June statistics

Finished

Fiction: Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie (Alan Bradley) and The Red Pyramid (Rick Riordan)

Nonfiction: Kingdom by the Sea (Paul Theroux), Lost on Planet China (J. Maarten Troost), My Love Affair with England (Susan Allen Toth)

Purchased

The Boat (Nam Le), Yarn (Kyoko Mori), Busman’s Honeymoon (Dorothy L. Sayers), Hound of the Baskervilles (Arthur Conan Doyle), 84, Charing Cross (Helene Hanff), Eating Air (Pauline Melville), Burning Land (Bernard Cornwell)

oHound of the

June was a “gift” reading month in which I felt like I made up for time lost to textbooks over the past academic year. Studying was worthwhile, to be sure, but I missed my pleasure reading. 

Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

One of the first books I dove into was Alan Bradley’s Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, which my friend Sarah pressed upon me. I know this is a popular book and has a precocious protagonist, both of which made me leery initially. But once I started Sweetness, I was immediately charmed by the main character’s voice, as well as the author’s style.

Life for eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce is starting to get interesting. First she finds a dead bird, with a postage stamp stuck to its beak, on her front doorstep. Then she stumbles upon the body of a man about to take his final breath. When Flavia’s father becomes the prime suspect, she takes on the task on solving the mystery and is often a few steps ahead of the police.

If you like traditional, locked room mysteries or interesting characters, then I highly recommend this book. Flavia is a budding chemist with two annoying older sisters, all of whom are left to raise themselves after their mother’s death. Her family lives in a decaying English manor house, which lends its own character. Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie had similar charms to those I found in Alan Bennett’s Uncommon Reader and Alexander McCall Smith’s Isabel Dalhousie mysteries. I am looking forward to reading The Weed That Strings the Hangman’s Bag.

Kingdom by the Sea

Just in time for my first return to England since 1988, I read Kingdom by the Sea.

Initially I thought Theroux was a horrible snob, not at all open to the spirit of the place. He painted every seaside town on the southern coast of England as a hellhole. Initially, I thought, maybe they are, but having paid a recent visit I realize Theroux was unnecessarily harsh or dismissive, even though the year was 1982 and England wasn’t in a good place economically. Most of England was depressed. Unemployment rates were high. Even though British Rail was on strike, it had long since stopped running to many of the places Theroux would visit. Northern Ireland was thick in the Troubles. Scotland was imbued with irrepressible rugged beauty. The eastern coast of England was fading into the sea.

Many times through the course of the book, I found Theroux dispirited, lacking the excitement of discovery, and it often felt as if he was fulfilling a publishing contract. Susan Allen Toth even alludes to this crankiness in her memoir, My Love Affair with England. In the end, Theroux creates lasting memories of the coast and a particular time in British history. Quite frankly, I found Lyme Regis rather agreeable, neither run down nor overly touristy, while catering clearly to a summer crowd. 

The Red Pyramid

Also this month I read aloud The Red Pyramid to the boys. This book is the first in Rick Riordan's newest series, which chronicles siblings Sadie and Carter Kane's adventures in the world of Egyptian mythology. The book sucked. Yes, I know it's a middle reader book. Even so, I think it's a travesty that Riordan was able to write a sloppy story for page count. The story is marred by too many side adventures. As in Riordan's Percy Jackson series, I enjoyed the mythology. The boys' recent visit to the British Museum was even more rich for knowing about the Rosetta Stone and assorted Egyptian gods (the baboon Thoth, for example) and accoutrement (such as shabti, or clay figurines). Still, I expect a lot more from book two. Better, I would like the boys to read these books on their own and report back to me. 

retail therapy

Feeling a little at loose ends without pressing deadlines, and having starved myself of frivolous book purchases these past five months, I tore myself from launderess duties and headed for St. Anthony Village, that charming St. Paul neighborhood. I had a short list of a titles that I’ve read about recently and have become obsessed with. There's no more perfect a place to shop than a local independent bookstore. Thank goddess we still have two in St. Paul.

