Books that stayed with me in some way

Making its way around FB is this list of ten books that have stayed with you in some way. Here's my stab at it.

1. The Mists of Avalon (Marion Zimmer Bradley) -- amazing retelling of the Arthurian legend from a priestess' perspective.

2. Foucault's Pendulum (Umberto Eco) -- opened my mind to the Knights Templar, Rosicrucians, and I seriously didn't know if this really was a work of fiction.

3. The Historian (Elizabeth Kostova) -- Dracula story within a story within a story told via letters and flashbacks

(Which reminds me of...)

4. Blood Groove (Alex Bledsoe) -- refreshing disturbingly awesome vampire tale (I so need to reread this!)

5. A Crown of Swords (Robert Jordan) -- "what? It's not over yet? How long *is* this series??!"

6. The Story of My Experiments with Truth (Mohandas Gandhi) -- I'd not actually known much about him, so reading this was eye opening, mind blowing.

7. IT (Stephen King) -- the only book that had me afraid of what might be under my bed.

8. The Stand (Stephen King) -- something about being sodomized w a gun barrel can make quite an impression on an innocent mind...

9. American Gods (Neil Gaiman) -- magnificent look at "gods" in these modern times

10. Chariots of the Gods? (Erich Von Daniken) -- read this in my very late teens, and my view of religions has never been the same.

So there you have it. 

Feel free to leave a link in comments to your own list. If I have the time I'll take a look.

The Book Challenges that Weren't: what I read in 2011

Last year I was all excited about joining two book/reading challenges that dovetailed nicely with what I had been planning to do anyway: re-read Stephen King's Dark Tower series



Unfortunately, with the pregnancy, and school, and the 3 weeks of hospital bedrest, then just taking care of a baby 6 weeks earlier than anticipated... reading just didn't happen.

Of the Dark Tower-related books, I read 4.05, but reviewed only 2 of them:
The Eyes of the Dragon, DT 1: The Gunslinger, DT 2: The Drawing of the Three, DT 3: The Wastelands, and have yet to make it past the prologue of DT 4: Wizard and Glass.

Two non-DT books I managed to read during the 3 weeks in hospital:

• The Wise Man's Fear (Kingkiller Chronicles Book 2) by Patrick Rothfuss [was *gasp!* bored thru the first third or so, and thru the faerie copulation section]
• Dark Jenny (3rd Eddie LaCrosse) by Alex Bledsoe [anything Arthurian goes a long way with me :) ]

So... apart from books used in class (including You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L Hay), and What To Expect When You're Expecting... it looks like I read a measly six books last year.

SIX

ouch :(

Perhaps I'll be able to sink my teeth into the books I want about the time the last Kingkiller Chronicles book comes out? :p

Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon

This review of Stephen King's The Eyes of the Dragon is part of the 2011 Stephen King and Read Me Baby One More Time Challenges.



This is a tale targeted towards kids. It reads like a fairy tale. The narrator is all too present, too prominent, dropping too many hints of "oh if only so-and-so knew of the room full of such-and-suches, would it have made a difference? I'll let you decide," that might be amusing at first, but irritating after a while.

That said, I rather enjoyed this book.

Stephen King obviously had his Dark Tower characters on his mind when writing this: the land is named Delain (very similar to Roland Deschain's last name, don't you think?); the ruler is Good King Roland (no link or relation to our Roland Deschain except for the name, though); but best of all, it features Randall Flagg as the bad guy. We learn a LOT about Flagg through this tale, and for that alone I think my digression from the Dark Tower series to this book was no mistake.

In fact, reading this BEFORE The Gunslinger might be a good strategy for people who want to approach the Dark Tower indirectly: you might then have a better feel for the person with whom Roland finally palavers at the end of The Gunslinger.

But back to The Eyes of the Dragon. The plot is simple: Randall Flagg has served as advisor/magician to Good King Roland and one or two rulers before him (and that's just this iteration!), but his objective is always to induce chaos, plans that will be thwarted if Roland's first-born, Peter, takes the throne. Thomas, the second-born, is so much more flawed, malleable, corruptible. What unfolds then is what you would expect: the king is poisoned, Peter is found guilty and imprisoned for life in the tallest tower, Thomas is crowned King, and Flagg gets free reign in steadily steering the land into anarchy. Can Peter escape? Save his land? Rid Delain of Flagg? The narrator implies he can, but strings the tale out quite a bit until you find out how.

Mentioned without really being expanded on is the concept of the White, the 'good' force that works subtly counter to the Black of which Flagg is but one representative. This is something that is expounded more in The Stand, in case you were interested in what Mr King was trying to say. Do check it out too, if you haven't already.

One thing I found interesting was how Thomas was described: not that great with his studies, neither very creative nor intuitive, someone who kinda plodded along the best he knew how ... these were about the same things said of Roland Deschain. Of course, one was raised in the shadow of his never-do-wrong brother while the other had integrity, loyalty and pride beat into him from an early age, it's no wonder they turned out very different... but think about it: was Mr King experimenting with a "What if" scenario where our Roland Deschain had from early on been in the thrall of Flagg? Those who have read this recently: any opinions?

For the record, this is at least the second, if not third, time I've read this book. I'm guessing once during my college years (the 90's), at the end of my work career (mid-00's), and now.

I'll be taking a short break from rereading Stephen King because my massage therapy classes have just started up again, so I should get to reviewing stuff before class, and already get moving on assignment we've already been given. Ugh. Hopefully I'll plow through The Drawing of the Three during the MLK Jr long weekend.

Until then: happy reading!

Stephen King's The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower I)

This review of Stephen King's The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower I) is part of the 2011 Stephen King and Read Me Baby One More Time Challenges.



The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed. It is in this first sentence that we already meet Roland Deschain, formerly of Gilead, in pursuit of his old enemy Marten (or Walter, or Randall Flagg, or ...). As the chase continues, we are treated to some of Roland's backstory, whether the relatively recent encounter with the townspeople of Tull, or events of his childhood that set his feet upon the path he now walks.

And if you'd not come to the conclusion already, once the events surrounding Jake the boy from New York found at the Way Station unfold to their (end), you wouldn't be wrong to dislike Roland a litte, or at least to see him not as a cookie cutter hero, but a real man; a hard man; a man forged of bullets, murder, pride, vengeance; a man of unparalleled focus and intensity. A man on a mission.

By the time the gunslinger and the man in black finish their palaver, I think it's safe to say readers will be intrigued by what has been put forth: what is this Dark Tower? Who is the man in black's master, who could grant virtual immortality to the furthest of his minions, and only by visiting through dreams? What this thing about worlds having moved on? What did Jake mean when he stated Go then. There are other worlds than these.?

