April: Books Read

Books Read, with links to my reviews:

Twenty Thousand Streets Under the Sky: A London Trilogy by Patrick Hamilton
The Penderwicks: A Summer Tale of Four Sisters, Two Rabbits, and a Very Interesting Boy by Jean Birdsall
East by Edith Pattou
Embassytown by China Miéville
Wonderstruck by Brian Selzick
Enchanted Glass by Diana Wynne Jones
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell
The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin
Redshirts by John Scalzi
Robopocalypse by Daniel H. Wilson
Tomorrow, When the War Began by John Marsden
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones
The Wednesday Wars by Gary D. Schmidt
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? by Jeanette Winterson
Fantastic Mr. Fox by Roald Dahl
The Color of Earth by Kim Dong Hwa
Team Human by Justine Larbalestier
We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball by Kadir Nelson
The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

April: Books Bought

Nook Books:
Watership Down by Richard Adams -  I reread this every year, and I've been itching to get it on my Nook. Now I have it! Not that I'm getting rid of my physical copy or anything crazy like that....
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole - Deeply funny, and even though I read it years ago I smile every time I think about Ignatius J. Reilly's unique filing system. Nearly time for a reread.
Something About You by Julie James - Recommendation from my cousin, Beth, who increased my list of romance books by a lot during her too-short visit.
Hit Man by Lawrence Block - A hit man with a heart of gold? Perfect.
The Slaves of Solitude by Patrick Hamilton - His books are unlike what I normally gravitate toward, but the way he creates characters is so extraordinary that I am back for more. Awkward courtships? I'm in!
Redshirts by John Scalzi - You cannot call yourself a Star Trek fan if you don't know about the many tragic sacrifices made over the decades by eager young redshirts.
Feed by Mira Grant - It was so cheap! It's been on my list for a while! - and the third book in the trilogy was just short-listed for the Hugo, which was my tipping point. (Not to be confused with M.T. Anderson's Feed.)
The Duchess War by Courtney Milan - According to my friend Caitlin, this book is "scrumtrelescent"! How could I miss that?
The Governess Affair by Courtney Milan - Because who can beat the price of FREE?
The Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick - I loved the movie, and even Kirkus admitted that the book was charming.
Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann - Some friends of mine love this book, and I got it for 99 cents.
Cooperstown Confidential: Heroes, Rogues, and the Inside Story of the Baseball Hall of Fame
by Zev Chafets - So cheap! Yay, Barnes and Noble!
The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson - Again, another steal from a favorite author!
How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier - Great title, should be fun!
Liar by Justine Larbalestier - Unreliable narrator? Check! Controversial original cover art? Yup.
How to Live: A Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at An Answer by Sarah Bakewell - A Nick Hornby recommendation
Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie - Y'all, I love my fantasy revenge novels.
Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness by Susannah Cahalan - What about this title isn't great?
Howl's Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones - I decided to read this for a class, but found that I had loaned out my copy! Curses. So I bought it again on Nook. Yes, it's that good.

Physical Books:
The City & The City by China Miéville - An author who is known for his complexity and originality. My first foray into his works was Kraken, which I enjoyed well enough to seek out more.
The Scar by China Miéville - see above
Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester - My love for Master and Commander has made this one an inevitable read, though I don't think anyone can top Patrick O'Brian's incredible series.
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie - I cried actual tears when reading this book, which is unusual for me. And it's set near my hometown, where Alexie grew up.
The Edge of the Crazies by Jamie Harrison
The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge
The Sweet Hereafter by Russell Banks
The Voyage of the Narwhal by Andrea Barrett

March: Books Bought, Books Read

Continuing my Hornby "Stuff I've Read" emulation, I'm keeping a list of all the books I read in a month, and the ones in progress, as well as the ones I purchased. Considering how long it's gotten, it may be a better idea to break it up by week when it's this busy!

Books Bought in March

From the UW Bookstore's Spring Sale:
Words and Rules: The Ingredients of Language by Steven Pinker - I love books about language, reading, and writing.
Mantissa by John Fowles - Ever since The French Lieutenant's Woman I've been meaning to read everything he ever wrote.
The Tenderness of Wolves by Stef Penney - Never heard of it, but it's the story of a woman trying to solve a murder in the Northern Territories during the dead of winter - in 1867. Yep, it's hitting all the right buttons.
The Manual of Detection by Jedediah Berry - Magical realism, and I'm there! I still haven't found anyone to compare to Borges, Garcia Marquez, or Calvino, but I keep trying.
Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature by John Mullan - History of literature, check. Jane Austen first published anonymously, and there were conjectures about her sex when her books were reviewed.
About A Boy by Nick Hornby - I liked the movie, I liked Hornby's essays, so I'm going to try his fiction.
The Del Ray Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy ed. Ellen Datlow - Short stories and science fiction - I grew up on Golden Age scifi short stories, and I keep looking to reclaim those reading experiences.
Memoir: A History by Ben Yagoda - Another history of literature. I sense a theme.
The Awful End of Prince William the Silent: The First Assassination of a Head of State with a Handgun by Lisa Jardine - A slim book that promises an intriguing take on history.
That Mad Ache by Francoise Sagan (trans. Douglas Hofstadter) / Translator, Trader by Douglas Hofstadter (a two-in one book, with half being the story translated from French, and the other half the story of the translation)

