book awards
18 Sep 2014

2014 National Book Awards

This summer was a bit of a warped time situation for me. I went on two vacations and slept in five different states. The Boy was home… a lot. I wore the same five dresses every single week. This summer went on forever. But last week it got cold and I had to wear pants and it’s dark out after work and there are freaking pumpkin spice lattes and how is summer actually over??!?

Maybe this is a side effect of going social media dark in August. I missed out on everyone saying goodbye to the summer, so I forgot to say goodbye to the summer. Instead, I’m just gobsmacked by mother nature and having to wear pants. Ugh.

What I’m trying to say is, BOOK AWARDS SEASON IS UPON US and I forgot to get pre-excited about it, so now I am just extra regular-excited. The longlist for the National Book Awards Young People’s Literature category has arrived, and I really like it a lot.

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I’m going to brag about having read a grand old TWO of these titles before Monday’s announcement. This is big, guys. How many did I read in 2013? 2012? 2011? Zero, Zero, and Zero. I have turned over a new leaf. I am now the queen of books.

Laurie Halse Anderson puts out a new contemporary YA book, oh, every half a millennium, so OF COURSE I read The Impossible Knife of Memory. I liked it. As I revealed in my Printz Prediction mega-post, I didn’t think it was the Best Thing Ever, but I liked it just fine. I was much more impressed by Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming… sorry, LHA, but if I’m betting on you or Jackie Woodson in an authorial cage match? My money’s on Woodson.

I was not surprised to see Steve Sheinkin’s new YA, The Port Chicago 50 on the list – the NBA YPL committee always seems to have a soft spot for nonfiction. A tiny soft spot. One book per year. I was also not surprised to see Eliot Schrefer’s Threatened on the list, since he earned a nod not too long ago for Endangered. Also, critical darling (and winner of the NBC’s 5 under 35), John Corey Whaley? You are also no big freaking surprise here. Also, while I didn’t read it yet, I would like credit for renewing Noggin over and over again for five entire months. It basically lived at my house. That should count for something.

Deborah Wiles’s Revolution and Kate Milford’s Greenglass House are both getting great reviews, so no surprises here. There’s a lot of YA/MG crossover on this list (the Woodson, Sheinkin, Schrefer, and Hiaasen sit in that 12-14 neck of the woods), but to me, Revolution and Greenglass House are the reps from Team Middle Grade. And I think you could argue that Team Middle Grade has taken the NBA gold for the last five years, so neither of these are to be ignored.

So. The last three. Skink: No Surrender. I do love me some Carl Hiaasen, but nothing about his adult work screams “GIVE ME A MAJOR LITERARY AWARD.” (edit: except for the part where he got a Newbery honor for Hoot… oops) But good to see some comedy/mystery on the list either way, lest we forget how powerful and difficult and important comedy writing. Super happy to see Girls Like Us on the list – woohoo for quiet(er) girly YA realism, and woohoo for Candlewick! And last but not least – Andrew Smith. Mr. Smith, you are having quite the year! I checked out 100 Sideways Miles immediately after finishing Grasshopper Jungle a few weekends ago, which meant I read the NBA longlist knowing that a nominee was sitting on my desk WAITING FOR ME TO READ IT and that’s when you feel a little bit like a literary rockstar.

Yes, I’m just very, overly excited to have read two books out of ten from a fundamentally arbitrary list. Small, nerdy pleasures.

 

 

book awards
16 Sep 2014

(not so) Premature Printz

When I started dreaming up this post, I was going to title it Premature Printz Predictions. Because I started crafting this post in June, only halfway through 2014.

Sometime between June and now, postulating upon potential Printz pics became… um… timely. So there you have it. I’m a procrastinator. A Printz Predicting Procrastinator. Okay, I’m done. Really.

Flashback to late 2013. I won’t go as far as to say I *called* Marcus Sedgwick winning last year’s award for Midwinterblood. I didn’t read the book, and I didn’t tell anyone my prediction or write it down or even call it a prediction in my own mind. What I do remember, quite clearly, is a moment where I gazed upon what I believed to be the primary contenders for the year’s award and wonder why nobody was talking about it. Sedgwick won a Printz honor for Revolver. Midwinterblood had a Horn Book star. Neither of these are guaranteed, or even likely markers of a potential winner, but both at once gave me definite pause.

But we were all still busy talking about Eleanor and Park, The Summer Prince, Fangirl, and Winger. Buzz books.

Blinded by the buzz? Or just having more fun talking about the fun books?

