keri☆'s 2010 thread

I hope the star dingbat in my thread topic displays properly for everyone. How embarrassing if it doesn't! ;)

Since I'm starting this mid-November, here is the pitifully short list of books I have finished/stopped in 2010:

1-6) Yotsuba! Vol. 1-6 (actually read these multiple times each, I just can't stop myself from reading completely if I've started by flipping through)
7) Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
8) Graceling by Kristin Cashore (loved this one immediately after reading, but now suspect that it's not as good as it seemed - I want to reread it soon to figure out what I think)
9) Heart of Lies by M.L. Malcom (ER book, not what I expected it to be, therefore disliked it)
10) Calamity Jack by Shannon & Dean Hale - really liked the prequel, was incredibly disappointed at the stereotypes of American Indians that Jack represents. would not recommend it to anyone.
11) Stardust by Gaiman
12) Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei vol. 1 - actually, I've been reading the whole series via online translations throughout the year, but bought a physical copy of vol 1 last spring. kind of but don't really regret buying it.
13) Maskerade by Pratchett
14) Interesting Times, also Pratchett (didn't like this one much, probably won't read anymore Rincewind books)
15) Anonyponymous - little trivia book about epnonyms, could've been better, because it had too much of a modern Internetting tone like you might expect from Cracked or Something Awful
16) The Casebook of Victor Frankenstein by Ackroyd (Frankenstein is one of my favorite novels, and I really liked this version)
17) Azumanga Daioh Omnibus - read because I like Yotsuba&!, but did not like this
18) The Case for Books : Past, Present, and Future by Robert Darnton (loved this, especially bits about bibliohistory)
19) Rules of '48 by Jack Cady (picked this up on a whim at the library, turned out to be a really good book)
20) Rock Paper Tiger by Lisa Brackmann (also a library pick, turned out to be awful for me)
21 -22) Bunny Drop volumes 1 & 2 - really cute manga by one of my favorite artists
23) Sukimasuki another manga by the same artist
24) Seven Days, Monday - Thursday volume 1 of a 2 volume manga series...kind of embarrassed about it because it's a BL romance story, but I really should just stop being embarrassed that I like romance in my fiction.
25) False Friends, Faux Amis another ER book...almost feels like cheating to list it here, it's so short
26) Sorcery and Cecelia, or, The enchanted chocolate pot : being the correspondence of two young ladies of quality regarding various magical scandals in London and the country -- this came highly recommended from a trusted community. It did not live up to its reputation, and I could barely stand to finish it.
27) The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya
28) Princess of the Midnight Ball
29) The Fences Between Us - ER book
30) Charlotte Temple - Norton Critical Editions - title story is finished, not going to worry about counting the rest
31) Feet of Clay
32) Yotsuba! vol 9
33-45) Bakuman. - I actually read 114 chapters (the current number - 115 comes out this week) which is 1 short of 13 volumes, though only 10 are collected into books in Japanese so far... Each chapter is about 20 pages long, so even though i'm not adding them to my LT, I feel justified in listing it here.

Currently Reading:

Some of these I've been in the middle of reading for absolutely ages.

Machine of Death (pdf)
Charlotte Temple, Norton Critical Editions (working on the extras, title story is finished)
Sister Carrie - Norton Critical Editions
Between Shades of Gray - ER book
Feet of Clay not-depressing library book

Stalled:
The Naming (really need to get this one done, I've been in the middle of it since summer of 2009, at least)
Innocents Abroad (only read piecemeal before, started reading it straight through summer of 2009, but as much as I love it, it's hard to keep up with like that)
Patty in the City (also started in 2009...April of 2009)

To Be Read:

The short list...

Lucky Girl : a memoir - another win, this one from a blog
The Wake of the Lorelei Lee - this is the first in 6 years I haven't read the newest Bloody Jack book within the week it arrived :(
The Complete Humorous Sketches and Tales of Mark Twain - before my brother realizes it's missing

Stopping by to say "Hi!" My daughter is a huge fan of Yotsuba and she is recommending manga and graphic novels for me to read when she gets home from college, so I think I will be reading some Yotsuba soon, too!

Welcome to the group!
--BJ

Yotsuba is totally wonderful, you should check it out! Go for the Yen Press (newer) editions, not the older ones from ADV, though. I've tried both, and Yen Press is much better quality, both in physical book and translation. The series, and the character, are just delightful and also really funny. :) Azuma has a lot of skill with the rhythm of humor (beat panels, for example) and the art. I didn't like his other popular series, though, Azumanga Daioh. Yotsuba is much, much better.

Welcome to the group! It looks like we have pretty similar reading tastes, though I don't read manga (at least, not yet). I read Graceling a couple of years ago and found that the pages went by really quickly, but once it was done it wasn't very memorable. I've been meaning to try Cashore's next book, but haven't gotten around to it yet.

I also agree that Sorcery and Cecelia wasn't as good as I'd expected, and I'm not sure why. I really enjoyed all of Wrede's other books that I'd read (the Dealing with Dragons quartet and the two Mairelon the Magician books), so I'm not sure why this one seemed so slow. I do plan to read the sequel eventually to see whether I was just in a bad reading mood for the first one.

Boneshaker is on my list to read eventually, but who knows when that will be. I also have a million books that I've been in the middle of for ages, and I keep starting more. The good news is that I've found I'm reading a lot more books since I joined this group, probably because it's helping me find books that I enjoy more so I'm going through them faster.

