The Art of Rereading

When I was setting my reading goals at the beginning of 2013 I did something different. Along with my total goal for finished books (currently at a conservative 30) I set a few stipulations on what I should be reading. 10 new releases, a handful of classics and around 3 rereads. Whenever I'd tell my friends my only real New Years resolution I'd launch into this big speech about how I wanted to get back to reading like a fiend and that I wanted to have a real variety of books in my end of year list. Inevitably when I'd get to the "no more than 3 rereads" part of my by now well rehearsed spiel I'd get stopped.
"What do you mean reread?"
"That doesn't count."
"Why would you reread a book?!"
"But where's the challenge in that?"

I'm always taken aback by these comments. To me there is no greater compliment in the bookish world than a reread. I'm sure you've seen your favorite movie more than once than why no give your favorite book a second go? I always pick up so much more on my second, or third, or in the case of harry potter 10th (let's be real. that's a low estimate) than I did on my first read. There are always beautiful details that can only be picked up with an additional read. There are connections that just cannot be made unless you know the end of a story at the beginning.  Books, to borrow a line from Shriek, are like onions, they have many layers, each time you remove one you discover something new.

It's not even just the act of reading that brings about these discoveries. My first time reading Much Ado About Nothing was when I was working on a school production of the play when I was 14. I went with my mom to see the closing Performance of Much Ado at Stratford this past summer and came home and gave the play another once over. Shakespeare hasn't done a ton of rewriting in the past 8 years, but my understand of Much Ado clearly changed from 14 to 23. I was reading it with completely different eyes, even if I knew the story backwards and forwards. Heck, I'm the type of person who can have a completely different experience with a book depending on if I read it on a clear summers day or a dreary winter one? I've seen The Unbearable Lightness of Being go from romantic to pessimistic, Pride and Prejudice the guild-book for young 20 somethings and then nothing more than fluff (albeit fun fluff).  Age, circumstance, education, hell even weather all effect what i'll get out of each read.

I know there are people out there who would rather spend their time reading new things. "Too many books too little time" and I get that. There is so much I want to read, and as I'm currently working 7 days a week and still trying to have something that resembles a social life I have really never had less time for reading. I'm trying to limit the books I read over and over again, but when the mood strikes I want to be able to pick up Sorcerer's Stone and catch something that I missed last time.

What do you think about rereads? Are you a fan? Completely opposed? Let me know!

Where'd You Go, Bernadette? - Semple

Where'd You Go, Bernadette?

Maria Semple

After a crushing loss Bernadette Fox slowly descent into madness, well if not madness at least into an extreme anxiety disorder. With a distant husband who is one of the most important men at Microsoft and a daughter itching to go to Antarctica before she leaves for boarding school in the fall Bernadette has turned to a personal assistant in India who she emails dozens of times a day to order her take out and fill her prescriptions. But if things seem weird now, it's nothing compared to what's about to happen in rarely sunny Seattle. 

First, Wikipedia Maria Semple. Isn't her career FANTASTIC? Sorry, I might be a bit jealous. 

There are two ways a story told in letters, emails and the occasional bill can go. Luckily Where'd You Go, Bernadette comes across as riveting as opposed to gimmicky. I was very impressed by how sucessful Semple had been in giving each of her characters a specific voice, which became very important as it made conversations held almost exclusivity in long emails interesting. 

While I was impressed with the development of each characters voice, I was less thrilled by the complete characters. Bernadette, Bee, and Audrey all had drastic changes, except they weren't completely believable. Bernadette and Audrey both become very self aware, albeit in different ways, and both let circumstance dictate a great deal of their lives. The rest of the characters, while having good surface presents also fall apart under the slightest scrutiny. 

Overall Where'd You Go, Bernadette was a quick, fun read. It would probably be a great read for a readathon or a long weekend.  Aside from some character development my only real issue was that my book was bound incorrectly. It went from pages 323 to 224, 225 and then ended at 326, which as you can imagine was very irritating. 

Office Girl - Joe Meno

Office Girl

Joe Meno

Odile and Jack have a lot in common. They're both "artists", work nights selling office music and are completely hopeless in relationships.When Odile asks Jack to join her new art movement their lives change forever. Or at least for February of 1999. Office Girl is the story of art, love and screwing up in a snow covered Chicago.

After reading The Great Perhaps last year I wanted to try another Meno novel. While Office Girl is a completely different beast his treatment of his home city of Chicago is perfect. It is clearly a place he loves, decaying buildings, poor drivers and all.  The city really comes to life in a way that made Meno's favorite setting my favorite part of the novel.

As an underemployed art school graduate who use to live (and go to said art school) in Chicago I am the definite target audience for this novel. However, hitting close to home couldn't really help the half dead story. Odile is a stereotypic art school drop out; sleeping with married men, unreliable on the job and mercilessly critical of every other artist she meets. On the other end Jack (who is also an art school graduate) is his own personal lend of obsessively crazy.  While I enjoyed their bike trips around the city, and the idea's behind some of their "Art Terrorism" I just couldn't see them as more than caricatures. In the end Jack's audio project (read: obsession) and Odile's edgy attitude weren't enough to get me to make a lasting impression.

Overall I wasn't a fan of Office Girl. It had it's moments, and the art scattered throughout the pages was enjoyable. The lack of realistic characters in a hyper real setting really made it hard for me to care about anything that either Odile or Jack were going through, and the actual story was pretty dry.

If pressed i'd give it a dreaded 3 stars.

Beautiful Creatures - Garcia/Stohl

Beautiful Creatures

Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

Ethan Wate has lived in boring ol' Gatlin, South Carolina his entire life and is tired of the day to day sameness of his perfectly ordinary life in his perfectly repressed town. Then something changes. Jackson High's sophomore class is getting a new student, and she is non other than the town shut-in's niece.  Lena Duchannes isn't your ordinary 15 year old and the people of Gatlin aren't going to take this disturbance of their picture perfect lives lightly. Suddenly Ethan's life will never be the same, but will Gatlin?

Beautiful creatures isn't my usual cup of tea. I'm more of a straight laced contemporary lit lover with a historical fiction kicker.  Outside of Harry Potter magical settings don't usually interest me.  However the trailer, and the pallet grabbed my attention, and now I'm definitely on the Beautiful Creatures bandwagon.

How do you not investigation something this stunning!

That isn't to say that Beautiful Creatures doesn't have it's flaws. Believe me, at 563 pages editing would have been Garcia and Stohl's best friend. Ethan and Lena's mind reading conversations were often redundant  and the back story.  OH THE BACK STORY. I don't know how it was possible to feel both bogged down by character histories and confused by constant mentions of unexplained events but I was. For instance I know all about a little cardboard village Ethan's mother made. I do not really know anything about the circumstances surrounding her death.

The other issue is the writing itself. I know it's been said before, but one would think with two sets of eyes looking through every page the prose would be tighter. Garcia and Stohl have a tendency to use seven adjectives where one would do, and another paragraph to sum up the one above it.

I think Ethan watched High School Musical one to many times. 

They also suffered from having a 16 year old boy as their protagonist. Ethan doesn't read like any 16 year old I've met, though he dose resemble Troy from High School Musical. In other words, he's a caricature of a man (err, boy) and that isn't always easy to get over.

Overall I enjoyed Beautiful Creatures. It had some major flaws, but the story was fast paced enough to keep me interested, and even at it's almost 600 pages I read it in under three days. Now can someone tell me where I can find Beautiful Darkness because my local Barnes and Noble and Target don't have it.

The Three Star Curse.

Often times when I'm looking for my next read I'll head over to goodreads to check out ratings. It may seem shallow, and as my best friend who is not fond of spoilers would say, a bit like cheating. I don't even bother to read the reviews anymore. I'm truly just there for those little red stars. Only I'm not looking for 5 of them. What I'm looking for is the variety, or, more accurately, how many people thought it was just "okay".

 One of my biggest bookish pet peeves are books that fall smack dab in three star territory. Those ones where they were pleasant enough for you to force your way through but aren't going to stick with you in the long run. I hate those books. I rarely give out three stars for anything, either I liked the book (four), I abso-bloomin-lutly loved it (five), I disliked it (two) or WHY DID I EVEN FINISH THIS I HATE EVERYTHING (one). Three stars are for no feelings, and not having feelings for something I've around a week to is unacceptable. Three stars are the reviews you read that spend more time talking about style than substance.

Maybe my time working on Camp or Crap has left me with a skewed perspective but I really enjoy picking apart "bad" things. I don't go out of my way to search out bad books, but when I find them it gives me licence to moan about overused words and cliche plots.

Do you do any research before picking up a book? Do star ratings effect you're reading choices? Let me know!

Back Story - David Mitchell (no, not the novelist)

For those of you who know of David Mitchell (no, not that David Mitchell) you probably think he's a tweedy posh nerd with OCD that couldn't get out three sentences without self depreciating, and judging from his Soapboxes, panel show appearances and work with Robert Webb you wouldn't be alone.  David Mitchell: Back Story will take those notions and while it won't put them to rest it will at least give you the full picture. Here you'll find stories of a David growing up in Oxford as a boy more likely to be playing Downton era dress up than kicking around a ball, cross dressing in school plays and in general worrying about life.

The celebrity memoir is a tricky thing. Too much detail and you risk appealing only to obsessed fans, too much time spent on a well adjusted childhood appears boastful and dull. Here is where David really shines. Using a long walk around London as a springboard for his memories he provides the right balance of childhood anecdote, high school pit falls and Cambridge living before going full force into the comedy life he so clearly wanted. The chapters on his early life in London and the second time meeting his future wife are particularly amusing and moving.

Now there's a man who knows how to live life. 

Overall: If You're not a fan of David Mitchell you probably wouldn't be interested in his life story, but even if you find him mildly amusing Back Story is a very funny quick read.

2012: The Year I Loved Books But Couldn't Seem to Read Them

Welcome to 2013. Hopefully you had a safe and fun night and didn't end your night by falling down some icy stairs, like I did.  The only way I can describe last year is stagnant.  I worked at a coffee shop all year, got a little to down on myself and didn't really do anything of much substance. This year I hope to change that. I start a new job next week. I'm making plans to visit friends both in Chicago and Dallas and am looking forward to reading a ton of new books!

Since I'd just graduated College and had nothing but free time (and oh so much coffee) I  made my reading goal for 2012 unreasonably high. It started at 75 before I knocked it down to 50 in march, and ended up with 27 and stretching my usual definition of  a book.

Here is the list of books I finished in 2012. Please don't be alarmed by the large percent Harry Potter takes up.
1. Illuminated - Orloff
2. The Joy The Baker Cookbook - Wilson
3. Hunger Games - Collins
4. Catching Fire - Collins
5. Mockingjay - Collins
6. Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close - Foer *
7. Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? - Kaling
8. Paris I Love You But You're Bringing Me Down - Rosecrans
9. The Great Perhaps - Meno
10. Harry Potter and the Sorcerers Stone - Rowling*
11. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets - Rowling*
12. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban - Rowling*
13. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire - Rowling*
14. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - Rowling*
15. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince - Rowling*
16. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Rowling*
17. The Kingmakers Daughter - Gregory
18. Anna Karenina - Tolstoy
19. Mr Penumbra's 24 Hour Book Store - Solan
20. The Land of Stories - Colfer
21. Bossypants - Fey
22. The Fry Chronicles - Fry
23. Bartelby, The Scrivener - Melville
24. May Day - Fitzgerald
25. The Smitten Kitchen Cookbook - Pearlman
26. A Series of Unfortunate Events - Bad Beginnings - Snickets
27. The Back In the Day Bakery cookbook - Day & Day

As you can see, a few short stories, a chunk of rereads and a smattering of cookbooks found their way into my usual style.

Hope you all have a fantastic year!