bymerechance's book list

Discussie75 Books Challenge for 2012

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bymerechance's book list

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1bymerechance
Bewerkt: dec 31, 2011, 6:21 pm

Hi, I’m Mere, and welcome to my second year in the 75ers. As I mentioned at the end of my 2011 thread, one of my goals this year is to stop reading books I don’t like. I give up on nonfiction very quickly if I get bored, and I only read YA that I think will be quality, so I want to be that picky about everything I read. I don’t count or keep track of rereads here, but I’m always looking for more books I’ll love as much as those I reread all the time. More abandoned books, but also more good books discovered: win-win.

As inspiration for myself, these were some of my favorite books last year, by category, in the order I read them:
Historical fiction: All Clear; The 19th Wife; The Invisible Bridge; Fall of Giants
Contemporary fiction: The Weird Sisters; Maine
YA fiction: What Happened to Goodbye; Sisterhood Everlasting (continuation of YA series, even if it was published by adult imprint); Past Perfect
Nonfiction: Into Thin Air; The Wilder Life; American Nations

2bymerechance
Bewerkt: jun 23, 2012, 10:34 pm

2012 summary:

Total # of (new) books read: 34

Fiction: 30
Historical: 6
YA: 7
Nonfiction: 12

In my house: 9
On Nook:
From the library: 22
Otherwise borrowed: 3

Fives (favorites): 1
Fours (very good): 20
Threes (decent): 13
Twos (not worth it):
Ones (not worth it, plus infuriating):

3alcottacre
dec 31, 2011, 11:20 pm

Welcome back, Mere! Happy New Year!

4drneutron
jan 1, 2012, 11:41 am

Welcome back!

5bymerechance
jan 1, 2012, 2:38 pm

Thanks, Stasia and Jim! Glad to be back. :)

6sandykaypax
jan 1, 2012, 10:19 pm

Hi Mere! Maine and The Wilder Life both made it onto my list of favorite reads of 2011, too.

got you starred!

Sandy K

7MickyFine
jan 1, 2012, 11:52 pm

Glad to see you back again, Mere!

8bymerechance
jan 3, 2012, 12:33 pm

Hey, Sandy and Micky! I've starred you both, and I think I got most of the others I lurked on last year ... the group is so busy at the beginning of the year it's hard to tell! :)

My first book for 2012 will be my December ER, No One is Here Except All of Us, in which an isolated Romanian town decides to "start the world over" to escape World War II and the Holocaust. I like it so far; I just hope it doesn't go too much into magical realism.

9ALK982
jan 3, 2012, 12:56 pm

Hello, cousin! I'm intrigued by your mention of your Nook, and now I'm wishing that we had discussed e-readers the other day. A Kindle appeared in my life on Christmas day, and so far, I'm conflicted (as in I haven't yet taken it out of the box and my father (the giver of said Kindle) is enjoying my obvious inner turmoil). Thus far, polls of my classes have been inconclusive. What do you think of yours? Is it a betrayal of the books?

10rosalita
jan 3, 2012, 1:09 pm

Mere, I tried for that ER book and didn't get it, so I'll look forward to your review.

11bymerechance
jan 3, 2012, 8:48 pm

Hi Allee! I saw your sister for lunch today, and she mentioned your Kindle dilemma. My Nook is used (my mom bought it off our neighbor). It shows the page numbers of real books (not having them would have been a dealbreaker for me). I also justify it to myself by the fact that it's a Barnes and Noble product, whereas the Amazon monopoly of the Kindle would have felt like more of a betrayal to me. But I mostly don't know what to do with it because Danbury Library doesn't do e-book borrowing, and Ridgefield won't let non-residents use their system. I've been meaning to ask people around LibraryThing whether this is a normal thing, or if Ridgefield is being lame/Danbury is behind the times. Meh.

Julia, I'm glad you said hi ... I somehow missed finding your new thread, but I've got it now!

12dk_phoenix
jan 3, 2012, 8:57 pm

Hello, hello... I'm all about reading only books you like, and kicking the crappy ones to the curb! I've read far too many crappy books the past few years, which takes time away from the ones I know I'll enjoy.

I have a Nook, and I can get books from my local library... but I'm also in Canada and I've never tried borrowing from a neighboring city's library. So... I'm not really useful at all... haha.

13bymerechance
jan 3, 2012, 9:08 pm

Hi Faith! Hopefully we'll both get to read only good books this year! I sort of understand why the other libraries don't want me stealing their e-books,... I guess I'll just have to bug my town librarians to get OverDrive.

14rosalita
jan 3, 2012, 9:18 pm

Mere, libraries not letting non-residents borrow e-books is pretty standard, and I think it's a limitation of the publishers/OverDrive, not the libraries' choice. But there is a library, the Free Library of Philadelphia, that will let non-residents buy a library card that then allows them to check out e-books. 2011 was the first year I did it, and it was a steal for $15. I believe this year they have raised the cost to $35 but for me it's still a bargain. It might be worth checking out for you.

I mostly read e-books on my iPad, but my niece and nephews bought me a Kobo Touch for Christmas, so I'm feeling my way around that. I think I like it, but it feels a little redundant.

15MickyFine
jan 3, 2012, 11:50 pm

*clears throat and straightens "Hi! I'm a Librarian" badge*The individual libraries are not responsible for most of the limits placed on ebook loans. Most license agreements that they make with publishers/OverDrive are very specific about who can access material and it tends to be limited to only local borrowers. The same thing often applies to database content.

16alcottacre
jan 4, 2012, 8:30 am

There are a lot of free e-books downloadable for the Nook from Internet Archive and Project Gutenberg, Mere. They are books that are public domain, but if you are interested in older books, you might check those sources.

17bymerechance
jan 4, 2012, 12:42 pm

I totally forgot about the publishers' limitations on e-book borrowing. And that, like databases, OverDrive subscriptions would be expensive for libraries. Anyway, thanks for the input ... I knew I could count on the Official Librarian answer from someone around here! And I haven't looked into those free e-book options yet, so I should do that.

18Kittybee
jan 7, 2012, 8:54 pm

Hi Mere! Starred your thread. :)

19bymerechance
jan 8, 2012, 5:33 pm

Hey Rachel!
\
Okay, I finished No One is Here Except All of Us but haven't managed to write my review yet. Basically, I feel that it was good but not quite the book I wanted. I'd prefer more actual history, but that's not the book's fault - at least it provided much better context/story/characters than my last not-historical-enough ER (All the Flowers in Shanghai, wholly NOT recommended). So I'll have to figure out some review-worthy impressions.

