Return of the Book Blogger (aka OK So Now It's April)

Annnnnnnd... once again I have let months pass without writing a blog post or even managing to get one of my volunteer guest bloggers going.

Yeah, I've been busy.  Working and with kids and family and friends... but also because we moved to a new house and that was a giant engineering project from Hell.  But now I am in an awesome new house and I have fabulous new places to read!  Many of our books are still in storage, along with many of our book shelves... but still.  This is good.  I love the house and we have much more space to store our giant book collection, which it appears I may be physically incapable of culling.

Despite my lack of recent blog posts and my busy schedule, I have been reading for an hour every day... mostly.  If I don't manage an hour in a particular day, I catch up the next day (or the next...).  As long as it works out to at least one hour per day of book reading, I'm happy.  (No, I'm not counting listening to audio books in the car.  So that means on days that I commute I am getting extra "reading" in.  I LOVE THIS.)

So... where am I now in meeting my goal to read 52 books this year?  Well, happily I have already finished 24.  I am well on my way, and I imagine I am going to exceed the goal.  This is good!

The most recent book I finished was written by my friend Emily Rapp, The Still Point of the Turning World.  Emily's son, Ronan, was diagnosed at 9 months of age with Tay Sachs disease, a genetic illness that is invariably fatal.  Ronan died this year on February 15, about a month short of his third birthday.  Emily writes movingly of how difficult - really how impossible - her job as a parent became.  There are a few wrenching chapters (because I knew Emily personally and maybe because I am a nurse I had a hard time with the beginning, where she describes hearing the diagnosis for the first time.  The scene played out all too vividly in my mind).  Mostly, though, there is a lot of intellectual content about literature and art and parenting and how we deal with (or mostly how we deny) the reality that every single one of us is going to die someday.  This isn't a light read, but I am so glad that I read it and I'm always thankful that I knew Emily.  I just wish that I had been able to meet Ronan.

Before I got into reading that, I had been having some stellar luck with literary fiction selections.  One book that I listened to in my car, The Blood of Flowers by Anita Amirezzvani was so amazing that I bought a copy and sent it to my sister-in-law.  Historical fiction set in Iran (then Persia) in the 1600s, illuminating the plight of women in that society AND ready by a very talented actress?  If only every audio book I read was that amazing.

In print books, I read several really interesting works in a row, all of which featured twins (I did not plan it that way at all).  First, I read Audrey Niffenegger's Her Fearful Symmetry.  I loved The Time Traveler's Wife and had heard not-so-great things about this newer book, but I suspect that people who didn't like it as well wanted it to be The Time Traveler's Wife again.  It's not, but it is a compelling story that includes two strange sets of twins, a ghost, and a character with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.  I enjoyed it.

Next, I read through Abraham Verghese's novel Cutting for Stone.  Twin boys are born to a nun in Ethiopia, setting off a chain of events that affects many.  This one is over 600 pages long and my sister complained that she didn't like it because it "didn't go anywhere."  It does meander some, but the point, I think, is the complex relationships between the characters.  I was never bored reading this and would recommend it.

Finally, I read The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards.  I started it with no idea what it might be about, and soon found myself pulled into a story about twins, one born with Down's Syndrome, and their parallel lives.  The circumstances of the twins' birth it unusual and the father, a physician, tells the mother that the second twin has died rather than confront the reality of living with a child with Down's.  The father instructs his nurse to take this child to an institution; not an uncommon plan for the era (the early 1960s).  Instead, the nurse leaves town and raises the child as her own. 

Those are the highlights from the past few months, although, as I said, I am cruising through a lot of reading material. 

Next up: maybe I will get that guest blogger going.  IT COULD HAPPEN, PEOPLE. 

Hello 2013, Hello Book-Related Resolutions

I read 41 books in 2012, which isn’t bad, but this year I want to do better.  One book a week seems reasonable (especially considering that I count the audio books that I listen to during my commute), so 52 books is my goal for the year.  And hopefully some of them will be books that I can read and donate or give away.  Most of our books are currently in storage as we attempt to sell our house, which adds an extra element of challenge to reading what I own, so if you are reading this, please cross your fingers that we sell our house soon and are able to move!

My secondary goal is to spend at least an hour a day reading.  This is trickiest on days when I work evening shifts in Rochester, as I wind up starting at 2 in the morning, but so far, so good.  And sitting and reading for an hour straight truly is a pleasure, and one I had nearly forgotten.

So far I’m on pace, having finished Michael Connelly’s The Black Echo and Stephen King’s fifth Dark Tower novel, Wolves of the Calla. 

