2014: A Year in (Book) Review - Nonfiction Edition

My last post was getting far too wordy, so I thought it would be best to split it up into fiction and non-fiction.  I guess I just enjoyed a lot of books this year.  Sure there were a few bombs, but for the most part I had pretty good luck.

I try not to let myself by too many books until I've finished the previously-purchased stack.  It's so hard, though, because when I head up to the library book sale and beautiful hard-bound books are only 50 cents each, I invariably want to carry out a whole box full.  I know, I know, there are worse problems to have.

Before I run the risk of a second excessively wordy post, here are my top nonfiction reads for 2014 (again, in no particular order):

1.  They Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown.

    Wow. Just wow.  I never would have thought that reading about crew/rowing would be exciting, but I found myself gripping my kindle with sweaty palms during much of the book.  That's the mark of a great story-teller and a well-researched subject.  I would recommend reading this in conjunction with Unbroken.  It has some overlap with the cast of characters, but is much less depressing and stressful.

2.  Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman.

   I'll recommend this with a disclaimer.  There is some language and explicit content, but it's pretty tame.  I barely made it through one episode of the Netflix series, but the book was SO MUCH BETTER.  It was a great look at the inside of the women's prison system.  I really had no idea how things worked in prison and it was a fascinating read.  I laughed, I flinched, I was grossed out.  Unsurprisingly, it made me want to learn more about prison reform.  

3.  Flash Boys by Michael Lewis.

   I'm never disappointed by Michael Lewis.  I enjoyed/was terrified by this look at investment and the stock market.  I'm also fairly certain that maybe I need to just hide all my money under my mattress.

4. Marley and Me by John Grogan.

    I knew going into this that it would make me cry - nay bawl my eyes out.  And it delivered.  Grogran does a great job of describing life with a dog.  Also, he's a pretty engaging writer, which is a definite plus.  Read if you need a good therapeutic cry.

5.  Brain on Fire by Susannah Cahalan.

   Susannah Cahalan was a young journalist working in NYC when she started having a series of strange medical woes.  Think Exorcist type terror.  It turns out to be an autoimmune disease that is attacking her brain, but it takes ages and teams of doctors to figure out what is wrong.  I loved that it was a memoir told first-person.  Sure, that means its through a filtered lens, but she does a great job of researching the disease and looking at it all subjectively.

6.  Mao's Last Dancer by Li Cunxin.

   Having never learned much about Chairman Mao's reign in China, I was shocked by the information in this memoir.  In western schools we learn so much about WWII and problems in Europe, but almost nothing about China (or Asia) in general.  This wasn't the most beautifully written memoir, but what it lacked in literary genius, it made up for in fascinating information.

 7.  The Black Count by Tom Reiss.

    There were portions of this book that I found fairly boring, but as a lover of French history, it was mostly a page-turner.  I hadn't realized how much of Alexandre Dumas' novels were somewhat biographical (using stories from his father's life).  Also, I loved learning about slavery and black history in France.  I had no idea how progressive France was prior to Napoleon's reign.  Tons of great information that appealed to my love of random facts.

8.  On Writing by Stephen King.

    I haven't read much Stephen King (I'm not a huge fan of scary stories), but I adored this book.  It was fun to get inside the mind of such a successful writer and made me excited to sit down and write on my own.  That, my friends, is quite a feat.

   

2014: A Year in (Book) Review - Fiction Edition

Goodreads is one of my most favorite websites.  I think I've mentioned it before, but it wholly appeals to my love of lists and books - two of my very favorite things.  Also, with as bad as my memory has become lately (I'm blaming it on pregnancy...which has become my scapegoat as of late) it's great to keep track of how much I liked a particular book and why.

2014 was a year full of both good and bad reads.  I kept up with my trend of devouring Young Adult novels and tried to divert my attention to more non-fiction so as to actually improve my mind.

So, it is without further ado that I give you my favorite fiction reads of 2014.

In no particular order.