Beyond that, I'm rereading Blackout now that I've bought a copy. Why? Because I like it (and all its great historical details), whereas I don't think I'll like the library books I have out. Goals in action, here, people! ;)

20alcottacre
jan 8, 2012, 6:44 pm

As I loved Blackout and All Clear I cannot blame you for reading the former book again :)

21bymerechance
jan 9, 2012, 2:31 pm

Thanks, Stasia. I'm glad you approve. ;)

Okay, review time:
#1: No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel. Have you ever wished you could start over, with an entirely clean slate, no mistakes, no heartache? In Ramona Ausubel’s lyrical debut novel, the residents of one isolated Romanian village do just that. As told to us by the cabbage picker’s eleven-year-old daughter Lena, the townspeople choose to imagine a brand-new, safe world after finally hearing that World War II has broken out. The sole survivor of a nearby attack, whom everyone knows as “the stranger,” is tapped to record all the villagers’ prayers, from desperate wishes for peace to selfish desires for wealth.

Meanwhile, young Lena is handed over to her childless aunt and uncle, who first force her to act like the infant they never have, then rapidly age her past her comfort level. With her sense of self destroyed and her original family lost to her, Lena struggles to remember what is real and what is imagined. Her refrain “I almost remember who you are” becomes both promise and hope.

If you’re looking for historical fiction, this isn’t it. But for readers who are willing to sacrifice sweeping plot for haunting language and deep themes, No One is Here Except All of Us is a must-read. Ausubel uses the period as a backdrop to explore the extreme ways that we as a people manage to survive in the face of overwhelming hardship.

And because now I actually have a system that goes along with stars, I'm going with Four: Very Good, because it was good, even if not exactly what I wanted.

22bymerechance
Bewerkt: feb 22, 2012, 9:33 pm

Yesterday I stopped at a Barnes and Noble, where I could not locate John Green's just-released The Fault in Our Stars, but the local independent bookstore had a whole little display of copies with their proud yellow "Signed Copy" stickers. Score one for the little guy; I'd rather give them the $19 anyway.

I had no intention of finishing it so quickly, but I kind of went past the point where stopping was possible, plot-wise, choking-up-wise. So here's a disjointed review.

#2: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green. One could so easily write a recap of The Fault in Our Stars that makes it sound worse than any tragic Lifetime movie, which wouldn’t give this book anywhere near enough credit for the way it manages to transcend all the melodramatic cliché that usually comes along with young people dying of cancer.

One could also easily dissect the novel and find its themes – the misguided ways we wish to be remembered after death; the Maslow hierarchy is an insult to the human experience; books belong to their readers – already served up in four-minutes-or-less videos on vlogbrothers. But that doesn’t make their exploration in this story any less worthy. If the whip-smart characters are a little overly intellectual and pretentious, they are also recognizable as real teenagers. Their story is funny, and sad, and philosophical, often all at the same time.

23MickyFine
jan 11, 2012, 2:42 pm

>22 bymerechance: I'm looking forward to getting my copy which I pre-ordered on Amazon ages ago. *glares at Amazon*

24bymerechance
jan 11, 2012, 7:55 pm

At least that means Amazon stuck to the embargo date, unlike BarnesandNoble.com with their accidental leaking. Hope yours arrives soon!

25bymerechance
jan 18, 2012, 1:53 pm

#3: The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler. In 1996, sixteen-year-olds Emma and Josh are just logging on to the Internet via AOL dial-up (remember those days?!) and find they can access future versions of themselves on Facebook. How did Josh end up married to a member of the popular crowd? Why would Emma tell the universe what she’s having for dinner? Valid question. While the lessons they learn from glimpsing the future are predictable, they’re also worth remembering. Three.

#4: A Genius in the Family by Hiram Percy Maxim. In this brief and entertaining memoir, the author shares his childhood memories of growing up in Brooklyn with his eccentric father, the inventor Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim. Before changing the way wars are fought with his development of the automatic machine gun, Maxim was the kind of dad who told young Percy to plant a dead cat under a peach tree to grow better peaches and tricked him into thinking a bat had flown into the dumbwaiter. Percy also recalls visiting his grandparents in Wayne, Maine, where my own grandmother is from (her mother was a Maxim). I’ve never been too excited about being related to the inventor of the machine gun, of all things, but this showed a whole other, hilarious side of him. Four.

26MickyFine
jan 18, 2012, 5:29 pm

>24 bymerechance: It arrived yesterday but was a copy without the signature. Grr! So I sent an email and am getting a replacement copy (hopefully with my J Scribble in it). However, before sending the email, I started reading it on the bus this morning and it is good. :D

>25 bymerechance: Future of Us is already hanging out on the TBR list just for the very cute premise.

27bymerechance
jan 18, 2012, 8:48 pm

Ouch! I heard about that error too ... did you email Amazon or John Green himself? Because according to this blog post, John's dealing with replacement himself as Amazon seems to have somehow misplaced its signed copies. :/

One of my students went to the book tour event/nerdfighter gathering in NYC last week and was gushing to me about it today. "They signed things all night long! And Hank said he liked my shirt!" I kind of wish I'd blown off tutoring to go, too! :)

28brewergirl
jan 19, 2012, 10:33 am

25 > Glad you liked A Genius in the Family! After Christmas I decided that I needed to re-read it again.

29MickyFine
jan 19, 2012, 2:21 pm

>27 bymerechance: I went through Amazon. So we'll see what happens when copy #2 shows up. If it's still sans signature I may take up stalking John Green. Or you know, send him a tweet. ;) I'm so jealous of anyone who gets to go to a stop on the Tour de Nerdfighting. I also desperately wish I could afford to go to ALA midwinter as John Green is speaking. *sigh*

30bymerechance
feb 3, 2012, 5:45 pm

#5: 1491 by Charles Mann. This one had been on my shelves way too long: my aunt recommended it to me when I was going to take a class on pre-colonization America, but when the class got canceled I never got around to reading anything on the topic. I’m glad I finally read it: Mann provides a very interesting look at how our perceptions of those early native/European encounters have changed with new research. Four.

#6: Mayflower by Nathaniel Philbrick. So on the heels of 1491, I thought it would make sense to move chronologically and read another book I owned and had been meaning to get to. Again, this was a great new perspective – like I’d forgotten how many “Strangers” accompanied the Pilgrims across the Atlantic, and I knew next to nothing about King Philip’s War of the later seventeenth century. But reading two nonfiction back-to-back was not the best idea; I got weary of it by the end. Three.
///
With nonfiction overload, I knew it was time to head back to the library to get some new fiction. Also, I just got in the mail my ER win from January, Mr. Churchill's Secretary. I was very surprised to get that one, since it was so popular. I hope it lives up to the hype!

