moonwatcher's books in 2008

1. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling
My third read. It was good to read this just as Mugglecast's chapter by chapter was getting going, so I can remember enough to follow along.

2. Throught the Looking Glass, Lewis Carroll
I re-read this for the Lost Book Club on washingtonpost.com. There are a lot of interesting Alice connections in Lost, especially with the third season finale sharing the title of this book.

3. I Am Legend, Richard Matheson
I wanted to re-read this after seeing the movie in December. I read it as a teenager and didn't remember much other than liking it a lot. It is way better than the movie, and the plot is actually very different.

4. Freethinkers, Susan Jacoby
A great book on the history of secularism and freethought in America. I really enjoyed it, especially the chapter on feminism and freethought, and the various references to Quakers throughout. I was raised in a very freethinking Quaker household, which is what led me to atheism and a general interest in religious issues. While I was reading this book, I found out Susan Jacoby was coming to my local bookstore, so I got to hear her speak and had her sign my book.

5. The Night Watch, Sarah Waters
Sarah Waters is a wonderful historical fiction writer, and Tipping the Velvet is one of my all-time faves. Although I didn't enjoy this book quite as much, I think the writing was actually better. It takes place in London in the 1940's and follows a group of people backwards in time, from the aftermath of World War II backwards to when the war was raging and bombs were falling on the city. It was really interesting to discover how their lives were connected, and I learned a lot about what the war was like for people living through it.

6. I Am America (And So Can You!), Stephen Colbert
This book was pretty much like watching the show, except with no boring interview at the end. I loved the chapters on religion and homosexuality, and even the chapter on sports, which I have zero interest in or knowledge of, was pretty funny.

7. Full Frontal Feminism, Jessica Valenti
I read Feministing regularly, so I thought I should check out Jessica's book. I don't think I'm quite the demographic it's aimed at -- it's more like a primer for high schoolers or college students who are new to feminism -- but it was a quick, fun read.

8. Complete Sonnets, William Shakespeare

The most interesting aspect of this book to me is seeing where the language has changed since Elizabethan times, rendering lines unrhyming. Because the rest of his rhymes are so tight, I have no doubt that combinations such as love/prove and eye/history are intended to rhyme, and it's fun guessing at how to pronounce better/greater so that they sound the same.

9. Witch Week, Diana Wynne Jones
This was suggested in a review as something Harry Potter fans might like, and it is somewhat similar to Harry Potter in that it takes place in a boarding school in England and is about adolescent witches. But this world is a much different place, where magic is outlawed and witches are burned when caught. I can't say I enjoyed it quite as much as Harry Potter, but it was very good, and some parts were absolutely hilarious ("Shoes!").

10. On Chesil Beach, Ian McEwan
This a short book that takes place mainly over the evening of a couple's honeymoon, and it's about the problems that arise from sexual inexperience and an inability to communicate. It's beautifully written and engrossing and I enjoyed it, although (spoiler alert) I was a little disappointed by the unhappy ending. It's probably more realistic that way, but I was hoping they would find a way to work past their problems.

11. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Long Way Home, Joss Whedon
This is the first arc of the Season 8 series, and this one was written by Joss himself, who is, as always, brilliant. I was a little annoyed by the way the storyline messed with canon that had been set up on the show (and on Angel), because it really changed the way I look at certain events, and now I'm not sure what I should consider to be canon. But in any case, it is wonderfully written and the art is fantastic, and of course it's great to see what happened to these characters after the show ended.

12. Woman: An Intimate Geography, Natalie Angier
This book is a fascinating look at the biology of human females, from menstruation, pregnancy, and lactation, to agression and love. There are a lot of interesting anecdotes about various human cultures or females of other species (a phrase I wasn't expecting to read in this book: "sheep dildo"), and she completely skewers the bullshit evolutionary psychology theories that serve to prop up sexist assumptions about human behavior. The writing is elegant and playful, and she manages to explain complex scientific concepts in layperson's terms.

13. Persepolis 2, Marjane Satrapi
I read the first one years ago and loved it, but I never finished the second one. After seeing the movie (which is incredible), I decided I had to read it. The artwork is gorgeous and I loved learning about the experience of living under a fundamentalist theocracy, and somehow Satrapi fills the book with humor. I think the first book was more interesting because it dealt more with the war time experience, but I did enjoy this one a lot.

