The Sunday Salon: The Books I Didn't Read in 2008

At the beginning of 2008 I challenged myself to read 12 specific books off my TBR. I did not manage to read all 12, but I did get through 5 of them. Here is the list:

• The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield (my review)
  
• Snow Flower and the Secret Fan by Lisa See (my review)
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
• The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger (my review)
• My Sister’s Keeper by Jodi Picoult
• The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
• The Audacity of Hope by Barack Obama (my review)
• Wicked by Gregory Maguire
• gods in Alabama by Joshilyn Jackson (my review)
• Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
• Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brook

I read half of My Sister's Keeper and will finish it. I am going to go ahead and give away Wicked and Year of Wonders. I just have no desire to read either of those.

I will probably do this personal challenge again next year. I think there is an official challenge for it, but I haven't paid close enough attention to join.

I also cleared 20 or so books out of my TBR. I am posting most of them to Paperbackswap, but there are a few that I can't for various reasons. If any of you are interested in these, leave me a comment and I'll send it out to you. First come, first serve.

• The Best American Essays 2005 (has a very small amount of unknown water damage at the bottom)
• The Lace Reader by Brunonia Barry (this one has significant water damage. It came to me this way from paperbackswap and I was then sent a second copy. It is readable, but the cover and the last 70 pages are wavy.)
• All Over But the Shoutin' by Rick Bragg (has a Christmas tag stuck to page 113 by the previous owner. Probably covers 10 or so words)
• Things I Want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble (ARC, corner of back cover is torn off- maybe 2 inches long?)

Interested in any of them?
What did you hope to read this year and not get around to?

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Garlic and Sapphires by Ruth Reichl

Two reviews in two days? Will wonders never cease??

Two notes first- the H on my laptop is sticking. This means I often leave it out of words. If you can't figure out what I'm saying, try adding an H. Does it help? No? Then it's probably just me. Second, I just poured a cup of coffee all over myself, the chair and the laptop. No, I had no good reason. There was no child, no pet, no surprise, no noise. I wasn't trying to click on anything, I wasn't reaching for something, I just picked it up and poured it all over. The laptop seems to have survived. The chair I'm not so sure about.

And now, on to our featured presentation!

As we were getting ready to leave for our four day Thanksgiving retreat, I was picking out which books to read. Sure, I wasn't gonna read ALL of them, but a girl needs choices! So I hopped over to paperbackswap to see which books in my TBR had waiting lists. Might as well read books I can quickly trade for a credit, right? I made a huge list. Seriously. Like 30 books. That might be too many for a four day family filled vacation. I narrowed the list down to Lisa Kleypas' newest, The Time Traveler's Wife, and Garlic and Sapphires. Since it was Thanksgiving, I started with Garlic and Sapphires, the overabundance of food in both was too much to ignore.

Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl is a memoir of her days reviewing restaurants for the New York Times. On her first flight to New York she discovers that all the restaurants have descriptions of her and are waiting for her to show up, so she decides to get creative and disguise herself. The book is pretty much what you'd expect from that description- stories of the disguises, the personalities of each, the experiences of each and how it changed her reviews. She goes to a lot of restaurants I'll never go to, eats a LOT of food I'll NEVER eat, and remembers it all in very fine detail.

I don't know if it's the food itself that enthralled me, because honestly I have no desire to eat most of it, but I really really enjoyed this book. The different reactions she got from the same restaurants when she went as her characters vs. herself was amazing. The special treatment money could buy was eye opening. There are recipes spread throughout the book. I did not read them all (so not gonna cook mussels in the middle of South Dakota!) but some of them looked quite tasty. I don't know if this will make my top five for the year, but it was surprisingly good and I'd recommend it to anyone who loves to eat.

