Oh Hi. Here Are May and June Books!

So, I did a really poor job on my One Book A Week New Year’s Resoution in May, so I didn’t do my typical book reading summaries (plus, I was…..am…. being pretty lazy about the whole blog writing thing in general).  But man, I really killed it in May.  I read so many books!  I don’t even know if I can remember them!!  Luckily for me (and of course for you), I kept track of them with my handy GoodReads.

Now, also in the month of May, I gave up Diet Cokes, thanks to the persuasiveness of one Brittany Dansereau (I am easily persuaded….all you have to do is mention possible weight loss).  Therefore, I don’t know that a diet coke rating is applicable.  I mean, I still understand that diet cokes are the most delicious of the drinks to ever be created, however, I am somewhat like an alcoholic or smoker when it comes to them.  I don’t know that I will ever be able to drink diet coke in moderation.  One sip leads to an entire gallon being gulped down in the span of one day (you might think I am exaggerating, but I am not…I recently estimated the amount of diet coke I was drinking to be one gallon per day….which is why I had to quit cold turkey).  So, I guess I will just have to replace the diet coke rating with s’mores, the most delicious of all the foods.  Same rating scale – 1 to 5 s’mores, with 5 obviously being the best (because the more s’mores the better….wow, that was not on purpose).

Now, due to the quantity of literature I consumed over the past month, my summaries are going to be shorter than normal…especially for the books I did not enjoy.  So, I guess I am just going to start, considering that this has the potential to be the longest blog entry ever created:

The Egyptologist – Arthur Phillips
I have to vote this my least favorite book of the last two months.  I really just did not like the main character.  I mean, I guess the epistle style was an interesting way to develop a distinctly unlikable character, but because you were only ever reading about the character rather than diving into the character’s thoughts and motivations, it was never really clear why certain things were happening.  The only thing that I distinctly remember about the novel was that the main character was stone cold crazy. I give it 2 s’mores.

Eating the Dinosaur – Chuck Klosterman
Ah, Chuck Klosterman, you are always a fall back for an entertaining and quick read.  This is the latest of Klosterman’s books, all of which have been read by me.  While, his style is beginning to wear on me (I mean really, sometimes I just want him to give it a break!), a good Chuck Klosterman essay on the greatness of ABBA or the unrealized brilliance of Nirvana’s In Utero makes you feel simultaneously smarter than everyone around you but dumb for not having those thoughts in the first place.  PLUS!  I learned about the history of football in one of the essays from this book, which I then used to dazzle all my sports obsessed coworkers. Score – 3.5 s’mores.

Kafka on the Shore – Haruki Murakami
This is my second Murakami novel, and I found myself thoroughly confused by both.  The author loves to mix the crazy metaphysical with the everyday mundane, which is fun, I guess, but also frustrating when you are trying to, you know, follow a freaking plot. This book is awarded 3 s’mores.

The Eyre Affair (Thursday Next #1) – Jasper Fforde
Eh.  If I am following the sorority rules of one positive, one negative, one positive critiquing, I will say this:

(1)  Interesting use of the English language.
(2)  Eh.
(3)  Creative.

These aren’t ringing endorsements.  It gets 2 s’mores.

The Irresistible Henry House – Lisa Grunwald
I can see by the next four novels, that we are entering the “oh the middle class have it so rough” genre of my May reading.  This book was probably in the top two of all the novels on this list.  The novel follows the main character (guess what his name is!  Henry House!  Surprising!), who began life as a practice baby in the home economics department of a women’s college.  Growing up with a different mom every week had predictably negative effects on the poor kid’s psyche, and this novel follows him, Forrest Gump style, through his childhood and early adulthood.  It’s good.  Really good. I suggest it.  4.5 s’mores!

The Imperfectionists:  A Novel – Tom Rachman
This book will make you sad.  But, you know, not in a terrible, oh my gosh why is life this rough! sort of way, but more in a, oh my gosh life is so mundane and unpredictable! sort of way.  This secondary tragedy speaks to my specific brand of normalcy and middle class-ness, therefore this novel, detailing the end of a Rome newspaper in a funny yet poignant manner, was made all the more depressing by its approximation of a normal life marred by the tragic nature of just plain living. 4 s’mores.

