elkit in wonderland

A New Year, A New Book

The January theme for the reading challenge from Immersive Escapism is a story about immigration or refugees. What to pick? 

Edited to add: the Guardian has 10 suggestions.

Reading Options for Next Year

I tend to be disappointed when I fail to meet a challenge, with the emphasis on FAIL.

So instead, I like looking at challenges as options, with me free to complete as much or as little of them as I please. In this spirit, I am choosing two reading challenges for the coming year, and will just see where they take me:

• the Popsugar Reading Challenge 2017
• the "Minority Report" by Immersive Escapism

Halflings

So I finished about half of the Popsugar 2016 Reading Challenge. Fair enough.

Reading The Year

I signed up the POPSUGAR 2016 Ultimate Reading Challenge. Also joined the relevant Goodreads Group. I'm going to add some ideas for what to read right here. And I am re-ordering the list based on what I've already read (obv. the ones in bold, with the checkmark and the date finished.)

Finished these:

1. A science-fiction novel: The Ghost Brigades, John Scalzi √ Jan 6
2. A book you can finish in a day: The Last Colony, John Scalzi √ Jan 8
3. A book of poetry: Winter Trees, Sylvia Plath √ Jan 10
4. A book that's guaranteed to bring you joy: Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson √ Feb 1
5. A book that takes place during Summer: The God's Eye View, Barry Eisler √ Feb 9
6. A book under 150 pages: We Should All Be Feminists, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie √ Feb 24
7. A murder mystery: Lock In, John Scalzi √ Mar 14
8. A classic from the 20th century: Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier √ Mar 29
9. A book and its prequel: Throne of Jade, Naomi Novik √ April 14
10. A book that's more than 600 pages: Deception on his Mind, Elizabeth George, 750 pages, √ April 18
11. A New York Times bestseller: H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald, √ April 21
12. A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with: H is for Hawk, Helen Macdonald, (falconry) √ April 21
13. A book written by a celebrity: Yes Please, Amy Poehler, √ June 1
14. An autobiography: Shut Up, Legs!: My Wild Ride On and Off the Bike, Jens Voigt, √ June 20
15. A book set in Europe: Imperium, Robert Harris, √ July 8
16. A self-improvement book: Nick Hornby, Ten Years in the Tub √ July 21
17. A book about a road trip: Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter, The Long Earth √ July 31
18. A book that is published in 2016: I'm Judging You: The Do-Better Manual, Luvvie Ajayi √ November 21
19. A book with a protagonist who has your occupation: Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, Robin Sloan √ December 17

Started, but did not finish:

• A National Book Award winner: Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates
• A book written by a comedian: So, Anyway, John Cleese
• A graphic novel: The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage
• The first book you see in a bookstore: The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2015
• A book that takes place on an island: Our Lady of the Islands, Shannon Page and Jay Lake

Never got to these:

• A book based on a fairy tale: Mermaid, Carolyn Turgeon
• A YA bestseller
• A book you haven't read since high school: Animal Farm, George Orwell
• A book set in your home state: Monterey Bay, Lindsay Hatton
• A book translated to English: The Deep Sea Diver's Syndrome, Serge Brussolo, translated from French
• A romance set in the future: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
• A book that's becoming a movie this year:
• A book recommended by someone you just met
• A political memoir
• A book at least 100 years older than you (1861 or earlier): Barchester Towers, Anthony Trollope (1857)
• A book from Oprah's Book Club
• A book recommended by a family member
• A dystopian novel: Ready Player One, Ernest Cline
• A book with a blue cover: Fates and Furies, Lauren Groff
• A book from the library
• A satirical book: Animal Farm, George Orwell

2015 Sugar-coated reading

Let's run my 2015 reading against the POPSUGAR reading challenge list. My recollection might not be perfect, but let's see how I fared. I am going to move all the no's to the bottom of the list, change the list to be numbered, and viola: 

