therani reads before the Biggest Move Ever (50 by August '08)

I figured it might be useful for me to track how much I read before I move for graduate school... so I can budget my books-in-luggage allowance accordingly!

Broadly, I'm reading clever and intriguing books, and I hope to hit fifty books by August. The book only counts if I finish it (no cheating with thesis reading!), and if it's vaguely book-sized.

Starting off with The Eyre Affair.
Fantastic book, but challenging to read because of the references, especially since - horrors, I didn't ever enjoy Jane Eyre enough to finish it. I might have to remedy that. The world, a bizarre future-past 1980's England lodged in a century-long war with Russia over Crimea, is absolutely engrossing. And the heroine's father's periodic interruptions to the narrative had me doubting my grasp of English history enough at times to send me to Wikipedia in a panic. Incredibly rewarding for a humanities nerd.

That's not a book I've heard of but from your description it's one I'd like to read. I'll have to look out for it on one of my book foraging expeditions. Thanks for the tip, and good luck with the move.

Someday My Prince Will Come was extraordinarily lightweight. I wanted an amusing read, so this chick-lit autobiography of a thirtysomething from no-where Colorado who, in her early twenties, managed to settle permanently in England seemed fantastic. Her obsession with the Royal Family and her absolute conviction that the only good things about England are London and very posh types from Oxbridge with BBC accents really turned me off on the book. It's unfortunate the author is very much an ugly American - but it's also a nice primer on how Not to be.

Two-fer!

An Elegant Madness took me a while to finish, but it was an interesting depiction of Regency-era upper class culture. I don't know much about the Regency - mad King George, tea taxes, tyranny etc., so was entertained if not terribly enlightened by the book. Provides some nice context for my Jane Austen novels however! It's also introduced me to the wonder of the name "Twistleton."

The Sex Lives of Cannibals was hilarious. I punctuated the entire afternoon with giggles and unladylike guffaws. I suppose if you're living on an island in the middle-of-nowhere South Pacific, humour is an important coping mechanism. His chapter about the macarena and desert island discs was probably my favourite, although the (slightly) more serious reflection on the type of person who ex-pats to these sort of places was also a high point. I don't think I have as much of the adventuring spirit, but I totally agree with his logic for leaving; working in an office all day is the same thing as death.

"Down with a world in which the guarantee that we will not die of starvation has been purchased with the guarantee that we will die of boredom."

I feel I shouldn't like Flashman. I'll admit, I didn't pick it up because it's something my own interests would normally lead me towards - it's related, but peripheral. And on that, the esteem I feel for the person who guided me to it probably also colours my reception of the book.

Caveats done, it's quite a nasty and delicious piece of historical adventure as narrated by a character who is the definition of cad. Even worse, I liked best the parts where our Hero is beating/leching/tossing women around.

There must be something wrong with me. All said, I doubt I'll actively search for more of these books. The battle scenes became a bit tedious, and my interest in action outside of England was only piqued because of the Raj connection.

After neglecting my reading for a few, the past two days have been a fantasy binge with a steampunk bend.

I've had Tim Powers' novels recommended before, but because the aforementioned came from fundamentalist Christian types with a keen interest on the debilitating effect of different types of media on the immortal soul and who consider Lurlene McDaniels genius, I was wary to say the least. I finally picked up The Anubis Gates last week and was pleasantly surprised. It was good. Interesting plot and good execution, with plenty of paradoxes and twists - just what I want from a time travel adventure. The action was at times hard to follow and I had to re-read certain passages to have a complete understanding. Although I had to put the book down occasionally just to prevent my mind from crashing, Powers is now at the top of my authors to look for on my next book store expedition.

My guilty pleasure is Mercedes Lackey's Elemental Masters series. Reserved for the Cat once again met my minimal expectations for the books: plucky heroine, Victorian England, and readable in an afternoon. I was disappointed by the hero and the lack of characterisation of all the characters (except the cat) as compared to previous books in the series. Also, I might be a bit of a blue-stocking but I prefer it when men's names are spelled correctly. I had thought it was a typo at the start of the book, I was sadly incorrect. I got this one from the library, and probably won't be buying it any time soon - I will stick with the first four books in the series if I want to re-read. Lackey seemed to have better luck when she was reinterpreting princess tales.