So this year, I’m wondering less about which books are sure-winners and more about which books we should be talking about and reading. Props, as usual, to Someday My Printz Will Come for their comprehensive longlist, which I consulted more than once while crafting this post. I’ve narrowed down the potential Printz playing field (SORRY) to the following categories:

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The Alumni

Honored once, honored again? The Printz has only been around since 2000 – the pool of past winners is modest, and the pool of past winning authors even smaller. Does one Printz – either award or honor -beget another? These 2014 books are all written by previous awardees. There’s no reason that these books should win over other 2014 titles, but I feel like they should be on the table. A good place to start – a way to take the collective temperature of what is going on this year in YA.

I’ve only read two of these – The Impossible Knife of Memory and We Were Liars. I’m not sure Impossible Knife will stand up to the competition – Laurie Halse Anderson does maintain her well-earned reputation with her latest YA realism venture, but I feel like this one screams “Problem Novel!” a little too loudly to be a real contender (edit: says she three days before the NBA longlisted this one…)We Were Liars has a better chance – so well-constructed, with effortless literary allusions and such STYLE (sorry, E. Lockhart fangirl in the house) – but I think the reliance on such a sensational plotline (not to mention the relentless marketing push… FOR THIS ENTIRELY DESERVING BOOK *cough*) may be a distraction.

Now I’m moving on to Purely Printz Postulation (…) but I don’t think the Lynch or the Myers are likely contenders. Like Ms. Anderson, it’s been a long time since either of these authors saw any Printz love and I don’t think there’s anything exemplary going on in either of their 2014 novels that would make them stand out. The Yang I’m a little iffy on as well because Yang didn’t do the artwork for The Shadow Hero.

Of the rest, I can’t really comment, except that I have a tingly Spidey-Sense feeling around The True Tale of the Monster Billy Dean.

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The Morris Alums

I’m not really into statistics-related math, at least in my blogging-free-time, so please forgive me for making unsupported statements… however, I would hazard a guess that the Morris to Printz corrollation is not as strong as the Printz to Second Printz correlation. This could be because the Morris is a slightly newer award and, by nature, honors first-time writers; perhaps we will see more Morris to Printz winners as these new authors keep at it. However, I think that reading the latest work by Morris winners is another good way to get a feel for what is going on in YA in a given year – these particular books might not be Printz-worthy, but it’s likely that whatever wins will be at LEAST as good as this little stack.

I have sadly read zero of these books, so I have no firsthand insights on any of these particular books, but I could see Jenny Hubbard and Stephanie Kuehn making a Printz appearance this year.

 

 

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The Otherwise Awarded

These authors are not Printz winners or honors, but they’ve still medaled in other divisions. Schrefer, Johnson, Sheinkin and Griffin are all National Book Award nominees. Sheinkin tore up all sorts of other awards with Bomb a few years ago, and both Sheinkin and Smith earned Boston Globe-Horn Book nods this year.

And what’s more, Schrefer, Sheinkin, and Smith just landed on this year’s National Book Awards long list! Holy cats!

Maybe too much buzz will work against these books in Printz discussions – that’s probably not a kosher thing to say about a supposedly impartial book award committee, but it’s still a possibility – but the Printz isn’t the only game in town. These authors have proven themselves elsewhere; they should surely be part of the Printz discussion.

 

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Buzz Queens

These authors and books may not have any YA specific award pedigree (well, except for 100 Sideways Miles, now!), but they are the ones you’ve heard of this year, by authors who’ve built solid reputations. Wolitzer and Maguire earn accolades for their adult fic, so a foray into YA is worth noting – Egg & Spoon feels a little young-ish for YA, but I feel like that’s probably one of the more common ways we dismiss a book’s Printz-worthiness and then sometimes we get Navigating-Early-ed. Same goes for Brown Girl Dreaming. I’ll Give You the Sun and Afterworlds have a lot of industry buzz behind them, but will that translate to literary acclaim? A reader-friend I trust totally panned I’ll Give You the Sun, so we’ll see how that one does.

I’ve read Belzhar and Brown Girl Dreaming. While I enjoyed Belzhar a great deal, it feels like an awards longshot. Brown Girl Dreaming, however, feels like it could be a big winner in any category you want to put it in.

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Wild Cards

The wild cards. The debut authors. The modest buzz. The starred reviews. The sleepers. I think these four books could have a shot at making the Printz list even though they don’t have the frenetic buzz that so often surrounds a YA novel. I’ve read The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender and it might have the right combination of fanciful literary language and magical realism that beguiles an awards committee. Gospel of Winter seems like the kind of quiet problem novel that might slip under the radar but could stand up to some of the more buzzed-about books. Everyone was talking Pointe when it pubbed in April for Colbert’s engaging story, multifaceted characterization, and socioeconomically and ethnically diverse cast of teen characters. This One Summer has been very warmly regarded – SIX STARS! – but I haven’t sensed that awards-push that surrounded, say, last year’s Boxers and Saints. Graphic novels have a tough go during awards season, but this one is definitely deserving. And six stars! Seriously!