Owners Tom and Hans—who are friends from my book rep days when I called on them at Hungry Mind/Ruminator—resurrected dusty Micawber’s, in 2003. In almost no time at all, the two bookselling pros cleared out all the old books (I swear Norton, the previous owner and a friend, never pulled a return) and loaded shelves and display tables with the latest handpicked titles.

Micawber’s, consequently, is one of my favorite bookstores to browse. Inevitably, in the course of a visit, I pick up far too many books to purchase. On this visit, even though I didn’t find the books I was looking for, I also didn’t walk out of the store empty-handed. I picked up a remaindered hardcover copy of The Boat, Nam Le’s critically acclaimed debut story collection. While I was browsing, Hans kindly loaded my arms with a few advanced reading copies of spring titles. He suggested leaving them behind on my travels. Planting the seeds, as it were.

Of these books, I’m most excited about Monique Truong’s Bitter in the Mouth, which is her follow up to The Book of Salt. And, I’m prepared to be pleasantly surprised by Michelle Hoover’s first novel The Quickening, which is published by small Other Press and got a strong Margot Livesey cover quote. But Deirdre Madden’s Molly Fox’s Birthday, a finalist for the Orange Prize, is also promising. It’s a Picador paperback original, and I happen to know a thing or two about these, having worked for Picador as it was started up.

Overall, a wonderful visit for the books in hand as well as those added to my TBR list. Plus, it was really good to share some chit-chat with Hans and Karen, with whom I worked at Odegard’s, twenty years ago…gadzooks.

I love what this store is doing and hope that it will be around for a long time. Please support Micawber’s!

May stats

Finished:

Sea of Monsters (Rick Riordan), Man from Beijing (Henning Mankell), The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (Stieg Larssen)

Abandoned: 

Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator (Roald Dahl)

Purchased: 

Spring-Summer 2010 Salmagundi for The Island, a novella by Andrea Barrett novella

By mid-May, I finished spring semester of school and threw myself back into reading for pleasure. The first change up in my reading came when I shifted from almost exclusively listening to audiobooks (thank goodness for audiobooks!!) to holding a book in my hands, which feels so good.

I finished the second book in the Percy Jackson and the Last Olympians series, The Sea of Monsters, which I read aloud to Winston. It was neither as satisfying nor as memorable as the first book in the series, but Winston found it exciting. His ability to hang onto details is amazing, even when a week has gone by without hearing the story, so often I ask him for a recap before beginning a session.

I also finished reading the third book in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (GWKtHN). Lizbeth Salander might be one of my all-time favorite fictional characters. She’s feisty and a little gritty, socially awkward, and a survivor. The trilogy encompasses a couple thousand pages of novel, carved into three books. Book three begins right where book two left off. In fact, book two (Girl Who Played with Fire) ended with such a colossal cliffhanger that Mr. Bibliotonic decided he needed to read the next book immediately. Since we live in a global economy, we could indulge in instant gratification with an order placed to amazon.uk. So I started reading GWKtHN during spring break in March but didn’t finish before school started up again. The book and I were reunited just after portfolio review. But this is the conclusion to Lisbeth’s story and her quest to prove her innocence in three murders.

If I were editor, I would have lopped at least 150 pages, including those with Ericka Berger’s harassment story, which did absolutely nothing to advance the plot. It was horrible filler. But ultimately I found GWKtHN to be very satisfying. I loved the trial scene, particularly Lisbeth’s defense lawyer, who is journalist and main character Michael Blomqvist’s sister. The trial was the saving grace of the last 300 pages and Giannini really socks it to the system that has screwed over Lisbeth since she was a child.

The books are far from perfect. For one, they suffer from translation problems, an opinion which I’m going to put out there without benefit of examples. Also, the plot could have been more taut. That said, I thoroughly enjoyed reading all three books. At best, they were well paced, which is more than can be said for many books being passed off as thrillers these days. Dan Brown, I’m looking at you. If you were wondering, Girl Who Played with Fire was my favorite book of the trilogy. This is the book that fleshes out Lisbeth, especially as she creates a new life for herself. Also, it was the first book I read on my e-reader and will, thus, always have a special place in my reader’s heart.

