December 2011

And to wrap up 2011, here’ s the Stuff I’ve Been Reading post for this month.

1. Edgewood by Moi. Lest you think it mere padding to put my own novel on the list, I assure you that I sat down and read it front to end like a proper book. Which, of course, it is.
2. The Magician King by Lev Grossman.
3. The Hammer by K. J. Parker.
4. Solstice Wood by Patricia A. McKillip (25%).
5. The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker (20%).
6. The Writer’s Notebook: Craft Essays from Tin House by Dorothy Allison, et. al.
7. The Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin. The godling Sieh is the narrator of this exciting conclusion to Jemisin’s first–but I hope not her last–trilogy.
8. Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis. As it was a book I received for Christmas last year, I thought this read would be apt in December: gently Christmas-themed stories, all.
9. Hogfather by Terry Pratchett. Christmas in the Discworld is called Hogswatch–but what will happen to belief if the Hogfather is…inhumed…by the Assassins Guild? As it turns out, the sun may not rise. This book was also my first Christmas present (thanks, Sherri!).
10. The Lathe of Heaven by Ursula K. Le Guin. Once you get past the turtle aliens, you realize this book is all about good stewardship of Earth’s natural resources.
11. The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet by David Mitchell. It was beautiful historical fiction, about a Dutch clerk in Japan during the 1800s; but Cloud Atlas remains my favorite David Mitchell novel.
12. Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton. The back-cover blurb by Jane Yolen advertises this novel as Pride and Prejudice with dragons, and it’s really spot-on: a positive delight to read.
13. Over Sea, Under Stone by Susan Cooper. A reread, this first book in the Dark Is Rising Sequence is something I picked up on a lark as I was arranging my new acquisitions on the shelf.
14. The Dark Is Rising by Susan Cooper.

Best Christmas Book: Hogfather

Best Sequel: The Kingdom of Gods

Best Fantasy: Tooth and Claw and The Magician King

Goodbye, 2011, and hello, 2012. I hope and trust that the new year will be filled with many excellent books.

2010 Books (176)

I see several substantial differences between my reading habits in 2009 and my reading in 2010: no Drama at all this year, and more than twice as much Mystery as last year (because I read nearly the entire Amelia Peabody mystery series over the summer). Both Literary Fiction and Short Stories remain high, largely because of graduate school. The slight increase in Unfinished is due to graduate school as well, I suspect, since often only part of a book would be assigned. And the single Periodical I read was the Fantasy and Science Fiction magazine, which I can’t imagine now how I ever got by without.

A book that made no appearance at all on this list, despite my having read it quite carefully, is the loathed textbook I taught in the fall, Ancient Rhetorics for Contemporary Students. I do not deign to include it in my reading total. It doesn’t deserve the privilege.

This is also the most reading I’ve ever done in a year, an achievement that makes me proud. Someday I’ll reach 200 in a year, but for now, I’m quite pleased with 2010.

Tune in tomorrow for December 2011 books, and again on January 1 for the 2011 Books pie chart.

2009 Books (164)

Since 2009, I have been keeping track of all the books I read. It’s been interesting to see rereading trends, or series- or author-binges. And my reading has been strongly influenced by the required reading I had to do in graduate school, of course.

But lately I was curious about what types of books I’ve been reading, and their relative proportions to each other. Hence a pie chart.

It’s strange to see Drama as a category on my reading list at all, but I assisted a Shakespeare class in Fall 2010, so that accounts for those. Fantasy and Science Fiction appear in appropriate proportions, to each other and to the relative whole. Literary Fiction, Nonfiction, and Short Stories are probably so large because of said graduate school, although the category Short Stories can also include genre short story collections. I also read mainstream/literary fiction for fun, of course.

What is not represented on this list are the hundred-odd articles I read each semester for required reading and for research for papers and such. Nor the reading that I do online, or in magazines or journals, or books that I read less than ten percent of. As well, I did not create a Young Adult category, sorting those books instead into their respective genres. So while the pie chart is reasonably accurate, it isn’t perfect. Nevertheless: fun!

Tune in tomorrow for 2010 books!

Probably you won’t hear much from me

for the next couple of weeks because I am going to be doing Christmas Traveling. Six nights with one side of the family, seven nights with the other, with intermittent internet. Also, good food, gifts, and fun times.

Merry Christmas!

8. The Writer’s Notebook

The Writer’s Notebook is a collection of craft essays from well-known writers and writing teachers associated with the Tin House Summer Writer’s Workshop or with Tin House Books. While the topics of the essays may differ greatly, ranging from historical fiction to fairy tales, from sex scenes to Shakespeare, the essays themselves share a uniform level of authority, polish, wit, and humor that makes them at once entertaining and enlightening. Each essayist speaks to an audience of aspiring writers with all the best empathy and goodwill of one who also has begun the great undertaking of practicing an art but who has gained a little knowledge on some effective practices and techniques.

This collection, then, is for the serious student of the language of fiction who relishes the challenge of viewing her work in different ways. Any writer may find her perspective growing and changing as she considers, for instance, what positive effects the wrong word may have on her work (“Le Mot Incorrect” by Jim Krusoe and “(Mis)Adventures in Poetry” by D. A. Powell) or what she may learn from Shakespeare or F. Scott Fitzgerald (“Shakespeare for Writers: Sixteen Lessons” by Margot Livesy and “Revisioning The Great Gatsby” by Susan Bell). The bottom line is that a writer of any genre, attitude, or experience will find in these varied yet beautifully written essays something familiar, something interesting, something new.

It’s not you, it’s me

TBR #10 and #9. I didn’t finish reading these two books for two different reasons, neither of which lies with the books themselves.

1. Not in the mood. Solstice Wood by Patricia A. McKillip surprised me by being set in the real world about real people (rather than in a magical world about magical people). An inherited house with a fairy wood makes for an excellent story, a la Tamsin by Peter S. Beagle, just not the story that I expected to be reading.

2. Not really my genre. The Darkness that Comes Before by R. Scott Bakker is the first in an epic fantasy trilogy. But there’s something about the epic style that I always seem to struggle against–and I think that this novel is quite a good specimen of that particular subgenre. People who like George R. R. Martin will appreciate the scale and pace of Bakker’s first novel. I am not one of them, though I tried very hard to be.

Now what? I am debating between Miracle and Other Christmas Stories by Connie Willis, which I must finish before the end of the year, as it was a Christmas present from 2010, and Kingdom of Gods by N. K. Jemisin, the conclusion to a trilogy that I’ve liked very much.

11. The Hammer

TBR #11. The Hammer by K. J. Parker.

First sentence: “When Gignomai was seven years old, his brother Stheno gave him three chickens.”

This is what I need more of in my life: reading 400-page novels in a day. Let’s all give a big, warm welcome to the month of December!

The Hammer is my new favorite Parker stand-alone. Gignomai is the youngest son of a noble family exiled to isolation amidst a town of indentured farmers. When Gignomai decides to leave his family to go into business for himself, his best friend Furio, son of the local merchant, gradually realizes that Gignomai has a long-buried family secret that he is set on revenging, even if he involves the whole town in his plan.

Parker novels never finish very happily, but this one was powerfully satisfying. It appeals to me for the same reason that I liked Parker’s Engineer Trilogy so much–most of the characters are trying to con the others for one reason or another. Some of them even succeed.

It should be noted that I have a dark sense of humor and thoroughly enjoy a good tragedy. Be warned.