You're right about Graceling being a very quick read. Because it was so quick, and because I found myself staying up all night to read it (something I don't do very often anymore, because I just can't keep awake!), I came away thinking "that was a really good book!" - but I had the same response to Twilight the first time I read it, and when I went back and read it a second time a couple months later, I realized it's a truly awful book. (Cashore's Fire is also on my TBR stack, but it didn't make the short list, because I want to reread Graceling first.)

Anyway, Graceling, Boneshaker, and Soulless were all given high recommendations to me with my very specific list of what I did and did not want in a novel, from the same person. I liked Cashore's book much better than Priest's, and I suspect I'll like Carriger's best, once I get hold of a copy. Boneshaker wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything special, to me. It took too long to get started, and then I had too many moments where I was trying to figure out the logic of a scene or had to backtrack to figure out how something was working. In fact, at one point, I whinged to the recommending friend "how is this happening like this?" and a page or two later, it's like Priest realized the same thing and did a quick paragraph to fix the problem - it didn't flow quite right.

So, really, if you have something else to read, I'd have to suggest leaving Boneshaker until later, unless there's some external reason to read it.

I'll definitely delay reading Boneshaker, then, since I have plenty of other books that I actually own! Thanks for the anti-recommendation.

I really liked Soulless, and also enjoyed the two other books in the series (the third more than the second). I'm looking forward to the fourth one next year.

Thanks for the tip on the Yotsuba books!

I read Boneshaker earlier this year and I really liked it. It was one of my first ever steampunk books.

Have a great weekend!
--BJ

Welcome to the group!

I have not yet read any of Cashore's books, but I have read and very much enjoyed Soulless. I also read Boneshaker, but preferred the Carriger book.

Welcome!

BTW, is that a Nickel Creek picture on the wall in your profile pic? I'm definitely a fan!

Haha, good eye! It's a poster I got signed from their second-to-last visit to Northeast Florida before going on hiatus. :D I believe that was in 2004? Maybe 2005. Because in 2003, I got to see them on my birthday (pure luck! the venue wasn't even announced until a couple weeks prior, that I'd seen), and it was a year or two later that I got the poster. Anyway, they're one of my favorite music groups (probably MOST favorite, since I'm awful at remembering names of things I like, but I can remember their name...)

Reading Machine of Death tonight, I got the itch to talk about it.

Posted to Book Talk, since I figure that's the most suitable spot for now.

As I said there: I'm reading a couple stories at a time, and while it's hit-or-miss, it's fairly enjoyable. Kind of a lot depressing so far...(I just finished "Piano", which is one of my favorites to this point), but I do like the dark humor and the little twists. Could've done with a warning for "Starvation", though. I expected some gruesomeness in the stories, but that one was a bit too graphic for me, so I had to skip it after a few pages.

So far, about a third of the way through, the stories all seem to be very similar, often with a twist towards the end, because of course knowing the method of death isn't always straightforward. There's lots of philosophising about how people/society would change if it were common to know one's fated death, which is where the repetitiveness is coming up.

"Vegetables" seems to subvert the repeated themes beautifully - the first page or two turned me off a bit (some really disgusting descriptions of a guy picking his nose with a paperclip, ugh!), but the final paragraphs were very fitting with the narrative and not entirely expected, especially in the context of previous stories in the anthology and how they did similar things at the start. "Pianos" is another that goes a somewhat obvious route. It and "Firing Squad" (a third favorite-so-far) have the same sort of idea, but they go in different directions, and of course the way they're told is different.

Hi Keri, I made a start on The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya but as I'm not a fan of manga I soon faded, but my daughter raced through the first 6 volumes before crying enough. We'll try the Yotsuba&!. She also liked the first few of Fruits Basket.
I noticed that you didn't enjoy Sorcery and Cecelia, I quite liked it, though I had read the second book set in Europe first and enjoyed it more.

Your comments on Machine of Death reminded me of one of the stories in Tiny Deaths by Rob Shearman. Mortal Coil was about a higher power revealing the when and how of their death to everyone except the narrator, so he's the only person left with an unknown future.

I haven't bothered with the Haruhi manga, but what I flipped through in the store was underwhelming, so I don't blame anyone for not liking it. It's actually rare that I love a manga enough to want to collect it, like I do with Yotsuba&! - ditto with Western comic books and graphic novels. I mean, I've read a ton of manga this year through fan translations, but they're so short and light that I rarely reread or feel any kind of attachment - I kind of associate reading it to watching television (which I don't do much of). It's mindless and something to do when I don't have the attention span for anything difficult. Except then I stumble upon some that are lovely and invite repeated viewings - like finding a good television show that I watch regularly or in reruns/on DVD.

Yay, finished one of my CR books. The review is here for the Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya (chosen to finish because it's short and easy while I'm sitting in the store at work). This is the second time I've read it - the first time was the fan translation, and I didn't remember the narrator being so whiny before. The whole book was "whinge whinge whinge poor me, why do I have to do what this awful person says whine whinge whinge my life is terrible", yet he never really does anything about it until Haruhi crosses this invisible line he has (it seems that Kyon, the narrator, will let her get away with anything short of murder/physical violence). Tanigawa states in the afterword that he didn't plan to write a sequel to the first book in the series, and I think it shows, because a lot of the character growth from Melancholy seemed to have been erased.