Shakespeare's Champion by Charlaine Harris

Shakespeare's Champion is the second book in Harris' Lily Bard series. It is the 4th that I have read. Somehow I got out of order on them, which is unusual, but it's not really affecting my enjoyment of them. This one does a great job of filling you in on Lily's backstory, without devoting actual time to it. Shakespeare's Champion is a little darker than the first one, with a little more of an agenda than most mysteries I read (granted, I don't read a lot.) Here's the summary from Amazon.com:

No steel magnolia, Lily Bard is one blunt, tough Southern woman--a tiny,
karate-chopping, bodybuilding dynamo who's come to Shakespeare, Arkansas, to
restart her life after a series of traumatic events just hinted at in this
second novel in Charlaine Harris's series (after Shakespeare's
Landlord). When she slips into her gym for an early morning workout and
finds Del Packard with a barbell across his throat, she doesn't think for more
than a second that it's an accident. Not when it's the third death in a couple
of months in a town hardly big enough for its own WalMart. Then the blue
broadsheets with thinly veiled hints of white supremacist activity start turning
up under the windshield wipers of every car on Main Street. Lily's a relative
newcomer to Shakespeare, but as a cleaning woman for the local landed gentry,
she's privy to many secrets that most outsiders never learn. When a handsome
stranger keeps turning up at the scene of an increasingly bizarre series of
events, including a burglary at one of her regular clients and a bombing in a
black church, she suspects he may be more than an innocent bystander. Which is
too bad, because he stirs up desires that Lily hasn't felt for any man for a
very long time. Lily Bard is a complex woman who embodies many of the
contradictions of the modern South--its dark side as well as its charm--and this
suspenseful, deftly written novel will send new fans scrambling to read its
predecessor.

Hrm. That actually summarizes it pretty well! The action is fairly fast paced, there weren't a lot (or really any) leaps of faith, or questions about why she knew more than law enforcement. I really enjoyed this one, if you like Charlaine Harris' other books, you should check these out also. I definately like them more than Aurora Teagarden, but less than Sookie Stackhouse. And best of all, all I have left is Shakespeare's Counselor (which I have at home) and I'll be all caught up on the series. Plus, they are both easy PBS credits.

Thursday Thirteen #9

Ok, so this is a totally wimpy post, sorry. Next week I'll do better, I promise.

I give you: The last 13 books I got from Paperbackswap.

1. Cracks in My Foundation by Marian Keyes
2. Carved in Bone: A Body Farm Novel by Jefferson Bass
3. Shadowland (The Mediator, Book 1) by Meg Cabot
4. The Guy Not Taken: Stories by Jennifer Weiner
5. Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
6. Over the Moon by various
7. The Organized Home: Design Solutions for Clutter-Free Living by Koll & Ellis
8. The Tenth Circle by Jodi Picoult
9. Mike, Mike and Me by Wendy Markham
10. Nearlyweds by Beth Kendrick
11. Too Much of a Good Thing: Raising Children of Character in an Indulgent Age by Daniel Kindlon
12. Veil of Roses by Laura Fitzgerald
13. Devil in the Details: Scenes from an Obsessive Childhood by Jennifer Traig

Go sign up! It's free!

You can find more interesting Thursday Thirteen lists here.

Bookish Ramblings

A couple of things happened today that seem interesting enough (to me, at least) to post about. First, I had someone in my office today for a small vacation loan. We talked a bit about various places she had been, and the subject of books and bookstores came up. Now, I admit to some stereotyped ideas about her based on age, occupation, and manner of speech, but honestly, I was suprised. In the conversation that followed I learned that she is possibly more obsessive about books than I am. I admit to being a little shocked, but definately learned my lesson.

I was off at noon today (don't get too excited, I have to work Saturday to make up for it) and had the entire afternoon to myself. What to do??? I started with a trip to Hobby Lobby to fondle the yarn. I was strong, and did not buy any. Then I drove through the parking lot at Borders- BUT RESISTED! I had a quick lunch then came home to read a bit (more on that later). I decided to go to the library (haven't been in months due to PBS books) and pay my fine and get a couple of crochet books. The selection was pitiful. I did find one with some incredibly cute afghans, so brought that one home. At the last minute I checked the catalog for The Book Thief, and amazingly, it was on the shelf, so I brought that home too. That is not a small book! I need to finish my current book, and probably at least start The Inheritance of Loss first.