I liked The Black Echo, but I’m not totally sure why so many people love Connelly’s Harry Bosch series so much.  I’ll read another one sometime soon and maybe I’ll see what I’m missing.  I mean… I liked it, but it wasn’t so compelling that I felt I had to go read the next ten immediately.

The Black Echo is also the first book that I read on my new Kindle (my husband owned it previous to me and gave it to me when he upgraded).  This means that it doesn’t add to or subract from the number of physical books in my house, and it was kind of an interesting experience.  I’m not totally sold on reading in this format.  It certainly is convenient, though, and it doesn’t take up very much space.

Wolves of the Calla is a book I’d been putting off reading for years.  The fourth Dark Tower book, Wizard and Glass, had been my favorite in the series so far, and I was hesitant to go on, especially since I’d heard vague complains about the final three books from other King readers.  For the most part, though, I found this volume compelling, and I’m curious to see where it goes in the final two books.   

I do like the way King refers to others of his works, sort of tying them all together into one world.  I didn’t expect to meet up with Father Callahan from ‘Salem’s Lot again, ever… but there he was.  One aspect of the end of Wolves did make me question what King is planning to do… but I’ll reserve judgment on that until I see where he takes it next.  The sixth volume, Song of Susannah, is currently on my Shelf of Ten, although there are a few other books I want to get through first.

Wolves of the Calla will, like all Stephen King books (even the ones I don’t particularly like), stay in my collection. 

And… back to reading.  For now.

Best and Worst Books (of the Ones I Read in 2012)

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It is the end of 2012 and I have finished reading 41 books this year.  It would have been more if I had not gotten so bogged down in both orientation for my job and in reading Red Mars (seriously, it took me two months to get through that book), but that leaves me an easy goal for 2013: finish more than 41 books.

Without any further ado, here are the five worst and the five best books I read in 2012.

The Bad Ones

5. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson.  I complained extensively about this book both online and to anyone who would listen to me kvetch in person.  The concept is great, but unfortunately, the characters are not interesting and the execution of the story is boring.  How you can make a story like this dull, I’m not sure, but Robinson managed admirably.  Months later all I remember is a few interesting moments and being baffled over why anyone would be remotely attracted to any of the three main characters in the central love triangle of the book.

4. The Other Side of Midnight by Sidney Sheldon.  I first read this terrifically trashy book when I was in high school.  I’ll be honest: I liked it a lot better then than I did this time around.  The plot was interesting and twisty in the way that a poorly written soap opera is interesting and twisty, and it does have some mildly interesting sex scenes.  Mostly, though, it’s nonsense.

3. Brother Odd by Dean Koontz.  I liked the first Odd Thomas book pretty well and the second wasn’t bad, but this was padded and poor.  Dean Koontz is such an on and off writer that I was entirely unsurprised.

2. Redwall by Brian Jacques.  Predictable, sexist, and sanctimonious, this is the first book that has actively made me want to stomp on mice or any other kind of animal.  The fact that the head bad guy’s name in this tome is “Cluny” is so stupid that it doesn’t bear repeating unless you are being warned against read this book.  Which you are.

1.  Fifty Shades of Grey by E. L. James.  A lot of people love this book, especially women, and… I don’t get it.  It is poorly written to the point of being comical and the sex scenes – purported to be super hot and interesting because of the BDSM content – are pretty generic.  And every damn character is so dull and uninteresting that you barely care about their alleged relationships.  There’s a lot better smut available for free on the internet, people.  And in print.  And probably on the backs of bathroom stall doors.  If you’re looking for erotica, I would look further.  It shouldn’t be hard to find something much better.

The Good Ones

5. Bossypants by Tina Fey.  Tina Fey is very funny, and so is her memoir.  I listened to this on compact discs while working in my kitchen.  Fey herself reads it, which is an added pleasure.  My son watched me doubled over, laughing, while listening to this at one point.  Really, really enjoyable.

4. Vaccine: The Controversial Story of Medicine’s Greatest Lifesaver by Arthur Allen.  I have long been interesting in the debates surrounding vaccinations, and Allen offers a thorough and fascinating study of the subject, focusing primarily on vaccination and its history in the United States.  From the first vaccine for smallpox to modern vaccines for rotavirus, Allen takes the reader through American history and shows how public health and the government interact with the American people – both individuals and in populations.

3.  11/22/63 by Stephen King.  I became one of Stephen King’s Constant Readers when I was fourteen.  I’m forty now, and have read almost all of his novels – the great (The Shining, Salem’s Lot, The Stand, etc.) and the terrible (Insomnia, Gerald’s Game).  11/22/63 is long.  And well-researched historical fiction.  And it has an emotional love story in the second half that broke my heart a bit.  I was surprised at this late date to be able to add a new Stephen King book to my “top five King reads,” but there it is.  Don’t miss this one. 

