What I read this month:

The Case of the Bizarre Bouquetsby Nancy Springer : This is another in the Enola Holmes series, and in this one John Watson goes missing. Enola’s had run ins with him in the past and liked him, so she gets involved in the search even though she’s afraid it might all be a trick by Sherlock to get her to show herself. It’s well done, and the mystery at the core of it is clever.

French Twist: An American Mom’s Experiment in Parisian Parenting by Catherine Crawford: This is firmly in the realm of “cultural parenting”- the American author (living in Brooklyn) decided to parent the “French way”, and this book is about her experiences. I am intrigued by the French way of parenting, so it was very interesting to see how it played out, practically sp eaking, on a day to day basis. My favorite quote from the book comes from a vacation the family takes to an island where there won’t be constant entertainment for the kids.

“On this trip we pared down the excesses and turned up the trust in our kids’ inherent coolness.”

Isn’t that awesome?
The Most Beautiful Walk in the World: A Pedestrian in Paris by John Baxter: Once I start reading about France it’s hard for me to stop reading about France. Baxter is a writer who also gives walking tours of Paris, and this book is about his experiences with that and different walks he’s taken. Makes me want to go to Paris RIGHT NOW!  A funny note, I was in the middle of this book when we got to Tokyo, and from our apartment window you can see the Tokyo Tower, which was fashioned after the Eiffel Tower. So I’d look out the window and pretend I was in Paris.

Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood: Berlin seemed a good follow up to Paris in Tokyo. This is the book that I am A Camera and Cabaret were based on, and deals with a British ex-pat’s experience in Berlin leading up to WWII. The writing is evocative, and Sally Bowles is a bit of a jerk, but I suppose she was in the films too.

The Candymakers by Wendy Mass: I have no idea why I got this book (perhaps it was a Kindle daily deal?) but I’m so glad that I did. It’s a middle grade book about four kids who get to go to a candy factory to work on their entries for a candy making contest. One of them actually lives at the factory, he’s the son of the owners, and it’s his perspective that the book starts with, as the other kids show up and he tries to figure them out. The perspective shifts from kid to kid with each section, and as it does, information that was left out by previous narrators gets filled in, and what gets mentioned and what doesn’t becomes a fascinating puzzle as each kid has their own secrets and reasons for wanting to win. It’s complex and well told and absolutely delightful. I’m waiting to read it to the girls until they’re a little older- there are some aspects that are a little heavy though they all end up resolved, (one boy carries a huge amount of guilt over a disturbing incident, for example).

The Book of Story Beginnings by Kristin Kladstrup: Another middle grade book, this one started out really strong and was solid, if not quite as magical as I’d hoped. A girl moves  with her family into the house of her aunt, where years before, her uncle (the aunt’s brother) disappeared. According to the aunt, one night he got into a rowboat in the front yard and rowed away. The problem is that the house is on a hill in the middle of a field, with no water anywhere around. When the girl finds a book with the power to make beginnings of stories become real, she finds out what happened to her uncle, but makes her father disappear, and the adventure is on.

The School for the Insanely Gifted by Dan Elish: And another middle grade book. I was on a bit of a streak. This one was cute- about a school for super geniuses, run by a Steve Jobs type mogul who comes out with marvelous new products every couple of years. The main characters are three friends who find themselves solving a huge conspiracy  in the midst of trying to finish their big project for school. The characters are fun, there are musical, mechanical, artistic, mathematical geniuses running around the school, and the adventure the kids find themselves embroiled in is clever.

Doctor Who: The Angel’s Kiss: A Melody Malone Mystery by Justin Richards : This is a spin off Doctor Who novel that appears in The Angels Take Manhattan episode. The story is not the story of the episode, but another set in the same Manhattan, and featuring River as Melody Malone. Richards does an excellent job of capturing River’s voice, and the book is a blast to read. Super pulpy, super silly, super River.  For example,

“Some days you just know things are going to get dangerous and out of hand, and this was without a doubt one of those. About time too.”

“I’d never seen any thing like it. And things I’ve never seen anything like worry me. Because I have seen so many things.”

Can’t you just hear River?

