November Booklist

Well, I made it -- a month ahead of schedule.  I added 8 books this month to the previous figure of 93 to bring the total to 101.  I've been debating about whether I'll try to get the end of year number up as high as it can go or just get on with some books I've been meaning to read (e.g.  A Dance with Dragons) that are a bit longer than I could usually spend the time on.  I think I'll go for quantity.

This month was the first time all year that I started a book and after about 20% of it just had to give up -- and all that effort wasted in the process.  I won't name the book in case I might affect anyone else that liked or might like it.  After all its more my fault than the author's.  I have developed a passionate dislike for YA fiction.  The premise of such books is often intriguing but the protagonists invariably seem to be teen girls which have these tedious thoughts about so much stuff that normal people would have no trouble sorting through.  Ugh!  This time I got to a point where this girl was trying to deny her lurid thoughts about a boy -- OMG! Just kill me.

Here are the 8 books read this month:

1. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J K Rowling (my 100th book!)
2. When I Found You by Catherine Ryan Hyde
3. The Kings and Queens of Roam by Daniel Wallace
4. Faking It by Elisa Lorello
5. The Sisterhood by Helen Bryan
6. METAtropolis by Jay Lake, Tobias Buckell, Elizabeth Bear, John Scalzi, Ken Scholes
7. The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
8. The Habit by Susan Morse

This month's Harry Potter installment was the longest -- phew!  But it was also good stuff.  Can't wait to finish the last two in the series.  This was also my 100th book completed.  I had 3 or 4 on the go including this one but since it took so long it was almost last finished.  I squeezed in one more before month end (The Habit).

When I Found You was great.  I was expecting sappiness but instead I got a story that was genuinely moving.  I will probably read more by this author.

Didn't really like Kings and Queens.  It was sort of told like a fable in this made up out-of-the-way town in America.  Couldn't quite get into it even though its characters were interesting.

Faking It was an odd choice by me for sure.  I listened to the audiobook version with my wife and we both ended up enjoying it but for different reasons.  Two people learn something from each other in a business like relationship with strict taboos about falling in love -- but of course they do anyway.

The Sisterhood was another one of those novels that linked present with past -- this time being the spanish inquisition and settling of South America.  The present portion of the story was boring but the past was fascinating and I thought quite well researched.  Overall I enjoyed it.

METAtropilis is a collection of related and linked novellas by recognized SF authors.  There are two "sequels" that I probably won't read but I found this collection of near future American cities intriguing.

Loved Family Fang!  I read that Nicole Kidman bought the book rights and is putting out a movie version of this book next year.  I think it will be great.  Hard to describe the story other than two kids are brought up in a most unconventional way and find challenges later in life because of it.

Also loved The Habit by Susan Morse, wife of David Morse of The Green Mile and St Elsewhere fame.  This book is a memoir of Susan's improving (but trying!) relationship with her eccentric mother in the latter years of her life.  Very funny and very readable.  I initially thought I was buying a novel but after seeing photos in the book I realized it was a true story!

October Booklist

Down in numbers this month -- the 4th Harry Potter book was a bit longer than I was planning (a downside to eBooks is they don't take up more shelf space so its feasible to overlook how big a book is before you start it).  Still, I got 8 books read this month bringing the total to 93.  Just 7 more to go!  Here's October's list:

1. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
2. A Good and Useful Hurt by Aric Davis
3. Orphan Train by Christina Baker Kline
4. Edward Adrift by Craig Lancaster
5. Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes
6. Therese Raquin by Emile Zola
7. Burial Rites by Hannah Kent
8. The 100-Year-Old Man Who Climbed Out the Window and Disappeared by Jonas Jonasson

Everyone (except me) has read the HP books so I don't need to go on about those.  Suffice to say that I'm picking up on LOTS of details that I didn't know about before so I am enjoying that immensely.  HP5 is definitely on the list for November though I realize this time that it is about the same length as #4.

Useful Hurt was just ok.  A tattooist learns that tattooing the ashes of deceased persons into a design brings about a strange connection between the living and the dead.  A mystery ensues that must get solved.  An interesting idea played out well enough.

Orphan Train is one of those books that you think will make it to Hollywood because people will lap it up as a movie.  A common device of linking the present with the past is used to tell the story of what becomes of the protagonist when they are newly orphaned in late 1920s New York.

Edward Adrift is the sequel to a book I read last month (600 Hours of Edward) that I think was funnier and more enjoyable than the original.  Some real LOL moments as Edward, an adult male with Asperger's, grapples with some of the harder lessons that life throws in his way.

Flowers for Algernon is a classic.  The theme of following the experiences of someone who goes from nothing to something and back again has been explored in numerous ways since this book was written so its nice to get at the topic in a more original form.  I enjoyed it.

