26. The Alchemist by Paulo Coehlo
Reread in June
Novel about a boy aged about nineteen who travels from Andalusia to the Pyramids in search of treasure, or rather about a boy who follows his personal omens to live out a dream, and who on the way learns the "language of the world". I read this book during high school and enjoyed the story but didn't get much more than that out of it. Now, I read it and have that feeling, you know the one, that this book is deeply brilliant and relates in every way to my current life and thoughts. Am rerereading because I feel that this is a book that I have to really know, to be able to answer questions I ask myself about it, the way I know a few favorite books here and there. So I recommend The Alchemist with the disclaimer that it may not be for you right now, but then that is how it may be with any book, ever.
Note: there's this part on p. 21 that relates to my continuing search for knowledge/tidbits about legends, personal or family or other kinds of legends. Here it is, for future reference:
"I'm the king of Salem," the old man had said.(and it goes on, to learn more read the book of course...)
"Why would a king be talking with a shepherd?" the boy asked, awed and embarrassed.
"For several reasons. But let's say that the most important is that you have succeeded in discovering your Personal Legend."
The boy didn't know what a person's "Personal Legend" was.
"It's what you have always wanted to accomplish. Everyone, when they are young, knows what their Personal Legend is.
"At that point in their lives, everything is clear and everything is possible. They are not afraid to dream, and to yearn for everything they would like to see happen to them in their lives. But, as time passes, a mysterious force begins to convince them that it will be impossible for them to realize their Personal Legend."
25. Bossypants by Tina Fey
Read in May
Bestselling memoir/autobiography of comedic actress and writer Tina Fey. You know, of Saturday Night Live's Sarah Palin impersonations. This book contains stories of Fey's childhood, some reasons behind her personal beliefs and practices (like embracing her uniquely bold, ethnically Greek femininity), and lots of behind-the-scenes goings on from SNL and the show she created and starred in, 30 Rock. I found the humor, anecdotes, and INTERSPERSED COLOR PHOTOS fascinating enough that I read Bossypants with barely a stop, though I did have moments of confusion while reading the parts about 30 Rock since I've never watched the show (though I'm a big SNL fan). This is not the kind of memoir that bogs a person down.
24. Politically Correct Bedtime Stories: Modern Tales for Our Life & Times by James Finn Garner
Read in May
What do the stories of Rapunzel, The Three Little Pigs, and Chicken Little have in common? Their original versions are not PC by 1994 standards, and this is why James Finn Gardner rightly saw fit to rewrite them, and ten more. This slim but valuable volume contains such tidbits as, "Over the railing and onto the bridge leaped a troll—hairy, dirt-accomplished, and odor-enhanced" (from "The Three Codependent Goats Gruff") and "within [the trailer park] dwelled some of the most unregenerate and irredeemable people you could ever imagine—murderers of nondomestic animals, former clients of the correctional system, and off-road bikers" (from "The Pied Piper of Hamlin"). Haha, get it? Murderers of nondomestic animals? That one took me a moment. Anyways, this book is great for people who like political correctness, twists on fairy tales, and especially em dashes.
23. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins
Read in April
Things get really dark in book 3 of 3 of Hunger Games series. Our heroine, Katniss, is mentally unstable and going through something like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and still has to be a symbol of the revolution, especially since the revolution is actually happening-- until she suddenly isn't needed anymore. Then, Katniss is responsible for fighting for her own life and her personal ideals. The battles! The assassinations! Who will survive?! You, once you finish this novel.
22. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
Read in April
In which Katniss Everdeen, see #21 below, tours her country, tries to stop the rebellions she started by accident, and works on her love triangle situation before she's sent to the arena again in a historic Hunger Games fought between the twelve districts' former champions.
21. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Read in April
Now a movie and a national phenomenon. Katniss Everdeen lives in the poverty-ridden District 12, where every year a boy and a girl are chosen to fight to the death on a televised show in order to reassert the power of the ruling Capitol. When her little sister is chosen for the nightmarish task, Katniss volunteers to replace her, and the dangerous adventures begin. To add to the drama, Katniss's slightly defiant actions before and during the competition start setting off rebellion in the twelve districts of the country of Panem. And there's a love triangle! I can really see how this book came from the mind of a television writer. Lots of cliffhangers and gristly or romantic moments. What I don't like is that this book and its two sequels, see above, don't really have clear beginnings/middles/ends. The story just keeps going, as life keeps going ordinarily... episodically, almost. I yearn for greater structure.
