September Reads Borrows and Bought

September Reads
Blade Runner or Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K Dick
Mermaid: A Twist on the Classic Tale by Carolyn Turgeon
Sifting Through the Madness for the word, the line, the way by Charles Bukowski
The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Male Brain by Louanne Brizendine
Y: The Last Man (Book 3) by Brian Vaughan and others (Graphic Novel)
Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol (Graphic Novel)

September Borrowed & Bought
(Borrowed from Library)
Blade Runner by Philip K Dick
Sifting Through the Madness for the word, the line, the way by Charles Bukowski
The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell
I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith
The Male Brain by Louanne Brizendine
Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol
How to Discipline Kids without Losing Their Love and Respect by Jim Fay
Graphic Design for Non-Designers by Tony Seddon
(Purchased from Amazon & the death of Borders)
Y: The Last Man Vol 3 by Brian Vaughan
Blackout by Connie Willis
The Wolverton Bible by Basil Wolverton
Please Look After Mom by Kyung-Sook Shin
American Dream by Norman Mailer

August Reads Borrows & Bought

August's runaway winner (although it was an all-over interesting and enriching month of reading) is The Forgotten Garden, a book our bookclub chose to read and that was a delight to dive into.  It is compared to The Secret Garden in reviews and with some reason... they both have gardens.  Forgotten starts a little slow like Francis Hodges Burnett's novel does and Burnett makes a brief appearance in the tale.  Otherwise though the main similarities are the great female characters (in this case several generations of women across continents) and the feeling of wonder as you fall into the magic of the tale.  It's not perfect, especially in laying out the foundations of the personalities of the characters, but its memorable and satisfying and I'll return to it for a second (or more) reading in the future!

Otherwise, I bopped all around genres - some due to recommendations or a 2nd book club (Fermata and Hollywood), and some due to their classical nature and a desire to keep spreading my tastes or due to it catching my eye at the local bookstore display  (The Great Impersonation and Angelology).

With Borders bookstores going out of business (for real this time) and a surprise Amazon giftcard, I've been hard-pressed to refrain from buying sprees so I'm sitting on my hands figuratively through September to balance out my banner month of new books in August!  Highlights from purchases are/were The Forgotten Garden which I first read from the library but loved enough to own and reread, and I, Claudius which is a bi-annual favorite read and which I lost by enthusiastically loaning it out in years past.  My used copy from Amazon.com looks almost exactly the same as my old copy!  I have a lot of reading and a lot less acquiring to do this next month!

July Reads Borrows Boughts

Summer flus led to a limited reading list this month but the selection at least held some diversity.  I read many a graphic novel this month to complete my Top Ten List , then finished off a memoir, non-fiction science book & a girly beach read.  None of the latter make it into my 'must-read' list but they were all somewhat entertaining.  I'd recommend Tina Fey's Bossypants out of the lot for some really great laughs and a very human insight into her dazzling self.

2nd Half June Reads Borrows and Bought

The second half of the month capped off 2 books that were about as opposite as one might find aside from comparing reading a scientific journal to erotica.  I read them in parallel so it was a bit discombobulating  (what a great onomatopoeia!) 

Let's get the girly beach read out of the way first: Something Borrowed by Emily Giffin

I could denigrate the book as a fluff piece but its really as good (and better written) as most of late that attempt to describe the often complex relationships that form between women, particularly when formed in adolescence. The reality is that these friendships are more intimate than most marriages which means the good, the bad and the very ugly come into the relationship. They're usually more subtle than Margaret Atwood's portrayal in Cat's Eye and this is a decent description. So, for female psychology... sure, check it out. Here's your warning; the author, like the narrator, attempts to set-up the reader into a false dichotomy: either you love the vain, selfish, thoughtless but vivacious beauty, or you side with the loyal, smart, average and maligned narrator (best friend to the beauty). The truth is, they're both bitches. Of course the queen bee takes the cake and I dutifully hated and rooted against her, but the narrator is a spineless, passive-aggressive leech who doesn't learn a thing through her experience stealing the beau and never identifies what she wants. Dissatisfying to finish. The only reason I would want to read the sequel (which promises to be worse due to being from the point of view of the queen bee) is to hope for some actual growth in the characters to resolve my annoyance with this book.