Mr. Fox by Helen Oyeyemi : This book was perplexing. Even once I’d finished it I wasn’t sure what exactly had gone on. I don’t know that it completely succeeds at what it’s trying to do, but the language was interesting enough that I kept reading, so that definitely says something.  It’s about writers and muses and marriage and how all of those things fit together or don’t.   But it has one of my new favorite quotes:

“I’m never sad when a friend foes far away, because whichever city or country that friend goes to, they turn the place friendly. They turn a suspicious-looking  name on the map into a place where a welcome can be found. Maybe the friend will talk about you sometimes, to other friends that live around him, and then that’s almost as good as being there yourself. You’re in several places at once! In fact, my daughter, I would even go so far as to say that the farther away your friends are, and the more spread out they are, the better your chances of going safely through the world.”

The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel by Diane Setterfield: Oh, this book was good. A bookish young woman (Margaret) gets invited to stay with a reclusive author (Vita)  who is a notorious liar when it comes to her personal history, and is asked to write her biography. As the story progresses we get Vita’s story of her life, but both Margaret and the reader have to try to sort out what is real and what isn’t, because something is off about the story we’re getting. And what a story it ends up being. Vita’s books are described as impossible to put down, and Setterfield manages to create the same thing with her book. The language is gorgeous, the story engrossing.  Favorite lines:

“A good story is always more dazzling than a broken piece of truth.”

“My gripe is not with lovers of the truth, but with truth herself. What succor, what consolation is there in truth compared to a story? What good is truth, at midnight, in the dark, when the wind is roaring like a bear in the chimney? When the lightning strikes shadows on the bedroom wall and the rain taps at the window with its long fingernails? No. When fear and cold make a statue of you in your bed, don’t expect hard-boned and fleshless truth to come running to your aid. What you need are the plump comforts of a story. The soothing, rocking safety of a lie.”

Beatrice and Virgil by Yann Martel: I don’t really know exactly what to say about this book. It’s good. It’s powerful. It’s painful. The idea at its core is that there should be more diverse ways at looking at the Holocaust in art, of processing it, of grappling with it. One of the characters in the book says that there are war thrillers, war comedies, war romances, war science fiction, war propaganda, and that we talk about war “in may ways and for many purposes. With these diverse representations, we come to understand what war means to us.”  He continues that the Holocaust is generally only represented by historical realism- the same story, in the same place, featuring the same people.

It’s a fascinating idea, and one that plays out in an interesting way in the book. I personally think that artists/writers don’t create works that view it through a different lens because most audiences only want to deal with the Holocaust in a certain way- with their guard securely up.  If you know the story you’re walking into, you can stay detached. And audiences influence what sells, and therefore what gets made.

I would love to discuss this book with other people, but I don’t know that it’s one I would freely recommend- you’ve got to be ready for it. Heh, see, I just did what I was talking about in the previous paragraph.

My favorite quote:

“To my mind, faith is like being in the sun. When you are in the sun, can you avoid creating a shadow? Can you shake that area of darkness that clings to you, always shaped like you, as if constantly to remind you of yourself? You can’t. This shadow is doubt. And it goes wherever you go as long as you stay in the sun. And who wouldn’t want to be in the sun?”

Anyway, that’s what I read this month. 11 books in the month, the yearly total is at 38.

10 years ago, I started keeping a list of the books I read. I’ve kept that list going, and recently attempted the crazypants task of compiling all of those lists into one big huge spreadsheet so that I could analyze my reading trends. I’m kind of dorky like that. I love a good spreadsheet.

I found some interesting, (some random) things. (All of this is as of the end of Dec. 2012.)

Between Jan 2003 and Dec 2012 I read 806 books.

592 (73%) were fiction, 214 (27%) were non-fiction.

34% were literary fiction, 13% were mysteries. 6% were biographies, 7% were about parenting. The rest were a mix of all different categories.

111 (13%) were re-reads- 37 books reread. ( I realize this doesn’t make sense, but I can’t think how to explain it. I read 37 individual books that I had either read before or that I reread again afterward, some of them multiple times, for a total of 111 books.)

My most reread books were:

The Hours by Michael Cunningham (4 times)

The Witches of Eastwick by John Updike (3)

An Ideal Husband by Oscar Wilde (3)

Sum: 40 Tales of the Afterlife by David Eagleman (3)

The Royal Tenebaums by Wes Anderson and Owen Wilson (3)

Have You Seen the Horizon Lately by Jamie S. Rich (3)

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald (3)

My most read authors were:

Agatha Christie (23 books)

Kerry Greenwood (17 books)

and Steven Brust (17 books).

