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Below: dashed off notes on the last dozen books I've read.
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The Etymologicon • Mark Forsyth HC 288 pages ISBN-10: 1848313071 ISBN-13: 978-1848313071 The subtitle sums it up pretty nicely: A Circular Stroll Through the Hidden Connections of the English Language. Forsyth, the man behind the blog Inky Fool, is obsessed with where words come from and with wit takes you on a roundabout journey through his obsession. I started reading this fully thinking, that I'd pick it up here and there when I needed a break from my current fiction in progress. But I pretty much read this book straight through and enjoyed it very much. The target audience is definitely word nerds, though. One chapter I enjoyed was titled "Concealed Farts." In a nineteenth-century dictionary, the author found this definition for fice: A small windy escape backwards, more obvious to the nose than ears; frequently by old ladies charged [blamed] on their lap-dogs.He continues:
And fice itself comes from the Old English fist, which likewise meant fart. In Elizabethan times a smelly dog was called a fisting cur, and by the eighteenth century any little dog was called a feist, and that's where we get the word feisty from. Little dogs are so prone to bark at anything that an uppity girl was called feisty, straight from the flatulent dogs of yore. This is a point well worth remembering when you're next reading a film review about a 'feisty heroine.'
You can also find some corrections at this link.
[amazon] [started 25 dec 2011, finished 1 jan 2012]
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A Tale Dark and Grimm • Adam Gidwitz pb 256 pages ISBN-10: 0142419672 ISBN-13: 978-0142419670 This was a book I had planned to read aloud to the kids but when my eldest was starved for reading material, I threw this one his way. He read it in about 3 sittings — faster than I did anyway. He was delighted by it and recounted many of the fun parts to his younger sister. Any fan of fairy tales will be happy with this one. It manages to combine some of the best of the Grimm tales into one story featuring Hansel and Gretel. The author uses a lot of clever narration, jumping in here and there to address the reader directly, stuff like "Make sure any little kids around aren't listening to this next part." After devouring the first half of the book, my son couldn't wait to tell me that Hansel & Gretel "had their heads cut off!" And my daughter added, "But they put them back on again!" And the author slips in some genuine bits from the source material to educate you a little about the fairy tales. It's told in a breezy, no-nonsense manner that makes for a fast, fun read. [amazon] [started 17 dec 2011, finished 23 dec 2011]
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Restoration • Guy Adams mmpb 432 pages ISBN-10: 0857661183 ISBN-13: 978-0857661180 This book essentially finishes the story begun in The World House which I read last March. A random selection of people, upon discovering an odd puzzle box and dangerous situations, find themselves trapped in a mysterious house that defies logic, has endless corridors, rooms, and dangers. In this story they realize that they must somehow re-imprison the Prisoner who was inadvertently loosed in the first book. This Prisoner is evil and has god-like powers. It's not going to be easy. Not everyone will survive. And in this go-round, a train is added to the House. It can be somewhat confusing tracking the various characters and I often lost sight of their motivations and relationships. But I stuck with it and got a better handle on things in the latter half of the book. You might classify this story as fantasy but horror would be a closer fit. Though it combines elements of both. I just wish the plotting had been clearer. [amazon] [started 22 Nov 2011, finished 16 Dec 2011]
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The Willoughbys • Lois Lowry pb 176 pages ISBN-10: 0385737769 ISBN-13: 978-0385737760 Some weeks ago I bought four books to read to the kids. This is the second of them. It's a lot shorter than the previous one, we read the whole thing over a span of nine evenings. It's pretty cute and has a nice sense of humor running throughout. It also does some shout-outs to some classics of young adult literature. When it mentioned The Secret Garden, for example, my two kids immediately understood the reference as we'd that one about a month and a half ago. This story is about four kids (of the title) whose parents are awful people who want to get rid of them. It's a bit short on conflict and the story resolves itself very neatly albeit fairly quickly. But what it lacks in plotting it makes up for in sly humor. It wasn't as rabidly received as The Mysterious Benedict Society, but the kids gave this story glowing reviews. [amazon] [started 6 dec 2011, finished 15 dec 2011]
