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Below: dashed off notes on the last dozen books I've either read or attempted.
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One Hundred Years Of Solitude • ~ Gabriel Garcia Marquez
[abandoned]
tpb 464 pages ISBN-10: 0060929790 ISBN-13: 978-0060929794
I thought I'd tackle this well-loved book but I'm giving up 100 pages in. Supposedly it's the story of the Buendia family in the fictional town of Macondo. There are about 37 people in this family, most of whom are either named José Arcadio, Aureliano, or Remedios. There's a family tree in the beginning but it's impossible to tell the characters apart (except for Ursula, the matriarch). After a few days of reading, I realized several things: 1) I have no idea what these characters are motivated by, 2) there doesn't seem to be a plot, 3) perhaps I'm missing something, 4) what the hell is with naming, like, seven characters the same name!? and 5) I'm bored. Also, I'm not the only one who feels this way about this book. So: wasn't enjoying it, so I quit. I can do that.
[started apr 2012, abandoned in may 102 pages in]
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Terminal World • Alastair Reynolds
Paperback 560 pages ISBN-10: 0441020437 ISBN-13: 978-0441020430
This is a steampunk novel from an author known for SF. In the towering city of Spearpoint, Quillon is working as a pathologist in the district morgue. When a winged angel from the Celestial Levels ends up on his dissection table, it starts a chain of events that causes Quillon to embark on a journey into the hostile lands beyond Spearpoint. The main conceit at play is that the world (and Spearpoint) is divided into several different zones in which only certain kinds of technology can exist. Traveling from one zone to another, if you're heading from a more advanced zone to a less advanced zone, renders any more advanced tech unworkable. In Spearpoint itself the zones range from high-tech, to electricity, to steam-powered, to "Horsetown". It's a strange set-up that naturally doesn't hold up to close scrutiny but there you are.
The beginning of the story moves along a fast clip and keeps you interested. But once Quillon is beyond Spearpoint, the story slows down considerably. There are a few moments when things get re-invigorated, but they don't last until perhaps the last 70 pages of the book when events once again move at quicker pace. It was interesting enough to keep reading, but just barely. The middle is a slog. And Quillon's not the most captivating character either. My biggest complaint is that the book lacks suspense for 95% of the story.
Some weeks ago I came across another reader who whole-heartedly recommends the author's book "House of Suns" but had warned me not to bother with this one.
[amazon]
[finished 27 apr 2012]
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A Little Princess • Frances Hodgson Burnett
Paperback 208 pages ISBN 13: 9780340997390 ISBN 10: 0340997397
This would not have been my first choice for read-aloud reading material but A) I don't have a ton of choices readily available (I am currently in Sweden after all), and B) it's a old favorite of my wife's and she'd bought a copy recently. So, I found myself reading this 100-year-old story to the kids. At first I couldn't help inwardly rolling my eyes at the overwrought nature of the story and it's perfect little heroine. But as the titular Sara Crewe's fortunes take a turn for the worse, it wasn't so bad and both my kids were hooked. (Honestly, lately they've been hooked on whatever I've been reading to them.) Both my 7-year-old girl and my 10-year-old boy got caught up in the story and would blurt out ideas about the characters. As the tale came to a close even my old cynical self felt moved by the charity shown by Sara Crewe to those less fortunate than herself. (So that's two books by this author I've read now! Huh.)
[book depository]
[finished 19 apr 2012]
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Anathem • ~ Neal Stephenson [abandoned]
mmpb 1008 pages ISBN-10: 006147410X ISBN-13: 978-0061474101
Kajsa (age 7) asked me what this book was about when I was more than 200 pages in and I couldn't really come up with a satisfying answer for her. I got 264 pages into this huge book before giving up. That was far too many pages than it deserved. Not much of anything happened in that first quarter of the book.
Then I started checking out what some GoodReads members said of the book. It's rated greater than 4 of 5 stars by the 12,000+ readers who have read/attempted it. Lots of Stephenson fans out there. I, too, am a big fan of Snow Crash, and Cryptonomicon even more so. This book is not like those books. And, since I had decided to abandon this, I checked out some reviews with spoilers. None of those did much to make the book any sexier, either.