2. Miracle in the Andes by Nando Parrado. This one wins for best non-fiction book I read this year, hands down, no question about it. Parrado’s first person account of his experience in the 1972 plane crash into the uninhabitable mountains of the Andes is gripping, harrowing, and occasionally nauseating. I have mentioned this book to numerous people as a “must read,” and it is.

1. The Help by Kathryn Stockett. I was dimly aware of this novel before a fellow nurse handed me the audio book and suggested I listen to it on my commute. It is excellent, one of the best books I have read EVER. I literally was sitting in my car many times once I’d gotten home, wanting to sit in the garage and just keep listening. The movie is good, yes, but the book is better by far.



And that’s it for 2012!

Next year: more about books… and some guest bloggers!

 

Packing Up, Trying to Finish Books, and My Renewed Obsession with the Public Library

First of all, the major book thing I’ve been doing lately is packing them.  All of them.  Into boxes.  Many, many boxes.  And then carting them to a storage area so that somehow someone will buy our house and then we can move into a beautiful, bigger house that we are trying to buy (which is only about four blocks from where we live now).

I thought this would be more traumatic than it has been, to be honest.  But packing books is easy.  Yes, they are heavy, but they also fit nicely into boxes.  This is why most of the books that live in my house are now living in a cold storage area for a while.  I do have plenty of books still here, at least three or four bookshelves worth, so really, it almost doesn’t matter how long selling this house takes in this regard.  I will not run out of reading material.  It’s possible I will go mad and set the house on fire out of frustration with all the painting, re-carpeting, and cleaning we are doing, but at least I still have the solace of some books.

It is finally December and I’ve decided that I need to stop starting new books and start finishing off the ones I’ve been slogging along with this year.  Thus, the only new books I’m going to allow myself to begin before January 1, 2013 will be audiobooks from the library and maybe one or two from my shelf of ten (but only if I finish the previous Shelf of Ten book).

Yes, if it wasn’t clear to the two people who ever read this blog before, I do read multiple books at a time.  Usually the number is around five.  I’ll sometimes try to commit to reading just one at a time but it never works out somehow.  Currently I’m reading four… and it was five until I stayed up until two a.m. on Friday night finishing reading a library book; The M.D.: A Horror Story by Thomas M. Disch.

That title brings me to something I need to comment on: my obsessive love for our public library, which has recently been renewed. 

I love libraries.  My first job (other than retail work for my father) was in a public library.  I even went to library school for a while.  My most vivid memory of junior high is standing in the science fiction section of our local public library and looking for new Ray Bradbury titles I hadn’t yet devoured. 

Because of my attempt to read the books I already own – and try to get rid of some of them – I hadn’t been visiting the public library as much as I used to.  But now I’m obsessed again… because of the audiobook selection.  I’ve finished listening to eleven audio books in the last four months or so and I’m currently listening to two more.  I have a plan to go to the library today to pick up another one because I’m afraid I will run out of discs this weekend; I’m working four days in a row at Mayo but not planning to stay over in Rochester.  That is about eight hours of driving time that requires audiobook entertainment.

The only downside that I have run into using the library for this purpose is the occasional scratched disc.  I confess: that is super annoying to me.  But nothing is perfect.

Big Exciting Plan for my next blog post: Best and Worst Books I Read in 2012.  Probably.

Awesome Books That I Have Recently Read

Yes, it’s true: I do actually read books that I like as well as Books That I Hate Enough To Bitch About Them On The Internet (BTIHETBATOTI).  In this post I will regale you with information about the three that have been the highlight of my last summer/early fall reading.

First, Tina Fey’s Bossypants.  I spotted the unabridged audio version at our public library and it was read by Tina Fey herself, so how was I supposed to resist that?  I brought it home and listened to it in my kitchen and it was very funny.  So much so that at one point my 14 year old son watched in amazement as I doubled over from laughing while doing the dishes and listening.  Great fun if you like Fey’s sense of humor and this is one of those books that I actually think benefit from being read out loud.  The only downside was that some of Fey’s asides are difficult to hear… and I always wanted to hear every word, so I did have to backtrack sometimes.

There is a .pdf file of entertaining photos from Fey’s life on the fifth and final compact disc, as well as a video of Fey portraying Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.  I enjoyed these items but had to ask my computer-guy husband to help me access them.  I am just clueless about that kind of thing,  I guess.