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The Mysterious Benedict Society • Trenton Lee Stewart pb 512 pages ISBN-10: 0316003956 ISBN-13: 978-0316003957 I was fishing around for another book to read to the kids and this one had many glowing reviews. They were pretty much hooked from the get-go. In this story four young kids answer an newspaper ad that proclaims "Are you a gifted child looking for special opportunities?" All four are in various circumstances in which they don't have parents around. There are two boys and two girls and they become secret agents for the kindly Mr. Benedict. Both of my kids (Luke, 9, and Kajsa, 7) would beg me to read more when it came time to wish them a good night. Luke begged to read ahead but I refused since this was our chosen read-aloud book. So, over the course of a month, I read from this nearly every night. They loved it. And at certain passages they would laugh aloud. When I finished it the other night they wanted to know if we could get the next in this series. They said we should read all of them. High praise. [amazon] [started 5 nov 2011, finished 6 dec 2011]
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The Last Apprentice: Rise of the Huntress • Joseph Delaney pb 464 pages ISBN-10: 0061715123 ISBN-13: 978-0061715129 This series doesn't disappoint. Here we are with the seventh book in the series and the stories keep getting better. They are chock-full of scary Spook business, dangerous opponents, narrow escapes, and surprising developments. I started reading this series aloud to Luke at the beginning of the year. But I was only about 50 pages into this one when he demanded to be able to read it on his own. (He didn't want to wait the glacial pace it would take to have to wait for me to read it. Besides, it's too scary for his younger sister -- creeps out his mother a bit too!). Luke polished this off in a matter of days and wanted to tell me all about it. I wasn't having that! I wanted to read this fresh myself! I really like this series. We'll wait for book #8 to come out in paperback before continuing. One of the things that makes this series so good is that the main characters are so interesting. Young Tom Ward is the apprentice; the Spook, his master, is crusty old John Gregory; and his good friend Alice is the daughter of a witch (Gregory doesn't trust her but she proves her worth time and again.) And the villains are equally varied, from the various beasts, abhumans, boggarts, and numerous witches of every stripe. Great stories. [amazon] [started 9 nov 2011, finished 22 nov 2011]
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Norse Code • Greg van Eekhout mmpb 292 pages ISBN-10: 0553592130 ISBN-13: 978-0553592139 I bought this one a couple years ago when it first came out and figured it would be a good one to read since I'm currently in Sweden and Norse mythology takes a big role in this story. I have a passing familiarity with Norse mythology (which I enjoy more than Greek) since I've read D'Aulaire's Book of Norse Gods and Giants several times to my kids and I've also started a grown-up book about Norse mythology. So I actually recognized some of the lesser known Norse gods' names. (Beyond Thor, Odin, and Loki, can you name some?) Anyway, this story uses a murdered woman who becomes a Valkyrie as its protagonist as she joins forces with some of the gods to prevent Ragnarok (a Norse end-of-the-world scenario featuring deaths of gods, natural disasters, and rebirth). But I didn't get a good sense of the main character (christened Mist) and couldn't figure out which gods were one which side of the fighting. I was also frequently lost as to many of the characters motives and didn't really understand what was happening. Perhaps you can tell where this review is heading? Either I'm not that smart, wasn't paying close enough attention, or things were clear as mud. But at only 292 pages, I finished it anyway. [amazon] [started 23 Oct 2011, finished 9 Nov 2011]
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The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett 331 pages ISBN-10: 0517189607 ISBN-13: 9780517189603 Having found myself with nothing at hand to read to the kids some weeks ago, the missus suggested this one which she had available on her tablet. It's an old story, 100 years old actually, and I'd never read it so I plunged in. The story is a bit dry and a little dreary but the kids were into it. On the plus side, it got more interesting as it progressed and the kids enjoyed the characters of Mary, Martha, Dickon, and Colin. The story brought forth a number of questions and discussions with the kids. That was fun. But as I got near the end, I was eager to just finish it. The kids gave it good marks. I found the business with Dickon's facility with animals to be fanciful to say the least. Our next book will be a more modern tale. [amazon] [finished 4 nov 2011]
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The Passage • Justin Cronin [ABANDONED] mmpb 896 pages ISBN-10: 0345525221 ISBN-13: 978-0345525222 Succumbing to the hype, I picked this up and got hooked from the get-go. The first 243 pages of this tome are great. Interesting characters are introduced, mysteries deepen, tension builds, things are set in motion. But then after 243 pages the story takes an abrupt turn. Suddenly, all new characters are introduced and the story loses all its momentum and limps along. Reading the next 250-odd pages took forever. Around page 450 I began to wonder if this was worth pursuing. I gave it another 50 pages. Now I can't bring myself to continue. It has become a book I'm not interested in getting back to. But the real nail in the coffin is that at the very end there's a page that says, "The story of Amy continues in ...". So, there's really not even a promise of things being wrapped up. Ugh. I think all the blurbs are from people who only read the first part. Bastards.
