2012 Reading List (and some mini-reviews)
Dec. 31st, 2012 10:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxBooks that I read (and/or listened to) during 2012... at least that I remember.
Mini-review for several audio books:
As far as narrators go, I will say that Will Wheaton and James Marsters have mastered how a man should do a female character voice. Game of Thrones' narrator Roy Dotrice has not. Basically, it boils down to ... for the love of god, do not do a falsetto (or in Dotrice's case million year-old hag voice)! Wheaton and Marsters go for a softer tone of voice and that works just fine without sounding utterly false. I am also mystified as to why I've listened to several books read by Will Wheaton. I have no idea how that happened. They weren't even the same authors.
Books Read (Or Listened To):
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer
Neat premise. After an A-list supervillain takes out all of the heroes and takes over the planet, a D-list finds that he's one of the last few not under mind control and that being in a world ruled by a supervillain sucks. So D-List villain finds himself becoming a reluctant hero. See? Neat premise. Execution, on the other hand... Let's just put it in Buffy-fandom terms. You know those Xander fans? I'm not talking about ALL Xander fans. I'm talking that very specific type of fan that you run across every now and then that suffers "nice guy syndrome"tm with a vengeance. The execution of this novel REEKS of it. The bad guy is actually this ex-'nice guy' who was 'done wrong' by a woman and every female character in the book is either an 'ungrateful bitch' who doesn't 'properly appreciate' him or a manic pixie who tells him that he's awesome. Apparently, there are no other types. It became really, really off-putting. In fact, it became downright icky.
For the Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell (I remember nothing)
How to Raise a Perfect Dog by Cesar Millan (Not useful. Just lots of bragging about his own dogs)
30 Days to a Well-Mannered Dog by Tamar Geller (This one actually is useful and -- mostly -- practical)
The History of Ancient Israel (audible lecture series) by Professor Eric Cline
Interesting, but not as good as his lecture series on the Trojan War and the Illiad, and there actually is some overlap (at least time-wise).
The Birth of Classical Europe by Peter Thoneman and Simon Price
Eh. Not particularly interesting. So much so that I don't remember whether I finished it.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Okay, look, with a title like that I didn't expect it to actually be good. I did, however, expect it to be absurd. On that score, it was... however, not in the way that I was looking for. With a title like that the novel should be arch, cheeky, and subversive. Instead it was repetitive, dull, and absurd in the not-fun way. More outrageous and less dull and dumb, please. I gave up half-way through. Hell, I didn't even make it until Lincoln was elected to anything!
Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett.
This was either a sequel or a prequel to Only You Can Save Mankind because it features the same protagonist. Only this time Johnny is seeing dead people. Overall, it was an amusing, light young adult read. It reminded me a great deal of Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book, though the plot is not at all same. Light, quick read of some amusement.
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
A nicely fulfilling read. A young Jewish couple falls in love in the days just before Hitler invades Poland. As the Nazis advance, the young husband's family has an opportunity to escape the country, but he cannot acquire visas for his wife's family, only for his wife. His wife, however, refuses to leave her family, reassuring him that he can send for her later. You can guess that this does not work. Ich spouse goes through terrible things during the war, and each, for quite believable reasons, becomes convinced that the other has died... leaving each to try to piece together lives and learn to go on. There are distinctly different sorts of love stories in the novel. The primary couple is young, first love. It's innocent, idealistic... and doomed (because of who, when and where they are). There's love of family and of friends... and of the dead. There are also second loves when both of the protagonists have become so incredibly damaged. It isn't OTP in that there is only 'one true love' in the story, but there is a difference between the young, innocent love before the war, and the damaged survivors they become, building new lives out of wreckage with people they meet after the war. A significant chunk of the book takes place after the war, and, especially with wife, the story follows what happens to a concentration camp survivor. Her family is gone. Her home is gone. Any property her family had was gone. Any money her family had was gone. She literally was left with nothing. That sequence is really heartrending. Anyway, I definitely rec this book (if you are in the mood for a good cry). But, as hard as the subject matter is, this isn't a soul-killing book. The characters featured in the story are sympathetic. And, while the losses experienced are HUGE, there is as much healing as there could be given the circumstances. A worthwhile read.