Then pick up book II - The Drawing of The Three, and prepare to yourself be drawn even further into Roland's world.

ADDITIONAL NOTES for those who have already read the book:
I read the "revised and expanded throughout" version, but with the "original" version on hand to compare and contrast some passages. I'm sure somewhere online someone has done just that, and provided exhaustive analysis of what was changed and why between the 1982 and 2003 editions. Here I'll just note two main things that I made a point to look up.

The first was in Tull, when the pianist Sheb comes bursting in on Roland and Alice in a blind jealous rage. In the revised version, Roland recognises him as someone who was involved in what went on in Meijis. I remember in Book IV that the early (if not earliest) encounters between Roland's ka-tet and the bad guys of Neijis occur at a pub where were have someone plinking away at the keyboards... I guess that was also Sheb? I'll find out/confirm it once I get to Wizard and Glass :)

The second actually covers many things, but they all occur during the palaver between Roland and the man in black during that enchanted night. The main thing that was changed was that Marten *was* Walter who in turn *was* the man in black (in the original, Walter was the man in black, but Marten was someone else, someone Roland later tracked and killed). That the man in black's master was Maerlyn, who lived backwards in time, was nixed: instead he is Legion, and that's about it. No mention about the Beast that lives in / guards the Tower.

These amendments definitely help tidy things up a bit: the confusion about Marten/Walter was always at the back of my hubby's head, so when I was done with the reread, we sat down and discussed the changes, he with his notes he'd made of Books I - IV, and me with the two versions to flip between and quote from. Major quality time, I tell ya! No, I'm being neither sarcastic nor facetious. I've mentioned before that Stephen King, specifically the Dark Tower series, was one of the subjects we bonded over way back when we were dating. So yesterday's discussion was a great throwback to our younger days :)

Next, I picked up The Eyes of the Dragon: that review will be up in a few days... stay tuned!

This isn't technically a book blog, and yet...

... be prepared for Life After Work to feature a lot more book reviews next year. After all, you *do* know books/reading are an important part of my life, in addition to the food and random navel-gazing that also gets featured here, right? LoL!

You may remember that I recently signed up for the 2011 Stephen King Challenge; while I had the time, I dropped by to visit the other participants, sometimes leaving a comment, often just lurking :)

During one of those visits, I stumbled across another reading challenge that I figured I might as well sign up for: Midnight Book Girl's 2011 Read Me, Baby, 1 More Time Challenge!


If you were paying attention, you'd know that the main reason I signed up for the Stephen King Challenge was because I was going to be rereading the Dark tower series anyway. Key word being REreading. Which is the focus of Midnight Book Girl's challenge. And having the same book cater to other challenges is fine, so wheee! :)

In 2011, I anticipate reading at least all 7 Dark Tower books, and Three talisman-related books: The Talisman, Black House, and The Eyes of the Dragon. That totals 10: already the Back to The Future level of the challenge! Whee! Count me in!

Sadly, these may be the only books I do read next year, or even for a long long time: come June 2011, it's going to be a busy time for me, what with hopefully getting fully licensed as a Massage Therapist *and* having a major life event anticipated to occur right about then too.

Fun times, fun times.

Stick around and cheer me on, k? :)

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2010 Book Round-up & The Stephen King Challenge 2011

I will be participating in The Stephen King Challenge 2011!! More about that at the end of this post. First, here's a round-up of books read in 2010:

Unfortunately, this year has NOT been much of a reading year for me. According to my entries on GoodReads, I have only read 28 books this year. Only. Last year I logged 35 (also a bad year); contrast that to 2006 where I consumed 80. I have a good reason though... starting that Massage Therapy certification program really sucked A LOT of my time and energy away from books (and no, I'm not going to log my text books here, although I guess that would add at least two more: Trail Guide to the Body Book and A Massage Therapist's Guide to Pathology)(but it doesn't explain the dry spell in the first half of the year either, shhhh!)

So here's my tally for 2010:

Many of this year's were re-reads:

1. American Gods - Neil Gaiman
2. Grave Peril - Jim Butcher (I was going to reread the entire Harry Dresden series, but kinda got bored here :p oops!)
   
3. The First Betrayal - Patricia Bray
4. The Name of the Wind - Patrick Rothfuss (a "reread" b/c I listened to the audiobook version this time around, and had Kosh listen in too, during some long-distance driving.)
5. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

I had some serious, non-fiction books too:

6. NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children - Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman
7. On Writing - Stephen King
8. Who Moved My Illusion?: Discover The Secrets Of The Mover, The Moved, And The Moving - David Cain
9. Energy Medicine for Women: Aligning Your Body's Energies to Boost Your Health and Vitality - Donna Eden
10. Energy Medicine: Balancing Your Body's Energies for Optimal Health, Joy, and Vitality - Donna Eden


And my usual fantasy fare mixed with some random regular fiction, Buffy graphic novels, and a horrendous foray into the realm of paranormal romance fantasy thingy (gag!):

11. The Long Way Home (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 Vol. 1)
12. No Future For You (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 Vol. 2)
13. Wolves at the Gate (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Season 8 vol. 3)
14. The Testament of Gideon Mack - James Robertson
15. People of the Book - Geraldine Brooks
16. The Tower of Solitude - Valerio Massimo Manfredi
17. Nothing To Lose (Jack Reacher Series, #12) - Lee Child
18. The Book of Fathers - Miklós Vámos
19. Night Pleasures (Dark-Hunter, #1) - Sherrilyn Kenyon
20. The Colorado Kid - Stephen King
21. U R - Stephen King
22. Burn Me Deadly - Alex Bledsoe
23. Horizon (The Sharing Knife, #4) - Lois MacMaster Bujold
24. The Sword-Edged Blonde - Alex Bledsoe
25. The Girls with Games of Blood - Alex Bledsoe
26. Warbreaker - Brandon Sanderson
27. Something Wicked This Way Comes - Ray Bradbury (audiobook)
    
28. Water for Elephants - Sara Gruen

Yes, I went through quite a few of Alex Bledsoe's works this year :)

As usual, you can find my ratings and reviews over at GoodReads, so click on over and enjoy! (I'm not sure, do you need to be my friend in order to easily access my reviews? if so, feel free to do so, just please drop me a line saying how you found me, k?)

.... and now, back to The Stephen King Challenge 2011 I started this post with


According to wikipedia, As of 2010, Stephen King has written and published 49 novels, including seven under the pen name Richard Bachman, five non-fiction books, and nine collections of short stories: I count at least 37 that I have read.

