Reading Challenge for 2014

All right, so I know that I haven't been keeping this up very well the last few months. Things came up, life... you know how it is. There just hasn't been enough time to read and that has upset me. More accurately, its annoyed me. I just haven't been able to keep my attention on a book for too terribly long.

This up coming year, I have decided to read at least thirty books. Ambitious, but not too difficult. My GoodReads account says that I have fallen short of my goal for the 2013 year. They do not count re-reads and I do. "Doesn't matter that you've read Girl, Interrupted ten times before, it still only counts the one time". I say its a legitimate read!

Anyway, here is my list of books for 2014. I'm also indicating which (if any) reading challenge they pertain to, as well as which shelf they're from.

The Soloist by Steven Lopez   -- non-fiction

The Postman by David Brin -- fantasy

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell -- fantasy -- 1001 Books To Read Before You Die

Eragon by Christopher Paolini -- teen/fantasy

The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit by Sloan Wilson --mystery

The Third Rail  by Michael Harvey --mystery

Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach -- non fiction- Gilmore Girls Challenge

Frozen Heat by Richard Castle --mystery

A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block -- mystery

Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell --mystery

Candide by Voltaire --classics - 1001 and Gilmore Challenges

 Un Lun Dun by China Mieville  -teen/fantasy

ALTERNATES:

The Agony and the Ecstasy by Irving Stone --classics

Dog Gone It! by Spencer Quinn --mystery


So here we go, half way through December and the next year's reading list is all ready. Let's enjoy the ride!

Blindness by Jose Saramago

Blindness -1 Star

I hereby declare this the year of the dud! I swear, I have had more disappointing novels this year then any other in recent memory. Blindness has been sitting on my shelf for years and I  was rather looking forward to it, but sadly it did not reach my elevated expectations.

A mysterious illness is effecting various people, they go completely blind for no known reason. Instead of darkness, they see only white. The blindness comes upon every victim suddenly, even between the changing of a traffic light.

I was intrigued by the story, it sounded rather interesting. Yet, I could not get into the book, mostly because the author had a complete lack of punctuation. It was nearly impossible to keep track of the dialog. Eventually, I just gave up because the frustration wasn't worth the "reward".  Oh well, everyone has to deal with a lousy book from time to time.

Current Reads

Oh my... Its been a while since I posted a review. You'd think that loosing a job would mean that I'd have more time to read, but I've been so busy lately. No excuse! Read more, do "whatever" less.

Currently, I'm reading four books. All right, that means the books are in various stages of reading and are all sitting on my nightstand. I'm about one hundred pages into Blindness by Jose Saramago. Not a fan of it, to be honest. The author's lack of punctuation is testing my patience. Next, is One the Road by Jack Kerouac. I love his writing, but am having a hard time getting into this one. Maybe I'll sit still long enough to get a few chapters into the story. Then there's the dirty little secret, Inferno by Dan Brown. I read about half of it in one day. Brown isn't really a literary genius, but its my dirty little secret, my little indulgence, like a vegetarian that can't pass up the odd burger now and then. Finally, I'm a chapter into The Scandal in Bohemia by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I love a good mystery and Sherlock Holmes is one of my favourite detectives. Between he and Hercule Poirot, I've been a hard core murder fan most of my life. 

I blame both my book addiction and my detectives on my mother, she's the one that introduced me to both Holmes and Poirot.

I promise I'll have something posted by way of a review soon. Until then... happy reading!

Angels and Demons Special Illustrated Edition by Dan Brown

Angels and Demons- Special Illustrated Edition -5stars

I've read this once before and enjoyed the intrigue. Its a whirlwind run throughout Rome as Robert Langdon tries to find the Church of Illumination and save not only the four favoured cardinals but also all the ones gathered at St. Peter's Square during Conclave, the vote for a new pope.

I have always had a soft spot for novels that use art and history as clues to the end game. Brown is a master at this style. The joy, though, of the illustrated edition is that you can see photographs of the very clues that Langdon is using to stop a Hassassin. It brings the story to life, it makes you want to take the same path and see if you could have figured it out on your own.

Yes, I know its a work of fiction, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't be fun to see Bernini's sculptures in the churches throughout Rome and the Vatican. The questions are intriguing: Was Bernini really an Illuminatus? Was there really a Path of Illumination? Did the early members of the Illuminati have a Church of Illumination? It could be... but then it could also have been just a figment of Brown's imagination. That's part of the fun, we may never know. 

