2013: In Summary

2013 has had its ups and downs but my reading life was almost all wonderful. Here are some stats from this year --

I read 104 books totaling almost 30,000 pages, just behind last year's total on pages but strangely the exact same number of books.

50 books were from my TBR and 12 were rereads from my shelves. This means that 60 percent of my reading was with my own books and that's exactly where I wanted to be.

23 books were from the library, including 3 audiobooks and 3 e-books. This was a big improvement and I've had fun branching into other mediums. (I read three other non-library e-books too.)

I only read 13 review copies this year which is shockingly low but completely in line with my new choosiness. I still have a small stack to get to though so I need to be just a bit better about accepting review copies and ARCs.

I also only read 4 books in translation which I'm a bit sad about -- one Spanish, one German, one Japanese and one French. My English books were from the US, UK, Canada and Australia.

I read 33+ new-to-me authors (not sure how many more there would be from story collections).

I read 6 non-fiction books this year, two better than last year.

The oldest book I read was Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens from 1837.

I read 8 chunksters (near or over 500 pages), with Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures being the longest at 688 pages.

Now on to my favorite reads of the year --

(shameless excuse to post a picture of Neil smiling at me -- we're bffs now)

Likely to Be Reread the Most Times in My Life

I'm going to have to call this a tie between

The Ocean at the End of the Lane - Neil Gaiman

and

The Night Circus - Erin Morgenstern

Title Length is Directly Proportional to Enjoyment Level

Another tie between Catherynne Valente and, well, Cat Valente!

The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There

and

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two (hopefully finishing today)

Best of the Georgette Heyer Mysteries That I've Read So Far

(8 total)

Footsteps in the Dark

Best Bedtime Stories

(these are ones I read with Z that we both enjoyed)

Horten's Incredible Illusions - Lissa Evans

Ozma of Oz - L. Frank Baum

Cosmic - Frank Cottrell Boyce

Fortunately, The Milk - Neil Gaiman

Short Story Collections Worth Reading

(more than one, of course)

Impossible Things - Connie Willis

Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron - various

Rereads That Were Better The Second+ Time

Howl's Moving Castle - Diana Wynne Jones

A Tale of Time City - Diana Wynne Jones

Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH - Robert C. O'Brien

Stardust - Neil Gaiman

The Last Dragonslayer - Jasper Fforde

Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman

Good Omens - Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett

Coraline - Neil Gaiman

(looks like Jenny's Law applies to NG as well as DWJ!)

Best Choice to Get One Interested in Audiobooks

Ready Player One - Ernest Cline, read by Wil Wheaton

Book That Should Be Made Into a Movie

The Black Country - Alex Grecian

Everything Else That We Loved

A Little Princess - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Archer's Goon - Diana Wynne Jones

Unknown Pleasures: Inside Joy Division - Peter Hook

A Death in the Small Hours - Charles Finch

The 13 Story Treehouse - Andy Griffiths & Terry Denton (Z's choice)

Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures - Walter Moers

The Star of Kazan - Eva Ibbotson

The Mapping of Love and Death - Jacqueline Winspear

The Song of the Quarkbeast - Jasper Fforde

Love That Dog - Sharon Creech

Black Jack - Leon Garfield

The Agency: The Traitor in the Tunnel - Y.S. Lee

Gone Away Lake - Elizabeth Enright

The Penderwicks - Jeanne Birdsall

Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett

The Book of Three - Lloyd Alexander

Greenwitch - Susan Cooper

Which Witch? - Eva Ibbotson

The Asylum - John Harwood

An Old Betrayal - Charles Finch

The Watcher in the Shadows - Carlos Ruiz Zafón

Ballet Shoes - Noel Streatfeild

The Grey King - Susan Cooper

Thank you again to everyone for reading our blog this year and commenting and entering our giveaways and everything else. I am really looking forward to Long Awaited Reads Month in January and DWJ March in, well, March and all of Carl's challenges (Sci-Fi Experience, Once Upon a Time and Readers Imbibing Peril). I'll also be continuing with the Top 100 Chapter Books Project at The Estella Society which I am enjoying immensely. Here's to 2014!

From our TBR shelves to yours,

K and Z

All The Books I Haven't Reviewed Yet This Year

My friends, I have not been the best blogger this year. I started out well but my productivity dropped off when real life stepped up with a few stresses and challenges. Consequently, I've ended up with a nice stack of books that haven't been reviewed. I want to at least mention the books because many of them are fantastic. I also want to put this stack of books away and start fresh in the new year. So bear with me as I take you on a whirlwind tour of a dozen or so books!

(Apologies for the poor quality pictures. I was in a hurry to get this post going. The notebook on the left that is propping up all of the books is my short story journal.)