14. The Abstinence Teacher, Tom Perrotta
The abstinence-only issue interests me, as a believer in reproductive rights and education, and this was an interesting take on this aspect of the culture wars. This book is really funny, and it did point out the inherent problems in abstinence-only programs, although the book was more about the conflict between the religious and non-religious as a whole. The characters were believable and I enjoyed reading the perspective of the Christian soccer coach, which is just completely different from my world-view. The ending felt a little abrupt and unresolved, however.

15. The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin
This is not the easiest book to read; it's much drier than the popular science books I usually read. But it was really interesting to go back and see the beginnings of evolutionary theory, and even though Darwin didn't live long enough to see new ideas like genetics that revolutionized the theory, he was amazingly accurate in his predictions, and covered a lot of the issues that relate to modern evolutionary theory. I also really enjoyed the fact that he used so many botanical examples, because most of the books on evolution I've read have focused on animals, and I'm a plant person.

16. Virgin: The Untouched History, Hanne Blank
This is a history of the concept of virginity from ancient times to the present, and covers the many cultural and religious ideas surrounding virginity, including the social and economic context in each period and region discussed. I loved learning about the virgin birth mythology that predated Christianity, and the discussion of how ideas about virginity are changing in modern times.

17. Girl Walking Backwards, Bett Williams
This is a quick read about a teenage lesbian, and it reminded me a lot of my high school days, because it takes place in the late 90's when I was a teen, and there was a lot of drugs and partying, much like my high school. I completely understood her obession with the messed-up Jessica, and I really felt for Skye when she realized that Jessica couldn't love her back. Skye's mother's New Age craziness was very amusing to me as a skeptic, and I found it interesting that her reaction to her daughter's sexuality was more like a homophobic Christian. I don't think New Agers are that homophobic these days, but this was ten years ago. Anyway, I enjoyed the book a lot.

18. It's a Jungle Out There: The Feminist Survival Guide to Politically Inhospitable Environments, Amanda Marcotte
This book goes hand in hand with Full Frontal Feminism, which I read earlier this year, although it is aimed at slightly older, self-identified feminists, and it's a little less didactic. I really enjoyed the humorous tone and the chapters on the Quiverful Movement and Purity Balls, which are always horrifying and hilarious. There were a few too many chapters on heterosexual relationship dynamics for my taste, but the rest of the book was fairly queer-friendly.

19. Pocahontas and the Powhatan Dilemma, Camilla Townsend
I've always found the history and myths surrounding Pocahontas interesting, and I wanted to learn more about the Native cultures of this area. This was a good overview of Pocahontas' life and the context and effects of the founding of Jamestown.

20. Julian, Gore Vidal
This is a fictional biography of the fourth century Roman emperor Julian the Apostate, who was the last pagan emperor and attempted to turn the empire back to Hellenism. Being somewhat critical of Christianity myself, I really enjoyed his criticisms of the Galileans as he called them, though of course his Greek gods are no more rational. A lot of the novel is a military history, and I was surprised at how much I enjoyed the descriptions of war, which is not a topic that usually interests me. What really astounded me is how many of the problems Julian faced are in the news right now--from food shortages to religious conflict to a war in the area that is now Iraq--which just shows how nothing ever really changes.

21. Thirteen Reasons Why, Jay Asher
This is a book about a teenage girl who killed herself, who tells her story through audio tapes she leaves behind. It's kind of a mystery that unravels as the narrator, a boy who had a crush on her, hears each tape. It's basically a story of how rumors and reputation in high school can ruin lives, and how little things can snowball and have far-reaching consequences. What I enjoyed most about this book was Hannah's voice, which was realistic in her experience of high school life, but also wise beyond her years.

22. Alanna: The First Adventure, Tamora Pierce
I'm a sucker for stories where girls dress up like boys to do things they can't do otherwise, so I thought a book about a girl who pretends to be a boy in order to become a knight sounded interesting. The language was a little simplistic for my taste; it really felt like it was aimed at kids, not young adults. And Alanna is a bit of a Mary Sue. But I liked the story, and the way it ended makes me want to read the rest of the series.

