shinyone's ROOTs

I just added the books that I acquired in 2012 to my "To Read" collection, and it's not as bad as I thought it would be. 83 books on the shelf (either physical or virtual) that I have not yet read.

My goal for the year is to read 35 of them.

Welcome and good luck!

My "To Read" collection has decreased to 82. Unfortunately the book I read doesn't count for this challenge because I read it too fast and finished December 30!

So, for the record, my last book of 2012 was Summer of Night by Dan Simmons. My first book of 2013 is going to be A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons, which is a sequel to Summer of Night. Dan Simmons is one of my favorite authors, but I am just getting around to his "horror" books. So far, I am impressed.

Finished my first ROOT!

1. A Winter Haunting by Dan Simmons

Nice work, Shinyone.

2. Fires of Eden by Dan Simmons

I've had a bit of a Dan Simmons binge, but these books (Summer of Night, A Winter Haunting, and Fires of Eden) are all related, so it made sense to read them back to back.

3. Battle Cry by Leon Uris

Oy. I gave it 150 pages, but with another 325 to go it just wansn't worth it. It's off the TBR, off my shelves, and soon to be out the door. Sorry, Leon. This one just didn't do it for me.

4. The River of Time by David Brin

This collection of SF short stories was a Christmas gift from my husband. As always, I find Brin's fiction to be full of interesting ideas.

5. The Silmarillion by J.R.R. Tolkien

I've been working on this one for a while, and this was not my first attempt. I feel a great sense of accomplishment now that I finally finished it.

Very good, Shiny! The Silmarillion is one of those books that's been on my shelves fore ages. But I don't hear it calling very loudly yet.

Thanks! I've had it for years, too. I started reading it probably 5 years ago and didn't make it very far. It hadn't been calling me so much as staring accusingly from my bookshelf.

Ohhhh, that might be what I was feeling sitting with my back to the bookcase! Accusing stares!!

6. The Way We Live Now by Anthony Trollope

My first Trollope. Good, but very loooooooooong.

Trollope is one of those authors I *have* to read as ROOTs because I wouldn't be able to read the library editions without maxing out my renewal limit :P Have you seen the TV adaptation with David Suchet as Auguste Melmotte? It's very good.

I had already seen the movie. Now I want to watch it again!

7. Flow My Tears, The Policeman Said by Philip K. Dick

A while back Amazon's "daily deal" was a whole bunch of PKD books for $2 each. I bought all of them, so this will probably be a year filled with PKD messing with my mind. That's kind of his thing.

Crossed a couple of duds off my list:

8. Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger

This book sounded like it would be good, and I liked The Time Traveler's Wife, but this one was just...YUCK. Unlikeable characters doing boring and/or despicable things, and an extremely unsatisfying ending.

9. Godmachine by Jack Thompson

Utter crap. I read 65% and just can't bring myself to read any more.

You are doing great, Shiny! Just keep kicking those books from your TBR!

10. The Plot Against America by Philip Roth

Oh, goodness. I didn't like this one either. I feel like such a hater! But I finished it and off my shelf it goes!

11. No Enemy But Time by Michael Bishop

Wow. That won the Nebula award? Must not have been a banner year for science fiction that year.

Surely I have some more ROOTs that I will actually LIKE...

I hope you found one, shinyone! Picking wrong books all the time must be discouraging.

At least I'm weeding them out! And I am enjoying the book I'm reading now!

That's good to hear!

12. Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds

That book was deeply awesome. I'm sad I don't have more books by him on my TBR.

13. The Eternal Husband and Other Stories by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Good stuff.

It looks like I won't be finishing any more books in February, unless I call in sick tomorrow. (: However, I do have one more abandoned that I forgot to add.

14. Starfarers by Poul Anderson.

OK, either this book doesn't really exist or it's so bad it doesn't even have a touchstone. I didn't get very far with it. For some reason, I have zero guilt about abandoning books this year. It's kind of liberating.

15. Bright of the Sky by Kay Kenyon

I still haven't decided whether I liked this book well enough to continue with the series. Parts of it really dragged for me, especially the parts with the main character. He was sympathetic at first but got less so as the book went on. I like some of the secondary characters better, particularly the main character's daughter. The world-building was really quite good, and based on the reviews I read the books get better as the series goes on, so I may give the sequel a shot. This one was a Kindle freebie and if I read the rest I will get them out of the library.

