Reading List 2008

Let's get started, bookworms! I know there's no way in hell I'll be able to keep pace with Nastyboots, but I'm sure I'll be able to get through a respectable amount of reading this year. As always, this post is more for organizational purposes than anything else, but if someone stumbles across it, and has a recommendation, feel free to leave a comment. A book recommendation, that is. Don't tell me I need to floss more. I already know that.

Candyfreak: A Journey through the Chocolate Underbelly of America - Steve Almond

If you are even minimally a suggestible type, stay far, far away from this book, lest you find yourself stepping over your own mother to get to the nearest piece of chocolate. This book had three themes, which didn't always tie into each other well. First, the author's obsession with candy. Anything about this was awesome, and triggered the unfortunate side-effect of eating any processed sugar within a four-mile radius. Second, the sad demise of independent candy companies at the hands of the Big Three (Hershey, Nestle, and Mars). This was substantially more depressing than memories of Halloweens past, but interesting and informative. Third, the author's tangential detours into politics, hypochondria, and self-diagnosed childhood pyschological trauma. Zzzz. Shut up and get back to the candy! That was only a tiny part of the book, though, so overall, it was an enjoyable read. Even if I've gained three pounds since I've read it.

Emma - Jane Austen

Whenever I find myself without a library or book club book, I dive into my "Complete Novels of Jane Austen". Having finished Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park, the next one in line was Emma. I was amazed to discover that of the four I've read so far, this one is my favorite. It's strange, because not much really happens in this book. Emma is a young woman who likes to fancy herself a matchmaker, and naturally, her plans go awry. That's about it. And yet, each of the characters is so well-developed, that it's actually very exciting to wonder who is going to end up with whom. Austen was a master of writing snobby characters you love to hate, and she certainly meets the mark with Augusta Elton, a woman you want to reach inside the page and bitchslap. I'm surprised such a simple story was more entertaining than the trials and tribulations of the Bennets, Dashwoods, etc., but pleased as punch. Now I just have to resist the urge to speak like the characters. One would not look too kindly upon that. Whoops.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. - Judy Blume

My book club decided that the summer reads should be light and easy, and someone hit upon the idea of revisiting childhood favorites. Guernica picked this one, which I'd never read before. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed Blume as much as the next guy when I was a kid; I was just more of a Blubber fan. This one... Let's just say I'm not the target audience. I did like the treatment of religion in the book. Margaret's parents have left it up to her to decide her faith, and without any religious training, she's a bit at sea. I could have done without the rest of the book, which is about her quest to be normal by growing boobs and getting her period. I try to spend as little time of my life as possible thinking about prepubescent girls achieving menstruation.

Storm Front (The Dresden Files, Book 1) - Jim Butcher
Fool Moon (The Dresden Files, Book 2) - Jim Butcher

A recommendation from Tim. Though I didn't like the dinosaurs-live-among-us private detective trope, I had less trouble with the wizards-live-among-us private detective one. Harry Dresden is a private detective wizard living in Chicago, and given the problems he has explaining all this to us normal folk, one wonders why he bothers. Still, the story was more engaging than I expected. While my socks weren't blown off, either by magic or writing, it was good enough to check out the next book in the series...

Which turned out to be kind of disappointing. Butcher's not a bad writer, but he's got a limited bag of tricks (so to speak), and draws from the same well over and over. I was bored with Fool Moon about halfway through, and though I wouldn't call it a bad book, it wasn't compelling enough for me to continue with the series.

Life with My Sister Madonna - Christopher Ciccone

If Ciccone weren't such an unrelenting douchebag, this account of him begging for the scraps of his sister's fame would be almost heart-rending. As it is, it's impossible to have any sympathy for a man who continually gives himself over to his sister's quest for dominance, then complains about it. This is a man who craves attention, but with no discernible talent and the looming shadow of his sibling, tries to get it by fancying himself a master of several trades and hanging out with whatever celebrity he can get his claws into. If the chapter upon chapter of sour grapes and inflated self-worth aren't enough, the book is also horribly written. Scenes in the past are presented in present tense, which gets very annoying, very quickly. Tangential stories and people are shoved in to no purpose. Even that I could forgive if the book was rich with juicy gossip, but it's not. The worst he can say is that Madonna is unyielding, cold, prone to emotional blackmail, and a bad actress. Well, shit... Who didn't know all of that already?