The Ask:  A Novel – Sam Lipsyte
This author loves twisting sentences into all sorts of interesting and exacting descriptions.  The novel itself is depressing, and not like The Imperfectionists.  Oh no.  This novel is depressing like watching someone self destruct and make terrible decision after decision would be depressing.  But the twisting use of the English language is exciting. I give it 3.5 s’mores for the twisty English but acerbic tone.

Motherless Brooklyn – Jonathan Lethem
This is the other top novel of the month.  I read another Lethem novel earlier this year, and while I did not really enjoy Chronic City nearly as much as this novel, they both share a certain love of words.  By making the main character of Motherless Brooklyn suffer from Tourettes, Lethem seems to revel in the wordplay of rhyming and reversing and entering “EAT ME!” (the main character’s tic of choice) into the dialogue at various points.  It kinda reminded me of my husband, who loves messing around with words way more than normal people.  This book was fast paced while still maintaining the integrity of the main characters and the description. It gets 4.5 s’mores.

A Changed Man – Francine Prose
This novel is written by many points of view, and therefore allows you to fully understand the motivation of just about every character in the book.  Its an interesting juxtaposition to take the action from exactly where it ended in one chapter to the next chapter with a different character’s point of view.  I enjoyed this book and found it a relatively quick read. It gets 4 s’mores.

If interested, here is my book list from:
January
February
March

March Books – Kristi Versus Neuromancer (the worst book ever written)

Well, I’m not going to lie.  The only New Year’s Resolution still going strong is my quest to read one book a week for the entire year.  Although, I have to admit, even that resolution got a little weak in March.  I  managed to pick some stupid science fiction novel that is just KILLING me.  I would give up, but I’m 50% through and I keep thinking that EVENTUALLY I will figure out what is happening.  I don’t know though.  Neuromancer, you are one terrible book.  You not only don’t make sense, but you have terrible characters who do pointless things and read like the script for some horrible video game.  I’m not sure that I will struggle through the remaining 50%, but I am issuing a warning to all other book readers – avoid this one.  It’s bad.  It gets 0 diet cokes, although I will reserve an official diet coke awarding until when (if) I finish.

That being said, due to the slow-mo reading of one terrible science fiction novel, I was only able to finish 3 books in the month of March, much less than February or January.

Catching Fire (Hunger Games #2), Suzanne Collins -
This is the second book in the Hunger Games series, and I’m not going to lie – I already pre-ordered the third book.  These young adult novels are way better than I remember.  In fact, after struggling through half of Neuromancer, I decided that I might just reward myself with some other young adult series (NOT TWILIGHT!)  I award this book – 4 diet cokes.

Man Walks Into a Room, Nicole Krauss -
I didn’t really know what to think about this novel.  When I began, I found myself intrigued by the premise – what is left of the soul if you remove all memories and history of a person?  The story begins with a man who wakes up suddenly, having lost all his memory from when he was 12 years old on.  Amnesia is not a new subject (I know it well from the soap operas I watched with my mom), but the exploration of identity through memory really got under my skin and lead me to randomly change the subject during a Bible Study (bad move.)  But the novel itself?  Eh.  Kinda all over the place.  It seemed almost like the author had TOO many ideas and wanted to cram as many of them in the book as humanly possible.  However, for being though-provoking, I award it 3.5 diet cokes (.5 diet coke deduction for rambling-ness.)

The World to Come, Dara Horn -
Ah, by far the best book of the month.  It was both plotty (a real word, invented by me), whimsical, and works on multiple levels.  The book intertwines Jewish folklore and stories with a traditional plot (see!  whimsical and plotty!)  I find that I read a lot of Jewish literature, which I’ve never quite understood how this happens.  I don’t really seek it out, but I tend to choose these novels and then enjoy them.  This book receives a grand total of 4.25 diet cokes.