31MickyFine
feb 3, 2012, 9:22 pm

Whew. Two non-fiction in a row is quite the undertaking. I'm usually very happy with myself if I squeeze in one a month. Hope you find a nice novel to cleanse the palate. :)

32bymerechance
feb 6, 2012, 2:10 pm

>31 MickyFine: I know, right? It's funny, once upon a time (*cough* two years ago *cough*) I'd have to spend four months reading nothing but history books and never have a chance to read anything fictional. I could do that just fine when professors required it; not so much now that it's self-inflicted!

#7: The Things We Cherished by Pam Jenoff. This reminded me a lot of People of the Book: looking back at the origins of this heirloom (a super accurate, super ornate clock, in this case) that holds the key to something in the present (the Nazi-war-criminal trial of an elderly man). Very quick read, not particularly memorable for either good or bad reasons, so: Three.

33MickyFine
feb 6, 2012, 2:48 pm

During undergrad I still got a decent balance of fiction and non-fiction (one of the upsides to majoring in English and minoring in History) but grad school was a whole different thing. I still managed to squeeze in fictional extracurricular reading though. :)

34RosyLibrarian
feb 12, 2012, 8:44 am

I just realized that I starred you and never said hello, so I am delurking to say hello! I just checked out The Fault in Our Stars from the library so I am looking forward to comparing reviews.

35bymerechance
feb 12, 2012, 12:42 pm

Wow, I'm surprised you were already able to get it at the library. I hope you'll like it. I'm always a little disappointed when a YA book I want isn't in, but then I'm also kind of happy that teens in my town are reading the same good books I want to! :)

36RosyLibrarian
feb 12, 2012, 12:53 pm

35: It's a military base library so it doesn't have a large teen population to serve, which leaves lots of books for me to check out! But I agree, reading is good for teens and people of all ages.

37bymerechance
feb 13, 2012, 2:06 pm

#8: Mr. Churchill's Secretary by Susan Elia MacNeal. I made the mistake of reading the first review posted of this ER, which I happened to totally agree with. So it took me a while to be able to reformulate my own opinions without repeating that person's! Here goes:

British-born, American-raised Maggie Hope is in 1940 London, living with several roommates in her grandmother’s house while she tries to sell it. With her talent for math, she’d love to be a private secretary for new prime minister Winston Churchill, but only men get those coveted spots. She gets tapped to work at 10 Downing Street after all when another typist is murdered. She also decides to seek the truth about her long-dead parents.

Besides Maggie and her friends, MacNeal introduces the reader to the collaboration between IRA terrorists and an anti-Semitic group, both of whom want to bring down Churchill. I felt that there was far too much buildup to the action, which was then all over the place for the final third of the novel. Not all the twists and turns felt entirely believable, and there were some inconsistencies in the timeline that threw me off.

As a light mystery, Mr. Churchill’s Secretary does its job. As a window into the early months of Churchill’s tenure, it fell a bit flat for me. For a better sense of the period, I can only assume the accounts by Churchill’s actual secretaries, which MacNeal mentioned in her historical note at the end, would be more interesting.

#9: Story of a Girl by Sara Zarr. God, this book was sad. I mean, it was very powerfully written, and each character felt very realistic, perhaps because of their many faults, but man.

#10: It’s Classified by Nicolle Wallace. This book is quite possibly the opposite of Story of a Girl: not great literature, not all that realistic, but entertaining, even though I literally identified the bad guy from the first time he was introduced. Like Eighteen Acres, which introduced the characters of the first female president and her advisers, this was not as good as watching The West Wing, but it was way better than following real American politics. ;)

38RosyLibrarian
feb 14, 2012, 9:11 am

37: Hmmm. I think I asked for Mr. Churchill's Secretary from ER, but now it seems like I wasn't missing much.

I do however know what you mean about Story of a Girl. I really came to like Deanna. If you liked the writer's style her other book Sweethearts is pretty good too.

39bymerechance
feb 15, 2012, 12:27 pm

When I requested it, I didn't really realize it was a "cozy mystery." My mom loves them, and so she liked Mr. Churchill's Secretary much better than me. She claimed it was much better written than some mysteries, which definitely doesn't inspire me to read other mysteries!

I've read Sweethearts, but I don't remember it that well. I think I liked it, but not as much as some people who totally rave about it.

40MickyFine
feb 15, 2012, 3:39 pm

Sara Zarr actually has two other novels out. I read Once Was Lost and really enjoyed it and I do mean to get around to her newest book How to Save a Life soon. But yes, I totally understand your reaction to Story of a Girl. I loved it, but it definitely lands a punch.

41bymerechance
feb 22, 2012, 12:43 pm

#11: IQ84 by Haruki Murakami. Aomame is a fitness instructor (and secret assassin of men who assault women) who stumbles into a parallel universe she calls 1Q84 (instead of the ordinary 1984). Tengo is a math instructor and aspiring writer who is tapped to rewrite a dyslexic teenager’s fascinating but disorganized novella, whose world resembles Aomame’s 1Q84. Their stories slowly converge when both of them learn more about a creepy, quasi-religious cult called Sakigake.

Look, I was on board with all of this – I would have stopped reading, otherwise. But I expect a dystopia or alternate reality or whatever to be more purposeful. At the end of almost a thousand pages, there should really be a rationale behind all these weird elements you’ve created, but if so, it went over my head. Why are there two moons in the sky and Little People and split identities? Because Murakami felt like it. He didn’t feel like explaining any of it, though, which is what annoys me.

42MickyFine
feb 22, 2012, 2:05 pm

Sorry the book wasn't more to your taste, Mere. Hopefully the next one is better. :)

43RosyLibrarian
feb 22, 2012, 4:27 pm

41: Oh no, I had such high hopes for that one too. Murakami is a strange one, though his writing is so pretty.

44bymerechance
feb 22, 2012, 8:27 pm

42: Thanks, Micky!

43: This was my first Murakami, so I didn't really know what to expect. I checked out the LT reviews, which are either kind of mixed like mine or absolute raves. Maybe it'll work better for you, Marie!

45Whisper1
feb 24, 2012, 11:22 pm

stopping by to say hello oand to say I finished The Fault in our Stars. What a wonderful, wonderful book.

46bymerechance
Bewerkt: feb 29, 2012, 5:01 pm

#12: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. Hadley misses her flight to London, where she’ll be maid of honor at her father’s wedding to a woman she’s never met. Luckily, there’s an adorable British guy sitting next to her on the next flight, and as she says, “Is it possible not to ever know your type – not to even know you have a type – until quite suddenly you do?”

