Larocque and Roll

March Madness

My parents are coming up for a visit tomorrow. I was on the phone with my mother tonight, telling her that I’d almost finished cleaning the house. The last thing I had left to do was the sweeping, which takes less than 15 minutes but that I always leave until the last minute. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” says my mom. “It doesn’t really matter.”

No, I think I’m actually going to worry about it. There are dust bunnies under my dresser that have gone feral and are threatening Bing. There is enough human and cat hair to create some kind of hybrid were-feline. So I think that sweeping is pretty important, and that I should do it.

(And have done. It took 10 minutes. Bah!)

March was truly a mad month. I don’t know who put what in my coffee, but I read something like 13 books last month. I’d plow through one and immediately pick up the next one. Some were good, some were sublime, some were hard slogs that felt more like work than pleasure. The books in that last category made all the others worth it.

~ David Gunderson. Snow Falling on Cedars (6)
The pacing of this book is positively glacial – the cedars grew faster than the characters in this one. It felt like a homework assignment to read it, and reminded me of the Oates book in that respect. However, it was a beautiful story, and the locations sounded wild and lovely, the back story was both mythical and sorrowful, and the resolution was satisfying. I think this is going to be my first library book club book.[1]

~ Ellen Cook. Unpredictable (5)
The heroine of this book works in a book shop which can also special-order books for you, as well as providing research services, both for reasonable fees. Wow, that sounds an awful lot like… a library, where they do those things FOR FREE. I couldn’t get past this fact, so I didn’t enjoy the book as much as I could have (except for the adorable Scottish geek, who became the love interest. Le sigh.)

~ Rachel Cohn and David Levitan. Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist (9)
Oh, how I love this book. It’s the second time I’ve read it in two years [2]. It’s about two teenagers who meet randomly in a bar when one (Nick) asks the other (Norah) to pretend to be his girlfriend, and it alternates back and forth between the two. I was hooked from the line on the first page: “I am punctuating and I am punctured and I am punching the air with my body as my fingers press hard into the chords.” I seem to remember having gone to a concert around the same time I read this, and it having impacted on how I read that line, how it wasn’t just about listening to the music but also about feeling the music and being moved by the music.

~ Cohn and Levitan. Naomi and Ely’s No Kiss List (9)
There was a moment in this book – almost an aside – where they name-dropped the band or a club or something from the previous book, and it made me happy. I like continuity, and I like books that take place in the same fictional world as other books I’ve enjoyed. Like Nick and Norah, it’s written from different viewpoints, but because the characters and the story were more complicated, there were more viewpoints. It wasn’t as lyrical or seamless as N&N, but I really liked it, even though I sometimes wanted to smack Naomi (while somewhat sympathizing with her.) [3]

~ David Levitan. Boy Meets Boy (7)
It’s a very short book that feels like a Grateful Dead/Phish acid trip gone wholesome. Lots of weirdness, but weirdness you’d let your mother read (Hi Mom!). Its idealism is kind of cute – can you imagine going to a high school where the star quarterback is a drag queen? – but I’d still like to visit there.

~ Levitan. How They Met (8)
So… yeah. I went on a bit of a Levitan/Cohn binge this month (there was another Cohn towards the end of the month). This was a book of short stories about fly fishing in Argentina and cheese-making in Cape Verde, and there was absolutely nothing about chance encounters in airports, dance classes, hallways and coffee shops that lead to romance. Nothing at all.

Okay, this is running long, and it’s late and I want to be able to get up in the morning. I’ll continue this later.

[1] OH YES. I’m starting a monthly book club at the library in September. There’s going to be two sessions a month, both doing different books and then switching the following month. Because being the lead on several technology projects, on a conference planning committee, on an advisory panel, keeping various displays in the library up-to-date and participating in a virtual reference service in addition to the regular day-to-day stuff ISN’T ENOUGH TO KEEP ME FROM BEING BORED.

[2] According to my records.

