detailmuse's bombshelves

Welcome! My goals for this year's challenge are to read 40 TBRs that I acquired prior to 2012 and to finish the year with fewer than 250 TBRs total.

To see longer reviews and all of my 2012 reading, visit my Club Read thread.

Fiction
37. Zone One by Colson Whitehead (2.5) (See review)
35. Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman (3.5) (See review)
32. Primary Colors by Anonymous (aka: Joe Klein) (4) (See review)
31. Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou (4) (See review)
30. The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction by Kate Chopin (3.5) (See review)
27. Tinkers by Paul Harding (4.5) (See review)
26. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie (3.5) (See review)
19. Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg (3.5) (See review)
18. The Pillars of the Earth+ by Ken Follett (4)
14. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (3.5) (See review)
13. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri (5)
10. Charming Billy by Alice McDermott (3.5)
7. Stay Awake by Dan Chaon (4.5) (See review)
5. Mr g: A Novel About the Creation by Alan Lightman (3.5) (See review)
3. The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss (3.5) (See review)
1. Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen (3.5) (See review)

Nonfiction
34. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan (4.5)
25. A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson (3)
24. My Life in France by Julia Child (4.5) (See review)
23. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway (4)
22. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg (4)
17. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell (5)
16. A Broom of One's Own by Nancy Peacock (3.5) (See review)
15. Rural Free: A Farmwife's Almanac of Country Living by Rachel Peden
9. 'Tis by Frank McCourt (4.5)
8. One for the Road: Drunk Driving Since 1900 by Barron H. Lerner (4) (See review)
6. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain (4) (See review)
4. Geek Wisdom: The Sacred Teachings of Nerd Culture ed. by Stephen Segal (4) (See review)

Other
36. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 8, No 2; Fall 2008 (4.5) (See review)
28. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 10, No 1; Spring 2010 (3.5) (See review)
21. She Walks in Beauty ed. by Caroline Kennedy (4) (See review)
20. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 8 No 1; Spring 2008 (3) (See review)
12. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (4.5) (See review)
11. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 11 No 1 Spring 2011 (3.5) (See review)
2. Cupcakes, Cookies, & Pie, Oh My! by Karen Tack and Alan Richardson (4) (See review)

Abandoned
33. A Flock of Fools by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt
29. Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky

In the spirit of going nuclear here, I’m hoping to get to some of my big books (I’ll designate them in my lists in msg#1 with a “+”).

The most likely are:
Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace
Life by Keith Richards
Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher
The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
The Emperor of All Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee
The Great Influenza by John M. Barry
The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett Finished!
The Stories of Anton Chekhov
Working by Studs Terkel

Little Women is on my list for the year too. I've read it before, but I haven't read Little Men or Jo's Boys so I decided I'd read all three as part of this challenge. It's one of my favorites so I'm really excited to read it again!

I enjoy Little Women and Good Wives but haven't succeeded in getting through Little Men or Jo's Boys yet, despite many attempts over the years. The saccharine levels seem to rise as the series progresses!

Does this mean that you are limiting yourself to buying only 40 books this year. That sounds a bit depressing.

Well - if she manages to read 100, she can buy a 100 :)

>5 baswood:,6 exactly! That's about what I did in 2011, and keeping in=out made my wishlist balloon. Plus I sort of put on blinders -- read fewer tempting LT threads -- which was depressing, bas; I want different in 2012.

>3 mrsrochester:,4 A first-time read of Little Women for me, maybe I'll start the year with it.

1. Notes from the Dog by Gary Paulsen, c2009, acquired 2011

The story of a 14-year-old guy's transformation from a loner whose goal is to speak to fewer than a dozen people total over the summer -- to realizing that “the more people who were in our yard, the better it looked.”

A light, sweet YA novella.

2. Cupcakes, Cookies, & Pie, Oh My! by Karen Tack, photography by Alan Richardson, c2012, acquired 2011

(Okay, this isn’t even officially published yet, but I acquired my arc in 2011 so it’s official here.) It’s not a cookbook; it’s a book of decorating ideas and techniques for cakes, cupcakes, cookies and pies. Con: the projects begin with store-bought goodies (think Sara Lee pound cakes, packaged cookies, boxed mixes) and the techniques seem laborious. Pro: it’s phenomenally creative and phenomenally photographed.

eta: book image

3. The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss, c2012, acquired 2011

A contemporary love story set as a sort of homage to the medieval Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The story is okay at best; the physical book is more interesting: a novella (actually, two short stories) bound accordion-style into a hardcover -- the pages on one side telling the woman’s story, on the other side telling the man’s -- and stored in a slipcase.

4. Geek Wisdom ed. by Stephen Segal, ©2011, acquired 2011

A nicely put together collection of approximately 200 quotations from mid- to late 20th-century popular culture (science-fiction/fantasy books, film, television and video games), each accompanied by a short essay that illuminates the quotation’s philosophical teaching, and some footnoted with a bit of trivia about the quotation’s source.

