2013: The Year in Books
Here we are, at the end of 2013. It’s time for my Grand Book List, which I skipped last year (as I skipped reading for the most part, but that’s a long story). I’ve read more this year than I have in the past several. It’s possibly the most I’ve ever read. I’m not quite […]
2013 Book #60: Bleak House
Bleak House has been languishing on my bookshelf for years, firmly established in the tl;dr pile. I’m pretty sure it’s even longer than the Game of Thrones books. It certainly took me longer to read. I decided to give it a try after I blazed through several books and wanted to slow down with a long […]
2013 Book #59: Snow Country
Snow Country is a short Japanese novel that’s been on my list for quite a while. It’s another one that Goodreads insisted I’d like, so it kept popping up in my recommendations list. I really should listen to them more often because I really liked this novel. It’s just so short that I read it […]
2013 Book #58: The Magus
The Magus wasn’t at all what I was expecting, and it’s a lesson in Don’t Judge a Book By Its Cover (or its size). It’s a brick of a book, and the name made me think I’d be getting into something like Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, which I loved. But no. It’s nothing like Jonathan Strange and […]
2013 Book #57: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
I checked out The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making from the library on a whim because it looked like it might be fun, and fun is what I needed after the Dust Bowl. I was a bit skeptical, though, because I was burnt, fairly recently, on a kids’ book (Wait. That was […]
2013 Books #54, 55, 56: Wheat Belly, The Worst Hard Time, World War One
Okay, here’s a threefer. You’ve probably figured out by now that I’m generally not a nonfiction reader, though I seem to have turned a 180, or at least a 90, since half of my last six books haven’t been “fake” (as my seventh-graders called fiction Back in the Day). I’m combining them into one big […]
2013 Book #53: Jacob’s Room
I should probably preface this post by noting that Virginia Woolf is one of my Very Favorite Authors. I’m a huge fan. But 50 pages into Jacob’s Room, I was bored to tears. I even read a few reviews on Goodreads to help figure out if the story would ever start. The answer is no. That’s […]
2013 Book #52: Wizard and Glass
Wizard and Glass took me a long time to read. I’m not even sure when I started it, but I’m sure it was well over a year ago. I lost interest about halfway through and put it back on the shelf. It’s the fourth book in Stephen King‘s Dark Tower series, which is still growing on […]
2013 Book #51: The Circle
I seriously considered not even writing about this one since I’ve hit my goal of fifty for the year. I also (though not seriously) considered never touching the internet again, ever. The Circle is scary! With the exception of a couple of Nonrequired Reading introductions, I’m pretty sure this is my first brush with Dave Eggers. I […]
2013 Book #50(!): Zealot
Like you and everyone you know, I heard about Reza Aslan and his book, Zealot, via that awful Fox News interview. The crazy right-wing automatic hatred of everyone with a name from a certain region baffles me. This woman hadn’t even read the book! But I’m not here to talk about that interview, and I’m […]