Oh, believe me, Hadley, it’s possible. Especially when said adorable British guy successfully distracts you from your claustrophobia with talking ducks, cumulus clouds, and opinions on matrimony. But when the plane lands, she’s still got to face her dad and stepmom-to-be, and Oliver has his own big family event. It’s obvious that they’ll meet again, but I was still surprised by the twist and the family issues explored. I really enjoyed this one.

#13: Then Everything Changed by Jeff Greenfield. Three alternate histories in American politics are explored here: What if JFK were assassinated in December 1960, before ever officially becoming President-elect? (It almost happened, and apparently almost no one remembers it.) What if RFK weren’t assassinated in June 1968? What if Ford hadn’t made a weird comment that alienated Eastern European immigrants in his October 1976 debate with Carter?

This was shelved in nonfiction at my library, but it’s clearly fiction, the way Greenfield conveniently dropped names of later political figures, or drew parallels to Obama/McCain in ‘08 with his hypothetical ’80 election. However, it was also rooted in enough reality that I realized I don’t know, like, anything about the Cuban Missile Crisis or the Iranian Revolution. Basically the perfect mix for me.

47rosalita
feb 27, 2012, 9:40 pm

Mere, you tagged me with the very intriguing-sounding Then Everything Changed. How odd that it was shelved as nonfiction at your library. Was it in the presidential biography section, or what? I know it's terribly ageist of me to think, "Must have been shelved by someone born in the 1990s or later." :)

That name Jeff Greenfield is ringing a bell with me; I wonder if he a TV journalist at one time or if I am mixing him up with some other guy?

48bymerechance
feb 27, 2012, 11:36 pm

It was in the 973s with all the real American history. I was born in 1988, and I wouldn't have put it there, for sure. :)

I hadn't heard of Greenfield, but he used to be a speechwriter and has worked for ABC, CBS and CNN, so I'm sure that's why he sounds familiar to you.

49MickyFine
feb 28, 2012, 2:51 pm

Just tossing in my two cents. I could see Then Everything Changed be classified as non-fiction because it is a history rather than a novel (I'm assuming, not having read the book). There's a subject heading for Imaginary histories, and from the bit of poking around I've done, many of the books that the subject heading is assigned to are classified as non-fiction. I think the key factor in deciding to place this book in non-fiction (and again, I haven't read it, so I could be wrong) is that the book is speculative and refers to events that actually happened and then discussing what could have happened. A fictional alternative history would fully immerse itself in the alternate course of events and never even discuss the actual course of events. Cataloguing can be a weird mental exercise sometimes. :)

50rosalita
Bewerkt: feb 29, 2012, 5:13 am

Mere, yes that's where I know Greenfield from: CNN and ABC. Guess he wanted an off-camera gig.

Micky, thanks for that very interesting perspective. I had no idea there was a subject heading for Imaginary Histories — sounds like something I need to check out at the library (ha, no pun intended).

51MickyFine
feb 29, 2012, 2:18 pm

>50 rosalita: No problem. I should give the disclaimer though, that while I did take a course in cataloguing in library school, I am by no means an expert. :)

52bymerechance
feb 29, 2012, 3:23 pm

An imaginary history heading - perfect. (Except for the fact that it was right alongside true histories on the shelf, but whatever.) Librarians think of everything, don't they? :)

There was a Dewey Decimal System category on Jeopardy the other night, and Alex Trebek kept making comments that the contestants wouldn't even know what it was. Hello, it was a teacher tournament, not a teen one. In elementary school, Library was still one of our five "specials," and we totally learned the Dewey Decimal System. Though that was in about 1996, and I doubt they still do it now, sadly...

53MickyFine
feb 29, 2012, 5:14 pm

>52 bymerechance: Well, when you're tasked with classifying the universe, you have to think of everything. ;) What's interesting is the revolt that's going on against DDC, especially in public libraries. I haven't been keeping active tabs on it, but all I ever think is that no organizational system is completely understandable to every person who uses it. *shrug*

54bymerechance
mrt 1, 2012, 2:23 pm

#14: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater. On the island of Thisby, dangerous water horses known as capaill uisce come ashore every October. Men capture them and attempt to wrestle them into submission for the Scorpio Races, won four years in a row by Sean Kendrick. But this year, a girl and her pony sign up. Kate “Puck” Connolly is trying to stop her older brother from going to the mainland, and if he does, she needs the prize money to keep her and her younger brother afloat.
Aside from the killer horses, Thisby could be a real place, with a harsh terrain and few opportunities, where some escape as soon as they can and others stay, loving the land despite its hardships. I fell in love with the characters as well as their horses (well, mostly the ordinary pony Dove, but Sean’s Corr is not as heartless as the other capaill uisce). Until I find an adult book with as good of a horse plot, I’ll happily read well-executed young adult fare like this. Four.

#15: Taft 2012 by Jason Heller. 2012 is the Mayan doomsday, the 100th anniversary of the Titanic, and 200th anniversary of the War of 1812, all of which have been fodder for recently published books. But this little satirical novel features a more unlikely hero: the man who was president a century ago reappears from his mysterious disappearance. I didn’t love the focus on the food industry (despite its parallels to Progressive legislation), but you can’t argue with Taft’s political ideology, which doesn’t fit into 21st century partisanship – you know, because it’s just too reasonable and moderate. No wonder the American people in the novel flock to him. Four.

55ALK982
mrt 1, 2012, 11:11 pm

Mere, I'm not sure that I could manage the speculative history (the number of times I tell my students not to speculate in their essays would probably lead me to cringe at the premise, just by default), but you've intrigued me with the other three of your latest reads. The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight sounds like it's exactly what I would want to reach for right now (nearly in Spring Break mode), I love a well-done YA dystopia (read: I'm looking for the next Hunger Games), and, well, Taft. I don't actually know as much about the president (as opposed to his brother) as I probably should-- would this be a decent place to start?

56bymerechance
mrt 2, 2012, 12:48 pm

Hey Allee! I think you'd like both YAs; they'd definitely be good spring break fare. By the way, is it terrible that I haven't read The Hunger Games yet?

As for Taft, the author doesn't really get into specifics about his presidency - even I could have used more details. He just alludes to general stuff, like how Taft was obsessed with following the letter of the law, and how he ended up feuding with Teddy Roosevelt.

57MickyFine
mrt 2, 2012, 2:44 pm

Yes, yes it is horrible that you haven't read The Hunger Games. ;) All I suggest is that you read it if you're planning on seeing the film. But I say that for every book that's been turned into a film.