Young Adult Fiction
1. On the Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta.
    Before this year I hadn't really ventured into Australian-authored YA literature, but I've got to say that it's obvious that I've been missing out.  This one started out feeling a bit like a combination of Lord of the Flies and A Separate Peace (both favorites of mine), but took a turn into a more southern gothic feel.  I can't explain it, but it was so beautifully written and so poignant, that I wanted to re-read it immediately after finishing it.

2.  Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey.
    Another Australian author who now has my heart.  Think Huckleberry Finn meets Little Rascals meets To Kill A Mockingbird...and you still don't quite have it.  Impressive doesn't even begin to describe it.  It's another one going on my re-read list.

3.  Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool.
    I think this one may be making an appearance as one of my top-10 favorite books.  Ms. Vanderpool is a relatively new author, but she is absolutely magnificent.  The story takes place in a boys' prep school in Maine just following the Second World War.  It's heartbreaking and thought-provoking and I'll be reading it again and again.

4.  Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner.
    One of my goals this year was to read through as many of the Printz Award winners and honorees as possible.  This one and the previous three listed are all from that list and it's no surprise why.  Maggot Moon is haunting in a 1984/The Handmaid's Tale sort of way and the ending was not at all what I was expecting.  Although it's YA, I wouldn't recommend it for the younger-end readers as its really quite disturbing.

5.  The Fault in our Stars by John Green.
    I probably don't need to go on about this one as everyone on earth has either sobbed through the book or bawled through the movie.  I almost hated how much I loved it.

6.   Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler.
    Daniel Handler, better known as Lemony Snickett, surprised me with how well he captured the teenage voice.  I felt like I was re-living high school and found myself laughing out loud at parts. I listened to this as an audio book, which made it particularly entertaining as the reader was so much fun.

7.  Airborn by Kenneth Oppel.
   This felt so much like the swashbuckling adventures of classic literature and I loved every second of it.  I was initially turned off by the cover (I know! How dare I judge a book by its cover?) but five pages in, I was hooked.

Adult Fiction
1.  The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt.
    Long and full of language and despicable characters, but also Boris.  Boris is one of the most compelling characters I've ever read.  I may have wanted to throw the book across the room halfway through, but those Boris monologues towards the end made it all worth it.

2.  Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore by Robin Sloan.
   This fun mystery perfectly captures the tech generation.  I loved every second of it and hardly a week goes by where I'm not recommending it to someone.

3.  Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple.
   I listed to this on audio book and absolutely adored the narration.  It was so cleverly told and so spot-on in its descriptions of suburban life that I wanted to listen to it straight through with nary a break.  Bernadette, will you be my best friend?

Standish Treadwell

It's one of those days where I don't really have anything interesting to say.  That isn't to say I don't have a lot to talk about.  It's just that none of it is particularly interesting.

I'm nearing the end of my stimulation medications for my 2nd IVF cycle...which means I'm feeling bloated, bruised, and inclined to only wear waist-less clothing.  But honestly, I don't have a lot to complain about it.  I haven't been as nauseated this time around, which as been life-saving.  I've had much more energy to enjoy my days, so I've been trying to take advantage before the retrieval comes along on Friday and totally wipes me out.

Blake's been up in New York for the past three weeks, but he did get to come home last weekend. It was SO NICE to have him home.  We mostly laid low - swimming, watching movies, eating out - but it was just what we both needed.  He's coming home again on Friday for the retrieval, which makes the whole thing much easier to look forward to.

Also, my Mom is coming out on Friday to stay for a week to keep me company and help me out on my not-allowed-to-drive and too-sick-to-drive days.  I'm incredibly grateful that she'll be here for so long and it also feel like a great reward for making it through the next few days.

By the time the evening hits, I'm usually too tired to do much, so I've been doing a lot of reading and some seriously Netflix-ing.  Dawson's Creek, man.  It's so terrible! (But also strangely addicting).  Mostly I'm just watching it until I can't hold out any longer and end up purchasing season 2 of Orphan Black.  We'll see how long I last.

