Books read in 2010, organized by genre alphabetically with links to reviews.

Books read in 2009, organized by genre alphabetically with links to reviews.

( I think I'm addicted to making lists )

Updated bi-weekly, roughly.


If you wish to add me as a friend, this is a good an entry to ask me if I'll add you back. I read my friends' page and comment fairly regularly.

I just got an email that I have been accepted into Robert Gordon University for a Masters in Information Management and Library Studies. I will start in September 2010 and graduate in December 2011.

I now have to empty out my US bank account of my student loan to pay the deposit for the course. This week I need to get moving and apply for the university merit scholarship for the course and send a letter to Robert C. Byrd pleading with him to give me the last year of the scholarship he awarded me. I didn't get it because I graduated early--yay, punishment for being on top of things? I need to research individual scholarships but there are very few for non-US schools. I also have to fill out the FAFSA, even though again I probably won't get any aid because I'm not a US or a UK resident. I am an Orwellian unperson as far as financial aid goes.

But it's a good idea. Right now I only qualify for jobs that pay 16,000 pounds per year tops. I wouldn't be able to go to uni for nearly free until September 2013, meaning I wouldn't qualify to make a job with a proper wage (22,000 and up) until 2015. Now by the end of 2012 I should be able to find sound employment, and by then the market should be better.

I have no idea how I'll pay for it, but there you go.

11. The Looking Glass Wars - Frank Beddor - 384 pages (3 stars)

This is an interesting young adult start to a series. It is a re-telling of Alice and Wonderland without a lot of the surrealism--it has morphed into a young adult series that has both elements of science fiction and fantasy, and I'm still on the fence as to how I feel about it.

The premise of the story is that the Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass stories that we know are false lies cobbled together by Reverend Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. Alice, or Alyss Heart as her name is in Wonderland, started as a princess in Wonderland, but after a coup by her Aunt Redd, who toppled Alyss's mother Guinevere from the throne, Alyss finds herself in our world and is adopted by the Liddell family.

Wonderland has the elements of the Wonderland we know, but they are shifted. The Mad Hatter is actually a bodyguard of the Millinery named Hatter Madigan, and fights with wrist knives. it also has a scientific bent. The Caterpillars are oracles who sound hilariously like the Beatles in the audiobook version. The White Rabbit is an albino tutor of Alyss's. Jabberwocky are beasts that live in lava lands.

Wonderland also has elements of science fiction. They have electricity far before the Earth we know does, and I remember a mention or two of nanorobots (yes, odd, I know). The cover of the UK version screams science fiction to me, from the giant mushrooms to the robot-looking card soldiers. But the focus is on the power the imagination holds the fight between White and Black imagination (or magic). With the Victorian setting, it even has a whiff of steampunk to it as well.

I did find the way Beddor integrated his various sources interesting. He wove together true facts from Carroll's life, such as his friendship with Alice Liddell, as well as utlising many of the characters from the original novels.

But for all of that, the novel didn't sit well with me. I love the original sources and the strange, dreamy opium-fueled atmosphere of wonderland. The atmosphere wasn’t in Beddor’s version. Everything has been sensationalized. The Mad Hatter is no longer a satire on how men will drive themselves insane for their profession (the glue for the hats drove many hatters insane in the Victorian Era), and instead he’s the sleek talented fighter-protector you get in nearly every fantasy novel. The series cheapens the original. Evidently they’re making this into a film (probably Beddor’s original plan for writing the books as he’s a film producer), and I can’t help but curl my lip a little at the thought.

I can see why it would appeal to young children, and I’m all for getting the youth to read. It’ll make them pick up and read the originals when they may have not. But I’m tired of this trend of writing fanfiction of literature that is perfectly wonderful on its own, like Carroll’s Wonderland. It will always be his.

10. The Little Prince - Antoine de Saint-Exupery - 96 pages (5 stars)

I read this book a couple of years ago in French, and I decided to read it again in English and see how much of it I actually understood. It turns out I understood it quite well.