NEXT!
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The Last Apprentice: Clash of the Demons • Joseph Delaney pb 432 pages ISBN-10: 0061344648 ISBN-13: 978-0061344640 This is book number 6 in the series that I've been reading aloud to Luke and the only reason it took a while to finish is that we were pretty busy doing other things like moving to Sweden for a year. You know how that is. Anyway, in this outing, the brave young Tom Ward gets recruited by his Mam to head south to Greece to fight a dangerous menace known as the Ordeen. Tom is in for some nasty surprises and some tough decisions.
Luke and I read to page 270 or so when he just couldn't wait for the next reading. I told him to go ahead and keep reading on his own but NOT to tell me what happens on pain of death. He finished the book in two days and then valiantly kept his mouth shut about the exciting conclusion and shocking developments. As luck would have it, we have the seventh book on hand and since Luke was itching to get started on it, I told him to forge ahead without me and I'd read it after he was done with it. He read about 100 pages in that one on the first day.
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The Wonderful Wizard of Oz • L. Frank Baum pb 256 pages I needed another book to read aloud to the kids and this one was available. It's been around since 1900! It was very interesting to see all the differences from the well-known movie. The first difference that strikes you is that the Ruby Slippers are actually Silver Shoes. And nobody ever says "Follow the yellow brick road!" Instead, "the road of yellow brick" is mentioned. There's more interesting back-stories to the origins of the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman. It's kind of cool and a little gruesome getting into the Tin Woodman's back story -- it's much more in keeping with fairy tales of old. But it's dealt with so matter-of-factly that my two kids didn't blink an eye at any of it. They enjoyed the story and looked forward to every night's reading from it. As for me, it was fun actually reading the source material to such an old, well-loved movie. [amazon] [started 5 sep 2011, finished 19 sep 2011]
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Camera Obscura • Lavie Tidhar mmpb 416 pages ISBN-10: 0857660942 ISBN-13: 978-0857660947 Though set in the same alternate steampunk world as The Bookman, this story stands on its own for the most part. This story is set three years after the events portrayed in The Bookman and begins in France. Our protagonist is Milady de Winter, a headstrong operative of the Quiet Council. The Council is sort of an elite police unit though with an agenda of its own. Milady is tasked with investigating a strange murder scene which blossoms into something much bigger and more dangerous.
Although my wife read The Bookman and liked it, she got about halfway through this one and said, "Oh gross!" and tossed it away in disgust. I thought that boded well for me. This story is indeed darker than The Bookman and I also enjoyed it more as well. Like in The Bookman, famous people from other works of literature pop up here too. I won't spoil it for you by telling you who, though. I am really enjoying this trilogy and looking forward to the final volume, The Great Game, due next year.
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The Desert Spear (Book 2 of the Demon Cycle) • Peter V. Brett mmpb 672 pages ISBN-10: 0345524144 ISBN-13: 978-0345524140 This book continues the story begun in The Warded Man. But for over two hundred pages we are treated to an origin story of the Krasian chieftain, Ahmann Jardir. With his powerful wife Inevera behind him, he comes to believe that he is the Deliverer and sets himself on a mission to unite the worlds peoples under his rule much like his famous ancestor Kaji did many years previously. Of course, the people of the north and the Warded Man in particular have other ideas. Meanwhile a new breed of dangerous demonkind is coming to the fore. The story is detailed and the characters are interesting but the plot seems to move fairly slowly. There's not a sense of driving suspense that the first book had. Perhaps it's middle book syndrome. This book is really just setting up the final volume, I think. There are some very interesting developments in the last hundred pages though. I'll definitely be reading the third book when it becomes available.