Ok, Blog Readers – what do you think, should I plod my way through Neuromancer, or do I throw in the towel?  I need some advice.  50% is a lot of percents.  But terrible is terrible.

February Books

Well, I can’t exactly claim to be 100% resolution breaking free in the month of February, but I like to think that I at least kept the spirit of my 2010 resolutions.  I have, however, managed to keep my book reading goal.  This month, I finished SIX WHOLE BOOKS!  I also accidentally read 2 young adult novels, which might have had something to do with my sprinting pace.  Per a friend’s suggestion, I have decided that I will rate the books read this month with the age old 1-5 diet coke scale.  As diet cokes are the most delicious of drinks, giving something 5 diet cokes, definitely says something about the utter awesomeness of said book.

Beautiful Creatures
Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

This was the first Young Adult novel accidentally read by me in the month of February.  I probably should have known it was a YA book from the cover art, which consisted of some Gothic looking vines and an elaborate font choice, but that’s the chance you take when you purchase books electronically for your Kindle.  You have limited ability to judge a book by its cover.  This book was in the science fiction/fantasy realm of books, and while I enjoyed the story, I kept worrying that I was reading a Twilight knockoff.  You see, I have avoided reading any of the Twilight series, and this is something of a point of pride by this point more than any sort of “too cool” thing  (although I am also too cool.)  So, while the book was entertaining on a pure story basis, I’m not sure it was really worth my time – therefore earning it a grand total of 2.5 Diet Cokes.

Shutter Island
Dennis Lehane

I seriously started and finished this book in one day.  And it was a work day.  I read it in the morning before work, during lunch, and then after work until I was done.  And then I went and saw the movie the very next day.  I will say, that reading a book and seeing the movie within 24 hours makes a pretty strong impression on you.  It also allows you to annoyingly point out every inconsistency between the two.  Its hard to talk about this novel without giving away the plot, because the book hinges on plot.  I will say, however, that between the book and movie, the book allows for more suspense/character development (which isn’t surprising, I guess), so if you want to choose one or the other – go with the book.  Diet coke rating?  4.

This Is Where I Leave You
Jonathan Tropper

I gave this book to Blake as a Christmas present.  Which, given its title, was kinda a funny moment – I handed him the wrapped book as an afterthought after all the presents were opened, allowing him a double take at the dramatic title.  This book was one of my favorites of the month, although I ended up depressed for several days (although, interestingly, the plot isn’t inherently unhappy or cynical, just dark in its own way).  The novel deals with life, and unhappiness, failure, and death – all happy topics, I know.  But it does so with a sort of dark humor.  Therefore it gets 4.25 diet cokes!!

Hunger Games
Suzanne Collins

The second young adult novel of the month!  Again, I am blaming the Kindle buying mechanism.  I enjoyed this novel WAY more than the first one.  This book also falls in the science fiction/fantasy realm of novels, which seems to be a popular genre for young adult novels.  This book chronicles a sort of survivor/gladiator/fight to the death “game.”  I don’t know that my description does the plot justice, but I just can’t be bothered to write out a full summary of the novel.  Overall, this book was highly addictive.  I have already purchased the second book in the series (that’s right, its a young adult series.  I am awesome like that).  Diet coke rating?  4!

Through Painted Deserts
Donald Miller

I started this book a LONG time ago, and finished it after feeling as though I needed to read something with more substance after my little adventure into novels more often read by 13 year olds.  This book is responsible for my newly planned hiking/camping trip.  It’s one of those.  It gets 3.75 diet cokes.

Let The Great World Spin
Colum McCann

This was my favorite book of the month.  The story takes place in the 1970s over the course of a couple of days.  The characters are only tangentially related to one another, similar to Crash.  The book is gritty, to say the least.  But it is real, and it is interesting, and it forces you to think.  This would be most highly recommended novel for the month and the proud recipient of 4.5 diet cokes.

Blog writing note:  It is very hard to write a coherent blog entry while watching a movie as intense as The Hurt Locker.  I wouldn’t suggest it.

