January 2009
7 posts
#4: Cross My Heart and Hope to Spy by Ally Carter
I love this series. It’s probably one of my favorites, and the author Ally Carter is one of my favorite bloggers. While reading Cross My Heart I was struck by the many similarities between it and Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire, which is not necessarily a criticism, but…it was a little strange. There’s a Grand Hall, a beginning-of-the-year dinner (probs a common tradition in...
#3: The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
This book is incredibly sad. Jeannette Walls lived what was at once a fascinating and horrifying childhood, characterized mostly by poverty and hunger caused by her rather ridiculous dreamy parents. They were selfish and insecure and needy and immature and their four children, who had practically no care from the time they were toddlers, carry the scars (some literal, some figurative) of their...
#2: Wings by Aprilynne Pike
So I picked up this ARC at work recently and I read it quickly and while I liked it well enough, I wasn’t really blown away by it. It has a blurb from Stephenie Meyer, the author of Twilight, who is apparently a friend of Pike’s, and while I’m not like, “I must read anything Stephenie Meyer has read” because obvs I don’t care about that, I’ve never seen a...
#1: East of Eden by John Steinbeck
Actually, I read most of East of Eden in 2008, but I didn’t finish the last 100 pages until 2009, so…it’s a straddler, but I’m following the rules and counting it in the year I turned the last page. Anyway, Steinbeck considered East of Eden his masterpiece, and even though I’ve only read one other book of his and a short story, I can pretty much guarantee that it is,...
Books Read in 2008
1. The Emperor’s Children by Claire Messud 2. Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford 3. Book for work 4. Book for work 5. The Year of Magical Thinking (play) by Joan Didion 6. The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield 7. The Mitfords: Letters Between Sisters ed. by Charlotte Mosely<br><br> 8. Book for work 9-10. The Pursuit of Love and Love in a Cold Climate by Nancy Mitford 11. Book...
#72: The Gum Thief by Douglas Coupland
I feel like my count is off somewhere, because while I don’t think The Gum Thief is the last book I read in 2008, I can’t at the moment think of what book that was. Sigh. Anyway, I’m a huge Douglas Coupland fan, so I liked The Gum Thief, but if you’d never read any of his books and I raved at you about him and you picked this one (his latest) up and read it, you’d be...
December 2008
9 posts
#71: Repossessed by A. M. Jenkins
For some reason, despite the fact that I read a lot, I have a hard time keeping up with the award-winning titles, and invariably the short list for a presitigious award will be announced and I will say, “Wow, I have neither read nor heard of ANY OF THESE BOOKS.” But this year, at least I’ve read one Printz honor book! And what a great one to read. Repossessed was incredibly...
“It’s amazing how you can be a total shithead, and yet your soul still...”
– Douglas Coupland, The Gum Thief
#70: The Disreputable History of Frankie...
Okay, here’s a question: why does the cover of a book about a secret society called the Loyal Order of the Basset Hounds have a dachsund on it? I’ve never liked this cover much (too plain and boring for such a cool book), but now that I’ve noticed that I’m just annoyed.
Anyway, this book has been getting a lot of attention in the YA community; it was nominated for a...
#69: Book for work
I’m sad I can’t review this book because I really really liked it, and I read another book by this author earlier this year (again for work) that I didn’t love so much, so this was a welcome surprise, kind of unexpected but really wonderful.
#68: The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
I picked up this little novella at work and breezed through it (it’s only 120 pages long); it might interest you to know that it was written by Alan Bennett, the author of The History Boys, which should really tell you all you need to know about The Uncommon Reader, like for instance it’s charming and clever and makes the frosty Queen of England seem somewhat adorable, like you...
“What she was finding also was how one book led to another, doors kept opening...”
– Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
100 notable books of 2008 →
(via paperbackgirl)
I’ve read literally none of these, but I own quite a few of them, including that new translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, weirdly enough.
#67: Plain Truth by Jodi Picoult
Despite what a big reader I am and what a prolific writer Jodi Picoult is, in the Venn diagram of books our paths never really crossed until a few days ago, when I borrowed Plain Truth from a friend of mine who is a big Picoult fan and has a whole slew of titles from the author’s backlist lining her shelves. (I’ve decided to abandon the one-sentence reviewing thing, as it’s hard...
November 2008
10 posts
#66: Museum: Behind the Scenes at the Metropolitan...
Okay, the truth is that I liked this book well enough, but I only have so much patience for the sort of people who work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, because, as you can probably imagine, they’re all ancient, hyper-educated, mostly Caucasian, mostly men, mostly priviledged (especially the trustees—oh, the trustees are the worst, because they’re millionaire art collectors who...
#65: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
I’m not much for zombies usually, but there’s been so much buzz around Carrie Ryan’s debut YA novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth, that when the opportunity came up to borrow an ARC I jumped on it and pretty much devoured the whole thing in a day and a half, and while I think that there are some things that could be improved upon—Mary, the narrator, was very...
#64: Smart Girls Like Me by Diane Vadino
At first when I was reading Smart Girls Like Me I was frustrated, because I thought the writing was only passable, the characters were unsympathetic and boring, and I found the narrator irritating and self-involved AT BEST, but I stuck with the novel out of sheer stubborness, as I am wont to do, and I soon fell into the groove of the story, finally appreciating what Vadino was trying to...
Belle and Sebastian - Wrapped Up In Books
Our...