This is a wonderful children's book that basically everyone loves. I have never come across someone who didn't love The Little Prince. It's an odd tale to be sure, of a pilot trapped in the Sahara. He has a limited supply of water and is not sure he'll be able to fix his broken plane. Even though he's an adult, in many ways he is still a child at heart. A little prince comes upon him in a desert, and the pilot bonds with him immediately. The prince tells the pilot of the small planet he is from, the flower on it he fell in love with, and his adventures as he visited other planets on his way to Earth, and what happened to him after he landed. You see the child's perspective on various things--greedy men, power-hungry men, drunken men, and animals. The little prince is confused by many of the grownups's antics--like the geographer who will never explore new places or the drunken man who drinks because he is unhappy and is unhappy because he drinks. Through these sad men on their own little planets, we see how silly grownups are and how children see things so clearly.

It's heartwarming and heartbreaking at the same time, and shows how, no matter how old you get, you should never lose that child-like wonder and awe at the universe.

Craig's work had a Christmas do last night at the Maryculter Hotel in Aberdeenshire. I met a bunch of engineers and the head of the company is a millionaire because it's doing so well. The heads of the company are actual human beings, though--even though Craig has no qualifications, they've bumped up his pay from 13,000 to 18,000 in 2 years and regularly give him bonuses. The head gave us 1,000 pounds as a wedding gift! We ate mediocre food and all made fun of the awful music that was playing. We had a pub quiz and even though we were slyly looking up things on Wikipedia on our phones (huzzah, information age), our table still came in 4th out of 8. Oh well!

I wore a red dress and was chosen to draw the raffle prize for the iPod touch. All proceeds went to charity. We didn't win, but someone at our table did, so at least I didn't draw a stranger's number.

I only have a hastily-snapped photo of me, tipsy after we came home, but I love this dress! Plus, I can totally recycle it and wear it on Halloween. I just have to dye my hair blonde and then I can be Caprica Six.



As of Friday, I am unemployed. Whoo! Maybe I'll get a phone call from HR tomorrow, but I doubt it. I've signed up for a temp agency and had my CV put through for a couple of positions there. Oh well. I'll clean, write, and read all day until something comes up. Rough times, rough times.

9. Ingenious Pain - Arthur Miller - 337 pages (5 stars)

I wish I could find a better photo of the cover, because it's one of the prettiest covers I've seen in a long time.

This is a book that I'm puzzled isn't more well-known. It seems to have garnered good reviews when it first came out in the late nineties, but I'd never heard of it before. The novel is about a man who cannot physically feel pain in the mid-seventeenth century. He goes through life not quite living because while he cannot feel pain, he cannot feel pleasure, either. James Dyer is therefore cold and calculating, and becomes a celebrity surgeon because he has no qualms about cutting human flesh. He does not forge friendships, and he's essentially a cold-hearted bastard.

It's excellently written, with good pacing and an intricate plot. Lots of little things about the time period I enjoy are in here--wandering about the countryside and scamming the public, scandal, a crazy wealthy man who insists on collecting oddities, both objects and people. It's one of the best books I've read this year. The quote on the cover by The Times hits it on the nose when it states, "Astoundingly good . . . it shines like a becon among the grey dross of much contemporary fiction."

Also, the author looks exactly how I imagined James Dyer, even before I knew what he looked like. He was foxy when he was younger:

8. Peter & Max: A Fables Novel - Bill Willingham - 400 pages (3 stars)

Fables is one of my favourite graphic novel series. I adore fairy tale re-tellings, especially if they're re-told in a gritty and realistic manner. In the world of Fables, the fairy tale stars have been exiled from their Homelands and are hiding out in a secret neighborhood in New York. They have changed with the times--The Big Bad Wolf (or "Bigby") is a sheriff at the beginning, Prince Charming is a womanizer, etc. It's good fun, even though the entire premise is an allegory for Willingham being pro-Israel. He hasn't let the politics overwhelm the overall story arc, though he's come close a few times.

The politics are in the background in this tie-in novel, Peter and Max, which is about Peter Piper and his brother, a jealous boy who becomes the Pied Piper. Their father ends up giving his magical pipe to Peter, the younger brother, as opposed to Max because Peter is the better player. The pipe can perform magic in times of danger three times for each owner. Max goes wild with envy and the brothers are pitted against each other. One thing that made it stand out from the series is that most of this book is set in the Homelands in flashbacks, rather than our world.