[3] See, Naomi is in love with Ely, but despite the fact she knows he’s gay, keeps hoping that he’ll fall in love with her. In high school, about 2/3rds of the guys I developed crushes out turned out to have the same taste in men as I did, so I kind of know from where she’s coming. Although I never for one second ever believed that I could convert the objects of my misguided affections – my response was usually, “Oh… huh. I hadn’t noticed… anyways…” Yeah, I was kind of clueless.

Bookish in January and February

I was surprised to discover that I forgot to post my January reads. Well, maybe not surprised – February was an insane month, and if I missed stuff it was because other stuff jumped up in my face and made me forget the other stuff. Or something like that… the metaphor is kind of tortured.

Anyhoodle – on with the reads for the past two months!

~ Willig, Lauren. The Emerald Deception (6.5)
More serious, less frivolousness than the other books. However, there was a couple of Monty Python references that cracked me up.

~Cruise, Jennifer and Bob Mayer. Agnes and the Hitman (3)
Highly implausible, too many plots to keep straight. Didn’t really like any of the characters.

~ Moore, Alan. Lost Girls (7)
For all the controversy about this book, it was not as bad as I was expecting. The art was not excessively detailed, yet very colourful.

~ Gabaldon, Diana. Lord John and the Hands of Devils (7)
Basically, it was three novellas featuring Lord John. It was well-written although not as compelling at Brotherhood of the Blade (probably because it was three stories, not one. Wait, I already said that…)

~ Rice, Christopher. Blind Fall (8)
This one was an ARC left on the staffroom table [1], and which I snapped up. Pretty good overall – it explored a number of overlapping issues which got confusing at times, and there was a little too much dialogue, but otherwise a good read.

~ Vizzini, Ned. It’s Kind of A Funny Story (8)
An unusual story about a teenager who institutionalizes himself when he seriously begins to contemplate suicide. What was usual about is was that the parents and family were incredibly supportive of his decisions, and that he knew he needed help and wanted to get better. It’s one of the better Young Adult novels I’ve read in a while.

~ Juby, Susan. Another Kind of Cowboy (6.5)
My horse-obsessive days are long behind me, so it was kind of hard to work up any kind of enthusiasm for this horse-themed YA novel. However, while I found the plot somewhat predictable, it was still a far cry better than a lot of the horsey books I read in my youth because the characters were more realistic, the situations were appropriate to teenagers, and the ending was slightly bittersweet.

~ Dessen, Sarah. This Lullaby, Just Listen and The Truth About Forever (8)
All comfort rereads, which I should do more of when I’m stressed out.

~ Bourdain, Anthony. Gone Bamboo (7)
Surprisingly good fiction from someone who’s known for their non-fiction. Well-paced, lots of action, and of course, lots of food described.

~ Oats, Joyce Carol. Middle Age: A Romance (6)
This one took me at least three weeks to read, and if I hadn’t felt like I needed to finish this book I probably would have abandoned it after the first few days. I slogged through long, melodramatic passages about self-absorbed, upper-class white people moping about the death of a man they really didn’t know very well. Then about halfway through the book, I asked the person who gave it to me if I was supposed to read this as a genuinely sad story, or if it was a parody. Once we decided that she was probably making fun of these people and their self-absorption, it went a lot faster. My final assessment is that it would make a great book club book, but not for mine [2].

~ Krum, Sharon. The Thing About Jane Spring (4)
The whole time I read this, I wasn’t sure if it was a thinly veiled dig at feminism. At any rate, it was a nice palate-cleanser after the heaviness of the Oats book.

Right now, I’m stuck in the middle of Snow Falling on Cedars. I should’ve held off reading this until I’d read a few more fluffy books because it feels like a reading assignment as opposed to a recreational read. However, since I’m auditioning it for book club I should at least get through it before moving on.

[1] Just one of the many bonuses of working at the library – advanced reader’s copies of upcoming books!
[2] I’m starting a book club at my library, which will commence in the fall, or whenever stuff stops breaking down that needs to be fixed ASAP and I can get the materials together.

The year in books, Part 2

Last year, I read 74 books, only three of which were non-fiction. That surprises me – I thought I’d read more than that. The year before, I’m almost certain I did. Anyways, here’s my list of the most notable books for one reason or another.