#63: Cleopatra's Nose by Judith Thurman
Even I am amazed by the fact that, for the first time in the history of my personal Fifty Books a Year project (this is my third year keeping track), I am counting a book that I did not read in its entirety, and the reason for this is that I read most of Cleopatra’s Nose, even going so far as to underline valuable insight, interesting factoids, or particularly perfect prose (of which there...
an unexpected treat
Judith Thurman’s collection of New Yorker essays, Cleopatra’s Nose, is really esoteric and wonderful, though so often the essays are distanced and chilly. Except for (so far) “This Old House,” about the completely relatable lust Thurman has for beautiful New York row houses, the type of which line streets in neighborhoods as disparate as Greenwich Village, Brooklyn Heights,...
#62: Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott
Whoa, this book is like a punch in the gut, the story of a girl who was kidnapped and held captive for five years and her attempts to escape—it is seriously amazing.
“It will be over soon, finally, but the thing about hearts is that they always...”
– Elizabeth Scott, Living Dead Girl
#61: Book for work
October 2008
15 posts
#60: Book for work
#59: Book for work
#58: Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Asher is a good writer and I’m really interested to see what he comes up with next, but Thirteen Reasons Why felt like a disappointment, because I think it’s a bit of a cop-out that our narrator is the only person on Hannah Baker’s pre-suicide blame-game tapes that didn’t actually do anything wrong, and on the whole, though there are as many types of suicide and reasons for...
“There are thirteen sides to every story.”
– Jay Asher, Thirteen Reasons Why
#57: Let It Snow by John Green, Maureen Johnson,...
This fun, festive holiday novella anthology by three of the best-selling YA writers in the biz is sweet and romantic and funny and involves a teacup pig, which, um, I didn’t even know they existed and now that they do I feel like I MUST HOLD ONE—the book is subtitled “Three Holiday Romances,” and all the stories are love stories, so I suggest anyone who likes YA and love...
#56: Such a Pretty Fat by Jen Lancaster
If you’ve ever read a Jen Lancaster book, or a single post of Jennsylvania, you’ll know that this book was hilarious and fascinating, because I think that’s all Jen knows how to write, the woman seems programmed not to be boring or irritating (although other people might disagree with me on the “irritating” part, since Jen seems to have made her share of enemies, at...
#55: The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine by April...
This was another YA book; I wish it was longer (Dylan Fontaine is a pretty interesting character, I really liked him and would’ve enjoyed more time in his head), because I felt like it ended a little abruptly, and I wanted Angie’s affection for Dylan to be more obvious, because it felt like that girl was holding a lot of stuff back—I thought maybe with more time, that would...
#54: The Secret History by Donna Tartt
In the country of books about hyper intelligent, creepy young adults who may or may not be murderous lunatics, Donna Tartt’s 1992 novel reigns supreme, as it must have been the inspiration for Marisha Pessl’s overblown, pedantic blockbuster Special Topics in Calamity Physics, as well as Tana French’s The Likeness, which I read and liked earlier this year; Tartt is a masterful...
#53: Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader by...
I love Anne Fadiman, as I have said before, and Ex Libris is the first book of hers I ever read—it was given to me by an ex-roommate of mine and while our friendship didn’t last (if it ever existed), I still treasure this book and have ghetto laminated (i.e. covered in packing tape) the Annie Bloom’s bookmark she slipped in between the pages; I read Ex Libris at least once a...
“Does such a thing as ‘the fatal flaw,’ that showy dark crack running...”
– Donna Tartt, The Secret History
#52: Vile Bodies by Evelyn Waugh
I love Waugh, and I loved Decline and Fall (to which this is a very, very loosey goosey sequel in that it has some of the same characters, but they are quite marginal and anyway this is about something totally different), and I even liked Bright Young Things, the movie (with That James McAvoy!) that they made based on Vile Bodies (albeit with a similarly sober but much more romantic ending), but...
“Wouldn’t it just rock and roll if liking someone meant they’d have...”
– Pushing Daisies
“I felt wise and cynical as all hell.”
– Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
#51: The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen...
I don’t know how I missed this book growing up, but it’s the sort of indelible YA that people talk about way, way into their adulthoods as some sort of life-changing event, and it kind of makes you believe that all this soul-searching, all this questioning about who you are and if you’re doing things the right way at the right time with the right people and if there is a...
September 2008
17 posts
#50: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
I started this book yesterday at around 8:00 PM and read it through until the end, that is how much I absolutely loved it, as it is the best YA I’ve read all year and one of the best books period I read all year, JUST READ IT WILL YOU?!!?
“Things are simple as a rule.”
– Agatha Christie, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
#49: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha...
I’ve always been a huge Christie fan—my mother and father, in the early days of their marriage, poor as churchmice, used to go on “dates” where they would get 25 cent ice cream cones from the World’s First McDonald’s in Des Plaines, IL (now a museum, with a working McDonald’s next door), then pick up cheap paperbacks at a used bookstore and finish up with...
#48: Cycler by Lauren McLaughlin
Cycler is one of those YA books that people start talking about way before it even comes out, and with very good reason, as Lauren McLaughlin’s comedy of gender has one of the most original premises I’ve seen in quite a while, as her female heroine’s monthly visitor is sentient; every month, Jill changes into a boy, Jack, who has a separate personality and separate interests than...
“Man is born to trouble, as the sparks fly upward.”
– Job 5:7 (via wordplay)
#47 - The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry by...
I picked this book up off the free shelf at work yesterday, read a few pages, was totally hooked, and devoured it when I got home, so that should give you some idea of how much I liked it; what I found to be especially good about Flinn’s book, apart from the writing and the subject matter (I really like books about cooking and food, even though I’m a pretty mediocre cook on the whole...
“My mother always says, ‘Eighty percent of what you worry about never...”
– Kathleen Flinn, The Sharper Your Knife, the Less You Cry