Ella Minnow Pea - Mark Dunn

A must for you language geeks out there. This novel is set on a fictional isle off the coast of South Carolina where the inventor of the pangram "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" lived. That saying is immortalized on metal tiles affixed to a statue in town. The citizens eschew most modern techonology, and communicate via letters and notes. When the "Z" tile falls off the statue, the corrupt high council sees it as a sign from the Great Beyond, and outlaws its use. Then another letter falls. Then another, and another, and so on. Since the novel comprises notes and letters, as the alphabet falls from the statue, it falls from the novel as well. It's a very neat exercise, and the resulting book still holds together as a story. Highly recommended.

Ibid: A Novel - Mark Dunn

Since I enjoyed Ella Minnow Pea so much, I checked out another quirky book of Mark Dunn's. The conceit of this one is that Dunn wrote a biography of a three-legged boy who grew up to strike it rich in the deodorant business. The editor accidentally destroys the manuscript, and works out a deal to publish the only surviving section: the footnotes. It sounds weird, but it was very funny; I found myself laughing aloud on the train as I read it. Dunn has a real way with language, and, as with Pushing Daisies, the way he turns story-telling on its ear is really endearing.

Alone in the Kitchen with an Eggplant - edited by Jenni Ferrari-Adler

The idea of this book intrigued me. It's a collection of essays by various writers about food for one, whether it be cooking for yourself or eating alone in a restaurant. Some praise the experience as the ultimate expression of self-worth. Others think it's a symptom of loneliness, and should be avoided if possible. Some writers' entire relationships are tied up in food, and when the relationship strengthened or suffered, so did their kitchens. There aren't nearly enough admissions of what Bachelor Food people eat; it's great fun to hear about what people ingest when there's nobody around to impress. Naturally, some of the essays are better than others, but as an overall book, it was a good read, and made me impossibly hungry.

Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly - Anthony Bourdain

This was an intriguing exploration into the world of professional cooking, though Bourdain's persona can be irritating. We get it, you're a badass who looks at kitchens as the trenches of war. It makes for some good stories, but he assumes that all kitchens are balls of ugly testosterone, which they're not. Still, I love Bourdain's approach to food, and though there wasn't enough dirt-dishing, I liked what was there.

Lost in a Good Book - Jasper Fforde
Well of Lost Plots - Jasper Fforde
Something Rotten - Jasper Fforde

This is the second in the Thursday Next series, and while I didn't enjoy it as much as The Eyre Affair, it was still an entertaining read. This book appears to set a lot of groundwork for future novels, so parts of it lagged in exposition, and not everything reaches a very satisfactory resolution. I don't mind cliffhangers once in a while, but it seems we're getting nothing else lately in the world of entertainment. We need some endings, folks. It was a fine book, though; certainly good enough to continue with the series.

And now I'm done with the third book. Jasper Fforde certainly doesn't lack for plotlines. Just as in the second book, there are about ten things going on at once, and since we're in an alternate universe with its own rules and denizens, the audience can feel a bit adrift. All right, maybe it's just me. Still, I liked Well of Lost Plots more than Lost in a Good Book. One of the positives of having such a patchwork plot is that if something's not working, you're guaranteed to move on to something else quickly. I get the idea that I don't like this series as much as the rest of the public, but I do like it enough to continue reading.

And now, the fourth! After The Eyre Affair, Something Rotten is my favorite so far. There's still plenty going on, but it doesn't feel as scattered and frenetic as Lost in a Good Book or Well of Lost Plots. Plus, this one actually comes to a conclusion of sorts, without leaving annoying loose ends all over the place.