Several weeks ago I posted in a Thursday Thirteen that I had problems with conflict in books. I can't just read through conflict. I have to stop, regroup, then continue reading. No speeding through to see what happens for me, nope nope. I'm sure this says something about my need to always be in control. Anyway, the book I'm reading now is Fahrenheit 451. I've never read this before (yeah, I know) and when I had to stop reading during lunch I had to laugh at myself. It's not fight scenes that get me, it's almost always scenes where some secret (good or bad) is about to come out. So 50 pages into a 150 page book, and I had to stop. Sigh.

Incidently, the copy I have was published in 1967. It was priced at $.50 and advertises The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in the back. $1.00 each! including shipping!

Monday Math and What I Did This Weekend

First, the Ugly. I got 6 new books this week from PBS. One of them I will not be counting in this total as it is a decor book and not something I would sit down to read. So, 5 new books added to the 32 for the year and I'm at 37 books in. I did not finish even ONE book. I'm still at 15 books read, bringing me to 22 books behind. This is the 12th week of the year though, so I'm a little ahead on the goal of 52 books this year.

This might lead you to ask: So what have you been doing with all your free time?



It was a very full weekend at our house. The Man of the House and I spent some quality time tearing down sections of fence and putting them back up. We had dinner out- TWICE! I picked up and put down a half-dozen books before settling on Rachel's Holidy and getting some reading done. His Monkeyness and I went to the park. I updated his blog.



Mostly, I crocheted in my free time. See, I joined The No-End-In-Sight Ripple-Along. I've always been a bit of a crochet-snob. My grandmother knits and I always thought of knitting as the superior craft. I haven't got a lot of knitting done lately though, as the monkey likes to grab what I'm working on and run. I am not very skilled at ripping out knitting and starting over, so I only knit when he is asleep or otherwise absent. I've had it in my head that crochet might be a good alternative, as it's only one hook and one loop to keep track of, instead of two needles and all those stitches. The Ripple- Along caught my attention and I was off. As it turns out, crochet is MUCH more forgiving when handled by toddlers. I started a little afghan and have been working on it whenever I have a minute. This will put a serious damper on my reading time. I'm slow, but hey, I just learned. Here's what I've got so far:

Not so exciting to you maybe, but I'm having a lot of fun with it.

Monday's Math

The books from Paperbackswap have started pouring in this week. I got 7 new (to me) books this week, bringing my total to 32. I read 3, bringing books read to 15. I am behind by 17 books and have several more still on the way. I don't see myself catching up. Like ever. The good news is that I've had several requests for old books on my PBS shelf, so am able to keep up with credits to feed my habit.

Monday's Math

I had a good weekend of reading. I read all of Ephron's book, finished Sufficient Grace (review to follow), and most of Under the Duvet. I even got a teeny bit of knitting in!

Ok, last week I was at 21 books in, 9 read, leaving a surplus of 12. Over the last week I got three more from paperbackswap and purchased one (The Inheritance of Loss.) So I'm up to 25 books in. I finished three books, bring books read to 12, so I only slid 1 position to 13 extra books. Pretty good! I still have a ton from PBS coming to me this week (the mailbox was curiously empty of EVERYTHING on Friday and Saturday, and no, we weren't blocking it) so expect to fall behind more before the week is out.

More Lists and Monday's Math

Have you heard of the book 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die? I'm not sure how the author compiled the list, but some bored soul bought the book and typed out the list of all 1001 books. I have read 37 of them. It's interesting, the more I see classics talked about the more I want to read them. I think I might have to quit my job so I can read.

Shortly after finding that link, I found this link to the Publisher's Weekly best books of 2006. I have read none of those. I haven't even heard of most of those.

I've gotten 4 more books from Paperbackswap, 2 books from a book exchange, and bought one (Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs) since my last count. This takes me to 20 books in, 8 books read- I'm behind by 12 books! Today starts the 8th week of the year, I've read 8 books, so on track for my goal of 52 books this year. This blog is really helping me to get things read- I have to have things to talk about!

What I'm Reading Now, and What I'm Not Reading.