In my never ending question of who I love more-F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, or Evelyn Waugh- Waugh took the lead with 9 books read or reread, Fitzgerald had 5, Hemingway had 5.

On average I read the most books in June and December, and I read a higher percentage of non-fiction books in February, March, and May. I read the least non-fiction in December.

After I’d played with the spreadsheets a while, I started looking at weirder and weirder things- and started to find really weird things. For example:

I read more half of the Agatha Christie books in December. (2005, 2012)

The 3 Joe Hill books I have read, I read in February. (2007, 2008, 2010.)

I read F. Scott Fitzgerald in March. (2003, 2005, 2008, 2012)

I  read Oscar Wilde in May.(2004, 2005, 2006, 2012)

I read Shakespeare in August.(2010, 2011, 2012)

I’m sure I could discover all kinds of weird and random things, but that’s all I’ve got for now.

Happy reading!

I read less total books this month than last month, but the books I read this month were longer, so it probably balances out. I did end up finishing Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley on the last day of January. It was as excellent as I had expected, and it has a doozy of a cliffhanger at the end that reminded me of why I generally don’t read series that aren’t complete. (See more on that at the end of this post. )

Amazon had a Kindle deal for a bunch of the “Best American …. ” books, and I picked up (sent to my magic Kindle, rather) about 5 of them. I started with The Best American Travel Writing 2012 . I’m not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I got- not that I’m complaining. There were essays about crossing Norway via skis in a snow storm, a whole subculture of garbage collectors in Egypt, an account of hiking along the American/Mexico border fence- really interesting things I wouldn’t have had the opportunity to read otherwise.

I bought The Map of Time: A Novel by Felix J. Palma based purely on the prettiness of it’s cover and the blurb on the back. Based on the blurb, I was expecting crazy time travel, book thievery, possibly dirigibles (I will admit, that was my own projection). What I got was … kiiiiiiinda that? I told B halfway through the book that I had never read a book where the back was so disconnected from the actual text, but by the time I finished I could see how it did actually connect. But ANYWAY. It’s about people trying to travel in time to change the past or the future with varying degrees of success. H.G. Wells is in it, and Jack the Ripper, and over all it’s pretty good. Just don’t go in expecting dirigibles or wacky adventures.

The Best American Essays 2012 was full of excellent essays about topics ranging from the problematic nature of using of chemicals to treat mental illness to how doctors choose their end of life care (that one was SO thought provoking!) to feminism. Most of the essays were excellent, there were a few that weren’t as good, and one that I just ended up skipping.

I loved Pamela Druckerman’s Bringing up Bebe (see my review here ), so I snapped up her new book, Bebe Day by Day: 100 Keys to French Parenting even though (or because?) it’s the distilled version of the first. (Basically, this is the parenting part of the book, without the “my life in France” part.) I don’t buy parenting books for other people, but this one has a lot of common sense ideas that would be great for an expecting parent. This is one I’ll go back to.

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak is so good. So very good. It was given to me as a gift, and while I’d heard great things about it I was a bit cautious as it’s set during WW2 and books about the Holocaust can be incredibly emotionally draining. It was not at all what I expected (this seems to be a theme, yes?) and so moving and ultimately as devastating as I thought- perhaps more so because it lulled me into a false sense of security. But even that was fitting. I could seriously talk about this book all day long, but I will just say that it is Death narrating the story of a girl who steals books and her Atticus Finch- like foster father who are hiding a Jew in their basement in the middle of Nazi Germany. I cannot recommend it highly enough, it is SO good.

The Best American Short Stories 2012 has a wide spread of stories, some I really enjoyed and others I didn’t get into as much. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank by Nathan Englander was extremely thought provoking (especially after reading The Book Thief), as two Jewish couples, one very strictly Orthodox, the other secular discuss who they would trust to hide their families if there were another Holocaust. The end is stunning.  I also really liked Miracle Polish by Steven Millhauser, it was very Twilight Zone in the very best way.

Right now I’m reading Etiquette & Espionage by Gail Carriger which is absolutely delightful and wonderful. It’s set in the same world as her Parasol Protectorate series (which I ADORE) – so an alternate Victorian England where werewolves and vampires are an accepted part of society. The 14 year old main character, Sophronia, has just been sent away to Mademoiselle Geraldine’s Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality, where her mother thinks she will become a lady, but where she will really become an assassin.  (She’s going to learn how to “finish” things- get it?) Could you ask for anything more? How about that the school floats and is held up by dirigibles? Be still my heart. I can’t wait to finish it, although I don’t want to, because it’s the first in a series which means that the rest aren’t out yet, and I HATE WAITING. The next one isn’t out until November. Kill me now.

