Tafadhali's 2014 Categories Pyramid

After five years of breezing through the first five categories and lagging behind in the last two or three, I've decided to go for the pyramid structure in my categories challenge this year. I'm planning to read (at least):

One book from Dad's Great Books Series (a collection of works he gave me for my high school graduation)
Two biographies or memoirs
Three short story collections
Four classic novels (pre-WWII)
Five books by authors from around the world
Six plays or books on theatre
Seven works of queer literature
Eight nonfiction works
Nine mystery or suspense novels
Ten graphic novels
Eleven works of science fiction
Twelve fantasy books
Thirteen children's books
Fourteen young adult novels

For a total of 97 books!

DAD'S GREAT BOOKS

1. Hitchcock/Truffaut by Francois Truffaut

(Other ideas: Essays by Francis Bacon)

BIOGRAPHIES AND MEMOIRS

1. The Man Who Invented Rock Hudson by Robert Hofler DONE, 9/13/14
2. Fosse by Sam Wasson (CR)

(Other ideas: the biography on Mozart that's been sitting on my bedstand for two months, Julie and Julia by Julie Powell, Long Walk to Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Careless Love by Peter Guralnick)

SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS

1. You Don't Even Know Me by Sharon Flake DONE, 7/9/14
2. Monstrous Affections EXCERPTS READ, 12/30/14
3. Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage by Alice Munro

(Other ideas: Let's Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris, Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell, Umbrella Man by Roald Dahl)

CLASSIC NOVELS

1. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte (re-read) DONE, 3/4/14
2. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen (re-read) DONE, 5/14/14
3. The Awakening by Kate Chopin
4. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens

(Other ideas: The House of the Seven Gables by Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Bostonians by Henry James, Mary Barton by Elizabeth Gaskell, The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton)

AROUND THE WORLD

1. The Other Side of Paradise by Julia Cooke (Cuba) DONE, 11/14/14
2. Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie (India)
3. David's Story by Zoe Wicombe (South Africa)
4. The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (India)
5. 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (Colombia)

(Other ideas: Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie, Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles by Haruki Murakami, The Possessed by Fyodor Dostoevsky)

BOOKS ON THEATRE AND FILM

1. Everyone Wants to Be Me or Do Me by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez DONE, 5/4/14
2. Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture by Katherine J. Lehman DONE, 4/5/14
3. Scandals of Classic Hollywood by Anne Helen Petersen DONE, 10/7/14
4. Fires in the Mirror by Anna Deavere Smith DONE, 11/27/14
5. Look, I Made a Hat by Stephen Sondheim (re-read) EXCERPTS READ, 12/30/14
6. Vampires and Violets by Andrea Weiss

QUEER LIT (AND MAYBE SOME NON-LIT)

1. Finding H.F. by Julia Watts DONE, 6/6/14
2. Turn of the Story by Sarah Rees Brennan DONE, 12/21/14
3. Lies My Girlfriend Told Me by Julie Anne Peters DONE, 11/10/14
4. A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner DONE, 2/7/14
5. Rethinking Normal by Katie Rain Hill DONE, 11/16/14
6. Gracefully Grayson by Ami Polansky DONE, 11/29/14
7. Gay New York by George Chauncey

(Other ideas: Gay L.A. by Lillian Faderman, When I Knew by Robert Trachtenberg, Vampires and Violets by Andrea Weiss)

NON-FICTION

1. Bomb: The Race to Build--And Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin DONE, 7/12/14
2. Texts from Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg DONE, 11/6/14
3. Packing for Mars by Mary Roach DONE, 12/19/14
4. China's Wings by Greg Crouch
5. Far from the Tree by Andrew Solomon
6. The High Price of Heaven by David Marr
7. Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee by Dee Alexander Brown
8. Girl Sleuth by Melanie Rehak

MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE

1. The Bird's Nest by Shirley Jackson DONE, 5/13/14
2. Payback Time by Carl Deuker DONE, 6/30/14
3. The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith DONE, 8/20/14
4. The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith DONE, 9/29/14
5. Sammy Keyes and the Kiss Goodbye by Wendelin Van Draanen DONE, 10/7/14
6. "Shouldn't You Be in School?" by Lemony Snicket DONE, 11/3/14
7. The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley DONE, 11/30/14
8. Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers DONE, 12/1/14
9. The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag by Alan Bradley DONE, 12/5/14

GRAPHIC NOVELS

1. Avatar: The Promise (Parts 1-3) by Gene Luen Yang DONE, 4/5/14
2. Stitches by David Small DONE, 7/13/14
3. Sisters by Raina Telgemeier DONE, 10/20/14
4. Young Avengers, Vol. 1: Style > Substance by Kieron Gillen DONE, 10/10/14
5. Young Avengers, Vol. 2: Alternative Cultures by Kieron Gillen DONE, 10/11/14
6. Avengers: The Enemy Within by Kelly Sue DeConnick 10/13/14
7. Boxers by Gene Luen Yang DONE, 7/16/14
8. Captain Marvel by Kelly Sue DeConnick DONE, 11/9/14
9. How Mirka Met a Meteorite by Barry Deutsch DONE, 11/9/14
10. Cuba: My Revolution by Inverna Lockpez DONE, 11/16/14

SCI FI

1. Quicksilver by R.J. Anderson DONE, 5/6/14
2. Grasshopper Jungle by Alexander Smith DONE, 7/5/14
3. How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff DONE, 7/16/14
4. Falling Free by Lois McMaster Bujold DONE, 8/5/14
5. While We Run by Karen Healey DONE, 8/22/14
6. Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold (re-read) DONE, 12/6/14
7. The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin DONE, 12/20/14
8. Foreigner by C.J. Cherryh (CR)
9. How Lovely are Thy Branches by Diane Duane DONE, 12/21/14
10. Slan by A.E. Van Vogt
11. The Disposessed by Ursula K. LeGuin

FANTASY

1. Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke DONE, 12/13/14
2. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (CR)
3. Emperor Mage by Tamora Pierce DONE, 12/23/14
4. Wolf-Speaker by Tamora Pierce DONE, 11/13/14
5. Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce DONE, 10/5/14
6. Lioness Rampant by Tamora Pierce DONE, 9/20/14
7. A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness DONE, 6/30/14
8. Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce DONE, 9/17/14
9. In the Hand of the Goddess by Tamora Pierce DONE, 9/17/14
10. The Woman Who Rides Like a Man by Tamora Pierce DONE, 9/18/14
11. Graceling by Kristin Cashore DONE, 7/20/14
12. Good Omens by Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett (re-read) DONE, 6/7/14

CHILDREN'S BOOKS

1. The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech DONE, 1/11/14
2. See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles DONE, 4/5/14
3. Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School, and Other Scary Things by Lenore Look DONE, 9/13/14
4. The Great Unexpected by Sharon Creech DONE, 9/16/14
5. One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia DONE, 10/13/14
6. P.S. Be Eleven by Rita Williams-Garcia DONE, 10/17/14
7. Better Nate Than Ever by Tim Federle DONE, 11/6/14
8. Five, Six, Seven, Nate by Tim Federle DONE, 11/9/14
9. Savvy by Ingrid Law DONE, 12/30/14
10. Outrageously Alice by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor (etc.) (re-read)
11. Liar and Spy by Rebecca Stead
12.
13.

YA

1. Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff DONE, 1/11/14
2. Belzhar by Meg Wolitzer DONE, 10/25/14
3. Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan DONE, 9/25/14
4. Seventeenth Summer by Maureen Daly DONE, 6/3/14
5. Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block DONE, 6/4/14
6. We Were Liars by E. Lockhart DONE, 7/4/14
7. Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen DONE, 6/23/14
8. Inexcusable by Chris Lynch DONE, 6/26/14
9. Queen of Hearts by Martha Brooks DONE, 7/29/14
10. Love and Other Perishable Items by Laura Buzo DONE, 7/5/14
11. Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein DONE, 7/26/14
12. Guy in Real Life by Steve Brezenoff DONE, 7/6/14
13. Maggot Moon by Sally Gardner DONE, 7/18/14
14. Blue Lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater DONE, 10/30/14

Looks like an great setup! Looking forward to following along.