Book binge!

Shattered Dreams, a memoir of polygamy. Not actually at all what I thought it would be - namely some religious craziness. Mormonism is fascinating to me, because I see it as the sole survivor of all those philosophical movements in the nineteenth century and doubly unique because it is a religion birthed from the United States. That and, as far as bizarre religious legacies go, polygamy is way more interesting to read about than cornflakes. However, this book let me down. Under the Banner of Heaven it was not. Actually, if you ignored the timeline and multiple wives, it could just be an Oakie memoir from the dust bowl. Spencer is sympathetic, mostly because, aside from marrying and
staying in polygamy, she reacts to the whole "sharing your husband" issue the same way I imagine I would - badly.

Jasper Fforde is a genius. I really have nothing to add about Lost in A Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots except that I started the first on Tuesday, and this afternoon I went to the library to get the next two in the series because I couldn't bear waiting until my bi-monthly trip and finding that the books are gone. They're that good. A cautionary note - it's imperative that you don't try and read the plot summaries. I did so with "Lost," and if I hadn't loved The Eyre Affair and known what to expect, it may have put me off the series. These books don't necessarily lend well to concise two-graf summaries squeezed in among reviews and barcodes.

And now I'm off to burn through the next two in the series, instead of revising my thesis due in to my advisor, with some serious tweaking, next Thursday ...

Thursday.. Next?

Coincidence! Fantastic! It's a sign to keep reading, of course.

Oh Jasper Fforde, how I love thee so... The problem with burning through Something Rotten was that I then had to control myself for a week or two before devouring First Among Sequels since, as I sadly realised, there won't be another Thursday Next novel for a year? What am I going to do?? Suggestions are welcome and would make me eternally grateful, as the sun is shining and I'd rather do anything but the final bit of coursework required to graduate.

To keep me on topic for my Sparta class (not really, but it's vaguely related in the classics field), I read the female b-string character reimagining of The Aeneid, Black Ships. It was actually fairly decent, especially coming off of watching the Fires of Pompeii episode of Doctor Who. Not as good as Adele Geras, but much better than the Penelopiad, which I read about two weeks before I started this (and am going to backdate in :)

Actually, Penelopiad wasn't bad, but I prefer it when the retellings come from a secondary string character who doesn't have direct control over the narrative progression as it were, just because I've got a pretty set idea of what needs to happen in my myths (coming from a lonely childhood and all). It's therefore quite jarring to have someone else's interpretation intrude on my reverie.

I'm really disappointed with myself, I thought for sure I would be at least halfway done with my little goal by June! Alas, it's not to be.

It might be because I got bogged down in some non-fiction, when I really should have been revising my thesis, etc. Life in the Shadow of Watergate is a great post-Watergate biography of Woodward and Bernstein. I'll not lie, I love the investigative reporter mythology and count Bernstein as one of the heroes in my profession, so it was really interesting to see what do you do after summiting journalism Everest. I also appreciated the attempt to hang the narrative around Deep Throat, but I felt the author overstretched that tension and lost some of the pull of the anonymous source, while missing an opportunity to address the issues inherent in their use (credibility, credibility, credibility).

Also very happy to finish Officers and Gentlemen because I had read Men At Arms some time ago and unfortunately didn't get my hands on a copy of the second book until the past week. Sad! More tragic because I have the final book on the shelf waiting forlorn. Will hold off complete judgement until the final book, but I adore Evelyn Waugh... also hoping to read Brideshead sometime soon.

This is more like it. All that non-productivity from thesis, work, television, alcohol, is subsumed when there's sun and a breeze and my hammock outside.

