Booking Through Thursday - Highlights

It’s an old question, but a good one... What were your favorite books this year?
List as many as you like - fiction, non-fiction, mystery, romance, science-fiction, business, travel, cookbooks - whatever the category. But, really, we’re all dying to know. What books were the highlight of your reading year in 2007?

In the beginning of the new year I'll be posting my list of books read in 2007 and discussing whether I've met my reading goals, but I am more than happy to "talk" about some of my favorite books from the past year right now.

I'll focus on fiction because that's what I read most.

Best fluffy read
The Royal Treatment by MaryJanice Davidson. I thought this was just a cute, fun read. I liked the alternate history aspect of it and that it didn't take itself too seriously.
My second choice would be the Southern Vampire (Sookie Stackhouse) series by Charlaine Harris. So far I've read Dead Until Dark, Living Dead in Dallas, Club Dead, Dead to the World, and Dead as a Doornail (you can read some comments here). Apparently they are making a television series based on the novels. I'm not sure that I'll want to watch it.

Best new installment in a series
First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde, the 5th book in the Thursday Next series. I love how this book illuminates Thursday's character and explains so much about how she acts in the earlier books. Fforde, and his seemingly boundless imagination, never fails to delight me.
Many a reader would choose Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling for this honor, but not me (you can read my comments on book 7 here).

Best audio
The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirrezvani, read by Shohreh Aghdashloo. I loved this book and I thought the audio version was absolutely fantastic (read my review).
My second choice would be The Witch's Boy by Michael Gruber, read by Dennis O'Hare. I thought the book was enchanting and probably would have liked it just as much on paper. I have a hardcover copy on my wishlist.

Best adult fiction
I'm not going to try to pick one favorite. Here are some books that stuck out this year:
- Oracle Night by Paul Auster
- A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
- The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Audrey Niffenegger
- Torch by Cheryl Strayed (I read this one for WestofMars' Debut a Debut contest; read my review)

Best young adult fiction
Same as above.
- His Dark Materials series (The Golden Compass et al) by Philip Pullman (yes, I hadn't read this series before last March)
- LionBoy by Zizou Corder
- Magyk (Septimus Heap, book 1) by Angie Sage (a great start to the series, the other books thus far haven't been quite as good)

I also wanted to highlight some wonderful authors I discovered in 2007:

• Shannon Hale, author of Goose Girl, Enna Burning, Princess Academy, River Secrets (read my review), Austenland, and The Book of a Thousand Days.


• Nalo Hopkinson, author of Brown Girl in the Ring, Midnight Robber, The Salt Roads, The New Moon's Arms (read my review), and numerous works of short fiction.

This was a wonderful question. I'm really looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to recommend.

Christmas and Boxing Day Books

I received a lovely bunch of books over the past few days. In fact, I feel like I'm swimming in knitting books - not that that's a bad thing ;)

Some wishlist books for Christmas:

• Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles by Jeanette Winterson (I've been trying to collect all the books in The Myths series);


• The Best of Interweave Knits: Our Favorite Designs from the First Ten Years (I think I'm going to use some of my Christmas money to get a subscription to Interweave Knits);


• Fitted Knits: 25 Designs for the Fashionable Knitter by Stefanie Japel (I particularly like that this book is supposed to show readers how to customize each project to his/her own unique body);


• Knitspeak: An A to Z Guide to the Language of Knitting Patterns by Andrea Berman Price (my friend Janelle told me that this was a must-have);


• One-Skein Wonders by Judith Durant (full of patterns that only use one ball/skein of yarn, how very practical); and


• preordered More Big Girl Knits: 25 Designs Full of Color and Texture for Curvy Women by Jillian Moreno (I'm going to be very happy to get this next spring).