1. A book based on a fairy tale: The Bloody Chamber
2. A book you haven't read since high school: Goethe's Dr. Faustus
3. A book set in your home state: all of Sue Grafton's alphabet series
4. A book translated to English: how about reading it not in English? Goethe's Dr. Faustus
5. A romance set in the future: "The Alchemy of Stone" by Ekaterina Sedia
6. A book set in Europe: Goethe's Dr. Faustus
7. A book under 150 pages: The Bloody Chamber, at 126 pages
8. A New York Times bestseller: "Modern Romance" by Aziz Anzari
9. A self-improvement book: Better than Before
10. A book you can finish in a day: any of the Sue Grafton alphabet series
11. A book written by a celebrity: "Modern Romance" by Aziz Anzari
12. A book at least 100 years older than you: Goethe's Dr. Faustus
13. A science-fiction novel: Michael Crichton's "Next"
14. A book that is published in 2015: David Millar, "The Racer", published in the UK in October
15. A book that takes place during Summer: David Millar's cyclist memoir "The Racer" is mostly set in the summers, during the racing season
16. A book and its prequel: does the alphabet series count? A is the prequel to B and so on.
17. A murder mystery: Sue Grafton alphabet series, P.D. James "The Lighthouse"
18. A book written by a comedian: "Modern Romance" by Aziz Anzari
19. A book with a blue cover: P.D. James, "The Lighthouse"
20. An autobiography: "My Life from Scratch", an autobiography with recipes, woohoo!
21. A book about a culture you're unfamiliar with: "His Majesty's Dragons", about the navy and aviators in the 18th century. And dragons.
22. A book that's guaranteed to bring you joy: I knew I would love "The Racer"
23. A National Book Award winner: nope
24. A YA bestseller: nope
25. A book that's becoming a movie this year: not that I know
26. A book recommended by someone you just met: don't think so
27. A political memoir: nope
28. A book that's more than 600 pages: not even close
29. A book from Oprah's Book Club: nope
30. A book recommended by a family member: nope
31. A graphic novel: nope
32. A book with a protagonist who has your occupation: nope. This is probably the hardest category.
33. A dystopian novel: I don't think so.
34. A book of poetry: nope
35. The first book you see in a bookstore: possibly
36. A classic from the 20th century: nope
37. A book from the library: nope
38. A book about a road trip: no
39. A satirical book: no
40. A book that takes place on an island: no

Not too bad! Considering that most of my reading was murder mysteries and science fiction, and 14 of the 30 books I read were all from the same detective series with the same setting and characters. And still I met more than half of the categories. With a little planning ahead, these forty bits should be fairly easy to check off. 

This Woman's Work

Pondering #readwomen2014. Seems like a good goal, to read more female authors. What should I read next?

Here is a great list of authors to check out. And let's see what's already in my libarry for an easy start:

• Alice Munro's Hateship, Friendship is in my Kindle app
• Dinah Sanders' Discardia would be a great re-read right about now

I've never read anything by Doris Lessing, that would be good to add. Oh, and I've been looking at poetry again recently. Sylvia Plath and Else Lasker-Schüler come to mind. And some more sci-fi would be fun, from Octavia Butler or Ursula Le Guin or Connie Willis. And Margaret Atwood has several newish novels that I have not gotten to.

Science Fiction ... Double Feature

NPR has a reader-voted list of the top 100 science fiction and fantasy novels. Like so many other people, I love checking these out and checking them off. Let's see the tally of the ones I've read:

1. The Lord Of The Rings
2. The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy
3. A Song Of Ice And Fire Series (I read the first and part of the second, but not the whole series yet. Am mightily looking forward to the second season of Game of Thrones on HBO)
4. 1984
5. Fahrenheit 451 (I've probably read everything by Ray Bradbury)
6. The Foundation Trilogy (I've probably also read everything by Isaac Asimov)
7. Brave New World
8. American Gods (I *think* I've read this.)
9. The Princess Bride
10. Animal Farm
11. Neuromancer (and Mona Lisa Overdrive and Count Zero, and almost all his other novels)
12. I, Robot
13. Stranger In A Strange Land
14. Slaughterhouse-Five
15. Frankenstein
16. Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep?
17. The Handmaid's Tale
18. 2001: A Space Odyssey
19. The Stand
20. Snow Crash
21. The Martian Chronicles
22. Watership Down
23. The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress
24. The Time Machine
25. 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea (probably also read everything by Jules Verne when I was a teenager)
26. Flowers For Algernon
27. The War Of The Worlds
28. The Mists Of Avalon
29. The Left Hand Of Darkness
30. I Am Legend
31. The Time Traveler's Wife
32. Journey To The Center Of The Earth
33. The Dispossessed
34. Something Wicked This Way Comes
35. Wicked
36. The Eyre Affair
37. The Illustrated Man
38. Doomsday Book

Seen the movie, haven't read the book:

1. A Clockwork Orange
2. Starship Troopers (for the record, I think it's a really good movie)
3. Contact
4. The Road (I keep trying and failing to read Cormac McCarthy. It's not that I don't like him, but there's so. Much. STUFF. in there that I can't slow down enough in order to really get it. It's just too dense.)

