Loose Leafing: New Year Do-Over?

Let's see, it's January 26th and the temperature outside is a balmy 31 degrees Fahrenheit.   These facts mean two things.  I've gone approximately 26 days (the whole year thus far) with nary a blog post, and we're having a freaking heat wave.  We started and continued this year in a deep freeze to which I'm sure many of you reading can relate considering that much of the U.S. seems to have been afflicted with an unusually cold winter so far.  I can't stand the cold or the snow, and the extreme cold had plunged me into my "midwinter misery" stage before I could squeeze in the "new year, better me!" stage.  I've always said that I'd rather sweat than freeze, and it's proving to be that much truer this winter when it seems like it's so cold, it's hard to just live much less be happy, or dig into the daunting task of self-improvement.

Instead of reading more books, writing more blog posts, getting new jobs, eating less food, and getting in shape; I have been chattering my teeth, watching a ludicrous amount of football for someone who is more or less disinterested in football, and falling into a serious reading funk.  In fact, only just this week did I manage to actually finish my first book of the year.  By rights, there are two on my list, but the first one I read most of last year.  The first victim of my reading funk was a blog tour book that I read about a hundred pages of and discarded, which was followed by another book randomly chosen from my own stacks which I, again, read about a hundred pages of and discarded.  On one hand, this is a good thing.  I'm getting more discerning and not finishing the books that it's a pretty good bet I'm not going to love.  On the other hand, being so "meh" about a book that you invest a hundred pages worth of time into it and then realize you couldn't care less about what happens does not exactly lead to the warm fuzzies.

Happily, however, I finally bumbled my sad reading self into Mandy Retzlaff's One Hundred and Four Horses, a heartwarming, heartbreaking memoir of rescuing a herd of horses from Robert Mugabe's increasingly hostile Zimbabwe, and the funk was finally busted.  Here's hoping I manage to churn out a full review of this book because I really very much liked it.  I've since moved on to a book Random.org helpfully chose from my stacks, Falling Under by Danielle Younge-Ullman.  I was doubtful at first, but it's got its hooks in me now for sure, and I've been steadily devouring it this weekend.  Hopefully this one will help me put the reading funk firmly in the rearview.

This week offered an interesting occurrence in that while I was busy sucking at life and reading and everything, I unwittingly became the local poster child for shopping at the library's used book sale.  I mean, in the back of my mind I knew the local newspaper had a photographer roaming around, but surely he wouldn't take a picture of me, right?  Uh, wrong.

So, there I am, all dressed up in my blue "Property of HCSC" scrubs with mismatching red ancient Old Navy shirt looking all hyper-focused on my book nerdery, in full color in the local newspaper.  As much as I truly loath having my photo taken and don't think too much off this photo, either, I have to admit it's kind of fitting.  I mean, I kind of am the poster child for buying used books from local libraries.  Now it's just more official-ish. 

What?  You're wondering what delightful tomes are in my hands in that very picture?  Don't worry, I won't hold out on you.  Here they are!

(And if you're having trouble decoding the titles in the mildly abysmal iPhone photo that had to suffice because of the household-wide shortage of AA batteries or the Megan-wide shortage of energy to find the damn things, here's the list!)

Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Keeping You a Secret by Julie Anne Peters
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover
Home Safe by Elizabeth Berg
Seating Arrangements by Maggie Shipstead
One Moment, One Morning by Sarah Rayner
A Land More Kind Than Home by Wiley Cash
The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart
The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing: Traitor to the Nation Vol. II (Oops, I thought it was volume I when I picked it up.)
The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen
The Lake of Dreams by Kim Edwards
Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King
The Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver

Also, I was kind of in a hurry, so I totally picked up several duplicates of things I already had and that copy of the wrong volume of Octavian Nothing, so despite my poster-child status, this was not exactly my best book sale performance.  Nonetheless, I think I still picked some winners while achieving extremely limited fame.

Despite the improvements brought about this week, I'm thinking of striking January from the record and trying to get back to "new year, better me!" when the month turns over into February.  Then I can stop being sad that everyone is reading great books without me and losing lots of pounds while I get fatter and attempt to hibernate until the temperature tops 40 degrees.  Here's hoping this year can be "rebooted" and I'll come back to my blog a healthier, happier reader in February (or, if the fates allow, sooner)!

Leafing Lessons #1: Reading Without Purpose

This morning I sat down to write a book review.  Instead out popped a tongue-in-cheekish "advice" column of my recently learned bookish lessons.  I so enjoyed writing it that I might make a feature of it.  It's likely you won't find any great new ground-breaking wisdom to enrich your blog, your life, and your reading, but with any luck both you and I will be amused, and I will remember my own good advice to myself.  Herein you will also get to enjoy the astonishing wonder of my very favorite point of view, the second person, wherein the "you" obviously refers to me but could refer to you also.  Behold the perplexing wonder of the second person! (This should also serve as an apt warning not to pen your debut novel in the second person.  Kids, only try this at home.)

Just because you bought that book for 99 cents for your Kindle doesn't mean you have to be suspicious of it.  Okay, usually it does.  We live in an age where everything "worth having"  seems to always be getting more expensive, and quickly.  Usually when you spend 99 cents on something you get what you paid for: crap.  But not always.  Sometimes you luck into something good.

A trusted book blogger is worth their weight in books (and more!).  Sometimes when you're browsing the Kindle Daily Deal and you see a book that sounds like it might be right up your alley, but you're kind of afraid because it's only 99 cents, and it might be total garbage, all you need is the trusty Book Blogger Search Engine to tap into all those who would lead you down the correct path.  With extra kudos to those who you know write a negative review of a book they didn't love once in a while, so you can be extra-confident that when they sing the praises of a book, they're totally giving it to you straight.