So there you have it, guys – not any predictions, really, but a rough playing field for January’s awards. I think all that’s left to say is… um… get reading.

 

reading
13 Sep 2014

the reading lunch

This August was tough. I was finishing up vacations, coming down from various forms of Summer Fun (that usually involve staying up past my bedtime and/or eating and drinking indulgently), and otherwise re-adjusting to Normal Life. Also, sweating a lot. I’m really no good in hot weather.

So I did what any reasonable Type A weirdo would do – what I’ve done time and time again in my time of need: I scheduled. And scheduled. And then scheduled again, for just a few more hours. Micromanaging one’s life isn’t a sustainable hobby, but I find it soothing. And occasionally I land on something that sticks.

Enter: The Reading Lunch.

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On Mondays and Fridays – the two longest/hardest days of the work week – I get myself out of the building on my lunch break. I bring headphones and two books. I buy a cup of coffee. I finagle a seat. I figure out how much time is left for my break, divide it by two, and set a timer on my phone. I read one book until the timer goes off. Then I read another. Then I go back to work (…and eat my actual lunch while I do email).

This has been a really pleasing ritual for me. When it’s book review season, or I’m doing something like the Cybils, having a dedicated time to plow through some pages takes the edge off. If not, it’s just nice to know I can sit down – guilt free – with whatever book I want. I like bringing two books because unless I am completely obsessed over a book, 30-40 minutes is a long time for uninterrupted reading. 15 to 20 minutes is more manageable, and the timer is part of the ritual: you can read without watching the clock, waiting for the ding. Two books can bring a little variety into my reading life. I can make a little headway on a Required Read and follow it up with a Non-Required Read. I can cheat on my Currently Reading books with something juicy from my Drawer of Shame.

Additional bonuses: Vitamin D, caffeine buzz for your afternoon work, the day goes by more quickly if you leave the building at some point.

If you too are looking for excuses to squeeze more books into your day-to-day, add this routine to your stash of reading tricks.

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books
10 Sep 2014

read – reading – to read

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read

I knew it was coming, the end of this glorious season of free reading. I’d just convinced myself that I had a little more time. Alas, there will be review books in my hands by the time you finish reading this, and depending on my schedule, these could be the last few personal choice reads that I had the luck to personally choose. For a few months anyway. (drama, drama drama)

Now that my last three reads feel like MY LAST. THREE. READS., I feel like I made good choices. Last week I flew through All Joy and No Fun, which satisfied the lack of non-fiction in my year’s reading, as well as got rid of an ARC that sat on my shelf for far too many months. It wasn’t a revolutionary read  for me – I spent three years talking about how adults view children and childhood in grad school; I used to read my mother’s parenting books when I was a kid; I read mommy blogs, for goodness sake – but it might be enlightening for a reader who is, ah, not a big fat weirdo.

I also finished John Updike’s Rabbit, Run on audio this weekend. Oh boy. I made my choice because I’ve never read any full-length Updike, because I liked the narrator, and because I got into the story pretty quickly. All was well, until Harry Angstrom turned out to be one of the more loathsome protagonists I’ve met in literature. I like to deride people who deride books based on the likeability of characters, so I listened on with with intent and humility, but I could really only take thirty minutes or so at a time before I just wanted to throttle him. This might have also been due to the narrator? He was a good reader, but maybe Harry would have been less smarmy in my head if I didn’t have a narrator smarming him up.

In less ambivalent news, I read Grasshopper Jungle this weekend and really couldn’t do much of anything else. Read this, please. It’s not as weird as you think, but it’s also as weird as you think.

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reading

While I was waiting for my stack of required reads, I really just devoted myself to muscling through the enormous (but quite good) The Name of the Wind. Seriously, though. Enormous. I purposefully checked out the hardback because I hate mass-market paperbacks so very much, but now I’m stuck with this 700+ page doorstop. I cannot bring it anywhere with me. So I also started reading the new Gretchen Rubin (snagged from Edelweiss!) on my Kindle and my phone. So far it’s not quite as readable as her last two, but it’s all about building habits and making changes in one’s life so I am obviously drinking all of that Kool Aid.