I do not recall the first book of his that I read, but I do know the one that made the biggest impression: IT!! I still remember reading it back when I was in Form 3 (I had bought it for my brother's birthday but he wasn't to read it until he was done with his exams so I went ahead and read it first ... couldn't put it down,,, but my oh my, I was reading it in bed in the dead of night and I could have SWORN Pennywise was under my bed, ready to grab me if I dared dangle my feet over the side, if I wanted to go pee... I was terrified!

Loved The Stand (got the revised version as a gift in college), and remember laughing out loud at a short story where the protagonist realises "OMG I'm watching a vampire pee" :)

I remember squealing in joy when I discovered Wizard and Glass on the bookshelves, and proceeded to buy and consume all four (then available) Dark Tower books, so thirsty was I for Roland, his ka-tet, and the Man In Black.

My long-distance romance with Kosh featured the then-newly-released Wolves of the Calla.

When I was done with Book 7 of the Dark Tower series, I bitterly, grudgingly acknowledged that Mr King probably could not have "ended" it any other way. Kosh on the other hand felt angry and cheated: I totally understand!

In the meantime, I've been rather unimpressed with Mr King's more recent works. “Cell” was an insipid rehash of The Stand. Then there was Lisey's Story (thanks, Zuzu!) that I could barely get through. I picked up The Colorado Kid only because I wanted to know just how much of the book was reflected in the SyFy series (hardly). Under the Dome sounded like the plot of The Simpsons Movie. The title Full Dark, No Stars sounds interesting, but I've not bothered to find out what it's about.

And this brings us to the end of 2010. Just a few weeks ago I was telling Kosh that it's high time I reread the Dark Tower series. Just today I realise that I last read them through back when Book 7 came out, way back in 2005. That's over five years ago. Ummm, yeah, high time.

Then I find out from Sezin that there's this Stephen King Challenge 2011 organized by Book Chick City, where participants will read and review 6, or 12, or more of Mr King’s works.

Heh. The Dark Tower series alone will get me to 7 ... and I intend to (re)visit a few of the DT-related books (The Talisman, Black House, Desperation, The Regulators, some of the Richard Bachman short stories...) and would put me right past 12, and that's not including excursions into his more recent works, because, you know, I’d love for Stephen King to redeem himself in my eyes :D

But why join The Stephen King Challenge 2011? Well, just because I've read most of these books before, it doesn't mean I've reviewed / properly written about them. And I want to (re)read them anyway. So here I am, throwing my hat into the ring of The Stephen King Challenge 2011.

Won't you join me?

(Tinyurl for this post: http://tinyurl.com/27v6q96)

Book Review: NurtureShock (Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman)

2010 is looking to be a very dry year when it comes to books read! To date I think I might have gone through 5? books... at this time last year I was probably up to a 30+ count!

I'm just not feeling the reading pull right now.

In general, the number of serious non-fiction books I read is pretty low: I greatly prefer to read and escape this world, not to get mired more into it... However, every once in a while my interest is piqued enough to nudge me out of my comfort zone. In fact, my recent additions to my to-read list have been non-fiction works.

Back in February, I picked up NurtureShock: New Thinking About Children by Po Bronson & Ashley Merryman (no we are NOT preggers!) and found it to be a valuable read. Here's a brief review, chapter-by-chapter.

1. The inverse power of praise [Sure, he's special. But new research suggests if you tell him that, you'll ruin him. It's a neurobiological fact.]
This struck close to my heart, for many reasons. The key takeaway here is to praise the effort, not the result, and to be sincere in your praise. Fear of appearing stupid / making mistakes keeps intelligent kids from trying new things and expanding their abilities - trust me, I know ALL about that!

2. The lost hour [Around the world, children get an hour less sleep than they did thirty years ago. The cost: IQ points, emotional well-being, ADHD, and obesity]
It was interesting to read how something simple like changing the start time of schools has helped increase IQ points and reduce teenage angst! Research shows that teenagers function differently than infants and adults when it comes to sleep patterns: adapt to this fact, and you have a ebtter chance of having a better-adjusted kid.

3. Why white parents don't talk about race [Does teaching children about race and skin color make them better off or worse?]
This was an eye-opening chapter. Its bottom line: children aren't blind, and will categorise things and people into obvious groups, so it's better to acknowledge and discuss race early on than to pretend skin color differences don't exist.

4. Why kids lie [We may treasure honesty, but the research is clear. Most classic strategies to promote truthfulness just encourages kids to be better liars]
Think about it: kids are taught that they are expected to lie ("Oh grandma, I *love* the brown and green sweater you knitted me!"), and often get punished for telling the truth (usually when they tell-tale on another kid). Interestingly, research shows kids lie to keep us happy (and keep themselves out of hot water); it's also a sophisticated interaction skill.

5. The search for intelligent life in kindergarten [Millions of kids are competing for seats in gifted programs and private schools. Admissions officers say it's an art: new science says they're wrong, 73% of the time]
Early IQ points and other results of intelligence/abilities tests administered to too-young children will return many false results. In fact, "... if you picked 100 kindergerteners as "gifted", by third grade only 27 of them would still deserve that categorisation. You would have locked out 73 other deserving students ..." Studies show that it's only when kids are in about 3rd grade -- when children are expected to reason through sums, to read for comprehension -- will their IQ points be indicative of their final adult scores.

6. The sibling effect [Freud was wrong, Shakespeare was right. Why siblings really fight]
This chapter looked at research questioning the belief that onlies miss out on social interaction skills compared to those from a family with 2 or more kids. It also looked at the interaction between siblings -- turns out that the best way to get siblings to play well together is to focus not on the "you're his/her brother/sister therefore you must love/play with him/her" familial ties, but on facilitating the building of an actual friendship between the siblings. It turns out that a very good predictor of how well an older child is going to behave towards his/her new sibling is determined by how well he/she interacts with his/her best friend!

7. The science of teen rebellion [Why, for adolescents, arguing with adults in a sign of respect not disrespect -- and arguing is constructive to the relationship, not destructive]
Did you know that a household with no rules / permissive parents implies to their kids that they (the parents) don't care about them? Teens lie all the time, and often will occasionally slip up on purpose in order to get caught, scolded, and assured that their parents care. I found it interesting that there wasn't much difference between the number of parent/child conflicts in a Western vs Asian household: Western kids tend to argue over parents' authority to set rules; Asian kids over the rules themselves.