Best Food Book
It’s a tie between Michael Pollan’s Omnivore’s Dilemma (May), Rudolph Chelminski’s The Perfectionist (October), and Timothy Taylor’s Stanley Park (September)

Best Canadian Book
A tough call, but it’s a tie between Taylor and Jeffery Moore’s The Memory Artist (May)

Best Young Adult Book
I want to say Rachel Cohen and David Levitan’s Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist, but that was last year’s book. So, for this year, I’d have to say John Green’s An Abundance of Katherines (March).

Biggest Surprises (in terms of better than I was expecting)
Jacqueline Carey’s Kushiel series. Stephen Fry’s The Liar (September). Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (May). Mark Haddon’s A Spot of Bother (June).

Book Which Made Me Feel Stupider For Having Read It
Sophie Kinsella, Can You Keep a Secret? (February)

Most Improved Author
Christopher Rice – I was pleasantly surprised by Light Before Day (February) because the last book of his I read was terrible.

Most Likely to be Reread This Year
Anything by Christopher Moore or Tanya Huff.

Author Who I Keep Forgetting to Write Down
For some reason, whenever I read Meg Cabot, I forget to write it down and then months later I can’t remember the title of whatever it was I read. This happened twice this year – Queen of Babel and Size 14 Is Not Fat Either – and a couple of times the year before.

Best Book Overall
I honestly don’t know.

The year in books, Part 1

…And December reads! Actually, I’ll do that first. It was a pretty good month, what with the holidays and reading on the train home and back.

~ Cruisie, Jennifer and Bob Myer. Don’t Look Down (2)
I think I finished this one out of boredom. Not much to recommend about it.

~ Findley, Timothy. Not Wanted on the Voyage (6.5) (Canada Reads Book #1)
When I started reading this one, I would complain loud and long to anyone who stood still long enough about how much I hated some of the characters. They were pushovers! They were megalomaniacs! They were passive aggressive! And Yahweh chose them to repopulate the earth after the flood? The thing is, it’s been almost four weeks since I finished it, and yet it’s still in the forefront of my mind. That said, I liked the writing, and the overall story was gripping, keeping me guessing until the end. It’s a good example of the difference between not liking the characters and/or the plot, and not liking the writing – when it’s the latter, you don’t feel bad about putting the book down and finding something else to do or read.

~ Hopkinson, Nalo. Brown Girl in the Ring (3) (Canada Reads Book #2)
Boring – I felt nothing for the characters, and the plot was not very engaging. The colloquialisms didn’t do much for me, either. I can see this one being the first book eliminated from the competition in February.

~ Wharton, Thomas. Icefields (6.5) (Canada Reads Book #3)
A slow-moving book, much like the glaciers it describes. This isn’t meant in a bad way, as I enjoyed the spare prose [1] and gentle pace of the book very much. Having also been to the glacier and surrounding area described in the book (Jasper and the Columbia Ice Fields), it was kind of cool to learn a little bit about the history of the area. Plus, the whole angel-in-the-ice was intriguing, as was Sarah’s story at the beginning.

~ Haley, Susan Charlotte. How to Start a Charter Airline (6.5)
If it weren’t for the fact that this was my mother’s book club book and I’d picked it up at the library for her, I’d never have heard of this book. It’s a very typically Canadian love story, in that it takes place in a very Canadian local (in a remote community in northern Canada) and dealing with a very Canadian subject (how to provide service to rural and remote communities). And none of the characters were beautiful, perfect people leading perfect lives – they had pasts they were avoiding, tough ones.

~ Quarrington, Paul. King Leary (7) (Canada Reads Book #4)
Although this book was out of print until recently, my library still had an old copy (woo!) King Leary was overwhelmingly sad, about an elderly former pro-hockey player who spends much of the story reminiscing about his career. You expect the grandstanding and the embellishments. What you don’t expect are those quiet moments where he remembers the monks who taught him everything about hockey, and talks about them in a tone of awe. And you always know he’s holding something back even when the people around him aren’t asking him what he’s not saying, but it’s largely because it’s too painful for him to dwell on. [2]

~ Moore, Christopher. Fluke (8)
This is a weird book, even for him. I’d try and explain it, but it would only ruin it for you.