I agree with Eva, great setup! A number of your books are new to me so I will be curious to learn what you think of them.

Nice scheme.

Lots od interesting books being listed here, I will look forward to hearing more about them.

Interesting categories. I'm especially looking forward to your choices in sci-fi and fantasy.

Great setup! Hope you like Neverwhere; I really enjoyed it :) Will be following your mystery and non-fiction categories in particular!

Hope you like Neverwhere; I really enjoyed it :)

I've been meaning to read it forever -- even started it once, but got distracted. I love Neil Gaiman's other works.

1. The Boy on the Porch by Sharon Creech

A sweet, almost-fairy tale by Creech which treats two of her favorite subjects, rural life and family. I liked it, though I wished there were a bit more of it to like.

*** out of *****

2. Picture Me Gone by Meg Rosoff

This definitely made me eager to check out Rosoff's other work, particularly How I Live Now. It was a tense sort of mystery story with a well-drawn (if almost too precocious) narrator trying to make sense of the ineffable world of adulthood.

****

3. A Love Story Starring My Dead Best Friend by Emily Horner

Ooh, I really liked this one. It handled both the main character's grief and her awkwardly developing love story gracefully and with a good deal of humor.

(Apparently I'm all about road trips of self-discovery right now, as I've already covered two and there's at least one or two more still to come.)

****

4. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte

I wasn't really planning on reviewing my re-reads, but I hadn't delved into this one since middle school and I was surprised by how quickly I got sucked into it again -- St. John is still the worst and Rochester is still a hilariously hot mess, but Jane. I had forgotten how fully realized and interesting she was, and how much I appreciated how she struggled with the question of autonomy (even though I wrote a paper called "Jane Eyre: Dependent or INdependent?" in 8th grade so you would think I would remember).

*****

5. See You at Harry's by Jo Knowles

This book made me sob uncontrollably about five times, to the point where my younger sister asked WHY ARE YOU READING THAT?, but it really is a beautiful read. An amazing look at grief, but also about growing up and trying to find who you are with and away from your family.

**** 1/2

6. Avatar: The Promise

a) I had no idea that some of the Avatar the Last Airbender comics were written by Gene Luen Yang -- what a great match.

b) These capture the tone and spirit of the cartoon brilliantly. Almost as good as having more show, and I can't wait to get my hands on the next arc and find out (finally) what the deal is with Zuko's mother.

c) Every time Aang and Katara call each other "sweetie" just imagine me making Sokka's exact face.

**** 1/2

7. Those Girls: Single Women in Sixties and Seventies Popular Culture by Katherine J. Lehmann

This was a comprehensive look at a slice of pop cultural history and at a moment when women's roles were changing dramatically. Lehmann writes engagingly, and I particularly impressed by her efforts toward intersectionality -- the phenomenon she writes about was largely a white, straight, upper-middle-class one, but she works discussions of sexuality and, to a greater extent, race into her study as well. Really interesting.

*** 1/2

8. Everyone Wants to Be Me or Do Me by Tom Fitzgerald and Lorenzo Marquez

Fun and witty, but honestly a bit disappointing. It feels very surfacey, while what brought me to TLo's blogging was their keen critical eye -- wed, of course, to their snark, wit, and glib judgements, but still insightful. I love their reviews of shows and movies, their recaps, and their fashion and design analysis. This felt a bit generic.

(Now to wrack my brain to think if I've ever found a blog-turned-book not to be disappointing. The Darwin Awards, maybe? I remember getting about as much out of them in 7th grade as I did the horrifyingly fascinating website.)

** 1/2

9. Quicksilver by R. J. Anderson

An enjoyable follow up to Ultraviolet, though rather different in tone. I liked the exciting sci fi plot, and loved practical, sciency protagonist Tori. I was particularly glad to read a book with an asexual main character.

*** 1/2