Outliers - Malcolm Gladwell

I really enjoyed Blink and The Tipping Point, so I was sure to ask for a copy of this for Hanukkah. It was a letdown. In those previous two books, Gladwell tied things together in new and interesting ways, showing unexpected facets of how society works, and even some good ideas on how to improve it. This newest book is essentially an expansion of the following thesis: "Certain people excel because of luck and family background." Duuuuuuuuh, ya think? It wasn't a terrible book, but it felt lazy. I fear Gladwell may be coasting on his popularity.

Soon I Will Be Invincible - Austin Grossman

I've always been into superhero stuff, but most of the stories surrounding both the good and the bad guys are pretty two-dimensional. Good is good and evil is evil. This book cleverly adds a lot more depth to both points of view. Have you ever really tried to understand why the evil genius doctor wants to take over the world? Do you think super-teams get along all the time? If you have fists that can punch through steel, how can you hope to have anything even approaching a normal relationship? This was a fun read that made being super seem a lot more inane.

Adverbs - Daniel Handler

Having reread The Basic Eight for the billionth time for my book club, and having enjoyed A Series of Unfortunate Events so much, I knew it was time to check out the rest of Daniel Handler's books. First up was this one, which was a lot less structured than those other works. Normally, I'm a bit adverse to books that try and get all artistic by refusing to stick to a narrative; it's part of the reason I disdain most poetry. However, Handler is a clever, funny writer, and managed to make even a story with no real story interesting. It's one of those books that's tough to describe, but that I enjoyed.

Watch Your Mouth - Daniel Handler

With this finished, I've now read all of Handler's books, and I'm glad this one was last. Had it been first, I wouldn't have been as anxious to get to the rest. I can't think of another book that's sparked a "Well, that was certainly a lot of incest" reaction in me. It wasn't a bad book, but it is his weakest. It's about the boyfriend of a girl who belongs to a family that...keeps it in the family. Oh, and there's a mystical Jewish golem who may or may not be hunting them down and killing them. Handler's writing is as good as ever, but for once, it doesn't quite redeem a weak story.

The Know-It-All: One Man's Humble Quest to Become the Smartest Person in the World - A.J. Jacobs

Though it would seem to fall into the getting-rapidly-old category of "Hey, look what off-kilter thing I spent a year doing!" type of book, I enjoyed this account of Jacobs' quest to read the Encyclopaedia Brittanica A to Z. It's filled with obscure and interesting factoids from the encyclopedia itself, as well as Jacobs' exploration into what makes a person intelligent. There are also some touching insights into humanity, and how we tend to repeat ourselves. During this year of reading, Jacobs and his wife are also trying to conceive a child. I freely admit my disinterest in that part of the story is my issue, not the book's. I'm afraid I don't care much about infertility. It's not that I'll sneer at pregnant women or anything -- I just don't share the hand-wringing, hair-rending sorrow others have about being unable to cram yet another person onto a rapidly shrinking planet. All that aside, I enjoyed this mix of memoir and trivia.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

Boooooooooooooring. Now, I have a hard time considering certain famous books as worthy of being considered "literature". Anything by Faulkner springs to mind. Other books I simply couldn't get into, whether because I wasn't in the right frame of mind to dissect them, or because they're just not to my tastes. This novel falls into that latter category. Perhaps if I tried to read this at sometime other than Christmas vacation, I'd see what the literary world sees. As it was, though, I could barely keep my eyes open. I'm fully prepared to blame this on myself, and may try to tackle this book again in future. Faulkner can suck it, though. Look into punctuation, punk.

What the Dead Know - Laura Lippman

One day, two sisters disappear from a mall, and no trace of them is ever found, until several years later, when a woman fleeing a car accident claims to be one of the missing girls. This book jumps all over time and perspective, weaving the story from the points of view of almost everyone involved. It's classified as a mystery, but it's really more of a who-is-it than a whodunnit. It would be really easy for a book like this to be scattered and unfocused, but everything is a piece of the puzzle, and fits in nicely.