Two more knitting books that Russell picked out all on his own:

• Knitting Lingerie Style: More Than 30 Basic and Lingerie-Inspired Designs by Joan McGowan-Michael (doesn't this one looks like a knitting book a man might get his wife?) and


• No Sheep for You: Knit Happy with Cotton, Silk, Linen, Hemp, Bamboo & Other Delights by Amy R. Singer (my dad teased Russell that he only got this one because of the cover).

I also got four books from my Boxing Day exchange partner:

• The 3rd and 4th books in Rachel Caine's Weather Warden series: Chill Factor and Windfall (now I need book 2 lol);


• The Royal Pain, the 2nd book in MaryJanice Davidson's Alaskan Royals series (I thought the first book was cute and have had a hard time getting my hands on the other books in the series); and


• The Love Season by Elin Hilderbrand.

Wishing you all the very best this holiday season...

Booking Through Thursday - And, the Nominees Are...

1. What fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007?
2. What non-fiction book (or books) would you nominate to be the best new book published in 2007?
3. And, do "best of" lists influence your reading?

This post is a day late because when I started to answer this week's questions yesterday I realized that I haven't really read enough 2007 titles to answer the first two questions properly. I've decided to stick with number three.

"Best of" lists don't influence my reading too much. I do like to look at them to see what books made the cut and sometimes I do get ideas from them, but lists ("best of" or not) definitely don't dictate my reading schedule. That seems like such a short answer, but there it is.

Happy holidays, everyone!

book clubbing in December

Because the Libraries' holiday party was scheduled for today, our book club meeting was rescheduled for Thursday of last week. Voting for our 2008 and 2009 selections is going on right now - so exciting - so expect that list to be posted sometime in the middle of next month (the results of our last round of voting are listed in this post).

In any case, our selection for this month was Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood by Marjane Satrapi.

Persepolis is Satrapi's wise, funny, and heartbreaking memoir of growing up in Iran during the Islamic Revolution. In powerful black-and-white comic strip images, Satrapi tells the story of her life in Tehran from ages six to fourteen, years that saw the overthrow of the Shah's regime, the triumph of the Islamic Revolution, and the devastating effects of war with Iraq. The intelligent and outspoken only child of committed Marxists and the great-granddaughter of one of Iran's last emperors, Marjane bears witness to a childhood uniquely entwined with the history of her country.

I was excited to read the book because I've had Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return (rescued from the bargain bin at a local independent bookstore) on my shelves for a while without a good excuse to pick up the first book.

Persepolis was a relatively quick read, but one that bears re-reading. I really appreciated how Satrapi's drawing style complimented the subject matter (expressive, but spare so as to not overwhelm the actual story she was telling). Probably my favorite part of the book was Marji's relationship with God and how it is depicted.

For some of the people in our book club, this was their first experience with graphic novels. A librarian who specializes in graphic novels was in attendance so he ended up leading the discussion. And, while there is much to discuss in the book itself, we ended up talking mostly about graphic novels in general.

Booking Through Thursday - Catalog

Do you use any of the online book-cataloguing sites, like LibraryThing or Shelfari? Why or why not? (Or... do you have absolutely no idea what I’m talking to?? (grin))
If not an online catalog, do you use any other method to catalog your book collection? Excel spreadsheets, index cards, a notebook, anything?

Yes, I use LibraryThing.



It really is a fun thing to do, "cataloging" your books (especially since you don't actually have to remember your MARC codes to do it). My LT library is definitely still a work in progress. I add new books as they come in, but I haven't been able to get the base collection completely entered yet.

Russell's started entering his books as well. He has his own LT library and gets a huge kick out of being the only person to own a particular book.

Scholastic warehouse sale

So, yesterday after work I got wrangled into going to the Scholastic warehouse sale. I didn't want to go. Last time I went I spent lots of money and our place is overflowing with books as it is. But, I did end up going and I was actually very good. I only bought five books (strangely enough they had computer games, though, and I ended up buying three of those for Russell).

The Artemis Fowl Files by Eoin Colfer.
I've actually read this book (a library copy), but I picked it up in order to complete our collection of Artemis Fowl books.