58bymerechance
mrt 11, 2012, 12:43 pm

>57 MickyFine: I would have said I always read the book first, except that I saw The Descendants last night without having read the novel. Oh well. It made me want to learn more about Hawaii; if it gets me reading the book and possibly others, does that count?

So, clearly, I didn't like the second half of my latest library haul as much as the first. They're going back unread, in search of something better. But speaking of libraries...

I just read this article about "library critics" in my hometown, and it made me mad. Look, I don't know whether the $5 million renovation is necessary or exorbitant or what, and I don't live there anymore; I don't get a vote. But I sure as heck know that libraries are not as obsolete as blacksmith shops! (That lovely metaphor comes courtesy of one of the haters.)

Sure, we didn't need to shoe as many horses when cars came along, but we still needed a way to travel. So even if we don't read paper books, that doesn't mean we don't still need a way to read - and people to catalog the information. GRRR.

/end rant.

59muddy21
mrt 11, 2012, 1:03 pm

>58 bymerechance: People not just to catalog the information, but also to help us find the information we need and how to assess and analyze the information we find. And in a fortuitous combination of speculative history and Hawaii, you might look out for The Bones of Time by Kathleen Ann Goonan - I think it's currently out of print but you might find it at the library (!) or in ebook format.

60MickyFine
mrt 13, 2012, 2:54 pm

>58 bymerechance: It totally counts if the film motivates you to read the book. I've occasionally used that method to get through some classics (usually the Russians).

As for the news article, I'm actually working in a library right now doing research on library space. I don't want to go on and on, but suffice it to say that space is a public service, and as biased as I am (as a librarian myself), we provide services that go beyond paper books.

61bymerechance
Bewerkt: mrt 19, 2012, 1:52 pm

>59 muddy21: Hi Marilyn! I totally agree with you about the need for analysis - where the heck would we be if we only had information and no way of understanding it?! Yikes. And thanks for the recommendation!

>60 MickyFine: Of course you provide multiple public services! Librarians for the win! Haters to the left!

Anyway, the motion actually passed today despite all the vile opposition, so the library gets $5 million (out of a total $20) from the town for the renovation.

However, the library in my actual town could use a referendum for more funding itself - I went there today and found it closed. I'd forgotten that it doesn't open until 1 PM on Wednesday; it may be a public space, but it's not a terribly convenient one, unfortunately.

62bymerechance
mrt 14, 2012, 11:16 pm

#16: Killing Lincoln by Bill O’Reilly and Martin Dugard. I was suspicious of the historical accuracy here to begin with, because I generally feel like history should be left to the historians, not, you know, famous newscasters. That suspicion didn’t go away as I started reading and finding things that I don’t think we could possibly know about a 150-year-old assassination conspiracy… especially when there aren’t footnotes, hello. Nothing was egregious enough for me to throw the book across the room, though, so I kept reading.

Now, of course I’ve Googled the book and there are historical inaccuracies … but then, who am I to judge, given that I didn’t know the story of Lincoln’s assassination that well. Booth killed in a barn? Yeah, did not remember/know that. All the best little parts were in the end – also had no clue that Arlington National Cemetery used to belong to Robert E. Lee. Crazy.

63MickyFine
mrt 15, 2012, 2:20 pm

>61 bymerechance: Ugh! Reduced hours blow. I'm luck to currently work for a system that's pretty well-funded. In fact, it was just approved for all 17 branches to have Sunday hours year round instead of just during the school year. Yay!

>62 bymerechance: Oh sketchy history. I probably would have chucked that one up against a wall. I'm not sure if you deserve kudos or just sympathies for making it through the whole thing. :)

64bymerechance
mrt 19, 2012, 1:48 pm

>63 MickyFine: Haha, thank you, Micky!

#17: North and South by John Jakes. I was interested in this novel of two families in the antebellum period after lurking on the tutored read thread for it. I loved this period of American history when I first learned about it in high school, and Jakes dutifully hits upon each of the crazy attempts to forestall civil war, even if only in passing (Texas joining the Union/Mexican War, Compromise of 1850, Kansas-Nebraska Act, Bleeding Kansas, Sumner’s caning, Dred Scott case, Harper’s Ferry, Lincoln’s election). I found a bit of it implausible and ridiculous, but even all the star-crossed-love-at-first-sight couples introduced other conflicts besides just North/South, like religious divisions, which was good to see. I might get bored with the sequels, but I’ll still probably try them.

65bymerechance
apr 2, 2012, 2:13 pm

Oh dear, I'm behind. The first of these is an ER I finished a week and a half ago, which is why the review is rather short. Whoops. Anyway, here goes:

#18: Oxford Messed Up by Andrea Kayne Kaufman. Moving to Oxford to study feminist poetry was challenging enough for Gloria because of her OCD, even before she learns she has to share a loo with Henry, a slacker musician and recovering drug addict. But they share a love for Van Morrison, and Gloria soon finds herself spending time with him despite the protestations of her disorder.

Though I’m not familiar with either Van Morrison or Gloria’s dead female poets, I still felt drawn to the characters and their struggles. Kauffman tells a story about rising above one’s own personal demons without ever falling into mawkish, after-school-special territory. Instead, the novel balances its big issues with a refreshing quirkiness that is sure to endear many readers.

#19: Terrier by Tamora Pierce. Though I loved all the other Tortall books and still reread them, I’d given up on the first Beka Cooper installment once before. I decided to give it another chance, and while I liked it okay, I think it could have been edited down, and I still don’t feel compelled to read the rest of the trilogy.

#20: Ape House by Sara Gruen. I actually liked this one better than Water for Elephants. Of course I knew that apes could be taught sign language, but I didn’t realize that they can actually understand human speech and then respond in ASL. Very cool. I was worried about the reality TV aspect, but it was handled better than I expected, and I’ll just pretend the one little ridiculous, unnecessary paternity subplot at the end wasn’t there.

66bymerechance
Bewerkt: apr 21, 2012, 3:03 pm

(I'm super good at this. These are all books I read the week before last. Better late than never. ;) )

#21: The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman. Based on a Roman siege against hundreds of Jews in Masada in 70 CE, this novel tells the story of four women who have escaped to Masada and work together in the dovecotes. It took a while to get into while the first narrator was wandering the desert, and I got a bit bored by the end, but it was an interesting to read about an era I know so little about.

