JUL - The Neverending Story

July review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende, translated from German by Ralph Mannheim, 1979. [children's classic published before 1980 category]

The Neverending Story! I grew up on this movie. I wanted a Falkor so bad when I was little, and I used to call my old dog Luck Dragon because she looked pretty similar, if I do say so myself. As I'm sure many a reader of this book was, I was surprised to learn that the 1984 film only covered the first half of the book! Which in all honesty is totally fine with me, because second-half Bastian suuuuuucked. But we'll get to that. The Neverending Story is a book about a small boy named Bastian who is bullied and escapes his tormentors by hiding in a bookshop one day. He meets an old, cryptic man who is sort of mean but leaves a tantalizing book open, and Bastian feels called to it, so he steals it (like you do) and locks himself in the school attic to read all day. (And you wonder why this story appealed to me. Minus the bullying.)

Bastian gets caught up in the story and slowly realizes that him reading the story is part of the story (the original postmodern mindfuck), but can't bring himself to help the Childlike Empress, a fact that they wisely revised in the film. In the book, Bastian gets transported to Fantasia and meets the characters he fell in love with as he ventures. He is gifted with the Childlike Empress's amulet, but using its power comes with a price: he slowly loses the memories he had of being human on Earth. Coincidentally, with the loss of those memories, he sucks more and is ruder and ruder to the people he calls his friends and I was very upset with him. There is clearly some moral coding going on here, as he has to eventually make the decision to return home even though he more and more wants to give up the life he has forgotten and stay in Fantasia as the most powerful thing around.

One thing I loved stylistically about this book was the illuminated alphabet for the chapter titles! There were 26 chapters, and each started with the subsequent letter of the alphabet, illuminated in a full-page illustration that tied into the chapter's narrative. Some of the more difficult letters felt a little stilted, but it was helpful that in a fantasy world you can make up character names that start with X! Another was the repeated intrusion of the Real World into the book, what with phrases like "but that is a long story for another time."

I love stories about stories that take you places, and I did like this book, for the most part. It just dragged on a lot longer than I think it needed to. But who knows, maybe it was better in German!

FEB - Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories

February review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2018: Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories by Agatha Christie, 1985. [female protagonist over the age of 60 category]

Agatha Christie truly is a gem. Miss Marple has established herself in the general consciousness, so much so that I felt like I already knew her when starting this collection, even though I'd never read her stories before. I am a big fan of strong lady characters, and I was excited to see how this one was structured, why she has established herself in the pantheon of greats. The Chicago Sun-Times quote on the front of my copy refers to Miss Marple as "One of the greatest female sleuths of all time!"

The first story, "The Tuesday Night Club," introduces the conceit of the first few stories. Miss Marple is not the first character introduced: her nephew is the first mentioned, as is his background as a writer, so his description is weighty. Her appearance is described, her now-quintessential black lace mittens and her knitting, and she is referred to often as "benignant." We come to always see Miss Marple like this, from the outside, almost as an afterthought. She is often brought back into the story after spacing out or getting distracted. She is very self-deprecating, always talking about how she couldn't possibly presume to know the answer, but she had a very similar story from her village... I thought it very intriguing and rather "of the times" to paint her as such an unassuming simple woman.

All in all, an interesting portrayal of women, especially the juxtaposition between Miss Marple and Miss Jane Helier, for example. (Both called Jane, I might add! Fun little coincidences.) Jane Helier is described as a relatively stupid, gorgeous actress. In "The Affair at the Bungalow," Miss Helier is telling a story to the group and she often has trouble getting going:

"It's very difficult," she said plaintively, "to say just what you want. One gets things mixed up and tells the wrong things first." (p180)

She is played off as this stupid, vapid woman, when in actuality she concocted one of these plans (spoiler alert!). Christie never plays them off of each other, saying one is better than the other: Miss Marple helps Jane Helier, whispers to her when she thinks Miss Helier is a bit off track on her concoction, but doesn't out her in front of the men of the group. These women back each other up, something I think is important to remember in such divisive times.