It was a fun read, but reading it made me realize how integral the art and comic book style is to the story--it doesn't work as well as a novel. Fables is like an extended picturebook, juxtaposing the characters we grew up with (although we were mainly spoon-fed the Disney versions) against the very adult concepts explored. The artist for Fables is extraordinary, and the facial expressions and panel breaks truly to add another dimension to the series.



Bill Willingham, while he comes up with good storylines and excellent characters, is not the best of prose-writers. The writing style was juvenile, and were it not for a few references to sex, I almost would have classified it as a young adult novel. At one point in the story, Peter escapes into a town and becomes a thief, but the moral integrity of it was not explored and it ended up reading like an extremely watered down version of The Lies of Locke Lamora.

So while it was fun to dip my foot into the Fables universe for the first time on over a year, I'm far more of a fan of the graphic novel series than the prose spinoffs. I'm hoping they will be sensible and stick to the comics.

In general, I'm against Twitter and have not taken part in it myself, but it can get some cool stuff out onto the web.

Astronauts are tweeting photos of Earth from their space stations. Click here to see them.

My favourite is the one of the Golden Gate Bridge:

Still no word back from the position. I'm beginning to lose hope.They're going to go with someone older and more experienced, or they'll recruit graduates from their own university because that will boost their post-graduate employment rate a wee bit. It was silly to get my hopes up.

It looks like I'll only be able to do more admin work through the temp agency, meaning yet more photocopying and filing. I miss tutoring. I miss helping students. I miss having my brain valued. At these jobs, they see me only as a pair of hands and someone who knows their alphabet and numbers up to 24. Maybe my degree has given me a false sense of entitlement. Maybe I'm too proud and setting my expectations too high.

I wish I could go teach abroad for a year and ride out the recession that way, but I need to stay here to obtain residency for the UK. If I'd realized the job situation would be so empty for me, I probably would have gone abroad for a year or two before immigrating to the UK and Craig could have found drafting work with an American engineering company wherever we ended up going.

At least now, if a good job magically comes along, I'm free to pursue it, and make some paltry money in the meantime to keep us going. I'll be gaining experience in different sectors--a gym affiliated with a university, a law firm, an oil and gas company. And it's only until September. Then I'll be back in university, working towards a career. I still have my whole life ahead of me. I'm just impatient and greedy and want everything to work out right now, rather than in some distant future.

1. Bleached blond hair and spray tans make you look ridiculous in a land where there is no sun, 16-25 year old females.

2. Also, going around in no clothes from Primark in subzero temperatures on a night on the town does not make you look classy.

3. On a similar note: schoolgirls, why do you think it is a good idea to wear your school uniform, but then forget the trousers/skirt and wear opaque black tights and short shorts in the snow?

4. Old Scottish farmers are so cute and stereotypical. They are also nearly impossible to understand on the phone.

5. "Yous" is not a valid substitution for "you." (E.g. "How's yous?") There is no plural second person in English like "vous" in French.

6. Doric can be learned with practice and dedication

7. Chinese and Indian and Turkish takeaways are far superior than in America

8. Living and being around ornate 250 year old granite buildings all the time will never stop being exciting to a Californian who's lived in houses >40 years old her entire life.

I've lived in Scotland for four and a half months already. Been married to Craig 5 months as of today.Time flies when you're having fun?

Organized by genre.

2010:

Fiction:
Butcher, Jim - Storm Front - 352 (3 stars)
Fford, Jasper - Shades of Grey - 480 (3 stars)
Miller, Andrew - Ingenious Pain 337 (5 stars)
Willingham, Bill - Peter and Max: A Fables Novel - 400 (3 stars)

Young adult:
Westerfeld, Scott - The Last Days - 320 (2 stars)

Short story collections:
Atwood, Margaret - Moral Disorder and Other Stories - 272 pages (4 stars)

Nonfiction:
Howell, Michael and Ford, Peter - The True History of the Elephant Man - 213 (5 stars)
Joyce, Allan C. and Janssen, Sarah - Under the Covers and Between the Sheets: The Inside Story Behind Classic Characters, Authors, Unforgettable Phrases, and Unexpected Endings - 165 (5 stars)
Levitt, Stephen and Dubner, Steven - Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance - 288 (3 stars)

Books read: 7
Pages: 2,090
1001 Books: 0
Average page per book: 298
Average pages per day: 67

Not very good, but I was nearly done with a couple of books.