I am also listening to What I Was Doing While You Were Breeding. To be honest, I was cheating on Rabbit, Run with this one. Some days, I just couldn’t force myself to spend any more time with Mr. Angstrom, so I spent some time with Ms. Newman instead. She’s much more winning. This is a comedy/travel memoir that flew under the radar this past Spring, but for those of you who like… ah… comedy and travel and reading about single people’s short-term affairs with foreign men, well, this is CERTAINLY the book for you! I will probably finish it in the next few days – it’s quick, and now that Rabbit’s out of the way…

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to read

First up in my stack of Required Reads: The Half Life of Molly Pierce. From what I can tell, there will be some mysterious black outs. Some amnesia. Probably some thrills and some chills and some romance. It also weighs less than 8 pounds (*cough* Kvothe *cough*)Let’s get it done, then!

I am feeling incredibly indecisive about my next audiobook. Firstworldreaderproblems. I have a few queued up but nothing I am feeling ecstatic about. This is (bizarrely, needlessly) anxiety-provoking. I am thinking Ann Patchett’s Patron Saint of Liars might be the winner. I listened to Patchett’s essay collection, This is the Story of a Happy Marriage in May and I really enjoyed it, but I haven’t ready any of Patchett’s fiction… even though she’s one of those authors who writes those books that everyone loves and says you’ll love and blah blah blah I have no excuses at this point, so maybe I should read one. I will. I will listen to this book and be happy. Plus, I have been doing a fair bit of Manly Dude Reading in the past few months, so I have been jonesing for something a little more woman-centric. There. Decided. Peace be with me.

 

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book lists
06 Sep 2014

reading wishlist: old books

Let’s keep talking about how there are too many books to read on this planet and the accompanying angst that I, a mere mortal, will never be able to read them all. I’m not going to fit them into 2014, or 2015 or by the time I’m 60 or 80 or 105.

I keep a To Read list. It lives on Goodreads. Any time I hear about a new book I think I might like to read someday, I throw it on the list. It’s huge – 550 books right now – but I like to tell myself that as long as my “read” list is longer then I am in the clear. Also, I trim it regularly. My reading near future isn’t chiseled in stone, and my first impressions of what might be worth reading don’t always stand up to the test of even a few months’ time.

Some books, however, keep making the cut. I added all these books to my TBR just years ago but I’m pretty sure that I will still want to read them some day. Maybe not in 2014, but you know, before I lose my facilities.

 

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler

Why read it? It’s a Michael L. Printz Honor. It has illustrations by Maira Kalman. It’s humorous YA realism about a breakup. This is all to say: incredibly up my alley.

Well, why haven’t you read it? I want to read it in print for the illustrations… but getting myself to read an older book in print is… ah… challenging. Also, it has illustrations, so the paper is thick, and it’s just a beastly heavy tome. It’s a bit of a Catch-22. Also, some of my friends didn’t like it, so I didn’t have any YOU HAVE TO READ THIS pressure on my shoulders.

But you still want to read it because… It’s a Printz honor, and I don’t toss award-winners from my TBR lightly! Insert your own joke about tossing really heavy books lightly here.

Skippy Dies by Paul Murray

Why read it? Lost of buzz when it came out (YEARS AND YEARS AND YEARS AGO). Sex and drugs and boarding school. Who can resist that?

Well, why haven’t you read it? It came out when I was in grad school, and grad school didn’t allow a lot of time for those Adult Books. Also, it’s not available in any version of audio that I can get my hands on. I’ve tried!!

But you still want to read it because… I recently discovered an unexamined passion for books about young people meeting up in semi-isolated places, getting to know/hate/love one another, and coming of age. Hence my fondness for any sort of boarding school book. I’m keeping this on the list in case I need one handy.

 

I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

Why read it? It’s one of those old-school (1940s) proto-YA books that everyone still raves about. Diary-style first-person, coming of age, etc

Well, why haven’t you read it? See: old books problem. Also, old-school proto-YA set in historical periods of other countries are the kind of books that I sometimes like but never, ever think I’m going to like. So I procrastinate.

But you still want to read it because… It’s one of those touchstones of the genre that just Keeps. Coming. Up. So I’m just going to have to read it at some point. Even if it sits on my TBR until I am 50.

 

Nickel and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich

Why read it? I feel like this is a classic of the Modern, Approachable-but-Political Nonfiction genre. Which is a genre I like.
Well, why haven’t you read it? Sheer laziness? Natural preference for fiction over nonfiction when free-reading? I don’t know!
But you still want to read it because… I think it’s exactly the kind of book I’d enjoy. I would be concerned that, at this point, the information might be a bit out of date, but given that the topic is The Real Life Challenges of those Living in Poverty in America, I doubt that much has actually changed in the past 10 years or so.

 

The President’s Daughter by Ellen Emerson White

Why read it? When this series was republished in 2008, the YA lit blogosphere went a little bit nuts – everyone and their sister was raving about this overlooked wonder. I added it to my TBR list accordingly.

