BeSerene's 2014: Books, With Occasional Panda (Chapter 1)

Well, it's the start of 2014, a new group and a shiny new thread. Usually I start out the year strong and then dwindle, but this year I'm starting at a point of having been sick for an entire month and feeling pretty dismal, so I'm not sure I'll be starting strong at all. But here I am. Because book pandas don't quit. Which is a thing that I just made up. But I'm sure it's true.

I read mostly fantasy and science fiction, but every year I try to supplement that with new and different reads. Mostly I fail, but that's just the way it goes. I love attending author readings and I frequently feel the need to confess my purchases here, because I buy WAY more than I read.

Also, I really like pandas. Squirrels, elephants and horses are also good. Which has nothing to do with anything, but there you go.

Welcome.

Goals for 2014:
1) Read more books.
2) Maybe not buy quite so many books that the floor caves in. (You may begin laughing now.)
3) Figure out how to build a floor truss out of books.

Previous threads found here:
BeSerene's Lucky 2013: Books Read, Part First, Part Second
BeSerene in 2012: A Very Good Year (for Books), Part 2
BeSerene's Reads of 2011: the Beginning, the Next Chapter
To see my masterlist from 2010, in which I read considerably more books than I have in more recent years, visit my second 2010 thread: BeSerene's Reads 2010, Part Two.

Reads of 2014: 28/75

Fantasy
-- #1: The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson (YA)
-- #2: The Crown of Embers by Rae Carson (YA)
-- #3: The Bitter Kingdom by Rae Carson (YA)
-- #5: Half Magic by Edward Eager (children's/MG)
-- #6: Renegade Magic by Stephanie Burgis (children's/MG)
-- #7: The Game by Diana Wynne Jones (children's/MG)
-- #8: The Game of Sunken Places by MT Anderson (children's/MG)
-- #9: The Cats of Tanglewood Forest by Charles de Lint (children's/MG)
-- #10: Seven Wild Sisters by Charles de Lint (children's/MG)
-- #14: Oh. My. Gods. by Tera Lynn Childs (YA)
-- #15: Have a Hot Time Hades by Kate McMullan (children's/MG)
-- #18: Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor (YA)
-- #19: Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine (children's/MG)
-- #20: Missing Angel Juan by Francesca Lia Block (YA)
-- #21: A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz (children's/MG)
-- #26: For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund (YA)
-- #28: Fortunately, the Milk by Neil Gaiman (children's/MG)

Science Fiction
-- #23: The Girl With All the Gifts by MR Carey

Mystery

Historical Fiction
-- #16: Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner (YA)
-- #17: Nobody's Prize by Esther Friesner (YA)

Contemporary and/or Literary Fiction
-- #13: The Outsiders by SE Hinton (YA)
-- #22: The Fault in Our Stars by John Green (YA)

Classics
-- #12: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
-- #25: Persuasion by Jane Austen

Non-fiction
-- #27: Survival Lessons by Alice Hoffman

Graphic Novels
-- #11: Bluffton by Matt Phelan (children's)

Other Stuff
-- #4: Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo (children's/MG illustrated novel)
-- #24: Winter's Tale by Mark Helprin

I've decided to do the Reading Bingo Challenge this year and will track said challenge here. There is a separate thread for this challenge, which can be found here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/164058


Regular Book Bingo
A Book with More Than 500 Pages:
Forgotten Classic:
Book That Became a Movie:
Published This Year:
Number in the Title:

A Book Written By Someone Under Thirty:
Book with Non-Human Characters:
Funny Book:
Female Author:
Book with a Mystery:

One-Word Title:
Book of Short Stories:
(free square):
Set on a different continent:
Non-Fiction:

First book by a favourite author:
Heard about online:
Best-selling book:
Based on a true story:
Book at the bottom of TBR pile:

Book that a friend loves:
Book that scares me:
More than 10 years old:
Second book in a series:
Book with a Blue cover:


YA Book Bingo
Book with female heroine: The Crown of Embers
Book set in a high school:
Last of a trilogy: The Bitter Kingdom
Book with a colour in the title:
First book in series: The Girl of Fire and Thorns

Book set in the future:
Book with a break-up:
Book without a love triangle:
Book that became a movie:
Book set in Paris:

Book set in the past:
Book with magic:
(free square):
Book set in summer:
Book with a dragon:

Book that made you cry:
Graphic novel:
Book based on a myth:
Classic YA:
Book with a Lion, Witch or Wardrobe:

Book with an incredible fight scene:
Book heard about online:
Book set in another world:
Book with epic love story:
Book with music:

And, just to make things really complete, I'm thinking about a list for children's books (middle grade and below). There is no image for this one, because I don't know how to make one, and I don't have all the categories yet -- feel free to make a suggestion -- but hey, why not?