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last dozen books read
The Etymologicon ~ Mark Forsyth |
A Tale Dark and Grimm ~ Adam Gidwitz |
Restoration ~ Guy Adams |
The Willoughbys ~ Lois Lowry |
The Mysterious Benedict Society ~ Trenton Lee Stewart |
Rise of the Huntress ~ Joseph Delaney |
Norse Code ~ Greg van Eekhout |
The Secret Garden ~ Frances Hodgson Burnett |
Clash of the Demons ~ Joseph Delaney |
The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ~ L. Frank Baum |
Camera Obscura ~ Lavie Tidhar |
The Desert Spear ~ Peter V Brett |
aquisitions and turnover
"Read" includes all books read that year whether or not it was acquired in the same year.
"Read" includes all books read that year whether or not it was acquired in the same year.
| YEAR | BOUGHT | GIVEN | READ | SOLD |
| 2012 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2011 | 18 | 5 | 41 | 3 |
| 2010 | 25 | 16 | 33 | 11 |
| 2009 | 40 | 13 | 29 | 10 |
| 2008 | 38 | 12 | 48 | 13 |
| 2007 | 27 | 8 | 34 | 9 |
| 2006 | 20 | 6 | 29 | 4 |
| 2005 | 20 | 10 | 41 | 4 |
| 2004 | 19 | 2 | 34 | 6 |
| 2003 | 24 | 2 | 31 | 6 |
Note: Comments on the entries here can be submitted via my blog where I also post these same book reviews. (So good they're posted twice!)
recommended general fiction:
The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
~ David Mitchell
City of Thieves ~ David Benioff
Cryptonomicon ~ Neal Stephenson
Carter Beats the Devil ~ Glen David Gold
The Lovely Bones ~ Alice Sebold
Geek Love ~ Katherine Dunn
Corelli's Mandolin ~ Louis De Bernieres
Water Music ~ T. Coraghessan Boyle
recommended crime fiction:
Bad Things Happen ~ Harry Dolan
Ordinary Thunderstorms ~ William Boyd
Road Dogs ~ Elmore Leonard
Beat The Reaper ~ Josh Bazell
recommended fantasy:
The World House ~ Guy Adams
Zorgamazoo ~ Robert Paul Weston
Sixty-One Nails ~ Mike Shevdon
Dark Harvest ~ Norman Partridge
Johannes Cabal the Necromancer
~ Jonathan L. Howard
The Warded Man ~ Peter V. Brett
The Gates ~ John Connolly
Boneshaker ~ Cherie Priest
Soulless ~ Gail Carriger
Furies of Calderon ~ Jim Butcher
Acacia ~ David Anthony Durham
Scar Night ~ Alan Campbell
Perdido Street Station ~ China Miéville
recommended YA:
A Tale Dark and Grimm
~ Adam Gidwitz
The Mysterious Benedict Society
~ Trenton Lee Stewart
Fish ~ Gregory Mone
Revenge of the Witch ~ Joseph Delaney
The Amulet of Samarkand ~ Jonathan Stroud
The Graveyard Book ~ Neil Gaiman
The Goose Girl ~ Shannon Hale
recommended science fiction:
The Skinner ~ Neal Asher
recommended non-fiction:
Wicked Bugs: The Louse That Conquered Napoleon's Army & Other Diabolical Insects
~ Amy Stewart
The Checklist Manifesto ~ Atul Gawande
Sh*t My Dad Says ~ Justin Halpern
The World Without Us ~ Alan Weisman
God Is Not Great ~ Christopher Hitchens
The Immortal Game ~ David Shenk
Silk Road To Ruin ~ Ted Rall
A Short History of Nearly Everything ~ Bill Bryson