Likewise with Therese Raquin the exploration of the psychological effects of committing murder has been explored before too (thinking Dostoevsky here).  However what makes this classic different is the tension is maintained across two characters instead of Crime and Punishment's single protagonist. I found the ending a little anticlimatic but the exploration and escalation of circumstances up to that point kept me interested.

Burial Rites is also connected to murder and its psychological effects.  This time however the setting is 19th century Iceland and following the last days of one of the convicted murderers while they await the confirmation of their sentences of death.  Based on a true story the author does a great job of putting us in the middle of what must have been a harrowing experience of waiting for the outcome.  At times the prose is poignant when contrasted with the harsh environment that life in Iceland must've been like at that time.

Lastly, the 100 year old man.  What a treat.  The story unfolds as some weird mashup of Forrest Gump, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo.  But if you enjoyed at least two out of three of those then you should read this book.  You'll never look at 20th century history in quite the same way.

September Booklist

Not sure how this happened but I got through 10 books again this month bringing the total year to date to 85.  Only 15 to go and three months to do it.  Here's what I read in September:

1. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J. K. Rowling
2. 600 Hours of Edward by Craig Lancaster
3. American Spirit by Dan Kennedy
4. Revenge Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger
5. The Call of Earth by Orson Scott Card
6. Telex from Cuba by Rachel Kusher
7. The Silence of Bonadventure Arrow by Rita Leganski
8. Waiting for Columbus byThomas Trofimuk
9. Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin
10. Care of Wooden Floors by Will Wiles

As I mentioned last month I started the Harry Potter series and read the next in the series.  I'm enjoying them a lot.

Many of the books I bought and read this past month were choices made through the Amazon Whispersync for Voice mechanism to synchronize kindle ebooks with the Audible versions.  Aside from the mechanism itself, Amazon offers very reasonably priced kindle ebooks (daily and monthly deals) and heavily discounted audio versions.  I went crazy and downloaded a whole bunch and six of the ten books above were purchased this way.  I knew nothing of the authors beforehand but all of them without exception were enjoyable.  600 Hours deals with how an adult man with Asperger's gets on in a social context with new life-changing challenges.  I enjoyed it so much I bought the sequel.  American Spirit reminded me of Douglas Coupland's writing style and it appears I'm not the only person to think that.  Kennedy makes some amazing descriptions of every day objects and events that we all ignore as ordinary.  Telex from Cuba reads like little snippets of news as it might peel off from a telex machine as it describes the events of the Cuban revolution through the 50s from the perspective of lives that it impacted.  Bonadventure Arrow was not something I was expecting -- a beautiful story told like a fable or fairy tale about how a mute child with incredible hearing heals the broken lives of those around him.  Crooked Letter seemed like a genre I don't usually go for -- a crime novel.  But the story unfolded making Faulkner-esque observations about the South which I really liked.  Last of the ebooks was Care of Wooden Floors.  I loved the protagonist who reminded me a lot of the Timothy Cavendish character in Cloud Atlas who suffers in a comically cruel way from events seemingly beyond his control.

Now for the other books I already had.  Revenge was a bust.  I don't know how or why I finished it.  I hoped, I guess, that it would get better.  In the last 10% of the book there were hints of former greatness but the rest was boring drivel.  Call of Earth is a second installment of the Homecoming series.  It was ok but not as enjoyable as the Alvin Maker or Ender series.  I'll keep going with it though.  Waiting for Columbus wasn't at all like I thought it would be.  But for all that, it was a good read.  An amnesiac patient thinks he Christopher Columbus.  He charms those around him with his tales of adventure that work up to the point of where the past meets the present.

October will be a breeze...

August Booklist

Added 10 more books to the list of titles read bringing the total year-to-date to 75.  Meeting my goal of 100 books by the end of the year should be a walk in the park now.

1. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J K Rowling
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J K Rowling
3. Room by Emma Donoghue
4. Every Day by David Levithan
5. Mudbound by Hillary Jordan
6. Moonwalking with Einstein by Joshua Foer
7. The Memory of Earth by Orson Scott Card
8. TransAtlantic by Colum McCann
9. Shards of Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold
10. Garden of Stones by Sophie Littlefield

I've never finished watching the Harry Potter movies and have put this off because, frankly, I was lost with what was going on after so long.  I want to appreciate them with context so I started to read the series of books.  I'm glad I have because it fills in so many gaps as to why things happen the way they do.  I have also found that the movies are very faithful to the books -- so far anyway.  So I am enjoying both.

Room is great.  Not since The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time have I enjoyed a story told from the perspective of someone who sees the world from a different perspective.  This is a serious story told with seriousness but in such a way that you can't help but laugh out loud every now and again.