Well, why haven’t you read it? Now that I am halfway through this list, I think the real answer for all of these books is “grad school.” So, I’ll choose “grad school” for this round.

But you still want to read it because… I actually did check this one out once and read 100 pages or so. I was digging it, but… grad school.

 

The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Why read it? Well, it’s Barbara Kingsolver. It has a young female protagonist and it’s about motherhood. Also, did I mention it’s by Barbara Kingsolver?

Well, why haven’t you read it? Aaaggggh I am feeling under pressure. I HAVEN’T READ IT BECAUSE I AM BUSY READING HUNDREDS OF OTHER BOOKS.

But you still want to read it because… Barbara Kingsolver. Also, a few years ago (and a few years after I put this book on my TBR) I was helping a group of first year college students do research for their English class and they were all studying The Bean Trees and their paper topics seemed really interesting.

 

Kristy’s Great Idea by Raina Telgemeier

Why read it? Things I loved as a child: Babysitter’s Club. Things I love as a grown up: graphic novels. It’s just math, guys.

Well, why haven’t you read it? I’m actually unsure of whether or not my former passion for Babysitter’s Club is even worth revisiting. It’s not like I hold the series on some sort of pedestal – I wasn’t that obsessed – but I also don’t have too many remaining memories of what the books were like, just vague impressions of characters and plots. I think it might be better to leave it be.

But you still want to read it because… Raina Telgemeier. That’s pretty much it.

 

Freedom by Jonathan Franzen

Why read it? It’s a giant Jonathan Franzen book, guys. Those don’t come around too many times in your life. Plus, I am always looking to read more books by men named Jonathan.

Well, why haven’t you read it? For those of us with bad backs and limited attention spans. it’s not a giant Jonathan Franzen book. It’s a giant Jonathan Franzen book.

But you still want to read it because… Some of you might know that I am having a deep love affair with The Magicians and Lev Grossman in general, as a human and author. He sites Freedom as a major creative touchstone for writing his series, in terms of craft. So I want to read it.

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adventures
04 Sep 2014

while i was away

I wish that taking a month off from social media felt like less of a big deal. The older and wrinklier I get, the more I aspire to be the kind of person who gives Twitter a good side eye, who gave up Facebook years ago. I’m not that person, though. I’m of a different age. The generation of Xanga, AIM, diaryland, and Livejournal. Now it’s Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and Tumblr, but you know what? It’s still all a time suck. So I gave up Twitter and Facebook for the month of August. Just because.

In May, I posted about posting less here. A week into my social media fast – as I didn’t check Twitter, check Facebook, OR update my blog – I realized that I was, apparently, trying to disappear (from the interwebs) completely.

What can I say. I’m of an age.

Taking a break did reduce my tendency toward Internet-induced rage. It provided a minor release from that whole click-refresh-check-click-refresh thing that stirs up one’s concentration. It was harder to make the decision than it was to execute. It was kind of novel to hear all of my social and pop culture news secondhand… I didn’t know what an ice bucket challenge was until last week.

It’s September now and I’m feeling ambivalent about those social mediums. Eh. Eh. Eh. I am feeling less ambivalent about this here blargh, but I’m still trying to work out the when and the how of all that. But either way, summer is almost done and I’m back etc. Here’s some stuff that happened while I was gone.

 

While I was away I learned…

  • Facebook will actually hunt you down if you don’t visit for awhile. I had The Boy change my password. Facebook emailed me a half dozen times in a month to tell me I had notifications (even though I don’t usually get emails for my notifications). And sometimes if I clicked the email links, I could get into my Facebook. Without a password. SPOOKY.
  • I suffer from anxiety-related social media usage. How did I learn this? Well, aside from catching myself trying to log on so. many. times. (embarrassing)… I also noticed a SIGNIFICANT uptick in my hypochondriacal googling. I diagnosed myself with so many different diseases in August! So many! I’m actually dying.
  • Deciding to stop was absolutely much harder than the act of giving it up. Didn’t miss it.

What I did instead:

  • Did 6 days in Michigan visiting the family.
  • Re-watched the first 4 seasons of Breaking Bad. SO I CAN FINALLY WATCH SEASON 5.
  • Listened to the Jersey Boys soundtrack more times than is probably healthy.
  • Spent the night in Vermont to attend the beautiful wedding of two of my cutest friends.
  • Hit 100 books read in 2014.
  • Wrote some book reviews.
  • Quality time with The Boy before his vacation came to an end.
  • Celebrated 5 years living in Boston (!)

Other, more normal stuff happened too. Working. Gym. Cooking. Peach-petting. I received two bits of professional good news in the same week, of which I may disclose later (much later). I spent a lot of time on parts of the Internet not-Twitter and not-Facebook. I turned up the heat on my 200 words goals and fell way behind, but in return I may have found a story I want to tell. So I’ll say what everyone says when they do something mildly puritanical for a fixed period of time: it was good. It was uniquely, unreproducibly good. You should try it, and see what happens.

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books
09 Aug 2014

the back five

On some fateful day back in 2012 or early 2013, back when I hadn’t yet adjusted to having two steady, salaried incomes in my household, I made a useful but dangerous realization. Each week, we bring home X amount of dollars, which I regularly extrapolate to figure out how many dollars we will bring home in a month. What’s stopping me from figuring out how much we will bring home in a year? Or next year? Or the year after that? Barring employment disaster or major life change, I can predict my earnings from here all the way to retirement.

Knowing our earning capacity is useful for long-term planning purposes, yes. But it’s dangerous because this is exactly the kind of knowledge that will send me into a SPIRALING PIT OF NEVER-ENDING SPREADSHEETS. What if we spend X on Y and Z this year? What if we save A until July so we can B? What if we double down and Q R S all year so we can T before we U and V? Time = sucked.

Now let’s talk about books. It’s August. 2014 marches on. There are five more good reading months of the year. You have X days left to read, Y minutes of each day that you can devote to reading, during which you will likely fit Z books.

Which books will you choose?

I have crunched my own 2014 numbers and made a rough extrapolation of how many books are left for me in the back five of 2014. When I am writing book reviews, I will read 5 to 10 Required Reads a month and 1 to 3 Free Choice books in a month. When I am not writing book reviews, I read between 4 and 6 Free Choice books. Most months I listen to at least 5 audiobooks, whether I am reviewing or not.

I am largely free from reviewing in August and September. I will be reviewing in October, November and December.

This leaves me with 11-21 Free Choice reads for all. of. 2014.

This is a disturbingly low number! It makes me a little panicky (see: dangerous information) (see also: the similar perils of  long-term budgeting) For someone who has already read NINETY-FOUR BOOKS in the first 7 months of the year, how can I only have 10 left??? Has anyone even SEEN my TBR list? It will not be kept in check with a measly 2-5 books a month!

A saving grace – a grace that somewhat redeems the fault logic of my previous panicky statement – is that since I review new YA, my TBR stack occasionally overlaps with my Required Reading assignments. Phew.

The other saving grace is, of course, the humble audiobook. I’ve babbled about audiobooks so much this year because audio has become a significant part of my reading life. I listen to a lot of audio these days, yes, but audio is also where I do my fun reading. My “ooh, that sounds good” reading. My “I’ve been meaning to get around to this one” reading. My nostalgic re-reading. My books for adults reading. My new and shiny reading. It’s where I read like a consumer, a patron, a reader.

Sometimes I feel like I need a good excuse to read a book in print these days. If I only have time for a few each month, then the bar is set much higher. And now that I know just how pitifully small my print reading docket really is, I’m feeling even more precious about which books I choose to read.

It makes me panicky.

It makes me discerning – less likely to waste time on a book I find thin or predictable or otherwise of a lower quality than my time is worth.

It might also make me shy away from a longer read. A slower read. This is a shame, because while yes, the stats show I have XXX books left to read before 2015 (read: before I die) the way I spend my reading time and reading life is really mine. If I want to read more or differently, I can shift my time in that direction. At the same time, my reading life is more out of my hands than any chart or graph can show. There are books in my house that I’m not actively reading that I know I will gravitate toward finishing before the year is up without any particular effort of my own. I might have a life circumstance leaves me so busy that time spent free reading will be a long ago dream. I might have a life circumstance where I am bedded up with an illness or injury, where reading will be all I can do. If I want to, I can read more, but the universe will do some of that deciding for me.

All spreadsheets and reading kismet and the unpredictability of the universe aside? I am currently re-reading 1) The Magician King so I can read 2) The Magician’s Land, but in order to do so I had to put aside 3) The Name of the Wind temporarily, so I’ll probably pick that one up again, and also I’ve been re-reading 4) Game of Thrones for like ever so I’ll probably finish that one before the end of 2014, and I’ve also been reading 5) Still Writing at work and I made it through about half of 6) The Writing Life at some point as well, and I want to read 7) Isla and the Happily Ever After as soon as I can get my hands on it, so there, that’s seven out of maybe eleven. My back five will look a little like that, then, plus a boatload of audiobooks and a slew to review and that will be just fine, I guess.

Now excuse me, I have another superfluous spreadsheet to update.