As far as reading goes, I've got a new goal to read all of the Printz Award winners and honorees.  I've made myself a chart on google docs to keep track of what I've read so far.  This, of course, appeals both to my love of charts and to my love of well-written YA literature.

I read Maggot Moon earlier this week.  It's a 2014 honoree and boy, it did not disappoint.  I'd characterize it somewhat as a mixture of 1984, Wonder, and a WWII holocaust bio.  I can't stop thinking about it.  It's told in 100 short chapters (some as short as a paragraph) by a 15 year old dyslexic boy named Standish Treadwell.  "Can't read. Can't write. Standish Treadwell isn't bright."  But he is bright.  And he changes the world.  And it's heartbreaking.  And fantastic. And fantastically creepy.  And I cried.

It's books like this that make me simultaneously excited to write, but panicked because nothing I write will ever be that good.

The sparse prose.  The perfect alliteration and use of metaphor.  The characters you want to jump in and save.  The characters you hate.  A story that makes you feel.

Navigating Early and Lately

"Fly fishing is not about catching the fish.  It is about enjoying the water, the breeze, the fish swimming all around.  If you catch one, good.  If you don't...that is even better.  That mean you come out and get to try all over again."

- Clare Vanderpool

Navigating Early

Last week I read one of my favorite books of the past few years (in fact, I'm adding it to my top 10 of all time)- Navigating Early by Clare Vanderpool.  It's the story of Jack Baker, a Kansas boy who moves to Maine to attend boarding school at the end of WWII.  His mother has passed away and his dad is in the navy.  At school he meets a boy named Early Auden who (against any expectations) becomes his friend, mentor and side-kick.  

Early and Jack embark on an adventure quest together over fall break and end up meeting a cast of interesting characters along the way.  One of the men they meet happens to save them from a near-death experience in the river and lets them stay with him as they recover.  He is a Norwegian with a penchant for fly fishing and a knack for giving great advice.  

As they're fishing together and getting frustrated about the lack of catch, he says the quote above.  I read it over and over again.  "If you don't...that is even better.  That mean you come out and get to try all over again."  Have you ever heard anything more beautiful, simple, and true in all your life?  

I'm adding it to my list of mottos.  It's sort of a take on "come what may and love it," but it resonates more with me somehow.  

I've never been great at enjoying the journey.  I tend to be a "look ahead" person rather than a "enjoy the moment" person and I think it's probably my only constant regret.  I'm working hard to remain positive when things are hard and to enjoy the opportunity to try things again that didn't work the first time.  

It's hard sometimes, though, to be positive.  Take yesterday, for example.  I went grocery shopping and got in a car accident on the way home.  I won't get into the details, but the story ends with the woman who hit me telling the cops "I had foot surgery on Friday, so my foot hurt too much to put enough pressure on the brake to stop."  

I'm a bit shaken up and not wanting to drive anytime soon.  But I'm safe and the car is just a car, so I really should just be grateful.  I'm lucky that she hit me where she did and that there was a safe place to pull over.  

But enough about the sad state of our Honda.

What I really mean to say is: go buy yourself a copy of Navigating Early.  If you're like me, you'll want to read it over and over again.

The best books of 2013

I'm a huge fan of reading (if I were left up to my own devices and had a good book to read or TV to watch, the good book would win out every single time), and thus am a huge fan of Goodreads.

I've reconnected with old friends and made new friends through my reviews and theirs.  I've gotten great recommendations and have been directed to books that I never otherwise would have though to read.  It's a great community.

I also love being able to keep track of and evaluate what I read.  Every year Goodreads has a self-dictated Reading Challenge.  You set a goal at the beginning of the year and then try to read as many books as you've shamed yourself into.

This year my goal was 75 and I barely squeaked by.  There were a few months there where I was way ahead of pace, but then the holidays hit and some mind-numbing medical scares, and I felt way behind.  It took until New Years Eve to finally reach 75 (I was absolutely determined).  Phew.