Anyway, that’s 6 books this month, which puts my total so far at 19.

What are you reading right now?

Toward the end of the year I tend to wander away from posting about the books I’m reading. This year I’m going to try just posting at the end of each month in an attempt to not run out of steam. So here are the books I read in January.

Howl’s Moving Castle and House of Many Ways by Dianna Wynne Jones: I’d read Howl’s a number of years ago, but had no ideas that it had a sequel. (There’s Castle in the Air, but that’s not quite a sequel- this actually has Howl and Sophie.) Both are utterly delightful. Howl’s of course has that glorious castle, a character I possibly love more than Howl himself. And House of Many Ways has an equally interesting home (what can I say, I’m a sucker for a great building).

This I Know: Notes on Unraveling the Heartby Susannah Conway: I bought this because it was a Kindle daily deal, and a few days later ran across a link to her blog from another blog I read so I bumped it up the reading list. This is a heartfelt, honest book about dealing with grief, and I appreciated what she had to say.

Zeb and the Great Ruckus by Josh Donellan: This is a fun kid’s book. The main drive behind the story is an interesting one, and the book would be useful for teaching about similies as the author apparently never met one he didn’t like.

Stranger Things Happen and Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link : I’m really picky about short stories, and my goodness, Kelly Link is incredible. She creates amazingly detailed, complicated and slightly weird worlds within each story, and I was sorry when each and every one ended. Each stands solid and complete, but leaves the impression that life within the story is going to continue on without you.

We the Animals by Justin Torres : This is an incredibly powerful little book. It’s not long, but the impressions Torres gives of growing up with his two brothers and very young parents are indelible. I’m conflicted over the end section of the book, it skips forward in time and changes tone, and part of me thinks it works, and part of me doesn’t. But the writing is visceral and raw and heartbreaking.

How to Be an Explorer of the World: Portable Life Museum by Keri Smith: This is a fun challenge of a book, encouraging the reader to look at the world around them through explorer’s eyes. I’m excited to put some of the suggested activities to use.

Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes by Jonathan Auxier : This book is one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read in quite some time. I’m recommending it to all of the around 10 year olds I know, as well as those adults I know who enjoy great fantasy writing. Peter Nimble is a young blind thief who finds himself in possession of 3 sets of magical eyes and a quest to save a vanished kingdom. There are some excellently played twists, and while some of the plot developments are fairly standard, they are well deployed and feel completely satisfying and earned rather than cliche. The end of the story felt the same as the end of The NeverEnding Story- the thrill that the heroes were going to have so many more wonderful adventures, and even if you didn’t know what they were, the fact that they were going to happen was enough.

The Woodcutter by Kate Delany : This is hands down my favorite book so far this year. It’s so good I can hardly talk about it. I wish I had a bunch of copies to just force on people. This is from the description on Amazon: “Deep within the Wood, a young woman lies dead. Not a mark on her body. No trace of her murderer. Only her chipped glass slippers hint at her identity. The Woodcutter, keeper of the peace between the Twelve Kingdoms of Man and the Realm of the Faerie, must find the maiden’s killer before others share her fate. Guided by the wind and aided by three charmed axes won from the River God, the Woodcutter begins his hunt, searching for clues in the whispering dominions of the enchanted unknown. But quickly he finds that one murdered maiden is not the only nefarious mystery afoot: one of Odin’s hellhounds has escaped, a sinister mansion appears where it shouldn’t, a pixie dust drug trade runs rampant, and more young girls go missing.”
It’s a clever reinterpretation of many well known fairy tales and folk stories- turning them on their head and creating a gorgeous framework where they all exist both as stories and reality. The writing is absolutely impeccable, not a word out of place, and sometimes the turns of phrase are breathtaking. The mystery at the heart of the story is clever, and the main character is such an incredible creation it’s hard to believe he hasn’t always existed. The climax of the story had me sobbing uncontrollably, it’s just so evocatively written. I seriously can not recommend it highly enough, and if you read it and don’t like it then I’m not sure we can be friends.