I have a ton of books that I feel like I have to read. There are several reasons for this- the book was a gift (Hi, Shawna!) or written by someone I know, or part of a series. As I've mentioned several times, I'm a member at Paperbackswap, and the way it works is that you add your name to the list of people wishing for a particular book. As the books are posted into the system, the first person on the list is offered it and everyone else moves down. You "buy" the books with credits that you earn from posting your own books into the system and mailing them off. It's a fair system, but what it means is- I often read books that aren't the ones I most want to read. For example, if I hear of a Great! Awesome! Wonderful! series, I go add the first few books to my list. The first one comes in, and I feel the need to read it quick, before I get offered the next one. If it sucks, I don't want to waste a credit on the next, see? If the books rocks, then it's safe to leave the rest of the series on the list.

All of this to say, I seem to never get to everything. I still have one of Kim Harrison's books here, a series I know I love, and haven't read it. I have Suffient Grace, sent to me by Sharon last fall and haven't read it. I have The History of Love, given to me by Shawna for Christmas, and only just started it. I have Twilight, which has been mentioned pretty much EVERYWHERE this month, and haven't started it. I have so many books! Which typically isn't a problem, until I want to read them all now!

Today I finished up Agents of Light and Darkness by Simon R. Green. This is the second Nightside novel. If you've been reading along you know I was hesitant about reading more of them. This one had a nicely finished plot, but a few other teeny flaws. I am still on the fence about the series. Mike is actually reading the first one (a fiction book not about baseball!) and I'll probably take his lead on the rest of them. I am ambivilant, and with so many books around here there's always something else. They are very quick, easy to read books, so that's a plus. I give this one a 3/5.

I've gotten one more book in the house since my last count (from PBS), bringing me to 13 books in, 7 books read. Holding steady at a 6 book surplus.

A little math

11 books in from PBS
+1 book bought (Twilight by Stephenie Meyer)
=12 new books into the house (so far) in 2007.

12 new books
-6 books read
=6 book surplus

Unfortunately, I think this is the closest to breaking even I can expect to be all year. And that doesn't mean I traded away all 6 of those that I read, so the net number of books is still increasing.

I will refrain from mentioning how many books are on their way at this moment. Let's just say that I'm coming to the front of the line on a lot of books. Gulp.

2007 New Author Challenge

I signed up to participate in the 2007 New Author Challenge over at Paperbackswap.com . The idea is that you read 26 new-to-you authors in one year. This didn't seem like it would be that hard. I just had to read 2 books a month, right? And since I read at least 40 books a year (and we ALL know that just cause you did it LAST year you'll do it again THIS year, right?) I figured I could read my 26 new authors and still have plenty of time to read my old favorites aroundthem.

Today is the 12th of January. I've read one book. At this rate I'm either not gonna get to read anything by a known author or not gonna meet the challenge. Someone kick me in gear!

More books! Less Time!

Paperbackswap.com has been great lately for sending ourt books I desperately want- as well as books I desperately want at-the-time. Yesterday in the mail we got 5 books (I say "we" because one of them is Mike's.)

Something Blue by Emily Giffin (sequel to Something Borrowed)
Don't Say a Word by Barbara Freethy
American Girls About Town by Jennifer Weiner, et all. (chick lit anthology, what a great way to try out new authors. There are 17 stories in this one.)
How I Write by Janet Evanovich
The Ionian Mission by Patrick O'Brian

Guess which one is Mike's?

On top of my over abundance of books, I've recently committed to several other small projects. I found a pattern for a little knitted cap that I decided I HAD to try to make for Tristan. It's very cute, but I won't be able to knit while he's awake, plus it is harder than anything else I've ever made. I also still needs to make a gift for Tristan's friend Brady, a couple of baby quilts, a ghost costume.... The days need to be longer.

Paperback Swap

Some time in May I read an article in my local paper about paperbackswap.com. I immediately signed up. The way PBS works is that you post books you no longer want and other people request them. No money changes hands, it's all done via wishlists and media mail. It usually costs $1.59 to mail a book out. I am totally addicted and get so many more books than I can possibly read.

Today in the mail I got:
Sesame Street Unpaved
The Wisdom of Big Bird (and the Dark Genius of Oscar the Grouch)
Cravings (anthology with Laurell Hamilton and others)
A Recipe for Bees

These books have been added to the ever growing TBR stack. I will never read all the books I have, but at least I'm no longer toting around the boxes of old romance novels that I've had since high school. I've found some amazing books lately. It makes it very hard to decide what to read next.