And I'm not sure if I'm going to keep this up all year, but I kept a writing log to see how much I'm actually writing. So far, it's not as much as I'd like, but it's not too shabby considering at least half of the month I was too stressed about my job situation to actually focus and write much:

6,955 words, or 224 words per day. My goal is 250, so I wasn't too far off.

Still no word from the job. I'm working part-time this week. I need to find out soon so I can sign up for a temp agency if I need to. I didn't get an interview for a position at another university, which I find distressing. If I don't get this position, I'll probably just resign myself to temp work until September when I return to university. Sigh.

7. The True History of the Elephant Man - Michael Howell and Peter Ford - 213 pages (5 stars)

Joseph Merrick's life was terrible. It seems that modern day people disparage the Victorian era for not understanding his condition and gawking at him. While it's true that he was in the freakshows because he had no other choice, I would argue that the Victorians treated him far better than they could have, and that today, even with our superior knowledge of medicine, we would gawp no less. His life was wretched, but it could have been far worse were it not for the kindness of others.

Joseph Merrick was born in Victorian England perfectly normal, but as he grew his deformities grew more apparent and more severe. He was driven from his home by a shrewish stepmother, driven from his uncle's home by a shrewish aunt, and then forced to barely survive in a workhouse. He could have chosen to languish in the workhouse, but he chose instead of join the circus and become an attraction in the freakshow. While having people flinch in horror at the sight of him must have been awful mentally, psychically and financially he was far more secure.

Unfortunately, while travelling around mainland Europe, his manager stole his not inconsiderable savings and he was left to limp home to England, where he threw himself upon the mercy of a doctor who had examined him earlier, a Dr. Frederick Treves. And after this, after suffering so much pain, he was able to live the rest of his life in relative comfort thanks to the charity of the Victorian elite.

He had a room in the hospital, the best care he could be given, and he was in time visited by various members of the nobility and even the royalty. For Joseph Merrick by all accounts was as lovely on the inside as he was hideous on the outside. He read, he assembled models of buildings with his one good hand, and he dreamed. It's such a shame that he had to suffer such physical deformities during his life.

This book is well-researched and it is apparent that the authors had respect for both Merrick and Treves. The appendixes at the end are also very fascinating, with a brief autobiography by Merrick himself and an account of Merrick written by Treves. The Elephant Man is an uplifting story about the human spirit and humans will always  find the story of Joseph Merrick heartbreaking and inspiring.

6. Under the Covers and Between the Sheets: The Inside Story Behind Classic Characters, Authors, Unforgettable Phrases, and Unexpected Endings - C. Alan Joyce & Sarah Janssen - 165 pages (5 stars)

My best friend sent me this book for Christmas, and it's definitely one of the funnest nonfiction books of all time if you're a book geek.

The authors share tidbits of authors and the stories behind many of the well-known books we know and love, some of which are more interesting that the book itself. As I was reading it, every page or two I'd go to my husband and go "Hey, did you know...?" After awhile, he told me to shut up because he planned to read the book when I've finished and there's not much point if I quoted the entire thing at him.