Children's Book Bingo
Book that Won the Newbery medal: Flora and Ulysses
Book with Non-Gender specific cover art: Half Magic
A Children's Classic:
Book based on a fairy tale:
Brand-new book (read in its month of release):

Book that won the Caldecott medal:
Stand-alone book (non-series/non-trilogy): The Game
A Favorite book from childhood (reread):
Book with an alliterative title:
Book of poems/with poems in it:

Welcome back!

Book pandas certainly don't quit! I might be in my hazmat suit, but I'm here! Hope you feel better soon!

Welcome back. Sorry you've been sick; I hope you feel better soon.

>3 drneutron:: Thanks, Jim. And thanks, too, for setting this whole thing up year after year. We are so lucky to have you!

>4 leahbird:: Glad to see you, Leah. And, yes, I think a hazmat suit is a wise precaution. In my extended family, we've been handing these germs around like a cute baby, only not so cute and with more unfortunate goo, so you definitely do not want them at this point. Equip yourself appropriately, but do pull up a chair.

>5 gennyt:: Thank you so much for the well wishes. I am working on it. A friend of mine just dropped off some homemade soup and hot bread (what is it about warm bread that just makes life seem so much better?) so I'm feeling perkier already. :)

Book pandas don't quit!

You're darn tootin' they don't! Hang in there, Sarah, even the worst flu goes away eventually. Homemade soup and hot bread sounds just the ticket to get you back on your feet.

>7 rosalita:: Thanks, Julia. I'm feeling quite fortified. I may be inspired to raise my fist in the air and shout the battle cry of my people. What is the battle cry of the book panda, anyway?

Now that I think about it, the battle cry of my people is probably an almost imperceptible grunt, followed by the sound of chewing.

I can totally do that.

Hi Sarah!!

Hi Nora!!!

Starred for 2014!

Thank you, Melissa! Glad to see you!

I hope you feel better soon!

>6 beserene: I definitely can't get sick right now since I have my first doula client ready to deliver any day and two more close behind.

**sprays some Lysol**

Hello, darling. Found the new thread. Starring and leaving before I catch the ick over the internet. ;-)

Yay, I found the book panda!! Starred ya.

>13 _Zoe_:: Thanks, Zoe. Went to the urgent care today and am now on antibiotics for bronchitis, so hopefully that will help. :)

>14 leahbird:: I promise to keep germs to myself. :)

>15 tapestry100:: Except for you dear. I think you've already got 'em. :/

>16 UnrulySun:: Yay! Thanks for the star! And, yeah, we need more pandas up in here.

Oh, wait, here's one...


Panda on Book!

In Glasses! Too cute.

<img height="350" src="http://nationalzoo.si.edu/PhotoFriday/images/20131206-DSC_1322-AW.jpg"

YAY! Starred! Mostly for the pandas. But also for the books. Oh, and you, of course. ;)

That's okay -- I know how I rate. :D

Yay cute pandas!

Vote for Bao Bao as Panda cub of the year!
http://www.giantpandazoo.com/panda/giant-panda-zoo-awards-2013/giant-panda-zoo-a...

Done!

Also, apparently I should have called this thread 'Pandas, with Occasional Book' because I haven't read a thing yet this year.

But on the upside, I am starting to feel better. Thanks, antibiotics!

Bronchitis is nasty, and sneaky. But thank goodness antibiotics can knock it out. Keep getting better! And at some point, you will be well enough to be bored and will pick up a book... :)

Agreed - bronchitis is indeed nasty stuff. Glad to see that you're on the mend! Love all the pandas in here.

I know it's usually pandas around here, but would a polar bear count, because THE CUTENESS!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkfEChXa2V0#t=69

Want to watch Bao Bao try to eat her own toes?

