November 2017 Reads Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

North! Or Be Eaten - Andrew Peterson (2009)
"It is only when we have grown too old that we fail to see that the Maker’s world is swollen with magic - it hides in plain sight in music and water and even bumblebees."

I had read the first of the Wingfeather Saga (On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness) last month and was less than impressed - in fact, I was almost ready to write off the series entirely. However, North! Or Be Eaten changed my mind. Though it's still very much a children's fantasy book, it's darker in tone than the first book, more action-heavy and engaging, explores more character development, and is overall better written. Plus, many of the things that had annoyed me about the first book were absent or toned down in this book. If you weren't excited about the first book in the Wingfeather series, try this one out. I'm planning on finishing the series.

Related Reads
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Snicket)

Time Out for Happiness - Frank Gilbreth Jr (1970)
"'You can't run by me like that, ma'am, You know ladies aren't admitted.'
'I didn't know, Lillie stammered. Then she added, 'What shall I do? I'm the speaker.'
'At the University Club? he chortled. 'If you are, lady, I'm Fanny Brice. This club is for men only.'
And then he put her back out in the rain, where, New York fashion, there weren't any cabs."

Most people are probably aware, at least in name, of the book Cheaper by the Dozen.Written more like a biography, this book is something of a companion book to that classic, and the author (Frank Jr, the eldest boy of the family) takes on a more familiar tone as he relates some pieces of family history and delves into more background and details of the events related in Cheaper by the Dozen and its followup Belles on Their Toes. Most pointedly for me, the history related here really drove home how difficult it was at the turn of the 19th century for women to break into the "men's world" of STEM-related fields.

This book will make  more sense if you've already read the author's original novels (co-written with one of his sisters), but would probably still be an interesting read to those intrigued by American history and the inception of time-motion study.

Related Reads
Cheaper by the Dozen (Gilbreth)
Bells on their Toes (Gilbreth)
Papa Married a Mormon (Fitzgerald)

How to Be a Heroine - Samantha Ellis (2014)
"For a moment I have the alarming thought that maybe I want heroines so I can be their best friend and loyal sidekick without ever facing the challenge of becoming a heroine myself."

This book is part-autobiography, part-English paper. Ellis writes about how her book heroines - from childhood to present day - have shaped her, and goes back to some of her childhood heroines and studies them with a more critical eye. I related to, although didn't necessarily agree with, the author's strong relation to childhood book characters (I'm quite opposite in that I found a kinship with Jane Eyre, while Ellis always strongly related to Cathy Earnshaw). Though I didn't know all the books or authors mentioned, I was still able to follow along, and the book made me think more deeply about how book characters have really influenced me throughout my own life.

Related Reads
Cut Me Loose (Vincent)
The Shelf (Rose)
Reading Lolita in Tehran (Nafisi)

Russian Magic Tales from Pushkin to Platonov [ed. by Robert Chandler] (2013)
"Deep, deep in the forest, between blue forget-me-nots, I'll catch you on my hook, hook you on my line. And soon, stranger, soon, you'll be dancing to my pipe, dancing to my tune."

This compilation includes a rather staggering amount of Russian fairy tales from a wide variety of authors/collectors of oral folktales. The book is divided into different sections, each of which includes detailed backgrounds of the featured authors. This setup, along with the book's inclusion of a strong introduction and helpful footnotes, makes this anthology a must if you're interested in fairy and folk tales and/or Russian Literature of any genre. I found myself recognizing many of the stories from other fairy tale compilations I've read from different parts of the world. The nature of folktales makes some sections of the book feel repetitious, but that's to be expected.

Related Reads
The Juniper Tree: And Other Tales from Grimm

We Never Talk About My Brother [Short Stories] - Peter S. Beagle (2009)
"But it is a curious thing, how certain horrors are so vastly horrible to think about that they simply do not take hold on your imagination at the time, but go almost unnoticed - sooner or later to wake you screaming, surely, but not now."

Given my previous reads by Peter S. Beagle (most notably The Last Unicorn), I was expecting this to be a more fantasy-heavy compilation, but the stories included here are quite mixed and show a wide range of types and genres. I liked all of the stories and really enjoyed a number of them. This is a very worthwhile collection for Peter S. Beagle fans and newcomers alike.

Related Reads:
The Line Between [Short Stories] (Beagle)

Lila - Marilynne Robinson (2014)
"She liked to hear people tell stories. The saddest ones were the best. She wondered if that meant anything at all."

This is the third and final novel of the Gilead trilogy. I found it not quite as good as the preceding novels, but still worth a read. Robinson has a talent for making her characters achingly relatable and strangely understandable.

Related Reads
Gilead (Robinson)
The Grapes of Wrath (Steinbeck)

November 2017 Reads Part 1

We're coming up on the last month of the year and I'm in the middle of a number of series that I still want to finish (or at least continue). This is unusual for me as I don't generally like to start more than one or two series at once... I need to pay better attention as to what books are the first-of-series before I dive into them!

Deep Secret - Diana Wynne Jones (1997)
"'It says,' he said, 'I Am A Hobbit.'" He bowed and walked away. 'In Elvish,' he added as he left."

Confession: this isn't a book that I would've picked out based on the cover or the brief description. But score one for friend recommendations - I'm really glad this was pointed out to me. I found Deep Secret a surprisingly different SciFi-tinged fantasy novel, very English in its wry humor. I often take issue with books that switch points of view between characters, particularly if they're all in first person, but I actually enjoyed the different voices here. And while I struggled to see at first how a book that mashed together centaurs, SciFi conventions, and royal politics could form something cohesive, I was pleasantly surprised.

The only other book I'd previously read by Diana Wynne Jones had been Howl's Moving Castle. I was a bit at a loss where to start with her other works, and now I feel like I've had a good jumping-off point.

Related Reads
Good Omens (Pratchett and Gaiman)
Dune (Herbert)
A Wrinkle in Time (L'Engle)

Home - Marilynne Robinson (2008)
"You must forgive in order to understand. Until you forgive, you defend yourself against the possibility of understanding."

This is a companion novel to Gilead, a favorite that I read earlier in the year. Since Home takes place concurrently, I found myself wishing I'd read it sooner after Gilead so I could make better connections between the books and the core characters. Though Home is written largely from the third-person point of view of Glory, one of Boughton's daughters, not in first-person stream-of-thought journal entries of John Ames as in Gilead, I still found it piercingly relateable, and as deeply calming and lyrical in style as its predecessor.

Related Reads
Gilead (Robinson)
The Little Friend (Tartt)

Everything, Everything - Nicola Yoon (2015)
"Just because you can’t experience everything doesn’t mean you shouldn’t experience anything."

I came into this book with no background, although I'd been seeing a lot of hype around it for some time. It's Young Adult Fiction, which I somehow wasn't expecting, and the format is of journal entries interspersed with occasional lists, drawings, and chat records.

The style wasn't what bothered me, though; it was the romance portion of the plot that seemed too forced and like it was the only catalyst for change (the "girl falls in love and everything changes" trope). The "twist" near the end vaguely disappointed rather than surprised me. Overall, I didn't find the book a bad read - it was easy to get through without feeling overly light, for one, and it's definitely a strong first novel from the author - I just felt it could've gone further in terms of plot.

Related Reads
The Blue Castle (Montgomery)

The Sun is Also a Star - Nicola Yoon (2016)
"Do you think it's funny that both of our favorite memories are about the people we like the least now?" I ask.
"Maybe that's why we dislike them," she says. "The distance between who they were and who they are is so wide, we have no hope of getting them back."

I liked this book better than Yoon's first novel (Everything, Everything). The format here switches between viewpoints of not only the two main characters, but also other minor characters that they run into throughout the day. It feels like there's a lot that could be said about this book; in brief, it explores cultural differences, fate, small actions leading to potentially life-changing consequences, family, and love at first sight.