The Road - Cormac McCarthy

A father and son journey to the coast in a post-apocalyptic world, trying to avoid the bands of starving scavengers who will likely rob, kill, and cannibalize them if caught. Don't read it if you need a pick-me-up, as the book aims to depress, and succeeds admirably. It also paints a vivid picture of the blackened husk of a destroyed country, and the fact that one's guard cannot be let down for a moment. I usually require more of a resolution than this novel gives, but recognize that it would have been a cop-out in this case.

Hero - Perry Moore

Sometimes, I'll read a really good book that I want to recommend to everyone I know, because it's simply that good. Hero, however, is a really good book that is really good because it may as well have been written just for me, and wouldn't appeal to everyone. I'd encourage you to give it a try, though. It's about a young man (Thom) whose father used to be a super-hero, but was thrown into public disfavor after an incident that cost several civilian lives. After that, heroics are not to be talked of in the household, but when Thom discovers his own burgeoning powers, he secretly tries out for the local team of heroes. That's not the only secret Thom has to keep, though. Seems he has an eye for the fellows instead of the dames, and when your mother is gone and your father is testosterone personified, that's a big issue. It's really well-written, and since I'm into superhero stuff (not to mention boys liking boys stuff), I enjoyed this one, well... Mightily.

Gods Behaving Badly - Marie Phillips

Read on B Pryde's recommendation. I love Greek mythology, and this novel imagines the gods and goddesses of Olympus hanging out in modern-day London. Their powers are waning, so the family is forced to share a crappy apartment and take low-paying temp jobs. When Apollo and Aphrodite get into a spat, the gods' cleaning lady Alice and her would-be boyfriend Neil suddenly find themselves pawns in a world-threatening game of chess. It's a very fun, clever book, and brings to mind a more light-hearted version of a Neil Gaiman novel.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

Well, our book club wanted to get away from summer fluff and back into serious works, and we certainly accomplished that. Though this is technically a novel, it's pretty clearly a window into Sylvia Plath's downward spiral into suicide. I tend to sink deeply into books and movies, and this book depressed me utterly. I actually had to take breaks, because it became all too easy to see the joy drained out of every aspect of life.

In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto - Michael Pollan

This follow-up to The Omnivore's Dilemma started out as an essay, and frankly, should have stayed that way. Pollan is a good writer (in spite of multiple instances of the non-phrase "comprised of"), and the information he exposed about the way we eat and how it harms us is vital. The premise of this book is equally logical: Americans should stop worrying so much about a single nutrient or ingredient that can help us (e.g., antioxidants) or hurt us (e.g., trans fat) and just focus on eating whole, unprocessed food. It's a good point, but it's also a simple one, so Pollan essentially repeats the same talking points over and over. Also, even as he blasts the current system of studying nutrition for its oversimplification of nutrients, he does the same thing, chiding food-makers for processing precious omega 3 fatty acids out of certain products. It's not a bad book by any stretch, but it doesn't live up to the rest of Pollan's works. Plus, "comprised of" really grinds my gears.

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise - Ruth Reichl

I loved this book, in spite of my current impatience with memoirs. Ruth Reichl used to be the restaurant critic for the New York Times, and this book is part cookbook, part memoir, and part past columns (both critical and complimentary) about certain eateries. The bulk, though, is about Reichl's efforts to write fair reviews by passing unnoticed. Turns out restaurants tend to roll out the red carpet for people who have power over them, but not necessarily for the average eater. Who'd have thunk? Reichl assumed various disguises to fool restaurants, and each disguise came with a different personality, tailor-made to the look. One moment, she's having a ball as a colorful hippie. The next, she worries about how easy it was to slip into her mother's persona. This was a great read from beginning to end, and I may just check out Reichl's other books, though I worry that memoirs that lack Reichl's acidic side (via reviews) may be too saccharine.

The Bridesmaid - Ruth Rendell

The fourth book club selection, and my first exposure to Ruth Rendell. It's the story of a young man who has an abhorrence of all violence, and who falls in love with a morbid, off-kilter woman that serves as bridesmaid at his sister's wedding. She declares that in order to prove their love for each other, they must both commit murder. The young man reads of a random murder in the paper, and takes credit, assuming that will satisfy his girlfriend's freakish fantasy. But it turns out that she may be more serious about it than he ever imagined. Despite some odd and unnecessary tangential plotlines, it's a really interesting concept, and very well-written.

The Book of Vice: Very Naughty Things (and How to Do Them) - Peter Sagal

Though there are endless pages that could be written about the various vices of Americans, Peter Sagal barely scratches the surface of a few, which is intentional. His purpose is to muse about things like gambling, strip clubs, pornography, and excessive spending, add some wry commentary, and not get too serious about anything. That worked out well, because America's got enough problems right now (as I write this, banks are failing on a daily basis). I was in no mood for a serious treatise on The Evils of Titty Bars. This is an amusing, low-key exploration of naughty hobbies. It didn't leave much of a deep impression on me, but that's not a criticism. I needed some fluff.

The Complete Persepolis - Marjane Satrapi

Just getting me to read a memoir (which I'm tired of) about growing up in the midst of repression and violence (which is depressing) in Iran (which I'm not anxious to learn more about) is a big feat. Satrapi's tale is told in comic book -- pardon me -- graphic novel form, which helps a lot. Still, I was surprised by how interesting I found her story. It was eye-opening and amusing and horrifying all at the same time.

The Next Thing on My List - Jill Smolinski

I don't read a lot of chicklit, and it's not just because I'm not a chick. I find that a lot of chicklit is really trite, and sometimes, downright insulting in its characterizations of both men and women. Though this one indulged in some of the usual problems (plot points contrived to the point of impossibility, unrealistic male points-of-view), I was surprised to find that I really liked it. Perhaps this is because I "read" the first 80% of it by listening to it as a book-on-CD during a trip to Kansas City. The reader did a good job of infusing the characters with a lot of... Well, character. The protagonist (June) offers a ride after a Weight Watchers meeting to a young woman in her group, and when she she gets into a car accident on the way home, her passenger (Marisa) is killed. June finds a list of Marisa's of 20 things she wanted to do before her 25th birthday. Wracked with guilt, June decides to complete the list for Marissa, and naturally, changes her own life along the way. I know, it sounds silly, but it was actually a damned good story.

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer - Patrick Suskind

This was a bestseller when it was published back in 1986, but I'd never heard of it, until tipped off by the movie version. After reading some reviews that essentially said "Skip this and go read the book," I decided to do just that. Although the title suggests mayhem aplenty, the actual murders take up very little of the book. They're almost asides, save one or two. The real story is the one of the murderer Grenouille's uncanny sense of smell. Blessed with the ability to pick up minute traces of scent and to separate clouds of smell into their components, Grenouille sets out to create the ultimate perfume. Trouble is, that perfume requires the essences of virginal girls, which is where the whole "killing" thing comes in. The impressive thing about this book is how descriptive Suskind gets about the most subtle of the senses. You'd think it'd be difficult to refer to smells in more than a few ways, but Suskind is able to go into incredible detail. The only unfortunate part of reading this was the psychosomatic side-effect of being more aware of smells around me, which is not a blessing when one takes public transportation to work.

Three Bags Full - Leonie Swann

In a small Irish village, a shepherd is found dead with a garden spade shoved into his body. His flock of sheep are determined to discover the truth behind his death, which is naturally difficult for them. Everyone in the village seems to act suspicious, and the sheep don't understand most human motivations. Still, each member of the flock has a talent to offer, and the truth eventually comes out. I like books with a clever gimmick, so despite some minor problems with the end-of-story reveal, I enjoyed this one.

Dark at the Roots - Sarah Thyre

I've lately felt myself becoming more and more impatient with memoirs, and read this one as a kind of test to see if that was still the case. It is. The book itself is fine. It's witty and interesting, and blah blah blah. It's just... I don't care when some random author got her period. I don't care how many times she and her sisters have thrown up. I don't care about her condiment preferences. The stories she tells are funny, even if every single person around her seems to belong to a circus sideshow, and she "remembers" full conversations from when she was five. Still, this evoked the same reaction most memoirs are evoking these days: "Well, that was pointless."

Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us) - Tom Vanderbilt

There are few things I truly hate. I could list things that annoy the piss out of me until the sun runs out of gas, but HATE? There's not much. However, one thing I truly, truly hate is traffic. I don't enjoy driving at all, and when you throw other drivers into the mix, my hate increases exponentially. That's why I was curious to read this book, and hoped it would shed some light on why you're all such assholes on the road. It was a good read, but it left me a bit wanting. There's a fine line between reporting statistics that suggest interesting conclusions and just throwing a bunch of numbers at the reader, and this book tips a bit too much towards the latter. The theories about how signs are ubiquitous to the point of being pointless and how making people feel unsafe actually makes them drive more safely are pretty cool, but that's also pretty obvious. Though the book was well-written and held my interest, I was disappointed that I didn't learn anything new. Plus, the author admits to being one of those people that merges at the end of a closing lane. I hate those people.

Assassination Vacation - Sarah Vowell

Presidential death is not a topic I have much interest in, which makes me very different than Sarah Vowell. She was fighting an uphill battle to capture my attention, and to her credit, she got it. Though I found myself drifting at times, Vowell imbues past icons with so much personality, I could see them as actual people, rather than just the symbols they've become. When you find yourself taking an active interest in James Garfield, who must be one of the most boring presidents ever to govern, you know she's achieved something. That said, I'd like to find whoever copy-edited this book and smack them with my copy of Garner's. OK, "an historical" may be a legitimate style choice, though it makes me want to claw my ears off. But "comprised of"? No. That's not even taking into account the flood of typos and extra words. One mistake here or there isn't a big deal, but these were frequent enough to be a distraction. Annoying.

Other

Also known as books I've read before, but revisited for some reason:

-Who Killed the Robins Family? (Thomas Chastain) - This mystery book is pretty poorly-written, but became enormously successful, because the solutions to the various murders were left to the readers to figure out, with a $10,000 prize to be given to the best solution sent in. That's a neat gimmick. I have the paperback version with the real answers in the back, and it was fun to revisit it after several years to see if I could still work out whodunnit.
-The BFG (Roald Dahl) - The summer of '08 is all about revisiting childhood favorites, and this quick read, about a friendly giant who stops a band of murderous ones with the help of an orphan and a queen, is a great one.
-James and the Giant Peach (Roald Dahl) - Another childhood favorite, and a lot simpler than I remember it. When I was a kid, this book was an epic journey. As an adult, it took me one train ride to finish. It's still a great story, and a nice reminder that in the Dahl universe, nasty people really get what's coming to them.
-The Eyre Affair (Jasper Fforde) - I wanted to refresh my memory of the Thursday Next series before tackling the second book (see above). I still like it very much, especially the way it incorporates Jane Eyre, one of my favorite classics.
-Coraline (Neil Gaiman) - I'm a big Gaiman fan, and was delighted that Coraline was selected when we needed a quick read for book club.
-Blink (Malcolm Gladwell) - When it comes to social science books, I tend to either really like them or really hate them. I really enjoy Gladwell's writing style, so when I need a filler book, I can always count on this or The Tipping Point.
-The Basic Eight (Daniel Handler) - One of my favorites, and my entry for book club.
-The Chronicles of Narnia (C.S. Lewis) - Picked up Prince Caspian to refresh myself before the movie came out, and wound up vowing to tear through the entire series again.
-The Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollan) - Read last year, but brushed up on it for book club this year.
-The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin) - I read it at least once a year, because it's awesome.

**current as of December 31, 2008**