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10152137121697902&stream_ref=1

Oh they are both so adorable!!

Oh, panda toes! So cute.

Once Bao Bao has her public debut on Saturday, I can post all the pictures I took of her last month.

Thanks, everyone, for all the sharing and the CUTENESS OMG... ahem... yes, I think I'm back under control now. TOES! Okay, sorry, that was the last outburst.

I still have a nagging cough, which is annoying, but otherwise I'm feeling quite a bit better. I went to a sci-fi convention this weekend, both to represent my job and to have a little fun. I met several authors and renewed my acquaintance with several others. Prior to departure, I also spent $200 on books to get signed... so I've already purchased so many books this year that I've lost track, and January isn't even over yet. Clearly, that whole "I'm thinking about tracking my purchases" thing that I mentioned a few weeks ago was a lie.

I met some midlist genre writers, like Wesley Chu (who will be working with us on our youth outreach project, the Young Authors' Conference, this summer) and Myke Cole (who is both a complicated guy and also exactly what you expect him to be), but the person I was most excited to meet was Rae Carson. Unfortunately, I only got to meet her in passing a couple of times, but she seems pretty cool.

She must have made some kind of impression, because I started (re)reading her first book, The Girl of Fire and Thorns, when I got home.

So, all of that is basically to say... woo, I'm actually reading a book!

Three cheers for feeling better, Sarah. And four cheers for reading a book!

Oh, my. That's so cute!

Yay for the cuteness!

I updated my posts at the top, at least partly, but haven't worked up to doing blurbs for my first several books yet. I'll get there.

Hope you are all well.

I'm so horribly behind on threads, but I'm drive-by catching up today. Hope you are getting good reading in!

Good to see you pop your head above water, Sarah. No worries; we'll be here when you get around to your blurbs. Looks like you had a nice series run to start the year.

Another few books added to the list at the top, but apparently I still can't muster a blurb. I'm so busy I can barely breathe. I've stopped almost all of my distractions, seem to be only able to read children's books that I can finish in one sitting right now, am still doing work at nearly midnight... but hey, we carry on, right?

FYI, I've been chipping away (very slowly) at Mark Helprin's Winter's Tale lately. Ok, for like a month. So there is that.

That's all I've got. I just yawned so hard my head about popped off. Someday I will get to be a proper member of this group again, instead of this non-participant space I'm in just now. :/

Hope you are all well and enjoying splendid days.

Don't worry, I've been chipping away at Winter's Tale since July.

Hooray! At least we are in this together. :)

Still alive?

Just checking in—I hope all is well!

Thanks, guys. I am still kicking. Just haven't been on here, obviously. LOTS going on -- teaching 7 classes (which is two full time jobs unto itself), prepping a short-term study abroad program (I leave for Ireland in two and a half weeks), directing a writers' conference for kids (which happens right after I get back from Ireland) doesn't leave me much time for reading and even less time for writing about what I'm reading. I also just got accepted to an MFA program, which starts two weeks after I get back from Ireland, so that is yet another thing... all good stuff, but leaves me with not much room left on the plate, for sure.

This has been a hell of a year already and it ain't even half over yet!

I did get to meet MT Anderson, Holly Black, and Charles Vess the other weekend. Lovely people. I have worked with Holly a couple of times and had seen Tobin speak before, but it was cool to see them all together at the Imagining the Fantastic conference. I read Tobin's book, The Game of Sunken Places, that weekend -- which is the only thing I've read lately.

Did I mention that I STILL haven't finished Winter's Tale? I've like 80 pages to go and I CANNOT seem to get the damn thing done, despite having started it back in... January. I can't even remember anymore, that's how long it's been.

Anyway, thanks for saying hi. I miss you guys.

TL:DR version of message #43:



That's me right now. :D

And this will be me in two weeks:

:) Sounds like your life is simply crazy right now. But all awesome things. Good luck.

Such excitement!!

(I found the ending of Winter's Tale to be kind of anti-climactic. While most of the book I savored for it's beautiful prose, the ending I just sped through. Also, I found the book was much easier to read in the winter, because my imagination didn't have to work so hard ;-)

>46 Kassilem:: Crazy about sums it up, Melissa. But it is good -- there are so many good things I'm involved in. I just wish there were slightly fewer things, period. But it could definitely be worse.