Related Reads
The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao (Diaz)
Americanah (Adichie)

A Court of Thorns and Roses - Sarah J. Maas (2015)
"You didn't tell me this would happen."
"You didn't ask. So how am I to blame?"

Okay, I have to say it... I wanted to like this more than I did. The first part of the book was very reminiscent of The Hunger Games, though that in itself wasn't necessarily what bothered me (in fact, Fayre's struggle of survival in the real world was one of the highlights for me). For one thing, the characters - especially the main one - seemed too perfect and one-note. But it was the romance portion that was my main sticking point. I found myself honestly confused as to why the main characters were suddenly in love with/attracted to each other. It seemed very forced to me, even with the later (fairy-tale inspired) "explanation" for it. And there was so many instances of sexual tension and situations that I was beginning to feel like I was reading a bodice ripper.

With all that said, I was still intrigued enough by the world and overall story to continue the series. As I read, I was feeling more and more like it would be a struggle to finish, but the book picked up for me in the second half. I'll try to reserve my overall judgement until I get through the entire series.

Related Reads
The Hunger Games (Collins)
Lords and Ladies (Pratchett)
Uprooted (Novik)
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (Clarke)

(Continued in Part 2)

October 2017 Reads Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

On the Beach - Nevil Shute (1957)
"Maybe we've been too silly to deserve a world like this."

This book was fairly depressing and a little hard to get through at times, mostly due to the slow build, but also due to the fatalistic overtones. Perhaps most depressingly, it deals with the subjects of acceptance of death and suicide/euthanasia. All that noted, On The Beach is still a classic of post-apocolyptic literature - unique in that it's set in Australia - and a legitimately realistic, bleak exploration at a potential reality of the aftermath of nuclear war and the end of the human race.

Related Reads:
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Miller)
Earth Abides (Stewart)
The Postman (Brin)

Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! - Amy Schlitz (2007)
"The miller steals the flour, and the baker steals the bread/We're hypocrites and liars - and we all get fed."

This Newbery Award winning book is a collection of 20+ monologues (some of them poetry) written with the intent of having students read and perform them. I found the collection clever and surprisingly moving at times. It includes several asides throughout about medieval life, and it seems like a good introduction to medieval history, society, and social structure for anyone.

Related Reads
The Midwife's Apprentice (Cushman)
The Whipping Boy (Fleischman)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)
(see Bibliography)

Trickster's Choice - Tamora Pierce (2004)
"I don’t trust anyone who feels you should like them because they love themselves so much."

I've previously read two quartet-series by Tamora Pierce (Song of the Lioness and Protector of the Small) and enjoyed them, so I was interested in continuing the storyline with Trickster's Choice. However, I was somewhat disappointed with this book. The protagonist Aly is older than the heroines of previous novels (mid/late teens), and as a reader, I never really felt connected with her or felt like she was in any real danger throughout her adventures. I also found long portions of the book somewhat dragging and a little too neatly-fitting.

That said, I probably will read the sequel since this is a two-part rather than four-part. And there were portions of the book that I found interesting and even clever - for instance, the character Nawat and Aly's lessons from the flock of crows.

Related Reads:
Song of the Lioness Quartet (Pierce)

Riddley Walker -  Russell Hoban (1980)
"Day time it wer then nor not raining but the rain wer in it and the dark is all ways there. The shape of the nite what beartht the day when Canterbury dyd. Hart of the Wud in the hart of the stoan. I cud feal that thing inside us how its afeart of being beartht. I cud feal how every thing is every thing."

The setting and tone of this novel is a strange mishmash of post-apocalyptic and English medieval society. It's written in a curious mix of old/future English from the point of view of the 12-year-old protagonist, who comes of age in the first chapter. The writing style and content makes Riddley Walker a difficult, crude, fascinating, and ultimately rewarding read.

The edition I checked out from the library was not an expanded edition and included no footnotes. I'd really recommend getting the expanded edition and/or using an online guide such as this one to refer to like I did.

Related Reads:
A Clockwork Orange (Burgess)
The Road (McCarthy)
Lord of the Flies (Golding)
The Canterbury Tales (Chaucer)

On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness - Andrew Peterson (2008)
"Even if hope is just a low ember at night, in the morning you can still start a fire." 

This book is the first of a fantasy-adventure series aimed at children. Even with that in mind, when reading I couldn't shake the feeling that it seems like it's trying a bit too hard with its witty descriptions and names such as, "That evil was a nameless evil, an evil whose name was Gnag the Nameless." At times the tone reminded me of a less-clever version of Terry Pratchett novels. I was also a little bothered by what seemed to be a prevalence of gross-out humor and descriptions.

Still, the overall story manages to be interesting enough, and I'm invested in how the characters and story will progress throughout the rest of the series. While the overall tone is humorous, there are still enough serious and even darker moments and themes to give the book substance. My feeling is that this book would shine best as a read-aloud to younger kids.

Related Reads:
A Series of Unfortunate Events (Snickett)

October 2017 Reads Part 1

Quick note before I get into reviews: in October, I finally started to make use of my GoodReads account. In the past, I'd misunderstood the purpose of GoodReads - I thought that I would have to somehow log every book I've ever read on it, and that I'd constantly have to be updating my progress for every book I read, which isn't practical with the amount I'm reading. But! After actually exploring a bit more, I realized that users don't actually have to "update progress" for books they're reading. I spent some time entering in the books I've read since 2014 (the year I started keeping track in list form), which took a bit of time, but was easier than I'd thought. So far, GoodReads has been really useful for sorting and organizing my books and seeing them in visual groups. And I haven't found it tedious to mark what I'm "Currently Reading" when I start a new book, even though I sometimes finish a book in less than a day.

Aside from jumping onto the GoodReads learning curve, I read a really varied mix of books in October. Out of the nine books I read and the one that I started at the end of the month, five (half of them) were the first books of series. I generally avoid starting more than one or two series at a time, but somehow it worked out that a number of the books that I reserved to check out from the library were part of series. I actually didn't mind as much as I thought.

Sleeping Giants - Sylvain Neuvel (2016)
"If you left a weapon with someone so they could defend themselves, and you found out they were killing each other with it, you'd probably want to take it back or get rid of it."

The format here is different and interesting - the author tells the story through interviews, journal entries, and transcribed audio logs from a handful of characters. Though I didn't love all the different voices, I liked the unique style and will probably read the other books in the series. And while the book is definitely SciFi, I felt it would be quite accessible for non-SciFi readers. Sleeping Giants is largely an exploration of cost vs benefits (the needs of many outweighing needs of the few) in the context of war, and I assume that line will continue in the next book in the series.

Related Reads
The Martian (Weir)
Three-Body Problem (Liu)

My Family and Other Animals - Gerald Durrell (1956)
"Gradually the magic of the island settled over us as gently and clingingly as pollen. Each day had a tranquility, a timelessness, about it, so that you wished it would never end. But then the dark skin of the night would peel off and there would be a fresh day waiting for us, glossy and colorful as a child's transfer and with the same tinge of unreality."

This book was absolutely a joy to read. It's a recounting of the author's childhood spent in Corfu, and the writing is chock-full of lavish descriptions and childlike wonder. I loved exploring the outdoors and observing bugs and animals as a child, so I really related to the author's experiences. Some might understandably find the constant descriptions all a bit too much and the portrayal of the author's family members and family friends a little jarring. For me, though, the aura of the book is truly magical, and I'm eager to read more by Durrell.

Related Reads:
Belles on their Toes (Gilbreth)
Rascal (North)
Boy (Dahl)
Surprise Island (Warner)

It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle - Mark Wolynn (2016)
"Our core language insists on being heard. When we follow where it leads and hear its story, it has the power to defuse our deepest fears."

