2008 Reading Log

1. Jane Eyre by Charlottte Brontë

2. On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction by Karl Iagnemma

3. NNNN: A Novel by Carl Reiner

4. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee

5. Mysteries of the Unknown: Psychic Power by Time Life Books

6. Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West* by Benazir Bhutto

7. A Good Year by Peter Mayle

8. Rainbow Party by Paul Ruditis

9. Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World by Beth Kephart

10. Bubbles: A Self-Portrait by Beverly Sills

11. A War of Gifts by Orson Scott Card

12. Wyrms by Orson Scott Card

13. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire

14. The Portrait of Dorian Gray* by Oscar Wilde

15. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

16. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer

17. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer

18. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer

Alas, as I began getting my professional life put in order, I had less and less time to read. I didn’t have a smart phone yet, so we can’t blame that for the decline, but this was a time in my life where I was beginning to establish a career as opposed to just holding a job, and was just beginning to figure out romantic and interpersonal relationships as well.

Let the record show that I read Jane Eyre as a 27-year-old virgin.

All I've the will to do is curl up with some knitting or needlepoint or a bottle of glue and some rhinestones....or else devour a book in an afternoon as I did with C's suggestion of "The Bride Stripped Bare" and am now in the process of doing with "Jane Eyre", which I downloaded in the form of an e-book and am reading on my PDA. I'm sincerely entertaining the idea of getting a Kindle, but can't quite justify the expense. But anyway, in the case of both books, I find somewhere in their pages a character with whom I can sympathize. I like very much Jane's will to remain humble and useful while simultaneously entertaining ideals of adventure and tragic romance. She puts me in mind of Fanny Price from Austin's Mansfield Park who would be my favorite Austen heroine but for Eleanor Dashwood (who strives for goodness and mental fortitude over romance). I have many thoughts on The Bride Stripped Bare, but will defer them as I've already talked them over with Carly and have moved on to other topics so I don't feel the need to take the time typing them out. I will say, however, that I'm very much entertained by the idea of having such old books tucked into my SD card. If the authors only knew! I don't know why I find the disconnect so very amusing, but I do.

From a blog dated Thursday, January 03, 2008

On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction is a collection of short stories by Karl Iagnemma. What interested me about this book is that Karl Iagnemma is a mechanical engineer and roboticist who is also an author. I find his perspective to be very original. He’s since written a novel-length work, and I really should read it.

Fantastic series of short stories drawing from many disparate disciplines of science and many eras of history. I am in awe of the author's range.

- From my Goodreads review of On the Nature of Human Romantic Interaction, ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I was so pleasantly surprised by Steve Martin’s writing ability, that I thought I’d give another comedic actor a shot and picked up NNNN: A Novel by Carl Reiner. It’s a book about a writer, a subject I generally enjoy, but this book was bad.

Pretty terrible book. Don't give a crap about the characters. The scenes aren't sketched in nearly enough detail and the story is populated with people who have far too many distracting quirks.

-From my Goodreads review of NNNN: A Novel, ⭐️⭐️

I never read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee in high school, so I picked it up at the age of 27. I’m sure my perspective would have been different if I were reading it at an age closer to Scout’s in the book, but I think I’m glad I read it when I did.

I read Reconciliation: Islam, Democracy, and the West by Benazir Bhutto at the request of my now husband. We had met at a political discussion group, and he figured this would be a book I would really enjoy because of my interest in Eastern thought and politics, but I am not now, nor have I ever been a reader of biographies, and I didn’t finish this one.

A Good Year by Peter Mayle was a book I picked up off of the strength of the movie adaptation. This may be a rare case in which the movie was better than the book. It’s not a bad book, but the movie is very good.

Rainbow Party was a preachy tome about girls wearing different color lipstick and giving boys blow jobs to leave a “rainbow” of lipstick on their dicks. It’s a YA “don’t cave to peer pressure” morality tale that leans on shock value. The modern equivalent is newscasters breathlessly warning parents not to let their kids eat Tide pods as if that’s a thing that is much more prevalent than it is.

Seeing Past Z: Nurturing the Imagination in a Fast-Forward World by Beth Kephart was something I picked up to do more research, but I was already abandoning my work-in-progress. Also, this lady is pretty nuts.

Bubbles: A Self-Portrait by Beverly Sills was a biography, or rather an autobiography, that I actually did enjoy about opera singer Beverly Sills. I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did, but I do. Also, I really do love opera. I think I started listening to it because I thought it was a very grown up acquired taste and something that rich, sophisticated people do, not poor working class folk like me…and I guess I actually did acquire the taste.

A War of Gifts is a book of prequel stories from Orson Scott Card’s Enderverse. I heard him mention at a reading that his wife would warn him when the bank account would get too low and he’d buckle down and finish another novel. This prequel nonsense felt like a cash grab. Orson Scott Card is definitely still cancelled.

Absolutely bonkers cover art. Intense and unrelenting sexual desire for someone you find completely repulsive as a means of physical and mental torture? Imagine having the hots for Dick Cheney and you'll have an instant sympathy for the main character of this sci fi classic.

I have the first edition with the original dust jacket art featuring a well-endowed alien being looming over a damsel in distress. It's second only to Hot Sleep (which later became the Worthing Chronicles) as the most hilarious cover art in the Card bibliography.

The story itself is one part Enderverse (on Lusitania with all the Hive Queen controlling the hive mind / Piggies reproductive cycles / genetic mutation madness) and one part Homecoming (on Harmony with the coming of age, mental struggle against the OverSoul; and on Earth with all the Digger/Angel reproductive cycles, genetic mutation madness). There are some pretty heavy-handed religious overtones throughout the book, which is standard Card fare, though there is some Plato (a la The Republic) doctrine thrown in. The real reason to read this forgotten gem is because it's Card's most sexual book. He gives homosexuality a quick treatment and takes on pedophilia. There are many passages dealing with sexual desire and self-restraint.

I do find it seriously off-putting that the protagonist is only 15 and her would-be lover is never given an age, but we deduce from the fact that he's been in several military campaigns that he is MUCH older than her. Gives me a case of the Yucks almost as bad as when Bean and Petra start popping out babies in their mid-teens.

- From my Goodreads review of Wyrms

I attempted to read The Portrait of Dorian Gray* by Oscar Wilde, but I never did finish it. For one thing, I know how it ends, so there’s not going to be any surprise twist ending where I discover the true merit of the portrait in the attic. I guess I didn’t feel like I could trudge through this intensely unlikeable character being a shitty person for a whole book if there wasn’t going to be the payoff of the surprise ending.

And, alas, I discovered Twilight by Stephenie Meyer. I am, unabashedly, still a Twilight fan. I definitely have a clear vision of the flaws of the books and their writing. But they are engrossing in a way that few other stories are, and I can’t ignore the kind of power in storytelling that create the kind of fandom that Twilight did. In any event, I discovered while reading the first books that the final book in the series was due out very shortly, so I powered through reading them on barely any sleep so I could rush out at midnight and grab the last book. I think I finished them all in about a week? I can’t remember the timing exactly.

There are very few books I have read straight through the night without noticing the passage of time till the sun comes up. This is one of them. I immediately went straight out and bought the sequels.

The first half of the Twilight is extraordinarily suspenseful, or maybe that's not the right word. Intriguing? Mesmerizing? Surely not dazzling (snicker, snicker). In any event it's not the adrenaline-pumping, page-turning sort of suspense. The narrative has a more mellow, captivating flow. Very gentle but with bursts of violent emotion. It sort of enfolds you continually. The second half is true suspense and quite a bit of action for what I'd assumed was strictly chick lit.

That being said, parts of it are sappy almost beyond description, so if you're not inclined to like an overkill of romance, then you might hate it. It's like pop music. It can be a little repetitive and annoying, but you can't help from liking it immensely and then feeling stupid for liking it immensely. The pacing is its strongest point, I think. The dialog is where the repetition gets annoying, but one is able to overlook it for the most part. Descriptive passages are few and far between but well crafted. The book design is simple but top notch.

—From my Goodreads Review of Twilight

When "Too Hard" Is Just Right

Story time…

I checked out The Grey King in second grade for an independent reading assignment. The year was 1989. I didn't know it was the 4th book in a fantasy series. I didn't even know what fantasy was, really.

I liked that it was set in Wales because that sounded exotic to me at the time. (My Anglophilia goes WAY BACK, y'all. And yes, I have been told that Anglophilia supposedly refers only to England, and Wales is not part of England, but there isn’t a word for love of the UK more generally, so I’m perfectly comfortable with my mis-usage in this case.)

What led me to choose that book in particular when my classmates had chosen small picture books is still fresh in my mind. I remember picking it because it was big and didn't have any pictures and looked very "grown up" and impressive. I liked the reaction it got from the adults around me and my classmates. These reactions ranged from incredulity to open criticism, but the important thing is that no one actively tried to stop me from making the attempt. I may have been gently discouraged by the librarian out of concern, but she was at least willing to let me try on my own terms. I was academically ambitious back then, and I’ve always relished subverting people’s expectations of me.

I remember finding the book confusing because it was well above my reading level. Despite being able to pronounce all of the words and understanding the meaning of almost all of them individually, I understood very little of what the heck was going on. I hadn’t yet developed the level of reading comprehensions that would allow me to remember what was going on in the story from one reading session to the next and connect these bits into a cohesive narrative. I also had a hard time keeping the characters straight in my mind, but I was still able to enjoy the descriptions of the setting.

I still have vivid mental images from reading that book. There are dozens, perhaps hundreds, of books I've read in the 30 years since that I have absolutely no memory of reading, but because this book challenged me so much and made my brain work hard at understanding the story, I still remember how I imagined Wales then.

Perhaps most importantly, I remember regretting my choice. The book was so baffling and required so much sustained effort. Most of the other kids in my class had flown through four or five picture books in the time it took me to read The Grey King. But even when I was hopelessly confused about what was happening, I was determined to finish reading it even if I wasn't going to understand the climax. And I did finish. I remember having to turn the book in at the drop and then get it back off the shelf the next day once or twice. I didn’t know you could renew a book, then, and I probably wouldn’t have wanted to approach the desk and speak with the librarian face-to-face anyway. Turning it in, waiting, and then borrowing it again seemed easier.

I don’t have many memories from second grade. I’m not a person who has a good memory, generally. I feel like a lot of people who had bad childhoods intentionally develop that talent of forgetting (and, perhaps related, also develop an early love of escaping into fiction). But one of my very clear memories from that time was the teacher going around the room during independent reading time and having each child read out loud to her one-on-one as a test of reading fluency. I was tucked away behind a bookshelf with The Grey King, and she came and sat on the floor next to me. I remember being very anxious about my turn coming up as she worked her way around the room. I might have even been hiding intentionally, but I don’t recall. I was one of the last ones to be tested, though.

We hadn’t done much reading aloud in class up to that point. Mostly, the teacher read to us. And while I knew that I could read the words silently, I hadn’t practiced reading aloud so I was unsure of my ability. And, of course, I still have a great deal of performance anxiety to this day, so this form of testing was particularly challenging and uncomfortable for me.

I don’t remember if my teacher said anything to this effect but I recall there being a general air of expecting me to fail. This could have been purely internalized, but that’s how I remember it. As I read, I was very worried about getting tripped up, but it didn’t actually go too badly. I think I may have skipped a couple of words trying to prove I could read quickly, and pronounced something incorrectly that I knew how to pronounce but simply flubbed due to nerves. I did not understand any of what I read, but I did think it sounded good with inflection like an adult might have used. I expected her to make me read for longer, but after just a few paragraphs, she cut me off. I guess she seemed impressed, or at least not concerned that I was having trouble reading and comprehending. My classmates that I’d overheard doing their testing were still working through how to sound out long words, so I assume she thought that’s where her teaching skills were most needed. In any case, she largely left me alone during independent reading time for the remainder of the year, and I either learned to tune out the skepticism and judgement of adults as it related to my choice of reading material, or I had done enough to prove myself that they stopped making comments about it.

As much as I had regretted taking on such a challenging read at the time, I was glad that I got myself into that mess afterward because my reading comprehension level took a huge leap. Picking up a book that was “too hard” and “above my capabilities” was the key to expanding those capabilities. I became more capable through the act of challenging my limits.

In the succeeding years, my reading comprehension gave me an edge over my peers, an edge I like to think I still carry with me today.

About The Grey King:
The Grey King is the fourth book in the critically acclaimed five-book fantasy series The Dark is Rising Sequence from Susan Cooper, published between 1965 and 1977. The Grey King won the Newbury Medal in 1975. Scholastic suggest this book is for 6th to 8th graders at a DRA Level 60 or Guided Reading level X.

P.S.
In communicating with artist Gene Ambaum to secure permission to repost his comic, he told me, “For me that book was Alexander’s The Black Cauldron.” referring to The Black Cauldron from The Chronicles of Prydain series by Lloyd Alenxander.

What was “that book” for you?

2007 Reading Log

1. David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

2. 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller & Dave Ramsey

3. Chip Kidd (Monographics) by Veronique Vienne

4. A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You by Amy Bloom

5. Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

6. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

7. A Room with a View by E.M. Forster

8. Emma by Jane Austen

9. Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa by Nicholas Shrady

10. Persuasion by Jane Austen

11. Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card

12. Historic Costume: From Ancient Times to the Renaissance by Tom Terney

13. Lady Susan* by Jane Austen

14. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

15. Jane Austen (Biography)* by Margaret Kennedy

16. The Restaurant at the Edge of the Universe by Douglas Adams

17. Mansfield Park by Jane Austen

18. Life, The Universe and Everything by Douglas Adams

19. Northanger Abbey* by Jane Austen

20. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J. K. Rowling

21. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J. K. Rowling

22. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling

23. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J. K. Rowling

24. So Long and Thanks for All the Fish by Douglas Adams

25. Mostly Harmless by Douglas Adams

26. Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier

27. Spook Country by William Gibson

28. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

29. Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken

30. The Bride Stripped Bare by Nikki Gemmell

I believe that David Copperfield is the first time I’d attempted to read Charles Dickens after having suffered through being made to read Great Expectation in high school. I remember not liking Great Expectations at the time, but I do recall liking David Copperfield. As it turns out, I quite like Dickens. But I don’t like being made to read him, if that makes sense.