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (Bill Bryson's anecdotes about his travels in and his time living in England)
Neither Here nor There by Bill Bryson (Bill Bryson's tour of Europe)
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (Bryson's account of the culture shock when he returned to living in the States after having lived in England for 20 years.
Shakespeareby Bill Bryson (Brysonif y compiling the things we do know about Shakespeare with an eye toward debunking conspiracy theories about Shakespeare).
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Much like Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything used significant (or at least odd or interesting) scientific discoveries as a structure for telling many historical vignettes, At Home uses everyday things around our or some specific things around his home to structure historical vignettes of how many commonplace household items have come to be commonplace. This is actually more interesting and amusing than I'm making it sound.
Red Shirts by John Scalzi
Fun little romp for sci-fi fans, especially Star Trek fans as the set up is basically that the "red shirts" on a Starship slowly come to recognize that they have an extremely high casualty rate, especially if they're on away teams with the deck officers. But it isn't just that. It also begins to explore fiction, protagonist privilege, and how casual death is used to mine mostly unearned (and unimaginative) emotion because it's an easy story trope. So go for the fun of the romp, stay for the dissection of protagonist privilege.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
A lovely, heartbreaking, incredibly quotable book. Giving the set-up (young terminally ill cancer patients meet and fall in love) sounds like a Lifetime Movie, but the execution is not that. It's not simply some sentimental treacle. This is actually a witty, insightful, lovely book that makes you laugh through your tears. DEFINITELY a worthwhile read.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Okay, though there are a few dark things that happen in this book that are actually dark, my primary memory of it is that it's a hell of a fun story. The dark things that happen add some legitimate danger to what would otherwise seem somewhat caper-like. The set up is that in a dystopian future, people have retreated from dealing with harsh reality by living much of their lives online. (There's some great (accurate) snarking about the politics of fandom.) In this world a vaguely Jobs-like computer billionaire created The Oasis. At his death, he had the announcement that he had left easter eggs in The Oasis and that the first person to find them and solve the puzzles would inherent his billions... and The Oasis. This quest has some Willie Wonka-like aspects, in that it's also a test of whether or not someone fits the eccentric billionaire's concept of 'worthy.' Lots of homages to 80s movies, music, and pop-culture, and my overriding memory of these things is FUN! So, yeah, dystopian. But this one is fun and blessedly free of all the stuff that made "D-List Supervillain" icky. It's a quest, a coming of age story, and small bit of social commentary as well. Fun read.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Fast-paced mystery about truly terrible, awful, unsympathetic people. If you're okay with loathing almost everyone in a book for the mystery/mind-screw, then it's a fast, interesting read. But...yeah, these are loathesome characters.
A Discovery of Witches
It's something of a cross between The Historian and Silhouette (or probably Harlequin (aka Mills & Boon) romance novel). 20 years ago, I would have loved it. Now...I got rather irritated half-way through. (This was the book that I wrote the screed about not giving a shit what characters are eating all. the. time).
14 by Peter Clines
Lost and Lovecraft... and maybe a bit of Buffy (in as much as it also featured an ensemble that liked to compare themselves to Scooby-Doo). Whatever the Stephen King-like cover, this is isn't like King at all. It really does remind me of Lost (odd assemblage ensemble in a place of mystery setting out to figure the whole thing out.) I enjoyed the heck out of this book. It's not some metaphorical deep think. This is a fantastical mystery that has a lot of the pure crazy joy of fannish things. It's not a great book, but it was a heck of a lot of fun reading it and, sometimes, that's exactly what you want.
Lies My Teacher Told me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W Loewen
This was a re-read ... er... a listen of a previously read book. Lots of good information, but to be perfectly honest, his audible lecture series "Rethinking Our Past" (available on Audible) covers most of the same territory faster, less repetitively, and more fluidly. Since he narrates the book, it's the same guy reading either way, but I think he's probably a better lecturer than writer. I prefer his lecture series to his book.
Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans by Timothy Shutt
The title doesn't really reflect it but it was about literary works so it's covering mythology, the Bible, Homer, Virgil, etc. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.