5. Mr g by Alan Lightman, ©2012, acquired 2011

God’s contemplative and playful memoir of cosmology -- including the creation and evolution of Aalam-104729, a universe remarkably familiar to this reader.

Wow! That sounds interesting.

What did you think of it? Was it well-written?

Hi ramblingivy -- if you don't know the science following the big bang, Mr g will be fascinating and revelatory (and accessible). If you do generally know it, there's still fun in exploring God's first-person narration. I'll rate it 3.5 or 4 stars and will post a review in a couple of days.

January
Beginning total TBRs: 264
TBRs* read: 5
Other books read: 1
Books acquired: 2
Ending total TBRs: 260 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 5 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

Catching up. I tend to post just an initial snapshot comment here -- see my Club Read thread or the links to my reviews in msg#1 above for longer comments.



6. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain, ©2012, acquired 2011

All about introverts in a society that values extroverts. (Note: society, not world; not every culture devalues introversion.) It’s part history and theory (very good), part self-help (good) and part memoir (okay).

7. Stay Awake by Dan Chaon, ©2012, acquired 2011

A collection of a dozen short stories about Midwest men (10 written in the male point of view), emotionally and sometimes physically displaced following (sometimes years later) the death or loss of loved ones. It’s the first book I’ve been moved to tag “men.”*

*eta: and by that I mean about men, an exploration of men

8. One for the Road: Drunk Driving Since 1900 by Barron H. Lerner, ©2011, acquired 2011

Describes how the US has “become a society that concurrently condemns and tolerates drunk driving.” It’s readable and fascinating but definitely an academic (vs “popular”) book.

February
Beginning total TBRs: 260
TBRs* read: 3
Other books read: 2
Books acquired: 10 (!)
Ending total TBRs: 265 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 8 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

9. 'Tis by Frank McCourt, ©1999, acquired 2004

I bought this memoir (of McCourt’s 1949 immigration from Ireland and adulthood in New York City) immediately after finishing Angela's Ashes. I only just read it now, and I’m glad for that because I think anything would have suffered in comparison to AA (as I think my 2005 reading of Teacher Man did). Though McCourt’s childhood innocence is gone, he still narrates here with phenomenal curiosity and telling detail.

10. Charming Billy by Alice McDermott, ©1998, acquired 2009

A gentle exploration of lost love, alcoholism and family, narrated in Great Gatsby-esque style by a peripheral character. It’s the third book (along with 'Tis from my TBRs above, and Brooklyn by Colm Toibin, a new purchase this year) that I read in a little Irish spree around St. Patrick’s Day. It’s also the third I've read by McDermott -- none particularly memorable except this one, yet all pleasant and I’d read more.

March
Beginning total TBRs: 265
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 4
Books acquired: 9
Ending total TBRs: 268 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 10 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

---------------

At the end of Q1, I'm on track toward reading 40 TBRs but not toward decreasing total TBRs.

It's not an economic issue -- of my 22 acquisitions this year, 16 have been at little or no cost (review copies, library copies, bargain editions). It's mostly an issue of distraction, where (to apply Stephen Covey) the new ones seem "urgent" while gems in my TBRs actually feel "important." Must muse on this during April.

11. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 11 No 1 Spring 2011, ©2011, acquired 2011

Short stories, essays and poems -- about illness or coping in some way, often very peripherally -- published twice a year by New York University’s School of Medicine. My favorite literary journal.

12. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry, ©1959, acquired 2011

The powerful play about a Chicago African-American family where an inheritance gives new possibility to their “dreams deferred” (a la Langston Hughes). Now I must see the film version with Ruby Dee and Sidney Poitier.

13. Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, ©2008, acquired 2008

Eight long-length short stories (the last three of them linked into a sort of novella) that explore parents, children, siblings, and the sense of displacement that can persist even into the second generation of immigrants. It feels like the literary version of silk. I’ve been saving this for years and it’s my first 5-star read this year.

I love Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth is truly wonderful :)

>26 mrsrochester: And good news, she has a new book coming (a novel), probably in 2013.

April
Beginning total TBRs: 268
TBRs* read: 3
Other books read: 4
Books abandoned: 4
Books acquired: 7
Ending total TBRs: 264 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 13 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

14. The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery (translated from the French by Alison Anderson), ©2006, acquired 2009

Set in an eight-unit luxury apartment building in Paris, this is a story of two loners with secrets -- 54-year-old Renee, the building’s lowly concierge who hides her intellect; and 12-year-old Paloma, a resident of the building whose sense of different-ness has her planning suicide. The book plodded until the last third when it flew! ... in my opinion, too fast to earn its ending.

