On Reading, Nooks, Book Reviews, and 2011 Part III

Continuing my short series on reading in 2011: The "Good" Reviews

Best Series: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

I know, I know—so predicable. I’m not saying these are the best books I read all year, but they are great YA books. Definitely a bit gory (I don’t recommend them to my seventh graders) but gripping and engrossing. I consumed these books when I read them (I need to read them again, at a slower pace, before the movie comes out), and felt empty and bereft when I was done. The Hunger Games also provides that deliciously edgy dystopian view of the future. Call me a pessimist, but I just love a good dystopian.

Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy: The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Okay, obviously I have a big appetite for fantasy and sci-fi, based on these reviews. I’m not ashamed to admit it—I can’t get enough of the stuff. I like all genres of books, and I like to pretend I don’t have a favorite…but I do. It’s sci-fi/fantasy (I know, I know—lumping them into one genre is something no true Sci-Fi or Fantasy fan would do, but I have the same regard for them). The Name of the Wind was recommended to me by my friend Jamie via a comment on my blog post about Literary Pet Peeves. Her literary pet peeve was weird names in fantasy novels, and she mentioned the main character’s name in Name of the Wind as an example (Kvothe pronounced “Quothe”)—but said she made allowances for it because the novel was so good.

I purchased the book, but didn’t read it for several months after purchase. When I couldn’t find anything that looked enticing on the library website, I opened up Name of the Wind and couldn’t put it down for three days. It’s another “Boy discovers magical powers and goes to a wizarding school to become a wizard” plot…but it’s so much more. It’s not a children’s book, like Harry Potter, it’s in a completely different world and basically completely different circumstances. Of course there’s an evil antagonist, and of course the protagonist must overcome heartache and hardship to defeat him, but that’s where the similarities stop. (I also read the 2^nd book, and it is less enthralling than the 1^st, but the series as a whole possesses a lot of potential) I’ve enjoyed it far more than Martin’s series, and I do recommend Rothfuss’s wholeheartedly.

Best Romance: Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand by Helen Simonson

Major Pettigrew was recommended by my friend who’s a librarian in the Baltimore County Public Library (and who has to read many books as a part of her job). Usually, I don’t like romance novels because they’re sappy and sentimental and wishy-washy, and yes, I don’t really like reading about romantic relationships when I haven’t any romantic relationship of my own to fall back on. However, every once in a while, a book happens along that is a romance, but it’s well-disguised with another story—and doesn’t leave the reader (namely, myself) feeling sorry for myself.

Major Pettigrew is about a sixty-something English widower who falls in love with the Pakistani widow who runs the convenience store in his village (in contemporary times). He is of the stiff-upper-lip stock of English gentlemen who still believe in good manners and good tea; she is an independent woman who is struggling to know her place in her own culture as a childless-widow. I actually did not know the book would be a romance till they fell in love—that sounds funny, but the book has another plot that covers up the romance subplot effectively. It’s a sweet story of falling in love, of standing up for what one believes in, and of overcoming cultural barriers. Read it with a cup of fine tea.

Runner-Up: The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Annie Barrows

Another romance veiled in within a good story. One of my coworkers loaned it to me, and I read it during our staff retreat. I didn’t see this romance coming, either. Partly because I imagined the man in the romance to be an old man, and the woman to be young—apparently they were the appropriate ages. However, The Guernsey Literary focuses on the isle of Guernsey during the German occupation in WWII. It’s in an epistolary style—which I ordinarily do not prefer (although of course, I’m a huge fan of the epistles of the New Testament…) However, it’s done smoothly. The author did an excellent job of capturing the voice of the various letter writers, and that is why it worked so well. I was caught off guard by the romance (and to be honest, found it probably the most unnecessary part of the novel)—however, it doesn’t ruin it, and I really, really liked the book.

Best Non-Fiction: The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls

I don’t read a lot of non-fiction [lowers head in shame]. I just love stories, and have always been enticed and fascinated by fiction that I let most of non-fiction go to the wayside. However, I usually enjoy the non-fiction books I read, giving lie to the idea that non-fiction is somehow boring and not as exciting as fiction. But, truth is stranger than fiction, and I often forget that.

The Glass Castle illustrates the above maxim. What a strange (and engrossing) story it is. The main character is the daughter of two highly eccentric (and criminal) parents who drag their children all over the country. The story tells the tale of her family and her parents’ antics, from childhood to escape in adulthood. It’s fascinatingly absurd—my friend Alicia loaned it to me just before our trip to Italy, and I had a hard time putting it down to go see the sites of Rome. Okay, who am I kidding? It was always in my bag—but you know what I mean.

