2011 Reading Wrap-Up

I'm not feeling very motivated to look backward this year. I would much rather look forward! So, here are some quick stats and such from this year's reading and I'll be back tomorrow with some goals for my 2012 reading.

Pages read: 24914+
This is down from 38102 last year but I also spent a lot more time reading chapter books at bedtime with Z and I didn't record those books or pages for some reason. I'm definitely not going to complain that I'm spending more time reading with my son!

Books read: 72+
This is down from 125 last year and even the books I read with Z wouldn't catch it up but that's okay!

Non-US/UK authors: 9
Books in translation: 4
I'm a bit disappointed by these numbers and will have to be more aware of my international reading habits next year. I already have two Murakami's on the schedule so that's a start!


New-to-me authors: 34+
Most read author: Jasper Fforde - 7 books
This is a lot lower than last year but I did a lot of re-reads, bulk reads of the same author (Jasper Fforde, Agatha Christie, Neil Gaiman, Rick Riordan, Diana Wynne Jones, Georgette Heyer) and just read less in general.


Oldest book finished: The Dead Secret by Wilkie Collins - 1857
Longest book read: The Map of Time by Felix J. Palma - 609
These will both be blown away next year by my Dickens' project. A lot of my reading will be Victorian and will be from chunksters. It will be fun to compare! (The "finished" is because I started The Mysteries of Udolpho which is older but I haven't finished it yet. I think it might be longer than 609 too!)


Non-fiction: 5
I failed here again but I'm happy with the non-fiction titles I chose even though there weren't twelve of them.


Books from the library: 7
Books from my shelves: 29
Re-reads: 13
Review books/ARCs: 23
My goal was to read 50 books from my shelves and, between the new ones and re-reads, I got to 42 which seems pretty good! I controlled myself at the library and read nine less review books than last year too.

DNF: 1
Would not read again: 3 definite, 2 maybes
This is one of my favorite stats to see this year. I may have read less books this year but they were good ones and obviously the ones I wanted to be reading.


Some favorites read this year:
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day - Winifred Watson
Three Men in a Boat - Jerome K. Jerome
A Red Herring Without Mustard - Alan Bradley
To Say Nothing of the Dog - Connie Willis
The Emerald Atlas - John Stephens
Nerd Do Well - Simon Pegg
House of Many Ways - Diana Wynne Jones (re-read)
Juniper Berry - M.P. Kozlowsky
Smith - Leon Garfield
The Thursday Next series - Jasper Fforde (mostly re-read)
The Devil in the White City - Erik Larson
The Penguin Book of Gaslight Crime - Michael Sims, editor

Favorite book read this year:
The Poisoner's Handbook - Deborah Blum

Favorite book read that comes out next year:
The Technologists - Matthew Pearl (review-ish thing in a week or two)

Happy New Year, my friends,
K

New Release: The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Volume 1

I don't usually start a post with a video but this one is the perfect introduction for this original little volume. hitRECord (said like you're pushing a button on a recording device, not like a popular song on the charts) is a collaborative online art community that's headed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who you might recognize as an actor but he goes by RegularJOE online. This first volume, The Tiny Book of Tiny Stories, Volume 1 represents the work of 67 writers and artists. Most of the stories are a single sentence (and at most three) and are truly flash fiction.
Here are a couple of the stories in the book that I liked --

Not all of the stories are so dark in tone though. In fact, there are some that are quite uplifting and beautiful. My favorite story, one that I'm sure you all will also love is this one --

His hands were weak and shaking
from carrying far too many
books from the bookshop.
It was the best feeling.

Another cool thing I saw in the fine print at the beginning of the book is this --

The work may be further edited, sampled, or remixed at www.hitRECord.org according to the posted terms of service.

I love the idea that, as this was a collaborative effort in the first place, the collaboration never truly ends. One idea may spark another or a different artist may want a chance to illustrate a story in a whole 'nother way. Art doesn't have to be static and lonely and I like that.