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adventures
30 Jul 2014

summer update

1. It is late July, and I am regularly reminded of my tendency toward summer doldrums. In summer, I am often found crashed upon the couch with little desire in my heart beyond another sip yet another cold beverage. The heat. The inevitably altered schedule when the boy is on vacation. The diet. The post-vacation comedown. The spinning of the earth around the sun. All of those things.

2. Thankfully, this summer’s slowdown seems to be more physical than mental. I’m tired and often lack focus, but am experiencing little misery and – surprisingly – little reading-related ennui. I am reading semi-fiendishly. Unless I squeak out another book this week, my July tally is 13. My 2014 total is over 90. It feels presumptuous to call the game so early in the year, but barring significant disaster 2014 will be my most impressive reading year to date.

3. I want to brag for a moment and tell you that I finished four of the seven books pictured in this stack. My summer reading list progress is less impressive – I finished Something Real, read one chapter of Brideshead Revisited, and am fifty pages into The Name of the Wind. If this is a proper calender-based list and I have until late September to complete my reading, then I am making good-ish progress I suppose. But when you are the product of twenty full years of schooling and you live with a teacher, it’s difficult to imagine Fall starting any other time than September 1. We will see.

4. Speaking of school year, I run our household budget on a September to September schedule. The family fiscal year, if you will. I’ve been putzing around with our Mint.com account and various Excel spreadsheets in preparation for FY15 and have gathered some baffling and exciting figures. First, I would like to brag about paying off two of the boy’s student loans during this fiscal year, including the dastardly TEN PERCENT INTEREST loan we’ve been chipping away at since 2010. Seriously. What kind of public school teacher ends up with an unforgiveable student loan with 10% interest? Oh, the injustice. We paid off a second loan last week, bringing our total FY14 student loan contribution to just under 14k – a cool 20% of our joint take-home income.

I would also like to take a moment to praise the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program and the Income Based Repayment Plan, both of which are provided by the federal government to keep my own grad loans manageable, and without which I would not be able to exist in this city.

5. Would you like an recap of my beach vacation? It was very fun. Exceptionally fun. We stayed in an adorable little house on stilts with comfy couches, a big dining room table, three porches, a grill, and central air. It was about a four minute walk to the beach, but that’s including the time spent lugging a cart full of beach supplies up and down a small sand dune. I got to meet my sister’s new man, our adopted German sister-friend, hang out with my Grandparents, and generally laze about reading books, playing games, and eating snacks with my family. In other words, all of my earthly dreams came true for a short seven days.

6. I’m no longer at the beach, but summer lives on in Boston, Massachusetts.  Days long, skies blue. White wine and cold cans of seltzer stuffed with lime wedges. My cat drapes herself upon the wood floors in dramatic positions assumed for the purpose of airing out her white tummy fuzz. It’s not all couch-laying and couch-moping. Yeah, I’m staying up too late and eating out too much. It’s also not snowing. Too much of my day to be seized, I’m afraid. Can’t let any of it slip.

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book lists
04 Jul 2014

beach reads: 2014 edition

I am taking a vacation today, and I am so excited I may die. Yes, I am more excited for this trip to old North Carolina than I was for a trip to Europe. Go ahead, judge away. I’m so excited, I actually can’t hear you judging me. You are entirely drowned out by my inner squee.

This vacation will be excellent for a number of reasons. I am going to visit my grandfather and his wife, who are really the best, and I haven’t visited in years. My entire family is coming with, and I haven’t seen the lot of them since the wedding. There will be friends and boyfriends (and The Boy, of course). And (AND!) we are renting a Real Live Beach House! !!

It’s going to be exactly like a Sarah Dessen novel, I am sure.

Italy was wonderful. Seattle was great. But it’s just been so long since I’ve had an old-fashioned family vacation – visiting a place you’ve been to a million times, staying with your amazing (and predictable) family, nothing much on the tourist agenda except eating, beaching, and reading.

I have assembled a small mountain of books to read during my vacation. I am a notorious book over-packer. Coming home from one beach trip in high school, I had a carry-on bag filled just entirely with books. A dozen at least. We bought a novelty lighter for a friend on our way to the airport, tucked it into my book bag and, suprise suprise, my got searched at security.

It was more than a little embarrassing to watch the TSA agent flip through every. single. book. to make sure I didn’t have any explosive bookmarks tucked inside.

I probably won’t finish all of these, but I do have some plane/airport hours to fill, and I AM DONE WITH MY REQUIRED READING and I am basically just so, so excited.

 

 

  • Ghosts of Tupelo Landing by Sheila Turnage, so I can be well prepared for July’s book group meeting. Also, North Carolina appropriate!

 

  • Something Real by Heather Demetrios, so I can kick off my Summer Reading List proper!