Mercury by Hope Larson: I have long been a fan of Hope Larson’s work- she’s an immensely talented artist and her illustrations are never flashy; they always serve her story perfectly. This is the story of a young woman in current day Nova Scotia as she attempts to navigate a new school and an absent mother after the loss of their house to a fire. (The mother is away working in another town and wants to move the girl there, she wants to stay.) It’s also the story of the land on which that house stands, and the girl’s ancestors. Larson’s stories tend toward the quiet and personal and this one is no different. The characters are complex and compelling, and the story is sweet and sad and joyful and slightly melancholy all at once.

This Is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz: I’ve heard a lot about Junot Diaz, and I’ve meant to read his The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao but I’ve heard it’s heartbreaking, so I haven’t. After reading This is How You Lose Her, I’m even more inclined to believe that, and therefore more scared to read it. Diaz is every bit the powerhouse he’s touted to be, this book is like a punch to the face as we are seamlessly pulled into Yunior’s life and then destroyed again and again as he screws up each and every relationship he’s in. It wouldn’t be so bad if Yunior wasn’t so likable, so vulnerable in his mistakes. Along the way, Diaz imparts an insider’s understanding of the culture of immigration, of trying to make a life in a country that offers so much opportunity but isn’t welcoming (even the weather is hostile), of separated families and lonely individuals. There’s a lot of cussing, a lot of sex, but all of those things are Yunior’s experience, and you leave the book feeling like you’ve shared that.

I don’t know that I’ll finish another book before the end of the month (although the new Flavia de Luce novel by Alan Bradley just came out, and I inhale those like candy)- so we’ll tentatively put January’s total at 12.

What are you reading?

Every year since 2003 I’ve kept a list of the books I’ve read during the year. I try to post about them as I finish them, but this year, as in some previous years, I get behind.  Still, I like to post a final list at the end of the year. This year I had the goal to read 50 books, and read 111. I’ve bolded my 5  favorites below.  67 were fiction, 44 non fiction and 13 re-reads. I read the least in February, and the most in November.

Since I’ve been keeping track of my reading for 10 years now, I’m working on an analysis of what I’ve read and my reading patterns over that time. I know you’re all waiting spellbound for it.

If you want to read what I wrote about any of these books, use the search box at the top of the page. But not the Amazon search box. Some of the books toward the end might not have been written about- if so, and you really want to know what I thought, just ask and I’ll tell you.

The Happiness Diet- Tyler Graham and Drew Ramsey
Keeping House: The Litany of Everyday Life – Margaret Kim Peterson
The Red Tent- Anita Diamant
Make the Bread, Buy the Butter- Jennifer Reese
The Well Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home- Susan Wise Bauer, Jessie Wise
Bringing up Bebe: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting- Pamela Druckerman
For Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence – Alice Miller