In Anathem we have a far-future Earth-like planet called Arbre, where scientists, philosophers and mathematicians live like monks, closed off from the rest of the secular world. One such monk, 19-year-old Erasmus, narrates the story but "story" is a bit of a stretch. First of all, there's a maddening glossary of terms that you constantly have to check to figure out what the hell a character is talking about. Second of all, there's just lots of talking about arcane bits of science, math, etc, all of which does nothing to move the story toward any direction that is evident at this point. There's more than that but, who cares? It's really terribly dull. So screw that.
[started 23 mar 2012, abandoned on 1 apr 2012, 264 pages in]
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The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma
• Trenton Lee Stewart
pb 400 pages ISBN-10: 0316045500 ISBN-13: 978-0316045506
Reynie, Sticky, Kate, and Constance are once again pitted against the evil mastermind Ledroptha Curtain who of course just happens to be the twin brother of the benelovent Mr. Benedict. This tale is not quite as zippy as the preceding books but my two kids ate it up just as rabidly. As ever, Constance Contraire is a chief source of amusement, but the plot is harder to summarize. Basically Mr. Curtain wants to regain the Whisperer for his megalomanical plans. And Constance is developing some mental telepathy. Once again the kids would beg me to read more whenever I'd finish reading for the night. They love the Mysterious Benedict Society.
[amazon]
[finished 25 mar 2012]
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Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute • Jonathan L. Howard
pb 384 pages ISBN-10: 0755348001 ISBN-13: 978-0755348008
The necromancer Johannes Cabal is approached by three gentlemen from The Fear Institute for help in retrieving something called the Phobic Animus (the source of all fears) from the Dreamlands. Cabal accepts but only because he can then get his hands on the Silver Key which gains one entry to the Dreamlands. He doesn't really care about the Fear Institute and their goals. As ever, Cabal is looking out for number one and to hell with the consequences. This outing has more of a fantasy feel to it and much less of a gothic old world charm that I really enjoyed in the first two books. This third Johannes Cabal tale is still fun, but I still like the first one best. But as Cabal is such a charming anti-hero, I'll be on board for any subsequent Cabal tales. Still, I found the ending of this one a little bit confusing. Discuss.
[amazon]
[started 4 mar 2012, finished 22 mar 2012]
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At Home: A Short History of Private Life • Bill Bryson
pb 700 pages ISBN-13: 978-0552772556
Bill Bryson, a favorite author of mine, looks around his house and wonders where everything came from. The house in question is rectory dating from 1851 in some out-of-the-way spot in England. From the hall, to the kitchen, to the drawing room, bedroom, attic, and more, Bryson expounds on the history behind many different things that we now take for granted. It's wonderfully informative and fascinating stuff. How often can you say you breezed through a 700-page non-fiction book? Well, I did just now. There is a wealth of fascinating -- sometimes amazing -- facts within. For instance:
• Out of the thirty thousand types of edible plant thought to exist on earth, just eleven -- corn, rice, wheat, potatoes, casava, sorghum, millet, beans, barley, rye, and oats -- account for account for 93 per cent of all that humans eat, and every one of them was first cultivated by our Neolithic ancestors.
• Your bed, if it is averagely clean, averagely old, averagely dimensioned... is likely to be home to some two million tiny bed mites, too small to be seen with the naked eye. It's been calculated that if your pillow is six years old, one-tenth of its weight will be made up of sloughed skin, living and dead mites, and mite dung.
• The cleanest surface in the average house is the toilet seat; the fithiest object is the kitchen wash cloth.
• Today it takes the average citizen of Tanzania almost a year to produce the same volume of carbon emissions as is effortlessly generation every two and a half days by a European, or every twenty-eight hours by an American.
Most of the chapters in the book are named after rooms in the house. In some cases, Bryson barely touches on the significance of the room but instead launches into some compelling story from history about private life. The book is full of curious characters from history, some well-known and others largely forgotten. Many of these passages are taken from the Victorian era and one quickly counts oneself lucky not to have lived in that time. This book was highly enjoyable.