#22: How to Save a Life by Sara Zarr. Zarr’s latest is my favorite of hers. The story and characters rise far above what sounds like a nauseating premise: A year after Jill’s dad dies, her mom decides to adopt a baby and have the pregnant teen, Mandy, stay with them. I especially connected with Jill, who works at a bookstore, pushes away her friends and boyfriend, and generally tries to be super badass.

#23: Lone Wolf by Jodi Picoult. Really, I didn’t need to know this much about wolves, and Picoult never met a metaphor she didn’t like, but I also can’t pretend I hated it, or anything, because I clearly wanted to know what happened and read it all the way through, so.

#24: Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King. I hate when books are premised on some kind of mystery – that Vera knows how her best friend Charlie died but hasn’t told anyone – and then the truth doesn’t seem to be worth that much intrigue. Meh. Not a bad YA, just not great either.

67MickyFine
apr 26, 2012, 3:40 pm

I love Sara Zarr's books so much, I really do need to get to her newest one.

68bymerechance
apr 29, 2012, 4:03 pm

>67 MickyFine: Micky, I think you'll really like it, so I vote for reading it as soon as possible. :)

#25: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Somehow, even though I knew practically nothing but the premise going in, I still felt much of the suspense was ruined by A) the present-tense, first-person point of viewl guaranteeing Katniss’ survival, while B) knowing that fans are all “Team Peeta/Team Gale” guaranteed Peeta’s survival. The stakes of a fight-to-the-death are still sky-high, of course, but I guess that was part of the problem too, in that I would have preferred learning more about the rebellion, the makeup of the districts, etc. I’ve heard that’s addressed more in the sequels, but I’m not sure I care enough to read them.

#26: The Gods of Gotham by Lyndsay Faye. Historical fiction about a child-killer in 1845 New York City, when Irish immigrants are flooding into town (to the chagrin of the anti-Catholic locals, needless to say) and the police department has just been formed. Decent, though I didn’t find the characters that sympathetic.

#27: The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. I’ve been hearing a lot of positive buzz about this one, how it’s so much more than a baseball story, etc. And that is true: baseball is one of my least favorite sports (too much standing around), but I really understood how the characters, members of a small liberal arts school’s DIII team, could be so attached to it. I found the tone of Harbach’s writing to be weirdly ironic, especially at first, like he was trying to be pretentious and make fun of himself at the same time, or something. It reminded me a lot of I Am Charlotte Simmons in that way, to the point of distraction. Plus, the college president’s affair was also more than a little odd. Which all sounds pretty negative, and yet it all ended up being rather enjoyable in the end, somehow. Very strange, but I’ll take it.

69dk_phoenix
apr 30, 2012, 8:53 am

>65 bymerechance:: I'm with you on the paternity subplot in Ape House. It didn't add anything to the story, and just seemed to be there for the sake of a subplot... but otherwise, I really enjoyed the book too!

70RosyLibrarian
mei 6, 2012, 9:03 am

68: Hey Mere, did you continue on with the Hunger Games series?

71bymerechance
mei 6, 2012, 1:47 pm

>69 dk_phoenix: Glad I'm not alone in that assessment, Faith! Clearly Gruen thought she needed a little extra drama at the end, but I'm surprised an editor didn't push for its removal.

>70 RosyLibrarian: Not yet, Marie. I may do so at some point - after all, they're quick reads, so it won't take long - but I'm not sure.

72bymerechance
mei 17, 2012, 1:54 pm

The Hunger Games was actually the choice for my neighborhood book club. A few people couldn't get into it - including the only other person there my age, interestingly - but all the other ladies loved it. Some had gone out and gotten the sequels immediately, and the rest were planning to. Whereas I decided I didn't care enough to read them, but did care just enough to find out what happened (thank you, Wikipedia). And nothing I read there convinced me that I would have liked Catching Fire or Mockingjay any better than the first. It was funny to see everyone else get so into young adult literature, though!

Besides Hunger Games, I'd read more than half of two books before giving up on them. Usually at that point I'd rush through (again, just to find out what happened), but after a few days of not picking them up, I knew there was no point.

So, the next book I actually finished was:

#28: May the Road Rise Up to Meet You by Peter Troy. A Civil War-era novel with several threads: an Irish boy who immigrates to New York after surviving the hunger; Mary, a slave who works as a dressmaker in Richmond; Micah, a Deep South slave who learned carpenter skills from his father; and Marcella, a Spanish woman who supports abolition and women's rights despite her wealthy family's disapproval. I really liked having so many different voices and dialects, though it drove me crazy that only Marcella's sections used quotation marks for dialogue.

73bymerechance
jun 14, 2012, 5:35 pm

Oh, so behind. Here goes:

#29: Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore. I wish I had reread Graceling and Fire first, for the same reason that I ended up loving Bitterblue: its complexity. I stayed up late to finish and then rereading half of it to better appreciate the plot turns. I thought Cashore did a great job for the most part of exploring a nation’s attempt at rebuilding its societal fabric and political structure after a madman’s reign, and how a young queen can come to grips with creating her own legacy. The maps, codes and unique alphabet were a really nice touch, too.

#30: Digging to America by Anne Tyler. I enjoyed this novel of two very different families who adopt baby girls from Korea, even though the characters felt a bit stereotypical at times.

#31: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I thought I was going to like this so much more. I liked the idea of studying an Amazon tribe to find out why their women can have children into their sixties and whether that might also be a key to curing malaria, but – and major copy-editor neurosis coming up – it wasn’t as well-written as I expected. Like, there were run-on sentences, and whole pages without paragraph breaks, and I just got annoyed.

#32: Thumped by Megan McCafferty. The sequel to Bumped continued to explore a dystopia where only teens can get pregnant. Certain plot points were fairly obvious, but the underlying societal questions were still interesting.

#33: Mostly Good Girls by Leila Sales. Like Past Perfect, this was a hilarious yet deep YA novel. Violet and her best friend Katie have done everything together since starting at their prestigious all-girls school, but cracks begin to show when they get their PSAT scores back. I loved what this book turned out to be about: the gap between success and happiness, between what we think we want and what we actually need.

All my favorite books this year have been YAs. Not sure why, but I definitely don't care either way. :)

74bymerechance
jun 28, 2012, 2:35 pm

I have been abandoning books from the library right and left; I may have gotten too picky! So I was super excited to find these two - one a recommendation from my cousin (ALK182 here on LT - hi, Allee, if you're reading!), and the other I'd heard rumblings about when it came out and then forgot about until I saw it at the library.

Good thing, too, as I'd never have picked them up based on their stupid, unrepresentative titles (and in the case of the latter, an epically bad YA cover...please explain to me how a way-too-up-close shot of a girl's face symbolizes running away from a cult that doesn't want you to be studying an old manuscript).