This month, I officially abandoned Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator. I remember reading John Hanken's copy as a kid, but what I don't remember was how utterly odd this follow-up to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was. Perhaps I found it entertaining because, without doubt, at 10, I had a greater tolerance for silliness. But reading aloud now, ack! Knowing what I do about publishing, I'm guessing that Dahl had a contract to fulfill. Winston and I have loved other Dahl novels, such as BFG and The Twits and James and the Giant Peach.

I'm back

Earlier today, I presented my interior design portfolio to a committee. My very best work from the academic year was pinned to a 4'-0" x 8'-0"display board. I had ten minutes to encapsulate the objectives as well as the design decisions I made to achieve those goals. The anticipation leading up to the presentation was nerve-wracking, but I spent the preceding hour practicing my speech. And, to quote the kids, "I killed." Next week I will have the results that hopefully seal my fate for the next three years*. 

A very intense academic year has precluded reading for pleasure. If you look at my stats, I have read 13 books, a third of which have been audiobooks. Thank goodness for audiobooks! My daily commute is forty minutes roundtrip, which isn't horrible and certainly has been much improved by being able to listen to books. Recently I listened to Henning Mankell's most newest book, Man from Beijing. Quite frankly, the novel was a huge disappointment. Two story lines are meant to converge but never do successfully. As a result, at many points, I wondered what the book was really about: the brutal crime committed in a small Swedish village or the story of one of China's new captains of industry, who has a devious plan. Perhaps the problem was listening to the audio version. I think there are inherent problems with "reading" audiobooks while driving, especially during moments of attention deficit in favor of traffic. Nonetheless, I have a Kurt Wallender mystery on my current reading list and will give Mankell another try.

After portfolio review, I rode the bus home from campus (my car is dead, unexpectedly), which gave me an opportunity to dip into Kingdom by the Sea, Paul Theroux's classic account of traveling around the coast of England. I love Paul Theroux and have read both his fiction and nonfiction. Last year I read the novellas in Elephanta Suite, which were stunning and dark. But his travel accounts, which appear in publications such as Architecture Digest and Conde Nast Traveller, blow my skirt up most. Something about the way he captures a place that is simultaneously repellent and desirable. His full-blown travel accounts are genre defining. 


I'm reading Kingdom by the Sea in anticipation of my summer vacation. It's 1982 and England is waging war in the Falklands, which becomes the backdrop for the prose. After living in London for over ten years, Theroux realizes he hasn't really been out of the city.  He jokes about towns like Lyme Regis and Chipping Camden but has never been to any of them, so he takes a trip, circling the the perimeter of the UK and Ireland. I'm reading a copy of the book that I bought in 1988, after returning from my London year abroad. When I picked the book up again, I found a bookmark (my younger brother's "calling" card from his year in Loudun) at the spot where I stopped reading—page 77. 


I hope to do better this time round, but it may be a challenge. Theroux is cranky; every town is a pit. He's nearly to the southwest counties, where I will be spending my summer vacation in three short weeks. He better not crap on my anticipation. Maybe I should stop reading now. 


But it feels so good to be reading for pleasure again. Writing for pleasure does not suck either.


*If not, I hope there is a place for me somewhere in the publishing world.

Tournament of Books 2010

Week two of the Morning News' annual March madness, the Tournament of Books, began this morning. I wanted to post some quick comments before I read the results of today's match between Logicomix (a graphic "novel" about Bertrand Russell) and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall (the thick novel about Henry VIII, which won the most recent Booker and the National Book Critics Circle awards). The battle hardly seems fair. I mean, really, when you consider how utterly incomparable these two books are, how do you pick a winner? 