Dog Sense by John Bradshaw
This is an anthrozoological tracing of the evolution, domestication, and behavior of dogs. Interesting book that argues against dominance theory with lots of cool info on how dogs became man (and woman's 'best friend'). Nice book.
Cold Days by Jim Butcher
The most recent addition to the Dresden Files. This is another fine mess that Harry Dresden got himself into. Better than the last book "Ghost Story", this one does get around to re-establishing Harry in his 'verse again, though it also took him (and one other character) in a direction I wasn't anticipating. I enjoyed it but for the love of god Butcher, either hook Harry/Karen up or stop the dance already! Stop being a tease.
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Aliens come to earth and hire a Hollywood Agent to arrange their introduction. I started this one a month or two ago but then got sidetracked. I'm back top reading it now, and I have my suspicions that there may yet be a "To Serve Man" twist, but I haven't gotten there yet.
I have also re-read half of GRRMartin's A Storm of Swords I had forgotten that Jaime and Brienne's incident with the hanged 'whores' which took place in Season 2 on the show actually happened in Book III. And, knowing the big stuff that happens in the last half of ASoS, on re-read, I have to say that all the pieces of the puzzle are there. All the foreshadowing foreshadowed, and yet the first time though the stuff that happened came as such a shock. I like it when you can be shocked but then go back and see that, yes, the author took the time to lay it all out for you... but to make it subtle enough that it didn't catch your attention. Also, Dany is going to have a kick-ass climax to her Season 3 plot because she definitely has a huge "hell yeah!" moment in the first half of A Storm of Swords.
So, there you go. These are the 25 (more or less) books that I remember reading during this last year.
Mini-review for several audio books:
As far as narrators go, I will say that Will Wheaton and James Marsters have mastered how a man should do a female character voice. Game of Thrones' narrator Roy Dotrice has not. Basically, it boils down to ... for the love of god, do not do a falsetto (or in Dotrice's case million year-old hag voice)! Wheaton and Marsters go for a softer tone of voice and that works just fine without sounding utterly false. I am also mystified as to why I've listened to several books read by Will Wheaton. I have no idea how that happened. They weren't even the same authors.
Books Read (Or Listened To):
Confessions of a D-List Supervillain by Jim Bernheimer
Neat premise. After an A-list supervillain takes out all of the heroes and takes over the planet, a D-list finds that he's one of the last few not under mind control and that being in a world ruled by a supervillain sucks. So D-List villain finds himself becoming a reluctant hero. See? Neat premise. Execution, on the other hand... Let's just put it in Buffy-fandom terms. You know those Xander fans? I'm not talking about ALL Xander fans. I'm talking that very specific type of fan that you run across every now and then that suffers "nice guy syndrome"tm with a vengeance. The execution of this novel REEKS of it. The bad guy is actually this ex-'nice guy' who was 'done wrong' by a woman and every female character in the book is either an 'ungrateful bitch' who doesn't 'properly appreciate' him or a manic pixie who tells him that he's awesome. Apparently, there are no other types. It became really, really off-putting. In fact, it became downright icky.
For the Love of a Dog by Patricia McConnell (I remember nothing)
How to Raise a Perfect Dog by Cesar Millan (Not useful. Just lots of bragging about his own dogs)
30 Days to a Well-Mannered Dog by Tamar Geller (This one actually is useful and -- mostly -- practical)
The History of Ancient Israel (audible lecture series) by Professor Eric Cline
Interesting, but not as good as his lecture series on the Trojan War and the Illiad, and there actually is some overlap (at least time-wise).
The Birth of Classical Europe by Peter Thoneman and Simon Price
Eh. Not particularly interesting. So much so that I don't remember whether I finished it.
Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith
Okay, look, with a title like that I didn't expect it to actually be good. I did, however, expect it to be absurd. On that score, it was... however, not in the way that I was looking for. With a title like that the novel should be arch, cheeky, and subversive. Instead it was repetitive, dull, and absurd in the not-fun way. More outrageous and less dull and dumb, please. I gave up half-way through. Hell, I didn't even make it until Lincoln was elected to anything!