Now on to the gritty crime noir epic....

The Cold Six Thousand by James Ellroy....pretty much 180degrees from Borrowed except perhaps for seeing every characters dark side (some of them don't have light sides) and disliking all of them. The 1960's tale starts (and never ends) with JFK's assassination in Dallas and continues along a reasonably explained trajectory of consequences for the cast of characters involved. It's impressive & overwhelming and I had to wonder if the frenetic prose is due to the author partaking of similar uppers as his characters.  I was grateful I'd seen "The Aviator" and some History Channel Mob pieces as well as read "Lies My Teacher Told Me" and even "The Help" because I would not have been able to track most of this otherwise (its like a Russian novel for #'s of characters and their nicknames). My generation wasn't taught the recent history of our parents so we're ignorant of the events of most of the 60's and I certainly didn't grow up with all the racial slurs spouted in these passages! This was a revealing, thought-provoking take on what might have been behind the very real events and motivations of the movers and shakers in the Kennedy, Vietnam and Civil Rights era(s). Warning: this is beyond Elmore Leonard for grit.... Leonard is a tourist's sampling of noir compared to the violence here that compounds one's horror with the sneaking suspicion that much of it must be true.

I broke my fast for new books big time towards the end of the month due to a lovely gift card I couldn't resist spending ... I'm very much looking forward to reading and gifting these (the parenting book is a gift I don't currently need myself though I LOVE the title The Three-Martini Playdate!) in the month(s)to come.

First Half June Reads, Borrows & Bought

I finished two books in the first days of June so my month is artificially weighted this round.   To get a jump on this, I'll split my record into first & second half this month.  Good news: I've made it through half the month without borrowing or buying any new books (whew!).

China Mieville came to Powells at the end of May, inspiring me to pick up a couple of his books and hear his reading (or rather his delightful vocabulary and British accent!).  He writes what some call "weird fiction" but I would describe as a cross between steam punk and modern lit.  I'm always on the lookout for new, smart takes on fantasy since I love the genre but have to filter through a lot of crap to find the gems.  It's been awhile  since I've attended a book reading and this time exceeded my expectations for a few reasons - 1) Mieville is marvelously clever and a joy to listen to (and fun to look at!) & 2) the audience made for excellent people-watching and they asked interesting questions rather than the pretentious I-worked-on-this-question-for-a-week-so-I-would-sound-deep questions I'm used to cringing at during modern lit author readings (or worse, poetry readings!).

My first reading of Mieville was his foray into children's books & while the tale didn't blow me away, it encouraged me to read more if only to see how he continually creates new worlds to explore.

Now, to hit the highlight of the month so far...  my book club read The Help by Kathryn Stockett several months ago and I chose to read the alternate book instead because I thought the story would be heavy and depress me.  I didn't hear much of the conversation about the book but in the intervening months, a friend here and there have mentioned how much they liked the book and wanted to discuss it.  Then, with the impending movie (and I like Emma Stone so I'll likely see it), I finally decided to plunge in and read the tale. 
I was blown away.  I found the characters so incredibly vivid and believable, and could empathize alike with those breaking with and those brainwashed by their culture.  The story has a little bit of everything; a girl establishing her independence, racial issues, class issues, familial love and conflict, danger, history, loss and hope.  Instead of a story of ignorance and blame, this was a story of one woman's emergence from Plato's cave and the myriad impacts in her life both difficult and wonderful.  If there is a moral to the story, it matches that of "Mean Girls:" we are all women facing similar challenges in the world... if we would just help each other, we can change our lives and our futures for the better.

May Reads, Borrows and Bought

This was a month of sampling multiple books at once before knuckling down to finish any.  As a result, 3 of my books completed the first week of June which sorely tested me for my chronological reporting.  However, I will stick to the facts and use this as an excuse to say a little more on my fewer reads than I normally post for a respectible number. 