Next, I shall continue to read Machine of Death (I'm 2/3 finished) and I think I'll try to finish up the Naming.

>13 avatiakh: Oh, I'm glad to hear that the second Sorcery and Cecelia book is better.

I've heard otherwise, Zoë - that because Kate and Cecy are traveling together and using journals instead of writing letters, the whole epistolary conceit falls a bit flat and doesn't work as well. (Not that I felt it worked well in the first instance at all - it read way too much like a round-robin letter game, could've used a strong editorial hand all the way through that wasn't Wrede or Stevemere.) But, also, there's no longer the same Elizabeth-and-Darcy romance plot for each of the characters to work through, which some people think is a plus and some a minus. I imagine I'd prefer it, but I thought the romance plot was the best done of all the others in the first book, so I'm very reluctant to read the second unless it is the best of many bad options. (I hate Elizabeth-and-Darcy romances.)

Hmm, so many conflicting messages.... I'll have to just read the book eventually and decide for myself. I won't hurry to read it, though, because I have plenty of other good books waiting to be read.

Feeling kinda crappy today, probably getting over a bug I didn't realize I caught, or else yesterday was way more exhausting than it seemed. So I'm taking the day off in bed and reading Princess of the Midnight Ball, watching tv online, and wishing I had someone to make me tea instead of having to get up and fetch it myself.

I'm about halfway through the book at this point, and it's not disappointing me at all. But I never had high expectations for it - it's a fairy tale story set in a fairy tale version of Europe, and set in Fairy Tale Times. You know Fairy Tale Times, they're the romantic imaginings of the 18th century without all the nonsense of revolutions or anti-monarchist feelings or any super-obvious results of the scientific and philosophical advances of the Enlightenment, unless the author feels that such things make for a more interesting world. And, so, this fairy tale novel isn't ground-breaking or anything, and it doesn't try to do anything new or interesting with the "12 Dancing Princesses" story, and that's okay. Sometimes, all I really want is a familiar story told through a new lens, but not so new that it lacks the comforting element of familiarity. And I think that's why I keep returning to traditional fairy tale retellings, even as I seek subversions and deconstructions of the same.

However, the most comment-worthy thing so far, which I feel I have to talk about somewhere, so I'm doing it here, is how frustrating it is that Princess of the Midnight Ball takes place in Fairy Tale Europe, and some kind of magic clearly exists, yet everyone keeps referring to God and being all Catholic and stuff. It just seems so paradoxical to believe in magic and magic things, but also a Christian religion which denies magic and magic things except if explicitly part of religious doctrine. Or maybe I'm just too post-Enlightenment myself for that, or maybe too post-Vatican II (13 years of Catholic school and everything). But it always bugged me growing up and reading the LM Montgomery books that her characters seemed to put such stock into fairy folklore, yet also were devout Presbyterians. It just didn't seem to match up, to me.

(This complaint of mine is probably a key element in my eventual shift to atheism, come to think of it.)

That said, the religion part of the book isn't really weird or crazy yet, and it does fit the story, but the dialogue that includes offhand references to "God" or "heaven" keeps throwing me out of the story!

I am a bit irritated that Galen, the hero of Princess of the Midnight Ball is so horribly perfect in every way. I can't think of a single thing about him that might be intended to be a flaw, like Bella's clumsiness.

Sorry you are not feeling well. I hope you feel better soon!

Thank you! I am feeling better today, though not entirely, so I think it's just exhaustion brought on by Thanksgiving. (I'm no good around lots of people, even if they're just my siblings, parents, and one aunt for a total of 7 people other than me. Too many!)

Being exhausted sort of makes me feel dumb for staying up too late to finish that fairy tale novel last night, especially since it really wasn't worth staying up too late for. After the half-way point, when I commented about how Galen was annoyingly perfect, I started to be unable to bear the uselessness of the oldest/heroine princess, Galen's unfailing perfection, or the way most of the 12 sisters were given a name and a single defining trait, and that's all they're ever seen as. I guess that while a traditional fairy tale retelling can be nice, it will wear thin if the characters aren't given real personalities, even if the source material has very two dimensional characters itself.

I want to give the finger to all the reviews on the work page which talk about how outstanding the book is for a fairy tale retelling. No, it's pedestrian at best.

This is the fourth or fifth Mormon author, I'm not sure exactly, whose books I've been displeased with. I think I'm going to avoid Mormon authors in the future. (I used to love Shannon Hale, then I read Enna Burning, and then Calamity Jack, and then I saw comments she made about her adult books and how she was uncomfortable writing a friendship between a man and a woman, and now I am reluctant to pick up new books of hers. So I'm not sure if she counts as one Mormon author or two on the disappointment scale.)

 
ETA: Yay! (?) Sister Carrie arrived this afternoon. I got the NCE from Bookmooch, which is happymaking. My love for reading the textual criticism in these editions makes me feel like I should've gone into an English MA program, instead of am MLIS, it's so silly.

My review for Princess of the Midnight Ball. I'm going to put the book on Bookmooch sometime next week, when I have the cash to pay for postage.

Started reading Charlotte Temple yesterday, and I'm loving it to pieces. It's so sad! so dramatic! Such a sentimentalist novel! I'm definitely reading it from the pov of a 21st century english lit major who is amused by early novels, but I don't think that's a problem...