MAY - Cursed Pirate Girl

May review for Book Riot's Read Harder 2017: Cursed Pirate Girl - Vol. I by Jeremy A Bastian, 2012. [all ages comic category]

I was on a quest to the library for more Stephen King, when I happened upon Cursed Pirate Girl and was immediately enthralled by the cover. Sometimes I get nervous, finding a cover I really like, because the art style inside doesn't match. But I was not fooled in such a way by this book! Cursed Pirate Girl is about just that, a cursed pirate girl. It is unclear at first whether this is a self-appointed moniker or there is actually some basis to the claim, but in any rate, it is what we know her by. We are introduced to the world not through her eyes, however; instead we start the story through the eyes of Apollonia, the Governor's daughter, who witnesses a fight between three ruffian boys and a girl on the beach below. Needless to say, the girl trounces the boys, and Apollonia wants to befriend her. The next day, Apollonia meets the girl on the beach to hear the story of the Cursed Pirate Girl, and our heroine comes to light. Not having her as our first point of contact in the book gives CPG a more mysterious air, but it also meant it took a little bit for me as a reader to connect with her. I liked her well enough, sure, but I kept wondering where the governor's daughter ways through force of habit. 

This was a fun little volume. Other reviews I read referred to it as a sort of Alice in Wonderland on the High Seas, a fantastically whimsical and swashbuckling adventure. The Cursed Pirate Girl is on a quest to find her father, the most revered pirate of the fabled Omerta Seas, and this first volume gathers her team around her as she begins her journey. She meets a bird who inhabits a fish so that it can travel to the Seas underwater, a pair of swordfish-headed knight brothers that felt really reminiscent of Tweedle-dum and Tweedle-dee, and a host of other piratical creatures. I really enjoyed the art style of this book, especially the illustrated sounds, such as the gasp pictured below:

gaaaaasp (p25)

Such illustrations lent a feel of entirety to the drawings, with every part of the atmosphere included in the rendition. Jeremy Bastian is a fantastic artist, every page brimming with so much intricacy that you don't really know where to focus your eyes. I had to spend a little extra time before each page turn, just making sure I caught everything. I liked this fun little comic!

Recap 2015: A Third Year of Eclectic Reading

Herein begins the ultra-tardy recap of my third year of eclectic reading, everybody! Thanks for stickin around! I've done this three times already, and it's thrilling to see that even though I'm late at times, I have finished it off every time. I have kept myself in school, so to speak, and this time I don't get docked points for papers turned in after the deadline! 2015 was a crazy year for me. I lost my job, spent a few months unemployed, found two jobs in quick succession, and spent the second half of the year settling into the one I chose, learning and growing and expanding my brain--not just because I was working for a neuroscience startup! I noticed that I read a lot of books that featured strong, real ladies this year (not much of a surprise, but always worth mentioning), as well as a number of books dealing with personal growth and change and what you wanted to be when you grew up (so to speak). Again, I warn of spoilers, because one cannot have adequate recaps or discussions without spoilers, so tread carefully, my friends!

Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd
January - diversity
The first book I chose for 2015 was one featuring diversity, The Secret Life of Bees, about a little white girl who runs away with her nanny and finds a home with three black sisters who have a secret connection to her late mother. I've always thought of diversity as an interesting concept in reading, being that it is so based in the reader's perception, so diversity has to be explicit or else readers will most likely fill in their own backgrounds for un-filled-in characters. This book was the first in the trend of strong, real ladies, not only myriad different female roles, but the ways in which they can shift and change as you age.

Let The Right One In by John Ajvide Lundqvist
February - set in a country starting with S, Sweden
Finally, I found a good creepy vampire story, one that I was actually loath to turn the light off on when I was done reading for the night! Let The Right One In played with the lore in ways that I hadn't seen before, and it was a genuinely creep-tastic read, which was thoroughly thrilling. This was a stark contrast to Bees, which showed you the hope and light within everyone, where Let The Right One In showcased the grimness and dankness inherent in much of human nature. An interesting juxtaposition, to say the least, but one that I very much enjoyed. Because after all, what is the light without its contrasting darkness?

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
March - YA Adventure
Graceling was a very easy read, complete with fabulous world-building and ridiculous naming mechanics, but it was overall a good strong girl exposure book. This book combined the threads I mentioned in my intro of strong ladies and what do you want to be when you grow up, being an incredibly heavy-handed coming-of-age story for Katsa, who is Graced (ostensibly) with killing, turned into a monster by a man who once claimed to be her family. She learns through her relationship with Po that her Grace may not actually be killing after all, that she's been looking at herself skewed for so long that that was just how it seemed. The possibility for good and change within her took some time and care to find, but she did, and she was able to save a little girl's life because of it.