Rules of Prey by John Sanford has been on my mental To Read list for a long time.  Years.  Like since 1997 or so.  I finally got to it, starting the Prey series about which I have heard many good things from reading friends I trust.  And… it is great stuff, fast-paced, violent (but not too graphic, at least in this first book in the series).  It’s well written and I really enjoyed it.

Sidenote: I lent Rules of Prey to a co-worker who was stuck in an Individual Patient Assignment (IPA) with a patient who was sleeping or otherwise out of it.  My co-worker was under the misapprehension that this book was nonfiction, perhaps because it is set in the Twin Cities area and it depicts Minnesota so clearly and realistically.  But no, it isn’t non-fiction; it’s made up. 

Thankfully.

And now we come to Judy Blume’s classic, Are You There God, It’s Me Margaret.  I read this book waaaaay back when I was in grade school and vaguely remembered enjoying it.  Julia, my 10 year old, is so interested in Growing Up and All Things Puberty that I ordered a copy for her for her birthday.  She read it in short order and it was sitting there… so I picked it up again.

I’m so glad I did!  I had forgotten almost everything about this book. Mostly I remembered that it was a book about puberty and a girl named Margaret.  I had entirely forgotten the huge struggle that the main character, Margaret, is going through, trying to choose which religion she might be… Catholic or Jewish?

This is a very fast read and so well done, brilliantly capturing the desire of young people to just be “normal” as they enter puberty - and trying to figure out what that might even mean.  Julia loved it and I highly recommend it for preteen and tween girls and for those of us who might want to remember how scary, exciting, and confusing this age was for us, too.

So… these three books aren’t adding to or subtracting from my personal library.  Bossypants needs to go back to the public library and the other two I’m keeping. 

And I’m buried in trying to move right now (!), so who knows when next I will blog about books.  But I will do it.  You will see.

Brian Jacques, You Are Dead to Me. Dean Koontz… You Might Be Next

Oh Lord, now how long has it been since I posted? 

That long, huh.

Well… sorry.  I keep going off to my job to “work” and “be a nurse.”  It’s fun sometimes and it’s really tough at other times, but I do love my patients and I rarely leave without learning a lot of new stuff.  Plus I have taken to listening to audiobooks on my commute, so even if I work on a particular day I can get in almost two hours of reading time.  It’s like magic! 

I read a bunch of books over the summer, of course, but one stands out as the most irritating book: Redwall by Brian Jacques.  I purchased this book long ago (possibly as far back as the late 1990s, when I used to work at a Barnes and Noble store).  It came highly recommended as young adult fantasy.

And… I hated it.  Pretty much the entire thing.  I thought the narrative was entirely predictable, the characters were cliché (and when they weren’t cliché, they were obnoxious), and the main character – the hero of the book, Mattias the mouse - was a sanctimonious twit.  The leader of the antagonists in the story, “Cluny the Scourge,” was equally annoying.  It is never a good sign when, as a reader, I am laughing at the stupidity of the bad guys and I want to stomp on the heads of the good guys.  On top of all of that, the sexist treatment of Cornflower, Mattias’ love interest, was just… ugh. 

Admittedly, I am not a huge fan of fantasy writing.  A few years ago I read a book that was about fairies that nearly put me into a coma.  I struggled to get through Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books (although I love the movies and the story). 

But it is also very unusual for me to not like something about a book.  In this case, all I can say in its defense is that, despite being written for children, the author does not shy away from interesting vocabulary choices.  Otherwise… I hated it.  And I will never read any of the ten zillion sequels.

So.  Onward to the Dean Koontz book that I read earlier this year, Brother Odd.  I really enjoyed the first book in this series, Odd Thomas, and I liked the second book, Forever Odd well enough to not be horribly annoyed by it.  Brother Odd, though… meh.

Dean Koontz has always been a wildly uneven writer.  I remember the first book I read of his, Strangers.  It was great for the first half – what a build-up! – but then the second half, with the explanation for what was going on, was total crap.  Later I read Watchers and loved it.  Intensity was pretty good, as long as you can suspend your disbelief long enough to believe that the smart main character would do something profoundly stupid in the middle of the book instead of doing the sane, sensible thing to save herself and others.  (SO annoying!)

Like I said, I liked the first two books in the Odd Thomas series, at least enough to keep reading.  The concept is solid; a man who sees the dead and sometimes works to avenge their deaths, and who also sees other supernatural creatures that portend terrible violence.  Odd is charming and quirky and has interesting friends, and he is truly heroic in Odd Thomas, the first book in the series.

But… Brother Odd is just kind of meh.  The writing in the narrative veers from quirky and fun to overwrought and dramatic and back, which is jarring.  But worse… not much happens in the first hundred pages or so.  The book is over four hundred pages long, but with proper editing it could have been much shorter.  (Not to mention better written.)

