Anaciremavi's 50 Books in 2010

I'm a library school student trying to start reading for fun again on a regular basis. From high school through college I was given a constant supply of assigned reading with few pauses that would allow me to pursue additional books of personal interest. When I did find time to read something extra I usually picked out more dense non-fiction similar to what I was studying as a history major. But now I want to try and rediscover fiction, or at least more laid-back nonfiction. I'm not sure how I'll do locating books complex enough to interest me but simple enough to get through about one a week, but that's what I'm aiming for.

I am currently reading Lilith by George MacDonald. Yes I cheated and started early; I'm a relatively slow reader so I wanted to give myself as much flexibility as possible. It's proving a good read for me so far: easy to get through and sufficiently holding my attention, so that's good. It's about the main character's symbolic journey through another world to discover the true nature of his own identity and existence. He encounters a number of interesting mythical characters, including, now that I'm almost half-way through the book, this demon-goddess Lilith the title refers to, although the author has not yet identified her as such. I had never heard of the book or the character (Lilith) before, but am finding it interesting. I will post again when I finish.

I finally finished Lilith. It was very weird. I didn't like the angle that was taken on the myth behind the character. Interesting philosophy though.

Finished America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction by Jon Stewart and the Daily Show writers. It's like a parody text book: funny and educational (sort of).

Not sure what to read next, either the Indian Philosophy book I had picked out or wait a few days till I can get to the library and find something less dense.

Finally summoned the motivation to read this motivational / self-help book my mom gave me: Change the Way you See Everything by Kathryn D. Cramer and Hank Wasiak, so I figured I'd count it here since I'm already two weeks behind.

I keep forgetting to check my next book out when I'm at the library. Hopefully I'll do that tomorrow.

So I went to the library looking for fiction and came back with At the End of an Age by John Lukacs, which is an interesting but occasionally dense postmodern philosophical approach to history that I'm slowly reading but not near finished with yet.

In the mean time I took a break and read a book my roommate lent to me called Aunt Dimity's Death by Nancy Atherton. And wow, that was such an easy read, I finished it in 4 days, I couldn't believe it. And it was interesting... It's a ghost story mystery but the mystery doesn't start until over half way through the book, so when creepy stuff finally starts happening it's kind of a surprise, haha. But it was a good story up until that point too. The character development was a little lacking, and it got pretty cheesy-romantic towards the end, which I don't care for, but not too bad. It held my interest and kept my attention, and considering my state of mind lately, that's really saying something.

Yay I finally finished At the End of an Age. That book just got weirder and less comprehensible as it went on. I was suspicious of the author's agenda from the beginning, and towards the end it started getting a bit too subjectively Christian. Lo and behold, his last chapter was titled "A necessity for Christians," LOL, and in it he was clearly speaking as a Christian to other Christians, which annoyed me. Interestingly, it hardly annoyed me at all that I had no idea what he was saying or what his point was, lol. So whatever "necessity" he was trying to push was totally lost on me, but I was just glad to get through the book. I found it very useful to help put me to sleep at night. The beginning parts were more interesting, talking about our view of history and the difference between the modern and post-modern ages... but then there was this whole section where he was talking about Hitler and whether the Holocaust was historically unavoidable or not, and another where he outlined the shortcomings of famous scientists like Einstein and Newton... and then at the end it just got way too Christian. Oh well.

I read another fiction book. It was called The Book of Lost Things by John Connolly. It was really good. I wondered at first whether it was really a children's book, even though it wasn't shelved in the juvenile collection, because the main character is 12 and it's about his journey into another world. But there was a lot of gore and violence and references to pedophilia and bestiality, so yeah definitely not for kids. Creepy but fascinating. It incorporates several twisted versions of old fairy tales, some quite funny and others just disturbing. Apparently the author primarily writes horror / mystery novels, and this is the first time he wrote a fantasy book like this with a child as the protagonist. I also read that there had been intentions to make the book into a movie, but nothing has come of that so far. I realized when I was almost through with it that a later edition of the same book had over 100 additional pages with background information from the author about the stories and symbolism he incorporated into the plot. I was very annoyed I didn't have that version, but then discovered that this info seems to all be on the website, http://www.thebookoflostthings.com, so I intend to read that next.
My favorite part of the book was the implied homosexual relationship between a knight and the lost friend he was on a quest to find / avenge. It was very subtle, but it amused me very much nevertheless. But there were many sad and depressing elements to the plot. A lot of people died. A lot of things didn't turn out the way they were supposed to. But that was the message of the book: you have to live your life rather than try to escape, even though life is painful and unfair. It ended on a happy note, however, so I was satisfied. I can't stand stories with sad endings.