The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester 
April - microhistory
Nerd heaven! This is a microhistory of the Oxford English Dictionary, lovingly and colloquially referred to as the OED, and it describes the efforts of the men who created it many decades ago. As a word nerd, I harbor an undying love for the OED, and though it is technically nonfiction, I loved this book as a "profile" of it. It gives the reader a chance to see the OED almost as a character in and of itself, learning as you progress its history, its birth, its secrets.

Veronica Mars: Mr. Kiss and Tell by Rob Thomas and Jennifer Graham
May - PI fiction
VMars! This is the second of the novelizations of Veronica Mars's life adventures upon her return to Neptune after the events of the Veronica Mars movie. The strongest of the strong ladies, one of my favorite role models, and although I read this one as a book and not an audiobook narrated by VMars herself (Kristen Bell) like the first, I could still feel her seeping through every word. Mr. Kiss and Tell dealt with heavy issues like the rape and murder of a call girl, and the intricacies of it made it one of my longest and most involved reviews of the year, one that I forced myself to cut short before I rewrote the whole book. Veronica Mars has always helped me to think about and champion the hard things, bringing the grit of life out into the open.

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion
June - contemporary romance
The Rosie Project was a different kind of story/character than I'm used to. I wasn't sure at first, but the pages kept turning! Simsion did a great job of making a character that I wasn't sure would be palatable hold my attention simply because the entire framework of his highly logical mind was laid out for me to follow like a roadmap, and I was fascinated. The biggest question I had reading this book, especially the end of it, was the idea of changing oneself and the difference between making a change for yourself or for someone else, and whether the latter was ever okay if it led to something that made you happier in yourself. Again, 2015 was a year of transition for me, and thoughts of personal growth/working on myself were never far away, and this book helped me see it from maybe a different point of view than I ever would've considered before, namely that of a borderline autistic middle class white Australian man.

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
July - epistolary fiction (sort of)
This was sort of my cheat book for the year, only sort of epistolary; it was more like I wanted the book I was reading to work because it was the end of the month and I didn't have time to read another whole book, so I made it work. But it brought up some interesting questions because it didn't quite fit. Gone Girl is about a husband whose wife disappears with barely a trace on the morning of their wedding anniversary, and the first part of the book switches between his present and her diary recounting when they met. Now, SPOILERS--it is later found out that this diary, and really the whole disappearance, was a fabrication on the part of Amy, the wife. This brought up the incredibly interesting idea of the journal as reality but also as a constructed version of events. What is reality, really?

Mind Gym by Gary Mack with David Casstevens
August - sports
I read this for roller derby. Around this time, I was considering trying out for full B-team status, and I was having a lot of feelings about that. Leaving the team I'd started with after barely a whole season, possibly missing out on some opportunities with that team later in the season, but open to the possibilities that being a full member of the B-team would allow me, all these thoughts were spinning me around so much that I was changing my mind hourly about tryouts. I was recommended this book as a perspective on how to keep my head on straight through all of it, how to allow myself to improve and learn without berating myself for failures or perceived shortcomings, and while much of it was anecdotal, there were many portions that I still refer back to in my derby career. This book focused a lot on what is it that you want, and how are you going to help yourself go out and get it.

Eve by Elissa Elliott
September - retelling of a fairytale or myth
Eve: A Novel of the First Woman is just that, a book about the biblical Eve, told from her perspective as well as that of her (imaginary?) children. I love "historical fiction" like this--I use quotes because of the contentious nature of Eve as a historical character. It is a re-telling of the archetypical female character, the first female character, and I loved it because it allowed her to be flawed, to be fucked up and imperfect without taking all the blame for everything women have done ever, which she is so often forced to do.

The Martian by Andy Weir
October - SciFi in space
Funny! This book was very funny. Which was great, because I find space to be slightly terrifying, especially the concept of being trapped in space with no recourse or exit. Weir was knowledgeable enough and prepared enough that his tale was plausible, and only sort of terrifying, and the fact that so much shit went wrong over and over again and Mark Watney, the astronaut, still survived still made sense because space is hard.