~ Moore, Christopher. Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove (8) [3]
Again with the weirdness! But in a good way!

~ Willig, Lauren. Masque of the Black Tulip (6.5)
Silly, yet fun chicklit/bodice-ripper. Some fun contemporary pop-cult references pop up from time to time.

Okay, so now that I’ve totally bored you with what I read last month, I’m going to hold off on the highs and lows of last year until tomorrow.

[1] Ooooh, look at me, being all scholarly!
[2] I’d like to see this one win Canada reads, but I suspect it’s going to be Not Wanted on the Voyage.
[3] What happened was this – months ago, I loaned Lamb to my mother, who loaned it to my sister, who loaned it to her husband. Many hints were dropped to me that I should bring the rest of my Moore books home for everyone to read.

Overdue books

Man, did I not post the list of books I read in October? I don’t think I did. In fact, I didn’t read many in November either – I started quite a few which I ended up chucking out the window before I finished them. Plus, what with being busy not doing NaNoWriMo and all, it takes a lot out of a girl!

~ Carey, Jacquelin. Kushiel’s Justice (7.5)
I’d been waiting for this one for quite a while, and not patiently either. It was good, and I look forward to the sequel.

~ Chelminski, Rudolph. The Perfectionist: Life and Death in Haute Cuisine (8)
Very good biography of the French chef Bernard Loiseau. Also good insight into the high-stress world of haute cuisine, especially in France, and an explanation of where the Micheline Guide came from. Excellent!

~ Lukyanenko, Sergi. Night Watch (6)
It was good at first, and then it started to repeat itself over and over again. The second book isn’t a whole lot better – I’ve been stuck on it for over a month for the same reason.

We’re to the end of October here. I recall that there were a few other books started and discarded around this point, including a few I started and put down and ignored.

~ Gabaldon, Diana. Lord John and the Brotherhood of the Blade (8)
The first thing I want to say is that there was a plot…twist? [1] that left me gobsmacked for the better part of a day. That said, I’m glad she’s writing books from the perspective of one of the darker characters from the Outlander series and making him so very human and sympathetic. There’s also a book of short stories about Lord John which I just got this week. I might save it for the trip home at Christmas.

~ Strohmeyer, Sarah. The Sleeping Beauty Proposal. (5)
Why oh why did I finish this book? It frustrated me at the time, so I must have been bored.

~ Cabot, Meg. Size 14 is Not Fat Either (6.5)
Also heavy on fluff, but soothing, brain-numbing fluff. And it’s not just that – I like Meg Cabot, and I wish she would write faster!

~ Barker, Clive. Mister B. Gone (3)
It was like a grown-up version of There’s a Monster At The End of This Book, starring Grover. It can be summed up thusly: “Oooooh, I’m a scary demon – boo! – and I really live in this book, and I want you to burn it! Why aren’t you burning it? I know where you live and I’ll come and get you! Oh, not really – just kidding!”

And I think there was another abandoned book in here, and I can’t remember it. Wait – got it…

~Moore, Christopher. The Stupidest Angel. (9)
It’s a Christmas book, featuring a dead Santa and zombies! What’s not to love about that!?!? (And it’s Moore, so you know it’s going to be funny.)

So I suppose at some point I’m going to have to go through and pick which ones I liked the best. Okay… check back next week and I’ll see what I’ve come up with.

[1] It wasn’t a twist, really, but a surprise.

Bookish musings

Earlier this week I finished a book I’d been pecking at for the past week or two. It was a good book, and I really enjoyed it; the reason it was taking so long was because I didn’t have a lot of reading time, what with playing on the Wii and catching up on the show I’d missed while away [1]. Oh, and knitting up a storm. So I finished that book, put it back on my shelf and went to get the next book, which was…

Don’t you hate it when that happens? You’re reading a book, and you have a pretty good idea of what you want to read next, or you have a stack of books waiting to to be read. When you finish that book, you can move on immediately to the next one on the shelf/stack. [2] However, this time I was caught between reading lists/stacks, so I didn’t know what to read. Honestly, I wandered around for a day in a fog because I needed to read something, but I didn’t know what.[3]

Fortunately, I remembered that I’d been saving The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko, and I’ve been happily engaged with it since Tuesday. It’s very good, and so far it only bears a passing resemblance to the movie. [4]

Incidentally, I know I haven’t posted my list of books I read last night, and there’s a good reason for that: I can’t find the notebook I record them in. It’s also problematic because I have a couple of other books to write down in it (I’m paranoid that I’ll loose the post-it notes I’m using to keep track of them.) All I can tell you is that the Stephen Fry book I put in the August read list was actually read in September. It was a terrible error, I accept responsibility for my actions, and I promise to not let it happen again.