So I went on and read my next book, The Children of Men by P. D. James, which I finally finished last night. It takes place in England in the future when the human race has become infertile and they think they're dying out. But then a woman conceives for the first time in like 20 years, only she and her friends are being chased by the government for protesting its oppressive policies and they don't know she's pregnant and she wants to keep it a secret because she thinks the evil ruler will kill her and/or the baby. So some weird stuff happens and some people die, but the baby is born safely and then the book ends abruptly. Overall the book was ok, although parts of it were poorly written, the plot doesn't pick up until over half way through, and it has basically no conclusion.

Today I also finished another self-help / motivation book called Charging the Human Battery. I decided to count it here since I'm falling behind on reading again. I hope I'll be able to catch up during the summer.

I don't have another novel picked out to read next yet. I think I'll go back and read the supplementary material to The Book of Lost Things like I had wanted to. I'm also going to start working through a book on meditation.

I finally finished a collection of short stories by John Connolly called Nocturnes, which is currently available to download as a pdf from his Book of Lost Things web site. The stories were alright but didn't really fit together well as a group; they varied a lot in terms of length and quality. The first and last stories were actually novellas, and then there were three random extra stories tagged on to the end of the version I read. They were all horror stories; some were more original and interesting than others... overall about what you'd expect for something available in its entirety for free online. It was originally published in 2004, although it's hard to see why it was ever published in print in the first place. You can still buy a hard copy on Amazon, though I don't know why you'd want to. It was definitely not as good as The Book of Lost Things. I also found it interesting that several of the stories contained homosexual characters or themes. I loved the gay knight in The Book of Lost Things, but that seems much less original now that I've read these others stories. That character was a strong brave knight on a romantic quest to find his friend/lover, but the homosexual references in Nocturnes were meant to be scary/creepy rather than sexy or romantic, which was disappointing.

I found some more books in the Aunt Dimity series at my local library and I plan to read those next. It's not really a series, since there's no explicit order... which is annoying because I prefer to read things in order. But I expect they'll be quick and easy reads like the first one.

Finished two more Aunt Dimity books: Aunt Dimity: Detective, and Aunt Dimity Takes a Holiday. They're really quick reads; simple but addicting. I was proud of myself for correctly guessing who the would-be murderer was in the second one. Now I'm working on People of the Book by Geraldine Brooks, which I had picked up at a book sale a few months ago. This one will take me a bit longer to read. It's not incredibly interesting so far, but apparently it was a recent best-seller so we'll see how it goes. I also got another Dimity book from the library to read after that.

I finished People of the Book and Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin.

People of the Book was pretty good. My favorite thing about it was actually not to do with the main plot but with the main character's relationship with her mother. They had an estranged relationship and it seemed inevitable there would be some sort of revelation to help her understand and respect her mother more so that their relationship would improve by the end of the book, both of them learning lessons from each other in the process while the general story line unfolds, to result in a happy ending in more ways that one... utterly predictable. Only that's not what happened. Instead, they have one last big argument, and the girl goes and changes her last name and never speaks to her mother again. I found that amusing and appreciated the realistic break with convention.

Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin was good but probably the least well-written of all the Aunt Dimity mysteries I've read so far. This one was barely even a mystery, and the way it ended up unfolding was not very plausible, but it was still a good read and certainly not boring.

I picked up three more Aunt Dimity books from the library today, hopefully I will get through those fairly quickly as I continue to play catch-up with my reading.

I read Aunt Dimity and the Duke and Aunt Dimity Beats the Devil. The first one was an interesting change in that it had a different main character and was told in the third person, providing a background for that character and taking place before the first book in the series. The second one was a later book with the original main character. They were both better than Aunt Dimity and the Next of Kin but not quite as absorbing as the others. I was able to guess correctly who committed the crime in the first one and where the treasure was hidden in the second. Next I will read Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea.