So, if you're interested, go out and buy this palm-sized gem and support a whole community of writers and artists as 50% of the profits go to the contributors. And if you're even more motivated, go to this page on the hitRECord site to submit an entry for Volume 2!

Her heart rejoiced at the beauty of the tales but sank a bit at the final closing of the tiny book --
K


Yes, I received a copy of this book for review but my thoughts are honest.

New Books in Our Home

K's holiday haul

As you can probably guess, a lot of new books made their way into our home this Christmas! I received

London Under by Peter Ackroyd

The Sisters: The Saga of the Mitford Family by Mary J. Lovell

A Burial at Sea by Charles Finch

The Midnight Palace by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin

All Clear by Connie Willis

I was so excited by all of these especially since five are hardcovers! I wanted the Dickens bio for my Year of Dickens that I'm starting in February (yes, a year ... yes, I know it's a lot of Dickens). I needed All Clear since I have Blackout but didn't want to start it knowing how the story ends abruptly at the end. Now I can just read the novels together. My sister gave me The Sisters and I'm excited to pair reading it with the Diana Mosley book I got from the holiday swap. I also have a couple books still on the way this week -- I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley and The Somnambulist by Essie Fox (which I had to order from the UK).

Z got even more books than I did. I split his up into a couple of groups so that you could see them better. There are so many fantastic colors in there! He's already spent a lot of time filling in the Wimpy Kid book and reading his Pokemon manga (which I just realized I photographed on the wrong side of the books - duh!).

Non-fiction titles

Manga and graphic novels

A couple more books

The husband got a couple of graphic novel and comic collections, Einstein: His Life and Universe by Walter Isaacson, Revolutionaries by Jack Rakove and Onward by Howard Schultz. He already put them away in his TBR stacks so I didn't get a picture. I'm not even entirely sure that's all he got but it seems right!

I gave my sister Modelland by Tyra Banks, Bridget Jones' Diary by Helen Fielding and An Abundance of Katherines by John Green. I forgot to get a picture of those before she flew back home yesterday. I also wish I had read the John Green book before I gave it to her.

Besides that lovely stack of books, I also got a couple of classic movies--Bringing Up Baby, My Favorite Wife and Notorious--that all feature Cary Grant (yay!), a new iPod classic because my 30GB one is full and almost seven years old and is starting to fail a little, some wonderful gift cards and lots of dark chocolate from See's Candies. I'm going to have to be good and just stick to one piece a day or I'll never lose these last pounds!

I hope you all got some fantastic books and gifts over the holidays but, most of all, I hope that you were able to relax and enjoy yourselves. We still have one week off of school and I plan to spend it reading and getting caught up on the blog again. I have some great books to write about, a year to summarize and some plans to finalize.

Happy to be in a family of readers,
K and Z

New-ish Release: The Family Fang

December is my month for getting through review copies and one that I was hoping to enjoy was The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson. I was sold by the comparison to The Royal Tenenbaums but sadly this book was lacking the heart that really gave that movie meaning. Though Royal Tenenbaum (the Tenenbaum patriarch for those of you who haven't seen the brilliant film but are going to get a copy and watch it tonight because there is a tiny hole in your soul that needs to be filled) frequently made bad choices and wasn't great at interpersonal relationships, he did truly love his family. The Fangs, on the other hand, were the most disturbing parents that I have ever read about.

Caleb and Camille Fang are conceptual artists whose specialty is disruption of the peace. They frequently use their children Annie and Buster (who they simply call Child A and Child B or even just A and B) as props or instigators of their art. This leads to their becoming highly dysfunctional adults. When things go truly wrong for them, they're forced to return home to the parents who screwed them up in the first place. But, as is the norm with Caleb and Camille, even this ends up being far from the comforting solace that most children would experience.