8. Can self-control be taught? [Developers of a new kind of preschool keep losing their grant money -- the students are so successful they're no longer "at-risk enough" to warrant further study. What's their secret?]
Looks like introducing the concept of planning ahead does wonders in helping kids sustain interest in activities that might otherwise grind to a bored halt, or elicit disruptive behaviour because because they are bored. Rather stifle spontaneity and creativity, having roles assigned, understood and planned out beforehand helps sustain kids' interest in roleplaying.

9. Plays well with others [Why modern involved parenting has failed to produce a generation of angels]
Did you know that education shows like Arthur and Clifford the Big Red Dog might harm / promote violence a lot more than "violent" shows like Power Rangers? This is because often the shows tend to feature bad behaviour for most of the episode, and resolution of the problem / modeling of good behaviour only occurs in the last few minutes. Thus, the child is more like ly to parrot the behavior he sees a lot of, rather than thinking through the moral of the story.

10. Why Hannah talks and Sarah doesn't [Despite scientists' admonitions, parents still spend billions every year on gimmicks and videos, hoping to jump-start infants' language skills. What's the right way to accomplish this goal?]
I found this a particularly interesting chapter. It turns out that incessant talking at infants might not be the way to go to encourage linguistic proficiency. Instead, parents that provide feedback, that produce reacting/confirming/encouraging sounds in response to the infant's gurglings and babblings, will have more language-proficient babies. Identifying what it is that catches a child's eye, commenting on it, and paraphrasing it a few different ways has also been found to be useful. The uninteractive Baby Einstein videos? Not been proven to help with language proficiency, so don't bother!

The style of the book is not stodgy, and very readable. This isn't a research piece: it's more like an overview of current/recent research, with a pretty good write-up of ramifications of these results on conventional child-rearing assumptions. Not being a parent myself, the contents of this book were nice-to-know things-to-keep-in-mind: for actual parents, I hope that reading this book would help give them the confidence to break free of norms, and help truly nurture their children into well-balanced adults who can reach or even go beyond their potential.

Disclosure: This review is 100% my unsolicited opinion! Should you use the link to amazon.com and purchase this book, I'll earn some money from the sale -- but only if you purchase something, and it would amazon.com paying the commission, not you. Cheers!

Book Review: Sounds of Murder - Patricia Rockwell

Way back in January, fellow blogger (and face-to-face-er) Patricia Rockwell, who blogs at Communication Exchange and Subjective Soup, asked if any of her readers were willing to provide pre-publication reviews of her novel, Sounds of Murder. I was happy to volunteer my services.

Unfortunately, it took me almost 2 months to complete the book and write the review.

Now, before you think this is a mark against Sounds of Murder, let me clarify that a lot of the delay has nothing to do with the novel's contents, and almost everything to do with the format I was using to read it: I'd already kinda suspected I wasn't the ebook kind of person, and my unsuccessful attempts at getting into Sounds of Murder can be directly attributed to my not wanting to sit in front of the 'puter and read a soft copy off of the screen. In the end I managed to find the right settings, both physical and virtual, that had me tackling most of the book in one go last weekend. Yay!

So, on to the book itself.

Sounds of Murder is Patricia's first novel, and features Pamela Barnes, a college professor who turns sleuth when a prominent member of her Psychology Department is found dead one evening. Leveraging her strength in acoustics, Pamela attempts to figure out whodunnit, preferably without alienating her very protective husband or alerting the murderer to her activities.

I found the idea around which the story was built to be unique, and looked forward to seeing how it all played out. I felt parts of the novel were repetitive, though: it seemed as if Pamela went over the same evidence/clues over and over again -- with herself, her husband, and her girlfriends -- just often enough to be tiresome.

Apart from that, the plot moved along well with concise chapters, believable dialogue and characters I'd like to get to know better -- this book might benefit from deeper characters and backstory, but then again this would be something I'd expect more of in book #2.

In many places I found myself grinning and nodding to myself as I recognised elements that put this book firmly in the "cozy" mystery genre: the keyword is definitely "gentle". Overall it was an enjoyable read, and a decent debut novel.

I'd like to thank Patricia for the opportunity to read her novel before it gets published, and wish her all the best in getting her new publishing company Cozy Cat Press up and running so that it does get published!

Disclosure as per what I think are the FTC requirements (probably overkill, but better be safe, right?): I received a free pre-publication copy of this free from Patricia Rockwell in exchange for a review on this blog. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are totally my own. So there.

31 days to 2010: Eating Animals

As 2010 approaches, my thoughts are moving more and more towards eating better, making better choices when it comes to providing the body with fuel vs satisfying the emotional side to eating.

This is why I am looking forward to Kilax's giveaway of Jonathan Safran Foer's non-fiction book on starting an informed discussion about what is being done in the name of putting food on our tables. Entitled Eating Animals, it's not a call for vegetarianism per se, but seems to nudge folks in that direction. While I wasn't impressed with his works of fiction (read one, saw the movie adaptation of another), I am quietly curious about what he has to say, and how he says it.

For those who have known me over a long period of time, you might recall I used to be a (lenient) vegetarian, sticking to fried noodles or rice with curry-without-chicken, eating eggs and cheese but consuming bits of an actual dead animal once a week or so. This came about from reading Fit for Life: it was extremely impactful to me at that time. I still remember the first time I ate just plain lettuce, and was blown away by how sweet it tasted. Sadly, I drifted away from this under the influence of a partner who complained I was "being difficult". (I've come a long way since then -- that's a topic for another time, if ever. Moving on...)

Parallel to this, I was also known to not eat red meat. Even now, the smell of beef cooking makes me gag. I've just not really liked it. However, I'll not turn down a nice steak. So perhaps a big part of my aversion grew out of the poor quality meat used in local dishes you'd find in stalls, even restaurants. Stringy, fatty, chewy. Ugh. But I'll take beef in the form of burgers (I hear it's Prosperity Burger time back in Malaysia now... waaaaaah!!! That's only like my most favouritest McDonald's burger EVER!!), and here in the US the meat used in "Chinese" dishes like Mongolian Beef or Beijing Beef is usually pretty decent, so my aversion to it has lessened. But still. By default, anything that calls for ground beef, I substitute with ground chicken, turkey, soy crumbles, or a combination thereof.

I'm not sure if I would want to go "all the way" i.e. vegan, seeing as I really like my eggy and cheese breakfasts. At the same time, however, I do not want to be part of a system that feeds cows anything but grass, and bulks chicken up with antibiotics, all to get more and cheaper meats to our table, sans the nutrients that would have been present in "natural" animals.