(Insert non-threatening musical interlude)

I just went upstairs to fetch the power cord for my laptop (I’m sitting at the dining room table, and the battery was running low) and – lo and behold! – found my notebook under a stack of papers that had fallen over.

~ Lee Gowan, The Last Cowboy (7)
I was expecting slapstick and goofiness; instead, I got sad, beautiful poignancy (is that a word? Spell check says “yes”!) Genius.

~ Meghan McCaffery, Sloppy Firsts (7.5)
Very teen-agnsty. Marcus, the male “interest”, reminded me a lot of all of Sarah Dessen’s male “interest” characters.

~ Penn Jillett, Sock (6)
I can’t think of any other way of describing this book except to say it was a very muscular read. The narrator is a sock monkey, which might normally have you rolling your eyes, but it was very well done. The narration itself was very choppy, with a lot of pop culture references. Although it had a strong beginning, I thought it started dragging some by the end.

~ Susan Elizabeth Phillips, Natural Born Charmer (7)
Despite the fact that the plot elements were almost identical to every other book she’s written, I still love her books. Is this how people who love Danielle Steele and John Grisham feel?

~ Timothy Taylor, Stanley Park (8.5)
While I don’t think I completely understood the significance of the case of the murdered children, or the Professor’s research, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I know John of The Book Mine Set didn’t like this one when he read it for Canada Reads last year, but having read a plethora of books about chefs and restaurants and the challenges of working in a professional kitchen, I have a completely different perspective on his actions at the end of the story.

And that was it for the month. Based on my “finished” date for the last one, it was around the time things started heating up at work, and I didn’t have a lot of time for reading.

[1] I have a PVR for my dish. It was an extravagance, but worth it.
[2] Anyone? Anyone? Or am I the only one who goes through books that fast?
[3] Again, this may be a problem unique to me and a very few other book nerds.
[4] Which was AWESOME. Seriously – it made the special effects in The Matrix look cheap and poorly executed.

Well-read in August

Damn it. I just lost the post I’d started writing about what I read last month. And I just remembered I was supposed to call my sister tonight. Double damn. Sorry Rachelle!

Anyhoodle… on with the list!

~ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (7)
The biggest disappointment about this book was that I didn’t try to get a copy the first weekend it came out so that I could participate in the grand shared experience of spending the weekend (or, in my case, the afternoon and evening) reading this book. As to the book, I liked it – it was darker and more intense. I thought the characters matured a lot, and that Ron got in some great one-liners (there was one about how impressing girl witches wasn’t all about “wand work” which had me cracking up). The saddest part was when Harry read Snape’s memories, and finding out where his patronus came from. However, I felt the epilogue was too short and rushed; there were a lot of other characters I would have liked finding out about. On the other hand, it gives me free reign to cling to the belief that Percy Weasley got a job at his brother’s joke shop eventually.

~ Jeffery Eugenidies, Middlesex (8.5)
This was a book club book. At first, I was concerned that I wouldn’t like it as much as I remembered (I stayed up all night reading it); fortunately, it was as good the second time around.

~Olivia Goldsmith, Dumping Billy (5.5)
After all that heavy reading, I needed something light and fluffy.

~ Alan Moore et al, The Watchmen (7.5)
Kind of creepy. The pirate story was seriously disturbing, but it was interesting to see “superheros” made out to be normal humans with flaws and appetites.

~ Neil Gaiman, Stardust (8.5)
It was like reading an olde-fashioned faerie tale written by someone with a sense of humour. It was the first book of his I read lo those many years ago (Neverwhere was the second). The movie, which took several liberties with the book, was also pretty awesome.