[amazon] [book depository]
[finished 12 mar 2012]
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The Great Hamster Massacre • Katie Davies
pb 128 pages ISBN-10: 1847385958 ISBN-13: 978-1847385956
Needed another read-aloud book for bedtime and this was available at the local library. (Boy, I seem to be plowing through read-aloud books lately.) This is a cute, breezy tale narrated by a young pre-teen girl who has to write a "What I Did Last Summer" essay for school. Instead, she recounts the tale of a disaster with hamsters and her investigation into it. It's a very light tale especially for one that includes death in the story. There's a good sense of humor in it too. As I read it, I became aware that it's set in England. (There are a few Britishisms sprinkled throughout and of course, many of the characters have a fondness for tea.) I enjoyed trying out my accent for the character of Mr. Tucker (a retired Navy man), but when I accidently let my English accent stray into one of the kids speech, my own two kids said I was making a mistake. The narrator (Anna) and her brother were American, they insisted. (I went along with it.) The story ends somewhat abruptly and you get the feeling there could've been a little more to the ending but no matter -- the kids liked it well enough. Now they are very excited at the prospect of my reading the third Mysterious Benedict Society book for the next read-aloud.
[amazon]
[finished 27 feb 2012]
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A Fire Upon The Deep • ~ Vernor Vinge [abandoned]
mmpb 624 pages ISBN-13: 978-0812515282
I was all fired-up to dive into some good old SF but about 200-odd pages in I gave up on this one. On the plus side, the dog-like medieval denizens of Tines World were very interesting. They had group-minds and acted as one in groups of four to six individuals. Definitely some clever stuff there. I was getting interested in the plight of two human children stuck on Tines World. But the other half of the story concerned the galactic "Blight" and focused on a human character named Ravna along with a couple other interesting aliens. But the motives and world-building in this section were too obtuse for me to get a handle on. I think the techno-babble did me in the most. But also Ravna's character wasn't very interesting. Reading this became more of a chore than fun so I made the decision to cut my losses. I'm in the minority with this viewpoint, but not alone.
[amazon]
[started 18 feb 2012, abandoned 26 feb 2012]
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First Lord's Fury (Codex Alera, Book 6) • Jim Butcher
mmpb 784 pages ISBN-10: 9780441019625 ISBN-13: 978-0441019625
This is a great finish to a wicked fun fantasy series. I started reading this one right after finishing the earlier book because I was so hooked into the story and the many wonderful characters. This book starts strongly and just carries through the entire length with never a dull moment. Our hero, Tavi, is on his way to help what's left of the Aleran people defeat the vord queen and her countless minions. There are fun surprises in store, secrets come out, and confrontations occur. People get revenge and it all ends very well. I highly recommend this series to any fan of epic fantasy.
[amazon]
[started 22 jan 2012, finished 17 feb 2012]
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Pippi Longstocking • Astrid Lindgren
HC 115 pages
Seems fitting to have read this book in Sweden. But this was actually a re-read for me. I read it the first time about 38 years ago but this time I read it aloud to my kids. They enjoyed it. Though Pippi can be an odd kid sometimes. It's easy to see why a kid would like Pippi. She lives on her own, does whatever she wants, has superhuman strength, and puts bullies in their place. She's also prone to telling fibs as easily as taking a breath. This first book is very episodic and I easily read it over seven bedtime story times. It was published back in 1945 and it shows its age only in a few spots.
[amazon]
[started 10 Feb 2012, finished 16 Feb 2012]
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The Chronicles of Harris Burdick
Fourteen Amazing Authors Tell the Tales
HC 192 pages ISBN-10: 0547548109 ISBN-13: 978-0547548104
I think any fan of children's books would be familiar with the works of Chris Van Allsburg. After all, he's written Jumanji, The Garden of Abdul Gasazi, The Polar Express and many others. One of which was a beguiling collection of strange pictures with tantalizing captions called The Mysteries of Harris Burdick. In that book you were left to wonder what the stories were surrounding these unconnected pictures. Now 14 authors are trying their hand at it and the result is this handsome book. I decided to read it aloud to the kids. (I needed a book and this was handy.) Some nights I read one story, most others I could read two before lights-out. It's a pretty solid collection, there were only a couple stories I didn't really care for. One that the kids particularly liked was the third one, written by Sherman Alexie. It featured two naughty siblings and my kids giggled like mad as I read it. The last story was one by Stephen King and it's the longest of the bunch. Kids were riveted and had to tell Mama all about it afterwards. Fun stuff.