In order to really get the best understanding of this book as possible, I took copious notes while reading and completed the included exercises. I found the book generally well-written. However (and it's a big however) - I just couldn't buy into the author's overall thesis that family trauma is clearly passed down generationally to the extent that he postulates. Certain elements I could accept - such as the fact that a child born after their mother had traumatic experiences while pregnant may have higher instances of PTSD, and that a child who observed his parents live through trauma may experience similar feelings of trauma later in life - but other examples used just felt like too much of a stretch, and I didn't find his reasoning for these well-explained. I also was bothered by the author's strong and constant advice to forgive and accept one's parents; while what he says about reconciliation is true in many cases, he doesn't allow for cases of genuinely toxic or dangerous family members.

The bottom line for me: the book is helpful in the general sense of giving some advice that's good overall (forgive family members, release bad memories, explore your family's history for deeper understanding of trends), and some of the family explorations, connections, and exercises are interesting to think about, but I remain unconvinced of his overall methods. For instance, in some of his exercises, he has you trace an issue in your life (panic attacks and claustrophobia coupled with a fear of dying alone, for instance) to a possible family member who had a related experience (say, you find that your grandfather died trapped in an elevator, where he would have had feelings of panic, claustrophobia, and he died alone). He then has you go through mindfulness exercises where you basically confront your fear, visualize talking to your deceased relative, and release the fear "back to where it originated from." Perhaps my main issue with this form of therapy is largely me not buying into it, though; I wouldn't go so far as to say that it couldn't be useful for those who are able to relate to it.

Related Reads:
The Body Keeps the Score (Van der Kolk)
(See Bibliography)

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers - Mary Roach (2003)
"I like the term 'decedent.' It's as though the man weren't dead, but merely involved in some sort of protracted legal dispute. For evident reasons, mortuary science is awash with euphemisms.... Decomposed brain that filters down through a damaged skull and bubbles out the nose is 'frothy purge.'"

If you're into history, interested in crime investigation, or are a doctor, you'll find this book especially interesting. I'm not a terribly squeamish person, but I had a little trouble getting through the book; I was doing all right until nearer to the end where there's a chapter on cannibalism. The author maintains a sense of humor that's necessary in her unflinching exploration of what happens to bodies after death (especially those donated to science), but sometimes it felt a bit jarring. I did appreciate that Roach talks about her own experiences regarding the death of her mother. The book is overall pretty fascinating and obviously highly researched, but I wouldn't recommend it to the faint of stomach.

Related Reads:
(See Bibliography)

(to be continued in Part 2)

September 2017 Reads

I was traveling during the first half of September and thus got a little less reading done last month than usual. But I managed two good short-story collections as well as another Discworld novel and a free short Kindle book!

Late Victorian Gothic Tales - Edited/Intro by Roger Luckhurst (2005)
"And yet it was not the mystery, but the comedy of suffering that struck him; its absolute uselessness, its grotesque want of meaning. How incoherent everything seemed! How lacking in all harmony! He was amazed at the discord between the shallow optimism of the day, and the real facts of existence. He was still very young."

With a long and detailed introduction as well as a long list of resources, this collection stands up as a good mix of stories from a very specific slice of time. I appreciated that the 12 stories/novellas here included offerings from both male and female authors - some well-known (e.g. Kipling, Wilde, Doyle) and some I'd not come across before (Bithia Mary Croker). The general collection gives a good sense of the atmosphere of the genre of a whole as well as the 10-year slot that the stories here fit into. Pick this up if you're at all interested in Gothic literature, appreciative of late 19th-century writers, or want to get a little more background to forerunners like Poe or later authors like H. P. Lovecraft.

Related Reads:
(See compilation given by the editor)

Interesting Times - Terry Pratchett (1994)
"Adventure! People talked about the idea as if it was something worthwhile, rather than a mess of bad food, no sleep, and strange people inexplicably trying to stick pointed objects in bits of you."

I found this offering by Pratchett (the 4th in the Rincewind/Wizards timeline) a little harder to read than others of the Discworld series due to the proliferation of footnotes, asides, and representations of different languages and cultures for the "cross-cultural" aspect. However, it was still a fun read and left me wanting more Discworld stories.

Insistence of Vision - David Brin [Short Story Collection] (2016)
"To live, we must think. Our thoughts must encompass the entire range of possibility."

Unlike the bulk of other SciFi short stories I've come across (Philip K. Dick collections, for instance), Brin's stories aren't short and snappy pieces so much as slices of larger worlds. The general feeling I got after reading most of the pieces here was that of wanting to hear more. I wouldn't say this is a generally undesirable thing, it's just different. And some stories in Insistence are based off and related to his other works (which helps explain some of those feelings).

While I wouldn't necessarily recommend this collection to someone completely unfamiliar with Science Fiction, I enjoyed it overall. Those who are already David Brin fans - or who've read a good amount of SciFi already - will probably find this a good addition to round out their library. I also appreciated reading the author's thoughts via a couple of essay like pieces and occasional between-chapters commentary.

Related Reads:
The Postman (Brin)
The Oxford Book of Science Fiction Stories

The Female Soldier, or The Surprising Life and Adventures of Hannah Snell (1750)
"These Reflections must possess the Reader with generous Sentiments of this our Heroine, who by her Subtlety, and ready Inventions, destroyed in the Embrio every Thing advanced by her Fellow-Shipmates that she imagined might be a Means of exposing her Virtue."

I had this on my to-read list for quite a long time before it occurred to me to check if it was available for free on Kindle (spoiler: yes!). This little book is a fascinating, not entirely credible, ostensibly from-the-source account of an Englishwoman who disguised herself as a man and served in the Royal Marines in the early 1700's. Stylistically, it's very "of its time", with embellishments and assurances of Hannah's Female Virtue abounding and all Nouns capitalized. This makes for a bit of difficult reading, but if you're interested in history - especially of 18th century accounts - this is a good little sample to check out.

Related Reads:
Bloody Jack series (Meyer)
A Soldier's Secret (Moss)
Thrilling Narratives of Mutiny, Murder, and Piracy
Moby Dick (Melville)

August 2017 Reads Part 2

(continued from Part 1 and delayed due to travel, oops!)

I've been reading Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels in chronological sub-series order. While technically the books can can be read in any order, following the storylines is helpful. That said, there's a lot of different thoughts and recommendations on where to start in the vastness of Discworld, and my overall recommendation is to just start anywhere, as long as you start!

I'm leaving out the "Recommended Reads" sections for this grouping, as there's a lot of overlap and things I've previously recommended for Pratchett reads.

Lords and Ladies - Terry Pratchett (1992)
"If cats looked like frogs we'd realize what nasty, cruel little bastards they are."

Lords and Ladies continues the Witches storyline, which I started earlier this year. This particular book involves Elves - which, in this world, are unconcernedly cruel - and veers a little darker than previously-read novels. I appreciated the elements of old/folk magic that were tied in (iron horseshoes, etc). I felt it had a good mix of humor and peril-seriousness.

The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett (1983)
"Either dragons should exist completely or fail to exist at all, he felt. A dragon only half-existing was worse than the extremes."

This is Pratchett's first Discworld novel and the first in the Wizards (Rincewind) storyline. It's different in tone than the Witches storyline; it feels a little more like true-fantasy and a little heavier and more world-building . I think it's a good place to start for anyone wanting to get into the Discworld series - although I'm happy with where I started (Equal Rites). It's also divided up into several short books, which is a different format than all the following novels.

The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett (1986)
"Not for the first time she reflected that there were many drawbacks to being a swordswoman, not least of which was that men didn't take you seriously until you'd actually killed them, by which time it didn't really matter anyway."

Pratchett's second novel continues the Wizard storyline adventures; the end here feels fairly "neat" (not a cliffhanger), though still left open for the further adventures. I have to say that I particularly enjoyed the "computer programmer" druids in this offering. As always, Pratchett is unendingly clever.

Maskerade - Terry Pratchett (1995)
"Granny Weatherwax was firmly against fiction. Life was hard enough without lies floating around and changing the way people thought. And because the theater was fiction made flesh, she hated the theater most of all. But that was it - hate was exactly the right word. Hate is a force of attraction. Hate is just love with its back turned."