>47 norabelle414:: Yeah, I HAVE to get the damn thing done -- like, maybe this weekend, or I feel I may never finish it. And if I don't finish it, I can't put it on my list. And then the whole endeavor will have been for nothing. Because everybody knows reading only counts if you put it on a list. :D

So, here I am, strolling through threads and adding to my list at the top of the page. Someday, perhaps I will get back to reviews. For today, though, it suffices to say that all I seem to be able to read is middle grade, but at least it's been good middle grade.

Hope everyone is well and happy!

Once upon a time, there was a woman who read books. And then she disappeared, for a very long time. And then she reappeared. The end.

True story.

Hi, anyone-who-still-looks-at-this-thread, how are you?

Today it occurred to me that I haven't visited or written or really done anything on LT for rather a long time. Like, four months. I read some books this summer ("some" = like, 10, so don't get too excited) and I started an MFA program and I survived taking 20 students to Ireland and now the new semester has started all over again... so life has been a bit busy.

But today I was sorting some books and I came across an interesting graphic novel in a box, so I read it. And now, for the first time this entire year, here is a review for you...

Book #11 (because I'm counting things out of order)


Bluffton: My Summer with Buster Keaton by Matt Phelan
Sitting down to read this at the close of summer, with a cold Michigan wind blowing color into the leaves outside, I feel a certain kinship with Henry Harrison, the young protagonist of this graphic novel, who spends much of the year waiting for summer to come 'round again so that he might renew his friendship with the equally young Buster Keaton in Bluffton, a little lakeside village just outside of Muskegon, Michigan.

There is not a sentence in this entire book that is as long as that one I just wrote -- for Phelan, simplicity and nostalgia are the orders of the day. The pale watercolor paintings blurring neatly inside each panel evoke faded summer days unreachable in our modern era; the washed colors occasionally splash out to vivid brightness when depicting a Lake Michigan sunset or a vaudeville performance -- those brighter images perfectly pique the reader's memories of childhood. Nostalgia, of course, rests squarely in the realm of adult emotions, so there is some question whether the target audience -- presumably young readers -- would take as much pleasure in the simplicity of the text and pictures, but I like to think that they might. Or, perhaps they aren't the target audience after all.

The plot, or rather the plottish structure (as not a whole lot happens, so to speak), loosely covers a handful of summers -- and the blurred stretch of days between -- wherein the Keaton family visited Bluffton. Their presence in the town in the early part of the 20th century is an historical fact, as are the aspects of Buster Keaton's personality and career that Phelan has lovingly researched. The other characters in the book are fictional, even our relatable Everyboy protagonist, whose longings for a stage career open up the relationships that young Buster may have had, could have had, might have wanted in his summer vacations. We need Henry, though, and Phelan does an admirable job of positioning him in contrast to Keaton's strangeness so that we understand both the charm and the challenges of Buster Keaton's early life.

This is by no means a complete biography. The novel drifts off after a few summers and, with a hastily concluded epilogue and an author's note, offers only the briefest of nods toward the details of Keaton's adulthood, but what is here clearly respects and honors the great showman's memory. Phelan is a fan; by the end of this book, you probably will be one too. And then, perhaps, you might like to watch a movie.

Welcome back!

Every time I see that cover I want to read it. Why I haven't yet is beyond me.

>50 leahbird: Yep, what she said. *smiles*

Hi Sarah!! Welcome back!

Welcome back!

Hello!

Thanks, all.

And I don't know why you haven't read Bluffton yet either, because it's lovely.

Stay tuned! I might actually write some blurbs about my summer books! Bit not tonight, because I am all the sleepy.

Good night!

Ahhh! Norabelle got me with a panda attack! The cuteness! *dying*

I finally got back here to bring my list at the top up to date. The grand total is 28 books read this year.

28 books.

Thus ends the worst year of my reading life. And, frankly, one of the shittiest years of my life in general. It started with sickness and ended in death; in between there were a few bright spots, but also dark spots, and stretches of near-insanity.

I don't think I'll remember this one with much fondness.

Time to start again.

I'm so sorry this was a bad one for you. I'm praying that 2015 will better.