#34: The Cookbook Collector by Allegra Goodman. This delightful novel did a brilliant job of balancing totally different characters and worlds, from late ‘90s tech companies going public to cataloguing rare, valuable cookbooks.

#35: The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman. Though this YA mystery got a little complicated and far-fetched, I loved how it was infused with sixteenth-century history, and the setting of Prague really came alive.

75bymerechance
jul 17, 2012, 8:00 pm

#36: The Submission by Amy Waldman. This novel imagines that a Muslim architect is unwittingly chosen to design the memorial for a 9/11-like terrorist attack. Obviously not an easy book to read, but it did its job well, presenting all the sides. I’m going to the real 9/11 memorial this weekend, so it’ll be interesting to see how that design works compared to the two described in the book.

#37: The Truth of All Things by Kieran Shields. In late nineteenth century Portland, Maine, a detective, a private investigator and a historian try to solve a series of murders based on the Salem witch trials. I read it quickly because I had to return it to the library before going to Portland, Maine, myself, but it was pretty good!

#38: Quiet by Susan Cain. I thought at first that I didn’t get much out of this, probably just because I was kind of familiar with the general premise, but after conversations with my similarly introverted relatives, it occurred to me that one of Cain’s traits of introversion totally explains something about me. (I have trouble focusing on one conversation in a crowded room – turns out that’s because my introverted brain is overstimulated by all the activity.) Also, the extrovert culture of personality that dominates business practices doesn’t exactly work (e.g., people come up with fewer good ideas when brainstorming in a group). So yeah, definitely worth reading.

#39: The Bellwether Revivals by Benjamin Wood. This novel drew me in with its beautiful cover of Cambridge, and I kind of missed the fact that it’s about a musical genius who thinks he can heal people through hypnotism. I still liked it, but it was a tiny bit creepy.

76bymerechance
Bewerkt: sep 8, 2012, 9:29 pm

Halfway catching up:

#40: Little Bee by Chris Cleave. I absolutely loved Little Bee’s point of view and spot-on observations about English language and culture; Sarah was an equally compelling narrator. I just didn’t really like the ending.

#41: Swimming by Nicola Keegan. Should have stopped reading. Turns out an ordinary Midwestern girl with a broken family who swims her way to the Olympics can be bad if it’s in that haphazard voice and structure I hate where you never feel like you get to know or care about any of the people involved.

#42: Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn. Is the sociopathic manipulation at hand between this disappeared wife and suspected husband a bit unbelievable? Yes. Is it fun to read about anyway? Also yes.

#43: Gold by Chris Cleave. As novels about the Olympics go, this was way better, even if track cycling is one of the few Olympic sports I don’t get. I didn’t see the twist coming, and I don’t usually appreciate such turns of melodrama, but I still sympathized with Zoe, Kate, Jack, and Sophie.

#44: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot. Not what I was expecting. I feel like one of my main questions (no, really, why do her cells in particular keep multiplying and surviving?) wasn’t even answered, probably because the author seemed to be trying to address too many issues at once.

#45: The Sandcastle Girls by Chris Bohjalian. During World War I, the Turks of the Ottoman Empire systematically relocated and massacred one million Armenians. Chris Bohjalian, himself the grandson of genocide survivors, ably paints the setting of little-known horrors, just as he did with the last months of World War II in Skeletons at the Feast.

Here, the star-crossed characters are Elizabeth, a Bostonian providing aid to refugees in Aleppo, Syria, and Armen, who has survived the bloodbath in his hometown. Other sections come from their granddaughter Laura, reexamining her forgotten Armenian heritage. We know Elizabeth and Armen end up together in America; the question is how.

Where The Sandcastle Girls suffers is in its structure and pacing (even aside from pretending Laura is actually writing a book, a conceit that never seems to work as well as intended). For a while, Laura’s segments provide only subtle clues about her grandparents’ big secret before dropping a big clue that is then left hanging for many chapters. Before all was revealed, I could already see the secret coming and could tell it wouldn’t be worth the buildup. In fact, the story might have been better told with Laura’s sections, but I suspect Bohjalian was too attached to the present-day character that mirrored him.

However, though that makes for a somewhat unsatisfying reading experience, the sense of futility does reflect the historical reality. (A particularly nice, if heavy-handed, touch is the German soldiers who don’t agree with their Turkish allies’ deplorable actions.) And because this is a novel, Bohjalian is able to give a happy ending to at least some of his 1915 characters, providing a fairly good balance by informing the reader without leaving you feeling hopeless.

77bymerechance
sep 29, 2012, 6:17 pm

Actually catching up (in two posts):

#46: The Language of Flowers by Vanessa Diffenbaugh. Funny story: I totally convinced myself that this book took place in the Victorian era until I started reading it. Nope: former foster girl in present-day San Francisco. Decent.

#47: The Innocents by Francesca Segal. Orthodox Jewish couple in London. I kind of wanted to hate the guy for being attracted to his fiance’s cousin, but his point-of-view was so well-written that I really didn’t. Not a bad application of my London fixation.

#48: This Bright River by Patrick Somerville. Two people in their thirties return to their Wisconsin hometown. Got a little scattered and unnecessarily crazy.

#49: In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson. Only gripe: Bryson glazed over the Australian government’s many abuses against Aborigines. On the other hand, the book was written before the prime minister’s official apology, so at least it's gotten a little better since then. Long live the unique insanity of Down Under!

#50: Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness. If Matthew would stop being such a controlling ass and giving me bad Twilight flashbacks, I would like this series a lot better. I mean, this one wasn’t just about history; it took place IN 1590 (London, France, Prague). That should be awesome.

#51: My Life Next Door by Hadley Fitzpatrick. I accidentally read the little blurb on the CIP page, which gave away part of a major plot point from the second half of the book. Not cool. Not a bad YA, though.

78bymerechance
Bewerkt: sep 29, 2012, 6:20 pm

#52: Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham. Three former best friends road-trip to a reunion concert for the boy band they worshipped in middle school. FYA complained how the characters kept bringing up the freshman dance where they stopped being friends, and usually that would bug me too, especially if the conflict ended up being too trivial for the buildup – except that they were fourteen, and when you’re fourteen, everything that should be trivial is instead life-and-death. It was totally realistic and relatable. Really fun read.

#53: Boleto by Allyson Hagy. Note to self: Do not keep reading books (especially adult ones) just because they’re supposed to be about horses. They will always disappoint you.

#54: Jasmine Nights by Julia Gregson. I never received this as an ER back in the spring – no real loss since I wouldn’t want it on my shelves anyway. I’m not sure what was wrong with the writing, but I just was not feeling the characters (pilot and ENSA singer) or even the setting (Egypt in WWII). Meh.