Five Quarters of the Orange by Joanne Harris
November - fiction for foodies
Fiction for foodies was such an overwhelming category, and there were actually a number of attractive books that I had already read, so I chose one that was on my to-read shelf. Framboise Simon is the narrator, and both her young self and her old self share the narration. It was another multi-faceted portrait of ladyhood, one that toyed with young and old, mother and daughter, and everything that goes along with.

Magic Kingdom for Sale--SOLD! by Terry Brooks 
December - published before 1991
Magic Kingdom was Terry Brooks's first book that wasn't set in the Shannara universe. It was easy/low fantasy read, about a man who bought a magic kingdom out of a catalog and realized he had to save it from ruin once he got there. It was a clever stab at a mid-life crisis, an overwrought lawyer being asked by the universe, What do you want out of life, how are you gonna find it/go get it? December always seems to be a time of transition, and it seemed fitting that I read this book when my job got pretty stressful and I started thinking about looking for another one. Sure, I probably won't be able to buy a magic kingdom to go and save (God knows I don't have a million bucks cash lying around to pay for it), but it begs the question, what exactly is it that I want moving forward? I'm about to hit my mid-twenties, the millenial quarter-life crisis looming, and I still haven't found my dream job. And I might not, but I should get myself out of the comfort rut and keep looking. Maybe there is a magic kingdom out there somewhere for me.

Time for final thoughts. I began my writing year with a promise to dedicating myself more to my writing, being on time with my posts, and here I am two months late with my recap. But I can't fault myself too much, because I am still writing, but I am also living, moreso than I think I ever have before, and once this headiness passes, I may be able to get my schedule under control once again. But for now, I'm going to keep reading, keep living, and hope I can get my things published in a sort of timely fashion. Stay tuned!

{Link to my 2014 recap  ~  Link to my 2013 recap }

AUG - The Eyre Affair / Girl Reading

August review for Eclectic Reader's Challenge 2014: The Eyre Affair: A Thursday Next Novel by Jasper Fforde, 2001 OR Girl Reading by Katie Ward, 2011. [Alternate History category]

This is the face of indecision

Although alternate history is one of my favorite things to read, I am going to be honest and say that I didn't quite know what to do for this month. Every time I thought I found something, I would over-think it and cross it off, and kept coming back to a Bobby Pendragon book I read when I was younger that dealt with the Hindenburg zeppelin crash (titled The Never War for all those interested....GOD, Pendragon was a great series...) and kept stalling. But I had two books, one was sort of on the list, another was one I bought a while back and sort of turned into something that might fit as I went along. The former was The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde, and the latter was Girl Reading by Katie Ward. But once I finished both books, I stalled out again, trying to pick which one to write about. Until I had a brilliant idea to JUST NOT CHOOSE. So here we go, two book reviews for the price of one, because I am an indecisive little bibliophile. So I will go through them both real quick before getting into the crux of my conundrum.

First up, we have The Eyre Affair, by Jasper Fforde. The Eyre Affair is set in an alternate version of Britain in the 1980s, where literature has its own division in the police force and Dodos can be genetically reanimated as pets. Enter Thursday Next, the heroine of the story who appears to have a whole series of adventures, as I discovered once I prodded a little deeper. She is your typical hardened ex-military policewoman, cynical and mysterious about her past, which conveniently turns up in the form of the government's newest arch-nemesis Acheron Hades, or Thursday's college professor. Events ensue that leave Thursday, still cynical but now physically broken as well, in the hospital, where she is visited by an apparition which appears to be herself in a flamboyant sportscar, just showing up in the middle of the hospital room with no form of introduction. Basically the first 50 pages happen very fast in order to get Thursday to go back home, ostensibly to escape the drama that just ends up finding her and trapping her aunt in a Byron poem (yes, literally in a Byron poem--that's another point; you can go into literature using Thursday's uncle Mycroft's device, which is obviously stolen for nefarious and blackmailing purposes, but I'll get to more of that later). Thursday is quickly swept up in the small-town LiteraTec force, continuing the search for Hades that intensifies when he gets himself into the original manuscript of Jane Eyre and steals Jane just as she was about to save Rochester from the fire in his bedroom. Thursday and her new partner get Jane back to the story, but Thursday ends up having to stay in the story herself to make sure Hades doesn't cause any more mischief. Before I move on, I should point out that in this universe, Jane Eyre ends with Jane conceding to the ridiculous St. John Rivers ("that slimy and pathetic excuse for a vertebrate," pouts Rochester) and going with him to Africa because THAT is a plausible turn of events. The point is that in Thursday's world, a lot of people (including Thursday) are kinda pissed about the ending. Which will come into play. ....At the end.