I have a feeling that Jonathan Safran Foer's Eating Animals will resonate with me - the only real questions are how much, and what I will do after reading it.

I've checked: Eating Animals is available within the Lincoln Library system, so even if I don't win the giveaway, I'll get my hands on it easily enough. But winning is always nice, isn't it? So I'm quietly hoping it's my name that Kim will pull out of the hat on Dec 6th.

Peace.

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"George R. R. Martin is not your bitch"

For those not in the know, George R. R. Martin is the author of the as-yet-unfinished series A Song of Ice and Fire. I've blabbed about the author and series before: bottom line is if you want an engrossing gritty realistic non-cookie-cutter epic fantasy series with flawed heroes, redeemable bad guys, and many intertwining plotlines, this is for you!

The "issue" some people have with George R. R. Martin is that it took forever to release Book 4 (A Feast for Crows), and that this ended up being Book 4 Part 1 because there were so many storylines to keep in mind and expand that only half the characters were advanced in Crows; the other half will be explored in A Dance with Dragons - which so far has had its release date changed/delayed quite a few times already.

So someone writes in to Neil Gaiman, asking his opinion on whether fans should be angry that GRRM seems to be working on other projects instead of churning out Book 4 Part 2 and however many books more to complete the series.

Neil's reply? George R. R. Martin is not your bitch

Bwaahahaahaha! Of course, Gaiman says more than just that, and it's a great read, but wow, George R. R. Martin is not your bitch kinda stayed with me.

As it did with other people too, obviously.

So much so that someone wrote a song about it. Please follow the link and give it a listen. If you like it, it's free to download. Serious.

Have a great weekend, y'all!

But don't blame me if the tune gets stuck in your head the whole weekend, k? :D

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book bummer

... so about three weeks ago, I was doing a circuit of the Popular Library at the Harold Washington Library in downtown Chicago, when I noticed The Well of Ascension, Book 2 of Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn series.

I decided to check it out, even though I wasn't in a big hurry to continue the Mistborn tale yet. I ended up taking my time with it, catching a page or two here and there during el rides to/from town, and therefore not making much progress. Then we went to visit my Kosh's sister and family, which included an overnight stay, babysitting services and taking two of the three kids out to see Star Trek (yes, finally!! and wow!! more to blog about that later!).

I managed to get some serious reading time in, too, and am now at page 223 (out of 578). It's due back today, though.. but no biggie, just go online and renew it....

*sigh*

... someone else has asked for it, so I can't renew it. Waaaaaaahhh!!! It's been out for two years already! I found it on a shelf!! Why oh why if there a hold placed on it?!! :( Waaaaaahhhhhh!!

Rather than incur a 20¢ daily fine, especially since I can't guarantee I'll buckle down and finish the book off in a day or two, it looks like I'll have to make a quick trip to a local library to drop it off, then promptly put a hold request on it for myself so I can get it back soon to pick up where I left off.

Ugh. That'll teach me to not whizz through books as I usually do! :p

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#998: book disposal!

Over the past week or so, Kosh and I found the energy and motivation to go through his boxes and boxes of books, assessing what was worth keeping (for rereads, sentimental reasons, etc) and what really needed to go. ... . He's been harbouring his father's physical education text books from college, for heaven's sake!

... I'm groaning, and I'm a packrat myself!!

Anyways, so we had a few boxes of books, and figured we'd try to get some money back for them then donate the rest.

First stop was online: CKY Books and Powell's Books!

Punched in every single IBSN we had (and some books were so old they didn't have an ISBN!!), got some hits, took note of the titles and offers: so in theory we had about 30 books that would get us maybe $50. But that involved the hassle of packing the books, shipping them (at no cost to us), and hoping the evaluators would keep to the original quote upon seeing the condition of the books.

So we decided to go ahead and see what we could get from bookstores that are known to buy books here in town.

OMG the nightmare of making our way to Myopic!! Finding parking on a busy narrow street in the middle of a beautiful Saturday afternoon with seemingly everyone out on/in the streets enjoying the weather - f.u.n! They didn't take that many books, but offered $22 for what they would take. Tolak $7 for a book I found while browsing waiting for the evaluation to be done, we walked out $15 richer.

We then made our way to Powell's (no idea if it's related to the online one), and they took TWO books, for a measly $1.50. On hindsight, seeing as Powell's had more eclectic tastes, and that their payout seemed to be 75¢ per paperback instead of Myopic's 50¢, perhaps we might have done better to hit Powell's first? As it stood, what we got from Powell's served to cover the parking meters we'd had to feed at both locations.

After those two visits, we still had three rather full boxes of unwanted books - but guess what? We still had 13 books that we'd gotten hits for online! So we set those aside, and dumped donated all the rest to Goodwill.

Tomorrow/today/Sunday, we'll go ahead and reenter all those ISBNs, for reals this time, get the necessary labels printed and books packed, and off to the Post Office we will go.

Once the dust has settled, and we get the/any $ from those online buy-back sites, I'll report back as to whether we might have been better off just shipping off the 30 books before bringing the others to be evaluated at the local bookstores.

... so, how about y'all? Have you done something like this too? Was it worth the effort?

(Photo credit: Old books... by nkzs)

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#994: Review of books read in April 2009

My tally for last month's reads is atrociously low:

TWO.

Only two!!! Why? How did this happen??!! Because of "The Ghost in Love". Ugh. I read one chapter, set it down, and didn't pick it up for a week. Then did another chapter, set it down again, and again left it to gather dust.

Seriously, though. The idea is good. Something is happening: people who are supposed to die are NOT dying, thus throwing the folk in charge of the afterlife into disarray. Thing is, the "normal" system that the author has envisioned is already kinda weird, with a ghost that comes in to finish up your unfinished business once you die and go to wherever it is you go in that version of the afterlife. Then add to that the disarray. I wondered if this would have been better presented as a cartoon, and watched while under the influence of LSD. Yeah, that weird. It just didn't hook me.

Strangely enough, reading the other reviews on GoodReads, so many people are totally gushing over Mr Carroll and his work in general, and The Ghost in Love gets a lot of praise too. Hmmmm. I might give this guy one more chance.

Someday. No rush!

... So after I was finally done with that (took about a month!!), I could move on to other things... like:

Body Surfing. Another book with an interesting, different, unique premise. I think I'm a prude, though, because I didn't quite appreciate how sex and orgasms were so vital to the whole thing :p (I finished this in the wee hours of May 2nd, so it doesn't count toward the April tally, though!)

... and ...

