this means I shouldn't watch Primal Fear either....

@263 lkernagh
Merry Christmas to you! Thanks so much for the very pretty card. It quite brightened my day. :)

All:

Happy holidays and many glorious returns! It's been wonderful to share this year with all of you bright, entertaining, and reflective people.

44. Good Calories, Bad Calories: Fats, Carbs, and the Controversial Science of Diet and Health
Gary Taubes
2012.12.27 / ★★★★½

This book's title and back cover suggest that it is a diet book. It isn't -- it's journalistic approach to nutrition. And it is, exactly as my SantaThing page suggested, "nonfiction that fundamentally shifts the way you view the world, or that you're on a mission to ensure everyone knows."

Painstakingly laying the groundwork, Taubes pokes holes in everything we know about cholesterol, fats, carbohydrates, obesity, and balanced diets, and builds up the scientific framework -- never tested due to the assumed natural truth of what we all already know -- to argue that fats and proteins should be the fundamental building block of a healthy diet. Carbohydrates, and refined carbohydrates in particular, raise blood sugar and insulin levels, which fixes fats into adipose tissue and causes insulin resistance and diabetes.

Yes, this book's argument converges on urging the Atkin's diet. It's for that reason, I suspect, that the blurbs are so high level. Certainly if I had known what I was getting into, I would have dropped the book pretty early on due to skepticism -- but I'm glad I kept with it.

Taubes argues his case for reducing carbohydrate intake so forcefully that I strongly suspect there is some elided grey area, but the premise is a believable one. Recommended to people interested in diet, health, or books that shake up all your assumptions, who aren't afraid of lay-person-level scientific explanations.

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Category: Extras
Alternative Categories: Professional & Personal Development, Continuing Education, Expected by Others

->264 pammab:
Well, no - the twist won't be a twist. Unless you're an Ed Norton fan, because he is quite good in it.

Catching up on my favorite threads before heading over to the new challenge. I disliked Skin Folk too (despite wanting to like it), but for slightly different reasons. For me, all the storeis were organized around more or less the same pattern, and felt like one anitclimax after another: Caribbean city dweller discovers there is more to earth than she thought - end of story. I liked the one set in a brothel though, the only one without any magical realism in it...

As for Palahniuk, I share your assessment. Waaay to oh-so-clever for me.

45. Coraline: The Graphic Novel
Neil Gaiman, P. Craig Russell (Illustrator)
2012.12.30 / ★★★★★

This book couldn't be more perfect. Seriously, I don't know what I would do to improve it -- even in graphic novel form it fits.

(Another dead-on book from SantaThing 2012.)

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Category: Extras
Alternative Category: Spec Fic (Any), Graphic Novels

@267
I really liked the story from Skin Folk set in the brothel too (though the dialect wore on me on that one more than most). Also the one with the poor guy who turns the city into a not-really-magical food source and surprises the woman denying her past.

And with that belated review (so short that it shouldn't have been so belated *blush*), I hereby happily conclude the 2012 reading season. :)

Total Books:
A tie with my best year in LT memory -- 46 total. Not too shabby! I never would have thought I could get so close to a book each week.

Fondest Reads:
Solitaire by Eskridge (2012.01.09): human strength, loneliness, and identity; I loved and was disturbed by this book ★★★★½ (review)
Bloodshot by Priest (2012.08.03): super-duper potato chip book featuring vampires, drag queens, and government conspiracies ★★★★ (review)
Stay by Griffith (2012.01.23): violent crime novel, suffused with grief and abuse and a personal journey ★★★★ (review)
What Every BODY is Saying by Navarro (2012.01.18): very nice body language book, blending specific examples with principles ★★★★½ (review)
The Diamond Age by Stephenson (2012.12.15): solid book of ideas, but occasionally tries too hard ★★★★ (review)

Surprisingly enough, that set does not contain either of my year's five-star reads, Coraline and Buddhism After Patriarchy. Just goes to show, "as good as it gets" is not always synonymous with "retrospectively fondest"!

Worst Reads:
The Eyre Affair by Fforde (2012.05.07): fluff masquerading as substance ★½ (review)
Survivor by Palahniuk (2012.12.20): tries too hard to be clever ★½ (review)

Most Surprising Reads:
Solitaire by Eskridge (2012.01.09): I initially thought this would be kitsch, but it turned out surprisingly deep ★★★★½ (review) (again)
Never Say Die: The Myth and Marketing of the New Old Age by Jacoby (2012.02.22): scary ★★★★ (review)
Basic Economics by Sowell (2012.10.09): shockingly tempering to my dyed-in-the-wool liberalism ★★★★ (review)

Most Highly-Rated Category:*
Continuing Education - 4.33 (mmm, non-fiction)
New Female Authors - 4.17 (who knew there were so many excellent women writers? ;))

Most Lowly-Rated Category:*
Just for Fun - 3 (I wonder if not fitting in any of my main squeeze categories made it more likely I would pick duds here?)

* Undeniable caveat -- the ns are so small that just one bad book can throw an entire category off....

Thanks for spending this year with me! From now on, I'll be over at my thread in the 2013 Challenge. First up there? China Mountain Zhang by Maureen McHugh.

Congrats on matching your LT high. It's been a pleasure to follow along with your reading and I'm looking forward to doing so again this year. Nice summary to cap it all off.

Totally agree with you on Solitaire and The Eyre Affair. I received Solitaire as an ER a while back, and still think about it. I've received some good ERs, but it's may favorite of all of them.

Congrats!!! & I'll be looking forward to what you have to say about China Mountain Zhang. I've got Maureen F. McHugh's After the Apocalypse and have read a couple stories so far. I'm impressed.

Thanks Wolfy! I'm looking forward to the rest of 2013.

cammy, I want to check out After the Apocalypse now -- I think I'm going to add it to my Short Story etc. category this year. On the basis of what I saw in China Mountain Zhang, I expect McHugh could write some really fantastic short stories.

catching up after a long time away - I have snowcrash on my TBR now as nabbed a copy in a bit of a book haul wandering Brighton's bookshops last week have been meaning to read Stephenson for ages. Great summary - see you on the 2013 thread