The trivia is broken up into several sections:

Shot Out of the Canon
Guilty Pleasures
Young at Heart
Stranger Than Fiction
Off the Page

And each is broken into subsections. I don't have the patience to list all of them, but here are the subsections of Shot out of the Canon:

The Greatest Books Never Written (books that could have been great had they been finished)
Waste Not, Want Not (authors who demanded all of their work be destroyed after their death, such as Emily Dickinson. Good thing their friends were moneygrubbing backstabbers?)
Writing Under the Influence (crack is not whack if you're an author)
The Methods of Their Madness (weird habits authors engaged in to keep writing, such as nudity)
The Blind Reading the Blind (more authors than you would think couldn't read their own books)
Yes, But Is It Art ?s (weird books, such as one without the letter 'e')
Everyone's a Critic (the dirty, snarky things authors said about each other's works. Mark Twain wanting to hit Jane Austen over the skull with her own shin bone is a favourite of mine)

If you love books, odd facts and hilarious tidbits about authors, then this book is a must-have for you. The authors do an excellent job of organizing the information, which isn't too surprising considering both of them are editors of The World Almanac and Book of Facts. It's a book I'll re-read every 5 years or so to give me a refresher on just how freaking weird most authors are, and how so much of the "biz" is pure, dumb luck.

5. Moral Disorder - Margaret Atwood - 272 pages (4 stars)

Margaret Atwood is my go-to girl when I want to read a book I know will be good. This is a structure I'm interested in--interconnected short stories. Together, they have an overarching theme and arc, but they're complete each in their own right.

Moral Disorder at first glance seems almost haphazard. There's a story set in contemporary times, an d then an ancestor of that main character voices the rest of the collection. The stories weave their way through the decades, from the 30s to the present day. Nell describes her aimless vagabond youth, where she traveled from city to city, never able to settle down. When she finally does settle down, it's in a creaky old farmhouse in the Canadian countryside with another woman's husband. She grows and develops through the story, although she's always a slightly sad, pitiful character.

The stories have an odd feeling to them...whimsical or dreamy, perhaps? They're like memories, with flashes of vivid details, and others that are hazy. Sometimes the endings snap to a close, or they fade and fizzle.

It's a story about family history. Usually, I find those boring. But Atwood writes so well that she could write about the history of carp migrations and I would probably read it.

4. Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes, and Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance - Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner - 288 pages (3 stars)

Several years ago, Freakonomics was one of those books everyone was reading. Levitt took modern events--how names affect an individual later on, why it doesn't pay to attend a better school, and how the legalization of abortion helped to lower crime. I didn't find it to be the eye-opening book many others did, but it was a light, enjoyable read.

The second book delivers more of the same, such as explaining reasons as to why there is a gap in gender wages (usually because the women are less driven because of family--why work 70-80 hours after you've had a child?), and what prostitutes have in common with mall Santas (higher demand during the holiday season). The authors examine economic reasons for global warming/cooling, morality, and other sundry topics.

It's a good book for someone with a wide variety of interests. No, there is no theme. Yes, it is just a bunch of events researched and explained by the authors. But it's a fun read and worth it for learning a few new tidbits of information.

3. The Last Days - Scott Westerfeld - 320 pages (2 stars)

Peeps, the predecessor to The Last Days, is one of my favourite vampire novels, and definitely my favourite young adult vampire novel (yes, I'm looking at you, Twilight). Vampirism as a virus created as an evolutionary defense against a bigger predator? Brilliant.

...The Last Days is a huge disappointment after Peeps and my least favourite of any Scott Westerfeld book I've read. In Peeps, Cal, a loveable Southern boy, has to hunt down his ex-girlfriends because he's a carrier for vampirism. He didn't know that and unwittingly infected all of his ladyfriends. Westerfeld gives scientific reasons for all of the vampire stereotypes--love of garlic, fear of crosses, et cetera. It's good fun.

In the sequel, most of the book is about a group of teenagers who decide to start a band, and a crazy vampire is their lead singer. Most of the book is the squabbles they have amongst themselves. It's very juvenile and very boring. As I was reading, I had no idea why I should care. Vampirism is growing more widespread, but the teenagers are too caught up in their own little melodrama to pay it much mind. Finally, near the end, Cal comes into the picture and things grow interesting again, but that's the last 100 pages of the book.

If you loved Peeps, I'd just stop there and not bother reading this one. And if you haven't read Peeps, go and read it.