May
Beginning total TBRs: 264
TBRs* read: 1 (ack!! too many audiobooks borrowed from the library this month)
Other books read: 8
Books acquired: 14 (ack!! again)
Ending total TBRs: 269 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 14 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

Rural Free: A Farmwife's Almanac of Country Living by Rachel Peden, ©1961, acquired 2011

A collection of mid-20th century observations/vignettes about Midwest country life and farm life. Very old fashioned, very sweet ... and quite startling, with passing references to cold-war fears and space-travel hopes.

16. A Broom of One’s Own by Nancy Peacock, ©2008, acquired 2011

Riffing on the title of Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own (who wrote that to write well, women must have their own lives), this short collection of light essays weaves twice-published novelist Peacock’s work as a house cleaner with ruminations about writing. Fast and engaging but often off-puttingly angry, with little original about either cleaning or writing.

17. Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, ©2008, acquired 2008

I’m thrilled to have finally gotten to this exploration of uber-successful people -- “outliers” in their fields -- and Gladwell’s thesis that “outliers are made, not born,” through “the steady accumulation of advantages.”

{T}he tallest oak in the forest is the tallest not just because it grew from the hardiest acorn; it is the tallest also because no other trees blocked its sunlight, the soil around it was deep and rich, no rabbit chewed through its bark as a sapling, and no lumberjack cut it down before it matured. We all know that successful people come from hardy seeds. But do we know enough about the sunlight that warmed them, the soil in which they put down the roots, and the rabbits and lumberjacks they were lucky enough to avoid? This is not a book about tall trees. It’s a book about forests.

But it’s not about the aspects of "forests" that probably come to mind; it’s about surprising stuff, particularly timing and cultural legacy. Much was revelatory when this was published in 2008 and has since permeated the popular culture nearly to the point of common knowledge. Riveting reading!

18. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, ©1989, acquired 2007(?)

An epic story of cathedral building amid the politics of church and state in 12th-century England. Very well plotted and readable, with some historical and period aspects that make me want to read more (nonfiction) elsewhere, but overall too modern to sustain my reader’s trance.

19. Talk Before Sleep by Elizabeth Berg, ©1994, acquired 2001

Especially in her early novels, Elizabeth Berg is the literary equivalent of a hug -- short, women’s-friendship stories that are full of spot-on observations and emotional truths.

In this one, Ann, who (though married) “hadn’t realized how much I’d been needing to meet someone I might be able to say everything to” until she met Ruth, now finds herself in a small group of caregivers as Ruth dies from metastatic breast cancer. A tender story, and while I didn’t fully accept the depth of their friendship, I did feel the weight of her caregiving.

20. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 8 No 1; Spring 2008, ©2008, acquired 2008

This issue is from the medical literary journal’s eighth year of publication, which is the first year that I subscribed. I enjoyed a number of the short stories, essays and poems but think the entries in subsequent issues keep getting better and better.

June
Beginning total TBRs: 269
TBRs* read: 6
Other books read: 2
Books acquired: 6
Ending total TBRs: 267 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 20 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

21. She Walks in Beauty ed. by Caroline Kennedy, ©2011, acquired 2011

I loved the concept of this anthology subtitled, “A Woman’s Journey Through Poems” … loved the importance of poetry that showed in Caroline Kennedy’s introduction to each section (Falling in Love; Making Love; Breaking Up; Marriage; Love Itself; Work; Beauty, Clothes and Things of This World; Motherhood; Silence and Solitude; Growing Up and Growing Old; Death and Grief; Friendship; How to Live) … and marked several dozen poems I’ll want to come back to.

July
Beginning total TBRs: 267
TBRs* read: 1
Other books read: 7
TBRs acquired: 9
Ending total TBRs: 268 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 21 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

22. Writing Down the Bones by Natalie Goldberg, ©1986, acquired mid-2000s

A collection of very short essays on writing, this is a classic of creative support and inspiration although I much prefer Julia Cameron (The Artists Way) and Anne Lamott (Bird by Bird).

23. A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, ©1964, acquired 2011

Hemingway’s vignette-ish memoir of Paris between the world wars -- living with his first wife, Hadley, and their young son; writing and developing friendships with other expat writers; traveling in France. Through the first half and further, I decided this was my third and last Hemingway; his spare style is fine but his content is positively withholding. But then he opened up in several passages about F. Scott Fitzgerald -- vulnerability and humor -- and brushed up against his infidelity and the decline of his marriage, and I was moved and maybe reeled in again.

24. My Life in France by Julia Child, ©2006, acquired late-2000s

A memoir of Julia Child’s time in France -- both geographically (living in a marvelous partnership with her diplomatic-services husband in Paris, Marseille and Provence) and gastronomically (learning to cook at the Cordon Bleu and creating Mastering the Art of French Cooking, its sequel, and the American public-television programs). As Julia would say, Such fun!