I do have to complain about the NCE editors, though. The footnotes made for some of the words are really annoying. I get that these books are used in classrooms and all, but page 22 has footnotes for "ah! well-a-day", "epaulet", "cockade", and "extirpate", but not "apronat" a few pages later. "Prithee" gets a footnote, as does "approbation", "abbess", and "commencing". Really?

But then, I don't read NCEs for the footnotes, usually. I read them for the extra stuff in back. This one has several pages of pictures of title pages, illustrations of Charlotte, ephemera like conduct reports from the school Rowson taught...which are interesting. I was rather intrigued to see that the 1794 American edition was simply titled "Charlotte" in the form of "Pamela", "Amelia", and so on. I remember talking about these kinds of books in my Early Women Novelists class, and how Jane Eyre does a lot to break the tradition by giving the heroine a last name in the title, and that shows how it's a different kind of book from what came before. Jane actually takes control of her destiny, instead of letting it roll over her the way these other characters did (I need to read Emma to see how it fits into that pattern, but if it's like the other Austen books I've read, she isn't nearly as in control of her life as Jane is).

#23: What is NCE, Keri? Does it stand for Norton Critical Edition?

Yes, it does. :)

"Norton" is a titch ambiguous, the whole phrase is a bit long. I say the letters "NCE" out loud, too.

OK, thanks for clarifying!

I just realized I haven't said anything for a while even though I've been following along. So, hi!

I've just gotta say...I've been plugging along with Machine of Death (the short-story anthology by webcomic writers and others), and 2/3 of the way through, I'm starting to feel like it would be more productive to read something by Simone de Beauvoir or Jean-Paul Sartre or even Camus (and dammit, I vowed to never read Camus again, after the medication I was on made me hallucinate orange and red while I was reading the Stranger).

Existentialist, fatalistic fiction sure does get tedious after a while. Luckily, a few of the stories are comedies (the one by Ryan North, "Murder and Suicide, Respectively" is only dialogue, and possibly the funniest one, mostly because it goes in an entirely different direction than the rest).

I've also been continuing on with Charlotte Temple, and it continues to be terribly, delightfully sad and pathetic. I love the parts where Rowson comes out and lectures the reader directly about not disappointing her parents or giving into emotions instead of listening to rationality (yet also saying "but I know it's futile to say so, as women can't be rational...but do try!").

It's such a bad, awful book, but its age of 200 years gives it a respectability that Twilight just can't have - though it pains me to think that in 200 years, Twilight will be viewed similarly. Alas.

I'm not that keen on reading the Twilight series, but Bram Stoker's Dracula is on my wishlist. My personal theory is: when in doubt, go for the classics. But then, I'm an ancient crone. :-b

Oh, yes, I love Dracula! It's definitely worth reading over Twilight - but I read the first two books in the series before I realized how awful they were, and it's been dogging me ever since.

Can you believe: I was going out to by Cornelia Funke's Inkheart (or whichever was the first in the series) and got confused when I saw Stephenie Meyer's books - only the first two were out at the time. The names looked similar enough to me, and it was a one-word title, and both books had been recommended... only, I'd decided before to pass on Twilight. So, naturally, my confusion meant that was the one I bought! (And then I read it so quickly I assumed it was good and went and got the sequel, which was confusing and bad, even though it also read quickly, so I reread the first book and noticed things I'd skipped or ignored before, and discovered how awful it was.)

That's also how I ended up reading Jane Eyre when I was 12 instead of the Pride & Prejudice recommended to me by Colin Firth-loving friends. Jane Eyre and Jane Austen are the same...right? (I got Sense & Sensibility at the same time, because I remembered something about a __ & ____ title, and the books were right next to each other on the shelf at Barnes & Noble, in the children's classics for school section.)

I still haven't read Inkspell, which I need to remedy one day.

And I only got around to reading P&P in the summer of 2008, when I was 24. So I guess it'll be another 6 or 7 years before I get to the Funke series, if the pattern holds. :P

Sounds exactly like the sort of thing I would do. Believe it or not, I've never read Jane Austen, though she's on my tbr pile as I have a few of her books; Emma, Mansfield Park and getting Sense and Sensibility via BookMooch. Have no idea if I'll like her writing or not because I've found out with time that just because an author is hugely popular definitely doesn't mean I'll enjoy him or her.

I've seen you trolling the Secret Santa thread much as I have, and love that dancing thingie in a dog suit! How's it going with choosing stuff? I'm spending so much time on that it's kind of ridiculous. But then I guess I asked for it when I signed up TWICE! lol

Have no idea if I'll like her writing or not because I've found out with time that just because an author is hugely popular definitely doesn't mean I'll enjoy him or her.

To be honest, I sometimes purposely avoid authors like that. I'm not sure if it's rebellion or what, but I get very distrustful that I'll actually like the author. That's partly what happened with Austen and me, but I also avoided Terry Pratchett for a long time. I ended up liking both fairly well, though there are other authors I prefer to them. I guess I appreciate them for what they are, but they're not special favourites.