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale.
After reviewing River Secrets, I really wanted to read more of Hale's fiction so I was tickled to be able to pick up this book yesterday.

The Shadow Thieves by Anne Ursu.
This book, the first installment in a new fantasy series (the Cronus Chronicles), looked so good I just had to pick it up. It was my impulse buy.

Skippyjon Jones by Judith B. Schachner.
With Simi and Maaji at home I couldn't pass up this story of a Siamese kitten with an overactive imagination. I keep seeing it featured (accompanied by a cute plush) in the children's catalogs we've been receiving lately.

Stravaganza: City of Masks, the first book in a YA trilogy by Mary Hoffman.
I've heard good things about this series (good enough to get the books on my BookCrossing wishlist) so I picked up this book just before I reached the check-out counter.

Booking Through Thursday - OOP

Do you have a favourite book, now out of print, that you would like to see become available again?

At first I was racking my mind trying to come up with something to write in response to this week's question - then a lightbulb went off. There is indeed one out-of-print book that I've been trying to get my hands on for quite some time - Arlo and Janis: Bop 'Til You Drop (currently available used for $195). I wouldn't consider it a favorite, but it is definitely a title I wish was still in print.

book clubbing in November

It's the end of November, I can hardly believe it. Where has this year gone?

Like I mentioned yesterday, my book club met on Wednesday. This time we discussed The Stolen Child by Keith Donohue, a book inspired by the W.B. Yeats poem of the same title. Of course, I left my copy of the book at work so I don't have it with me to reference as I write this post (but, c'est la vie).

I first heard of The Stolen Child when a read my friend Janelle's review of the book. A number of us wanted to read the book, but I scheduled it far in advance in hopes that it'd be more readily available after it came out in paperback. Because of that time lag, I didn't remember much about the book. In fact, I didn't remember the most important thing about the book, which is that the faeries/hobgoblins/changelings in the story are creatures who were originally human children (in all the other changeling stories I've read -- most recently The Moorchild by Eloise Mcgraw -- the human children are stolen by beings of a completely distinct fantastical race). That twist on the changeling myth gives the novel much more weight. [I got pulled away to watch a movie on TCM]

In any case, my response to the book fell pretty much in line with the response of my other book club members. I (we) found the book compelling, but quite disturbing at times (it's hard to discuss details without including spoilers). The book was a challenging read, but definitely worth it (though I probably would not recommend it to parents of young children). There is so much detail, that the novel makes great discussion fodder for a book club. My one criticism of the book is that there are some completely unnecessary coincidences (two big ones), which made (at least for me) the story a little less believable.

Booking Through Thurday - Rolling (and apologies)

Yes, I haven't been posting. Things have been crazy here with catching up after jury duty and the Thanksgiving holiday. I'm sorry for neglecting the blog. I really am going to try to get back on track. Tomorrow I'll have the monthly book club report (we met yesterday) and with any luck I'll be able to eek out another post over the weekend. Thanks for being patient with me.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled programming...
Do you get on a roll when you read, so that one book leads to the next, which leads to the next, and so on and so on?
I don’t so much mean something like reading a series from beginning to end, but, say, a string of books that all take place in Paris. Or that have anthropologists as the main character. Or were written in the same year. Something like that... Something that strings them together in your head, and yet, otherwise could be different genres, different authors...

Yes, I guess this does happen to me sometimes. In fact I have been know to read a bunch of books from a series in a row (though not from beginning to end, or at least not that I remember). Other times I get in the mood for a type of book: I'll feel an urge to read only mysteries for a week or two or have a real hankering for historical fiction (though I won't usually restrict myself to a particular time period). Usually, though, I try to mix it up. I do read a lot (last year I hit 200) so I find that when I read a bunch of the same kind of books in a row they tend to run together in my mind and I can have a hard time making distinctions between them.