I switched back to the Witches storyline with Maskerade, the 5th book in this sub-series. This is a riff on Phantom of the Opera, and felt a little Dr. Who-esque to me. Coming back to the Witches series after reading the first few Wizard books, I realized just how much I had been appreciating the woman-heavy cast. I liked the further development of Agnes/Perdita, who's a very different character than her predecessor Magrat, but very likable (and frustratingly realistic) in her own way.

Carpe Jugulum - Terry Pratchett (1998)
"All witches who'd lived in her cottage were bookish types. They thought you could see life through books but you couldn't, the reason being that the words got in the way."

This, the 6th and final novel in the Witches storyline, brings vampires into the mix. It veers a bit more serious (while still retaining Pratchett's signature humor). I was sad to have this storyline end.

Sourcery - Terry Pratchett (1989)
"In the bathtub of history the truth is harder to hold than the soap, and much more difficult to find..."

Switching back to the 3rd Wizard novel with this one - it's somewhat darker in storyline and tone. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the other Discworld novels I've read so far, but that's not to say I disliked it as a whole. It seemed to me to be a more conventional, serious take on the plot thesis of Equal Rites, its predecessor by a few years.

Faust Eric - Terry Pratchett (1990)
“Multiple exclamation marks," he went on, shaking his head, 'Are a sure sign of a diseased mind."

This book is a kind of in-between novel for the Wizards timeline - sort of a "what happened to Rincewind while he was away" tale. It has a fairly clever rendition of Hell, which Rincewind finds himself venturing into after a beginner-conjurer mistakes him for a demon. I felt the characters weren't as strong here, but it's more forgivable in this more simplistic side-story. It was a bit of a light relief after the more serious Sourcery. 

August 2017 Reads Part 1

I got through another interesting mix of books this past month. Half were Terry Pratchett novels (see part 2), and half were more serious books - a mix of fiction and non-fiction.

You Are A Badass - Jen Sincero (2013)
"We only get to be in our bodies for a limited time; why not celebrate the journey instead of merely riding it out until it’s over?"

I actually had a hard time getting through this book my first read-through. It starts out (and continues the trend) encouraging readers to "manifest" things and believe in the good of the Universe, and veers too close to Prosperity Gospel type stuff for my taste. Also, the author is dismissive of anxiety and depression.

But, to be fair, on my second reading (the one where I decided to go through and take notes), I found some actually helpful things I could glean. Overall, then, my caution is that the reader should know that there's a fair helping of "the Universe wants to bless you"  "all you have to do is believe" and "just do it" lines - all phrases that I find excessively cringey. But there's still some helpful and go-get--'em and even practical advice that even I found helpful.

Related Reads:
The Happiness Project (Rubin)

Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel - Tom Wainwright (2016)
"Buy cocaine in Europe or the United States and it is an uncomfortable certainty that you have helped pay for someone to be tortured to death in a place like Reynosa. People ought to know this. It is a testament to the success of cartels in laundering their images that millions of customers buy drugs each year without giving a moment's thought to the fact that they are funding unimaginable suffering."

I thought this book was well-written and engaging, a happy surprise for me as I don't always mesh well with the writing styles of journalists/reporters/editors. The weaknesses for me were that the statistics given become dated quickly (through no fault of the author) - for instance, more states have legalized marijuana since the book's publication - and sometimes the author's parallels to business were a bit of a stretch. But I'd widely recommend the book for, among other things, its genuinely fascinating look into the facets of drug cartels and discussion of the impact of legalization.


The Man in the High Castle - Philip K. Dick (1962)
"They want to be the agents, not the victims, of history. They identify with God's power and believe they are godlike. That is their basic madness. They are overcome by some archetype; their egos have expanded psychotically so that they cannot tell where they begin and the godhead leaves off. It is not hubris, not pride; it is inflation of the ego to its ultimate - confusion between him who worships and that which is worshiped."

(Quick note: I haven't seen the Amazon Prime series, although I've heard it's fairly divergent from the book, in the general tradition of PKD adaptations) I found this an interesting, though strangely short-feeling, read. It's a blend of the things I've come to associate with PKD - clever, uncomfortable, terse, and depressingly realistic.

Related Reads:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Dick)

Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World - Haruki Murakami (1991)
(Translated from Japanese to English by Alfred Birnbaum)
"Only where there is disillusionment and depression and sorrow does happiness arise; without the despair of loss, there is no hope."

Hard-Boiled Wonderland is a curious mix of fantasy and speculative fiction, and (by all accounts) quite different even (or perhaps especially) among other contemporary Japanese novels. The nameless characters, the unicorn skulls, the subterranean fish-god worshipers... it's a reality-bending journey that somehow carries a pragmatic thread throughout.

I've only read one other Murakami book, but I found this to be (perhaps strangely) the more straightforward of the two. This one seems to be a good starter book for those interested in Murakami/modern Japanese fiction.

Related Reads:
Neuromancer (Gibson)
The Three-Body Problem (Liu)
The Giver (Lowry)

(to be continued in Part 2)

July 2017 Reads Part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Big Little Man: In Search of my Asian Self - Alex Tizon (2014)
"Our early years in America were marked by relentless self-annihilation, though of course we did not see it that way at the time."

Even though I'm not at all the author's main target audience (Asian-American men), I found this exploration of self and culture enlightening. There are a lot of things to unpack here, including how Asian men are portrayed in modern media and in American culture in general. And though a number of points weren't new to me and I didn't really mesh with or relate deeply to Tizon's overall writing style and experiences, it's hard to be unaffected by things like the author's methods of self-harm as a young man as he attempted to make his features more "Western" - an ideal pushed not only by his surrounding culture, but by his immigrant father.

That said, I admit to struggling with my reaction to this book because I read Tizon's posthumously published piece "My Family's Slave" first. In Big Little Man, Tizon barely gives a passing mention to his "Aunt Lola", which feels like a huge erasure despite his later attempt to give her a voice. Thus, to me his book was overshadowed by the unspoken issue of Lola's story and his family's treatment of her, and I finished it feeling conflicted.

Related Reads:
Fresh Off the Boat (Huang)

Americanah - Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (2013)
"Afterwards they would return to America to fight on the Internet over their mythologies of home, because home was now a blurred place between here and there, and at least online they could ignore the awareness of how inconsequential they had become."

This was something of an eye-opening read about modern-day immigrants from African countries, Nigeria specifically; I can't recall that I've read anything in this specific genre before. The characters felt real to me, and I enjoyed the story layout and the switching between points of view (not something I'm always a fan of) as well as the descriptions of the actions and reactions of the characters. The format of including blog posts (written by the main character) at the end of certain chapters threw me off a little, and I wondered if this added to the slight feeling I had that the book was already tending towards being dated.

Related Reads:
Between the World and Me (Coates)
The Nanny Diaries (McLaughlin & Kraus)

The Bear and the Nightingale - Katherine Arden (2017)
"The forest of Lesnaya Zemlya was not like the forest around Moscow. It was wild and crueler and fairer. The vast trees whispered together overhead, and all around, Konstantin seemed to feel eyes."

This is a magical and dark Russian fairy tale; it deals with the struggle of the balance between religion and old stories and tradition. The book winds through historical references and contains some unsettling dark fantasy-violence. I wish it had been a little more developed in some areas and perhaps a little less by-the-book in others. That said, I'm a lover of both Russian novels and fairy tales, so this novel (the first by its author), though not perfect, hit a sweet spot for me.

Related Reads:
The Moorchild (McGraw)
American Gods (Gaiman)

Papa Married a Mormon - John D. Fitzgerald (1955)
(my version: First Printing, copyright 1976)
"He believed... that some day all men would realize they were God's children and when they hurt by word or deed another man, they were hurting God."