~ Ami McKay, The Birth House (8.5)
This is going to be our next book club book. A beautiful story about a midwife in rural Nova Scotia in the early 20th century.

~ Lauren Willig, The Secret History of the Pink Carnation (6.5)
Cheesy and a little over-the-top, all the while winking at the reader and wallowing in its bodice-ripping moments.

~ Stephen Fry, The Liar (8)
Dry, witty, and devious. Andrian Healey reminds me a lot of Nick Twisp, of the book Youth in Revolt. One of the characters is in the habit of recording messages for broadcast on the BBC, and all I could think was, “hey! He’s an early adopter of podcasting!” God, I am such a geek.

Oh Summer, where are you going?

Seriously – one minute it was early June, then I blinked and all of a sudden it’s mid-August and the days seem shorter and the nights cooler. Pretty soon I’m going to have to remember where I put my snow shovel and figure out where I’m going to put all my clay pots from outside. Yeesh.

It’s been a busy summer, though. Between knitting and reading and bike rides and knitting and watching movies, time has fairly flown. And there’s only been a few really hot and humid days (by northern standards – they don’t come close to hot and humid days in the south, where we have two Great Lakes worth of humidity to contend with.) Overall, it’s been pretty quiet and unexciting, which is just the way I like it.

So here’s what I read in July:

~ Janet Evanovich, Metro Girl (5) – Why is it that complete amatures solve more crimes than the professionals? Otherwise, a fun, mindless read.

~ Jacquelin Carey, Kushiel’s Dart, Kushiel’s Chosen, Kushiel’s Avatar, Kushiel’s Scion – I tried reading the first book a few years ago, but gave up because I was too preoccupied with other things, and not able to focus on the action. Had I held on for a few more chapters, I would have found that it picked up considerably. Not that it was boring – the opposite, in fact – there was so much detail and so many plots, it was hard to keep track of them all at the time. This time, I breezed through the first book without much difficulty, and practically whipped through the next three books in the series, which was surprisingly good. I hadn’t expected much, and was pleasantly proven wrong.

~ J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (6) – Before I could read the last Harry Potter book, I had to reread the sixth book because I couldn’t remember what happened in this one. It was pretty much as I remembered it – Harry was a complete tool towards everyone, and I really didn’t think Snape was as evil as everyone said he was.

Right now, I’m still plugging away at my book club book, even though book club was last weekend (I read the book a few years ago, so I know what happens!)

Now I’m all nostalgic

The other day I wrote about it being summer (officially) now, and since then I started reflecting on all the memorable books I’d read (or tried to read) during summers past. Part of me wants to go back and reread a lot of them, and another part of me knows that I’ll never be able to recapture whatever it was that made it so memorable. And yet another part of me (I am large and I contain multitudes) bitch slaps the second part and tells it to stop being such a negative, whiny twerp.

The summer I was 8, I hid in the family camper and read Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Chronicles. From that point on, I was hopelessly hooked on the whole Fantasy genre.

The summer I was 12, I broke my leg and spent the better part of July and August in a cast. I’d been reading The Hobbit at the time, and the worst part of the hospital stay was not having anything to read while I was there. Because I didn’t have anything else to do, I read the whole Lord of the Rings series, and loved it. I started The Simarilion, and was getting bored when the cast finally came off.

I can’t remember how old I was the summer I read The Thornbirds (probably not old enough) and then moved on to other Collen McCullough books. I know I was on vacation at my grandparent’s in New Brunswick, and that I wasn’t really old enough to understand what was going on. I just remember that they were incredibly detailed and full of historical details.

Also while I was in NB one summer, I’d picked up The Handmaid’s Tale at a bookstore in Halifax (we started in Nova Scotia, and made our way north.) I know I was 16 at the time, and was intrigued by the book. For a long time, it was the only Margaret Atwood book I liked until I read Wilderness Tips, which is a collection of short stories about the great outdoors.

Then there were the summers between the end of high school and the start of grad school where I found new authors that I grew to love – Elizabeth Peters, Laurie R. King, Dorothy R. Sayers, Spider Robinson, Diane Mott Davidson, Piers Anthony (who I now despise because he is a dirty old man), Laurence Sanders.