First up are the children's books, three of which Z and I read together at bedtime --

Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce was a super fantastic book about a twelve-year-old boy, Liam, who pretends he's an adult (he looks old for his age) and ends up lost in space with four other children. This book is his attempt to explain how he got there. Z and I both loved this book. It's very British and also very engaging.

Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman, illustrated by Chris Riddell (in the UK), was hilarious and also very British since I ordered a beautiful slipcased edition (signed by both author and illustrator) from Foyle's Bookstore and had it shipped over the pond! Though the book was a little young for Z, he didn't mind one bit. Personally, I loved how Riddell made the dad look like Neil himself.

The Templeton Twins Have an Idea by Ellis Weiner, illustrated by Jeremy Holmes, was a fun enough read but it never quite grabbed Z's interest. There is a saucy narrator that just seemed to annoy him though I'm sure other kids would find that voice hilarious. I loved how the kids each used their own individual talents to their advantage.

A Great and Complicated Adventure by Toon Tellegen, illustrated by Jessica Ahlberg and translated by Martin Cleaver, is a book of very short bedtime tales that were originally published in Dutch. I read them quickly on my own one afternoon and ended up perplexed but amused. The stories are quite strange and yet I had one or two kids come immediately to mind who would probably enjoy them immensely.

Next is a non-fiction read --

I finally finished Reflections: On the Magic of Writing by Diana Wynne Jones, which I began during DWJ March. I savored this book all year long and learned so much, both about DWJ and about storytelling. And, of course, a highlight of my year was having the foreword signed by Neil Gaiman.

I have two books of short stories on the stack --

Under My Hat: Tales from the Cauldron, edited by Jonathan Strahan is a wonderful collection of witch stories. I was pleasantly surprised by the diversity and quality. There was only one story I didn't enjoy. The ones I loved most were from Diana Peterfreund, Garth Nix, Patricia A. McKillip, Tim Pratt, Isobelle Carmody, Jim Butcher and Peter S. Beagle. Close on their heels were tales by Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Ellen Kushner, Jane Yolen and Margo Lanagan. As you can see from the names, this is a star-studded collection!

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales by Yoko Ogawa was a read-together with Natalie but she also had real life get in the way and so we never got the chance to write about these strange and definitely dark tales. The word "disturbing" pops up more than once in the blurbs on the back of the book and it's a fantastic descriptor. I also used the word "creepy" in my notes. The stories begin as separate entities but then start weaving together in big and small ways. I found my biggest confusion arose from the question of gender in many of the stories. There weren't enough clues and many times I was reading the story from the wrong gender perspective until sometime near the end when it was revealed clearly. It was very disorienting and I'm not sure if that was purposeful on Ogawa's part or if it was a consequence of translation.

Then we have the adult fiction --

Doomsday Book by Connie Willis is another of her time travel "series" (in quotes because they really all are perfect stand-alone books with only brief reference to the other adventures and some character sharing). This was a trip back to the Middle Ages and it was amazing but long. It's my least favorite of the time travel novels but probably only because the others are set in times that I know more about.

The Counterfeit Guest by Rose Melikan is also a series book but would work well as a stand-alone. It's a fun adventure/mystery with a strong female lead and a wee bit of romance. If you want to start at the beginning, the first book is The Blackstone Key.

The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens is only half of a story and though I thoroughly enjoyed it, I felt out of sorts for days after finishing it. I finally realized that it was because I was annoyed at not being able to continue with the story! I think that Dickens wrote some of his most complex characters for this novel and his pacing was perfect. It is a tragedy that he never finished writing the story.

Bellman and Black by Diane Setterfield is one I purposefully avoided reviewing. I just don't know what to say about it. It was okay but not great or memorable in the way that her first novel was.

And finally a few series books --

The Grey King and Silver on the Tree by Susan Cooper were the last two books in the Dark is Rising Sequence. The Grey King was amazing and made me want to travel to Wales immediately. Silver on the Tree suffered a bit from my timing in picking it up, being the book that I read over the Christmas holiday. I was busy and it took longer than it should have and so I kept losing track of the story. Still, I think this was an amazingly deep and complex series and I truly hope that Z enjoys it in the coming years.

Seventy-Seven Clocks by Christopher Fowler is the third Peculiar Crimes Unit Mystery though these are books that could be read on their own as they skip around in time. This one takes place in the middle of Arthur Bryant and John May's careers -- 1970's London. It was a crazy roller-coaster story of murders and phobias and I am definitely looking forward to picking up the next book.

Rumo & His Miraculous Adventures by Walter Moers is the second Zamonia book and I put off reading it for a long time because Rumo was not a very exciting character in the first book. That was a mistake because this book was fantastic. I don't even know how to begin to explain this book or series but if you are looking for something completely different, this is it. If you don't enjoy the absurd or fantastic, then don't read it.