With Every Day my first reaction was: "oh no I've bought another YA novel".  And it is a YA novel more or less.  But its one with a premise that really makes you think how much we take for granted in our linear progression of life events.  What was more surprising is the end and how it suggests a sequel which is likely to take another quite different turn.  I think I'll read that if it ever surfaces.

Mudbound was an impulse buy because it was cheap.  But it turned out to be a pretty good tale of tragedy so complicated its hard to say who was at fault (if you like to apportion blame).  Mostly enjoyable, which really means that some aspects of the plot were predictable but the journey was still good.

Moonwalking is an odd one on the list.  The author decided to apply the principles of memory enhancement to compete in the "memory olympics" inside of one year.  He did great which only goes to prove that if we apply such techniques in our own lives we can reverse the effect that modern technology is having on eroding what we choose to remember vs where to find what technology remembers for us.  A great treatise on how the skills of recall have changed over the past 2,500 years.

One of my favorite authors is Orson Scott Card and I am as excited as the next person about Ender's Game coming up in the movies.  But a while ago I bought the Homecoming series and thought it was a good time to get started on that.  Its typical Card stuff and is as enjoyable (so far) as other series he's written, though my favorite is still the Alvin Maker series which I WISH HE'D FINISH!  (Hint hint).

TransAtlantic is my favorite book this month.  Loved it.  Full of loss but also the connectedness of generations in both the US and Ireland. Makes me wish I was Irish but it could almost be about any culture that has ranged out beyond its own initial borders.  What makes this story very good is how it integrates the lives of fictional characters with real historical events and real characters, lending itself more credibility in the process.  Beautifully written with metaphors that had me stopping to contemplate their fullness and implications to the imagery in my mind.

And then immediately after reading TransAtlantic I read Shards of Honor.  Ouch!  This scifi book is the beginning of a very successful series of stories that many people love and rave about.  Hmm, not me.  I found it cliched and dull.  I obviously failed to appreciate it and I feel a little guilty about that.  But I give myself some slack by being convinced that reading "great" literature is changing my tastes.  There is also a growing trend (imo) of "literate" scifi authors who don't resort to a lower standard of writing but are lifting the genre to new heights.  I seek those books out now.

As with Mudbound, Garden of Stones is a story of the implications of racial intolerance and this time within the context of the internment of Japanese Americans during WWII.  I enjoyed it a great deal and was suitably surprised at the twists towards the end of the story.

July Booklist

Nine books in July brings the year to date total to 65.  Here's the list:

1. Kings of Infinite Space by James Hynes
2. Redshirts by John Scalzi
3. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro
5. And One Last Thing... by Molly Harper
6. The Mongoliad: Book 2 by Neal Stephenson et al
7. The View on the Way Down by Rebecca Wait
8. Descartes' Bones by Russell Shorto
9. Wedding Night bySophie Kinsella

It was a bit of a mixed bunch really.  I enjoyed Remains, One Last Thing, The View and Wedding Night -- a little disappointed in the rest.  The View was a harrowing account of how depression for a family member could impact the entire family.  One Last Thing and Wedding Night were just comedic romps -- light hearted and at time hilarious.  Descartes Bones was an interesting-ish non-fictional account of how Descartes' ideas influenced science and religion over the past 400 years or so but it was kinda dry overall.  Oh well, 9 books closer to my goal...

June Booklist

I allowed myself the luxury this month of reading just about any book I wanted -- those that might have been a bit longer than what I could afford to read earlier in the year.  So with that said I managed to get through 7 books this month bringing the total for the six months year-to-date to 56.  I'm really happy with that!  Here's what I read:

1. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra
2. Into the Darkest Corner by Elizabeth Haynes
3. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
4. Bitter Seeds by Ian Tregillis
5. And the Mountains Echoed by Khaled Hosseini
6. Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor
7. The Winter Sea by Susanna Kearsley

I found Constellation and Mountains Echoed both harrowing in their own way -- excellent retelling of the impact of war on the lives of those that survive it.  Ready Player One is a story I've wanted to read for a while as it gets so many rave reviews.  I wasn't disappointed.  If you're a fan of 80s nostalgia and just about every geek reference you can imagine then this story is for you!  Bitter Seeds is the first in a trilogy of books about an alternate WWII history -- great scifi stuff and I can't wait to tackle the remaining two books.  Daughter started off great (for me) with a very imaginative plot but it degenerated into a YA-like forbidden-love yarn that I couldn't wait to wade through.  Undecided about reading the next in the series.  Similarly for me Winter Sea was overly obsessed with romance in an historical context (more than I thought) and had echoes of the Gabaldon's excellent Outlander series.  Finally Darkest Corner I just managed to finish late last night -- good story about domestic violence that had an interesting mechanism for unrolling events 4 years apart.

