JeanneD introduces Friday book days at Trippy Roads Ranch, Part 1

This year I want to read more young adult fiction, primarily so that I can make better recommendations to my 12 1/2 year old son.

This year I want to read more nonfiction (with nonfiction representing only 2% of my total reading for 2011, I'm thinking this will be an easy goal to reach).

This year I want to write a review for every book I read. Hence Friday book days.

Happy New Year to all of you, live from New Zealand where we are the first to greet each new year.

Books of 2012

January
1. The Last Spymaster by Gayle Lynds (espionage-action thriller) 7/10
2. How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier (young adult fantasy) 8/10
3. The Big Black Mark by A. Bertram Chandler (sci-fi) 5/10
4. Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee (contemporary fiction) 8/10
5. A Stab in the Dark by Lawrence Block (mystery) 6/10
6. A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan (contemporary fiction) 7/10
7. Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein (sci-fi) 5/10

saved for later

Hey, Jeanne! Glad to see you back again for 2012!

hi Jeanne
I have been planning to read more non-fiction for three years in a row, I gave up for next year ;-)
I read a lot of YA, no kids to share with, but I collect awarded YA.
Anita

Another YA reader! Fantastic. :)

4: Hi Stasia, thanks for dropping by. Last year was too much fun, and when I talk to people about my online book club, they are intrigued.

5 & 6: Hi Faith! Hi Anita! Please stop by often and leave me awesome recommendations for an almost-13-year-old boy who loved Stone Fox, Wolf Brother, and The Hunger Games trilogy, but can't read a book if he's already seen the movie.

> 7:
The link goes to another book, but I think you mean Wolf brother by Michelle Paver?
If so, there are more books in the Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series.

Maybe he would like the books by Gary Paulsen

7: Yes, that happens to me a lot. If I don't have my glasses on, I can't see to check the touchstones. Anyway, he did finish Paver's series in 2011.

I read when it rains or when it's dark. During fine spells and daylight hours, I am outside and gardening.

January is high summer here in Doubtless Bay, and I just had a half acre tilled for a new kitchen and cut flower garden. That's why I can predict that I'll probably finish no more than 20% of the books on the January 2012 PotentiaList. Here they are:

Challenge #2, dragon appreciation
Fallen Dragon by Peter F. Hamilton
Moreta: Dragonlady of Pern by Anne McCaffrey
All the Weyrs of Pern by Anne McCaffrey

Challenge #5, form of transportation
The Zebra-Striped Hearse by Ross Macdonald
Starship Troopers by Robert A. Heinlein
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
Schindler's Ark by Thomas Keneally

Challenge #6, Orange-listed
Bel Canto by Ann Patchett
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel

Challenge #7, posthumous publications
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Challenge #8, verb and another part of speech
Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny
Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks
The Big Black Mark by Lawrence Block
How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier
The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch

Challenge #9, body of water
Mystic River by Dennis Lehane

Challenge #13, author famous for something else
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
My Life by Bill Clinton

Challenge #14, unrequested Christmas book
100 Places to Go Before They Disappear (no author)

Challenge #16, fraction
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls

Challenge #17, vowels
The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman
The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
Magic's Price by Mercedes Lackey
The Calcutta Chromosome by Amitav Ghosh
Captain Corelli's Mandolin by Louis de Bernieres
Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee

Challenge #19, beverage on page 10
Matterhorn by Karl Marlantes

Challenge #20, 6 paragraphs or less in Acknolwedgements
The Last Spymaster by Gayle Lynds

Two nonfiction entries, but no YA. I'll get there.

ETA: I forgot to put in my potential reads for Challenge #8, and now I do have a YA title on my list for this month. Also had to move The Lies of Locke Lamora from Challenge #9 to #8 because I'm slow. I also deleted The Sea, the Sea by Iris Murdoch from Challenge #9 for its lack of specificity. And I had to add the unrequested gift book to Challenge #14.

Jeanne look forward to keeping up in 2012. Happy new year.

8: Anita, I have Hatchet on my wish list for this year.

11: Hi and welcome back, Paul. Happy New Year to you too.

Hi Jeanne - wow, 1/2 an acre for kitchen & cut flowers, that's a lot of ongoing work, but will be so satisfying.
New Zealand is no longer the first to greet the New Year since Samoa jumped the International Date Line last Thursday night, they are now an hour ahead of us instead of 21 hours behind.

Love your lineup of books and I'm also going to be reading a lot of YA as I try to weed my collection down.

Welcome back!

10: I'm reading The Poisonwood Bible and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for January TIOLI, too!