Johnny and the Dead by Terry Pratchett.
This was either a sequel or a prequel to Only You Can Save Mankind because it features the same protagonist. Only this time Johnny is seeing dead people. Overall, it was an amusing, light young adult read. It reminded me a great deal of Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book, though the plot is not at all same. Light, quick read of some amusement.
The Lost Wife by Alyson Richman
A nicely fulfilling read. A young Jewish couple falls in love in the days just before Hitler invades Poland. As the Nazis advance, the young husband's family has an opportunity to escape the country, but he cannot acquire visas for his wife's family, only for his wife. His wife, however, refuses to leave her family, reassuring him that he can send for her later. You can guess that this does not work. Ich spouse goes through terrible things during the war, and each, for quite believable reasons, becomes convinced that the other has died... leaving each to try to piece together lives and learn to go on. There are distinctly different sorts of love stories in the novel. The primary couple is young, first love. It's innocent, idealistic... and doomed (because of who, when and where they are). There's love of family and of friends... and of the dead. There are also second loves when both of the protagonists have become so incredibly damaged. It isn't OTP in that there is only 'one true love' in the story, but there is a difference between the young, innocent love before the war, and the damaged survivors they become, building new lives out of wreckage with people they meet after the war. A significant chunk of the book takes place after the war, and, especially with wife, the story follows what happens to a concentration camp survivor. Her family is gone. Her home is gone. Any property her family had was gone. Any money her family had was gone. She literally was left with nothing. That sequence is really heartrending. Anyway, I definitely rec this book (if you are in the mood for a good cry). But, as hard as the subject matter is, this isn't a soul-killing book. The characters featured in the story are sympathetic. And, while the losses experienced are HUGE, there is as much healing as there could be given the circumstances. A worthwhile read.
Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson (Bill Bryson's anecdotes about his travels in and his time living in England)
Neither Here nor There by Bill Bryson (Bill Bryson's tour of Europe)
I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson (Bryson's account of the culture shock when he returned to living in the States after having lived in England for 20 years.
Shakespeareby Bill Bryson (Brysonif y compiling the things we do know about Shakespeare with an eye toward debunking conspiracy theories about Shakespeare).
At Home: A Short History of Private Life by Bill Bryson
Much like Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything used significant (or at least odd or interesting) scientific discoveries as a structure for telling many historical vignettes, At Home uses everyday things around our or some specific things around his home to structure historical vignettes of how many commonplace household items have come to be commonplace. This is actually more interesting and amusing than I'm making it sound.
Red Shirts by John Scalzi
Fun little romp for sci-fi fans, especially Star Trek fans as the set up is basically that the "red shirts" on a Starship slowly come to recognize that they have an extremely high casualty rate, especially if they're on away teams with the deck officers. But it isn't just that. It also begins to explore fiction, protagonist privilege, and how casual death is used to mine mostly unearned (and unimaginative) emotion because it's an easy story trope. So go for the fun of the romp, stay for the dissection of protagonist privilege.
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
A lovely, heartbreaking, incredibly quotable book. Giving the set-up (young terminally ill cancer patients meet and fall in love) sounds like a Lifetime Movie, but the execution is not that. It's not simply some sentimental treacle. This is actually a witty, insightful, lovely book that makes you laugh through your tears. DEFINITELY a worthwhile read.
Ready Player One by Ernest Cline
Okay, though there are a few dark things that happen in this book that are actually dark, my primary memory of it is that it's a hell of a fun story. The dark things that happen add some legitimate danger to what would otherwise seem somewhat caper-like. The set up is that in a dystopian future, people have retreated from dealing with harsh reality by living much of their lives online. (There's some great (accurate) snarking about the politics of fandom.) In this world a vaguely Jobs-like computer billionaire created The Oasis. At his death, he had the announcement that he had left easter eggs in The Oasis and that the first person to find them and solve the puzzles would inherent his billions... and The Oasis. This quest has some Willie Wonka-like aspects, in that it's also a test of whether or not someone fits the eccentric billionaire's concept of 'worthy.' Lots of homages to 80s movies, music, and pop-culture, and my overriding memory of these things is FUN! So, yeah, dystopian. But this one is fun and blessedly free of all the stuff that made "D-List Supervillain" icky. It's a quest, a coming of age story, and small bit of social commentary as well. Fun read.