16. Christ the Center by Dietrich Bonhoeffer

This was one of my Dad's books. I suppose he read it in seminary, and I certainly hope he got more out of it than I did. So far the only Bonhoeffer book I have found accessible was Letters and Papers from Prison. Bonhoeffer is way over my head, but I do keep trying.

Good for you, Shinyone. Keep on trying.

Thanks, Connie. We have to challenge ourselves, right? :)

17. Among the Shadows by L.M. Montgomery

Like most collections of short stories, this one was a bit uneven. I enjoyed it for the most part. The stories are supposed to be "Tales from the Darker Side" and some of them have an aspect of the supernatural or creepy, but they aren't scary.

I finished Among the Shadows last weekend. This week I reread my favorite book, North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell, and now I have a couple of library books to read before I get back to my ROOTs.

That collection certainly had some creepy stories! But you're right, not necessarily scary.

18, 19, & 20. I decided that I am done with Piers Anthony. Let's just admit that I've never going to read those 3 unread volumes of the Incarnations of Immortality series, shall we? Six years on the TBR is long enough. Good. Off they go.

21. The Immigrants by Howard Fast

This was a free Kindle book, so my expectations were fairly low, and I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. It is the first of a series, and follows the life of Dan Lavette, the son of penniless immigrants, as he builds a financial empire in early 20th century San Francisco. Occasionally, I wanted to slap Dan upside the head because of the stupid choices he made (especially regarding women), but it was an interesting story filled with well-drawn characters. I would definitely read more by this author.

As a side note, my TBR is below 60!! For the first time in...well, forever. Of course I haven't cataloged the new books I've bought this year, but I think I've only bought 5.

Wow, impressive! Congratulations! :)

Thanks!

Congrats!!

Did a little bit of Kindle cleaning while on vacation.

22. A Princess of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs

I downloaded this for free around the time the John Carter movie came out and then never got around to reading it. It was OK for an airplane book, quick and easy and not requiring much concentration. I will not be seeking out the additional TEN books in the series.

23. The 1st Circle - Under a Blood-red Moon (The Tenth Circle Project) by Eileen Bell and others

I downloaded this because it was a) free and b) science fiction. It wasn't really my thing, being very gritty and violent, but again it was a quick and easy read. It was also not one story but a collection of interrelated short stories by different authors.

24. Caribbee by Thomas Hoover

This was another free download that had been sitting on the Kindle for a while. Do you see a pattern forming? This one was historical fiction taking place on Barbados and Jamaica in the mid 1600s. It leaned a little too far toward historical romance for my taste, and could have used some editing. There were also a lot of annoying formatting errors in the Kindle edition, which made for confusing reading sometimes.

Finally finished a ROOT for May:

25. Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny

A science fiction classic that won the Hugo award in 1968.

26. The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky: The Writings of Jane Johnston Schoolcraft

Yikes, that's a long title. It's an interesting book, though, and "The Sound the Stars Make Rushing Through the Sky" is actually Jane Johnston Schoolcraft's name in her native Ojibwe.

I bought this book almost 2 years ago in Sault Ste Marie, where part of the Johnston house (her childhood home) still stands. Schoolcraft wrote poetry in both English and Ojibwe and also translated native stories and songs into English.

27. The Aenead by Virgil

What a slog that was. I have the Iliad on my TBR, too. I hope that one is more to my liking.

28. Eye in the Sky by Philip K. Dick

I forgot one!

29. The Raid and Other Stories by Leo Tolstoy

I finally got one for July!!

30. Texas by James A. Michener

And there was much rejoicing!

I managed 3 more for July:

31. The Longest Journey by E.M. Forster

32. Brideshead Revisited by Eveyln Waugh

It was interesting reading those two back to back. And then for something completely different:

33. Counter Clock World by Philip K. Dick

I have reached my goal!!

34. Dragonseye by Anne McCaffrey

35. The Dragonlover's Guide to Pern by Jody Lynn Nye

WOW and YEAH!!! Congrats!

Well done!!

Well done!!!

Thanks!!