New Year’s Resolutions

I have never been really big on making New Year’s resolutions, which is actually kind of surprising given my affinity for making goals for myself.  I think this is probably because I tend to spend New Year’s Day in some various stage of “hungover” where I can think of nothing that I would rather due less than come up with year-long goals when my current minute-long goal is to not vomit.

However, this year there seemed to be a lot of talk about resolutions or plans for the upcoming year.  Actually, to be specific, there was a lot of talk about plans for the upcoming decade.  I, for one, cannot think in decade lengths because I was 15 last decade!  I couldn’t even drive!  Next decade I will be 35!  THAT’S OLD!  I will probably have kids and an actual house and have everything figured out by then!  No way could I come up with some sort of goal to start now and finish when I have dentures! (that was a joke!!)  But, I can plan for a year.  So I made some resolutions.  Being me, mine tend to be very defined.  For example, if I went with the typical, “Be nicer to people” plan, mine would be something more like, “Be nicer to at least 5 people per week.”

Therefore, I would like to present to you my list:

1)  Read at least 1 book a week.
This resolution is a direct knock-off of one of Blake’s friends, Andrew Polk.  Polk was the leader in the conversations about his plans for the next decade, listing an impressive amount of things he wanted to accomplish – including receiving his PHD, owning a business, owning a bar (different from the business), and the most impossible seeming of all – reading 2 books a week for the entire decade.  Now, you might look at the first two goals on that list and fixate on those as impossible, but for those of us in the room when these goals were announced, it was the last one that really gave us trouble.  TWO BOOKS A WEEK FOR TEN YEARS!?   That is a LOT of books.  Especially when considering the other things he wants to do (most of which aren’t listed.)  However, I liked the spirit of the resolution, so I decided to copy it for my own, albeit toned down to something I think I personally could and would want to accomplish.

2)  Attend yoga classes at least twice per week
My father is one of the least flexible people I have ever met.  This is probably mostly due to his age, but it is a running joke between David (my brother) and I, that dad has to turn completely around in order to see something more than 45 degrees to either direction.  His neck just can’t go that far!  I seem to have inherited my dad’s lack of flexibility, which is only getting worse as I slowly march towards 30.  Seeing as I would like to always be able to look at things next to me by moving only my neck rather than my entire body, I have decided that yoga is the path for me.  My first few classes have been maybe a little embarrassing, with the teacher coming over to help me into poses, only to have me gasp with alarm, “my body doesn’t move in that direction!  my body doesn’t move in that direction!” but I am determined to stick with it.  I might actually try to join an actual yoga studio, where I can really be embarrassed about my limited range of motion next to people who actually know what they are doing and are willing to pay loads of money in order to do it.

3)  Blog a minimum of 3 times per week
Look at me!  I have been doing this one!!  Like everything I do, I started off VERY dedicated with the whole blogging thing back when Blake first created this little website of mine.  For a while, I had a post every day!  I have no idea how I came up with things to write about, but I did!  However, also like everything I do, my interest in blogging soon dissipated.  I ran out of things to write about.  I started knitting more.  I opened an etsy store and allowed myself to become completely OBSESSED with that for a few months.  I began working out like a crazy person thanks to the new scale I purchased.  I did just about everything else.  However, I like blogging.  I never wrote before, due to the fact that I mostly find myself annoying and I have an alarmingly sensitive “pretentiousness detector”, but now that I’ve been doing it for a few months – I enjoy it!

4)  Make Blake run or do some form of exercise at least 3 times per week

I understand that this resolution makes me look like some sort of domineering crazy person, and don’t you worry, I have already received my fair share of ridicule regarding this resolution of “mine.”  But the thing is, Blake has diabetes.  He needs a healthy heart!  I am way better at sticking to arbitrarily decided goals, and therefore, if this is my goal rather than Blake’s, it is more likely to be enforced.  And man am I an enforcer.  I have no mercy!  Therefore, into week 2, Blake has stuck with it!  So if you are going to make fun of me/call me a demanding, I will bite you (no really, I will).

All right people.  Those are my resolutions for 2010.  I will periodically update you on their progress (especially the book one), so get ready.

HAPPY SATURDAY!