read 25 books in 2008

I guess, with a newborn and all, I was even worse with this goal than last year.

I did probably aim too high. Even so, nine books in a year is pretty pitiful.

I ended the year with this great book by Mark Haddon, the author of “The curious incident of the dog in the night-time”, which I also loved.

This is a great piece of fiction; funny, thought provoking, and thoroughly enjoyable. The themes are tired; place and position in England, death and mortality, love and sex, but Mark’s treatment is fresh and inspiring. I recommend it.

sorry to disappoint

22. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams
23. The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, by JK Rowling
25. A Walk to Remember, by Nicholas Sparks

Loved all of them. It was my 5th or 6th re-read of Philosopher’s Stone, but I enjoyed like the first time I read it years and years ago. Beedle was great, I got the collector’s edition and it’s preeeetty.

I’m reading 35 books in 2009 :D

22. Schrödinger’s Kittens and the Search for Reality – John Gribbin

Yes, another book about physics. Quantum mechanics, to be more specific, which isn’t my primary area of interest, although it it interesting. Gribbin writes in a very non-technical way, which can be nice for a change.

So I chose to go with a more in-depth book rather than trying to read a bunch of fluffier ones just to finish this goal. (I don’t think I would’ve gotten to 25 anyway, but I might have gotten to 23 at least.)

Um, I finished reading this a while ago. It was worth reading.

Well, I’m assuming this will be my last book for the year. I loved it. I read up on the time period when Mary Shelley wrote it. It wasn’t very common for women to be writing, especially a strange book like this.

I was surprised at how it turned out, because Frankenstein’s monster isn’t like I imagined. I thought it would be big and dumb, yet kindhearted and misunderstood. However, it turned out to be intelligent, though very wicked from the horrible way people treated it. At the end, the thing was completely hollowed and cruel…

24. Brunelleschi’s Dome (Ross King)
A great book. I’ve been meaning to read this since I went to Florence over Easter two years ago (so long ago already!). It tells an amazing story and though it is non-fiction (which I tend to find dull), I thoroughly enjoyed this book and found it to be very entertaining.

25. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman (Richard Feynman)
I agreed to read this book if a friend read Hamlet (very different books, of course, but Hamlet is one of my favorites and Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman is one of her favorites). It turned out to be a very enjoyable read. It was easy to read (I read 250 pages of the 350 page book over a period of a day and a half in airports and on planes) and the stories were all interesting/enlightening/entertaining. I highly suggest this book!

And now I reached my goal! Time to get a head start on book no.1 for next year (Silent Spring, I think…). Yay!

I liked the he said/she said style of this book, a story about teen angst and first “real” love.

From Amazon.com
From The Washington Post
Sara is searching for something real. It’s the start of senior year, and the brainy and beautiful teen is determined that this will be the year she finds “it” – that elusive little thing called love. She’s been crushing all summer on Dave, who asked for her phone number at the end of junior year. She’s been waiting for his call for months, stressing about her search not for just any boyfriend but the one who truly gets her, understands that she must make it into New York University, grasps the whacked-out relationship she has with her mom. She’s got all her hopes wrapped up in Dave, not knowing that Tobey – the slacker guy from art class who seems to care only about his band—has spent countless hours crafting a plan to win her over.

So it goes in When It Happens (Viking, 17.99), Susane Colasanti’s debut novel, which successfully captures the angst and exhilaration that come with new love. Colasanti’s tale unfolds in a “she said/he said” style, with chapters that tell the story from the viewpoint of each main character. Two sets of typefaces – one for Sara’s side, another for Tobey’s – make it easy to track who’s talking.

That Colasanti, a public high school teacher in New York City, gets what high school is like is evident. Film and music references are sprinkled throughout her text, from Sara’s favorite movie (“Say Anything”) to a band (R.E.M.) she’s heard of but never listened to until Tobey. Mentions of drugs, sex, eating disorders and the social pressures teens face aren’t overdone, and the dialogue is breezy and realistic (including a few gratuitous f-bombs and a URL to a porn site). Even Colasanti’s description about getting dressed for gym is legit: “First I sniff the shirt that’s in my locker to make sure it doesn’t smell too bad. Even if it does, I still have to wear it. But then I know not to stand too close to anyone.”

Colasanti obviously remembers the kind of love that makes your insides churn, belly flips and all. Her take on young romance is insightful, fresh and fun, her characters fully formed and likable. Knowing how the book will end hardly matters, for When It Happens is sort of like high school itself: The outcome may be predictable, but what’s really important is what happens along the way.

Debra Leithauser, editor of The Post’s Sunday Source

Hmm. I was really expecting to enjoy D.H. Lawrence, but perhaps I picked the wrong book to start out with.

I had heard that Lawrence’s writing was lush and sensual, and, you know, a little daring. There were six stories in the collection that I read and I feel that, while the hearts of all of the stories were intriguing, their execution fell short. His language and imagery were indeed sensual, but the writing was clunky and repetitive. He used the same adjectives and the same similies again and again, so that the beauty of a singular observance (for example, comparing a lovely woman alone on an exposed bluff to a solitary yellow winter crocus) became trampled and impotent with overuse.

I also felt that the endings of the majority of the stories were incredibly abrupt and/or super tidy. As if he, having written out the meat of his intended story, had tied them up hastily, eager to move on to something else. By the end of the collection, I kind of felt the same way.

Oh yeah. And. While I knew it was meant to be a dramatic and provocative climax, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud when, in “The Man Who Died”, as his loins stirred, Jesus cried out “I am risen!” Oh jeez! (...that’s what she said!)

Merry Christmas.