Finished Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea. It didn't really have much to do with the sea, although it did take place on an island. It was a bit different in that the bad guy didn't turn out to be an existing character that was already introduced, so there wasn't much of a twist to the ending. There was a separate mystery involving treasure and ghosts, but it wasn't all that interesting.

I have finished Aunt Dimity's Good Deed and Aunt Dimity Digs In. These are earlier books in the "series." I wanted to read all the ones my library had in order of publication but neglected several that were only to be found in the paperback or large print sections, so I am going back and reading those now as well. I feel like these last few aren't as intriguing as the first ones I read, and it's sort of pushing it to label them as "mysteries," but they were still pretty easy to get through and at this point I just want to catch up on my reading. I'm now starting on Aunt Dimity's Christmas, which will feel weird to read in July but oh well, I'm certainly not waiting till Christmas to read it.

I finished Aunt Dimity's Christmas and Aunt Dimity: Snowbound. The Christmas one was corny but ok and it filled in lots of background to the later books that I had already read. Aunt Dimity: Snowbound was ok too I guess. All these books are starting to run together for me; they seem more or less the same now.

I started reading a nonfiction book I had bought several years ago in England but never read called Green Man, about this pagan archetypal image that shows up in Christian architecture. I took it to be like an illustrated coffee-table book when I bought it but its turning out to be very dense, more like a textbook, and it will take me longer to read than I had thought. I also got two more Aunt Dimity books to read.

I read Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter and started Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon. Vampire Hunter was poorly written at times, and, like many of the other Aunt Dimity books, there were some weaknesses in the plot structure and character development. The line of reasoning in these books as the plot unfolds is just not very believable at times; characters make unreasonable conclusions and deductions in order to solve the mystery. And the author insists on including something cheesy romantic in every book; this one ended in a wedding as well as the pairing off of two other characters who I really don't think should have been made a couple. It will be interesting to see how this progresses in the next book.

In the mean time I am still working on Green Man. It's got great pictures, but the text is putting me to sleep. I look forward to finishing it.

I finished the Green Man book, yay!! It did get more interesting at the very end by concluding with a philosophy of oneness with the earth that I could identify with. Anyway now I am just working on Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon, hope to finish that soon.

Finished Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon. The closest thing to a dragon in this book was a knight referred to as the Dragon Knight, but he was only slayed metaphorically. At the end, the author also tried to spin the idea of dragons as a metaphor similar to what is often referred to as a person's inner demons. Kind of a stretch for the title of the book. I did, however, find it more well written than Aunt Dimity: Vampire Hunter. I was also able to correctly guess the would-be murderer again, as well as some other details of the mystery.

Not sure what I'll read next, since whoever has checked out the last Aunt Dimity book from the library is taking their time returning it. I may start working through a book on Indian Philosophy I've been wanting to read but was afraid might be too dense.

I started the Indian Philosophy book and am working through it very slowly. I also read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse, which is a novel about an Indian man's spiritual journey that incorporates a lot of philosophy. Siddhartha was beautifully written (or at least beautifully translated, since what I read was a translation of the original German) and captivating yet simple and easy to read. The inside flap calls the book a moral allegory, which I think is a fit description since it doesn't have much of a plot but is mostly about the inner reflections of the protagonist, Siddhartha. Incidentally, the Siddhartha of this story is not the Buddha, Siddhartha Gautama, but another man of the same name and a similar life story. He does briefly meet the Buddha, who in the book is just called Gautama... Kind of confusing but still a good story.

I forgot to post it in here until now, but I read a book called The Fifth Mountain by Paulo Coelho. It was about the prophet Elijah and expands on his story from the bible. I eventually want to read The Alchemist, also by Coelho, but that's been checked out of the library for forever and now someone has gone and put a hold on it so I don't know when I'll get to it. In the mean time I did finally get to read the last Aunt Dimity novel, Aunt Dimity Goes West, which I just finished today. It was pretty good, and I was again able to guess the bad guy correctly although in this one it was kind of obvious. Still working on the Indian Philosophy book, and going to pick up some more books from the library tomorrow.