Booking Through Thursday - Preservatives

Re. writing notes in our books: Are you a Footprint Leaver or a Preservationist?

When I was in college, I took great joy in underlining and jotting notes in the margins of my books, but I don't really do that much anymore. Now (when I'm reading a book to review) I tend to take notes on a pad of paper and sometimes use little Post-it flags to mark particular words or lines.

While my college books were not disposable (I always planned to keep them all in my library), they were to some extent "working" copies. My highlighting and note-taking were part of my close reading of the texts and preparation for class discussions.

jury duty

Yes, that's why I haven't been posting lately. I just haven't had much time to be on the computer (and I've been too worn out do much more than catch up on email when I have snuck onto the computer at home). The trial I'm on should be done by next Thursday so things should get back to normal at the end of next week.

Booking Through Thursday - Oh, Horror!

What with yesterday being Halloween, and all... do you read horror? Stories of things that go bump in the night and keep you from sleeping?

I don't tend to read horror (though I did go through a phase in middle/high school where I did). Of course I do come across books that keep me up at night, but they don't necessarily belong to the horror genre. Sometimes things that happen in literary fiction (for example) can be just as if not more disturbing than things that happen in horror.

Speaking of Halloween, I did receive a couple spooky books this week as part of a secret exchange: My Haunted House and The Sword in the Grotto by Angie Sage. They're not horror, but they're still perfect fit for a Halloween exchange. Because I've been thinking of getting this series for my niece (she's a voracious reader and I've really enjoyed Sage's Septimus Heap books so far), I actually read them both right away so I can assure you all that they are wonderful little books for younger readers (they're targeted toward 7-10 year-olds, I think).

Nineteen Minutes

I recently read Jodi Picoult's most recent novel, Nineteen Minutes.

Note: This blog post does not contain any spoilers, but it also doesn't include my full reaction to the book. If you'd like to read it all, check out my BookCrossing journal entry.

Picoult writes what I call issue fiction. At this point I've read quite a number of her books (Keeping Faith, Mercy, My Sister's Keeper, The Pact, Plain Truth, The Tenth Circle), but the first one I read (Plain Truth) remains my favorite though I'm not sure why (my first taste of her? the Amish angle? the twist? the quasi-happy ending, which I mention a little later in this paragraph, actually making sense in the story?). Some of her books (and this one in particular) are just so depressing reading them is almost unbearable at times. The disconnect is how she always manages to come up with a quasi-happy ending.

I wasn't in high school at the time of the Columbine shootings, but I was in my 2nd year of college and I remember being glued to the television set. This isn't an easy subject and I guess Picoult handled it well in Nineteen Minutes. The twist was a bit much, but I guess it is in keeping with her style. Yes, things are never black-and-white, but I think sometimes Picoult blurs things overly much to get her point across.

Booking Through Thursday - Read with Abandon?

The books that you start but don’t finish say as much about you as the ones you actually read, sometimes because of the books themselves or because of the circumstances that prevent you from finishing. So... what books have you abandoned and why?

Most recently I abandoned No Great Mischief by Alistair MacLeod. I'm sure that it's not a bad book (in fact I've heard many good things about it), but I just couldn't get into it. I just wasn't in the right mindset for it so I decided to send it on to it's next reader instead of letting it collect dust around the house.

I also have a book that's currently languishing. I started reading it, but haven't yet finished. I think I'm about a third of the way through. The problem with this one is that it just wasn't what I was expecting. I fully intend to finish it though - maybe I'll try to pick up again this weekend.

I used never to give up on books because I'd feel so guilty about it, but I've started to be more open to starting, but not finishing after joining BookCrossing since I have so many books coming in (there some days I'm sure that our postal carrier curses my name). There are so many books out there that I really shouldn't be spending time reading books I really don't want to read. Of course I still feel guilty about it, but when I do I try to remember Nancy Pearl's Rule of 50.

book clubbing in October

This month's book club pick was The Poet and the Murderer by Simon Worrall. I find that fact that our other nonfiction title for 2007 was The Professor and the Madman kind of amusing. I'm sure that the two were chosen because of subject matter, but it does seem that we respond in some way to that title format.