23. Desert Solitaire, Edward Abbey
I read the Monkey Wrench Gang in college and enjoyed it, so I decided to read his nonfiction account of a summer working at Arches National Monument in Utah. Abbey is a little too radical for me in places (he seriously proposes banning cars from national parks), and his complaints about authoritarian government are inconsistent with his pleas for more environmental protections. But what I loved about this book were the beautiful descriptions of the desert landscape and the many plants he mentioned,most of which were unfamiliar to me.

24. The Shamans of Prehistory, Jean Clottes and David Lewis-Williams
This book is about the cave art of Paleolithic Europe, including two caves I visited when I was in France, Peche-Merle and Niaux. The authors compare the cave art to art produced by modern hunter-gatherer societies, and conclude that cave art is shamanic, rather than purely artistic or merely hunting magic, as anthropologists have posited in the past.

25. The Great Derangement, Matt Taibbi
This is the first time I've read a book just because the author hawked it on the Daily Show, but it was a really funny interview. I have a sick fascination with the 9/11 "Truth" movement, which has reached really ridiculous heights of conspiracy-mongering, and I found Taibbi's comparison between 9/11 Truthers and fundamentalist Christians intriguing.

26. Darwin's Orchestra, Michael Sims
It's taken me three years to finish this book, because there are 366 entries and I read one every few days. This is a compendium of science and natural history factoids, one for each day of the year, from movies about giant ants to the discovery of Archeopteryx. The book ended on the perfect note -- with the commemoration of December 31, 1995, the last day of my favorite comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes.

27. Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris
I've read or listened to some of his stories before, but this is the first book of his I've read. He somehow manages to make everything funny, and his descriptions of his attempts at learning French are hilarious.

28. Shortcomings, Adrian Tomine
I read an issue of Optic Nerve at a Comic Con a couple years ago and decided I had to read the whole thing. The art is great, but the story is kind of depressing. It was engrossing, though, and I finished the book in about 20 minutes. I'm definitely going to read his other work.

29. A Thousand Splendid Suns, Khaled Hosseini
This is a novel about two women in Afghanistan married to an abusive and very traditional man. I read this mainly because I wanted to learn more about Afghanistan, and I like to read the women's perspective. It was a beautiful story, both heartbreaking and uplifting.

30. Sugarloaf: The Mountain's History, Geology and Natural Lore, Melanie Choukas-Bradley
This is a short book on the history and ecology of Sugarloaf Mountain in Dickerson, Maryland, one of my favorite places. It was fascinating to read the anecdotes from its history, for instance that Frank Lloyd Wright wanted to build a spiraling visitor's center on its summit, and when that idea was rejected, he adapted it into his plans for the Guggenheim. But I also loved reading about the plants, since plant watching is one of my favorite things to do there, and I now have a list of plants to search for the next time I'm up there.

31. The Secrets of Wildflowers: A Delightful Feast of Little-Known Facts, Folklore, and History, Jack Sanders
This books has profiles of 74 wildflowers, covering the natural history of the plant, the ways it has been used by humans, and cultural and historical anecdotes. I loved reading the details of how the structure, color, and smell of the flowers are designed to attract and utilize pollinators, which is information left out of my usual plant guides and makes me want to read more about plant evolution. I was disappointed that some of my favorite wildflowers were left out, like bluebells, but I suppose there's only so much room, and I loved the profiles of favorites like bloodroot and violet.

32. Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America, Lillian Faderman
This is a good overview of 20th-century lesbian history, although since it was a bit out of date having been written in 1991, I feel like it should have been written 10 years later. That last decade had some not-so-insignificant events, particularly Ellen's coming out, that would have capped it off nicely. But in any case, it was very interesting and I feel like I got a good sense of how lesbian life changed over the century and what historical events shaped the times. It was also interesting to see a comparison of the experiences of different classes within the same period, because their lives could be quite different.

33. When You Are Engulfed in Flames, David Sedaris
Another hilarious collection of essays.

34. Remembering Hypatia: A Novel of Ancient Egypt, Brian Trent
I heard Brian Trent on Atheist Viewpoint a while back discussing this book, and somehow I had never heard of Hypatia before. This book is a fictional account of the time just before her death, as the conflict between Christians and pagans in 5th century Alexandria was escalating. Hypatia was one of the last of the Alexandrian scientists, and around the time of her death the West started descending into the dark ages. It's sort of an interesting mirror to the religion vs. science battle going on today, but I'm hopeful that we're moving toward rationalism.