This very question, though, is why I'm so fond of the ToB. The contestants are all so mismatched, but the judges decisions are often very arbitrary. Historically, some judges never finish reading their books and declare a winner nonetheless. Some judges are suspicious of books because of the hype heaped on them from established literary reviews and will, out of spite, choose the underdog. 

It's really anyone's guess who will prevail today. I started reading Logicomix yesterday, and I'm enjoying it though I'm not far enough into it to have a sense of how this book would stand up to a culty literary star such as Hilary Mantel. I've never read Mantel, but came very close in the mid- to late-90s when I worked at Holtzbrinck (now Macmillan USA). Mantel was published by Henry Holt and even then was a darling who had enjoyed countless accolades from UK reviewers and had been nominated for Whitbread and Orange prizes but was, by no means, a household name stateside. I imagine that Wolf Hall will be a formidable challenge for a graphic novel about a logician, even if the judge doesn't manage to finish the 532-page novel. I predict Wolf Hall will win today.

Anyway, I filled out the brackets before the tournament began. I want to go on the record to say that I think Margaret Atwood and Barbara Kingsolver will duke it out in the final round. Talk about a literary cat fight. And so far, for the first time in the six years I have been following this contest, I called the winners of last week's battles with 100% accuracy.

books of the decade

I’ve been fighting the urge to post a list so close on the heels of another list. That said, January is a “listy” time of year, what with making resolutions and refreshing the “to-do” lists. But, here we go: At some point during my vacation in Princeton, I realized that we were upon the end of a decade. Yes, I’m late to the “close out the aughts” party, but I’ve been hunkered down as an art student with nary a moment to come up for breath. A breath that would allow me to see what I’m missing while mired in deadlines and revisions. Yes, I missed all those fun end-of-the-decade lists of best music, best books, best movies. And I think it’s okay because, as an inveterate list-maker, those round-ups would have driven me to the brink of insanity, if I wasn’t there already. Yet I decided to make my own favorite books of the decade, which was relatively easy to do. I just dipped into the black Filofax where I have recorded my reading habits since 1993. Someday, I’d like to marry this list with the one I started in 1984.

Between the dawn of the millennium until the last day of 2009, I finished close to 400 books (395, to be precise). I don’t keep track of abandoned books, even if I almost finished reading them. Imposing a little discipline to my crazy is sometimes necessary. I love maintaining these lists because they are a great reminder of what I was up to. In the last decade, I had four jobs, one of which had a book group that met over the lunch hour. I had two babies in 2000 and distinctly remember cradling Simon while he napped, reading Mark Kurlansky’s A Basque History of the World. After I left Holtzbrinck in 2000, freeing me to read whatever book struck my fancy but obligating me to purchase my own books, I got the first library card of my adult life. When I see Linda Greenlaw’s fabulous Lobster Chronicles on the list, I’m transported to our first magical trip to Maine. Likewise, Alan Bennett’s subversive Uncommon Reader was devoured on a plane to New York City for a whirlwind weekend of museums and food, while Vincent Lam’s quiet Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures was read in a bright window at Vesuvio’s in San Francisco, channeling the ghosts of Kerouac and Ginsburg. Tony Bourdain’s Cook’s Tour (2002) began an obsession with Thomas Keller and The French Laundry. And the countless books that I have read with the Storknet gals or with my book group trigger warm feelings of community that share the love of reading.

A few statistics:

First book finished in the decade: Galileo’s Daughter (Dava Sobel, read for book group)

Last book of the decade: Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larsson)

First book checked out on the first library card of my adult life: Two Moons (Thomas Mallon)

Books by men: 179

Books by women: 216

Nonfiction: 113

Fiction: 182

And now, my favorite books, by year, in no particular order. What constitutes a favorite books? Anything I'd press on someone else to read or that I would re-read in a heartbeat. Clearly, some years were better reading years than others! 

