Back after a long hiatus

i'm disappointed in myself... i've not been doing so well on my reading goals. but summer is just a few weeks away, and hope springs eternal.

currently i have been reading the stand by stephen king, which i am kind of enjoying except that i think the characters are boring. all of his characters are just dull white men. the only one i like so far is what's his name, the deaf guy. nick, i think. he's a nice guy. everyone else... bleh. i think i like stephen king's short stories, but his novels just tend to feel bloated and flat.

to the novel's credit, however, it can be pretty engrossing. i was reading some earlier and i sneezed and freaked out for a second before i realized that the killer flu in the book didn't really exist (unless you count swine flu, which is mentioned in the novel, amusingly, but that seems to be largely out of the news these days) and it was just my allergies!

Library Loot - 02/09/09, Review - Animal Farm

Library Loot is a cool weekly meme in which you get to list all of the nifty things you got from the library that week. In the interest of spending less money on books and more money on bunnies and trips to Las Vegas, I'm trying to get more of my reading material from the library. This is what I got over the weekend- all stuff from my Amazon wishlist.

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
Brimstone Wedding by Barbara Vine
Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami
The Once and Future King by T.H White
A Free Man of Color by Barbara A. Hambly
V for Vendetta by Alan Moore

My boyfriend also came along, and checked out (along with some gigantic brick of a book by Ray Kurzweil) Animal Farm, which I read last night. I remember checking it out of the library when I was 7 or 8 years old, thinking it was about a lovely farm full of talking animals. I am glad I didn't get much further than the first or second chapter, because I would have been traumatized by the animal deaths. It's quite a good book. It's super easy to read and surprisingly engaging. I was also majorly creeped out by the last chapter, when (is this a spoiler?) the pigs start walking around on their hind legs... ugh!

Review: Mort by Terry Pratchett

I just finished reading Terry Pratchett's Mort. This is the 3rd Discworld novel I've ever read. The first was Maskerade, read back in my rabid Phantom of the Opera fangirl days, purely for the Phantom references and with no connection to the series or world as a whole. I did enjoy it, though. After that I tried to read the first book, The Color of Magic, a couple of times- but I never really got into it. I don't think I ever made it past the first 30 pages until I recently decided to give Discworld one last go. I eventually got through it, but it was only because I saw glimmers of what could be something really awesome and funny in that book that I went on to read Mort (and order a whole bunch more). I had also previously read Terry Pratchett's novel with Neil Gaiman, Good Omens, which is ridiculously hilarious and awesome.

I think if you want to get into Discworld, you're better off picking one that interests you and going from there, because they CAN be read out of order- you might miss a reference or two here and there, but nothing earth-shattering. I am much more excited about the series now that I've read something other than the first novel, which, honestly, is amusing but kind of lackluster. Mort is really good, though- very funny, and I believe it is the first Discworld novel that focuses extensively on Dead, who is a wonderful character.

YA literature

i used to be a great connoisseur of YA, because i used to be 12 years old. i read like CRAZY in those days. i would go to the library after school and take out 10 or 20 books and i'd read them all in a week. i'd finish at least one between getting home from school and dinnertime. i was a nut.

i often wonder if i haven't pretty much been at the same (adult) reading level since i was 10 or so, and if the only reason i was able to devour so many books back then because children's and YA books are often easier to plow through due to the plots and writing style. this isn't a bad thing. in my opinion, a lot of adult books are unnecessarily complex and overdone. they give me the feeling of being lost in a jungle of words, trying to hack my way through with a machete until i come to some ancient ruin of a plot buried beneath the multisyllabic, metaphoric jumble. i feel like i'm being choked to death by run-on sentence vines. and you know, big words and complex structuring and painstaking details can all be all right if done well, but if not it's an unnecessary struggle to get through, and there isn't much buried treasure at the end.

i do know that when it came time to graduate from my beloved YA section (more or less after i had read essentially everything that was there) to the adult section, i didn't do so well. adult books seemed so boring and serious. i now know they don't have to be, and there are some real gems out there, but i can't help but feeling like there is a dearth of interesting fiction for grown-ups. i don't like reading realistic fiction because i have my own life to live and i couldn't care less about some whiny whore's problems in the latest chicklit offerings. the typical mystery with the determined detective and the creepy serial killer does nothing for me, and adult fantasy is often so stupid it's not even worth reading. i guess what i like about YA is that it doesn't take itself so freaking seriously all the time. the realistic stuff for teens often does, but it's appropriate because who takes herself more seriously than a 16-year-old girl? NO ONE ON THE PLANET, that's who. now there is so more crappy chicklit lite for teen girls and stuff like that, but i feel like YA authors have more freedom and license to be silly, different and original, and they don't try too freaking hard like adult fiction authors often do.

YA fantasy is the best out there, i think. in adult lit, only neil gaiman and terry pratchett come close to capturing that sensibility for me... everything else is so DULL. all fantasy is the same old shit when it comes down to it; it's the way you write it that makes it not suck. as a kid i loved patricia c. wrede, vivian vande velde, rowling of course, and so many more. recently i read the gemma doyle triology by libba bray- i would have killed for those books as a teen, and, sort-of adult that i am now, i gobbled them up like candy.

so, i took up the YA challenge because i've been shy about delving back into this category for a while now. shouldn't i be reading grown-up books? no, i can read whatever the hell i want! here are some i'm thinking of checking out:

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathon Stroud
Diana Wynne Jones (already read Howl's Moving Castle, looking for more)
The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie

Genre challenge

This one looks good- it will force me to read outside of my usual categories. I have to read one book from a list of various fiction genres. Here's my list! I'm gonna need help with some of these... I never read mysteries/crime/detective stories and I rarely read romance.

Crime: Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
Detective: The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler
Mystery: The Old Buzzard Had It Coming by Donis Casey OR The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith OR
Horror: Gil's All Fright Diner by A. Lee Martinez
Thriller: The Cobra Event by Richard Preston
Romance: Possession by A. S. Byatt
Sci-fi: The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein OR Time Enough For Love by Robert A. Heinlein OR Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury OR Dune by Frank Herbert OR Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card
Action/adventure:
Fantasy: Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines
Realistic fiction: Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk
Historical fiction: Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Western: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry

What's in a name?

Ok, one more challenge! This one is about reading books with certain words in the title. Here are the categories and my choices- you only have to read one from each category.

1. A book with a "profession" in its title.
*The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith
*Sheepfarmer's Daughter by Elizabeth Moon

2. A book with a "time of day" in its title.
*Just After Sunset by Stephen King
*Night Watch by Sarah Waters

3. A book with a "relative" in its title.
*The Kitchen God's Wife by Amy Tan
*Daughter of the Blood by Anne Bishop
*Daughter of the Forest by Juliet Marillier
*Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett
*The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey

4. A book with a "body part" in its title.
*Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton

5. A book with a "building" in its title.
*Pyramids by Terry Pratchett
*We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson
*Summers at Castle Auburn by Sharon Shinn

6. A book with a "medical condition" in its title.
*The Plague Dogs by Richard Adams

Themed Reading Challenge

I decided to join this challenge and will be reading 4 books linked by the theme "fairy tales". I could go a lot of different ways with this one, I think, but these are my choices. I'll cross them out once I've read them all!

1. The Annotated Hans Christian Anderson edited by Maria Tatar
2. Beauty by Sheri S. Teper
3. The Fairy Godmother by Mercedes Lackey
4. Snow White, Blood Red edited by Eileen Datlow and Terri Windling