Joey Yap's Bazi The Destiny Code Revealed - Delve Deeper into the Four Pillars of Destiny. Yeah, research for my side project. I'm dabbling a little in this method of Chinese luck forecasting, or destiny analysis.

I found this book to be more detailed, more systematic, more readable, and ultimately more easily understood than the similar work by Lillian Too. Reading it once is of course not enough, I'll continue to be flipping back to it while I figure out how to frikkin interpret the charts :p

To see my full reviews of these books and others that I have read over the years, come and join me at GoodReads.com. By joining, and being signed-in, if you click on the images above you should be taken to the book's page on GR, and scrolling down a little you'll see the section of "Friends' Reviews", and that's where you'll my two cents (or sen).

Ciao!

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#989: bits of books

So over the past few weeks, Kosh and I have been volunteering at an organisation that essentially provides audio versions of textbooks and such, in order to provide people with vision impairment equal access to these educational resources.

So far, our duties have been to check what has been read by other volunteers. Assigned books change every time. As such, I've had the opportunity to listen in on the following books:

1. A textbook on American History. This was the usual book for beginner Checkers to be exposed to the whole checking process. Filled with not just text, but also tables, diagrams, photos with captions, etc, it provided a good example of many of the conventions used by this organisation. Here, I heard a really great reader and wondered if I'd have the nerve to work my way up to Reader, then heard a really awful reader who seemed to have a cold and was really lethargic and listening to him was like pulling teeth, and I said to myself Heck even I can do better than that!.

2. Prisoners of Our Thoughts: Viktor Frankl's Principles for Discovering Meaning in Life and Work. Reminded me of my past life in the corporate world, back when i dealt in change management and organisational behaviour. Also reminded me that while I know in general about Frankl's experience in Auschwitz and other concentration camps and resultant work, I have not actually *read* his work. Putting this and Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning on my way too long to-read list.

3. A textbook on Intercultural Communication. Kinda cool, since I try to have some attempts at comparisons between Malaysia, Switzerland and the USA over at a malaysian abroad; took down some notes, hopefully the little tidbits will germinate into actual posts there! :)

4. Sent For You Yesterday: A novel about the exclusion of the albino Brother in an all black community, written in stream of consciousness style, and read by what sounded like a white elderly lady, was a really weird juxtaposition. Seriously, imagine Betty White reading "Shit man. Worse than that. Night mare. Day mare. Afternoon mare. Every damn time-of-day mare. Whatever you want to call it. That dream had me by the nuts."

5. One of the many Warriors books, about clans of wild cats trying to survive in their forest homes. A Young Adult -- and feline -- version of Watership Down, perhaps? From what I heard, I suppose if I were a young'un today I might be voraciously consuming the three 6-volumed miniseries, but definitely not as a 36 year-old :p

6. House of Dance: Only got to hear the first two chapters. Dying grandfather. Aloof mother who washes windows for a living, and is probably having an affair with her married boss. A daughter in the middle of it all. Meh. Another young adult piece.

I'm looking forward to getting to Read books soon. I'll probably end up inadvertently refreshing my Chemistry knowledge - there's this huge Inorganic Chemistry textbook that's winking at me every time I pass the bookshelves there, LoL!

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#988: I won!

Guess what I got in the mail yesterday??


It was my $5 Starbucks Gift Card I had won by entering a contest organised by Hava, a fellow today.com blogger who has since moved to her own place at Nonfiction Book Review. It was accompanied by a nice little card and note, too :)



Okay, for those who know me, know that I am not a fan of Starbucks, but hey, once in a while I do find myself in one of them places (what to do... no Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf in this side of the US!), so it'll come in handy :)

Thanks again, Hava, and all the best in your new digs! If any of you are interested in the stories of a part-time librarian mixed with nonfiction book reviews, do swing on by, k?

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#985: 20 out of 100 ain't bad?

So this is Post Number 985 for this particular blog, since its start in October 2004... How should I mark #1000? Suggestions welcome!! :)

On another note: Saw this at i hate kit kats a while ago, and decided to try it out. Yes another meme, and another book-related one at that. So sue me! :D

= = =

The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here. How do your reading habits stack up?

Instructions: Copy the list, and put an 'x' after those you have read, count 'em up, compare tallies. This should be easy. Strutting and preening is optional.

1. Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen ( )
2. The Lord of the Rings ( ) (I tried - twice!)
   
3. Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte ( )
4. Harry Potter series - JK Rowling (X) (multiple times, only #7 once so far)
5. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee ( )
6. The Bible - ( )
7. Wuthering Heights ( )
8. Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell (X)
9. His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman ( )
10. Great Expectations - Charles Dickens ( )
11. Little Women - Louisa M Alcott (X) (Does the abridged version in school count?)
12. Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy ( )
13. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller ( )
14. Complete Works of Shakespeare ( )
15. Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier ( )
16. The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien ( )
17. Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk ( )
18. Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger ( )
19. The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (X)
20. Middlemarch - George Eliot ()
21. Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell ( )
22. The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald ( )
23. Bleak House - Charles Dickens ()
24. War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy ( )
25. The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams (X) (twice)
26. Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh ( )
27. Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky ( )
28. Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck ( )
29. Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll (X)
30. The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame ( )
31. Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy ( )
32. David Copperfield - Charles Dickens ( )
33. Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis ( )
34. Emma - Jane Austen ( )
35. Persuasion - Jane Austen ( )
36. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis ( ) [and this is separate from #33 why?]
    
37. The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini ( )
38. Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres ( )
39. Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden ( )
40. Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne ( )
41. Animal Farm - George Orwell (X)
42. The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown (X)
43. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
44. A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving ( )
45. The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins ( )
46. Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery ( )
47. Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy ()
48. The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood ()
49. Lord of the Flies - William Golding ( )
50. Atonement - Ian McEwan ( )
51. Life of Pi - Yann Martel (X)
52. Dune - Frank Herbert (X)
53. Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons ( )
54. Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen ( )
55. A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth ( )
56. The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon ( )
57. A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens (X) (Again - does the abridged version count?)
58. Brave New World - Aldous Huxley ( )
59. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon (X)
60. Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez ( )
61. Of Mice and Men- John Steinbeck ( )
62. Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov ( )
63. The Secret History - Donna Tartt ( )
64. The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold (X)
65. Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas( )
66. On The Road - Jack Kerouac ( )
67. Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy ( )
68. Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding ( ) (Couldn't get past the second page!)
69. Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie ( )
70. Moby Dick - Herman Melville ( )
71. Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens (X) (Abridged!! Do you see a pattern here?)
72. Dracula - Bram Stoker (X) (Children's Illustrated version count?)
73. The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett ( )
74. Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson ( )
75. Ulysses - James Joyce ( )
76. The Inferno – Dante ( )
77. Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome ( )
78. Germinal - Emile Zola ( )
79. Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray ( )
80. Possession - AS Byat ( )
81. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens ( )
82. Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell ( )
83. The Color Purple - Alice Walker ( )
84. The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro ( )
85. Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert ( )
86. A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry ()
87. Charlotte’s Web - EB White ()
88. The Five People You Meet In Heaven (X) (I do NOT recommend this insipid read!)
89. Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (X)
90. The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton (X)
91. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad ( )
92. The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery (X)
93. The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks ( )
94. Watership Down - Richard Adams (X)
95. A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole ( )
96. A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute ( )
97. The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas (X)
98. Hamlet - William Shakespeare ( ) [and this is separate from #14 why?]
99. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl (X)
100. Les Miserables - Victor Hugo (X)
     