25. A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, ©1992, acquired 2005

This is Williamson’s summary of / guide to / reflections on A Course in Miracles, a 1970’s treatise about the power of love (vs fear) and intention to improve one’s life.

August
Beginning total TBRs: 268
TBRs* read: 4
Other books read: 5
TBRs acquired: 9 (incl. one already in library but hadn’t been marked “TBR”)
Ending total TBRs: 268 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 25 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

26. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie, ©2007, acquired 2011

The YA story of 14-year-old Junior’s freshman year in high school -- his life divided between loyalty to family and tribe on his Spokane Indian “rez,” and bucking the going-nowhere way of life there by enrolling in a better education at the “white people’s” school in a nearby town.

27. Tinkers by Paul Harding, ©2009, acquired 2010

An eight-day deathwatch as George Crosby succumbs to kidney cancer, his deathbed surrounded by living relatives and his mind (or at least the narrative) inhabited by dead ones. Phenomenal language. I look forward to reading it again.

28. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 10, No 1; Spring 2010, ©2010, acquired 2010

The Spring 2010 issue of the literary journal. My favorite entries were “Ghosts of Doubt” by Gregg Cusick and “The Champion” by M.M. DeVoe.

September
Beginning total TBRs: 268
TBRs* read: 3
Other books read: 2
Books abandoned: 2
TBRs acquired: 12 (incl. one already in library but hadn't been marked TBR)
Ending total TBRs: 273 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 28 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

29. The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction by Kate Chopin, original ©1899, acquired mid-2000s

A novella plus 13 short stories about late-1800s women awakening to their personhoods, very controversial at the time of publication. The time and place (southern U.S., including New Orleans) evoke Uncle Tom's Cabin and a bit of Scarlett O’Hara

30. Logicomix by Apostolos Doxiadis and Christos Papadimitriou, ©2009, acquired 2011

An exploration of math, history and philosophy, told in graphic-novel format, based on mathematician Bertrand Russell’s quest for a source of absolute truth and his struggle to prove that his found source -- logic -- begets solutions to all of the world’s problems.

31. Primary Colors by Anonymous (aka: Joe Klein), ©1996, acquired 1996

Fictionalized insider story about the primary season of Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign. Hilarious and thoughtful, it remains current 20 years later and was great to read during this election season.

October
Beginning total TBRs: 273
TBRs* read: 3
Other books read: 4
TBRs acquired: 5
Ending total TBRs: 271 (year-end goal = fewer than 250)
YTD TBRs* read: 31 (year-end goal = 40)

*acquired before 2012

Making Ideas Happen by Scott Belsky, ©2010, acquired 2010

About the “perspiration” in the Edison quote that genius (or in this case, success) is “1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.” I abandoned it in September, unfinished but glad to have it out of my TBRs -- a mind-numbingly basic primer on organization and leadership.

33. A Flock of Fools by Kazuaki Tanahashi and Peter Levitt, ©2004, acquired 2004

A collection of short fables retold from the One Hundred Parable Sutra (6th century China), each accompanied by a short recap/lesson. I read half, they were okay.

34. The Botany of Desire by Michael Pollan, ©2007, acquired 2008

Four terrific explorations of the human desires for sweetness, beauty, wonder and control through essays on, respectively, apples, tulips, marijuana and potatoes.

35. Pigeon English by Stephen Kelman, ©2011, acquired 2011

An 11-year-old boy -- an immigrant from Ghana to London -- is disturbed by the murder of an older boy and devotes the next several months to solving the crime.

November
Beginning total TBRs: 271
TBRs* read: 4
Other books read: 4
TBRs acquired: 11
Ending total TBRs: 274 (my year-end goal of “fewer than 250” ain’t gonna happen)
YTD TBRs* read: 35 (my year-end goal of “40” is within reach!)

*acquired before 2012

36. Bellevue Literary Review Vol 8, No 2; Fall 2008, ©2008, acquired 2008

This issue of the biannual literary journal is one of the best (and saddest) I’ve read, and one of its few themed issues -- here, on disability.

37. Zone One by Colson Whitehead, ©2011, acquired 2011

Three days in the life of Mark Spitz, member of a sweeper team whose job it is to flush out and destroy infected “skels” (aka: zombies) that remain in a dystopian lower Manhattan following a near-future apocalyptic plague. I read very little horror and no dystopian fiction but I do enjoy Whitehead. And in the end, Whitehead is the only reason to read this but not nearly enough of a reason.

December / 2012 Year End
Beginning total TBRs: 274
TBRs* read: 2
Other books read: 5
TBRs acquired: 10
Ending total TBRs: 277 (far from my year-end goal of “fewer than 250” and completely in the wrong direction from the 264 TBRs I began the year with ... but I'm excited about my acquisitions!)
YTD TBRs* read: 37 (just short of my year-end goal of “40”)

*acquired before 2012