13: Hi Kerry! Yes, it is ambitious, but a long-term project, possibly to include a greenhouse and gazebo at some point in the future. I get to order my first load of paving material after the holiday break. I heard about Samoa jumping the dateline, but for some reason I thought they were farther west. Ah well.

14: Thanks Jim. Glad to be here.

15: I will try to get to both of these, Kriti. But it's summer in New Zealand, and that's one of my favorite things.

Wow! It took me a full 8 hours to select books for this month's challenges, write up the PotentiaList, add my entries to the wiki, and search the media server to add ebooks to the Reader.

Two-thirds of the books on this month's PotentiaList have been there before. Add that to my garden plans, and it's easy to see that being overly ambitious is a predictable aspect of my personality.

Happy New Year, Jeanne!

Hey, Jeanne, I didn't find you last year, but will be following you this year after seeing all the science fiction/fantasy books we have in common in your library.

>7 jeanned:: Has he read the Maze Runner trilogy? If not, I highly, highly recommend it. It's fantastic, and the first book seems slightly reminiscent of Hunger Games a the beginning, though it diverges significantly once the plot gets going. I finished reading the third book in the trilogy last week and, to be quite honest, thought Dashner did a far better job of wrapping his series up satisfactorily than Collins did. Plus, it's a darn good story to boot. I'd also recommend the House of Atherton series by Patrick Carman (both my husband and I enjoyed those).

Hi, Jeanne! HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I can't help with YAs, but I'm all over the scifi/fantasy like Roni!

Happy New Year Jeanne! Am very impressed with your garden plans and hope you keep us up to date with it all. Also very impressed with your Potential-List, some excellent titles there that I will look forward to reading your reviews on.

Hi Jeanne! That is my name, too. Not very common around these parts.

16: Of course, I didn't intend to pressure you!

19: Hi Roni. I've been through your library and found some interesting additions for my 2012 YA reads. And a few of your 5 star reads that will be just for me.

20: Hi Faith! I'm adding those to my list. He said The Hunger Games was his favorite of the 3, so I have high hopes for Maze Runner.

21: Happy New Year, Peggy! Since I read mostly mysteries last year, I'm hoping for a good run of sci-fi and fantasy myself this year. I tend to love them or hate them. I still have a lot of Heinlein on the TBR and on my bookshelves I'm trying to get through, but I can only do one a month because he annoys me.

22: Hi Leonie and welcome back! I'm planning on some progress pictures of the garden, once there is any progress to be seen. Like cleaning a room, it gets worse before it looks good.

23: Hi Jeanne, and welcome!

24: Ah, you know how it is. I really want to do shared reads, and then I end up pulling something else off the pile.

Hi, Jeanne! I read quite a few YA books too, as I'm working my way through several kids' books lists, including The Newbery winners. Looking forward to following your reads this year!

27: Sounds great, Amber. I've added you, and few others, to my Interesting Libraries list.

Hi Jeanie, I finally found you!
Dropping off a star

29: Hi Chelle!

Top 10 Reads of 2011

1. City of Thieves by David Benioff (2008 - historical fiction)
2. The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry (2008 - fictional autobiography)
3. Cities of the Plain by Cormac McCarthy (1999 - western)
4. Away by Amy Bloom (2007 - historical fiction)
5. Beloved by Toni Morrison (1988 - historical fiction)
6. Jack of Shadows by Roger Zelazny (1975 - fantasy)
7. Sharp Teeth by Toby Barlow (2008 - fantasy/ horror/ mystery/ verse mashup)
8. Ravelstein by Saul Bellow (2000- fictional biography)
9. The Blue by Mary McCallum (2007 - adventure/ romance)
10. Fieldwork by Mischa Berlinski (2007 - mystery / anthropology)

(Edited because the first list didn't have 10.)

2011 Stats

88 books by 82 different authors (having read 2 each by Martin Amis, Sebastian Barry, Robert A. Heinlein, Chuck Palahniuk, William Trevor, and Fred Vargas) from 9 different countries (including Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, Grenada, and Itay)

Genres
Westerns, 1%
Alternate history, 1%
Nonfiction, 2%
Romance, 2%
Short stories, 2%
Horror, 8%
Action & adventure, 8%
General & literary fiction, 13%
Fantasy, 14%
SciFi, 15%
Thriiler/suspense, 17%
Historical, 20%
Mystery & detective, 32%
(total greater than 100 due to some books fitting multiple categories)

The Books
50 of the 88 (57%) won a major award or were named to a Best Of list in their year of publication

My Ratings (out of 10)
9 or 10, 16%
7 or 8, 48%
5 or 6, 24%
4 or less, 9%
(total less than 100 due to rounding)