Nook Books:
L.A. Confidential by James Ellroy - One of my all-time favorite films, so I decided I might love the book. Noir is awesome.
Fire and Hemlock by Diana Wynne Jones - I love Wynne Jones, who is unparelleled at creating unusual fantasy worlds, with tricky rules that move the story in unexpected yet satisfying ways. I've heard this is a good one.
Hyperion by Dan Simmons - I've read it before, and it's stuck with me. Time to read it again.
Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card - I gave away my last copy, but now I need to prepare for the MOVIE version, with Harrison Ford as Graff, who now officially has a monopoly on awesome adventure/scifi roles!
Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson - The first of a science fiction trilogy about the colonization of Mars that sounds amazing.
Trouble in Texas by Katie Lane - Why yes, that is a shirtless cowboy on the front! Romance is a bad habit to get into.
Everneath by Brodi Ashton
Neverfall by Brodi Ashton
Darkness Before Dawn by J.A. London
She-Wolves: The Women Who Ruled England Before Elizabeth by Helen Castor
The Essential Works of Winston Churchill by Winston Churchill (Golgatha Press) - Reading The Wordy Shipmates got me interested in reading Churchill's histories, and this was a cheap collection at B&N.
Dunkirk: A Retreat to Victory by Julian Thompson - Another Vowell book that I purchased for its cheapness and my sudden interest in reading about Dunkirk.
Larklight by Philip Reeve - Steampunk space travel? Okay, you've got me.

And since I have NO self-control, from the indie used bookstore Magus Books:
The Box by Richard Matheson - remember the movie? There's a short story it's based on (by the guy who wrote I Am Legend, which is scifi/horror) - and for me short stories aren't that interesting unless they're science fiction.
The Faded Sun Trilogy by C.J. Cherryh - I've been searching for a cheap edition of Downbelow Station for a while now, to get into Cherryh's voluminous oeuvre, but no luck. It's not even digital! Shocking - you would think that all science fiction books would automatically converted to digital, just by virtue of their genre. Silliness aside, this trilogy will have to do as my intro to her work. It's about a dying race of aliens searching for their homeworld after human beings (! but yeah, sounds like us) have nearly wiped them out.
On Basilisk Station by David Weber - the first of the Honor Harrington series, which I hope I like since it features a strong female protagonist
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett - In case I need some literary fiction at the end of the day.
Midshipman Bolitho by Alexander Kent - I picked this up hoping it will be like Patrick O'Brian's Master and Commander series, which I love.
Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld - so cheap! And steampunk! I couldn't resist, and the woman who rang me up told me she loved the trilogy.
Desert Queen: The Extraordinary Life of Gertrude Bell: Adventurer, Adviser to Kings, Ally of Lawrence of Arabia by Janet Wallach - A bio of a strong woman? Yes please!

Books Read in March (reviews at links):
The Inimitable Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse
The Duff: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente
Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby
Babymouse: Queen of the World! by Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm
Other People's Love Letters: 150 Letters You Were Never Meant to See ed. Bill Shapiro
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins
Demonglass by Rachel Hawkins
Spell Bound by Rachel Hawkins
The Wordy Shipmates by Sarah Vowell
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There by Catherynne M. Valente
Fairy Dust and the Quest for the Egg by Gail Carson Levine
Wicked Plants: The Weed That Killed Lincoln's Mother & Other Botanical Atrocities by Amy Stewart

Shakespeare Wrote for Money

Shakespeare Wrote for Money by Nick Hornby
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hornby is clearly running out of steam, but that doesn't prevent the last collection of his "Stuff I've Read" essays from being enjoyable. He discovers the joys of YA fiction (and reads a few of my favorites - Nick Hornby reading genre novels!), gets distracted by football, talks a little more about politics than I care for, and makes it all engaging enough to be worthwhile. As ever, he continues to add titles to my to-read list!

The "September 2006" essay was one I had read in another collection, and it was just as hilarious the second time around as Hornby skates around the fact that due to the World Cup he hadn't read any books that month. A quotation from that essay, absurd out of context but still funny: "And anyway, I was making an elementary error: I was trimming and lengthening the legs of the same ants - and this, I see now, was completely and utterly pointless: three hours of microsurgery on each ant and they all ended up the same height anyway." (Does he write or perform stand-up comedy? This essay seems like it would translate well into that medium, and the persona he builds in his "Stuff I've Read" columns is consistently likable and self-effacing.)

Nick Hornby Strikes Again!

The Polysyllabic Spree: A Hilarious and True Account of One Man's Struggle With the Monthly Tide of the Books He's Bought and the Books He's Been Meaning to Read by Nick Hornby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A collection of essays about books bought, books read, and occasionally Arsenal football, Nick Hornby's voice remains consistently funny and smart. He reads literary books and thick biographies, but undercuts any hint of snobbery with a wry and self-deprecating humor (perhaps this is a uniquely British skill). I love hearing his thoughts about his reading life, and I always come away with a few unexpected additions to my to-read list.

Sometimes I know he's thinking my thoughts:
"I don't reread books very often; I'm too conscious of both my ignorance and my mortality.[...] But when I try to recall anything about [a certain book] other than its excellence, I failed. [...] And I realized that, as this is true of just about every book I consumed between the ages of, say, fifteen and forty, I haven't even read the books I think I've read. I can't tell you how depressing this is. What's the fucking point?"

On why he bought a book right then even though it wasn't the one he had come for:
"I didn't know for sure I'd ever go to a bookshop again; and if I never went to a bookshop again, how long were those several hundred books going to last me? Nine or ten years at the most. No, I needed that copy of Prayers for Rain, just to be on the safe side."

More Baths, Less Talking

More Baths, Less Talking by Nick Hornby
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My only complaint about this sprightly book of essays is that now I've added about twenty books to my to-read list, most of them biographies (which I rarely ever get through). Hornby's writing reminds me why I love essays and writing about literature. Witty, funny, and full of insight into a few good books, this is exactly what I was looking for.

Now to track down the rest of his Believer articles and read them through!


View all my reviews