If you're still reading, thank you,
K

100 Chapter Books Project: Ballet Shoes

Click over to The Estella Society today to discuss Noel Streatfeild's Ballet Shoes with me. It was my first time reading it which I regret immensely. I loved this book and wish it had been a part of my childhood!

Making new (imaginary) friends,
K

A Visit (or Two) to Dickens Junction

Recently I was offered a book for review that turned out to be the second in a series and was also based on a book I hadn't read yet but wanted to. So thus began my reading project of the last month or so.

First up was, logically, the first Dickens Junction Mystery, The Christmas Carol Murders by Christopher Lord. I was excited about reading this one. It promised many elements that I enjoy -- a cozy mystery, a beautiful Oregon setting and a tie-in to a well-known story from one of my favorite authors.

Dickens Junction is a fictional town just outside of beautiful Astoria, on the northern coast of Oregon. It was founded by the main character's uncle, Ebenezer Dickens, as a place to celebrate the life and philosophies of his ancestor, Charles Dickens. Simon Alastair was adopted by his uncle after he lost his parents and he grew up in this small community. But now he's a wealthy heir and benefactor to the town -- and he also runs the town's bookstore, Pip's Pages. But one day Mervyn Roark, an acquisitions man for a mysterious company named Marley Enterprises, comes to town and buys an Ayn Rand book from the store, and thus begins a battle between the benevolent philosophies of Dickens and the more uncharitable ones of Rand.

Though this book would be filed as a cozy mystery, it really is a tale of tolerance and friendship, from the fledgling romance of the main character (who happens to be gay) to the support each community member offers up when the big bad corporation comes to town. Whether this is more of a commentary on small towns or on the philosophies of Dickens, I'm not entirely sure, but I did enjoy this aspect of the book. It made me immediately want to travel south and find this town. As for the murders, the victims were predictable but the murderer was not. And the romance was sweet and not one I would normally encounter in much of my reading so I enjoyed the diversion. My only complaint about the book is that there was just a bit too much description of what each character was wearing in every scene, down to brand names and fabrics. I didn't feel these descriptions added anything to the story and could have easily been edited out.

The newly-released second book in the series, The Edwin Drood Murders, posed a bit of a problem for me. I hadn't yet read Charles Dickens' The Mystery of Edwin Drood though it had been on my TBR for a while. Now, these mysteries still work even if you just have a passing knowledge of The Inimitable Boz (Dickens) and his novels but I saw this as a chance to clear another book off my TBR so I read the Dickens first. I'm going to save my discussion of that book for my next post but I will say that it did enhance my reading of this book.

It is a few months after the events of the first book and the United States Chapter (Western Sector) International Society of Droodists is hosting a conference in Astoria. These are scholars and fans of Dickens' last and only half-finished novel. There are a couple of late registrants mixed in with the regular (and still highly irregular) attendees and it isn't long before suspicions develop after some significant thefts and, ultimately, murder.

This was a good follow-up to the first novel. Simon and his boyfriend Zach make sense as a detecting team, one as a trusted local and the other as a resourceful journalist. The Dickens plot is again somewhat peripheral to the mystery but provides an interesting framework for suspicion. There isn't as much of a moral message in this story as there was in the first one but I think it was actually a stronger mystery.

I thought I had seen something about the next book in the series but now I can't find anything about it so I'll have to wait a while longer to see what's next for Simon and the Junxonians. Fingers crossed for Bleak House!

Enjoying a little homage with my murders,
K

The Dark is Rising Read-a-Thon

#ReadTDiR

Yesterday was the kick-off day for the The Dark is Rising 40th Anniversary Readathon run by Danny Whittaker to celebrate Susan Cooper's award-winning children's fantasy series. Details are on the blog and the Twitter account. There are over 100 people signed up to participate so far and it's not too late to join!

I'll be starting by reading The Grey King today since I'm still working my way through the sequence for the first time. I read the first two books (Over Sea, Under Stone and The Dark is Rising) in October 2012 for my 100 Chapter Books Project over at The Estella Society and I read the third book, Greenwitch, as an RIP read in October of this year. I can't wait to finish up the series now (this book and Silver on the Tree) to see where it all goes. It's a really smart and fun series with great protagonists and some seriously scary villains. If you're interested, now would be a good time to try it out!

Trusting in the Old Ones to prevail,
K

100 Chapter Books Project: The Best Christmas Pageant Ever

Today at The Estella Society, I share my thoughts about this quick and funny read, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson. Is this one you've read before? Were you ever in a Christmas pageant? Head over to comment!

Getting in the holiday spirit,
K