I will no doubt read Koontz again, because sometimes his books really are written well and they can even be scary.  I just can’t recommend Brother Odd.  And, like Redwall, it is going on the donation pile and leaving my house for good.

Thankfully I have been reading some fantastic stuff lately, and I hope to blog about it soon.  Not kidding.

Promise.

The Inevitable _Fifty Shades of Grey_ Blog Post

Okay work has been busy and life has been busy, but really... how it it July already?  In 2012, I mean. 

For the two people that ever look at this blog, apologies for once again going weeks without writing... life gets in the way of our best intentions, doesn't it. 

I have finished reading Blockade Billy by Stephen King and Firefly Lane by Kristin Hannah, as well as two more volumes of the Walking Dead graphic novel series that Robert Kirkman writes.  All were interesting and had some good moments.  The Stephen King book is staying, Kristin Hannah goes to whomever wants it (takers?), and the graphic novels are going on loan to another nurse on my unit at the hospital.

Really, it's just way more fun to write about books that I don't like.

Which brings me to Fifty Shades of Grey, the uber-popular first book in the Fifty Shades trilogy, penned by E.L. James.  E.L. James began this series as Twilight fan fiction of a (far) more adult nature, and then it got really popular online, so she edited it and published it and it got to be a huge hit.  (At least that's what I understand.)

Now, I haven't read any of the Twilight novels.  I don't even want to, even a little bit, especially after reading Fifty Shades of Grey.  The only thing I think Fifty Shades has going for it is some decently written sex scenes (by no means all of the sex scenes even qualify as "decently written," though).  Everything else about it is uber-annoying, in particular the main characters, Christian Grey and Anastasia Steele. 

Christian: he's a super rich, super damaged person (apparently), who is very into being a Dominant in the sense of consensual sado-masochistic sex.  He's not interested in any other kind of relationship with a woman.  And he won't let Ana touch his upper body for some reason.  But at least he's up front about what he requires in a relationship.  He's also annoyingly controlling, especially about Ana and what she eats (what woman can resist being repeatedly told to eat all their food?), and about... well, kind of about everything. 

Ana: Oh lord, where to even start with this woman.  She's 22, graduating from college, and she's not only a virgin who has never even been curious enough to masturbate, but she's never been attracted to any man before she met Christian.

Now... I know very well that there are 7 billion people on the planet and we are all different, but really... that just seems crazy to me.  But okay.

I would have less of a quarrel with the story if it wasn't badly written, poorly edited, and sometimes inadvertently hilarious.  There's a sex scene in which Christian takes off his watch and his jacket (I'm with you so far, Ms. James), but then the text specifies that he takes off his socks "individually."  First of all, this is a sex scene and there is just nothing sexy about men's socks.  I'm sorry, I don't want to hear about them in this context.  I've been around the socks that men have been wearing all day.  Please don't write about them in a sex scene.

Secondly... how else would one take off their socks?  Go put some socks on.  Now try to remove them "individually..." that is how you always do it, right?  Put them back on.  Try removing them simultaneously.  It's not even sexy in a funny way... you just look like an idiot.  Now put your socks in the laundry and forget you ever tried this experiment.

There's a series of hot sex scenes toward the middle of the book that take place over the course of two or three days... which would work better if in the text, Christian hadn't just had Ana examined by a gynecologist right before all the sexual activity starts.  I know there are a lot of different people on this planet, and I'm not shocked or whatever by the S&M content in this book, but I do not even want to understand a woman who feels like having a lot of sex right after a pelvic exam. 

 The upside of this book is that some friends and I have had some great laughs while looking through it.  It's also a fast read.  I actually have a short list of friends who want to borrow it now that I'm finished with it, so I don't have to feel like it's going to stay in my house forever, taking up space.  AND, if I want extra lolz, there is a blogger called Jennifer Armintrout who has read through the entire series (I think) and hilariously complained about each chapter:

http://jenniferarmintrout.blogspot.com/p/jen-reads-50-shades-of-grey.html?zx=bf3a8545c6541106

And... that is it.  Fifty Shades isn't good, but it is kind of in the So Bad It's Good category, at least if you are paging through it with hilarious people.  

It's not going to stay in my permanent collection, but I'm not sorry I read it.  I am somewhat disturbed by the occasional Facebook posts from my friends, wishing they would find their own Christian Grey.  But hey, maybe we just have really different tastes in men.

The next book I'll be finishing is Dean Koontz's Brother Odd.  I have a feeling I will be blogging about it in the near future.