Last year, I read Nation by Terry Pratchett, which is one of my favourite young adult books. My review of it, which includes a brief synopsis, can be found here. The synopsis:

"This book is difficult to summarize. It is set in an alternate colonial history and follows the story of two young, daring individuals--Ermentrude aka Daphne, relative to the Queen, daughter of a Duke and enthusiastic young scientist, and Mau, the sole survivor of his entire tribe of the Nation following a tsunami. Daphne is traveling on a ship and is washed ashore. Eventually, of course, they interact, and hilarity ensues as they do not understand each other's language and customs. After a time, other survivors start straggling together, and they form a small, new tribe."

Today, The National Theatre in London broadcasted a live performance of the stage adaption of Pratchett's novel. I thoroughly enjoyed it. The actors were well-cast and a lot like how I imagined Daphne and Mau and they were excellently acted. Daphne and Mau played well off each other and the comic timing was brilliant. And, I must say, Mau was rather sexy and I enjoyed watching him run around onstage wearing very little for a couple of hours. 



The set design was interesting. The actors mainly performed on a slightly raised top of a globe, which was set on a rotating stage. They would rotate the stage to change scenes. There were also tall glass panes that could be used for underwater scenes. While I occasionally found the use of puppets distracting, such as one of the newborn babies of the tribe, for the most part they were used effectively. The costumes and set kept the ambiance of the parallel history of Pratchett's vision. 

They stayed fairly true to events. The only major change was a different villain and the inevitable cutting of scenes to streamline the performance. There is some singing and dancing, but it's very restrained, and there's a lot of singing in the book, such as to make beer. The actors in general were very strong. I loved the parrot, Milton, who acted like a meta-charged Fool, "parroting" important lines characters have previously said throughout the play to add more meaning, or to simply add comic relief by saying "arse" or "knickers" at inopportune times:



If it's broadcasted again, though I doubt it will be, I highly recommend viewing it. 

2. Shades of Grey - Jasper Fford - 480 pages (3 stars)

My husband got an advance copy of this in November because he's one of the top five reviewers on Amazon (yay him!). I read it after he finished.

For some reason, it took me absolutely ages to finish this book. I started it in early December and didn't finish it until nearly mid-January. Going to California and moving had something to do with it, but still. I like the premise--supposedly, in the past, humans tried to explore the notion of the healing properties of colours. The plan ended up going awry and now humans see everything in monochrome, unless they can see one colour in varying degrees of strength. What colour you can see and how much of it determines your social status. If a person can see no colour, then they are a Grey on the lowest rung of the social ladder. Those on the highest rung are the Purples. They are trapped social castes wrapped in bureaucratic red tape and the ridiculous rules of a man named Munsell, who, when he wrote his massive rulebook, for some reason decided to ban spoons.

The novel follows the story of Edward Russet, a Red who can see quite a lot of his shade, although he is waiting the offical test to find out what his percentage is. He is trying to court a very shallow girl called Constance, because marrying her would mean moving up-colour and getting a better social standing. Loveless marriages are common. He has to journey with his father from the town Jade-Under-Lime to East Carmine to conduct a chair census to work up demerits from varying misconducts. In East Carmine, Edward gets himself into far more trouble than he anticipated by falling for a Grey, a cardinal sin, and uncovering a plot against the government.

The first half of the book dragged for me. My own personal problem may be that I lack a sense of humour, or that my humour is simply too American. If characters are unrealistic or very dim, I have difficulty following them. If things are too preposterous, I can't suspend my disbelief and I get cranky. I would pick up this book, read ten pages, and then set it down because I've lsot interest.

Two thirds of the way through, the book picked up and I devoured it in one sitting. The characters had developed and once I discovered just how seedy the government was, I was hooked.

...And then the book came to an open ending because it's a trilogy. Damn. I'll read the rest of the trilogy because I know my husband will buy them (he loved it, you can read his review of it here), but I found it lukewarm.

I still haven't heard back from my interview. So frustrating! I did call yesterday and they said that they hadn't heard back from the panel yet. The suspense is killing me.

In other news, I finally have internet at the new flat, so there will be a flurry of updates of book reviews, and within the next month I'll put up some pictures of the flat because I adore it. I've given up on the meme because I just can't be bothered anymore.

Hope everyone is well. I'll be catching up on my friends' list soon.