I haven't read Emma or Mansfield Park yet - just Northanger Abbey (which I LOVED, though I was hopelessly lost at the Gothic parody, despite being a fan of the genre - my poor professor kept having to go back and explain things for me, and it was one of the last books we read in the class, too - an Early Gothic Novels class!), Sense & Sensibility, and Pride & Prejudice. I hated S&S when I was 12, mostly because I didn't know enough about the context of the book to appreciate it properly, so I studiously avoided Austen until I couldn't any longer. I ended up liking S&S more as an adult, with better knowledge of the literary traditions she was coming from, and also knowledge of stuff like the marriage laws in England at the time, but I still don't care for P&P much at all. I hate Elizabeth and Darcy's romance.

Anyway, I tend to get a bit tl;dr - what I mean to say with that wordy bit up there is that knowing the contexts of Austen's books really helps with enjoying them. There's an essay Samuel Johnson wrote about how the worst thing ever in fiction is to be didactic like Penelope Aubin*, and Austen seems to have taken that essay to heart.

 
SantaThing — I lucked out and got matched with someone with very similar reading patterns to my own a few years ago, if you ignore my enjoyment of fantasy (my Santee doesn't seem to like fantasy as much as realistic fiction, unless it's a mild form), so it was really easy to pick books and I got to explore new books that would appeal to me, too. :D Come the 25th, I've a list of ten or so books for my wishlist, though I don't feel right adding them until after my Santee receives the books I chose. (In a day or so, I'll start looking at the pages for other people again, but I wanted to wait until closer to the end date.)

I think I really need to get hold of Brideshead Revisited - it looks like a book I would really love, but somehow I never came across it before in a context that provided any useful information about it. I think there was a film with Keira Knightly? And that's all I knew! Evelyn Waugh is one of the authors that I ended up researching for my Santee, and now I feel I must read something of his soon.

 
 
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* In Samuel Johnson's essay, which I have a copy of somewhere, he specifically refers to Count de Vinevil by Aubin and talks about how horrible it is. It IS very didactic, despite the outrageous, fantastic things that occur. It reminds me of the courtly love stories, like the Lais of Marie de France, except in prose and in English.

The Charlotte Temple that I'm currently reading would just appall Johnson, according to that particular essay (which I should probably find so I can cite it properly). It's as bad as Aubin and without the elegance of Austen. Though, if you've read or seen Pride & Prejudice and know of the soldier fellow that Elizabeth almost goes off with, but who elopes with her younger sister instead? Charlotte and her lover Montraville rather remind me of Willoughby and...Catherine, is it? I wonder if the rakish sailor/soldier and impetuous young girl paring was a trope of the time...

I'm sorry, that was a wall of text! I even edited it down! Fortunately, you aren't here to chat with me in person, because I will talk your ear off about whatever it is I'm reading. I can't help it - once I get started, I keep going, and then I tend to repeat bits...

ETA: A link to the Google Books of The Rambler, No. 4 by Samuel Johnson, which I referenced above, though the last page or so is cut off. I misremembered why he dislikes Penelope Aubin so much, though. He's discussing a new literary form (the novel) and how the reader should be able to identify with the characters, who in turn should have good morals (and very clear who is Good and who is Bad). So the reader should be learning from the fiction (thus, a bit didactic), and it shouldn't be completely unrelated to real life, like Aubin's shipwrecks. But I get the impression that he thinks her stories were too didactic, so I guess that just stuck with me strongly since that's how I identify Vinevil.

Worry not about the wall of text. I've been known to do the same as often find it easier to write in long stream of consciousness sentences than edit and cut back. However, most of what you wrote about went right over my head, having not studied literature or much of anything beyond art and design. I'm just a hack really, who happens to enjoy reading, but I am all too often sadly aware that much is lost on me that I could probably appreciate that much more if I had more background information. But then again, I don't lose too much sleep over it. Some, but not TOO much. ;-)

We are doing a read of Austen's 6 major works here in the group next year. I hope you will consider joining!

Ooh, I hadn't seen mention of that yet. I think I will! I very much want to read Emma before long, and that will be a fantastic excuse to do so.

I might join it too, at least for those books I already have.

#36/37: We would love to have you both! We will be reading the books in publication order beginning with Sense and Sensibility. You can just jump in and out as you like.

Sounds good to me, thanks!

#39: Glad you will be joining us, Ilana!

I want to gush about this, but I'm not sure where else to post it for other people to admire:

Chapter XXVIII in Charlotte Temple is one of the best things I have ever read (considering context). It is basically an authorial aside that says "I know you readers probably think this story is too sad and unbelievable, but it's because you're too young to appreciate it ALSO it's TOTALLY TRUE and DON'T YOU SMIRK SARCASTICALLY AT ME, would I lie to you?" and that's just the first paragraphs! It goes on for almost two pages.

I don't think I've ever seen this kind of thing before, unless it was some Internet rant inserted in a lie on, like, SomethingAwful or 4chan or something.

Oh, wow, I really want to transcribe it so it can be properly admired, but I wonder if maybe it wouldn't be appreciated without having read the preceding 70 pages. (This chapter occurs about 20 pages from the end!)

Kind of neat that you've only seen that sort of thing on the net when you consider that book was written over two centuries ago! I say go ahead and transcribe if you feel like it. Whether people appreciate it or not hardly matters, does it? Or that's how I see it anyway. Plus, I'm must say I'm intrigued, although all I know about the novel is based on the short description blurb...

I might copy it out later. I just finished reading the core text and have started on the introduction and contexts and criticisms and things.

I felt like Rowson was coming back from the grave and scolding me for finding Charlotte's trials so hilarious. Chapter XXXIII is titled "Which People Void of Feeling Need Not Read" and is one of the greatest things: Charlotte has gone a bit mad after giving birth to her bastard baby in a very low manner, and she has no money and no friends. Then, suddenly! her dear friend and only confidante since arriving in the colonies is there and comforting her! and then! that selfsame evening! her father finally arrives from England! and then she dies.

All the bad people in this book are so bad, and the evil brush doesn't spare them any. The good people are boring, even when they've been given the Sad and Pitiful treatment. And then there's Charlotte who is supposed to be good, but is tricked into being bad, so she must die. Of course.

I feel a bit bad for laughing at the book, but it's just so steeped in sentimentalism that I can't take it seriously (and Rowson chides me for it as she speaks from the pages).

It's definitely a book I'm going to recommend to others who have similar tastes to mine. :D

ETA: Curiously, this book was written about the time of the French Revolution (well, shortly afterwards - early 1790s). It's intriguing that the three main villains are French or have somewhat French-sounding names: Montraville and Belcour are the English soldiers that Charlotte gets mixed up with, and La Rue is the name of the French governess from her school who convinces her to elope with Montraville to New York (La Rue pairs herself with Belcour and the four go together).

A quote from the introduction, which I think is lovely:

Whether or not novels taught you anything, they helped alleviate loneliness; and how could that be anything but worthy?

(In the context of how novels were and often still are looked down upon as unworthy of anyone's attention.)

I'm getting more and more intrigued about this book. I think I'll add it to my BookMooch wishlist!

Just so you know - that quote is from the introduction by Marion Rust from the Norton Critical Edition. (I usually don't bother to edit my touchstones so that they don't point to the Penguin.) The NCE is only 20% primary text, with over 400 pages of contemporary writings and critical essays (not contemporary to the book). So while I've finished Charlotte Temple, I've really only begun with the book. :)

I was going to slow down on it and put more focus into Sister Carrie, but with my Nanny going into hospice today (she was diagnosed with lung cancer in January 2008, so she's lasted a lot longer than they expected her to...but, still, she's my favorite person in the entire world and I'm sad that she won't be around anymore), I think I'm going to have to switch to lighter fare. Definitely no more Machine of Death for a while. I'll probably start reading the newest Bloody Jack book, or maybe reread Graceling like I've been wanting to do.

Keri, I am sorry to hear about your grandmother. I lost mine several years ago and still feel the loss deeply. It sounds like lighter fare for reading is just what you need right now.

Sorry to hear this is a difficult time for you. Do what you need to do to feel better. Reading should definitely not be a source of stress or difficulty, but it can certainly be a soft place to fall back on in times of need. I know a thing or two about that.

Both my October and November Early Reviewer wins arrived yesterday and today! So that was a pretty nice treat what with all the depressing hospice stuff. I got a few pages further into Sister Carrie, but put it aside for Fences Between Us, the new Dear America book. I'm about halfway through now, and really enjoying it!

There isn't much to do at the hospice than sit and read while Nanny sleeps (though I helped out with rubbing her head and arms and stuff when she got restless, which was nice - one of the last times that she opened her eyes and tried to talk to anyone tonight, it was to tell me "thanks for helping" when I helped her lift her arm up, because it was hurting too much. dunno what happened, but today, her right arm is all swollen and red and super painful, and the nurse didn't realized and touched it too hard, so I helped her lift it up and we put a pillow underneath the not-so-hurty part. I doubt she really saw me, but it was still good... anyway, she probably won't wake up again). There's only so much of Christmas specials on tv that I can take in a good year!

and I'm turning this into my regular blog/twitter, so...

Fences Between Us has exceeded my expectations so far. I'm not sure if I expected it to be a lower reading level or something, but the last Dear America I remember reading wasn't quite as nuanced as this one. Or maybe I'm mixing it up with the American Girl History Mysteries? Though those vary in quality themselves.

I was worried about how the book would treat the Japanese-American Internment, because why on earth tell it from the pov of a white kid? it just seemed weird. But I think I kind of get it - it's an outsider pov that allows for the main character to learn about the Relocation and the way everything is in a secondhand manner, the way the reader is learning about it. So it's maybe a bit easier for the reader to relate to her, though I don't think it's difficult for the reader to relate to a firsthand account, either - I mean, look at the popularity of Farewell to Manzanar, you know?

It's also really nice that the main character isn't perfect. She resents the Japanese-Americans in her town, even as she loves her friends among them, even as she knows that they're not responsible for taking her brother away (he was at Pearl Harbor, but I won't say more because of spoilers! The Pearl Harbor thing is pretty obvious from the first few pages if you know anything about WW2 or WW2-setting stories.) She also experiences her first love in the book, and fights with him, makes up with him again... And she doesn't accept the rationing and stuff valiantly like a homefront soldier the way some girls in this kind of book do.

There are a lot of references to fashion and popular culture of the early 1940s to help set the scene, but so far it feels very natural. Nothing like the awkwardness of Sorcery and Cecelia... I love that Piper has a tube of Tangee lipstick.

I just started the second section, where she moves to be close to Minidoka with her dad, the preacher.

Oh! And what else I like about this: I have read a lot of books for kids about WW2, but this is the first time I've read one that puts so much focus on before 6 Dec 1941 and the first few weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, particular in the Western United States. It's also very negative about the Internment Camps, and it continually points out how the Japanese-Americans are normal people, and the way they were treated was wrong. I think it's very good to have another book for young people on the topic like this, since a lot of people never know of it. But we'll see what I think of it when I get to the end.

The other book is the one I got today, about the relocation to Siberian camps by the Soviets, Between Shades of Gray. I guess I'll read it next.

I read a good book by Sandra Dallas earlier this year about the Japanese internment, if you are interested, Keri. The book is entitled Tallgrass.

I am glad you got to spend some time with your grandmother today.

Thanks, Stasia! I am interested in reading more about the Japanese internment. I've always been fascinated about how the USA is supposed to be the hero in all the WW2 tales (well, the ones I got as a kid), but here's this thing the government did that it comparable with what the Nazis and Soviets did. Granted, the Japanese internment isn't on par with the Nazi death camps, but they didn't start out that way, as I understand (it began with ghettos and curfews and things, I think?).

&nsbp;

I finished the Dear America book tonight, and it continued to please me. Life in Minidoka was depicted as being pretty terrible, but the residents made the best of it they could. It seemed like the journal entries were covering less detail of that period, and that they were shorter, compared to the first half of the book when Piper is in Seattle, but that fit with the difference in her life, too. She was a lot busier after moving to Idaho and couldn't write so much. Plus, her life was a lot more monotonous.

I also really really liked that the main character has different boy-girl relationships, but none of them are the kind where she's going to marry and live happily ever after, like too many books I've read like to imply. It's quite realistic, also the way her friendships change, and other relationships.

I'm still a bit unsure about the fact that the narrator isn't Japanese-American herself, but the story was based around a specific Baptist preacher who made trips between Seattle and Minidoka, so I guess that's an interesting thing to write about. And it's probably better that the author didn't attempt to write a Japanese-American girl/family and get it all wrong.

___

I also read another 30 pages of Sister Carrie, and am really starting to get into it. The descriptions of her wanderings around Chicago so far and her first day at work really pulled me in. It probably helps that I was tired, but not falling-over-asleep-on-my-feet tired while I read today. :)

#51: the Japanese internment isn't on par with the Nazi death camps, but they didn't start out that way, as I understand (it began with ghettos and curfews and things, I think?)

Yes, the Nazi concentration camps began with ghettos but the prime objective from the beginning was the elimination of European (and eventually all) Jewry. Hitler never had any intention of allowing people of Jewish extraction to live, so although the US was certainly mistaken in locking up people of Japanese descent, there was no intention of mass slaughter as the Nazis did.

Another good fiction book on the Japanese internment is When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka. I found the matter-of-fact tone in the book worked well.

Oh, goodness. I don't know how that really obvious and really awful bit slipped my mind last night. Of COURSE the USA weren't planning to eliminate all the Japanese-Americans, just maybe deport them or something.

I'll add that Otsuka book to my list, too, thanks!

And speaking of WW2 - I found out last night that one of my great-uncles was Eisenhower's driver before he became a general. And that same great-uncle was involved in the Battle of the Bulge and the Italian Invasion. He died a few years ago, and I'd never had much of a chance to talk to him about his life, because he lived on the opposite side of the country as me.

#53: It is a shame about your great-uncle. Unfortunately, we are losing the generation that lived through the WWII era and I hate to think how many stories are lost in the process.

You remind me that I still need to get to Farewell to Manzanar, a nonfiction book about the Japanese internments.

Changing the subject of the thread:

I picked up a book for my dad at the library, so he can work on a tour of the city for his motorcycle club. Every few months, he'll do a bike tour to show interesting things to them. Over the summer, it was Historic Places, like Fort Caroline and the Timucuan Preserve and stuff. This time, he's doing a tour of Henry Klutho's architecture. The book is The Architecture of Henry John Klutho : The Prairie School in Jacksonville by Bob Broward.

Since I had it for a couple days before I handed it off (and why doesn't he have his own library card, I wonder?), I took the time to go through it. The thing is like five hundred pages long with at least one photo on every page. My eyes started glazing over at the text, so I skipped a lot of it, but the photos and architectural plans and such carry the narrative quite well. If you're interested in architecture and the Prairie School, it might be something to look at. I enjoyed reading about Klutho (the bits I bothered to read), and it was really cool to see the plans of buildings I've seen all my life, but never got a chance to go inside.

I also got a library book for myself today: a new Discworld novel, Feet of Clay. I think the Watch are my favorite sub-series, but I didn't quite realize this was a Watch book before I picked it up. :) I wanted to try to read it soon so I could read Hogfather with all the other readers of that one this month.

My other ER book to read right now is also pretty depressing (the deportation of Lithuanians to Siberia by the Soviets in 1941), so I had to get something light and new-to-me, besides wanting to read Hogfather soon, but not wanting to skip in the publication order.

Love the paragraph about geography and meteorology a few pages in. The "geography is only physics slowed down with trees stuck in" one. Pratchett usually puts in paragraphs like that at the beginning of the books, and they always seem to somehow give an aspect of the theme of the book in a tangential sort of way, yet pithy and somehow entirely accurate.

#55: why doesn't he have his own library card, I wonder?

Did you ask him?

Stay away from the gloomy stuff! I'm trying to think of something light and humorous yet not trite to suggest to you but can't come up with anything just now. I'll think it over and come back when I've got something I think might suit you.

So I have a new 2011 thread, but I'm not posting my reading in it until 2011!

I wanted to comment that I'm having a really hard time figuring out how to talk about Fences Between Us for the obligatory ER review. I've spoken about it too many times otherwise, I think.

Also, I'm about 1/3 of the way through Feet of Clay and really loving it. I suspect that the Watch books are my favorite of the Discworld series.

I read a couple chapters into Between Shades of Gray, and it's quite vivid and interesting, but yes with the depressing. Hopefully I'll be able to get both it and the Discworld one finished by the end of the year. I have a painting I want to finish this month, too, though.

It's this here, though the photo is pretty bad. I took it with my cellphone:

The Watch books are my favorite subseries too, although I do love the Witches.

There we are, got my ER review done. click here for it - Dear America: Fences Between Us : The 1941 Diary of Piper Davis :)

Nice review, Keri! Thumbs up from me.

I just finished reading Feet of Clay - it's definitely one of the better of the Discworld books so far, which I think might be because I don't recognize whatever is getting parodied specifically, only generally. That and the plot didn't have that weird boring/slow part 4/5 of the way through. I thought it was going to, when Colon was on a gutter in a chase scene, but it settled itself pretty quickly.

Hogfather is next for me in that series, but I'm not going to get it from the library until I've moved my bookmark further into Sister Carrie. My nanny's funeral is Wednesday, the burial is Thursday, and Saturday is Christmas, so it looks like I'll be doing plenty of sitting around with a book this week, so it shouldn't be much trouble. (I dislike big crowds of people and often take to a hidden corner with a book. Since this is mostly a family thing (albeit a very large clan), and my family all know that I'm not good with great globs of people, I won't have to worry about coming off as rude. That and we've all spent plenty of quality time with a few of us reading/knitting and everyone else gossiping/watching tv.)

I know your grandmother's death was not unexpected, Keri, but I am sure it is hard on you and your family especially at this time of year. Please accept my sympathies.

My sympathies also Kerri. I lost both my grannies long long ago but will always keep a place in my heart for them both.

I've always been known in my family for sitting in a corner buried deep in a book. It never occurred to me to even wonder whether people though I was being anti-social/rude or not... it always just felt like the natural thing to do!

Thank you Stasia and Ilana. My mom and aunt are really having a hard time because of her dying last Saturday, a week before Christmas. Trying to schedule a funeral at this time of year is incredibly difficult, and of course we usually gather at Nanny's house for all the holiday goings-on, and it's really weird to be there and her not be sitting in her chair or baking in the kitchen.

 

It never occurred to me to even wonder whether people though I was being anti-social/rude or not... it always just felt like the natural thing to do!

I would say it's the same for me, except that I was hyper aware of the disapproving looks, especially from step-family (the families merged when I was 13). Goodness, my stepdad's family are all super sociable and I don't think there's a one who is more introverted or prefers solitude, so I stick out quite a bit around them. It's even more obvious since I'm the eldest of everyone in my generation, and most of them are a good 10-15 years younger than I am. I think my stepdad is the most similar to me, except that they're his family and he's not much of a reader.

My mom used to also say "I know you don't mean to be rude" when commenting on how I'd carry a book with me and sneak away to read, which probably first clued me in on it. Even now, I won't buy a purse or bag unless I can fit a hardcover book in, along with my glasses case, wallet, and mobile. :P

Man what is my problem.

I started reading Bakuman the other day. It's a manga about two teenagers trying to make it as mangakas (one is the writer, the other is the artist). There are currently ~120 chapters out, iirc, and I'm on 70-something. It's definitely keeping my attention (and keeping me up at night, reading), but I keep finding it hilaribad because of the "battles" between the mangakas and all the poses and panels that look like they're straight out of Bleach or Naruto or something. I'll probably have to add this one to my list, since it's so long and it's taken away from Sister Carrie reading time.

I'm really only reading it because a fansub group kept bitching about how the anime adaptation sucked (calling it "boringman") and the manga was so much better. I didn't watch the anime myself, but got curious, and here I am... it's by the same author of Death Note, which I stopped liking after the first story arc, so I always thought I wouldn't particularly care for it. Hm.

Also, Yotsuba! vol 9 arrived today. (I wish the & didn't screw up touchstones - if I leave it in, even including the work # doesn't work. Hm, apparently # doesn't work in touchstones either.)

I skipped #7 and #8 because #9 was a little bit less expensive, and also #9 is super amazing. In it, Yotsuba gets her very own teddy bear (Juralumin!) and goes to a yakinuku restaurant and then goes to a hot air balloon festival. I've been waiting for Juralumin to show up in the English editions for ages, because it's so cute the way Yotsuba takes the bear everywhere she goes. Also, the name.

I continue to be impressed at how each of the Yotsuba&! volumes has its own storyline that you can follow from beginning to end, but it's also a continuous story with the other volumes, and there's no real plot to say "this is a story arc" for dividing the chapters.

Merry Christmas, Keri!

Well, I never did finish Sister Carrie by the end of the year, but I'm sure I'll finish in the first week or so of the new one.

Link to my 2011 thread!

Yay, fresh new calendar!