In 2013 I read 75 books.  That's 25,831 pages and a boatload of commuting time.

I tend to read a lot of YA (especially in the last year or two when I've been dutifully taking notes on what I think works and doesn't work in preparation for attempting to write my own).  That is to say, a lot of these are quick reads and are not to be considered "fine literature" by any means.

So, without further ado, I give you my top ten favorites of 2013 (in no particular order):

1.  The Raven Boys / The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater
Do you ever read a book that you desperately with you'd been the one to write?  Well, Maggie Stiefvater does that to me every time.  These are so creative and well-plotted that they're impossible to put down.  I adore the characters and live their adventures along with them.  Plus, they're based on Celtic folklore, so they've got a great folksy, slightly magical feeling.

2.  Dad is Fat by Jim Gaffigan
I read this at the absolute perfect time - it made me laugh with every turn of the page.  It was great to get caught up in Mr. Gaffigan's lightheartedness and I appreciated how he refuses to take things seriously.  If you liked Bossypants and/or Is Everyone Hanging Out with Me, I can promise you'd love this.

3.  The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
Oh Shannon Hale, how I love thee.  Her books are a great illustration of why I love YA literature so much.  They deal with heavy issues, but always end up happy.  Good always triumphs over evil.  The girl always gets her prince in the end.  There's just something about the innocence of her stories that captivates me.

4.  Wonder by R.J. Palacio
One of my favorite books I've read in the last few years.  I think this should be required reading for every junior high school student on the planet.  I read this on the plane on the way back from Thanksgiving at my parents' house and cried multiple times.  The woman sitting next to me probably though I was nuts as I kept sniffling and wiping my eyes with one hand while I held my kindle in the other.  It's a great story of love and triumph and compassion.  I dare you not to like it.

5.  The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan
I feel like I had a fairly balanced education when it comes to the Middle East.  Because I studied Arabic in college, I had a lot of Muslim professors on one side of the aisle, while the majority of people at BYU were (and I'm generalizing here, so forgive me) much more pro-Israel.  The Lemon Tree is about an Arab who is exiled from his home in Palestine and the Jew who moves into his childhood home.  It's a fairly balanced look at the Israel/Palestine conflict and it made me ache for both sides.

6. Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
If you can stand a few thousand f-bombs and c-words, then I can't recommend this book enough.  All I can say is - holy twist, batman!

7. Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
I'm a barefoot running, chia-seed eating convert thanks to you, Mr. McDougall.

8. Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
I cannot get enough of Flavia de Luce and her harebrained adventures.  This is another series where I wish I'd thought to write it myself.  Flavia is one of my favorite characters in all of literature and the writing is impeccable.

9.  Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk by Ben Fountain
Again, if you aren't bothered by language, you absolutely have to read this book.  It's one I haven't been able to stop thinking about since I read it several months ago.  In fact, it's been the subject of a blog post all its own.  I think it's one that will stick with me forever.

10.  The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot
I don't usually read a ton of science-minded books, but I loved this one.  I found the whole cell and gene research world fascinating and could hardly believe that most modern research has been done from the cells of a single woman.  I loved learning about Henrietta's background and the historical picture it painted. Now that I know about HeLa cells, I'm noticing the term much more in my reading.  Funny how it's everywhere, but I never stopped to wonder what it meant.

Digital download standoff.

Have you ever downloaded an ebook from the library (or, hey, gone old-fashioned and actually picked up an actual book at the library...) and then looked at it five minutes later with absolutely no desire to read it? 

If you're like me this is fairly discouraging because I've already committed to the book and will now have to force myself to read it.  Maybe that's just me, and maybe it's a tad OCD, but it's the truth.

Today's instant regret download is The Wonderful World of Oz by L. Frank Baum. My goodreads friends have rated it highly, and Gretchen Rubin (who I rate highly) ranks it among her favorite books.  So I downloaded it.  And now I'm eyeing it with disdain. 