This semi-autobiographical family history is set in the Utah Territory days. It's less factual than I first thought; with a bit of internet research I found that quite a number of details were changed in this telling (Fitzgerald admits that his book is about "the people who made Utah history and not history per se."). I wondered why the author didn't stick closer to the actual facts of his family history, which seemed like it would be interesting enough. As it is, Fitzgerald portrays what seems to be a generally accurate picture of Utah frontier life, which is fascinating for anyone at all interested in American Frontier history and/or Mormon history. I especially appreciated reading about the surprisingly tolerant views that Fitzgerald's family held on religion.

With that background, I feel like I also have to include a few content notes: there's some casual racism towards Native Americans in general as well as Mexican and Chinese immigrants (at least in part due to the recorded viewpoints of contemporary figures in the book), and Fitzgerald quotes instances of, but seems to breeze by or even excuse, early Mormon pioneer practices such as taking Paiute children away from their parents to "civilize" them in white schools.

Related Reads:
The Great Brain series (Fitzgerald)
The Blue Tattoo (Mifflin)

Witches Abroad - Terry Pratchett (1991)
"Mirrors give plenty, but they take away lots."

This is another fun Discworld read that pulls from various fairytales for (sometimes darkly) humorous inspiration. Something I haven't mentioned before in my other Pratchett reviews is that I've appreciated how female-heavy the main character cast is - and that I find the characters (Granny Weatherwax in particular) really well done. It's also a note on how far I've come from my Christian Fundamentalist, Harry-Potter-banned childhood to even feel okay with reading a book with the word "Witches" in the title.

Related Reads:
Ella Enchanted (Levine)

July 2017 Reads Part 1

One word to describe July's mix of books? Multicultural (I decided the word encompasses Discworld, as well).

Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End  - Atul Gawande (2014)
"We've created a multitrillion-dollar edifice for dispensing the medical equivalent of lottery tickets - and have only the rudiments of a system to prepare patients for the near certainty that those tickets will not win."

Written by a surgeon, Being Mortal deals directly with death, fatal illnesses, and end-of-life care, making it a somewhat depressing and sometimes uncomfortable read. However, it's also a helpful and necessary read, especially for anyone in the medical field or those who have elderly relatives. Gawande draws from various studies, his personal experiences - both as an observer and as a surgeon - and his family background (his parents were from India) to discuss the issues surrounding mortality and aging, including the balance between individual independence and assisted care.

Related Reads:
Musicophilia (Sacks)
The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Tolstoy)

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Junot Diaz (2007)
"She was my Old World Dominican mother and I was her only daughter, the one she had raised up herself with the help of nobody, which meant it was her duty to keep me crushed under her heel."

It's hard to accurately describe this book's style - it's off-beat and rapid-fire, punctuated with smatterings of strong language and violence, code-switching, and nerd-culture references. The focus is on members of a Dominican Republic immigrant family, with footnotes relating to Dominican culture and history interspersed. Layers of understanding are added as the book cycles through the stories of different family members, and it manages to be striking, evocative, sad, funny, and sage all at once. I related deeply to certain parts and facets of the book and not at all to others; I think most readers will find this to be true in different ways. All in all, Diaz' book is breathtaking in the whiplash-from-a-roller coaster kind of way.

Related Reads:
One Hundred Years of Solitude (Marquez)

The Little Friend - Donna Tartt (2002)

"But most eloquent of all were the stories passed down to her - highly decorated items which Harriet embellished even further in her resolute myth of the enchanted alcazar, the fairy chateau that never was."

Donna Tartt's second novel The Little Friend is also the most polarizing of her three books. I want to avoid spoilers as much as possible, so all I'll note plotwise is that the book leaves the reader with a lot of open ends, which surprised and temporarily frustrated me. But exploration and description rather than pat endings are a hallmark of Tartt's writing style; for me, it's a satisfactory trade-off. Her uncanny ability to write through a child's eyes and the way she lovingly depicts the setting (semi-rural 1970's Mississippi) results in a tantalizing read. Despite - or perhaps because of - its imperfections, this is a novel that will grab you and compel you to pour over it multiple times to revel in certain passages and to try to work out what you might've missed.

Related Reads:
The Secret History (Tartt)
We Have Always Lived in the Castle (Jackson)
Harriet the Spy (Fitzhugh)

The Help (Stockett)

Wyrd Sisters - Terry Pratchett (1988)
"Because the past is what people remember, and memories are words. Who knows how a king behaved a thousand years ago? There is only recollection, and stories. And plays, of course."

I enjoyed this book perhaps just a bit less than Equal Rites (its chronological predecessor), but Pratchett's humor interspersed in this wry sort-of re-telling of Macbeth, chock full of witches and ghosts and plots and schemes, made for a surprisingly satisfying light-fantasy read and left me eager for more Pratchett/Discworld novels.

Related Reads:
The Once and Future King (White)
The 13 Clocks (Thurber)

(to be continued in Part 2)

June 2017 Reads, part 2

(Continued from Part 1)

Honeybee Democracy - Thomas Seeley (2010)
"One valuable lesson that we can learn from the bees is that holding an open and fair competition of ideas is a smart solution to the problem of making a decision based on a pool of information dispersed across a group of individuals."

This both reads like a textbook and manages to be fascinating. Seeley, with a keen observer's care, goes over, in detail and supported by studies, various aspects of aspects of social bee behaviors like swarming and choosing an ideal nesting site. You'll learn a lot. It does get a little repetitive by the end, and some of the conclusions about what humans can learn from bee behavior seem like a stretch, but it's interesting nonetheless. A must-read if you're at all interested in beekeeping.

Related Reads:
(See sources cited throughout book)

Everland - Wendy Spinale (2016)
"What more is left here for you but faith?" Pete says, extending a hand to me from the open window.
..."And a little bit of pixie dust," Bella adds, pouring the rest of the gold into my hand.

This Young Adult fiction book is basically a Steampunk retelling of Peter Pan. I liked the overall premise and setup of the book - it's similar to the fantasy-fiction that I liked to read and write as a teen. But I came away with the feeling that the idea was better than the result here. And since this is the first of a as-yet-incomplete trilogy, there were some pieces in the story that seemed to be left hanging.

Everland's point of view switches between two characters (the main protagonist and main antagonist) throughout, but there really wasn't much difference between the character's voices. I found myself wishing that it wasn't written in the first person; I think the only thing this adds is that it makes the book a bit more distinct from the original story. One of its stronger points is interesting descriptions and the sometimes-clever integration of steampunk elements. Overall, though, the main thought I came away with was that this story would work better - and seem fresher - in graphic novel form.

Related Reads:
Ella Enchanted
Girl Genius comic series
Peter Pan

The Art of Neighboring - Jay Pathak & Dave Runyon (2012)
"We all need to get back to the basics of what he commanded: love God and love others. Everything else is secondary."

This book has been lingering on my to-read list for years. I was somewhat disappointed that the focus was more on why we should be good neighbors (because Jesus teaches that we should) rather than teaching how to best connect to people in various situations. There were some good insights and a few specific suggestions, but it wasn't as helpful as I was hoping, though I'd allow that it's still a fine starting point.

Related Reads:
(See resource list in the back of book)

The Road - Cormac McCarthy (2007)
"He knew only that his child was his warrant. He said: If he is not the word of God God never spoke."

In reading this, I continued my Post-Apocalyptic genre trend as well as started my sub-goal of reading more by McCarthy. The tone is harsh, stark, and much more individualistic than the others of this genre I've read in recent months - though the ending was a bit more hopeful than I was anticipating. McCarthy's poetic, stream-of-conscious style, imagery ("By day the banished sun circles the earth like a grieving mother with a lamp"), and descriptions serve to make this an absorbing and emotionally-wrenching read.

Related Reads:
The Postman (Brin)

June 2017 Reads, part 1

June's mix of books was another varied one, though it leaned a little heavier on the SciFi side. I ended up having to return a number of the books to the library before I had a chance to fully go back through them and jot down my thoughts - one unfortunate aspect of having a limited amount of time with most of the books I read.

The Postman - David Brin (1985)
"Where is it written that one should only care about big things?"