Despite the few completions, this was a banner month for picking up books: the library had a sale, an author came for a book reading to Portland, and Borders had too many great coupons!  As a result, my vice is extremely apparent this month but I'm excited about the selections and already anticipate getting through several in the month of June!

April Reads, Bought & Borrows

This was a busy month (and rainy!) but I managed to read some great, atypical books (for me), several of which I've been advocating heartily to others - see my UK post --  Now that the weather is turning, I suspect my reading list will slim significantly.  From my bookclub, I was introduced to two well-written non-fiction reads: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks & The Female Brain which were accessible and interesting. The Female Brain especially is a recommended book for women, fathers and husbands... I've been recommending it particularly to men with teen daughters.  Half of the book is reference material so it's concise, smart 5 chapters read quickly - plus you'll have some fascinating "did you know?" 's for your next dinner party!

The second half of the month I read a favorite past author of mine Sara Gruen, mainly due to my anxiety over the upcoming Water for Elephants movie release (I'm worried they'll ruin the very awesome story!).  Ape House was a surprising and touching story that reminded me of what Gruen is really all about in her stories: love of intelligent animals and how they teach us so much about our humanity.  It's inspired me to re-read Elephants and to hunt down some of her other tales. 

The last two were unusual for me again -- a book about a Salem witch and a modern researcher (not a particularly favorite topic for me) and a crime novel.  I actually sped through them both and enjoyed them a great deal.  The witch book was a great insight into Puritan society, or even medieval society really and the crime novel sated my need for a 4th Girl With/Who book by the deceased (and great) Stieg Larsson.

March Reads, Borrows, and Bought

The opposite of the month's weather, March was a month of quality over quantity (it rained A LOT).  Though the number of new reads was low, the quality was pretty amazing and I enjoyed the diversity (YA, fantasy, sci-fi, mystery & serious literature).  I definitely have more to say on the books I read this month and the beginning of April but I'll save those for a separate blog.

February Reads, Borrows, and Bought

February got away from me (or the 2 fewer days in the month account for it!) but hardly finished any reading.  What reading I did accomplish however was pretty great - I polished off the Hunger Games Trilogy  with Mockingbird which I knocked out in a couple of days and passed around to my fellow bookclub fans.  Then I polished off Never Let Me Go which I thought was lovely and I look forward to the movie (and Kiera!).  In between, I enjoyed the snippets of life observed by David Sedaris and Stephen Hersh via Me Talk Pretty One Day and The Road to Bliss respectively.  Both had very funny relationship observations to lighten the day. 

Finally (really, by Mar 1st but I'm counting it!) I finished The Child Thief which took me awhile to get into because it felt so dark and heavy.  I ended up appreciating it for the experience as it took me back to the contrast I experienced as a child having read the Grimms' A Little Mermaid and then seeing the Disney version fully expecting Ariel to die in the end.  This time the experience was in reverse as I saw Disney's Peter Pan as a child.  Brrrrr!

Just because I didn't perform much reading doesn't mean I didn't spend entirely too much time in libraries and bookstores! It's a blessing and a curse that I live within walking distance of a Borders and a Powells both. I love perusing the Staff Recommends and the new to paperback tables so I'm always snagging something I didn't intend to purchase.

January Reads, Borrows and Bought

January saw me reading a glut of books likely due to my Christmas haul, however when February rolled around I never took the time to post because I was so freakin' busy.  Consequently my February "Reads, Borrows, and Bought" don't compare to Dec & Jan.  My selections this month were all over the board: Children's books, classics and non-fiction.  And I was fairly ambitious in my purchases and borrows (again, somewhat due to Christmas haul) so we'll see how long it takes me to attempt that list!

My borrows/boughts

December Reads, Borrows and Bought

To close out 2010, I did some marathon reading.  I saw Nick Hornby track his purchases vs. his reading progress month by month in a series of magazine articles and I really enjoyed seeing the results so I'm starting 2011 with something similar.

compared to those borrowed and bought: