detailmuse 2011: What I found on the shelves

Fiction
38. The Fiction Class by Susan Breen (2)
35. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder (4)
34. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway (3)
32. One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni (3.5) (See review)
31. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson (3.5)
30. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry (4)
29. Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary by Joseph Conrad (3.5)
26. The Summer Book by Tove Jansson (4) (See review)
25. American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell (3.5)
24. The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks (1.5)
22. The Girls by Lori Lansens (3)
20. Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus (3)
19. Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog by Mark Leyner (3)
17. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver (5) (See review)
11. The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (3.5)
10. Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork (4)
8. Room by Emma Donoghue (4) (See review)
7. The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein (3.5)
6. Machine by Peter Adolphsen (3) (See review)
2. The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (4) (See review)

Nonfiction
37. The End of Overeating by David Kessler (3) (See review)
36. The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis (3)
33. My Own Country by Abraham Verghese (4.5)
28. A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace (4) (See review)
21. Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser (4.5)
18. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf (3.5)
16. Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin (4)
15. Women Food and God by Geneen Roth (3.5)
12. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz (4.5) (See review)
9. Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (4)
5. Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein/Susan Kim (3.5) (See review)
4. Frank Lloyd Wright: American Master by Alan Weintraub/Kathryn Smith (3) (See review)
3. Gracefully Insane by Alex Beam (3.5) (See review)
1. I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron (2.5 stars) (See review)

Other
27. Thoughts From the Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav (2.5)
23. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 10 No 2 (Fall 2010) (4.5)
14. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 9 No 1 (Spring 2009) (4)
13. Lonely Planet Discover Europe (3) (See review)

When I’ve tried very hard, I’ve had some success in keeping my eyes off the sparkly new books and reading from my TBRs ... but not for the past couple of years, for example this from my 2010 year-end stats:

Total books finished - 91

Date book acquired (incl from library):
in 2010 - 76
in 2009 - 12
before 2009 - 3

Book’s publication date (iffy accuracy; I didn’t dig to differentiate my edition’s pub date from the book’s original pub date):
2011 - 1
2010 - 58
other 2000s - 23
1990s - 8
1980s - 1

I want to turn both of these patterns upside down in 2011 and I want to end the year with fewer TBRs than the 290 I’m starting it with ... preferably fewer than 250. Along the way, I’d like to consider when and why I acquired each book, why I delayed reading it and why I’m reading it now. To see all of my 2011 reading, visit my Club Read thread.

True, it would be harder for one’s first read of the year to be non-TBR than TBR, but yay:



I Remember Nothing by Nora Ephron, c2010

I bought this collection of essays, thoughts and lists (virtually all previously published in The Huffington Post, The New York Times, The New Yorker and Vogue) in December 2010 and purposely saved it so I could look forward to it for awhile. It’s featherlight -- 135 pages, lots of white space -- but I enjoyed Ephron’s explorations of journalism, writing, her mother and her marriages in the longer essays.

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce, c2011

I acquired this book late in 2010, it’s an arc and not scheduled for U.S. publication until March 22. But it’s been a snowy winter here already and the book’s snowy setting in the French Alps is such a big part of it that I decided to read it right away. Heh. I started and we got two days of rain + 50-degree temps and the snow disappeared. I finished it and we got 6 inches of snow. *Twilight Zone music* That fits perfectly with the book’s mysterious story, see my review.

Gracefully Insane by Alex Beam, c2001

I know when I acquired this book -- both because it’s documented in my Amazon account and because the date is printed on the book’s last page -- a UPC code plus the text, “Made in the USA Lexington KY 18 December 2009.” It’s the first (to my knowledge) book I’ve owned that’s published by a traditional house but looks like it’s printed via print-on-demand technology rather than a traditional print run. Interesting.

And the book is interesting -- a history of McLean, Boston’s prestigious psychiatric hospital.

Frank Lloyd Wright: American Master by Alan Weintraub/Kathryn Smith, c2009

Received this as a Christmas gift a few weeks ago. There’s a very small amount of orienting text followed by hundreds of photographs (captioned with name and location) documenting the breadth of Wright’s life work -- interiors with furnishings, exteriors with landscapes. It’s a book to (maybe) add to a collection on Wright, not one to begin with.

Machine by Peter Adolphsen, c2008

My first ebook ever; it’s been in the Kindle app on my iPod Touch since last summer and I finally read it almost through during various waits yesterday.

It’s a short novella -- a ping-pong of ideas involving coincidences and the science behind the path of a drop of crude oil from its origins in the decaying heart of a prehistoric horse through refinement into gasoline and then… well you’ll have to read it.

Flow: The Cultural Story of Menstruation by Elissa Stein and Susan Kim, c2009

A social history of menstruation, mostly USA and mostly 1800s+, with tons of terrific vintage femcare product ads and a good bibliography. Light, nostalgic, sometimes surprising. I've had it for a year but its snarky, cynical tone kept turning me off.

I read Flow last year and loved it. I thought I knew all about my monthly friend but learned quite a bit. I also loved the old ads.

Definitely keeping it, for the ads!

The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein, c2009, acquired 2010

Narrated in a dog’s point of view and using auto racing as a metaphor for navigating life’s difficult times, this is a tender and imaginative look at people and life.

I read The Art of Racing in the Rain last year and really liked it even though I certainly cried through a great deal of it.

>12 DeltaQueen50: so true. A friend bought it when her dog was declining; she saved it to read afterward and it really helped her.

Room by Emma Donoghue, c2010, acquired 2010

Room is five-year-old Jack’s recounting of life with Ma in their 11x11-foot world ... which is actually a backyard shed where a man has held them captive for years. It's not dark and sensationalistic ... instead it's curious and imaginative.

January
Beginning TBRs: 291
TBRs* read: 8 (Oldie** TBRs read: 0 … Old*** TBRs read: 0)
Other books read: 1
Books acquired: 2
Ending TBRs^: 284
YTD TBRs read^: 8

*acquired before 2011
**acquired before joining LT in 2006
***published before 2000
^year-end goal = 40 TBRs read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, c2003, acquired 2010

A memoir, in graphic-novel format, about a young girl’s political coming-of-age during Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and then invasion by Iraq. Maus-like, but shallower. A good book to read during yesterday’s snow day, and interesting in the context of current events in Egypt.

Marcelo in the Real World by Francisco X. Stork, c2009, acquired 2010

Marcelo Sandoval is a 17-year-old, high-functioning, Asperger-like autist and this is a very readable, uplifting story about how pulling out of one’s comfort zone into challenging terrain can turn surviving into thriving.

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa, c2003 (my edition c2009), acquired 2010

The story of a brilliant mathematician whose short-term memory is profoundly limited, his housekeeper, and her young son.

12. Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz, c2010, acquired 2010

An in-depth exploration of human error -- what leads us to err and especially how we feel about being wrong. Took me exactly nine months to read this, but it’s such a better book than that implies. I’ll be posting a review on the work page.

I'm discouraged and also relieved to have abandoned Bartleby and Co by Enrique Vila-Matas. It's a clever premise (fiction about writers who stopped writing; structured as a series of 86 footnotes to an absent text) but the dozens of writers he references are waaaay outside my familiarity.

It doesn't contribute to my goal ticker but at least it's no longer a TBR.

February
Beginning TBRs: 284
TBRs* read: 4 (Older** TBRs read: 0 ... Oldest*** TBRs read: 0)
Other books read: 2
Books abandoned: 1
Books acquired: 8 (ack!)
Ending TBRs^: 285
YTD TBRs read^: 12

*acquired before 2011
**acquired before joining LT in 2006
***published before 2000
^year-end goal = 40 TBRs read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

Lonely Planet Discover Europe, c2010, acquired 2010

A comprehensive (and necessarily superficial) travel guide to 15 European countries from Great Britain to Turkey.

14. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 9 No 1 (Spring 2009), acquired 2009

My favorite literary journal; published twice a year by NYU’s School of Medicine. The short stories, essays and poems all address illness or coping in some way.

15. Women Food and God by Geneen Roth, c2010, acquired 2010

About emotional eating -- the author’s personal experiences with it and the experiences of women who attend her seminars on it. She coaches mindfulness, and regarding food it's eat when you’re hungry, eat what your body wants, stop when you’ve had enough. The “God” is of the mindful/spiritual sort, not the faith sort.

16. Thinking in Pictures by Temple Grandin, c1995 (my edition updated 2006), acquired 2010

Part autism (Asperger’s) memoir, part study of animal psychology/emotionality, part resource guide for other autistic persons and their families. All very good. My cover reflects Claire Danes in the HBO movie of the memoir aspect, which is available on DVD and highly recommended.

March
Beginning TBRs: 285
TBRs* read: 4 (acquired pre-LT: 0 … orig published pre-2000: 1)
Other books read: 6
Books acquired: 11 (includes 1 already in catalog from last year but not tagged TBR)
Ending TBRs**: 286
YTD TBRs read**: 16

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

17. We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver, c2003, acquired 2010

The fictional biography of a family whose teen son carries out a school shooting, written as letters from his mother to the husband she’s now separated from. Fascinating, disturbing, outstanding.

