Bests, faves, and so forth: 2009

Most intense:

Wintergirls

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Most mind-bending:

Liar

by Justine Larbalestier

Favorite adult read:

Stitches

by David Small

Favorite audios:

The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck (performed by Dylan Baker)

Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale (Full Cast Audio)

Provoked the most plot-envy:

When You Reach Me

by Rebecca Stead

Best voice:

Marcelo in the Real World

by Francisco X. Stork

Best sequel:

A Season of Gifts

by Richard Peck

Best non-fiction/

FINALLY knocked off my TBR list:

A Short History of Nearly Everything

by Bill Bryson

Best biography:

Beyond the Miracle Worker

by Kim E. Nielsen

Third-person present tense narration that actually worked for me:

After

by Amy Efaw

Most compelling:

The Chosen One

by Carol Lynch Williams

Most anticipated:

Catching Fire

by Suzanne Collins

The omg, she did it to me *again* award:

Crossing Stones

by Helen Frost

Read at exactly the right moment:

Once Was Lost

by Sara Zarr

(Attempted to) read at exactly the wrong moment:

Jellicoe Road

by Melina Marchetta

I should be flogged for overlooking:

Alvin Ho

by Lenore Look

Favorite cover:

Distant Waters: A Novel of the Titanic

by Suzanne Weyn

Provoked the most wordsmith-envy:

Forest Born

by Shannon Hale

Most affecting:

Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead

by Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Most innovative:

The Black Book of Colors

by Menina Cottin and Rosana Faria

Best re-read:

The Moorchild

by Eloise McGraw

Worst re-read:

A Wrinkle in Time

by Madeleine L'Engle

Book I liked better in print than audio:

Speak

by Laurie Halse Anderson

Most ridonkulous titles:

The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them, by Elif Batuman

Castration Celebration, by Jake Wizner

Book I wish I was as head-over-heels for as everyone else:

The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate

by Jacqueline Kelly

Most creepily atmospheric:

Days of Little Texas

by E.A. Nelson

Most fun:

The Miles Between

by Mary E. Pearson

Best backlist:

Nobody's Family is Going to Change

by Louise Fitzhugh

The it's-about-time award:

The Rock and the River, by Kekla Magoon

Rage: A Love Story, by Julie Anne Peters

Favorite overall reading experience of the year:

Fire

by Kristin Cashore

******************

Currently reading:

Truce

by Jim Murphy

Fa la la

As you are no doubt aware, Christmas is a-coming. Geese are getting fat, and there might even be one on my table in a week or so. (Or maybe a duck -- the jury's still out.)

ANYHOW. As of now, this blog's on vacation. I'll see you all on New Year's eve with my arbitrary list of 2009 bests and favorites.

Candleshoe

Anybody here seen Candleshoe? Fun 1970's Disney movie starring Helen Hayes, David Niven and teenaged Jodie Foster. Also featuring a treasure hunt, pirate gold, and an Anastasia-like attempt at conning a rich English dowager. Mystery, comedy, and mayhem ensue.

I've never really grown out of the movie, so I thought I'd have a look at the original novel, Christmas at Candleshoe, by Michael Innes. Just imagine, Candleshoe plus Christmas!

Two unfortunate facts:

1. Christmas at Candleshoe is not a Christmas book (the title apparently concerns a 17th century monument-carver named Gerard Christmas).
2. Nor is it a children's book.

In my opinion, it's not even an interesting book. I just barely made it to the second paragraph.

We are looking at an English rural landscape on a summer afternoon. Most of us are urban folk -- we come from New York and London and Birmingham and St. Louis -- and our principle sensation is the comfortable one of getting our money's worth. The Englishness is unchallengable, the rurality unflawed, and the whole effect a landscape in the fullest sense of the word. This last circumstance, indeed, makes a few of us obscurely uneasy.

Delimiting the forest...

"Delimiting the forest"? I dunno about you, but *poof* -- there went my attention span. A grudging flip through the next 80 pages exposed very little adventure, and very much chewy British prose. Phooey.

**********************

Currently reading:

The Wager
by Donna Jo Napoli
(THANK YOU MELISSA WEISBERG!)

Routine

In the morning, I wake up, grab the book I'm reading from my nightstand/pillow, and carry it into the other room. While I catch up on email and so forth, it sits on the footstool beside me. When I go downstairs to shower, the book comes with me - to be parked on the bathroom counter. Next I go upstairs to get dressed and make my bed, book still in tow. (It sits on the hamper.) Then it accompanies me back down to the bathroom counter while I play 'beauty shop' with eyeliner and hairspray. After all that's done, it's back to the computer for me, and back to the footstool for the book of the day.

In all this time, I haven't read a word -- just carried the book from place to place.

Same thing happens at lunch time. I put my computer aside, carry the book downstairs and set it on the kitchen table while I eat and watch an episode of Jeopardy. Then, back to the footstool it goes while I tinker with the WIP for the afternoon.

Generally, I don't get around to actually reading until after 4:00 or 5:00.

How strange is this?

State of the TBR pile

Finished!

Dicey's Song, by Cynthia Voigt (audio)

And...that's all I have to report. I don't dare predict when I will finally reach the end of Straw Into Gold. I had no idea I could dawdle so aimlessly over a book I enjoyed so much the first time around.

ps: Almost forgot -- I killed a yellow post-it flag today.

Poetry Friday

There once was a mixture called mince,

whose consistency made sissies wince.

So we put it in pies

and say "Close your eyes,"

for the tasting will surely convince.

(Don't tell Grandpa -- these simmering vats of mincemeat are his Christmas present.)

Mouth-watering Tablet demo

I have three thing to say about this:

1. For some fuddy-duddy reason the idea of multi-media fiction makes me throw up a little, and
2. I don't even like Sports Illustrated a tiny bit, but
3. Wouldn't something like this make reading non-fiction wildly awesome:

The joy of widgets

This is completely counter-intuitive. Desktop email widgets - those little thingies that make your email inbox more accessible - are helping keep me off the internet.

Peeking at widgets lets me have a little breather without throwing open the door to the endless spiral of procrastination that is the internet. No blogs, no message boards, no sales ranks. Just a glimpse at a few subject lines now and then. And ok, yeah, I do it a lot. But it takes about 5 seconds now instead of, oh, upwards of 20 minutes. It's like playing peek-a-boo.

Widgets, man. They'll save you from yourself.

State of the TBR pile

Hi.

Was I supposed to be reading something this week?

Crap.

Napoli strikes again

I've just found out Donna Jo Napoli has a new fairy tale novel coming out this spring, and it's making me die a little. WAAAAAANT.

The Wager is an adaptation of the Grimm tale called The Bearskinner, and I will trade a whole batch of homemade chocolate chip cookies for the chance to read an ARC. (Note: I am really good at chocolate chip cookies. Ask Deborah Wiles.)

Thank you, Betsy Bird, for compromising my sanity until April.

*whimper*

Poetry Friday

A Single Slice Reveals Them

An apple on the table

hides its seeds

so neatly

under seamless skin.

But we talk and talk and talk

to let somebody

in.

~Naomi Shihab Nye

(From 19 Varieties of Gazelle)

Heads-up: Meet authors on Sunday!

If you haven't read Crossing Stones yet, you should. If you haven't met Helen Frost yet, you should do that, too. And if you live in Michigan, you can -- and two more YA authors besides.

This Sunday afternoon, Book Beat hosts a triple-author event featuring Helen Frost, Amy Huntley, and Pearl North at the Baldwin Public Library in Birmingham. (I'd be gushing about the other ladies' books too, if only I'd paused my Re-read-a-thon long enough to read them. But if Colleen at Book Beat says they're good, odds are that's all you need to know.)

Lots more info here.