2000: Catfish and Mandala (Pham), Interpreter of Maladies (Jhumpa Lahiri), Bee Season (Myla Goldberg), The Fig Eater (Shields)

2001: Operating Instructions (Anne Lamott), Being Dead (Jim Crace), A Walk in the Woods (Bill Bryson), In a Sunburned Country (Bill Bryson), The Corrections (Jonathan Franzen), White Teeth (Zadie Smith), Up in the Air (Walter Kirn), Personal History (Katherine Graham), Lecturer's Tale (James Hynes)

2002: The Hobbit (JRR Tolkien), A Beautiful Mind (Sylvia Nasar), Atonement (Ian McKewn), Life of Pi (Yann Martel)

2003: Empire Falls (Richard Russo), The Quiet American (Graham Green), The Two Towers (JRR Tolkien), Soul of a Chef (Michael Ruhlman), The Singular Pilgrim (Rosemary Mahoney), Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde), Lobster Chronicles (Liinda Greenlaw), Persepolis (Marjane Satrapi), Bel Canto (Ann Patchett), Don’t Let’s go to the Dogs (Alexandra Fuller), Saul and Patsy (Baxter)

2004: Naked from Baghdad (Paul Auster), Long Quiet Highway (Goldberg), The Photography (Penelope lively), Miles from Nowhere (Savage), Three Junes (Glass), Candyfreak (Steve Almond), Cook’s Tour (Tony Bourdain), Bangkok 8 (John Burdett), Swimming to Antarctica (Lynne Cox), Ender’s Game (Orson Scott Card)

2005: Gilead (Marilynne Robinson), Polysyllabic Spree (Nick Hornby), Man Walks into a Room (Nicola Krauss), Saturday (Ian McKewn), Nice, Big American Baby (Judy Budnitz)

2006: The World to Come (Dara Horn), Toast (Nigel Slater), Age of Innocence (Edith Wharton), Calcutta Chromosome (Amitav Ghosh), Never Let Me Go (Kazuo Iishiguro), The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (Muriel Spark), My Life in France (Julia Child), The Big Oyster (Mark Kurlansky), Housekeeping vs. The Dirt (Nick Hornby), Girl in Landscape (Jonathan Lethem)

2007: Shadow of the Wind (Zafon), Henry Huggins (Beverly Cleary), Fieldwork (Mischa Berlinski), Girls of Slender Means (Muriel Spark), Astrid and Veronika (Linda Olsson), Brief History of the Dead (Kevin Brockmeier), Eat, Pray, Love (Elizabeth Gilbert), The Yiddish Policemen’s Union (Michael Chabon), The Year of Magical Thinking (Joan Didion), The Places in Between (Arthur Phillips), Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (Sherman Alexie), Uncommon Reader (Alan Bennett), Feeding a Yen (Calvin Trillin)

2008: What Is the What (Dave Eggers), Service Included (Pheobe Damrosch), Sunday Philospher’s Club (Alexander McCall Smith), Omnivore’s Dilemma (Michael Pollan), Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day (Winifred Watson), Death at La Fenice (Donna Leon), Shark’s Fin and Sichuan Pepper (Fuchsia Dunlop), Then We Came to the End (Joshua Ferris), Hens Dancing (Raffaella Barker), Homer Price (Robert McCloskey), Invention of Hugo Cabret (Brian Selznick), Gumbo Tales (Sara Roahen), French Milk (Lucy Knisley)

2009: Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris), Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates), Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman), Script and Scribble (Kittey Burns Florey), Acqua Alta (Donna Leon), Beat the Reaper (Josh Bazell), Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz), Case Histories (Kate Atkinson), How I Live Now (Meg Rosoff), Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons), Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John leCarre), Elephanta Suite (Paul Theroux), Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins), Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins), Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Michael Chabon), Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larsson)

Books Read in 2009

Happy New Year!! 2009 was a somewhat slow blogging year, and I missed writing about the books I'd read. Even so, it was a good reading year. I finished 58 books, which is close to my all-time record. Most of those books were read prior to September 5, which is when I returned to school and become a full-time student. The last quarter of the year has been spent reading design theory course packets and Joseph Albers' Interaction with Colors (seminal color theory and art),  Construction for Interior Designers, but I still managed to knock out Dan Brown's latest blockbuster (though it took me six weeks to read what would normally take a few days). For posterity, here is the list of books that I read in 2009, followed by a sm statistical analysis:


1. Dressed for Death (Donna Leon)
2. Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
3. Ghostwalk (Rebecca Stott). book group, 41 for 41
4. Unaccustomed Earth (Jhumpa Lahiri), Conversations with Books, 41 for 41
5. Deltora Quest 04: Shifting Sands (Emily Rodda), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
6. Warriors 02: Fire and Ice (Erin Hunter), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
7. Me Talk Pretty One Day (David Sedaris), audio
8. House (Michael Ruhlman)
9. Death and Judgment (Donna Leon) 
10. Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (E. Lockhart), Tournament of Books

11. Netherland (Joseph O’Neill) audio, Tournament of Books
12. Revolutionary Road (Richard Yates), book group, 40 for 40
13. Deltora Quest 05: Dread Mountain (Emily Rodda), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
14. Little Bee (Chris Cleave)
15. Warriors 03: Forest of Secrets (Erin Hunter), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
16. Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman), 41 for 41
17. Yarn Harlot (Stephanie Pearl-McPhee)
18. Little House on the Prairie (L. I. Wilder), 41 for 41, re-read
19. Warrior 04: Rising Storm (Erin Hunter), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
20. Script and Scribble (Kitty Burns Florey) 
21. Acqua Alta (Donna Leon) 
22. Delicate Edible Birds (Lauren Groff)
23. Loving Frank (Nancy Horan) audio, Conversations, 41 for 41
24. Fatally Flaky (Diane Mott Davidson)
25. Other Side of the Mountain (Allegra Goodman), 41 for 41
26. Beat the Reaper (Josh Bazell) audio
27. Warriors 05: Fatal Path (Erin Hunter), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
28. James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
29. Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver), 41 for 41
30. Quietly in Their Sleep (Donna Leon) 
31. Bad Mother (Ayelet Waldman) 
32. Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Junot Diaz), Caryl
33. Case Histories (Kate Atkinson), book group, 39 for 39
34. Barefoot (Elin Hilderbrand)
35. White Mary (Kira Salak) audio, book group
36. How I Live Now (Meg Rosoff), Caryl
37. Warriors 06: The Darkest Hour (Erin Hunter), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
38. Unseen (Mari Jungstedt) 
39. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing (Judy Blume), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
40. Deltora Quest 06: Maze of the Beast (Emily Rodda), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
41. Cold Comfort Farm (Stella Gibbons), 41 for 41
42. Spy Who Came in from the Cold (John leCarre), read in Sweden, 39 for 39
43. Elephanta Suite (Paul Theroux), 41 for 41
44. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (J.K. Rowling), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics, Sweden
45. Catching Fire (Suzanne Collins) 
46. A Noble Radiance (Donna Leon)
47. You Can Never Find a Rickshaw When It Monsoons (Mo Willems)
48. The Sweet Life in Paris (David Leibovitz) 
49. Race to Dakar (Charley Boorman), read aloud to Mr. Bibliotonic
50. Lightning Thief (Rick Riordan), read aloud to Little Bibliotonics
51. One Good Turn (Kate Atkinson) audio, 39 for 39
52. Secret Speech (Rob Tom Smith) audio
53. Mysteries of Pittsburgh (Michael Chabon), 41 for 41
54. Lost Symbol (Dan Brown)
55. Lost Art of Gratitude (Alexander McCall Smith)
56. Far North (Marcel Theroux), National Book Award finalist
57. Palace Council (Stephen L. Carter), audio
58. Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Steig Larsson), 41 for 41

Statistics
Fiction: 51
Nonfiction: 7
Books written by women: 36
Books written by men: 22
41 for 41 challenge: 11
Mystery/thrillers: 13
Travel essays: 2
Culinary essays: 1
Donna Leon: 5
Children’s: 19
Story collections: 3
Audio: 8
Classics: 4
Graphic novels/memoirs: 1
First novels: 6