18. A Room of One's Own by Virginia Woolf, c1929, acquired 2010

One of the earliest-published books currently in my library, although my edition is newer. This is Woolf’s 1929 manifesto urging women to write; and that to write well, women must have money (subsistence, intellectual development) and space (time) … in other words, a life of one’s own.

April
I organized my bookshelves this month and, while at it, cleaned up my To Read collection -- purged some books I’ll never read; officially abandoned some others I’ll never finish; eliminated the TBR tag from some that are more reference than readable. Also found a few that weren’t in my library, so I added them.

Beginning TBRs: 286
TBRs* read: 2 (acquired pre-LT: 0 … orig published pre-2000: 1)
TBRs abandoned (partly read) and/or purged (unread) from library: 15
Retagged (not TBR): 10
Other books read: 3
Books acquired: 10 (3 were pre-2011 but not entered into LT until now)
Ending TBRs**: 266
YTD TBRs read**: 18

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

Tooth Imprints on a Corn Dog by Mark Leyner, c1995, acquired ??

I’m especially satisfied to finish this one -- started it in May 2002, restarted it a few years ago, finally finished it now. Its experimental, satirical stories involve the popular culture -- always clever and imaginative, sometimes hilarious and sometimes too cute by half. I’d planned to donate it but now I’m keeping.

Hope for the Flowers by Trina Paulus, c1972, acquired 1980s

An allegory of mindfulness and being true to self. Told in graphic-novel format of a mass of caterpillars climbing dog-eat-dog over each other toward the top of a pillar that ends who knows where … versus a few who separate themselves from the fracas and, in the quiet, realize their opportunity for metamorphosis into creatures with unique and critical value to the world. Very ‘70s; reminds me of Jonathan Livingston Seagull.

That has always been one of my very favorite books! A friend gave it to me years ago when I was in high school (yes, in the 70s). Wonderful!

A friend also gave it to me! Perfect for that.

Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser, c2001, acquired 2003

Outstanding expose on the fast-food industry, especially McDonalds. It's more sociology and business than science and was revelatory when I started reading it back in 2003. Now a bit outdated (I’d love to read an update) and supplanted by today’s shelves and shelves of food-industry books.

The bottom line: McDonalds, not government, has the power to rapidly change food-industry practices ... so make yourself heard to McDonalds.

22. The Girls by Lori Lansens, c2005, acquired 2009

Autobiography (-biographies) of Rose and Ruby Darlen, a fictional pair of conjoined twins who live an unexpectedly (but intentionally) ordinary life -- they’re simply “the girls” -- in a small, southeastern Ontario town.

May
Beginning TBRs: 266
TBRs* read: 4 (acquired pre-LT: 3 … orig published pre-2000: 2)
TBRs abandoned (partly read) and/or purged (unread) from library: 1
Other books read: 3
Books acquired: 7
Ending TBRs**: 265
YTD TBRs read**: 22

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

23. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 10 No 2 (Fall 2010), c2010, acquired 2010

Love, love, love this literary journal! And tend to hoard issues unread, so I'm glad this is the second issue I've read this year, four more in the TBRs.

The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks, c1996, acquired in hardcover about that time

A love story set in North Carolina in the mid-1940s and now. I think its incorporation of aging and Alzheimer’s are probably what had caught my attention. Otherwise, not to my taste.

June
Beginning TBRs: 265
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 12
Books acquired: 16
Ending TBRs**: 267
YTD TBRs read**: 24

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

25. American Salvage by Bonnie Jo Campbell

A collection of very good short stories set in the rural poverty of southwestern Michigan, a couple hours from where I grew up. It’s life on the land, but there’s no romanticizing going on here.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson, c1972, acquired 2010

A lovely, gentle novella presented as vignettes about a six-year-old girl, her father and grandmother, over the summer on an island off the coast of Finland.

27. Thoughts From the Seat of the Soul by Gary Zukav, c1994, acquired 2000

Just shy of 300 short thoughts/reminders/excerpts from Zukav’s The Seat of the Soul. There’s lots of repetition among them, and one needs to have read The Seat of the Soul in order to derive much meaning from them.

July
Beginning TBRs: 267
TBRs* read: 3
Other books read: 6
Books acquired: 5
Ending TBRs**: 263
YTD TBRs read**: 27

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

28. A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, c1997, acquired 2010

A collection of seven (short to very long) essays about the popular culture, written and previously published in magazines and journals in the early-to-mid-‘90s -- some are entertaining, some are erudite, all are brilliant.