 

 

  • We Were Liars by E. Lockhart because I’m staying in a freaking beach house (Let’s just hope that our beach house doesn’t [spoiler redacted])

 

  • Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer because I am on a Meg Wolitzer kick and this galley is burning a hole in my… apartment.

 

  • Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson because I want something quick so I can toss off a book and yell “DONE!!” really loudly. I mean, also exceptionally excited to read it and have heard it’s great. But also, it’s pretty short.

 

  • The Good Sister by Jamie Kain because I am a good girl and want to get a jump on my next set of Required Reads. Also, because of my three good sisters.
books
01 Jul 2014

read – reading – to read

read

Reading has been a little slow over the last week, which is to say I am no longer reading at quite the impressive manic pace. The last book I put to bed was Kristin Bailey’s Rise of the Arcane Fire. While my affections for sci-fi/fantasy have certainly grown deeper over the past few years… I am still steampunk skeptical. Maybe I need to read some really good, canonical steampunk? Anyway, Bailey’s book was the second in a kind of light, romantic steampunk series – I read the first installment last year. This sequel mostly takes place in sort of a Hogwarts-y Steampunk Academy, complete with rogue professors, evil intruders, and class wars. Quick fluff. Also: I really wanted our steampunk heroine to get with the obviously-wrong point of her obligatory love triangle. This isn’t unusual (I am, for the record, Team Peeta 4 Lyfe), but there really just wasn’t anything wrong with this other dude. He was the smarmy rich kid, sure, but of course he was a nice guy underneath! And she seemed to be digging him… Why can’t these YA ladies ever just go for the supposedly dark side? Maybe I’m not reading the right paranormal romances…

That’s a sentence I wish I hadn’t written.

The last audiobook I finished was Harriet the Spy, which I just freaking loved. I think I read it as a kid, but I must have been a hair too young because I’m sure I would have remembered Harriet. Good grief, what a protagonist. She has to be one of the least likeable little girls in literature, but oh, that just made me like her more. I have a thing for misunderstood characters. Harriet. Peeta. Literary underdogs! But I digress – this book was just amazing/ahead of its time/timeless, etc. Harriet M. Welsch, we will meet again.

 

reading

The last few months have been all about the audiobook for me. Audiobooks are my “fun reading” right now, and Overdrive is damn addictive. I’ve largely forsaken podcasts because I just can’t pry myself away from whatever it is I am listening to. Anyway, I finished Harriet and slid almost immediately into Meg Wolitzer’s The Uncoupling. I did finally read The Interestings earlier this year. I dug it, so before Harriet I listened to her 2008 book The Ten Year Nap. Dug that one too! The Uncoupling is about a suburban community of high school teachers and their children and their students – while putting on the school play, Lysistrata, all of the women and girls stop wanting to have sex. Relationship chaos ensues.

In terms of print books, I am trying mightily to whip through a stack of Required Reads before my vacation begins on Friday. It may be an impossible task, but there’s nothing I like more than breaking my back in the pursuit of torturously unreasonable self-imposed goals! Today I am reading Killer Instinct by S.E. Green. I completely remember when this book was purchased – “It’s Dexter the YA novel! With a teen girl sociopath!” This was years and years ago, and now here it is, on my desk to read. I think the power behind a Dexter comparison has faded over the years, but the pitch is pretty much spot on – stonehearted girl goes after evil people, also investigates a serial killer called The Decapitator. Good times. I am going to finish it tonight! Just watch me!!

to read

My next Required Reading book is Jennifer Brown’s Torn Away. The Hate List got decent reviews and buzz, but I didn’t read it. Books about school shootings don’t really do too much for me (except for Todd Strasser’s Give a Boy a Gun, which I read when I was 17, wrote a paper on it, and then won a college scholarship. Bam.) So I’m diving in completely blind. It’s what I like to do with my Required Reading books. I don’t read reviews. I don’t usually even read the back cover copy. I’m just going to read it next, that’s all I know.

I have a number of choices for my next audiobook selection. I started listening to A Brief History of Montmaray before being waylaid by The Uncoupling. Historical fic set in Europe is noooootttt really my thing, though. Also not really my thing: British narrators who don’t answer to the name Jim Dale. I’m not sure the audio will be able to hold my attention.

Don’t worry – I have back-ups. One audiobook I have on deck is B. J. Novak’s short story collection, One More Thing. I’ve heard mixed reviews (aka, a lot of of “eh”), but maybe it will be quick and fun on audio.

This small TBR is NOT to be confused with my Official Vacation Reading stack. I’ll be back later this week to answer all of your burning questions about EXACTLY what books I will be carting down to the beach. Excitement, excitement!