The books I wanted weren't there, so I got this short collection of stories called Dr. King's Refrigerator: And Other Bedtime Stories, which actually turned out to be pretty interesting. Despite the silly title and being labeled as bedtime stories, they were actually fairly thought-provoking and philosophical. Most of the stories had to do with race, and the title story does refer to Martin Luther King... but that one in particular also oddly related to the Indian philosophy book I've been reading, with the diverse contents of a refrigerator serving to illustrate the law of interdependent origination. Sounds crazy but there really was a connection there I swear.

Wooooo I finally finished Indian Philosophy, yay!! It turns out I had read more of it previously than I thought, but this is the first I've read it all the way through. It wasn't as hard to get through as I had predicted because a lot of it came back to me as I was reading. I think if I read it one more time I might really understand it, haha but I'm not going to do that now. I've started Stephen Colbert's I Am America (And So Can You!), which will provide some variety because the other things I have picked out to read next are philosophical as well.

I finished I Am America (And So Can You!), which was pretty good though not hilarious. I briefly started a translation of the Indian epic The Mahabharata (actually the book I found had both the Ramayana, which I had already read, and the Mahabharata bound together), but it was much too dense and so I quickly gave up on that. I was going to read Paulo Coelho's Warrior of the Light: A Manual, but decided to put that aside until later. I bought Coelho's more recent novel, The Witch of Portobello, and I might read that next unless I find something more interesting at the library tomorrow.

I finished The Witch of Portobello, and it was not nearly as interesting as I had hoped. It was written as a collection of testimonies from various people who had known the main character, all pieced together to form a more-or-less coherent narrative of her life. This style could have been interesting, but it wasn't done very well... for example there was extensive dialogue within the testimony from various characters as if they remembered word-for-word the conversations they had had, which obviously they wouldn't have. As for the story itself, not much happened in it. Not sure why it was so popular. Or maybe it wasn't that successful and only got that attention due to the author's previous top selling works like The Alchemist. After all, a quarter of the front cover is taken up with an ugly yellow banner saying "Paulo Coelho: Author of The Alchemist," and then a quote from USA Today, lol. Well I home The Alchemist is worth the hype because that's one of the next things I plan to read.

Soooo... time to catch up.

I read 1984, just cause it's a classic I've heard a lot about that sounds interesting but I'd never read it. Doubleplusoverrated.

Then I started The Alchemist, which got interrupted when I moved back to school but which I finally finished last night. It was pretty good, very philosophical. I'm starting to think I'm just reading Indian philosophy into everything cause I'm interested in it, but I swear there were Hindu elements in this book too. The lessons of the story are told in a very simple way and are thus open to a lot of interpretations regardless.

Next I plan to start working through Warrior of the Light: A Manual while I do additional reading for my courses.

Here's the deal. In addition to 8 required novels for the multicultural literature course I'm taking, I need to read 15 other books of my choice. I'm going to count those 15 towards my 50 book goal on here, otherwise I'm not going to finish by the year's end. This will also give me more motivation to actually go out and find 15 additional novels and read them, because the minimal write-ups we need to do for the course could clearly be completed without reading the actual books.

The first additional book I plan to read for this course is Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Yay I finished my 50th book today! Well, the "book" is mostly illustrations, but I'm counting it. It's called M. C. Escher: The Graphic Work and it contains reproductions of 76 woodcuts, engravings, and lithographs with a detailed introduction and description of each work by the artist. You know, most people are relatively familiar with M. C. Escher's work with it's cool optical illusions and geometric designs, but once you actually start carefully studying and reading about these pictures you start seeing details in them you never would have noticed before. At least that's what happened with me. I think this would be a good book to aid in meditation, to teach you to be in the present moment and really "see" what it is you're looking at.

Oh, did not mention that right before this I read a book called Meditation: Exercises and Inspirations for Well-being? After reading it I'm still not sure I understand what meditation actually IS, but the book did help remind me of the importance of spending more time in the present moment mentally and not getting lost in thoughts about the past and the future. Not sure if that was the point, but that's what I got out of it.