This was one of the more hopeful of the Post-Apocalyptic books I've read, which I have no complaints about. Any specifically SciFi aspects of it felt fairly light. Probably the main thing that bothered me was the several instances of Deus ex Machina, and I'm still unsure how I feel about the gender roles as presented. Still, it's engaging and interesting despite the number of related books I've read recently. And once I learned that the book was first published in several parts in novella form (not uncommon for the genre), I felt that the structure made more sense.

Related Reads:
Alas, Babylon (Frank)
Earth Abides (Stewart)
The Philip K. Dick Reader ["The Turning Wheel"]

The Three Body Problem - Cixin Liu (2006)
(Translated from Chinese to English by Ken Liu in 2014)
"Sometimes I thought life was precious, and everything was so important; but other times I thought humans were insignificant, and nothing was worthwhile."

I missed the boat on reading this a few years back when it was at a popularity peak. The story is fairly math/physics/computer-science heavy, but uses language that the average non-STEM-field reader can generally follow. I did feel that someone in related fields would find more to appreciate here. China's Cultural Revolution and surrounding history also plays a fairly big role; an overall knowledge of it would be helpful, although their are footnotes in the English edition that offer brief additional insight. Wresting with certain difficult philosophical questions is also major part of the book.

There were definitely differences between the structure and tone of this book and what I'd normally expect from a book written by an American author - I had envisioned the book going a completely different way at the beginning than where it ended up. The translator's note about quality of translation gave a bit more explanation here. I'm not sure I'm invested enough to say I'll definitely find and read the sequels, but I wouldn't rule it out, either.

Related Reads:
Ender's Game (Card)
Ready Player One (Cline)

It's Okay to Laugh (Crying is Cool Too) - Nora Purmort (2016)
"I fought the urge to try to feel things before they happened and instead tried to feel what was actually happening."

The author went through several devastating events within a period of a few short weeks, and she writes about her experiences and emotions with unflinching clarity and surprising humor. Even though I'm pretty sure Nora and I have very dissimilar personalities, the book reads like a conversation with a friend, and I kept finding pithy and relatable quotes. It's a book to pick up if you've "gone through some shit" or want to better understand the thought processes and coping mechanisms of someone who has.

Related Reads:
There is No Good Card for This (Crowe & McDowell)
Bossypants (Fey)

(continued in Part 2)

Books read in May 2017

This past month's reads were pretty varied in terms of subject, and all were written within the past decade or so. I currently have a pile of library checkouts that are waiting for me now that I've finally finished the monster that is The Heir Apparent.

Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders - Neil Gaiman (2006)
"The map was gone, and the mapmaker, but the land lived on."

If you're familiar with Gaiman and/or enjoy a mix of macabre/horror/fantasy/humor/sci-fi/nostalgia in stories (think elements of H.P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, and Bradbury), you'll find the 30-odd pieces included here a nice collection and appreciate seeing short stories that were forerunners for later books. However, if you find Gaiman a little too edgy in general or don't care for stories that are designed to evoke strong, sometimes negative emotions, you'll probably find a number of the stories included disturbing and/or offensive. Stick with Trigger Warning for a milder short story collection from Gaiman.

Personally, I liked this collection as a whole and appreciated the general vibe that Gaiman doesn't take himself too seriously. I really enjoyed a handful of particular pieces, including "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire", "Fifteen Painted Cards from a Vampire Tarot", and "How to Talk to Girls at Parties".

Related Reads
Smoke and Mirrors (Gaiman)
Trigger Warning (Gaiman)
Switch Bitch (Dahl)
Skin (Dahl)
Neverwhere (Gaiman)

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible - Peter Pomerantsev (2014)
"For when I talk to many of my old colleagues... they might laugh off all the Holy Russia stuff as so much PR (because everything is PR!), but their triumphant cynicism in turn means they can be made to feel there are conspiracies everywhere: because if nothing is true and all motives are corrupt and no one is to be trusted, doesn't it mean some dark hand must be behind everything?"

First off, a couple of negative thoughts: I noticed several typos when reading, and the book felt somewhat uneven in that it spends chunks of time dedicated to specific stories (that, while interesting, don't seem that well integrated into the book as a whole). Despite those complaints, I found the book genuinely fascinating, and there are sections that demonstrate dizzying prose and real lyricism. If you're interested at all in modern Russia, especially in terms of media or politics, this is a good, albeit disturbing read - though perhaps somewhat dated already.

Related Reads
(See back of book for the author's recommendations)

Alone: Orphaned on the Ocean - Richard Logan & Tere Fassbender (2010)
"'How did they die?' A simple question that was simply profound. Tere had never been asked. So she answered."

This book is a detailed account of the 1961 sinking of the sailing yacht Bluebelle and the miraculous survival of 11-year-old Terry Jo Duperrault (now Tere Fassbender). It's not written in first person, but Tere is a co-author and her thoughts and experiences are integrated into the book. Though I didn't love the writing style, I still found the book inspiring and gripping as it laid out the background of the event, the history of the players involved, and the facts of Tere's survival, recovery, and her struggles with the aftermath of trauma. For anyone interested in crime, mystery, and survival accounts, this is a solid pick.

Related Reads:
Surviving Survival (Gonzales)

The Heir Apparent: A Life of Edward VII, the Playboy Prince - Jane Ridley (2012)
"The dance between Bertie, his wife, and his mother was about to unfold."

Long, thorough, sometimes remarkably unflattering of Queen Victoria, and so chock-full of quotes that at times it reads like a gossip column, this book draws from the staggering multitude of surviving letters and documents to piece together a complete picture of the historically-maligned British monarch. Going into this book, I was not very familiar with Edward VII (referred to by his nickname Bertie throughout the book), but knew a good deal about several other contemporary figures like his nephew, czar Nicolas II of Russia. Some knowledge about the British royal family and/or contemporary world leaders is something of a must, as otherwise the huge amount of names and people referenced will quickly become overwhelming.

This book is a must-read if you're researching Edward VII or anyone closely related to him at all. It's also a fairly comprehensive, though broad, window into the politics, complicated royal family relationships, and world happenings of the late 1800's-early 1900's. As something of an aside, I also found the author's forward and afterword about the vast amount of research she was able to do fascinating.

Related Reads
The Romanov Sisters (Rappaport)
Sex With Kings: 500 Years of Adultery, Power, Rivalry, and Revenge (Herman)

The Secret Lives of Hoarders - Matt Paxton (2011)
"'Success' for a hoarder is not really a goal; it's more of a journey toward a better life, even if that's not necessarily a completely clutter-free life."

Two words come to mind for this book: helpful and realistic. The author draws from real-life examples as well as insight from a psychologist to discuss hoarding in terms of it being a mental health issue. Aside from providing thoughts on various possible causes, co-morbid disorders, and reasons for hoarding, Paxton outlines the necessary support elements that need to be in place in order to provide real, lasting help to someone who hoards. The book isn't all-positive; many of the various cases Paxton references had outcomes that were only slight improvements, if not outright relapses, and he's very realistic about the great difficulties that exist for those trying to overcome a hoarding disorder. I'd recommend this book to anyone who has a hoarder in their life or who wants to know about the realities of trying to help.

Related Reads:
Dirty Secret (Sholl)

Books read in April 2017, part 2

(continued from Part 1)

Aside from the Bloody Jack series, I was able to work in a few more serious reads in April.

Earth Abides - George R. Stewart (1949)
"When the opportunity was at your hand, you did not dare to seize it. When the opportunity was lost, it became precious."

This classic post-Apocalyptic fiction novel is probably a must-read if you're into that genre at all. One element that makes this book stand out from others in its genre is that man-made structures, cities, and the earth itself are described throughout the book as they go through the various stages of deterioration and change after the near-annihilation of mankind. The main character of the book is a fairly brooding, analytical figure; some might find him (and thus the book in its entirety, since a lot of the book is dedicated to his thought process) depressing. Overall, I actually found the book strangely satisfying, at least as compared to similar books that I've read.