#55: Ten Girls to Watch by Charity Shuman. You know, I don’t think I could have read this before getting a job, but as it was, I loved it. Where are all the other books about twenty-something girls struggling to make it in today’s economy, huh? (Although the book supposedly took place in 2007, when it should have been way easier to get a writing/publishing job…)

#56: The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein. I’d been skeptical of a book narrated by a dog, but Stein managed to pull it off. Good stuff.

#57: Bunheads by Sophie Flack. I used to love dance when I was little in New Jersey. Reading about a girl who made it at an NYC dance company brought that all back. Enjoyable YA.

79bymerechance
dec 2, 2012, 6:18 pm

Another massive catch-up:

#58: The World Without You by Joshua Henkin. One of those character-driven family novels that aren’t actually about anything, but I like them when they’re well-done – it’s the kind of book I would write if I had the discipline to put it all together.

#59: The Final Four by Paul Volponi. I’ve been wanting to read this since seeing it on FYA around March Madness, and it did not disappoint.

#60: The Distant Hours by Kate Morton. Meh. Just have a gothic novel if that’s what you want; why you gotta get my hopes up with the historical aspect that’s not really about history at all?

#61: Winter of the World by Ken Follett. For some reason not quite as compelling as the first installment, and WWII is just way too big a subject to cover in a single novel, no matter how massive. Still good, though, and I’m definitely interested in reading more about some tidbits. (Including some stuff about postwar Europe – this despite the fact that I did a thesis on the postwar displacement camps. Way too big a subject, I’m telling you.)

#62: The Expats by Chris Pavone. Completely insane thriller in Luxembourg, but not bad for all that.

#63: Dedication by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus. Structurally and writing-wise, it wasn’t the best, and I kept worrying that it would have the wrong ending, but this chick-lit writing duo pulled it out in the end.

80bymerechance
dec 2, 2012, 6:19 pm

#64: Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead. And this is how not to do a character-driven family novel, or at least not for me, since it focused on all the characters I could care less about. Irritating.

#65: All We Ever Wanted Was Everything by Janelle Brown. A little over the top, and again I liked the older sister way better than the mother or younger sister, but way more fun than the former, for some reason – the satire elements worked better for me here, I guess.

#66: Intuition by Allegra Goodman. One of my college roommates is struggling in a chemistry PhD program, and this did not paint a pretty picture of how it will be when she becomes a postdoc. Really interesting to me because of that, and very well-written.

#67: Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein. I’ll be honest, in the first half, I was all, “Is this going to be like The Book Thief, where I’m somehow missing the amazingness?” And then it got so good. I’ll have to reread it at some point to make all the connections.

#68: The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde. Pretty sure I missed more than half the literary references, since I don’t much like classic lit (and I’m certainly never reading Jane Eyre now that I know the entire plot), but that didn’t matter. An alternate history world in which there’s an entire division of special ops for literary detectives? I’m in.

#69: Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. And now it turns out that there’s a place called Jurisfiction in which characters ensure the integrity of their books, yet also jump around in the backstory where there are no authors to dictate the narrative? Even better. Who needs Swindon when you have that? So the third book, sending Thursday to the Well of Lost Plots, will probably be even better, but I’m waiting a bit to start it lest I overdose on the whole series too quickly.

81dk_phoenix
dec 3, 2012, 8:48 am

I've heard so many amazing things about Code Name Verity... it's on the Christmas wishlist now, so here's hoping...!

82bymerechance
dec 4, 2012, 2:08 pm

Hi Faith! I feel like I shouldn't say anything else good about Code Name Verity because I don't want your reading of it to suffer from inflated expectations - that happens to me all the time. I'll just cross my fingers that you enjoy it as much I did in the end. :)

83bymerechance
dec 23, 2012, 5:13 pm

#70: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. This ranks nowhere as high as The Scorpio Races in my book, mainly because I was rolling my eyes whenever the “Blue will kill her true love when she kisses him!” prophecy was referenced. However, I’ll probably track down the sequels simply on the strength of Stiefvater’s signature style and strangely compelling characters.

#71: Team of Rivals by Doris Kearns Goodwin. An instance where seeing the movie (Lincoln) first paid off: it impressed me so much that I was motivated to read the entirety of Kearns Goodwin’s engaging and well-researched doorstop on Lincoln and his cabinet. The movie’s Thirteenth Amendment saga was relegated to only a few pages here, but Lincoln displayed his uncanny ability to manage people and get results on a thousand other occasions in his time in his office. I’m now convinced that the nation would be much better off if every president asked himself, “What would Lincoln do?” whenever he faced a major decision or crisis. Totally brilliant.

#72: The Yellow Birds by Kevin Powers. I’d heard a lot of positive buzz about this one – the cover blurb called it The Things They Carried for the Arab wars, and it’s an apt description. Not my favorite, but definitely thought-provoking and worth reading.

#73: Every You, Every Me by David Levithan. Evan’s best friend Ariel is gone, and maybe he could deal with that if mysterious photographs of her didn’t keep showing up around him. A very quick but powerful little novel. Sometimes I can’t get behind stream-of-consciousness, in-the-narrator’s-head stories, and sometimes, like here, it totally works for me. I especially liked Evan’s cross-outs – whether random asides or painful truths, they added a great level of subtext.

84MickyFine
dec 24, 2012, 6:15 pm

Getting close to the magic number, Mere. I'm rooting for you. :)

85bymerechance
jan 27, 2013, 4:24 pm

Because I forgot to list my last book here...and no, I don't care at all that I ended on 74. I knew it was going to happen because I was reading nonfiction between Christmas and New Year's, and while I could have tried to squeeze in another YA, I didn't have one handy, so 74 it is. :)

#74: How the Scots Invented the Modern World by Arthur Herman. A bold assertion, but not one I’m going to argue with; I’m one-quarter Scottish and dying to go back (I went to Edinburgh while abroad in college but want to visit the areas where my ancestors live). Around the seventeenth and eighteenth century, Scotland was the poorest nation in Western Europe and yet had pretty widespread primary education, which was a big factor in how all these Scottish philosophers ended up being so influential. Philosophy isn’t my cup of tea, so I read more for entertaining tidbits: “blackmail” comes from the fact that Highlanders called rent “mail” and that most of their cows were black; Sir Walter Scott basically invented both the mass market for novels and the genre of historical fiction, for which I think we all thank him.

86MickyFine
jan 28, 2013, 2:59 pm

Still a win! :)