29. Heart of Darkness and the Congo Diary by Joseph Conrad, published 1899, acquired 2008

I acquired this after reading about the Congo in Barbara Kingsolver’s The Poisonwood Bible and got to it now after reading the quest toward a Kurtz-like character in Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. Requires perseverance but I’m glad to have read it; to have done so earlier would have added a lot to my reading of Patchett’s book.

August
Beginning TBRs: 263
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 6
Books acquired: 12
Ending TBRs**: 267 :( My goal here for end of Sept = 260
YTD TBRs read**: 29

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

30. Number the Stars by Lois Lowry, c1989, acquired 2009

Newbery Medal-winning children’s novella set in 1943 Denmark during the relocation of Jews.

Beautiful.

Number the Stars is definitely one of the all-time Newbery greats. I remember reading it in school as a child and it is one of those books that you always remember. I'm glad you enjoyed it.

>mm20 I love books for that age (~grades 4-6), when kids are so open and curious



31. Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, c1999, acquired 2010

I read this young-adult novel about date rape, high-school alienation and depression in recognition of Banned Books Week (ends tomorrow). Teens will love the realistic, first-person, present-tense teen voice (almost like a diary); adults will support the excellent message against keeping traumas a secret.

September
Beginning TBRs: 267
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 5
Books acquired: 3 (includes 1 book entered into LT long ago but not tagged TBR till now)
Ending TBRs**: 263
YTD TBRs* read**: 31

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

Finally, a book for October!



32. One Amazing Thing by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

After an earthquake traps nine people in a passport office, they each tell one amazing story from their lives while they await rescue or death. The overall premise (earthquake/survival/strangers-confiding) felt weak but the stories were engaging and I’ll read more by Divakaruni.

33. My Own Country: A Doctor’s Story by Abraham Verghese, c1994, acquired 2009 after reading Cutting for Stone

A fascinating and moving memoir of a doctor treating early AIDS cases in small-town Tennessee.

34. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway, c1929, acquired in the late-1990s while visiting the Hemingway home in Key West, FL

Classic novel about an American in the Italian army during WWI and the British nurse he loves. Includes a wonderful opening description of setting and a riveting final 20 pages.

October
Beginning TBRs: 263
TBRs* read: 3
Other books read: 5
Books acquired: 8
Ending TBRs**: 263
YTD TBRs* read**: 34

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

35. Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder, c1935, acquired 2009

The story of the Ingalls’s move by covered wagon in the 1870s from Wisconsin to the Kansas prairie, and their first year there. It’s a kids’ series but I learned some things about Indians and animals and why cowboys wear neckerchiefs. Makes me hungry for something by Willa Cather.

36. The Problem of Pain by C. S. Lewis, c1940, acquired 2005

An exploration of the purpose of pain and suffering. Very philosophical and (Christian) theological.

November
Beginning TBRs: 263
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 5
Books abandoned: 2
Books acquired: 5
Ending TBRs**: 258 (ack the math says 259; I finally gave up trying to reconcile how my library got to 258)
YTD TBRs* read**: 36

*acquired before 2011
**year-end goal = 40 TBRs (pre-2011) read and something closer to 250 TBRs total

eta: surprise, I finished another book in the last hours of the month ... alas, not from my eligible TBRs.

We've started a new Group for 2012.
here

Joined!

The End of Overeating by David Kessler, c2009, acquired 2009

37. An expose on the food industry: how sugar, fat, salt, flavor and texture are deliberately and repeatedly layered, one upon another, to create a hyper-palatability that stimulates appetite rather than satisfying it. The resulting "conditioned hypereating" is compared to alcoholism, and Kessler provides suggestions for "food rehab" (basically: avoid hyperpalatable foods). Good information but poorly written, including extreme repetition (which made me set it aside for over two years), and virtually no science.

38. The Fiction Class by Susan Breen, c2008, acquired 2009

Chick-lit novel about a thirtysomething woman, told via alternating threads set in the weekly adult-ed writing class she teaches and the visits she makes afterward to see her mother in a nursing home.

December
Beginning TBRs: 258
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 7
Books acquired: 14
Ending TBRs: 263
YTD TBRs* read: 38

*those acquired before 2011

All in all, I’m happy!
My goals were to read 40 pre-2011 TBRs
--I read 38, out of 96 books total--
and to end the year with something closer to 250 TBRs total
--I began with 291 and finished with 263.

On to the 2012 BOMBS! (Find me here.)