A few weeks ago I also finished Warrior of the Light: A Manual by Paulo Coelho. I was working through that one really slowly... it had little mini reflections on each page, and I really had to motivate myself to read at least one page/reflection a day. Parts of it were inspirational, but it got a bit repetitive and I got tired of the militaristic metaphors. But you know, duh, what did I expect when it's all about being a WARRIOR of the light? Sounds kind of contradictory to me at this point, but whatever.

Ok, now to sum up the books I read for my multicultural literature class:

Beloved by Toni Morrison
Cultural Area: African American / Audience: Adult
The synopsis sounded cool but it was just really weird. Didn't understand what was going on half the time.

The Watsons Go to Birmingham--1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis
Cultural Area: African American / Audience: Children
A mostly humorous and heartwarming story about a lovable family that witnesses the infamous Birmingham church bombing toward the end of the novel. The last part is depressing but educational and contains some good reflections on racism.

Sing Down the Moon by Scott O'Dell
Cultural Area: Native American / Audience: Children
Plot was "meh." Learned some stuff about Navajo culture though.

Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan
Cultural Area: Latino / Audience: Children
Beautiful, inspirational, educational, but also kind of depressing. Mostly educational though. Great book for children, it will even teach them some Spanish words and phrases.

Buried Onions by Gary Soto
Cultural Area: Latino / Audience: Young Adult
I guess if you have a delinquent teenage son who you're trying to inspire to read more, this book would be a super recommendation. Will teach him Spanish profanity and about inner-city gang violence.

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
Cultural Area: Latino / Audience: Young Adult
Weird, hard to follow, and depressing. But apparently kind of a big deal in Latina/Chicana literature.

My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
Cultural Area: Jewish / Audience: Adult
Great book but took me quite a while to get through and I had a hard time understanding why artistic talent couldn't be accepted in and reconciled with Hasidic Judaism.

Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins by Eric A. Kimmel, Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman
Cultural Area: Jewish / Audience: Children
Yeah so for our individual reading in this class we were supposed to read 3-6 books written for children ages 0-11, so I read some picture books in addition to novels for older children. It helped me catch up, especially since it took me so long to read Asher Lev. This one about a man who outsmarts some goblins who are trying to stop the villagers from celebrating Hanukkah was cute, funny, and educational. I loved it.

Gershon's Monster: A Story for the Jewish New Year by Eric A. Kimmel, Illustrated by John J. Muth
Cultural Area: Jewish / Audience: Children
This story, based on a Hasidic legend, was not nearly as fun as Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins, and I'm not sure I agreed with the conception of sin and repentance that was portrayed. Illustrations were nice though.

Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden
Cultural Area: LGBT / Audience: Young Adult
Beautiful story about two teenage girls who fall in love. Touches on some important young adult themes and shows that homosexuality is not just about sex.

Totally Joe by James Howe
Cultural Area: LGBT / Audience: Young Adult
Humorous and creatively written story from the perspective of a well-adjusted modern gay teen.

Permanent Connections by Sue Ellen Bridgers
Cultural Area: Appalachian / Audience: Young Adult
I didn't like this at all, but we had to read at least one book that would be considered "Appalachian." Typical troubled-teen-learns-a-lesson-and-becomes-more-mature kind of story.

Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Cultural Area: Asian American / Audience: Adult
A bit too bitter-sweet for me, but very educational. The author meant it to be primarily a story about the characters and their relationships rather than the historical period in which it was set, but I personally liked it best for what it taught about racial identity and how Japanese-Americans were treated during WWII.

The King & the Three Thieves: A Persian Tale by Kristen Balouch
Cultural Area: Middle East / Audience: Children
Another picture book. This one was kind of weird. About a Persian king with a funny mustache who befriends some thieves. Yeah.

The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
Cultural Area: Asian American / Audience: Adult
A lot of this was very odd, but it got easier to follow towards the end. Good reflections on the lives of Chinese women and Chinese-American femininity.

So I guess that's all 50 of them. For 2011 I'm going to go by pages rather than number of books. 5,000 pages will be my goal. I won't describe the books in this forum though, that got to be a chore. I may comment on them when I add them to my library though.