There have been a couple of summers where I tried to get past the first book of Stephen R. Donaldson’s [1] Lord Foul’s Bane series. I tried three times, and couldn’t – the protagonist is so bitter and unlikeable (and a whiny bitch to boot) that I don’t even try anymore.

The summer between first and second year of library school, I had three separate memorable reading experiences. The first came on the last day of class, when I’d handed in my last assignment and had no exams left; a friend had loaned me the first three Harry Potter books (Harry Potter was just starting to get big then, but we hadn’t noticed) and I ran home from the library to start reading them. I had a migraine, and I intended to read until it got too bad, but I stopped noticing after the first 100 pages. Finally, at midnight, I finished the second book [2], put it down, and said, “wow.”

The second incident came a few weeks later. The same friend who loaned me the Harry Potter books suggested I might want to try Guy Gavriel Kay, specifically the Fionavar Tapestry. It’s three books, and they form the mythical/historical/semi-religious basis for a lot of his other books. I had never been so emotionally moved by a book until that point – there was one point during the story where I had to stop reading, put the book down, and walk away because I was so upset.[3] So, thanks Stuart – you got two thumbs way up for your recommendations that summer!

The third incident came later in the summer, at the Spring Garden branch of the library. Browsing through the new arrivals, a page was shelving books and asked if I was looking for something. I wasn’t really – I read all the Kay’s the library had and was waiting for others to arrive from other branches. He handed me a book and said, “Here – try this guy. He writes comic books, but this is a really good novel.” Since that day, I’ve wished a million blessings on that kid’s head because I don’t know how I would have found Neil Gaiman otherwise. Neverwhere was the first book I’d ever read from cover to cover two times in a row, and I can’t wait until the movie for Stardust comes out.

The last few summers haven’t seen anything really memorable, maybe because the summer doesn’t have the same meaning as it used to – a break between school years. Whatever I’m doing in the summer, I’ll still be doing it in the fall, the winter and next spring, so there’s not an urgency to get a lot of reading in while I can, before I have to start reading for classes again. I haven’t really taken any vacation time during the summer, and I’m not planning to in the foreseeable future [4]. This just means that there isn’t a chunk of time I get to sit around and do nothing but read. Which is what I plan on doing this weekend, because it’s going to rain anyways.

On that note, here’s what I read in June:

~ Fiona Patton, The Granite Shield and The Stone Prince (both 6). Nothing special, but lots of detail.
~ Anthony Bidulka, Flight of Aquavit (6). A nice, easy read – predictable, yet palatable.
~ Christopher Moore, A Dirty Job (8). For book club; even though I read it this past October, it was still pretty funny.
~ Adriana Trigiani, Rococo (4). I can’t tell you what posessed me to read this, let alone finish it. It wasn’t offensively bad or terribly written, it just didn’t interest me.
~ Mark Haddon, A Spot of Bother (9). Loved this book! The family all meant well, and just had trouble expressing it.
~ Brad Smtih, Big Man Coming Down the Road (8.5). I liked the fact I recognized a lot of the geography, and a specific incident alluded to in the story. Oh, and it’s a great modern western – y’all should read it!

[1] It seems like a lot of the authors I like have the middle initial R. I wonder if there’s a reason…
[2] Have I ever mentioned I read fast? Like, 100 pages an hour on average, remembering most of what I read. And yes, I’m bragging.
[3] And no, I won’t tell you why. Go read the book yourself!
[4] I know – gasp! People keep asking my why, and I just tell them it’s because it’s hot, I don’t have air conditioning, so I’d rather be inside where it is. Plus, I’d rather take time off in the fall, when everyone is back from their summer vacations.