Runners-Up: Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things by Randy O. Frost and Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything by Stephen D. Levitt

I do love books about interesting phenomena or strange illnesses or curious happenings. Stuff is about people who hoard—it’s fascinating and disgusting. Freakonomics explores the correlations between seemingly unrelated events—like Roe vs. Wade and a decline in crime rates in the United States.

Best Book: The Help by Kathryn Stockett

My friend Beth brought this book with her when she came to visit Dakar in May. At first, I was skeptical and too-cool-to-read-this-popular book. Yes, I’m one of those people who resist reading popular books, watching popular movies, or listening to popular music simply because it’s popular. Being a snob, I was sure that The Help couldn’t be as good as everyone was saying. Also, I don’t really like southern fiction. I really didn’t want to read The Help. However, it was summer, it was a book, and Beth said it was good. I trust Beth, so I decided to try it.

I’m glad I did. Despite all the hype, it’s an excellent book. I plan to reread it (I just watched the movie, which in turn made me want to reread the book—the sign of a well-adapted movie is if it encourages you to re-read the book). If you don’t know, The Help is the story of a young white woman in Jackson, Mississippi who convinces several black maids to tell their true stories of working in white households. It’s the kind of novel that opens your eyes, makes you think, encourages you to face the truth, offers you redemption, uplifts you, and encourages you—all at once. I was challenged to consider my own perceptions of race, challenged to consider this presentation of life in 1960s, challenged to think about how to be a part of healing the wounds created by racism and prejudice for centuries upon centuries by my ancestors. I often struggle with books about racism because they make me feel guilty for being white, even though I hope I’m not racist, nor am I the one who committed those atrocities. The Help offered a fair perspective on racism in the 60s—reading it, I was appropriately challenged, but also not manipulated into hating myself and my whiteness simply because I was white and not a minority.

The story is well told and the characters well realized. I read a review that compared it with To Kill a Mockingbird—I’m not sure if I’m ready to put it on that pedestal, but I think it is certainly a book that belongs on the same shelf as TKM.

I think I said this in a previous blog post, but I hope you read it in spite of the hoopla surrounding it.

Oh, and since I can’t wait till 2013 for my 2012 book review—if you’re a P.G. Wodehouse, Jasper Fforde or Oscar Wilde fan, check out To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis for a time travel romp through Victorian times, to say nothing of cats, boats, country houses, and dogs.

What books do you recommend for 2012? What do you hope to read? What did you read last year (or ever) that changed you, moved you, challenged you—or simply made you laugh? Throughout this post, I've mentioned the friends who have recommended the books that I've loved--because I think it's really important to recommend books to one another, to talk about what we've read, and to keep the book love flowing. I'm so glad those friends mentioned or loaned those books. Maybe I would have stumbled upon them eventually, but perhaps not.

I have this funny fear of recommending books to my friends and students--in part because I don't want them to dislike me because they didn't like the book I recommended--that's how devoted I am to my reading. Not liking a book that I recommended is not liking a part of me. Yes, of course I need to see a counselor about that, but that's beside the point. I'm giving them a part of myself when I endorse a book, and it matters that they don't like it. On the flip side, I feel terrible when I don't like a book someone recommended. Books are my friends, and I always want my friends to get along with one another. This is my "shout out" of thanks to Beth, Alicia, Tanner, Will, Donna, Mom, Dad, Deb, Jamie, the Sittes, all the middle school girls who loved Twilight enough to make me decide to read it, and the good customers at Amazon who care enough to write reviews about the books I'm interested in reading...Maybe you didn't realize it--but thanks for your suggestions, recommendations, conversations, cryptic commentary (obviously that refers to Will and Tanner), and book loans that made me read the plethora of books I read this year.

This is just to say: do recommend books--to me, you your friends, to your children, your students, your pastor, your husband, your coworkers. It's okay if they don't like it--but maybe, maybe they do like it, and they discover a whole new world in the process. I often find kindred spirits through books--because if I know that so-and-so loved the same book I loved, well, then, he or she can't be so bad, can she? (I was raised on Anne of Green Gables, so of course I think this way).

This concludes my exhaustive (or exhausting) review of books read in 2011. May it inspire you to discover new books, new friends and new worlds.

Happy Reading! (And Happy New Year!)

On Reading, Nooks, Book Reviews and 2011 Part II

And so, without much further ado (goodness knows I’m good at the “ado”):

The "Bad" and the "Ugly" Book Reviews

Worst Book: P.S. I Love You by Cecelia Ahern

Believe it or not, the Worst Book I read this year does not go to the Twilight saga (because I actually think those books had some merit…very little, but just enough).