Related Reads:
Alas, Babylon (Pat Frank)
A Canticle for Leibowitz (Walter Miller)
Anthem (Ayn Rand)

Kafka on the Shore - Haruki Murakami (2002)
(Translated from Japanese to English in 2005 by Philip Gabriel)
"And once the storm is over you won't remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won't even be sure, in fact, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won't be the same person who walked in. That's what this storm's all about."

I'm fairly certain this is the first (translated) Japanese-language novel that I've read. I found the novel interesting as well as unexpected - it changes between narrators throughout, and I thought the overall story was going to go a completely different way when I started the book. In many ways it's quite different than your usual American novel; I think it's helpful to have at least a smattering of knowledge of Japanese culture, history, and overall philosophy going into it. By the end of the book, I was left with the feeling of having several unanswered questions, but this is almost certainly by design.

Although I'd say I found the book an intriguing read and I'm interested in reading more by the author, there were a few content notes that I feel should be mentioned. First (related to the Oedipal nature of the main plot point), there are a handful of fairly explicit sex scenes. Second, there's one chapter in particular that fairly graphically details the torture and murder of animals (cats), made worse by the fact that one character can communicate with cats like people. Both of these points are related to the overall story and plot and are designed to evoke emotion, thus they don't offend me by their mere presence or strike me as unnecessary. It's just that reading such scenes make me uncomfortable, personally - but your mileage may vary.

Related Reads:
The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)

American Gods - Neil Gaiman (2001)
"All your questions can be answered, if that is what you want. But once you learn your answers, you can never unlearn them."

Early on in the book, I found myself thinking that I wasn't finding the read very enjoyable. It's fairly dark in overall tone and doesn't have a lot in the way of humor or even lighter moments. However, I did like the book more as it went on and ended up finding it compelling and surprising and studded with pithy quotes. The novel also rekindled my interest in greater America and its landmarks/sacred sites. I wouldn't really recommend it to a first-time reader of Gaiman, since I felt that my having read most of his other books first lent a lot of context to the story.

I'll note that there are a couple of fairly explicit sex scenes, which I found personally uncomfortable rather than thinking them out of place in the story.

Related Reads:
Norse Mythology (Neil Gaiman)
Anansi Boys (Neil Gaiman)

Books Read in April 2017, Part 1

This past month, I read the entire Bloody Jack series (mostly on my Kindle) along with a few other separate books. I figured it'd be easiest for me to just share my thoughts on the Bloody Jack series as a group rather than on the books individually.

Bloody Jack - L. A. Meyer (2002)
Curse of the Blue Tattoo - L. A. Meyer
Under the Jolly Roger - L. A. Meyer
In the Belly of the Bloodhound - L. A. Meyer
Mississippi Jack - L. A. Meyer
My Bonny Light Horseman - L. A. Meyer
Rapture of the Deep - L. A. Meyer
The Wake of the Lorelai Lee - L. A. Meyer
The Mark of the Golden Dragon - L. A. Meyer
Viva Jacquelina! - L. A. Meyer
Boston Jacky - L. A. Meyer
Wild Rover No More - L. A. Meyer (2014)

This Young Adult Historical Fiction series is set within the years 1797-1809 and takes place mostly in England and America, but also in France, Cuba, India, and various other countries, islands, and territories. The main character, Mary "Jacky" Faber, runs into a gamut of historical, literary, and legendary figures throughout her travels (aside from the expected historical figures, there are sly nods to the crew of the Pequod from Moby Dick and Fagin's gang from Oliver Twist, for instance, and one book finds her interacting with American frontier legend Mike Fink, King of the River). The historical events and figures are interwoven in such a way that they never seem to get in the way of the main story and characters, though, which I feel is one of the series' strengths.

As for Jacky herself, I appreciated her as a plucky strong-yet-flawed female lead whose ability to get herself out of scrapes is matched only by her ability to get herself into them. Her character does tend to be a little uneven depending on what was needed for the overall storyline, but a lot of the overall changes in voice and tone are understandable just given that the series follows her from age 8 to age 19.

One quibble I had was that there are a lot of characters introduced throughout the books. Sometimes it felt like there wasn't enough space to fully develop all these interesting characters, and occasionally I had trouble remembering exactly who was who, especially for characters who disappeared and then popped back up several books later. I also felt that some of them were used a little too much as deus-ex-machinas, especially Higgins, the intelligent, rarely-ruffled, not-so-secretly-gay steward-turned-butler. But the books overall don't take themselves too seriously and even take on a sort of legendary-storytelling feel by design, so even obvious plot points and completely-out-of-nowhere events are forgivable.

Overall, the series manages to stay strong throughout its entirety and wrap itself up fairly nicely in the end, which is no mean feat given all the events and character arcs going on. I think this would've been a fun series for me to collect and read (and reread) in late junior high/early high school and would recommend it for that age group in general, as well as to anyone looking for a fun and exciting but still surprisingly educational series. I'm only disappointed that I didn't get introduced to them sooner and thus don't have dog-eared copies of my own to revisit.

Related Reads:
The following list is just what occurred to me while reading the first few books - I stopped making mental notes eventually. I'd also have to just broadly recommend reading more about any of the historical/literary characters and events mentioned throughout the series.
Treasure Island (Robert Louis Stevenson)
Seven Daughters and Seven Sons (Barbara Cohen)
First Test (Tamora Pierce)
The Wolves of Willoughby Chase (Joan Aiken)
King of the Wind (Marguerite Henry)
A Little Princess (Frances Hodgson Burnett)
Johnny Tremain (Esther Forbes)
The Black Stallion (Walter Farley)
A Soldier's Secret (Marissa Moss)

(to be continued in Part 2)

Books Read in March 2017, part 2

(continued from Part 1)

The Mysterious Benedict Society - Trenton Lee Stewart
"No one seems to realize how much we are driven by FEAR, the essential component of human personality. Everything else - from ambition to love to despair - derives in some way from this single powerful emotion."

This book is Juvenile Fiction and geared towards elementary school age, so my judgments are colored by that. With the intended audience in mind, I feel like I can't really fault it for certain style choices or plot points that I found a little too obvious - and I'll even note that there were a few things revealed as the plot went on that surprised me. I liked the first part (basically the setup) of the book the best, and was a little bothered by the fairly neat-and-tidy happy ending.

One of my main complaints is probably that I would've liked to see even more puzzles/creative solutions throughout the book. One thing that stands out [minor spoilers] was the treatment of teaching the group-of-special-children Morse Code. Rather than implementing a creative teaching method (as when the father in Cheaper by the Dozen teaches his children Morse Code by implementing a creative word-syllable association to match the patterns), it just says the children learned it quickly, which felt like a bit of a cop-out and not very "fun" or applicable. Overall, I thought the book was fine and definitely creative, but maybe not as unique as I was hoping. But I think it would be really interesting for elementary-school-age kids.

Related Reads:
All the Wrong Questions series (Lemony Snicket)
The Phantom Tollbooth (Norton Juster)
The Westing Game (Ellen Raskin)
Mr. Penumbra's 24-hour Bookstore (Robin Sloan)

Equal Rites - Terry Pratchett
"They say a little knowledge is a dangerous thing, but it is not one half so bad as a lot of ignorance."

This was my first Terry Pratchett novel (finally! hooray!). In the past I'd been overwhelmed trying to figure out where to start within the Discworld books, but eventually decided to just pick a story arc to read in chronological order (based on this handy fan-created chart). Apparently Equal Rites was one of Pratchett's earlier-written novels and perhaps not as refined as his later ones - but I really enjoyed it and felt his humor and riffs on the usual fantasy-novel stories worked well. I also think that it has a good balance of being appropriate for younger-than-adult readers without seeming like it's talking down to anyone. I'm eager to read more and will be definitely be scouring my local libraries for the next-in-line books.