Reading Lolita in Tehran – Azar Nafisi

The Great Gatsby- Fitzgerald
Blameless- Gail Carriger
Unschooling Rules- Clark Aldrich
Aurorarama- Jean-Christophe Valtat
Heartless- Gail Carriger
Timeless – Gail Carriger
Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute – Jonathan L. Howard
French Kids Eat Everything by Karen Le Billon
Nurturing Creativity: A guide for Busy Moms by Renee Tougas
Mindset for Moms by Jamie C. Martin
Dead Man’s Chest- Kerry Greenwood
House of Yes- Wendy MacLeod
Past Imperfect- Julian Fellowes
Oscar Wilde and the Vatican Murders- Gyles Brandreth
The Storytelling Animal: How Stories Make Us Human- Jonathan Gottschall
Emperor Mollusk Versus the Sinister Brain- A. Lee Martinez
The Night Circus- Erin Morgenstern
Croissants and Courage: Inspiring Joyful Living, A Story and Life Guidebook – Suzanne Saxe- Roux and Jean P. Roux
Tea- Stacey D’Erasmo
Losing Clementine- Ashley Ream
Treasure Island!!! – Sara Levine
The Help- Kathrynn Stockett
The Duchess of Padua- Oscar Wilde
Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D’Art- Christopher Moore
Paris Portraits: Stories of Picasso, Matisse, Gertrude Stein, and their circle – Harriet Lane Levy
The Paris Wife- Paula McLain
Blue Nights- Joan Didion
The Uncommon Reader- Alan Bennett
The Illustrated Man- Ray Bradbury
We have always lived in the Castle- Shirley Jackson
Sacre Bleu: A Comedy D’Art- Christopher Moore
Mitz: The Marmoset of Bloomsbury – Sigrid Nunez
The Book of Proper Names – Amelie Nothomb
The Diving Pool- Yoko Ogawa
Drinking with Dead Women Writers- Elaine Ambrose and AK Turner
Frommer’s Tokyo 12th Edition – Beth Reiber
Tokyo on Foot: Travels in the City’s Most Colorful Neighborhoods- Florent Chavouet
Vida- Delacorta
Back to Homeschool- Misty Krasawski
The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt- Caroline Preston
At Home in Tokyo- Gwen G. Robinson
Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus- P.C. Martin
A Wrinkle in Time- Madeline L’Engle
Fluke- Christopher Moore
Confessions of a Memory Eater- Pagan Kennedy
Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel- Morris, Ballantine
No Sweat Home Schooling- The Low Stress Way – Kelly Wallace
The Sun Also Rises- Ernest Hemingway
Sum: 40 Stories from the Afterlives- David Eagleman
The Times we Had- Marion Davies
The Whole Brained Child- Daniel Siegel
Raising a Thinking Child- Myrna B Shure
New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird – ed. Paula Guran
Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar- Cheryl Strayed
Then Again- Diane Keaton
Wild (From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail)- Cheryl Strayed
Twelfth Night- William Shakespeare
State of Wonder- Ann Patchett
Your Voice in My Head- Emma Forrest
The Coffins of Little Hope- Timothy Schaffert
Garden of Eden- Ernest Hemingway
Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer- Wesley Stace
A Sense of an Ending- Julian Barnes
A Year of Writing Dangerously- Barbara Ambercrombie
The Private Lives of the Impressionists- Sue Roe
Women, Food, and God- Geneen Roth
Work in progress – Jamie S. Rich
The Hours – Michael Cunningham
Machine of Death-ed by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, David Malket
Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore- Robin Sloan
When it Happens to You- Molly Ringwald
Who Could That Be At This Hour? – Lemony Snicket
American Gods- Neil Gaiman
Wind Up Bird Chronicle- Haruki Murakami
The Vanishers- Heidi Julavits
The Graveyard Book- Neil Gaiman
The Writing Life- Annie Dillard
On Becoming a Novelist- John Gardner
Island of the Sequined Love Nun- Christopher Moore
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There- Cathrynne Valente
Happier at Home- Gretchen Rubin
The Starry River of the Sky- Grace Lin
When Did I Get Like This- Amy Wilson
The Templeton Twins Have an Idea- Ellis Weiner
Dead Writers- P.K. Rossetti
The Land of Later On- Anthony Weller
Not Quite Nirvana- Rachel Neumann
Dead Until Dark- Charlaine Harris
Life Among Giants- Bill Roorbach
The Stockholm Octavo- Karen Englemann
Marlene Dietrich ABCs- Marlene Dietrich
Marlene- Marlene Dietrich
My Berlin Kitchen- Luisa Weiss
Wild Mind:Living the Writer’s Life- Natalie Goldberg
My Booky Wook-Russell Brand

My Booky Wook 2- Russell Brand
Hotel Angeline: A Novel in 36 Voices
Maps and Legends- Michael Chabon
The Body in the Library Agatha Christie
Death on the Nile-Agatha Christie
The Thirteen Problems- Agatha Christie

Pocket Full of Rye- Agatha Christie
Elephants Remember- Agatha Christie
My Year With Eleanor- Noelle Hancock
You Learn By Living- Eleanor Roosevelt

I’ve been reading a lot since we got here, and then I realized that I haven’t done a book post since the end of September, so it’s about time to catch up. This is what I’ve read.

Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer by Wesley Stace : Really very good
A Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes : Beautiful writing, but emotionally it held me at a distance
A Year of Writing Dangerously by Barbara Ambercrombie: Some really good ideas for writing more courageously.
The Private Lives of the Impressionists by  Sue Roe: Excellent group biography of the Impressionists. I highly highly enjoyed this.
Women, Food, and God by  Geneen Roth: Very interesting insights
The Hours by  Michael Cunningham: This book gets better every time I read it, and breaks my heart every time.
Machine of Death-ed by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, David Malket: THis was also a reread- I love this book.
Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan: One of the most fun, most imaginative books I’ve read in a long time. I read it in one sitting, and am sure I’ll read it many more times.
When it Happens to You by Molly Ringwald : Yes, that Molly Ringwald. This is a novel told in short stories- and very well done.
American Gods by Neil Gaiman: Also a reread, this is the last book I read before we left the US, which I feel is quite fitting.
Wind Up Bird Chronicle by  Haruki Murakami: It was also fitting that this was the first book I read in Japan. Odd, slightly unsettling, it captures a whole different world. It was fun to recognize places he mentions, even only having been here a week.
The Vanishers by Heidi Julavits: This book was very intriguing, set in a world where people with psychic abilities can mentally attack each other, and people tired of their lives can “vanish”.
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman: Neil Gaiman always delivers. This is the story of a young boy who eludes murder as a toddler by living in a graveyard. Good stuff.
The Writing Life by Annie Dillard: This is chock full of excellent advice and insights about writing.
On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner: Also full of good insights, though his biases against genre writing definitely shows.
Island of the Sequined Love Nun by Christopher Moore: Delightful, tongue in cheek fun.
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Cathrynne Valente: Cathrynne Valente is one of my absolute favorite writers, and this book is wonderful.
Happier at Home by Gretchen Rubin: Inspiring and uplifting.
The Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin : I read this with the girls, and it was beautiful and wonderful.

I’m at 90 books read this year so far. I have the feeling I’ll easily make it to 100- which is double my goal for the year. Woo hoo! What are you reading?

Summer is over! We went on a trip to Hearst Castle, and I took a billion pictures. I’ll post some of them soon. We’ve started up school again, which is going well. I haven’t crafted/sewn much- I made a giraffe for my favorite little 1 year  old girlie and a blanket for a new baby, which is still sitting here waiting to get washed so I can give it. Other than that, I’ve been reading up a storm. I’ve surpassed my 50 books for the year goal, and am well on my way to the 100 I’ve done in previous years. In the past 2 months I’ve read 24 books- apparently I’m in a groove. A lot of the books I’ve been reading lately have been memoirs, and sad ones, about going through deaths of family members and such. Not sure what that’s all about.  But this is what I’ve been reading:

Vida by Delacorta: This is a reread of a slightly trashy French novel. I love this whole series so much- a 13 year old girl and a 30 something con-man/ concert pianist/artist running around causing trouble. This one is set at the intersection of the architecture and jazz worlds.

Back to Homeschool by Misty Krasawski: This is a great little e-book about getting your mind and house ready to start homeschooling again after the summer.

The Scrapbook of Frankie Pratt: A Novel in Pictures by Caroline Preston: This book was a lot of fun, it’s in the format of the scrapbook of the main character, a plucky young thing in the 1920′s.

At Home in Tokyo by Gwen G. Robinson: This is the memoir of a woman who accompanied her husband to Tokyo for 2 years in the early 1990′s. Informative and fun.

Steampunk Holmes: Legacy of the Nautilus by P.C. Martin : Sherlock Holmes takes a case to find the missing plans to Captain Nemo’s Nautilus. So much fun.

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle: I hadn’t read this since I was about nine. It made a lot more sense this time, and is really pretty wonderful. There’s a graphic novel adaptation coming out soon by Hope Larson (who is so amazing), and I can’t wait to get it for Zoe.

Fluke: Or, I Know Why the Winged Whale Sings by Christopher Moore: This book was such a great read. Moore is hilarious, and this book, set in the world of whale researchers, was delightful.

Confessions of a Memory Eater by Pagan Kennedy: What if there was a drug that allowed you to go back into your memory and relive moments from your past? What if you got addicted? What if those memories weren’t precisely accurate?

Phoenix Rising: A Ministry of Peculiar Occurrences Novel by Morris, Ballantine: This is a deliciously fun steampunk novel. A secret ministry, big robots, codes, underground tunnels, dynamite; there’s really nothing here not to like.

No Sweat Home Schooling – The Low Stress Way To Teach Your Kids by  Kelly Wallace: This was short, but good.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway: There aren’t words for how much I love Hemingway. His writing is just so precise. This is the barely fictionalized account of a trip to Spain with friends of his, and the mayhem that results.

Sum: Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David Eagleman: This is probably the third (or fourth?) time I’ve read this book, and I will probably read it numerous times more. As the title suggests, it’s 40 short stories about what happens after we die. Completely compelling, thought provoking- so so good.