I think it's probably because I had such a horrible experience reading Wicked (most awful book ever to grace library shelves, who is with me?!) that now I've been turned off to all things Oz. 

I wanted something light and fluffy to alternate with The Audacity of Hope and A People's History of the United States (yep, still slogging through that one), but maybe this just isn't the answer.  Maybe now I need something to alternate with my alternate.  Oh the conundrum!

T-Bird Pride

I enjoyed high school.  Don't get me wrong...there is no amount of money you could offer me to make me go through it again, but it wasn't all that bad.  I had good friends, I liked my classes (for the most part), I was a member of the Dorchestra, the French Club, the Ski/Snowboard club and the track team.  [I may mention that I was not the star of anything in which I participated...].  I wasn't what you'd call popular, but all was well.

I went to most of the basketball and football games.  Not as a cheerleader, and usually not with a big crowd of friends.  Generally, I went to geekily hang around with the band kids and to pay more attention to cute boys in the crowd than to what was actually going on in the game.

Our high school mascot was the mythical Thunderbird.  A creature painted in orange, white and blue on the sides of our gym and other leering places around the school. 

My friends, who were on the cheer squad, liked to make up goofy cheers imitating the t-bird.  They'd chant "thunder, lightening," then kiss both biceps and growl.  To me now (and probably to you) this seems odd.  To us then it was a thing of beauty and a source of much amusement. 

But, I digress.

What I meant to say before I got distracted by memories of my younger, goofier, freckled and brace-faced self, is that I've never had a ton of high school pride.  Timpview is just not  place I spend a lot of time thinking about.

However, last week I had the occasion to bust out my old yearbook and have a few moments of t-bird pride boasting to some of my other YA lit loving friends.

Camille and I met up at the Bethesda library last Thursday to hear YA author Ally Condie speak.  Camille and I are both fans of her Matched series, so we joined what seemed like half the teenage population of Bethesda for the Q&A session and book signing.  If I had to guess, I'd say that we were the only people above 15 who weren't there as parents with their 15-year-old kids.  In a word: it was awesome.

Ally took questions for an hour.  She explained how she got the inspiration for the opening scene of the first book from a prom that she and her husband chaperoned when she taught high school English.  As she described the school and the prom, it all sounded eerily familiar. 

So, when I had her sign my book, I asked her, just out of curiosity, where she taught.  She then confirmed my suspicions that she'd taught at Timpview.

When I got home I googled around the Internet and found out that not only had she taught at my high school, she actually taught while I was there.  It was a big enough high school that I'd never met her, seen her, or even heard of her, but when I checked my year book there she was.  A younger, early-aughties haircut version of her, but her nonetheless.

Small world, isn't it?

Young Adult

For the past few months I've had an obsession with reading young adult fiction.  I've always been a closet YA fan, but only recently have I allowed myself to read them with abandon.  Sure, I mix in a few "literary must-reads" here and there...and a smattering of biography and history, but my purest pleasure comes from getting lost in the worlds painted by YA authors.

I love that in YA literature good and evil are so clearly delineated.  And, though it may go back and forth for a while and may be precariously close to tipping in the other direction, good eventually triumphs over evil.  Not every story may end wrapped nicely in a bow, but for the most part they're somewhat uplifting. 

It's a nice change from much of the literature on my "I have to read this book because it's influential/classic/will-come-up-in-educated-conversation (or jeopardy)" list.

Here's what I've been reading lately:

The Maze Runner series by Dashner
Eragon by Paolini
the Matched series by Condi
the Divergent series by Roth
the Artemis Fowl series by Colfer
The Phantom Tollbooth by Juster (for maybe the 15th time - it's a favorite)
the Flavia de Luce series by Bradley
the Percy Jackson series by Riordan
the Hobbit by Tolkien (also for the umpteenth time)

So, my question for you is: what should I be reading now?  I'm currently working my way through A People's History of the United States, but am finding its apologist view of history more-than-slightly depressing.  I need a good YA book to keep my spirits afloat.

Ideas?