35. Watchmen, Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
I've been meaning to read this for a while, and I guess knowing the movie is coming out got me to read it. I really enjoyed the story and the art is fantastic. The characters felt real, despite being superheroes, and I loved the numerous literary allusions. (Spoiler alert) I wasn't expecting such an inconclusive ending, but it works: the Watchmen universe is not black and white.

36. Prince Caspian, C. S. Lewis
I re-read this for the Lost Book Club on washingtonpost.com. I loved the Narnia series as a kid, I guess because I didn't notice the rampant sexism or grating Christian allegory. I re-read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe a couple of years ago before the movie came out, and I was so bored by it that I decided not to bother with the movie. But I enjoyed this book a bit more, maybe partly because I liked finding the Lost connections, but also because it was a little more grown up than the first one. But I have to say, I still don't like C. S. Lewis.

37. Buffy the Vampire Slayer: No Future for You, Brian K. Vaughan
Another installment in the 8th season series. Vaughan is a great writer and I've also enjoyed his Lost episodes, so now I'm thinking about checking out Y: The Last Man, which I hear is fantastic.

38. He's a Stud, She's a Slut, and 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, Jessica Valenti
Another good feminist primer from Jessica. As with her previous book, there wasn't much in here I didn't already know, but it was funny and fun to read.

39. Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut
For all my interest in history, I'm not much of a war buff and I didn't know about the fire-bombing of Dresden before reading this book. The emphasis on fate is interesting; I suppose that taking horrific events as fated to happen, rather than as one of many possibilities or as something that might have been prevented, is a way to deal with those events. The moment was simply structured that way.

40. Amphigorey Again, Edward Gorey
Gorey's drawings are gorgeous and his stories and poems are darkly humorous. I especially loved the choose-your-own-adventure story. This book also includes his last two unfinished stories. It's nice to have the original, cute little versions of his books, but many of them are out of print, so these collections are essential.

41. The Time Traveler's Wife, Audrey Niffenegger
I read this based on LibraryThing recommendations, and I was not disappointed. I love time travel stories, especially the Hitchhiker's Guide/Prisoner of Azkaban style where everything fits together like a jigsaw puzzle, as opposed to the paradoxical branching time lines of Back to the Future. But this was also a beautiful love story, and it was interesting to see it unfold mostly out of order.

42. Cul de Sac, Richard Thompson
I've been a fan of Richard's Poor Almanac and Cul de Sac for a while, and I was so excited when I found out Cul de Sac had turned into a national daily. And obviously, the forward by Bill Watterson, my Favorite Cartoonist Ever, made this book a must-have. The drawings are adorable and I love how Alice and Petey defy gender stereotypes.

43. The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of The Lord of the Rings, J. R. R. Tolkien
I think I would have enjoyed this series a lot more if I didn't already know exactly what was going to happen, which is why I generally like to read a book before I see the movie version. But in any case, I did like the book, in particular the parts about Sam and Frodo and about Eowyn. One thing that is rather unfortunate about this series is the lack of female characters (something I absolutely hated about The Hobbit when I was forced to read it in junior high), but I loved Eowyn's story and I wish she had a bigger role in the books.

44. Ever Since Darwin: Reflections on Natural History, Stephen Jay Gould
Gould's very first book, a collection of his Natural History articles, first published in 1977. Because they were originally articles, there are a few places where he repeats himself in explaining something covered in a previous chapter, but mostly it flowed together very well. It starts with several chapters on Darwin and the reaction of the scientific community to his theory, and then continues with chapters on modern evolutionary theory and paleontology, and finishes with a section on human evolution and sociobiology.

45. Who Hates Whom: Well-Armed Fanatics, Intractable Conflicts, and Various Things Blowing Up: A Woefully Incomplete Guide, Bob Harris
Trivia buff Bob Harris offers a compendium of ongoing global conflicts around the world, with historical context and analysis as well as helpful maps and lists of key players. Some of these are familiar, like the conflicts in Iraq and Eastern Europe, and some are so little covered in the American media that I was only vaguely aware of the country's name, let alone its political struggles, before reading this book. But what really makes this book succeed is that it manages to be hilarious even while it's explaining war and chaos.

46. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, Barack Obama

This year was the first presidential election in my life where I was genuinely excited about the democratic candidate. I heard that Obama is a really good writer, so I decided that I would read this book if he won. It was written long before he got into politics, so it's not very political, but it is an interesting narrative on race and identity, and I enjoyed learning about his life and upbringing.

47. The Mysterious Island, Jules Verne

There were a few things that really bothered me about this book. First, there was the racism, such as in the characterization of Neb the Negro as the dumb, fawning servant; I tried to see this in the context of its day, but it really grated on me. The second problem was the ridiculous combination of animals on the island (kangaroos, orangutans, and jaguars?), but again, such was the scientific knowledge of the day, I guess. The other thing was the insane amount of machinery and so forth they made on the island, most of which nobody would ever really be able to build on a deserted island. And of course, there were no female characters whatsoever. But you know, despite all these annoyances, I fraking loved this book. It was interesting to see all of the knowledge they had at the time (even where it was wrong), and there was so much excitement, with all the various threats against the castaways and the island. The characters were all likeable if not entirely realistic, and the plot was fast-paced and engaging. I read this for washingtonpost.com's Lost bookclub, and there were a number of interesting connections to Lost.

48. The Future's So Bright I Can't Bear to Look, Tom Tomorrow
The latest collection of Tom Tomorrow's wordy, delightfully illustrated editorial cartoons. He's been one of my favorite cartoonists for years, and his blog got me into blog-reading way back in '02. He came to Politics and Prose this fall for a reading, which was really cool, and I got my book signed.

49. The Tales of Beedle the Bard, J. K. Rowling
The best part of this book was undoubtedly Dumbledore's commentary: I loved his mention of an epistolary argument with Lucius Malfoy over the Muggle/Witch marriage in one of the tales, and his admission that he would not be able to resist using the resurrection stone if he found it, which sheds new light on the events of book 6 and 7. I also loved Rowling's comment on women taking a more proactive role in Wizarding fairy tales than they do in Muggle ones. My favorite tale is definitely the Fountain of Fair Fortune.

50. World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War, Max Brooks

This is a post-apocalyptic novel about a zombie plague in the near future. Ten years after the war, a journalist interviews a variety of survivors all over the world about their experiences, and the book is made up of their stories. Some of the stories are horrific and terrifying, and some are merely sociologically interesting. I love a good zombie movie, and this is the first book on zombies I've read -- but I think it might be a little more fun on the screen, especially since it was clear in each story that the narrator must have survived, which took away some of the suspense.

51. The World Without Us, Alan Weisman

The was a really interesting book, all about how our human creations will crumble and disappear after we're gone. The premise of the book is what would happen if all humans disappeared from the world suddenly, but I figure that a lot of the facts in the book would still be relevant if civilization collapsed but humans survived (much more likely, I think), and they will still be relevant after humans have gone extinct, which undoubtedly will happen eventually. But mostly this book was a summary of the staggering effects we've had on the world, which was horrifying and kind of depressing, but still fascinating.

52. Embroideries, Marjane Satrapi

This is a short little graphic novel featuring Satrapi as a young woman, gossiping with female relatives and friends about their experiences with men. This is not something I would normally be interested in, but since the stories are all about Iranian couples, it's an interesting look at gender relations in that country, and of course, Satrapi's writing is as funny and her drawings are as beautiful as always.

53. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling (Re-read)

Fourth read.

So I made it past my goal of 50 books this year, and I think this was a good excercise because it made me more organized about my reading, and I read more books than I've ever read in a year before. Granted, some of them were very short, or comic books, or books that I had read part of in previous years, but it was still a lot of reading, and by my calculation I read about 15,000 pages. I'm going to try this again in 2009, and maybe I can read even more this time. I have 120+ books on my to-read list, so I need to get going.

The Best Fiction award goes to The Time Traveler's Wife, which I just loved, and the Best Non-Fiction award goes to Me Talk Pretty One Day. I'm assuming that the stories in that book actually qualify as non-fiction, of course.

Congrats on passing 50 books in 2008! Good luck in the new year!
--BJ