Voting for our 2008 selections will happen next month and I'll be posting our reading list for next year in early December at the latest. A list of our 2007 (and late 2006) selections is available here if you are interested.

Anyway, about the book: First of all, it really wasn't what I expected. Because of the title I assumed there would be a more even handling of Dickinson and Hofmann. As it was, Dickinson seemed pretty tangential to the story the author was trying to tell. We learn all about Hofmann and his personal history, the LDS Church (historic and contemporary), the rare book and manuscript trade, auction houses, early American printing, and forgery techniques, but very little about Miss Dickinson (beyond little tidbits and theories tossed into the narrative journalistically). Hofmann's story is compelling in and of itself and I'd almost rather that Worrall didn't try to merge it with Dickinson's.

You can tell that The Poet and the Murderer was Worrall's first book and that his background is in journalism. The narrative is very episodic with an emphasis on the more exciting or salacious details (for example, it seemed like Worrall rushed through the murders and what let up to them, but he was very explicit about what happened to the female victim, explicit enough to turn your stomach).

All this isn't to say that we didn't like the book. I think most of us did (or at least found it quite interesting). We liked that the tale began from the perspective of a librarian. And, I think we all learned more about Mormonism and forgery than we'd known before. But, we didn't like the typographical errors or that fact that Worrall didn't really reference his sources.

Booking Through Thursday - Typography

What’s the worst typographical error you’ve ever found in (or on) a book?

You know what? I really don't know. Many books put out these days are very poorly edited. I usually try to put those typographical errors out of my mind. Recently, though, I picked up a book where the protagonist's name was mentioned a number of times in the back-cover synopsis and misspelled one of those times.

a couple more birthday books

Two more birthday books arrived in the mail yesterday:

- Go to Sleep, Russell the Sheep by Rob Scotton
I happened across this book by accident and put it on my wishlist because it was just too cute.

- Domiknitrix: Whip Your Knitting Into Shape by Jennifer Stafford
Very cool book. There's a hat in here that I really want to knit.

recent reading

I've been really hard to please lately, so I guess that's why I'm so backlogged with my real reviews. So, here's my critical look at some of the books I've read recently.

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine
Glass Houses is book one of Rachel Caine's Morganville Vampires series. I liked the first book in the Weather Warden series (Ill Wind), but so far I'm not really crazy about the Morganville Vampires. That's not to say that I won't read other books in the series, but I'm not going to actively search them out.

It's refreshing to have the vampires be evil (I actually have been reading paranormal novels lately and it seems that most all of them with vampires have either a benign or positive take on them), but the book was darker than I expected or was in the mood for.

Hullabaloo in the Guava Orchard
by Kiran Desai
I have to admit that I expected so much more from this novel. Maybe I had unrealistic expectations after hearing so much good press and maybe I just wasn't in the right mindset for it when I read it, but I thought it was just OK. I like Desai's writing, but I didn't find the story nearly as enchanting as I was expecting to.

In the Country of Men
by Hisham Matar
I think this is one of those books that I just wasn't in the correct mindset for when it came into my life. I read it, but I wasn't terribly impressed. The book isn't long, but it took me a while to read it because I didn't find it particularly compelling. I mean, the book is depressing (in addition to being well-written) and that's exactly not what I needed to be reading at the moment.

Oh My Goth by Gena Showalter
This was a VERY quick read. The concept was definitely interesting (talk about a scared straight program!), but the story itself was pretty predictable. It's almost as if the author was so pleased with herself for coming up with such a good concept that she didn't feel she had to try particularly hard with the rest. I don't regret reading the book, but it would have been nice if it's story had been a bit more substantial (though I'm not really part of the intended audience of the book so I can afford to be critical).

