To catch everyone up I made a new years resolution to read 52 books this year. So far I've knocked out 36 which means I'm just over 69 percent of the way there. It also means I need to average just under 3 books a month for the rest of the year to hit the goal. I still think I can do it and I've got a stack of unread graphic novels I can crank through in case I start to cut it close.
January (10):
The Book Thief. By Markus Zusak - Phenomenal! Read it.
52 Volume 3
If ever I returen Pretty Peggy-O. By Sharyn McCrumb
Sharp Objects. By Gillian Flynn -
52 Volume 4 - Series was good, but since not a big DC reader hard to follow. Not sure what is real and what is made up by these writers.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. By Ken Kesey - took a bit to get into but enjoyed when done. Intrigued to see movie now.
Soon I Will Be Invincible. By Austin Grossman - Awesome.
Street Angel. By Jim Rugg and Brian Maruca. - It's a teenage homeless girl heroine who skateboards. What more do I need to say?! I truly hope there is more than just this first volume.
Identity Crisis. By Brad Meltzer - Finally read this after owning it a year. Took me picking it up in DC at a friends house and then finishing it here in the city. It's good - the end scene with Robin's father brought me to tears. A first for a comic book.
Doctor Zhivago. By Boris Pasternak. The first 100 pages almost made me quit. Again and again and again. If you can get through those it's great. I really want to see the movie now, I know there was a bunch I missed due to my uneducated ass not knowing much about Russian history.
February (3):
Scar Night. By Alan Campbell. Pretty damn good, was recommended to me as a combo sci-fi(which I do not read)/fantasy, so I thought I would try it. Loved it and am now anxiously awaiting my next trip to the book store to see if the sequel is out yet....I don't think it is (boo).
Zombies Calling. By Faith Erin Hicks. Recommended by the guy that had the recommendation at the book store for Street Angel (there was no sequel and I was looking for something in the same genre). Very, very funny. The art leaves a little to be desired, a little too chaotic at times for me, but if you ever watched a zombie movie, and enjoyed it, you will connect with this comic.
Kafka on the Shore. By Haruki Murakami. Weird. Have to read others of his I think.
March (7):
Snow Crash. By Neal Stephenson. Recommended by Schmidlap and it was great! Took a bit to get into the language of a sci-fi, geek tech book but once in (28 pages) I was hooked. In the middle it started to get a bit murky with all the religion=virus=drug talk, especially since my fundamental knowledge of any type of historical religious information is bankrupt (thanks mom!) and I got lost more than a few times in the Sumerian history and gods. But once you pull through the murkiness and accept that you're probably missing something it gets really really good again. And I know have to get a dog to name Hiro Protagonist...maybe a german shepard...
The Picture of Dorian Gray. By Oscar Wilde. This was my first Wilde and it was a bit difficult to be honest. The language was thick, sentances long and drawn out, and quite a bit of philosophical musings that ate up entire chapters. After Snow Crash it was a bit hard to get into it, but it was good none the less and I'm glad I read it.
Zodiac. By Neal Stephenson. Snow Crash sucked me into the Stephenson craze and Zodiac was the only one on the shelf that looked small enough to fit in my bag! It was good, an eco-thriller that makes me want to tackle his bigger works.
Odd and the Frost Giants. By Neil Gaiman. This book was written for World Book Day in the UK - it's where authors get together and write books for free distribution to kids, it's an awesome idea. I found out through Gaiman's website that I could order them for 1 pound each through Amazon.UK so I got four copies! I think I paid more in shipping that I have for my last three books but it was totally worth it. It's a kids book and it's adorable, when it comes out in the US you should read it.
Stardust. By Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess. This was the graphic novel version of the story (so now it's my third version of the story). The art is amazing and it's really more like an illustrated novel than a comic book. If you can, read or watch this story, it's great!
Sin City Volume 1 - The Hard Goodbye. By Frank Miller. I've seen the movie and if I remember correctly I enjoyed it. Casey said now that I was in to graphic novels I had to check out the original. As usual, he was correct. It's great. Dark, violent, black and white. Now I've got the next two volumes on my to read list and I have to go back and watch the movie.
The Good Fairies of New York. By Martin Millar. I got this from the damn Amazon "customers who bought X also bought Y" advertisment scheme. It works on me every time. And usually it's worth it. Especially in this case. I started with Millar's "Lonely Werewolf Girl" (probably to be reviewed in the next month) and they said I should also buy Good Fairies. It's much smaller than Werewolf so I started with it and I love it. Scottish fairies throwing up from too much whiskey and magic mushrooms? You can't get better than that.
Summary for Quarter 1: 20 books finished, 32 left to read. Percent complete = 38%. With 32 left to read in 9 months the average is three and a half per month. This update done on April 14th - I've already read four books in April. I am secure in meeting my goal of 52 books this year.
April (5)
The Historian. By Elizabeth Kostova. - Good, my first vampire book. Took forever it felt to read though I enjoyed the whole story.
100 Bullets. Volume 1. By Brian Azzarello. Fucking amazing.
100 Bullets. Volume 2. By Brian Azzarello. Still fucking amazing. However, sections that contain French slightly confusing. Good enough art though got me through (and having a visitor who speaks French hepled translate).
100 Bullets. Volume 3. By Brian Azzarello. Review getting old, but still fucking amazing.
Oil!. By Upton Sinclair. This is the book that "There will be blood" the movie is based upon. I had no interest in the movie (and if fact at this point still haven't seen it) but when I heard that Sinclair wrote the book I was intrigued. I really enjoyed The Jungle so thought I would equally enjoy Oil!. Not quite. I did enjoy it, but there's just something about it that didn't quite make it. Maybe it's the ridiculous usage of the exclamation point throughout the whole book - we are talking about at least 3 per page! Then there is the fact that up until the last 50 pages it doesn't seem like it's going to end well. Not "well" as in good/happy but well as in satisfactory...does that make sense. There was a feel of bull dozing at the end to wrap up the story quickly as though we were running out of time. And the end while done okay was less than satisfactory.
May (6)
Burning Chrome. By William Gibson. Recommended to me by my father after he heard how much I loved Snow Crash (stephenson). Didn't realize till I started reading it that it's short stories. I'm not very good with short stories, mostly because most of the ones I've read sucked. The short story is a hard format to master, hell writing in general is hard, but I've been especially frustrated with the short story - it's the cop out zone for so many writers. Chrome was not this bad. In fact, it was pretty decent. Some of the sci-fi took me a bit to get into but once I figured out what the hell they were talking about it was okay.
Invisible Man - H.G. Wells. Good. Short read, odd narration, wonder if it's been made into a movie? Surely it must have.
Letter to a Christian Nation. Sam Harris. Delightful. Loved it. Already lent it out to a friend. Stealing "I'm not an alchemist" for my own repitoir.
Narcisuss and Goldmung. By Herman Hesse. This one took awhile, it was good but I was disspointed to have the namesake character Narcisuss dissapear for the majority of the book.
The Time Traveler's Wife. By Audrey Niffenegger. Amazing, fantastic, totally surprising. Alyssa lent this to me and I have to admit, the back cover did not pull me in at all. Some love story that honestly sounded boring. But I gave it a chance because she said how good it was. She was right. It's written beautifully. The setup, which could have been confoundingly confusing, was done in a such a way as to easily keep track of where and when you were in the story. It's just over 500 pages and I have to admit, about 100 pages from the end I broke into gut wrenching sobs at a particular scene. Read it. It's worth it.
Lonely Wearwolf Girl. By Martin Millar. This was recommended to me by my brother and I finished it in about two days (being off work helped with that). It is the second book of Millar's that I've read and I absolutely loved it. Over 500 pages, it is huge book to hold, but it's totally worth it. I can see why Gaiman recommends him.
June - 5
Guenivere. By Sharan Newman. Fantastic! Made me want to pick up Mists of Avalon again and see how the character is portrayed as she gets older. This version really centers on her youth - before she meets Arthur.
Treasure Island. By Robert Louis Stevenson. Picked this up at the Printers Row book Fair (which was awesome!) and figured I'd knock out another one of the classics before the half way point of the year was here. I quickly discovered that Johnny Depp and the Dread Pirate Roberts were in no way a satisfactory prep in pirate speak. I fear some of the story got lost in translation between the pirate gab and the boat specifics, but overall I enjoyed it.
Indigo Sound. By Regina Harris Baiocchi. Picked it up from a local author at Printers Row. Really good story, that flows the main character from chapter to chapter by following up on someone mentioned in the previous chapter...does that make sense? I wished at some points that I could have more of specific characters, but overall I think it's an interesting story about life and the connections between people.
Running with Scissors. Augusten Burroughs. Again, picked it up at PR. This one was made into a movie a few years back and got a lot of attention. It was good, but I'm not sure what all the commotion was for. It's a pretty fucked up story, with some fucked up childhood stories. Even disturbing on some levels. And at times it got a little random for me.
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