Least Favorite Books of 2011

1. Emptying the Nest: Launching Your Young Adult toward Success and Self-Reliance by Brad Sachs (2010 - psychology/ self-help)
2. L'Affaire by Diane Johnson (2003 - contemporary romance)
3. Cross Bones by Kathy Reichs (2006 - mystery)
4. Beautiful Dreamer by Christopher Bigsby (2006 - historical fiction)
5. Hunting the Ghost Dancer by A. A. Attanasio (1992 - historical fiction)
6. Over Tumbled Graves by Jess Walter (2002 - mystery)
7. Breaking Faith by Jo Bannister (2005 - mystery)
8. Last Lessons of Summer by Margaret Maron (2004 - mystery)
9. Where I'm Calling From by Raymond Carver (1989 - short stories)
10. The Collectors by David Baldacci (2006 - thriller)

Well, I have not read any of the books on your 'least favorites' list with the exception of Cross Bones by Kathy Reich. The only one of the books on your Top 10 from 2011 that I have read is City of Thieves. I guess I had better get busy on the rest - if I can find them, that is.

34: Ah, City of Thieves...I might need to read that again. Away was most similar (poignant coming-of-age in desperate historically-based conditions).

I'm sad to say I have not read anything from your top reads in 2011. Clearly I'm way behind in reading!
Surprised to see Cross Bones on your least favorite list. Have you read the rest of her books? That one wasn't her best, but I still enjoyed it

36: Chelle, I have read Kathy Reich's earlier works and quite liked them. This one did not seem to have the depth and narrative quality I remember. Either my enjoyment of the TV series Bones has spoiled the books for me, or my taste in mysteries has been changed by the work of Kate Atkinson, Michael Chabon, Jennifer Egan, Peter Hoeg, and a few others.

Here it is, my first Friday book day of 2012. I've spent the morning reading online (political junkie) rather than finishing my first book of the year, The Last Spymaster. It's overdue at the library, and I think my card has expired. I'll add that to Monday's To-Do List.

I had to water the garden for the first time yesterday. So far I have planted 3 4x4 ft square of vegies and a lot of herbs just off the front porch. I'm expecting our local supplier of garden materials to be back from holiday next week, at which point I will order top soil and sand and paving material for those terraces we had scraped out just before Christmas excited happy dance

My dear daughter is having a hard time. She's decided she isn't ready to go to university next year, and is currently estimating that she won't have the capacity to live on her own for another decade. Yesterday we had a brief look at the realities of obtaining a BA in history via distance learning. Baby steps.

Baby steps, indeed. Good luck to your daughter! I have one who has stepped out of the house and another who has yet to take a baby step.

Just delurking to say hi Jeanne. Your best of list looks enticing. Not touched anything on your worst of list and am now unlikely ever to do so.

40: Hi Paul! I haven't had a year with so many outstanding reads since 2005, and that year if read 40% more books than last year. Either my selection process has improved, or I'm easily impressed. Probably the former given all the great suggestions I get here on LT and a bit of refinement to making additions to the TBR.

Good luck to you and your daughter - good for her for having the self-awareness to know she's not ready for college! I think too many kids just blindly go right on to college after high school without actually thinking about it enough.

*stars* We seem to have some similar reading tastes :-)

I did regular university for a year and hated it. Got my BSc in Computing via distance learning and it was a really good decision for me. I was able to do it at my own pace and never felt overwhelmed.

Distance learning requires self-discipline, but it can be very rewarding and does help a bit with the quantity of debt you finish with. It's something for your daughter to consider seriously if she wants a degree but isn't ready for the university experience.

>42 scaifea: I think too many kids just blindly go right on to college after high school without actually thinking about it enough.
That's exactly what I did! Not that it hasnt served me well in the end, but if I could do it all again i would def take a year off in between.

I did the same thing and lasted 3 months at university before I quit and got a job instead. 5 years of high school and then straight to tertiary study is very demanding and I applaud your daughter Jeanne for knowing that she needs a break. I went back to study when I was ready and found Massey University extramural classes really good for what it's worth. And their free post university library they have is amazing, plus a lot of classes have tutorial lessons on the internet now which was also a great way to learn.

42, 43, 44, & 45: Amber, Kathy, Megan, and Leonie, thank you. Having input from you helps me to consider this from a lot of different perspectives, which I absolutely need to do as my expectations meet reality.

Up until last week Sarah led me to believe she had 65 of the 80 credits she needs to be able to enter Year 13 next month. It turns out that she only has half. She refuses to repeat the year at a physical school. She has put together a schedule to finish the remaining credits by April (she has done half the work on all of these assessments). And then she wants to re-enroll at a physical school, or just finish her Level 2 and 3 credits in 3 years instead of 2, and then go to university. Which she still wants to do.