[amazon]
[started 31 jan 2012, finished 9 feb 2012]
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The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey • Trenton Lee Stewart
pb 464 pages ISBN-10: 0316036730 ISBN-13: 978-0316036733
Both of my kids adored the first Mysterious Benedict Society book so they clamored to have me read them this one, the second, as soon as possible. Luckily enough, Nana & Pop supplied us with a copy. This story takes up a year after the events of the first story. The four kids of the MBS are reunited for what promises to be a fun surprise from Mr. Benedict only to find that Mr. Benedict and Number Two have been abducted by Mr. Curtain and his minions. So it's a rescue mission. I read about a chapter per night to the kids (about 30 minutes of reading) and they were always clamoring for me to read more. Naturally they're keen to read the third book in the series. Good thing a little bird told me that Luke will get it soon as a birthday present.
[amazon]
[finished 30 jan 2012]
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Princeps' Fury (Codex Alera, Book 5) • Jim Butcher
mmpb 640 pages ISBN-13: 978-0441017966
In book five of the six book series, Tavi travels to Canea, Gaius Sextus sends Bernard and Amara on a dangerous mission deep in vord territory, and Isana is up north on an impossible peace mission. Once this book gets going it's tough to put down. There's a surprising finish but at the same time this book lays a lot of groundwork for the big finish. I'm reading book six right now. Love this series.
[amazon]
[started 24 dec 2011, finished 22 jan 2012]
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The Etymologicon • Mark Forsyth
HC 288 pages ISBN-10: 1848313071 ISBN-13: 978-1848313071
The subtitle sums it up pretty nicely: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language. Forsyth, the man behind the blog Inky Fool, is obsessed with where words come from and with wit takes you on a roundabout journey through his obsession. I started reading this fully thinking, that I'd pick it up here and there when I needed a break from my current fiction in progress. But I pretty much read this book straight through and enjoyed it very much. The target audience is definitely word nerds, though. One chapter I enjoyed was titled "Concealed Farts." In a nineteenth-century dictionary, the author found this definition for fice:
A small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged [blamed] on their lap-dogs.
He continues:
And fice itself comes from the Old English fist, which likewise meant fart. In Elizabethan times a smelly dog was called a fisting cur, and by the eighteenth century any little dog was called a feist, and that's where we get the word feisty from. Little dogs are so prone to bark at anything that an uppity girl was called feisty, straight from the flatulent dogs of yore. This is a point well worth remembering when you're next reading a film review about a 'feisty heroine.'
You can also find some corrections at this link.
[amazon]
[started 25 dec 2011, finished 1 jan 2012]
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last dozen books read
Terminal World ~ Alastair Reynolds |
A Little Princess ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett |
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Prisoner's Dilemma ~ Trenton Lee Stewart |
Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute
~ Jonathan L. Howard |
At Home: A Short History of Private Life
~ Bill Bryson |
The Great Hamster Massacre ~ Katie Davies |
First Lord's Fury ~ Jim Butcher |
Pippi Longstocking ~ Astrid Lindgren |
The Chronicles of Harris Burdick ~ (various) |
The Mysterious Benedict Society and the Perilous Journey ~ Trenton Lee Stewart |
Princeps' Fury ~ Jim Butcher |
The Etymologicon ~ Mark Forsyth |
aquisitions and turnover
"Read" includes all books read that year whether or not it was acquired in the same year.
| YEAR |
BOUGHT |
GIVEN |
READ |
SOLD |
| 2012 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 0 |
| 2011 | 18 | 5 | 42 | 3 |
| 2010 | 25 | 16 | 33 | 11 |
| 2009 | 40 | 13 | 29 | 10 |
| 2008 | 38 | 12 | 48 | 13 |
| 2007 | 27 | 8 | 34 | 9 |
| 2006 | 20 | 6 | 29 | 4 |
| 2005 | 20 | 10 | 41 | 4 |
| 2004 | 19 | 2 | 34 | 6 |
| 2003 | 24 | 2 | 31 | 6 |
Note: Comments on the entries here can be submitted via my blog where I also post these same book reviews. (So good they're posted twice!)
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