I really enjoyed the movie P.S. I Love You, so of course I wanted to read the book. Don’t. It was awful—nothing like the movie at all except for the premise: a young widow’s dead husband leaves her notes and instructions through the year following his death.  Everything else was completely different. I’ve read books that I’ve really liked that are quite different than the film, so it wasn’t that. It was just a poorly written book. The potential was there--and the screenwriters took that potential and produced a fairly decent film, but unfortunately Ahern herself did not tap into that potential.

Runner-up Worst Book: Confessions of a Shopaholic by Sophie Kinsella

Okay, so I have had a secret love for “chick-lit” genre books ever since reading Bridget Jones’s Diary, in which I laughed till I cried several times while reading. Unfortunately, most chick-lit novels are poor knock offs of Bridget Jones’s, and therefore don’t quite add up, like buying a pair of Adibas sandals in Sandaga market for 1500 cfa instead of coughing up the 15,000 cfa at City Sport for Adidas sandals. Confessions gets runner-up, and not first place because I “read” it as an audiobook (really, it’s just as terrible as P.S. and, the movie is also much better than the book). It made me want to throw my iPod across the bushtaxi in frustration (because it was the only time I was desperate enough to actually listen to it), but I didn’t since that would have destroyed my iPod.

Worst Series: Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan (Spoiler Alert)

I read these books too quickly (there was a rush on them at the DA library), and it’s possible I got sick of them because of that. Before I criticize them, I will say: these books have done a good job of raising an awareness of Greek mythology, something that, as an English teacher, I do appreciate. Kids just don’t know their Greek myths anymore, and it’s a challenge to understand literature without understanding the underlying allusions.

That said, this series was a poorly disguised attempt to capture the dissipating fever surrounding Harry Potter. I know that books about wizarding schools have been around since before Harry Potter (Ursula K. Le Guinn’s A Wizard of Earthsea had a darker take on schools of wizardery and witchcraft long, long before J.K. Rowling started penning her tale in a café somewhere in Edinburgh), so it’s not like Rowling had an exclusive right to the concept, but too soon, Riordan, too soon. The series featured a young male protagonist who learns about his magical (mythical-magical, potato-pah-tah-toe) powers in middle school, is shipped off to a training camp (camp-school, tomato-toe-mah-toe), learns that there is an evil overlord villain who is setting out to take over the mythical world (and the entire universe, of course) and said young male protagonist must defeat him in order to save the world. I wanted to like them, I did (I have always loved Greek mythology, and the thought of a children’s series based on Greek myths: woo-hoo!)—but there were just too many parallels to Harry Potter—even down to the mythical overlord’s corporeal body being reconstructed bit by bit till the end of the series till he assumes full human shape…um, Voldemort, anyone?

I know some of my readers really did like the Percy Jackson series…I apologize. In the immortal words of Shawn Spenser: “Agree to disagree.”

Silliest Series: Portuguese Irregular Verbs by Alexander McCall Smith

Readers of the The Number One Ladies Detective Agency may be the only ones who pick up these slim volumes (on the strength of their love for Alexander McCall Smith and Mma Ramotswe) as they are extremely, extremely silly. They feature a German academic who is the world’s leading expert on Portuguese irregular verbs, and all of the antics this academic gets himself into. I love silly books—P.G. Wodehouse and I are bosom friends, of course, but these books may be a little too silly. I liked them, but they were pointless. I brought them home over summer break for my parents to read, simply because one of the books is called The Finer Points of Sausage Dogs (my parents being dachshund owners, of course) and they did not really appreciate them. My dad said on his Goodreads review: “strange! pointless!” and recommended them for “no one.” They are the kind of book that I wouldn’t recommend without a lot of disclaimer—“Don’t blame me if you don’t like them…they’re pointlessly silly…it’s not The Number One Ladies…”

Most Ambivalent (Series): Song of Fire and Ice by George R. Martin

Have you ever started a book or a series and not known what to do with it? I don’t recommend these books, but at the same time I’m still reading them. I’m half-way through the third book (with two more published books to go in the series, and who knows how many unpublished) and I think I’m going to keep reading it but I’m not one hundred percent sure.

I don’t really like the books. I guess I want to find out who wins. I don’t know who I want to win. I’m not sure if I like any of the characters (besides the children who may or may not die). He kills off main characters at a whim, adds unlikeable characters to replace the semi-likeable main characters, and focuses far, far, far too much on sex. Well, sex-scenes can be skipped (and are), but they’re still there. And the books are depressing (mostly because he keeps killing off the good guys, and no one is winning the war, and Winter is Coming…)

I just hate not finishing books, and now that I’ve read almost 2500 pages of Martin’s series (most of the time with excuse of hoping it will get better…and skipping the Daenyrs parts—I hate her) I kind of want to finish what I’ve started. So, even though I’ll probably regret it, I’m probably going to finish the series. Unless he really does kill Jon Snow. Then I’m quitting.