Reading 48 Days to the Work You Love is symptomatic of my chronic underemployment. I was part of that class of Millennials that had a decade of lost wages and despair in the 2000s.

A Blind Man Can See How Much I Love You was a collection of short stories by Amy Bloom that I picked up. It was inconsistent. A few of the stories were quite good. The rest were forgettable. I recently culled this book from my collection to make room on my shelves for better works.

I picked up this book on a whim because I needed a new collection of short stories for bedtime reading. It surprised me and continues to do so. The stories have stayed with me for nearly two years now.

-From my Goodreads review

This was the year that I began reading through the catalog of Jane Austen novels. I frequently re-read them now, but this was my first exposure to her work. I can say that Persuasion is my favorite with Sense and Sensibility and Mansfield Park battling for second place. I never finished reading Northanger Abbey for some reason. I suppose I didn’t like the more gothic tone. And I also never finished Lady Susan but I never could read epistolary novels and like them.

I picked up Tilt: A Skewed History of the Tower of Pisa on the strength of its unorthodox book design. It’s cropped at the same angle as the tilt of the tower itself, so it sits on the shelf with the spine cocked in. It’s a very good non-fiction work about the architectural marvel. I find architecture isn’t a subject that attracts much good reading for laypeople, but this is a notable exception.

I was still trying to write my first novel during this time, so it makes sense that I would turn to one of my favorite authors for advice on how to accomplish this feat, thus Characters and Viewpoint by Orson Scott Card makes its way onto this list. He’s still cancelled. And I no longer read “how to write” advice. I actually actively avoid it.

It’s actually a pity that I read The Awakening by Kate Chopin and A Room with a View by E.M. Forster back-to-back because I conflate the two works in my head now and mix up the plots. I adored them both. I remember liking Forster’s writing better, but enjoying the story in The Awakening more than A Room with a View.

Is it fitting that I read the entire catalog of Jane Austen and Douglas Adams in the same year? Yes, I think it really is. Writing humor is a skill I do not possess and I greatly admire anyone who is able to pull it off with as much skill as Douglas Adams.

This was the year that the Harry Potter fandom got to read the conclusion of the Second Wizarding War. I re-read some the Harry Potter books beginning with Half-Blood Prince in preparation for the finale being released. I went to the midnight release party and felt a bit out of place for being older than most of the people there, but it was totally worth it. The odd thing is that I had never read Sorcerer’s Stone before, and I went back and read it for the first time directly after reading Deathly Hallows and the plot points set up so innocuously right at the outset of the saga were so masterfully incorporated into the later works. J.K. Rowling deserves all her fame and riches. She’s truly a modern master.

I picked up some new works by some of my favorite authors, Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier and Spook Country by William Gibson. Vastly different works. Burning Bright isn’t one of Chevalier’s best and I believe I stopped reading her new output after this, though I keep meaning to pick up her more recent works. I remember thinking Spook Country was better than Pattern Recognition. I felt like the plot was tighter and it had more focus.

I don’t remember who recommended The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova to me, but a lot of people were talking about how good it was. The talk about how it took her 10 years to research it intrigued me. In the end, I don’t think it was as good as it could have been. I think it was over-rated and bloated. It got lost in itself a bit, but it did have some very strong imagery. I don’t think the first person perspective served it well.

During this time, I was beginning to pay more attention to politics. I went to a rally that featured speaker Barack Obama before he was running for president, and I was reading quite a few blogs and news articles about what was happening in the world. I went to a few rallies that were against the Iraq War, and reading Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them by Al Franken was definitely part of this political awakening.

My friend tasked me with reading The Bride Stripped Bare by Nikki Gemmell because she wanted my perspective on it as a virgin. It was the first time I’d read anything sexually explicit, but I think I lacked the framework to really appreciate the character’s arc. It was a well written, thought-provoking exploration of a woman’s sexuality, which my little feminist heart definitely appreciated, but I didn’t identify with the character at all and couldn’t connect with the book as much as I might if I were to go back and read it now.