So that's 20 for me. How about you?

I have to point out that this list is pretty random - I doubt its origins "from the BBC", and the sloppy entries (Shakespeare and CS Lewis) turn this into a joke.

However, it's amusing for me to look at this list and have absolutely NO desire to even touch many of the works listed. You see, I have this aversion to "classic" "literature": it's a reflexive instinctual reaction developed from childhood, from school, where if you were "good in English" then it was assumed you liked/read classics by Jane Austen, the Bronte sisters, Shakespeare, etc. I very much preferred fantasy, regular fiction and Stephen King; had no patience for the stuffy classics; and knew I was judged lacking by certain peers and teachers. Me being me, I put on my stone face and thick skin and did my own thing.

Of the 20 I have read above, I think I would recommend The Time-Traveler's Wife: it is an excellent read, just make sure you have a box of tissues with you, especially when nearing the end of the book!

Of the remaining 80 above, Possession by A S Byatt has been on my to-read list for about a year. I first heard about her when taking my Fairy Tales class: she has a short story collection of modern / re-written / new fairy tales that were well-written. She comes across as a very articulate writer, and while I'm not a fan of love stories per se, I am very interested in the description of what this book is about. I also have the movie version somewhere on my Netflix queue - we'll see which I get to first! :)

As usual, feel free to tag yourself! Do drop me a comment with a link to your post if you try this out on your own site, k? I'd love to see your own comments to the list.

Cheers!

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1st Quarter Book Review: a pictorial report

I feel I am off to a slow start: can't believe I have only read 11 books so far this year! (Then again, at this time last year I had consumed 10, so I'm not too far off... yet...)

Please click on each image to go to my review of each book:


The most outstanding of all the above? I have to say Twilight. Just because it was such a painful read. I mean, it is SO OBVIOUS that the target audience is angsty hormonal tweenage girls in the exciting world of first love. Yuck! And I really have a problem with the whole sparkly vampire thing. Double Yuck!!

Also, you might notice that there are *gasp!* FIVE nonfiction books in this list, which is amazing considering I usually go for fantasy, high fantasy and dark fantasy before moving to fiction then other genres.

The reason for this is simple: I was doing research for my a saying three ways series over at a malaysian abroad while on vaykay last month. See those three "no image found" ones? Yeah, those. Funny how the locally published books have ISBNs that aren't recognised by GoodReads or amazon...

I am currently reading

Next in line is Yes, only once Kosh and I are done reading this will we consider watching the movie,,, well, let's be honest - we're going to wait to get it from Netflix, LoL!

So tell me, what have you read recently? Anything outstanding? Do share! :)

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January Book Update!

So I managed to finish early in the year.

Here are the books I'm reading right now:
1. 2.
And no, I don't usually read two or more at a time. But I find myself doing that more often lately. Is it an age thing?

And here are the other books I've got from the library, waiting for my attention:
1. 2.
3. 4.
Hopefully I'll manage to read all of the above before they are due back/can't be renewed anymore!

... what are YOU reading right now?

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what a waste!

The One Book, One Chicago program is launched each spring and fall to cultivate a culture of reading and discussion in Chicago by bringing our diverse city together around one great book. Reading great literature provokes us to think about ourselves, our environment and our relationships. Talking about great literature with friends, families and neighbors often adds richness and depth to the experience of reading. We invite you to join us as we explore yet another great piece of literature.

- from the One Book, One Chicago website

The first time I heard about this program was back in Fall 2006, where I saw intriguing colorful posters of Indian hands and eyes advertising Jhumpa Lahiri's The Interpreter of Maladies at the el stations I'd frequent. Then in March '07, I walked into the Popular Library and saw shelf after shelf of this book, in both paperback and hard cover versions: it was the end of the One Book, One Chicago program for that season, and so all the books that had been bought in order to satisfy the demand during the season were no longer in circulation.

I did idly wonder what they were going to do with all those books, then put it out of my mind.

Since then, the program (which actually started in 2001) has featured Go tell it on the mountain by James Baldwin, The crucible by Arthur Miller, The long goodbye by Raymond Chandler, and most recently, The Right Stuff by Tom Wolfe. I didn't bother with any of those... I had checked out a copy of The Right Stuff, but didn't end up reading it, so I returned it unread.

Today, Kosh and I dropped by the library; while we were there, we checked out the discard alcove, where the library places a whole bunch of books that have been purged from their collection for a variety of reasons. There are occasional gems: I had found Alex Bledsoe's The Sword-Edged Blonde there once, to my horror and amazement, but I was quick to grab it :) But today... oh my... today I felt such disgust at the sight:

That's right... the most recent One Book, One Chicago selection is being given away, essentially for free: suggested donations for paperbacks is like ten cents. I counted about twenty of these paperbacks, that officially sell for $16 (Amazon marks them down to ~$11), and I'm sure there are/were plenty more.

It was so ~wrong~ to see all those books discarded just like that!

I'm not entirely unsympathetic:

• I'm sure the library got a good deal buying these books in bulk, so it's not like they are throwing out a whole bunch of $16 books...
• They still have TONS of the hardcover version of this book within the CPL system - so they are just getting rid of the paperbacks, which won't last as long anyway.
• Because they are a library and not a book shop or a commercial entity, I figure they might not be allowed to sell the excess books to anyone, even if they could probably turn a tidy profit by selling said books to a second-hand bookstore for $5 each.

But still!!

Surely they have better options than practically giving them away???

Any librarians want to weigh in?

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looking book back on 2008

[pssst! check out my other blog for a retrospective on 2008, and a pic of my niece!]