20. The Giver by Lois Lowry
Reread in April
If you haven't read this short young adult/kids novel, do. It's about a boy coming of age in a dystopian world where everything is ruled by Sameness and the order keeps everyone's lives peaceful. That is, until the boy learns that there is more to the world than he knew-- color, pain, love. I want to read a couple of other Lowry books about this world (I think that they are about this world...) so that's my next library goal.
19. Slumdog Millionaire by by Vikas Swarup
Read in April.
Originally called q & a, this is the book that the movie Slumdog Millionaire was based on. An exciting read even after I saw the movie because there are crucial differences in the stories of book and film, and neither work is far inferior to the other. Exciting and brings scenes of adventure and poverty alive for the reader.
18. Ant Farm by Simon Rich
Read in April.
Short book of funny situations and things by a guy who was attending Hahvahd at time of writing.
17. Zeitoun by Dave Eggers
Read in March.
Story of Zeitoun family of New Orleans before, during, and after Hurricane Katrina. Various setbacks like imprisonment, people's attitudes towards the Zeitouns' Muslim faith, and the search for a place for the kids to attend school add to the complications that living in a severely flooded city bring to life.
16. My Life in France by Julia Child with Alex Prud-homme (her nephew fyi)
Read in March.
The book off of which the "Julia" part of "Julie and Julia," feature film, is based. Essentially an autobiography which tells of Julia Child's life with gastronomy and making cookbooks, while loving her husband and family and moving from continent to content. It's a life in France only figuratively: Child's great interest in French cooking is what caused her to share cooking methods and recipes with Americans and others over TV and in books with such persuasiveness. It was great to read the story behind the fame, and the story made me hungry.
15. Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman
Read in March. Lent forcibly to me, kidding.
Novel but doesn't read like one. Written by a Ph.D. in theoretical physics. Intermittent chapters about imagined goings-on of life of young Einstein (like a broken up short story) frame a series of descriptions of worlds in which time functions differently. The world chapters are short and seem to be fairy tales at first but more and more one realizes that it is imaginings such as these that actually describe the reality of how people experience time, from the slowing down of a moment of enjoyment or memory, to the changes in speed involved in the enactment of the theory of relativity itself. Almost romantic.
14. BITCHfest, edited by Lisa Jervis and Andi Zeisler, foreword by Margaret Cho.
Read in February and March.
From ten years of publication of the smart feminist magazine Bitch come its best articles, stories and essays, expressed in a way that doesn't make feminism seem like some remnant of the 70s. Readable like a magazine indeed. I especially liked the story where the female rabbi explained why she wore a yarmukle and that fringy scarf (usually Jewish men wear those, not women) and told how her experiences in Israel and California were different. There are sections of essays divided by topic so one can find what one is in a mood to read straightaway. Leaves one feeling better about the world, despite one's greater understanding of its problems (where mistreatment of women and others is concerned).
13. Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer
Read in February.
She went with Edward. Because she hasn't been able to survive without him, literally, since book 1. With this kind of set-up, how could the guy lose? (To be fair, he couldn't live without her, either; humans and non-humans in love, in this series, appear to be obligatorily symbiotic.) I want to see the movies now because numerous people have told me that they're better than the books. I want to see Edward sparkle!
12. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
Read in February.
Jacob or Edward? Jacob or Edward?
11. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
Read in February. Gift!
What Blade Runner is based off of. Very human-like androids, bleak future, good writing.
"The elevator arrived; several police-like nondescript men and women disemelevatored.
10. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling
Read in February.
Does anything I can possibly say about this last book in the Harry Potter series deserve a spoiler alert? I'll remain vague. Unlike many people I was pretty pleased with the ending, though not necessarily the epilogue. Tied things up real nice until you started overthinking it, or just plain thinking it more than necessary. The plot didn't seem to finish off in as sentimental and chaotic way as I'd sort of expected; no, things made quite some sense, and this may be due to the fact that Rowling had the story all planned out when she was writing book 1. Not top-of-the head stuff; one can look back at books 1 and 2 and think ohh, so THAT'S why that happened then... and I didn't get it until now! Pleasing.
9. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling.
Read in February?
Still the whole "let the villain summarize their plot at the end of the book" thing going on, but rest of story becoming much more complex in construction as series continues. Annoying how in many of Harry Potter books serious clues are dropped for the reader in the form of "and then Harry saw person X doing this suspicious action" but a second later Harry decides to just put off thinking about this life-threatening crisis because he has exams or a crush or something. I mean, I know, being teenaged is hard, but after being repeated a few times, this writing stunt fails to amuse. Not that this kept me from really getting into the Harry Potter series.