Six months down -- six to go!!!

May Booklist

I definitely chose slightly longer books in May. Still, I'm not sure how I managed it but I got through 11 new books bringing the total to 49 for the year to date.  So I only need to read one book in June to be on target for the 100 needed in the year.  I think I can manage that.  So my reading list for June will definitely contain some longer books that I was too concerned to tackle earlier in the year.

May's reading list was:

1. Way Station by Clifford D. Simak
2. The Snow Child by Eowyn Ivey
3. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce
4. Fly Away Home by Jennifer Weiner
5. Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
6. The Land of Laughs by Jonathan Carroll
7. Hexed by Kevin Hearne
8. The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
9. Hero by Perry Moore
10. When the Stars Fall to Earth by Rebecca Tinsley
11. V for Vendetta by Steve Moore

Some reflections on what I read: Silver Linings was probably the most enjoyable.  I read this just before watching the movie when it came out on DVD.  I have to say, as always, the book was better than the movie, IMO.  The movie was good in its own right but there were too many stars in the movie that needed a significant part carved out that just wasn't there in the book.  On the flipside I read V for Vendetta based on the movie I enjoyed a few years ago and it was well written enough but was really just a reflection of the screenplay -- so that was a little disappointing.  Other stand outs for me were Portrait, Snow Child, Agent and Land of Laughs.  I really didn't know what to expect with these ones and was pleasantly surprised for different reasons.  James Joyce is definitely a challenge but worth the effort.  I want to pick up something else he's done soon and already put Dubliners on my wish list.

I think I have some good ones lined up for this month so we shall see how they go.  Until then...

April Booklist

Still ahead of where I need to be for total number of books, which now amounts to 38.  In May I can read some longer books that I've been wanting to get to for a while.  These are the 10 that I read in April:

1. The Obituary Writer by Ann Hood
2. Farside by Ben Bova
3. Frances and Bernard by Carlene Bauer
4. A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
5. Lullaby by Chuck Palahniuk
6. Beyond Religion by His Holiness the Dalai Lama
7. The Last Hunter -- Ascent by Jeremy Robinson
8. Treason by Orson Scott Card
9. The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break by Steven Sherrill
10. A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter M Miller

March Booklist

So by this stage I should have 25 books under my belt if I am going to hit my target of 100 books by the end of the year.  I am happy to report that I have exceeded that goal which gives me the opportunity to read a book or two that is longer than the ones I typically need to focus on.  Here's the list for March:

1. Darklandia by T.S. Welti
2. Fresh Off the Boat by Eddie Huang
3. Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
4. The Next Best Thing by Jennifer Weiner
5. Pure by Julianna Baggott
6. Hounded by Kevin Hearne
7. Delirium by Lauren Oliver
8. Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
9. Ex-Heroes by Peter Clines
10. Mr Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan

 That brings the total to 28.

It seems that a lot of my reading in the past couple of weeks has been apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) in nature (6/10 of the above), so during April I am going to try to vary the subject matter a little.  That is, once I finish number 7 post-apocalyptic novel.

February Booklist

I'm still on track to get to 100 books by the end of this year.  But February's target was much harder to reach than last month's.  We had a week where family was visiting which chewed up those little moments when its possible to steal a read here and there.  I also had to stop running for a while due to an overuse injury, which also takes away a set amount of time that is hard to get back from elsewhere.  I will need to be careful in March!  So here's the list:

1. The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry by Rachel Joyce
2. Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple
3. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
4. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
5. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
6. Odd Interlude by Dean Koontz
7. Fight Club by Chuck Palahnuik
8. The Last Hunter - Descent by Jeremy Robinson
9. The Last Hunter - Pursuit by Jeremy Robinson

There were some great reads in this list.  Probably my favorites would be Harold Fry, Bernadette and Fault in Our Stars.

January Booklist

So new in 2013 I set an objective for myself (don't like the term New Year Resolution) of reading 100 books in the 12 month period.  I knew this would be tough because all I managed last year was about 40 or so.  However, with new resolve I got stuck into for January and managed to get through 9 books which is right on target -- if I can keep it up.  Here's the list:

1. The Visible Man by Chuck Klosterman
2. A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness
3. The Space Merchants by Frederik Pohl, C M Kombluth
4. The End of the Affair by Graham Greene
5. Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi
6. Accidental Genius by Mark Levy
7. The Light Between Oceans by ML Stedman
8. 14 by Peter Clines
9. Bossypants by Tina Fey

It definitely helps that I am "reading" audiobooks (thanks @audible) and that I run a lot!