Ironic then that I finished The Accidental Time Machine in one monstrous gobble Sunday night when I should have been sleeping so I could make it to work on time - I've given up on trying to show up on time to any class if I'm not already on campus. I have things to do, like enjoy a nice cup of tea with the hq ctc karnataka-grown that we have the hook-up for. It's SO good. And, like this book, it's gone pretty quickly. I was pleasantly surprised, this book wasn't very plot driven, but the descriptions and the little worlds that the hero kept jumping to made it quite an enjoyable little novel (not sure if it's a novella...).

I also finished Cory Doctrow's Little Brother yesterday afternoon, after getting the link to the CC version in the morning from BoingBoing. Sweet. I delayed any 5demai libations too until I got all the way through this extremely engaging and realistically frightening YA novel. The setting was sweet, Bay Area what, and the technology was presented with the perfect amount of paranoia/respect/love. Also, there's nothing like reading someone going on about how awesome the constitution and bill of rights are, since whenever I do it, I get strange looks. Boo.

awwwww having finished Katie Fforde's Stately Pursuits, I have a warm and fuzzy feeling all inside and an internal imperative to make my monthly run to the book shop and do all my trades and whatnot, just so I can get my hands on another one of her novels.

Reminds me of a bit lighter, modern Mary Wesley, who I absolutely adore for my junk reading. Makes me happy, quickly, with no calories. Yay!

As of yet haven't found more Kate Fforde, may have to go to a non-used bookstore for that. Boo.

Finished The Star Fraction just now. Insane. Amazing. Made me want to go buy a knee-length brown distressed leather jacket, I don't really know why. Actually not confusing, for speculative fiction, although I felt let down by the ending. I enjoyed the prominent role that politics played in his distopia though.

Prince Caspian, of course, had to read it again before I saw the film. Both were good, but the book is always better. I wanted to see most of all the dancing lawn and the trees coming alive. Didn't get the first and the second was way too Lord of the Rings (and I hated Lord of the Rings). Oh well, the gryphons were amazingly rendered. Smashing.

More Katie Fforde, Flora's Lot. I didn't like the look of the others at the library, they didn't have a young, single girl going out into rural splendour, so I left them, but this one was again quite cute.

Gates of Fire for class, actually quite enjoyed it, it was a nice dramatisation of all the stuff I've learned about Sparta. Love Sparta. Love my Sparta class. Nothing else to add about it, although I did glaze over at some of the battle scenes.

On Stranger Tides is supposed to be the inspiration for the Greatest Computer Game Ever, Monkey Island... and you know, reading it, I can totally see how that was the case. It makes me want to go play more Monkey Island right now, actually. Quite a good book and I was satisfied by the ending. The problem is, I now desperately want to spend some time in the Caribbean, on hot sand under a palm tree. Blue water in the lagoon and a rum-induced haze. Must. Find. Beach.

Free Culture and The Future of Ideas are both amazing books, if you haven't read them. I went to Larry Lessig's last CC lecture ever a couple months ago, and the man is just a genius. It's a bit cultural marxism, admittedly, but the ideas he espouses about the public domain are brilliant. Absolute must reads for anyone.

I think this makes 25.. half-way to my goal, and I'm only now entering prime no-school summer reading time. Huzzah.

Quite enjoyed Declare, Tim Powers is actually pretty brilliant.. I worry that my reading habits have changed, I used to be very into histories and biographies and the like, big thick books, but lately I've delved into spy novels and chick lit.

The History of Lucy's Love Life in Ten and a Half Chapters actually does get some appreciation though if only for the novelty of a time machine and Lord Byron.. I'll freely admit that most of the time, people from the past are more interesting than people in the present (who am I kidding, I've nursed a crush on Machiavelli for more than half my life). Otherwise it's light and frothy and completely enjoyable, although I could have lived without the epilogue - it was just too much for what was otherwise a well-balanced romp in insecure-but-things-turn-out-okay land.

Reading the jacket for The Ungarnished Truth, I really thought I would be reading something like Lilek's trip to Disneyworld but with negative amounts of snark. I was pleasantly surprised by the author and actually quite enjoyed her little story... it was not high-fructose corn syrup and red no. 4 in the least.

Have been meaning to read Heat and Dust for a while, especially now that I have the dvd out from netflix just sitting in the living room. I actually watched the film a long time ago, and reading the book was reminded of it often. I may not watch the movie again now. The book was okay, I thought I would try and read all the Booker Prize winners that I could stomach this summer, but I don't know that I'll be doing it... I just felt like this book was too precious or too exotic or too something, which just smacked me of sentimentality and objectification albeit in a more elegant way than today's round of formulaic books with "mango" "curry" or "spice" in the title.

Ah well.

Atonement was as good as the film, or the film was as good as the book. Either way I quite enjoyed it, although I think not having a picture of James McAvoy in my head would make McEwan's habit of extreme exposition somewhat tedious.

Lost and Found : the 9,000 treasures of Troy has taken me for EVER to read. I bought this book back in March and started it at the beginning of June. It was well worth reading, but very dense and less popular than I had initially assumed. It's more of a biography of Heinrich Schliemann than it is an examination of the fate of the Trojan gold post-war. Interesting and valuable, but not entirely what I was expecting.

The Strange Case of the Broad Street Pump was another dense book, this one about one of the first epidemiologists, John Snow and his discovery of cholera vectors. Another thick book which took me close to a week to power through, in this case because the author's style didn't really lend to a breezy "hammock" read. The book was less narrative and more figures, which wasn't my favourite thing. Also, there were a number of essays tacked onto the end which smacked of indulgence, though her final "biographical" essay discussing her research methods was a valuable behind the scenes.

I feel like I should be getting close, but I go on these spurts where I just can't read anything or, like the past two weeks where I've been just busy with decision making and mentally exhausted - I end up reading junk books. Not really much to comment on especially because I've been doing a bunch of chick lit.

Spin Cycle was fluffy and Sue Margolis is definitely no Katie Fforde. I try to excuse my unfortunate predilection by saying that I'm choosy about the type I read, it has to fall under certain parameters, etc, but unfortunately, this just narrows the pool to a lot of dreck and some occasional winners. Like Legally Blonde which falls firmly into the "dreck" category, being much better and the characters more likeable in the movie. I can't believe that I would argue a film is better than the movie.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter I believe is a tv show also. This is the masculine thriller type chick lit, and it says something, I'm not sure what, that I finished it this morning in about an hour. Kind of like Goosebumps when I was six or seven, I could read three of them in an hour.

Finally The Great Derangement really doesn't do anything to change my ideas on the state of the world, but it was really funny to see inside the minds of evangelicals in the red states and truthers in the blue.

Haven't updated in a while, but I guess I've been reading? Mists of Avalon actually only took a weekend. Admittedly, I read it before, but this was back in high school so... remembered more the Arthurian legend than the book's spin on it.

I did (but I wouldn't now) was actually kind of cute, although I dislike books about divorce, the stereotypes were unbelievable (if Coleen McLoughlin was getting hitched to David Beckham in 1999), and the main character was bat-shite crazy and totally unlikable. I guess I'm scraping the bottom of the barrel these days in my quest for mindless entertainment.

Society Girls was crazy, but fun... better characters than above, but actually the end product really didn't appeal to me.

The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher made me feel like a grown-up again, however. An interesting non-fiction look at the archetypal Victorian detective through the lens of a murder mystery.

a few more to add, still wasting my time with chick lit, maybe because I really can't be bothered with anything else at this point. Highland Fling was really cute, second best Katie Fforde novel I've read. Confessions of a Shopaholic was also good, breezy and silly. The Flirt was a bit formulaic and I was disappointed that it rushed so headlong towards its obvious conclusions.

Now on a Pratchett kick with Once More With Footnotes

Followed by Wyrd Sisters, one my absolute favourites - I really love the ones set in Lancre or Uberwald. Changing gears a bit, I finished The Virgin Suicides pretty quickly, but I was glad I finally read it... it was really intriguing. Amsterdam was also good, but hard for me to really care for the characters.

Have a few more days to read a few more books in between the packing, so maybe I will get to fifty :D