8. New Moon by Stephenie Meyer
Read in January?
Still reading, despite Bella's inadequacies. Come on, Ms. Meyer, you could at least have made your heroine likeable. I suppose that she must by nature be anti-feminist in many ways (exception: she seeks her beloved, not vice versa; in fiction this is somewhat rare) because she's an example of a Mormon family sort of girl, as described in A.J. Wright's essay, "Focus on the Family," in Vader, Voldemort, and other Villains. BUT. Not being a career woman is no excuse for a girl to call herself "gimpy" or "damaged goods" (especially when she hasn't gone past first base). Really?
7. Twilight by Stephenie Meyer
Read in January?
Really getting in tune with the popular psyche these couple months. At least am in the YA section instead of just children's when I walk into the library. Book: how romantic! Vampire characters and their supernatural traits intriguing; Bella the sort of person I'd be very annoyed with in real life because she keeps putting herself down. Heard somewhere that her one character trait is clumsiness and it does seem as though this is so, unfortunately.
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling
Read in January.
In which people really start dying.
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling
Read in January.
I liked the Dark Arts prof. in this one, even though [spoiler; you know if you read the book].
4. Archaic Smile by A. E. Stallings
Read in January.
A friend gave me this slim volume of poetry who either knows my tastes well, or has good taste objectively, or, I would like to think, both. These are the kind of poems that are recent enough to feel fresh (book published 1999) but make use of solid old structures enough to please me, or possibly the ghost of Marianne Moore. The rhythms aren't strict but the slant rhymes are delightful. There are many poems in this book that retell stories of the classics (you know, Greek gods and such), stories which I love, while other poems here give me startling new ways of thinking about everyday objects and occurrences. Overall, I found the book not incredible but still very, very good, and I am sad that it's over, and I will give it more readings.
3. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, by J. K. Rowling.
Read in January.
The third book in the Harry Potter series. This one is much more complex, especially towards the end. I like the twists and turns and knots, though a lot of the story still depends on people explaining everything to each other near the end of the series of events, chronically speaking. And Rowling continues to outdo herself in describing blushing kids in a wide variety of ways: so many ways to say "pink"! Generally good reading experience.
2. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, by J. K. Rowling.
1. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, by J. K. Rowling.
Reread in January.
The first two books in the Harry Potter series, you know, famous seven YA novels about boy who finds out he's a wizard, goes to a special school for it and makes friends and gets into mysterious adventures. Lots of flying broomsticks, magical sweets, and sweet vengeance going on. I'm combining entries here because I read both of these books in middle school, and got part of the way through the third one and then decided it was too scary/violent for me and stopped (in middle school. I'm reading the third one currently.). Now I'm rereading them as part of my Winter Break 2011-2012 Search For Fun Book Experiences. Quite fun indeed! The first book goes by faster than I remembered. I was surprised at how little I knew about Hermione by the end of it, for example, because my friends and I obsessed over her in seventh grade and I recall having more information on hand (but by then a couple of the books had come out, and I think a movie or two, so of course there was more material to work with). Another moment that was strange for me was when Harry thanks Mrs. Weasley for his Christmas gifts at the beginning of summer break (first book). Already summer break? He's only thanking her now? Okay, it's the first time in a while that he's seen her in person, it makes sense. More details I'm picking on: I understand that dialogue must be rich in content so that the author doesn't have to describe a thousand little situations in which characters exchange information, but so far the characters have had a lot of conversations in which they tell each other everything ever, at once, even though they see each other every day in class. Not realistic. (Of course, people turning into cats isn't realistic either, but it's all about how it's put on the page.) I assume that this will happen less as the series goes on, and as the books get thicker (i.e. with more space in there to describe events without cramming them into such conversations). Aaand another criticism: it's curious how Voldemort, the villain, has insisted on explaining to Harry all the mysteries of the crimes he has committed in each book right before he plans to kill him (Harry), thus giving Harry time to plan out a defense maneuver or whatnot. It's like in a television crime mystery, in which the detective tells his friends or the villain he just caught about how all the clues come together... it's a little artificial. But still satisfying. I'll give J.K. Rowling this, as I lay around the house coughing and sniffling for the second week straight I found these books a pleasant getaway, and I wish that I had more than the first three taken out from the library.
Favorite quote in Chamber of Secrets:
"Ginny!" said Mr. Weasley, flabbergasted. "Haven't I taught you anything? What have I always told you? Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can't see where it keeps its brain?"
(in the chapter "Dobby's Reward")
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