I am currently practicing being the epicenter of calm. We discuss her goals for the day, how these fits with her timeline, and I make myself available to talk about the topic when she wants.

Answers based on books read in 2011:

Describe yourself: Stranger in a Strange Land

Describe how you feel: No Time for Goodbye

Describe where you currently live: A World Out of Time

If you could go anywhere, where would you go: My House in Umbria

Your favorite form of transportation: Our Horses in Egypt

Your best friend is: Beloved

You and your friends are: The Collectors

What’s the weather like: He Shall Thunder in the Sky

You fear: Driving Blind

What is the best advice you have to give: Do Unto Others

Thought for the day: The Mote in God's Eye

How I would like to die: Beautiful Dreamer

My soul’s present condition: Ragamuffin

1. The Last Spymaster by Gayle Lynds



When traitor Jay Tice stages a prison break after receiving a clandestine message from an ex-Cold War-era lover, Agent Elaine Cunningham is the CIA hunter whose job it is to find him. My own frantic internet searches for sonic injection weapons, invisible fatigues, and distributed nanocomputers has probably landed me on some terrorist watch list. But this post-9/11 espionage thriller, in which vicious greedy bastards sell fantastically advanced hi-tech weaponry to terrorists, scared me just a bit and I wanted some confirmation about the state of the technology. Awarded the 2006 Novel of the Year by the Military Writers Society of America and named a Library Journal Best Book, this was a good (but not great) example of the genre.

7 out of 10 stars

Have a look Dancing books!

Happy new year Jeanne - City of Thieves was in my top 5 for last year too!

50: Thanks Cushla. Good to have you back!

TV is seriously lacking a comedy based on a family that reads. "Big Bang Theory" comes close in its portrayal of intellectuals, but these young men are geeks who read comic books.

My youngest daughter got back from a sleep-over at her older sister's. She relayed a anecdote about my 3-year-old grandson making product recommendations to his mother based on an infomercial he had seen, and I explained his behavior as John Watson's revenge on American academic psychology via Watson's perfection of Madison Avenue and the subsequent acceleration of materialism in modern society.

Okay, so maybe that wouldn't translate to the small screen, but I thought it was funny.

New York Times editors' choice list. I love annual lists. List time is the book lover's holiday season.

2. How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier



I have long had two particularly strong and inexplicable mojos: having street lights blink out as I walk or drive past, and finding great parking spaces. Indeed, my parking mojo is so powerful that traffic jams are created by the number of cars attempting to exit their spots as I approach. My husband and I imagine the shopkeepers standing inside, scratching their heads at the abrupt departure of their customers. I also have pretty good hair. So I felt considerable pity for the characters of Justine Larbalestier's How to Ditch Your Fairy because they are limited to one mojo, or fairy, at a time. That 14-year-old Charlie fails to appreciate her own parking fairy is not surprising, but the dystopian educational and social systems of New Haven are an unexpected comedic treat. While this is not a book I would recommend to my son, I have no regrets about selecting it as the first of my 2012 foray into young adult fiction.

8 out of 10 stars

Hi Jeanne,
The dancing book link must have taken so so so long to film ! How clever it is. My friend and I (as adults) once rearranged her parents bookshelves into colour patterns to see if they'd notice, we cracked ourselves up. They heard us laughing and saw us doing it and ruined our plans, funny though.

>52 jeanned: that is a good retort! I would be pleased with myself if I could come up with that on the spot :)

AND great quiz answers, your fear is a good one!

>54 jeanned:: I thought that one was cute when I read it. Not the best book in the universe, but a cute idea and fairly enjoyable! Glad you liked it (and jealous that you have your own parking fairy!).

Weird - I have the same mojos (moji? moja?) as you! Street lights going out and excellent parking spots. Must have been something in the stars when we were born, eh? :)

Weird too - I have the same two AND when it is really needed all trafficlights are green when I approach, I never forget to thank the god of trafficlights ;-)

I love the parking fairies and traffic light fairies who ease my way in this world :)

10 - I like your challenges. Maybe I will try that to keep things moving along.

Loved the book video! Thanks for the link.

Jeanne not seen you for a while...what are you reading?...hope everything is fine.

Just checkin in on my fellow kiwis....not much reading going on? Or just not much posting?
Hello anyway, hope to see back online soon.

Hi Jeanne, just checking in after my own absence from LT, hope all is well and life is just crazy busy at your piece of northern NZ paradise.

Jeanne,
Hope all is well with you. Jeanne