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Fast-paced mystery about truly terrible, awful, unsympathetic people. If you're okay with loathing almost everyone in a book for the mystery/mind-screw, then it's a fast, interesting read. But...yeah, these are loathesome characters.
A Discovery of Witches
It's something of a cross between The Historian and Silhouette (or probably Harlequin (aka Mills & Boon) romance novel). 20 years ago, I would have loved it. Now...I got rather irritated half-way through. (This was the book that I wrote the screed about not giving a shit what characters are eating all. the. time).
14 by Peter Clines
Lost and Lovecraft... and maybe a bit of Buffy (in as much as it also featured an ensemble that liked to compare themselves to Scooby-Doo). Whatever the Stephen King-like cover, this is isn't like King at all. It really does remind me of Lost (odd assemblage ensemble in a place of mystery setting out to figure the whole thing out.) I enjoyed the heck out of this book. It's not some metaphorical deep think. This is a fantastical mystery that has a lot of the pure crazy joy of fannish things. It's not a great book, but it was a heck of a lot of fun reading it and, sometimes, that's exactly what you want.
Lies My Teacher Told me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong by James W Loewen
This was a re-read ... er... a listen of a previously read book. Lots of good information, but to be perfectly honest, his audible lecture series "Rethinking Our Past" (available on Audible) covers most of the same territory faster, less repetitively, and more fluidly. Since he narrates the book, it's the same guy reading either way, but I think he's probably a better lecturer than writer. I prefer his lecture series to his book.
Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans by Timothy Shutt
The title doesn't really reflect it but it was about literary works so it's covering mythology, the Bible, Homer, Virgil, etc. Not bad. Not great, but not bad.
Dog Sense by John Bradshaw
This is an anthrozoological tracing of the evolution, domestication, and behavior of dogs. Interesting book that argues against dominance theory with lots of cool info on how dogs became man (and woman's 'best friend'). Nice book.
Cold Days by Jim Butcher
The most recent addition to the Dresden Files. This is another fine mess that Harry Dresden got himself into. Better than the last book "Ghost Story", this one does get around to re-establishing Harry in his 'verse again, though it also took him (and one other character) in a direction I wasn't anticipating. I enjoyed it but for the love of god Butcher, either hook Harry/Karen up or stop the dance already! Stop being a tease.
Agent to the Stars by John Scalzi
Aliens come to earth and hire a Hollywood Agent to arrange their introduction. I started this one a month or two ago but then got sidetracked. I'm back top reading it now, and I have my suspicions that there may yet be a "To Serve Man" twist, but I haven't gotten there yet.
I have also re-read half of GRRMartin's A Storm of Swords I had forgotten that Jaime and Brienne's incident with the hanged 'whores' which took place in Season 2 on the show actually happened in Book III. And, knowing the big stuff that happens in the last half of ASoS, on re-read, I have to say that all the pieces of the puzzle are there. All the foreshadowing foreshadowed, and yet the first time though the stuff that happened came as such a shock. I like it when you can be shocked but then go back and see that, yes, the author took the time to lay it all out for you... but to make it subtle enough that it didn't catch your attention. Also, Dany is going to have a kick-ass climax to her Season 3 plot because she definitely has a huge "hell yeah!" moment in the first half of A Storm of Swords.
So, there you go. These are the 25 (more or less) books that I remember reading during this last year.
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Date: 2013-01-01 05:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-01-01 05:52 pm (UTC)Eh. Work did eat my brain. ;-)
Agree on Cold Days...just finished reading it this morning. For the Love of Pete...Butcher, please stop playing to the cliche. Yes, I get Harry and Karrin may be your end game, but if you keep dancing around it - I won't care when you finally get there. Serial writers suck at long term romances, don't they? I'm trying to think of someone who hasn't sucked at this...and drawing a blank.
And yep, Butcher surprised me - I did not see where he was going with that fairy plot thread, and I really should have. Now I feel this weird need to re-read a few of those books.