One more for August:

36. As a Driven Leaf by Milton Steinberg

37. When the Sleeper Wakes by H.G. Wells

38. Caravans by James A Michener

39. Now Wait for Last Year by Philip K. Dick

40. The World Before Her by Deborah Weisgall

41. The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver

Wow. Are all her books this good? This may be my top book of the year so far.

That is one book that has been on my shelves for years, Shinyone! Ever since it was on Oprahs bookclub. Should I read it? Can you tell more about it?

Well, I didn't read any ROOTs in November, but started December off with one:

42. The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell

Connie, so sorry not to ever answer your question! I have been reading non-ROOTs so haven't been checking in here for a while. I've read 7 books since The Poisonwood Bible, so it isn't terribly fresh in my mind anymore, but I thought it was really well done. It is the story of a missionary who goes to Africa with his wife and four daughters. He is everything that everyone ever thought was wrong with America and Christianity. He knows nothing of the land, language, or culture, and goes blazing in thinking that he is going to bend everything to his will, convert the heathen, and generally be a big hero. The interesting thing about the structure of the book is that it alternates in point of view from chapter to chapter, and we hear the voices of the wife and all the daughters but we never hear from Nathan, the father, directly. We hear about him from his family, who come to see his failings more and more as the story progresses. There are hints from the beginning that something terrible is going to happen.

I've read a lot of reviews of the book and it seems that a lot of Christians were offended at the portrayal of this missionary character and felt that Kingsolver had an anti-Christian (to say nothing of anti-Western and anti-American) agenda in writing it. I am a Christian, and I can honestly say that I didn't read it that way. This was not a story about all Christianity, all Americans, or all missionaries. It was the story of one extreme example of a person who thinks he knows it all, thinks his culture is superior and that he has nothing to learn from any other people or cultures.

Interestingly, the last book I read is also a book about missionaries of a sort. In The Sparrow, a Jesuit-led group travel to a nearby planet after discovering radio transmissions of music coming from it. They go, not to convert, but to study. They are people of the future, intelligent, enlightened, open-minded. The group includes a linguist and an anthropologist. Their intent is to study and understand this new culture that they have discovered. Their intentions are nothing but good, yet everything goes wrong in the end.

Thanks for your answer, Shiny. No apology needed. I'm glad with your answer now. I might read this book for the ROOT 2014. The title always mesmerizes me. There is something about it.

43. Children of God by Mary Doria Russell

After being deeply affected by the ending of the The Sparrow, I felt I needed to move immediately to its sequel in the hopes of getting, if not a happier ending, at least a sense of closure.

I only rated it 4 stars, whereas I gave The Sparrow 5, simply because it didn't have the same "can't-put-it-down" quality for me. It was still a great read and I'm sure I'll be thinking about both it and The Sparrow for weeks to come.

I decided that I needed to do a little ROOTing on my Kindle, so I started A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe as it was a change of pace and one of the oldest downloaded.

It turns out that reading about people dying of the plague is kind of depressing ;-) so yesterday I started a different book on my lunch break, The Dervish House by Ian McDonald. Which started out with a scene involving a suicide bomber on a train who blew up her own head. So much more appropriate for lunch!!

I am enjoying both books, though, and should easily have them done by the end of the month.

Done!

44. A Journal of the Plague Year - This wasn't quite what I expected. I actually thought it was a real journal, not a fictional account of the 1665 plague in London, which happened when Defoe was just a child. It does not read like a journal; in fact, there are no chapter breaks much less entries by date, so there are no natural breaking points in reading it. At times it seems a bit rambling and repetitive. However, it is a compelling book that gives us a glimpse into life during this terrifying time in history.

45. The Dervish House - I feel like I need to read this book again to catch all the things I missed the first time around. There was a lot going on, with several parallel stories all coming together in the end.

I definitely exceeded my conservative goal of 35 books and made a nice dent in the TBR. For the rest of December I'll be reading shiny new books that I got for Christmas or will buy with Christmas gift cards.

Oh that Daniel Defoe and his lack of chapter breaks!! Robinson Crusoe did that as well. Good to know about the structure, though! It does sound like an interesting topic.

Enjoy those shiny new books and planning your Christmas gift card spending spree! :)