May’s Read Books

I haven’t been all that good a blogger lately. I blame it on the fact I now have a real backyard all to myself! With real gardens! And I can plant things in it! And it needs to be weeded! A lot, in fact! But! Plants and flowers! Wow! [1] Most evenings, I come home after work, acknowledge the existence of the cat, get changed into my grubby gardening clothes, and spend an hour or so out there. When I come inside, I eat, and then collapse on the nearest flat surface until it’s time to haul myself upstairs and collapse onto the flat surface that is my bed. Long story wrapped up – the blog has fallen to the wayside for the moment, along with other leisure activities like “housekeeping” [2] and “laundry” [3]. Also, I haven’t had a whole weekend to myself in weeks, and it’s going to be weeks until I do [4].

Reading this over again, I thought it sounds like I might be creatively and mentally drained by now; oddly, the opposite is true. I have three or four simultaneous knitting projects on the needles at the moment, including two pair of socks [6], a scarf and two baby projects. Then there’s the whole garden thing – already I’m making notes on what’s working and what isn’t for next year [7]. I also did some home decorating-type things – I set up what I like to call my “outer sanctum” in my porch for those (eventual) Saturday mornings to sit and drink coffee and read, or evenings to drink gin and tonics and read.

Finally, May was the month where I almost as many books in five weeks as I had all year so far.

~ Jeffery Moore, The Memory Artist (8)
A heartbreaking book about synthanesia and Alzheimer’s. It’s told from different perspectives, as if reading a journal compiled by the doctor who is studying the mother (Alzheimer’s) and the son (synthanesia); the doctor is a pompous ass, and the five protagonists as his lab rats, who succeed anyways.

~ Sarah Waters, Fingersmith (7)
At the first surprise plot twist, I had the strongest feeling of deja vu – I’d either read this book before, or I’d read a similar one in the past few years, before I started keeping track of what I read (this is year three). Very Victorian, very gothic, and pretty good.

~ Alexander McCall Smith, No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency (8)
Okay, okay – I finally succumbed to the pressure of just about everyone, and was pleased to find I actually liked this one. Plain, simple, few distractions.

~ Tanya Huff, Smoke and Mirrors (7.5) and Smoke and Ashes (7.5)
A few years ago at a convention where I got to meet her and sign a book of hers I’d just bought [8]. She’s a lovely person, funny as hell, and I would read the phone book if she wrote it. These two are a continuation of the Henry Fitzroy/Blood series (so far there are three in this series.)

~ Stephanie Meyers, Twilight (7)
For a while, I was on a vampire tear. I thought the protagonist was naive and kind of dense, and the whole thing was repetitive [9]; still, I was disappointed when I finished this book.

~ Sam Enthoven, The Black Tattoo (3)
If you read this book, you won’t need ever read any classic British sci-fi/fantasy books because this one does a great job of borrowing bits and pieces from all of them.

~ Tanya Huff, Long Hot Summoning (6)
The last in the Keeper Chronicles, and the one that drags on at the end.

~ Fiona Patton, The Golden Sword (6)
Didn’t care much for the protagonist, but it was one of those fantasy books you don’t need to have read the three previous books in the series to know what’s going on.

~ Anthony Bidulka, Amuse Bouche (6.5)
Given that the title hints at a possible foodie angle, I was disappointed that it wasn’t about crime in the kitchen world. It was a fairly solid book once I got past that, a bit predictable, yet well-paced.

[1] And, with that, I officially use up my quota of exclamation marks for the month.
[2] Lordy, you should see the cat hair everywhere… on the other hand, maybe not…
[3] My flimsy excuse for this is I like to hang it on the clothes line instead of using the drier, so there has to be enough daylight left for me to do it.
[4] A single day here and there, but nothing so decadent as two! whole! days! [5]
[5] Aaaand now I start on next month’s quota of exclamation marks.
[6] Normally, I’m lucky if I can focus on one at a time.
[7] i.e. working: snapdragons as a border, the begonias; not working: planting the impatience too early, the bleeding hearts in their current spot – move them to the front next spring because now they’re almost completely hidden by The Hosta That Ate My Garden and The Iris That’s Helping It.
[8] It was also the same convention where I got to stand in line for four hours to get Neil Gaiman to autograph a couple of books for me. It was the best four hours ever, and I still swoon when I hear him do readings.
[9] “I love you!” “I love you too, but you should be scared of me! Grrr!” “I know! But I still love you!” “I love you too, but…” etc.