If this had been a film, I might have enjoyed it. But as a novel, it went into too much disturbing depth and was incredibly depressing and dark. Wilson is a good writer and I had no problems with his storytelling. I just wasn't a fan of the story itself. I can see though how different readers will appreciate it more than I did. I am certainly curious about Wilson's first book of stories, Tunneling to the Center of the Earth. I hope the subject matter of that one is a better fit.

Trying to forget things that should never have been read,
K

Special Offer: Mrs. Claus Explains it All

Do you have an inquisitive little one (or more than one!) in your house?

Are you being bombarded with questions about Santa and his helpers?

Do you find yourself faced with questions that only one woman is qualified to answer?

Sourcebooks has a special promotion going right now on the e-book version of Mrs. Claus Explains it All by Elsbeth Claus and illustrated by David Wenzel. For only $1.99 you can have the answers handy to such questions as

• Why can't you see Santa's village at the North Pole?
• What is Santa's favorite cookie?
• I'm worried that Santa is too fat. Does he ever exercise?
• How does Santa know where I live? How does he keep track of what I want?

I was really happy to see that Santa and the elves like to spend time reading when they're not busy getting ready for Christmas. And, not surprisingly, the elves and I have some favorite books in common -- Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and The Wizard of Oz. I guess I could have been an elf in another timeline! Z was particularly interested to learn the history of the reindeer. This is a great "reference" book for believers of all ages and it's well worth the magical price.

Here are the links for iBooks and Nook versions:

Apple’s iBookstore
http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/mrs.-claus-explains-it-all/id485469062?mt=11

NOOK Book Store
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mrs-claus-explains-it-all-elsbeth-claus/1102174204

(Available on the following platforms: iPad, iPhone, iPodTouch, NOOK Tablet, NOOK Color, NOOK app for iPad)

In the know,

K and Z

New Re-Release: An Autobiography

It's been a week or so since I finished Agatha Christie's An Autobiography (newly re-released by Harper and including a cd of Christie's own voice as she recorded this book for her typist). It took me almost a month to get through it because there was just so much in it that I had to read it in short bits and then spend some time absorbing each section. I apparently also spent quite a bit of time having feelings of intense jealousy. I spent a lot of November feeling dissatisfied with my life for no apparent reason -- and then I realized that I was jealous of Agatha's world travels and her multiple marriage proposals and her plethora of houses. She lived an adventure-filled life and she worked hard for everything she had. Some of her views on women were quite Victorian but she actually lived a rather pioneering life. There are few writers who lived lives that rivaled their novels in excitement but she is certainly one of them.

Some of the highlights of this book for me turned out to be entirely coincidental. The three books that I chose to re-read last month were most of the ones featured in the book and it was fun to get an expanded view of the stories. The best was probably The Man in the Brown Suit. Most of the travel and location portions were actually taken straight from Christie's own sea voyage to South Africa and her time there. I was happy to have the novel fresh in my mind while reading of Christie's own adventures.

Fans of Agatha Christie's novels will probably enjoy reading this book and learning all sorts of things about this amazing woman -- like the fact that she wrote her first detective story on a bit of a dare and that's when she created Hercule Poirot. Sadly, she doesn't speak at all of her disappearance after her first husband's infidelity so that remains a mystery. But seeing as she is the Queen of Mystery, it seems somewhat fitting that she left us with one that will never be completely solved.

In awe,
K

'Tis Awesome to Give AND Receive

After sitting out last year and being rather sad about it, I made sure to sign up for the Book Blogger Holiday Swap this year. I chose an international swap and I am so incredibly glad that I did! The gifts that I bought went to Montreal, to Tina of Bookshipper (which she posted about today if you're curious). Thankfully she loved them all!

The gifts that were bought for me arrived today and I was floored when I saw that they came from South Africa! The lovely Robyn (of The Book Club Blog and I'm So Not A Blogger) sent some absolutely thoughtful gifts and I couldn't appreciate them more. Here are the wrapped gifts, each with a pressed-tin magnet attached.