So, if I'm seeing my list on GoodReads correctly, I (only) made it through 49 books this year. Coincidentally, that's the same number as last year. Heh, if nothing else I suppose I'm starting to read at a consistent rate?

2008 was the year I actively hunted down vampire-related books, or at least some sort of "darker" angle to the fantasy I usually read. I really enjoyed the Noble Dead series by Barb & J. C. Hendee, where a half-vampire and her elf companion, accompanied by an elemental reborn "dog" form, start out being fake vampire hunters, then real ones, then finding themselves enmeshed in a much wider web of deceit... On a totally different angle, I found Vicki Pettersson's Sign of the Zodiac series promising: its romance elements were not overwhelming, and did not detract from the plot (unlike Lois McMaster Bujold's foray into the romantic fantasy arena - I remember laughing out loud at the love scenes!). There was the total flop that was Charlaine Harris' southern vampire series - it is to my dismay that this series has been made into a tv series that seems to have many fans... perhaps it translates better onto the small screen than in my mind?

2008 was also a year of discovery. Joe Abercrombie's First Law series (I've read 1 & 2, impatiently awaiting 3!) was an excellent read: full of detailed nitty gritty, and not very pleasant characters, and yet, they grow on you. Then there was Brandon Sanderson: I'd heard of him only because he's going to be completing the late Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series, and figured I'd see what he's produced. I've only read one book, but me likey! Then there was Alex Bledsoe's A Sword-Edged Blonde - another enjoyable read in fantasyland.

2008 was a year of children's books. Well, okay so I only read two "children's books", but they were pretty famous ones. Unfortunately, both kinda disappointed. I guess I just don't have the patience to read such simple language? I do want to pick up L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for a reread - I probably haven't read it since 1984 or so. Then I'll reread Wicked. :) Look out for these titles in my 2009 list next year :)

2008 was a year of borrowed-but-not-read. The Tibetan Book of the Dead;The Holocaust Is Over: We Must Rise From its Ashes; Unholy Business: A True Tale of Faith, Greed and Forgery in the Holy Land; ... only three? No, I'm sure there were more ... Sometimes I borrowed more than I could handle. Sometimes there was that one book that just. stalled. everything. else. Like that Crusades book. Grrrr!

I am currently reading The Existential Joss Whedon: Evil And Human Freedom in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, Firefly And Serenity (if you've been paying attention, you'll know I started it in November! After one chapter, I banished it to bathroom reading, where it's been competing with Sudoku for my attention when I'm there, LoL!): I suppose I'll limp into the new year with this tome...!

I hope that 2009 will see me making a dent in the 129 or so books in my to-read list!

And for those who are curious, here's a brief list of what I read in 2008. More information, and my "reviews" of them, can be found if you follow this link to my 2008 GoodReads page.

January

1. Brotherhood of the Holy Shroud - Julia Navarro
   
2. Season of the Witch - Natasha Mostert
   
3. The eternal self and the cycle of saṃsāra: Introduction to Asian mythology and religion - Rajeshwari Pandharipande
   
4. The Good Fairies of New York - Martin Millar
   
   February
   
5. The Overlook - Michael Connelly
   
6. The Devil's Hearth: A Fever Devilin Mystery - Phillip DePoy
   
   March
   
7. The Witch's Grave: A Fever Devilin Mystery - Phillip DePoy
   
8. The Blade Itself (The First Law: Book One) - Joe Abercrombie
   
9. Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Medicated a Nation - Charles Barber
   
10. Jar City: A Reykjavik Thriller - Arnaldur Indridason
    
    April
    
11. Silence of the Grave: A Thriller - Arnaldur Indridason
    
12. Metro - Alexander Kaletski
    
13. The Sharing Knife: Beguilement - Lois McMaster Bujold
    
14. The Sharing Knife: Legacy - Lois McMaster Bujold
    
15. Dhampir (Noble Dead, Series 1, Book 1) - Barb & J. C. Hendee
    
16. Small Favor (The Dresden Files, Book 10) - Jim Butcher
    
17. My Dirty Little Book of Stolen Time - Liz Jensen
    
18. Deepwood: Karavans - Jennifer Roberson
    
    May
    
19. Thief of Lives (Noble Dead, Series 1, Book 2) - Barb & J. C. Hendee
    
20. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal - Christopher Moore
    
21. Dexter in the Dark - Jeff Lindsay
    
22. The Scent of Shadows: The First Sign of the Zodiac - Vicki Pettersson
    
23. The Taste of Night: The Second Sign of the Zodiac - Vicki Pettersson
    
24. The Secret History of Moscow - Ekaterina Sedia
    
25. Speak of the Devil: A Novel of Suspense - Richard Hawke
    
26. Dead Until Dark (Sookie Stackhouse, Book 1) - Charlaine Harris
    
27. Voices - Arnaldur Indridason
    
    June
    
28. Sister of the Dead (Noble Dead, Series 1, Book 3) - Barb & J. C. Hendee
    
29. Traitor to the Blood (Noble Dead, Series 1, Book 4) - Barb & J. C. Hendee
    
30. The Sharing Knife: Passage - Lois McMaster Bujold
    
31. Rebel Fay (Noble Dead, Series 1, Book 5) - Barb & J. C. Hendee
    
32. Before They Are Hanged (The First Law: Book Two) - Joe Abercrombie
    
33. Child of a Dead God (Noble Dead, Series 1, Book 6) - Barb & J. C. Hendee
    
34. Ysabel - Guy Gavriel Kay
    
    July
    
35. Flesh and Spirit - Carol Berg
    
36. Breath and Bone - Carol Berg
    
37. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle
    
38. Give It Up!: My Year of Learning to Live Better with Less - Mary Carlomagno
    
39. The Tyranny of the Night - Glen Cook
    
    August
    
40. The Total Zone - Martina Navratilova & Liz Nickles
    
41. To Hell and Back: An Autobiography - Meat Loaf
    
    September
    
42. The Lace Reader - Brunonia Barry
    
43. Lord of the Silent Kingdom - Glen Cook
    
    October
    
44. The Sword-Edged Blonde - Alex Bledsoe
    
45. The Story of Forgetting - Stefan Merrill Block
    
    November
    
46. Mistborn: The Final Empire (Mistborn, Book 1) - Brandon Sanderson
    
47. Backup - Jim Butcher
    
    December
    
48. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
    
49. The Crusades, Christianity, and Islam (Bampton Lectures in America) - Jonathan Riley-Smith

HAVE A GREAT 2009!

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