Most Embarrassing: Five Hundred Kingdoms by Mercedes Lackey

Do you ever just want to read fluff? Like…pure fluff? This summer my head hurt from thinking…I was exhausted…I was weak. So, I read a few novels in Mercedes Lackey’s Five Hundred Kingdom series, and then felt embarrassed to admit to anyone, especially my students because they were just…poorly written novels. This particular series of Lackey was a retelling of fairy tales from around Europe, and I’ve always enjoyed reworked fairy tales. But, really, the books were thinly veiled excuses for poorly written romance novels. I’m not really a romance novel person, but I read them anyway. These books were cotton candy…I don’t even like cotton candy, and I feel sick after eating it. That’s how the Five Hundred Kingdoms book felt…bleh. (I just don’t get cotton candy…do you?)

What's the worst book or series you read this year? Or the most embarrassing? Or the silliest? Do you have a secret love for a genre that no one would suspect (like an English teacher who reads Chick Lit...or a Trucker who loves Jane Austen...)?

Coming Up: Part III--The "Good" Reviews

On Reading, Nooks, Book Reviews and 2011 Part I

I love to read.

Yes, of course I love to read. It’s in my blood—you should see my parents’ house—bookshelf after bookshelf after bookshelf fill the rooms. 

In my family, we take books with us everywhere, we always talk about books, we always are reading several books at once. Reading is my escape from reality, it is my comfort when I’m feeling sad, it is my entertainment. (Okay, yeah, I watch TV sometimes, but my first choice is usually a book, when I’m by myself). When I finish reading a book, I feel listless and directionless until I find the next book.

This year I have read more books than I usually do. This is in part because I have a bit more free time (5th year teacher and all that), in part because I just got tired sacrificing reading-for-pleasure time (especially as an English teacher who should constantly try to encourage her students to read for fun), and in part because I purchased a Nook last summer. It changed my life. Perhaps this is a somewhat melodramatic statement…but not really. (A Nook, by the way, is Barnes and Noble’s version of a Kindle [an ebook reader]). I bought my Nook with some reluctance. I didn’t want to become one of those people who read books on ebook readers.

Well, I’ve become one of those readers.

Here’s the reason why: I live in Africa. Africa is a wondrous place indeed, but it does lack for reading material. I am blessed to teach at a school with a great library…but since it’s the same library from my school days, I’ve read many of the books in the library already. Not the entire library, but most of the decent books (I refuse to read Christian Romance Novels, and that eliminates a lot of books in the DA library…).

When I learned that public libraries in the States had begun offering ebooks for download on the library websites, I decided to give up my reservations about ebooks and buy a Nook (Kindle books were not available at the time on the library websites). I didn’t buy a Nook to buy books, but to check out library books. (Yes, I am trying to defend my purchase since I still feel like I’ve betrayed the Real Book People who refuse to buy into the ebook craze…stay strong, my former brothers and sisters…but don’t move to Africa.)

As a result, I’ve had a lot more reading material at my fingertips, and I’ve read on my Nook voraciously (no more voraciously than usual—just with a wider selection than normal). It’s been delightful and, well, since I’m one of those people now, I highly recommend it, particularly if you live overseas (and have a library membership to a public library in the States). The majority of the books I’ve read have been free (borrowed for a 2 week period); I’ve only purchased a few (and, oddly enough, I’ve only read a few of the ones I’ve purchased, as I get distracted by the library books that have a more urgent reading deadline).

Don’t worry—I still prefer reading “real” books. It’s so much easier to read a book that doesn’t need to be recharged or cleaned or kept in a dust-free-case. It’s much less worry to worry about on bushtaxis, and if someone steps on it, it’s not the end of the world. A “real” book can be fixed with tape and cardboard and will never need its software updated. However, my Nook has been the temporary fix to my craving for new reading material here in Africa; the balm after a long, frustrating day of teaching or the companion on long lazy vacation days.

I decided to go through the mental exercise of thinking back over what I've read this year--the good, the bad, and the ugly. I'll start with the bad and the ugly in my next post--then move on to the good.

What do you love about reading? What are your thoughts on Nooks, Kindles and other eReaders? For those of you who are Real Book People...can you ever forgive me??????

Coming Up: Part II--The "Bad and the Ugly" Book Reviews...because sometimes it feels good to gripe!