First, there was "LAUGH", with a copy of The Pursuit of Laughter: Essays, Articles, Reviews & Diary of The Most Controversial Mitford Sister by Diana Mosley. I know that Robyn looked at my wishlist and saw that I was wanting to start in with the Mitfords. I know little to nothing about them and I'm so glad that she chose this for me!

Next, there was "LOVE" and a cookbook -- The South African Illustrated Cookbook by Lehla Eldridge.

The South African Illustrated Cookbook is a compilation of recipes dear to South Africans from all walks of life and traditions. It includes Xhosa, Cape Malay, Zulu, English, Indian, Afrikaans, Portuguese and new South African dishes.

I can't wait to try some of these recipes, especially once I figure out what "mealie meal" is (I think it's a fine corn meal -- anyone?).

Then there was "HOPE" and Robyn sent a favorite holiday book of hers from Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder -- The Christmas Mystery. It has time travel in it which makes me very excited! I love that she wanted to share a favorite book with me.

Everything was wonderful and these gifts certainly brought more laughter, love and hope into this season for me!

Finally, there was one more small item that didn't make it into these photos because it was already on the Christmas tree --

Thank you so much, Robyn! I love everything and love the thought and effort that you put into choosing the gifts.

I hope that those of you who participated in the swap were as fortunate as I was and that more of you will choose to participate next year!

Spreading the cheer,
K

Catching Up on Bedtime Reads

Things are a little crazy around here right now (as I'm sure they are for many of you)! I've started to feel a bit stressed about the growing pile of books that we haven't reviewed yet. Two of them are ones that Z and I enjoyed together at bedtime so I will quickly mention those today.

Bunnicula: A Rabbit-Tale of Mystery by Deborah and James Howe was one of my childhood favorites and I couldn't wait to share it with Z! The book was written in 1979 so it wasn't very old when I read it but luckily it has held up well and, not only did I have a great time reading it again but Z thought it was fun too. I loved the different cat and dog points of view and Z really liked the mystery surrounding the little bunny. I read the next two books in the series when I was a kid but I think there are four or five sequels now so we will have to work our way through them all. Luckily this isn't just a fall/Halloween series!

Frankie Pickle and the Closet of Doom by Eric Wight is one that we picked up at last year's book fair. I know Z looked at it a bunch but I wasn't sure that he had ever read the entire thing. This book is about 2/3 chapter book, 1/3 comic. When Frankie starts imagining an adventure, it comes to life in graphic detail. This was a really fun story with a nice "clean your room or else" message. We will definitely get the next two books in the series when they are available in paperback. And isn't Frankie just adorable?!

Right now we are finishing up The Invention of Hugo Cabret. I can't wait to share our thoughts with you on that one!

Looking toward our next reading adventure,
K and Z

Z Reviews: My Father's Dragon

Z and I read My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett together as a bedtime story a month or so ago. Here are his (brief) thoughts on the book!

---

The book is about a boy named Elmer Elevator. One rainy day, Elmer meets a cat that tells him about Wild Island. Elmer decides to go there so that he can rescue an abandoned baby dragon. Will Elmer get past the wild animals and rescue the dragon in time?

The Wild Island mouse messes up his quotes all the time! I thought it was funny. I enjoyed the book. There are other books: Elmer and the Dragon and The Dragons of Blueland. I still don't have My Father's Dragon #2 yet.

---

This was a really fun book to read together. I personally liked doing voices for all of the different animals on the island. The plot moves along at a quick pace and I was impressed by how the story didn't seem very dated even though it's from 1948. It was a Newbery Honor Book in 1949. The original illustrations by Ruth Chrisman Gannet are beautiful and quite unique. I'm glad they haven't updated them at all! There was a 1997 anime film made from this story (Elmer no boken) but I don't think it's available in the States. Bummer.

Finding friends in unusual places,
K and Z