The Times We Had : Life with William Randolph Hearst by Marion Davies: As I mentioned above, we went to Hearst Castle, and it made me want to reread Marion’s memoir. She and W.R. Hearst were fascinating people.

The Whole-Brain Child: 12 Revolutionary Strategies to Nurture Your Child’s Developing Mind by Daniel Siegel : I think this book should be required reading for anyone who interacts with children on a regular basis. It’s chock full of activities and ways to help kids integrate not only their left and right hemispheres of their brains, but also their upper and lower brains. Seriously, so incredibly good.

Raising a Thinking Child: Help Your Young Child to Resolve Everyday Conflicts and Get Along with Others by Myrna B Shure : This one should also be required. It’s all about teaching kids how to problem solve, giving them a vocabulary with which to do so. SO good.

New Cthulhu: The Recent Weird edited by Paula Guran: This book took me weeks and weeks to get through because I could only read a couple stories at a time, they weirded me out so much. But when you’re talking Cthulhu stories, that’s a good thing. Most of them were excellent, all of them were creepy.

Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar by Cheryl Strayed: This is one of the best books I’ve read all year. The wisdom and compassion contained in this book is staggering. There is a lot of swearing in it, which is unfortunate, because I’d recommend it to everyone I know- BUT, if it makes a difference, the swearing is artfully done, rather than gratuitous. That makes a difference to me. But really, this book is someone’s soul laid bare; raw, honest, gorgeous.

Then Again by Diane Keaton: This is Diane Keaton’s memoir, and a kind of memoir of her mother’s- because her mother kept copious journals and diaries. So there’s a passage from Diane at a certain age, and then one from her mother at the same age. The thing that I found really interesting is that I felt like I came away with a stronger sense of her mother than of Diane- that there was still a bit of distance that she maintained. But I really like her.

Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed: After I read Tiny Beautiful Things I knew I had to read this one too. It’s the story of Cheryl’s trek up the Pacific Crest Trail, from southern California up into Oregon. It’s also the story of her mental trek through the loss of her mother and the loss of her marriage. It’s really, really good.

Twelfth Night by William Shakespeare: I love Shakespeare. I love just slipping into his words and letting them wash over me like a warm bath. Not to criticize the master, but I wished there was more character depth in this one, but it was funny and lovely.

State of Wonder: A Novel (P.S.) by Ann Patchett: I’d heard a lot about this book, and it was on sale and I was in need of a book, so I snagged it. It wasn’t at all what I was expecting, but was enthralling nonetheless. A researcher for a drug company is sent to the Amazon to find a rogue scientist who has supposedly found a cure for the loss of fertility, while also investigating the death of her colleague who was sent out before her. I was expecting Heart of Darkness , and while there were markers there, it never got to that point. But what is there is fascinating.

Your Voice in My Head: A Memoir by Emma Forrest: I loved Emma Forrest’s first book Namedropper so much that I read it four times in a row. I’d been meaning to pick this up for a while, and I’m glad I did. It’s her memoir of her struggle with a mental illness, her (healthy, platonic) relationship with her psychiatrist, her (very non-platonic) relationship with a movie star (Colin Farrell), and her struggle dealing with the loss of both of them when her psychiatrist dies unexpectedly, and her boyfriend breaks up with her. It’s fascinating watching it all play out- she’s unflinching in her portrayal of her life and her illness. It’s raw and heartbreaking, and ultimately healing.

The Coffins of Little Hope by Timothy Schaffert: This book is so weird and wonderful. It’s the story of a little town where the newest volumes of a series very much like A Series of Unfortunate Events are covertly printed, and where a woman who lives in a house on the outskirts of town claims that her daughter has been abducted. The thing is, no one has ever seen her daughter, and half the town thinks that she never existed. Add into that a grandma who has been writing obituaries since she was a child, a granddaughter abandoned by her mother and left with her magic performing uncle who runs the printing press, and a possible leaked copy of the last volume of the series, and it’s a big beautiful gorgeous story.

Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway: Again, what is there to say but that I love Hemingway? He so exactly sets down the bliss of love and the complete and utter wreckage of a marriage. Each word is perfection.

And that’s the end. Goodness sakes alive. Luckily I have a big stack of library books downstairs to read next.
What are you reading?