Booking Through Thursday - Live and In-person

* Have you ever met one of your favorite authors? Gotten their autograph?
* How about an author you felt only so-so about, but got their autograph anyway? Like, say, at a book-signing a friend dragged you to?
* How about stumbling across a book signing or reading and being so captivated, you bought the book?

The quick answers: Sort of. Yes. No.

When I was in 9th grade (I think) I ran into Jennings Michael Burch (author of They Cage the Animals at Night) at a Chinese restaurant in Chappaqua, NY. I had just read (or was then reading) that moving book so the timing was really fortuitous. He inscribed my copy of the book in such a meaningful way that I really felt a connection with him. My short answer was "sort of" only because I'm not sure I'd consider Burch one of my favorite authors. They Cage the Animals at Night, however, is very good reading; I recommend it.

I got tons of books signed at BookExpo Canada this year (see this post) by authors I'd never heard of before. Some of the books look really fantastic and I plan to read them (if I haven't already), but others look only so-so.

Strangely enough, I don't think I've ever really stumbled across a reading or book signing. Or, if I have, I haven't really been paying attention. I tend to avoid crowds so maybe that's the reason.

Eating Up Italy

Eating Up Italy: Voyages on a Vespa by Matthew Fort

A travelogue cum cookbook, Eating Up Italy chronicles British food writer and critic Matthew Fort's culinary exploration of Italy from Melito Di Porto Salvo in Calabria to Turin.

Each of the book's twelve chapters begins with a blurb pulled from the chapter text to set the scene and ends with recipes for dishes featured in that chapter. The recipes highlight everything from the relatively tame dishes like pasta al forno (baked pasta, 28) and puré di patate (mashed potato, 240) to the adventurous anguilla in umido alla comacchiese (stewed eel Comacchio style, 216) and trippa Napoletana (Neapolitan tripe, 104).

Fort is a sympathetic character, a kind of everyman with a well-trained palette. He describes himself a balding middle-aged man with a slight paunch. He's almost a comic character, experiencing a kind of mid-life crisis, which has left him with the desire to take to the road. The Italians think Fort is crazy for riding a vespa on the highway, but they warm to him and his obvious love of food and he in turn gets them to open up to him about their own love of all things culinary.

Eating Up Italy is a book that will appeal to all foodies. Descriptions of Italian landscape and gastronomic delights are peppered with reflections on Italian culture, agritourism, artisanal food production, and the Slow Food movement. Fort delights in the simplicity of a perfectly ripe peach, bemoans the fact that the British have lost their taste for offal, and is not afraid to admit that before the trip he thought bergamot was a flower.

The end, however, left me a bit dissatisfied. After all this talk of Fort stuffing himself at every meal, I wanted to know how much weight he gained during his trip. Beyond that, I have few complaints. There is a certain disjointedness in the narrative, but that I suppose is to be expected given the book's origins as a travel diary. One thing that Fort and his editors did not take into consideration when producing the American edition is exactly how parochial we Americans are. Not only does Fort pepper his narrative with foreign words, he rarely gives the English version of an Italian word after its first appearance in the book. Normally this wouldn't be a problem, but with the proliferation of Italian food items it becomes impossible to keep them all straight (especially when a word was first mentioned only in passing fifty pages earlier). Despite the fact that the book has an index, this may put off some readers.

The success of Eating Up Italy is tied up in Fort's evident love and appreciation of Italian food and culture, which is perfectly illustrated by this passage: "This was what I had come for. Each mouthful was a reminder of the essential plainness, and grace, of Italian food. There were no extraneous sauces, no distracting garnishes, no mint sprigs or dashes of fancy oils. The flavours were clean and clear. The beauty of each dish lay in the quality of the ingredients, and in the understanding with which they were cooked" (10).

As an aside - I like the cover (gotta love Botticelli's Birth of Venus) except for those horrid little fish.

Read my review at Front Street Reviews...