Related Reads:
Seventh Son (Orson Scott Card)
Uprooted (Naomi Novik)
The Song of the Lioness series (Tamora Pierce)

Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
"God does not play dice with the universe; He plays an ineffable game of His own devising, which might be compared, from the perspective of any of the other players [i.e. everybody], to being involved in an obscure and complex variant of poker in a pitch-dark room, with blank cards, for infinite stakes, with a Dealer who won't tell you the rules, and who smiles all the time."

To come right out and say it : I enjoyed this mashup. I've read a lot of Neil Gaiman works and just one Terry Pratchett book so far, but could parse out the styles of each author within the novel, which was fun. The book makes light of a lot of "serious" and much-debated topics, namely, the Apocalypse, prophesies, Biblical stories, and angels and demons. With my childhood background of strict Christian fundamentalism, I found the book oddly cathartic in its sometimes-blunt, sometimes-sly irreverence. It manages to be funny and hopeful even in the midst of its storyline of reluctant players and catastrophic events. Apparently Good Omens is going to be on Amazon Prime as a miniseries in the near future, and I'm quite interested to see how it turns out.

Related Reads:
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
The Graveyard Book (Neil Gaiman)

Norse Mythology - Neil Gaiman
"Whether we are gods or mortals, Odin is the father of us all."

I was able to snag a copy of this book at a recent Neil Gaiman event. It's written in fairly simplistic, straightforward language, I think in the tradition of oral storytelling and due to the nature of the basic story lines Gaiman wanted to uphold. Hearing Gaiman read the chapter "Freya's Unusual Wedding" at the event I attended was a real treat and made me feel that these stories are almost better when read aloud.

Going into the book, I was already familiar with the basics of Norse lore and knew some of the stories and characters already (though I haven't been exposed to the Marvel comics or films). I think someone who was completely unfamiliar with Norse mythology would find this collection of stories (glossary included in the back) a very approachable read. Gaiman filters the swaths of fragmentary tales and stories that still exist into a compact, good starting point for any reader.

Related Reads:
Beowulf
The Hobbit  (J. R. R. Tolkien)

Books Read in March 2017, part 1

This month, I decided to start a "Related Reads" section for each book blurb - this will just be a short list of books I've read before that I feel are related or similar in some way to the reviewed book.

Shantaram - Gregory Roberts
"I don't know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it."

This epic is long (over 900 pages) and a bit of a slow build. Mostly set in India, with the final portion set in Afghanistan, it's based on the life of the author - a heroin addict who escaped from prison - and written in the first person.

There were a few things that annoyed me about the book - mostly the author's tendency to foreshadow in the "if only I knew then what I knew now" sort of way - but overall, I thought the book was gripping and interesting, despite its sometimes-messy prose. It's packed full of enough events to strain credibility, but down-to-earth enough to be achingly realistic. I'll note that there's a good bit of violence and torture interspersed throughout the story.

Related Reads:
The Goldfinch (Donna Tartt)
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T. E. Lawrence)
Catch Me if You Can (Frank Abegnale)
The Valley of Amazement (Amy Tan)

Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell
"Success is not a random act. It arises out of a predictable and powerful set of circumstances and opportunities."

I must admit that I was expecting this to be a self-help sort of book; thus, I was a little disappointed. While the book is well-written and the information is interesting, I found myself thinking things like, "That's all very well for Canadian hockey players born in January, but what does that have to do with me?" I had also heard many of the stories cited in the book before, so there wasn't a lot of new data or extrapolations made for me. I still think I'd recommend it as an interesting read (especially for those that like statistics or history), but I personally only took away a few practical things (the principle of "practice makes perfect" and the importance of having meaningful work, mostly, which aren't principles unique to this book).

Related Reads:
The Happiness Project (Gretchen Rubin)
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat (Oliver Sacks)

The Mint (Complete, Unexpurgated Text) - T. E. Lawrence 
"If only I could sleep solidly! but desert experience taught me to hover through the nights in a transparent doze, listening for the threat of any least sound or movement: and in a hut of fifty strong fellows there is not one minute of night-silence."

This book is hard to find in physical form, but I picked up a copy in a used bookstore last year. If you're a fan of T. E. Lawrence (aka Lawrence of Arabia) and/or interested in accounts of RAF (Royal Air Force) experiences, I'd recommend this book as almost a necessity to round out your knowledge. However, I wouldn't really recommend the book if you're not at all familiar with the author; in my opinion, context matters a lot here.

The Mint, Lawrence's account of the years during which he joined the RAF under an assumed name, is frequently punctuated with strong language, passing references to the author's past, and the everyday physical goings-on of military life that both repulsed and attracted Lawrence - a juxtaposition that was common throughout his life. The style is uniquely Lawrence's and the chapters are short and chronological, tending to read as journal entries or stand-alone short stories in style. As someone who's read a good bit of things by and about T. E. Lawrence and who considers him a "favorite historical figure", I found the book very interesting, even profound. But those who have no context for the book or reasons behind its writing will probably be puzzled at best, and offended at worst.

Related reads:
Seven Pillars of Wisdom (T. E. Lawrence)
A Prince of Our Disorder (John E. Mack)
Going Solo (Roald Dahl)
All Things Wise and Wonderful (James Herriot)

Books Read in February 2017, part 2

(continuation of Part 1)

Gilead - Marilynne Robinson
"I feel sometimes as if I were I child who opens its eyes on the world once and sees amazing things it will never know any names for and then has to close its eyes again."

This was probably my favorite read of this month. An old Southern preacher relates his personal and family history to his young son through a series of journal-type entries. The writing style is lyrical and immersive. Bonus if you're interested in historical fiction, particularly in relation to the Civil War era, and doses of theology/philosophy.

A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier - Ishmael Beah
"These days I live in three worlds: my dreams, and the experiences of my new life, which trigger memories from the past."

Written by a former child soldier who grew up in Sierra Leone in the 1980s and '90s, this book is an unflinching look at the author's experiences - and, by extension, the experiences of anyone affected by the coups. Though hopeful at its core, the direct writing style includes descriptions of brutal killings and torture, some of it perpetrated by Beah as a child soldier. It's not an easy read, but it's a compelling and necessary one for those wanting to understand not only the specific situation in Sierra Leone, but child recruitment in wars and the psychological aftermath it levies.

The 13 Clocks - James Thurber
"The cold Duke was afraid of Now, for Now has warmth and urgency, and Then is dead and buried."

This book would be classified by me as "a somewhat darkly humorous children's fairytale". Along the lines of Thurber's The Wonderful O (read earlier in the month), rhymes and wordplay factor in throughout, though not as heavily. Neil Gaiman cites this book as a favorite in one of his essays, and it was interesting to make parallels between this story and Gaiman works like Coraline and his fairytale-inspired short stories.

The Neverending Story - Michael Ende
"Strange as it may seem, horror loses its power to frighten when repeated too often."

I've never seen the 1980's movie and didn't know a much about the storyline, so I went into this book with pretty fresh eyes. The illustrations and different-colored typefaces really made the story, I thought (hopefully all editions are like the one I read!). I liked the first half of the book quite a bit better than the second; as the book went on, I found myself being reminded more and more of L. Frank Baum's Oz series, not necessarily in a favorable way (it was feeling a little like a rip-off). But overall, I enjoyed the story, found enough unique in it to make it enjoyable, and wish I'd come across it two decades or so ago.

Tuesdays with Morrie: An Old Man, a Young Man, and Life's Greatest Lesson - Mitch Albom
"I give myself a good cry if I need it, but then I concentrate on all the good things still in my life."

The author reconnects with and has a series of talks with Morrie Schwartz, an old college professor of his who's dying of a terminal illness. A shorter but not necessarily fast read - there are lots of quotes and thoughts a reader could spend a good bit of time mulling over (the book became a bestseller for a reason). I appreciated the matter-of-fact perspective that Morrie comes to take on death and dying that the author observes and writes about.