Beat The Reaper by Josh Bazell

Beat the Reaper --3 Stars

This was an average novel because I got rather annoyed rather quickly with the constant f*** this or f*** that. Tedious and distracting from the better parts of the novel.

We meet Dr Peter Brown on his rounds at a hospital that every one hates severely, but he doesn't mind because no one has heard of Bearclaw Brnwa either. In another life, he was a hitman with a heart of gold for the mafia. He had rules, only taking out the kind of guys that no one would miss, that would actually make the world better for their not breathing the same air as decent people.

One day he has to run for it and right into the Witness Protection Programme. All is well, for a while. He's become a doctor, of all things, and is doing his best to set the scales straight. Its all find and dandy until some one recognizes him and then its all bets off.

Now I like a good redemption tale, a guy who wants to pay back his due of good to the world before the Reaper catches up to him. Who doesn't? There is a fair amount of gallows humour in this novel, something I'm also a sucker for. However the shear amount of poor language takes away from the greatness of this book.

I don't regret reading it, I just regret the fact that writers feel the need to add such vernacular to the lexicon. 

The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe

The End of Your Life Book Club 5 stars

This was a book that an online book club I belong to was reading a few months ago. I had to wait for a copy to become available at the library, so I missed the chance to read it with The Book Addicts on GoodReads. I'm glad though that I did read it, even if I did get an odd comment from one of my managers at work. He thought it was a zombie book.

The author and his family learn that their matriarch has cancer, not just any kind but pancreatic cancer. Basically its a death sentence. Nearly everyone dies of pancreatic cancer, the point is to make the most of the time that you have left. Mary Anne Schwalbe is a brave woman, no matter how many times she tells you the contrary. She has survived many trips to the Middle East and Africa in her efforts to help women and refugees. Her last triumph was to have a library built near Kabul (forgive me if I am incorrect here, but I am sure it was in Afghanistan or Pakistan...). She gave so much of herself that at the end of her life it was hard to allow others to give to her.

It started in a waiting room for chemotherapy. Her son, Will, asks that one question that every reader loves to hear, "What are you reading?" And so began The End of Your Life Book Club. They spent almost two years sharing books, re-reading old favourites and discovering new authors. They used the books to help each other through an incredibly difficult time, they laughed, loved and read their way through the worst thing any one can imagine, the death of a loved one. Through it all Mary Anne and Will maintained their love for reading and each other by diving into a venture that they would never have the chance to do again.

I think what I loved most about this book was that it wasn't a eulogy, not really. Sure, Will misses his mother, loved her deeply, wanted the world to know the amazing woman that had given him life. What Will Schwalbe did was to show us that love doesn't end, it grows stronger. Take the time to show, to tell the people you love that you do care about them. Listen to them. Celebrate the fact that they have been and always will be a part of your life.

My mother has degenerative disc disease and is in constant pain, though she never really shows it. This book made me stop and think of how fortunate I am to be her daughter. She imparted to me the same gift that Mary Anne did to her children, especially Will, she gave me the love of reading, of human thought, of creativity. I am proud to be part of her life, and I hope... no I know she feels the same. She tells me all the time, along with the famous "If I can draw a smiley face in the dust on your dresser, you need to clean!"

I would love to have a chat with Mr Schwalbe, and let him know how much I appreciated a book that made me love my own mother more, that made me cry (which doesn't happen often) and that made me think how grand it is to have a woman we call Mom who shows us the incredible gift of reading.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

The Help 2Stars

I really wanted to like this book. I wanted to enjoy it as much as I had To Kill a Mockingbird because they have similar themes. Being black in the south was (and still is in some places) almost a death sentence, your life is crammed into a box of prejudice and there isn't a way out. I was hoping for a book that would show how a group of women made there way to a brighter future, instead I was handed the one thing I fear about books with female leads... I was given boredom. I rarely have good fortune with woman as protagonists. They always do the insipid pitty party and it annoys me.

Female leads always lean toward depressive episodes, emotional fits of tears, gossip mongering, and salacious deeds of misconduct. As a woman, it ticks me off! In The Help, we have two black women who work for white women, they do everything except wipe their pearly back-sides. The women do what they can to not try and rise above their "station" as servants. Enter the white girl outside town. She wants to make her way out of her role as a female, she doesn't want to marry and have kids. She wants to write, which endeared her to me, but only slightly. I felt she used these women to excel herself, pushing them into saying and doing things they normally wouldn't have.

Maybe its just that I was insanely bored by this little novel, but I didn't care to read it when it came out, fearing the massive amount of estrogen contained therein. I really did want to enjoy this book, but alas, it was literary algae. It looked great, but had no substance.