Girl Reading, on the other hand, is a bit of a horse of a different color. And like the horse of a different color, it changes its color a number of times during its run: Girl Reading is a novel of vignettes that have a common, self-explanatory theme that is, yes, the title of the book. It is a series of stories written by Katie Ward all centering on the female engaged in acts of literacy (that phrase is used toward the end, I think, and I just love it). There are seven chapters, seven images, seven artists, seven women and girls engaged in reading. These images that become the kernel of a story range in time and style from a Renaissance painter to one of the first photographs to a modern-day Flickr-type snapshot. Some, like "Annunciation" by Simon Martini, are actual paintings that one can Google for reference, while others are not so concrete, as they exist more in an idealistic state, as is the case of the final chapter. As these chapters move in a slow meander through history, through art form and subject and perspective, the reader herself is drawn in, imagining. I have often done this myself, looking at a painting and trying to put flesh behind the canvas, telling myself stories about a frozen figure, forever immortalized in a singular act. (Side note: as such, I was always intrigued by Harry Potter and the moving paintings, the ones who could leave their frames and tell you how they felt and what was happening...too bad I was only 8 when Rowling thought those up, and now no one will ever be able to do that originally again >,< ). Not only does this text examine the different mediums of expression for these acts of literacy, but it calls into question the different mediums themselves, moving along a sort of predetermined path laid out by the curator of this adventure, Katie Ward. Each chapter is a world unto its own, weaving an entirely standalone world around each image, the dialogue seamlessly worked into the chapter without quotes as if the entirety of the interaction is one big observation that you are on the receiving end of. This book is a lot less simplistic in terms of its summary, but I feel like it lends itself a little bit better to comparisons and digging in.

When I was trying to choose between the two books initially, I tried to think of both of them in terms of the idea of an "alternate history." I mulled over in my head how they both deal with the idea, what I liked about each of them, trying to figure out what I would write about for each one if it were to make the cut. Eyre took a story that we know and love (Jane Eyre) and changed it to begin with. But by the end of the book, the story is as we remember it, and it is partially due to the "ruinous" hand of intervention by Thursday and Hades--it was Thursday who called outside of Jane's window, the voice that spurred her to go back to Thornfield Hall to find Rochester, blind but not bereft, waiting for her. Was it meant to change all along? Surely, we have all experienced being changed by a book, but in this case, it is the reader who is doing the changing. Can "alternate history" start out different and then end up looking much like what we are used to? Are these existential questions of destiny and timelines that are far too arcane for such a humble book blog? The Eyre Affair dealt with the past in a way that was fun and light-fingered, even giving Time its own division of the police force, Thursday's father popping in and out to ask questions about history to make sure time was "coming out right," as it were. It's true that this was one of my lighter reads of the year, but I'll be damned if it didn't get me all tangled in mindful mires. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Girl Reading went into the future for the final vignette, creating a final picture that seemingly traced a thread back through all the other vignettes that made them seem more of a cohesive whole. The last chapter describes a new virtual reality program that is equipped with images and settings that turn out to be those that we have spent the last few hundred pages traversing on our own. Ward too brings up questions of art and artifice, of meaning and design in the creation of the woman-program that holds these experiences, Sibyl. Her name holds echoes of prophecy, but she holds images of retrospect, a comparison with the human experience if I ever saw one. Both texts question the fundamentals of their existence with equal candor, albeit unequal gravitas--you can't take a book too seriously when one of it's major villains is named Jack Schitt, now can you?--but I feel as if I learned something from both authors, and isn't that the point of this whole challenge?

#24/30 - 2014

Let's play pretend

My favorite name today
is Zygmunt S. Derewenda.
My mouth feels funny
around it
almost insists
on an accent
a different shape
for a different tetris of
letters
and with that accent
my mind runs unbidden to
a job, a hobby, a three legged cat,
a favorite bookstore and a proclivity for bow-ties
and I cannot stem the tide
I'm paid to do this
every day
so let's play
pretend