Of all of the listed books, my personal favorites are (in no particular order):

• The Handmaid's Tale
• The Time Traveler's Wife
• The Left Hand Of Darkness
• The Dispossessed
• Fahrenheit 451
• Doomsday Book
• Flowers for Algernon
• Wicked

And other personal sci-fi and fantasy novel favorites that I would add to my list:

• Kindred, Fledgling, and Bloodchild, all by Octavia Butler
• Passage, my favorite Connie Willis
• Engine Summer, by John Crowley
• Little, Big - also by John Crowley. I just got the audiobook read by the author.
• The Sheep Look Up, by John Brunner
• The Stone That Never Came Down, by John Brunner
• The Color of Distance by Amy Thomson
• Moderan (Festung Zehn, in German), by David R. Bunch
• Das Jesus-Video, by Andreas Eschbach ... and ooooh! German Kindle books!!!
• His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass trilogy), by Phillip Pullman

If a zombie romantic comedy and vampire noir count in this category, then I would also add:

• S.G. Browne's Breathers: A Zombie's Lament
• Charlie Huston's Joe Pitt series

Baking. And Reading. (1-5/52)

Oh hai. There you are. Long time no see. Who, me, what I've been up to? Mostly work, which means that, even though I love my job (I work for that fruit company), I don't really want to go near my computer by the time I get home. Also, a fair amount of cooking and baking - we celebrated Rouladenfest a couple of weeks ago, and I baked a Meyer Lemon Shaker Pie and a loaf of bread today, for a friend's birthday. Furthermore, some automated gardening, which is my fancy way of saying that I pick the stuff that's been growing: lemons and arnges, and some of the mizunas and arugulas that are threatening to turn the back yard into a jungle. 

And I've been reading regularly, in bed at night, almost every night. Surprisingly, mostly on my iPhone (yes, I know the iPhone is a computer too). My friend Jason really likes his Kindle, and recommended the free Kindle iPhone app, and mentioned that there are a lot of books to be had for free. I think this includes anything that is in the public domain, which is good news for anyone who likes "older" writers. I've read some Jane Austen, am on Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence right now, and have Anthony Trollope's Palliser series queued up. It's much more pleasant to read on the iPhone's smallish screen than I expected. Even my cat Willow approves. She insists on sitting on top of my sternum when I lie in bed reading, and she is much less bothered by the iPhone than by a comparatively large book that would need both of my hands to hold.  

Here's what I've already finished, some on iPhone Kindle, and some on paper:

• Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
• Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
• Michael Pollan, Food Rules
• Robert Crais, Demolition Angel (a paperback re-read)
• Richard Murphy, Confessions of a Contractor

Are We, We Are, Are We, We Are The Waiting (40/52)

So Juliet, Naked was a winner. And then the next book I read, Await Your Reply, was I think the best novel I read all year. Didn't hurt that I read it on a weekend retreat in Santa Cruz, leisurely, in the sunshine, in view of the Pacific Ocean.

The story starts off with a bang - a man rushes his son to a hospital, in the middle of the night, somewhere in the Midwest (Michigan? I think). The son's severed hand is in a cooler in the backseat. 

Then, before you find out what exactly is going on here (how did the hand get severed, fer Chrissakes?), the next chapter follows a young girl in Ohio, who is leaving her small town with her lover, the man who was her history teacher in the past year. 

In chapter three, we are driving north through Canada with Miles, who is trying to find his long-lost twin brother. 

And then we're thrown back into the life of the son from chapter one, but there's no mention of severed hands, so we must assume this is earlier in the timeline.

I really liked how I got set down in the middle of the story, catching glimpses here and there, without fully knowing what was going on. Slowly, the three strands of narrative come together, but it took me all the way to the end of the book to really get it - which was perfect. GREAT payoff. I think I must read it a second time, now that I've seen the tale unfold all the way to the end. 

Let's Just Get Naked (39/52)

I ordered three novels from amazon.com recently, and the two I've read so far are total winners. Nick Hornby's latest, Juliet, Naked, the one I picked up first, was right up my alley. It's about a nerd who runs a web site devoted to a musician who used to be famous in the Eighties, but hasn't published anything in twenty years. It's about the nerd's girlfriend and their breakup. And it's about the musician and his life. And then these stories connect.

I liked this a lot. I figured I would, because I've liked all of Hornby's previous novels, but it was still a pleasant surprise to dive in and be completely engrossed. 

The novel's info page on amazon.com links to an interview with Nick Hornby. He has loads of interesting things to say about the topics he writes about - well, interesting to me, anyway. 

Meanwhile, I am casting the movie in my head. Oh, and speaking of movies, when I saw An Education recently, I did not realize that Hornby had written the screenplay.