It's okay just to read what you want to read when you want to read it.  It's wildly liberating, actually.  At least three quarters of the book bloggers reading this who have posting schedules as long as both their arms put together, a to-review pile that takes up a few shelves, an immense list of challenges to conquer, not to mention those 16 readalongs they've signed up for are now struggling to wipe the bewildered looks off their faces.  I'm talking to you!  I see you!  I know you, fellow book blogger.  I am you.  Sometimes if you happen to start a book that you're not "supposed" to be reading and it really grabs you, just keep reading.  It will remind you of the jolly good old days when you just read books for the hell of it before you started trying to make reading into an unpaid career with all sorts of rules and schedules and deadlines to meet.  It will reboot your love of reading and maybe poke your enthusiastic inner blogger who inexplicably went missing after a year or two of gleeful blogging, leaving behind the "routine and obligation" blogger you became. 

 

It's also okay to delay going into the grocery store and sit in the parking lot with your car running like a creeper if you have only 5% of that really good book left, and you want to read it without any interruptions from anybody.  Even if it makes you late, and people start to wonder if you got lost coming home from work. It's also acceptable to only mention that you're late because you had to stop at the grocery store when your friends and family call wondering where you are.  Divulging the "creeper with a Kindle" part of the story is totally optional.  If you can't keep quiet, perhaps you'll only want to tell the true bibliophiles in your life or maybe you'll keep quiet and save the dirty details for your book blog, you big Kindle creeper, you. 

You forget this, but paranormal YA almost-romances are good for the soul and should be read on a semi-regular basis.  A few summers ago I devoured paranormal YA like it was candy, and I really like candy a lot.  I can't figure out why I stopped. Reading paranormal YA, that is, I'm still eating plenty of candy.  (Small voice mutters in the background, "See Exhibit A: Reading as Unpaid Career").  And I'll admit that maybe YA paranormal almost (and actual) romances perhaps aren't as great for everybody's soul as they are mine, but I bet there are some slightly more plot-heavy lovelies that don't require you to wade through pages of flowery, if excellent, prose and employ your many powers of deductive reasoning and just let you enjoy a story without having to do too much work.    Don't forget to read these once in a while.  Your reading doesn't always have to be so gosh durned purposeful all the time, for crying out loud.

These lessons brought to you by Angelfall by Susan Ee, which I (you?) may have purchased from Amazon for a measly 99 cents at the recommendation of several trusted book bloggers, who I was very right to trust, of course.  Sorry, it's not 99 cents anymore, but the price is still extremely reasonable, just in case you want to try it out for yourself.  Careful, though, it might just make you into a Kindle creeper like me.

Have you learned any reading lessons this week? 

Thoughts on Oh My Stars by Lorna Landvik

Or, "The blogger objectivity debate comes home to roost." 

Random.org must have a sense of humor because it was supremely funny that Oh My Stars by Lorna Landvik happened to be the book that I was reading the most recent time the whole "blogger reviews aren't objective enough" thing came up.  A thing which, from my reading of it, has much less to do with actual objectivity and subjectivity than it does with some bloggers liking to get out their snarky face from time to time and have a roast/public shaming of an author whose book they found to be atrocious.  I, of course, don't sanction the whole merciless snarking of any unfortunate authors under the guise of "reviewing" their books regardless of whether said books are or aren't atrocious in one person's or even several people's opinions, but I do think a review is by nature subjective, and nothing could illustrate that better than my experience with Oh My Stars. 

Really, it shouldn't take any measure of genius for you to realize that what you're getting here when I review (if I dare be so bold as to call my discourse on books here reviewing, which, um, I do) a book is my opinion.  I can dress it up all pretty with flowery language and the occasionally overused pretentious book reviewerly phrases.  I can back it up with what I consider to be solid evidence from the book itself.  I can balance the "good" and the "bad" aspects of the book for you and event point out the more winning aspects of some of the books I really didn't end up liking at all, but at the end of the day, you're getting one thing.  My opinion.

So, here's Oh My Stars, the story of a young girl named Violet growing up during the Great Depression.  She was never a pretty girl to start with, and when she loses her arm in a factory accident (this is not a spoiler, it happens on pretty much the first page of the book), she can no longer bear the torment of schoolmates and family alike who malign her missing arm, her horsey face, her somewhat freakish height.  Determined that life is no longer worth living considering that nobody loves her, not even her no-good father, she gets on a bus and sets off for California where she has decided to pitch herself off the Golden Gate Bridge.  Before that can happen, the bus wrecks in a nowhere sort of town in North Dakota, and the path of Violet's life changes forever.  Before she knows it she's managing a the hottest new band that's breaking down barriers to racial integration all over the states and finding love in a place she never would have expected.

If I were going to sit here and type you up an "objective" review of Oh My Stars you would probably wonder why I even passed the 50 page mark without jettisoning it in favor of more quality reading.  It would be no great challenge to snarkily tear it page from page telling you all about how Landvik relies on a healthy dose of stereotype, depends on you to suspend a great deal of your disbelief, and exaggerates her characters to caricature-like proportions at times.  I could point out that the things that happen to Violet are always either so very bad or so very good that it seems totally improbable.  I could ponder the lack of a realism in that a band composed of both white and black members could play clubs in the Deep(ish) South in the 30s and somehow play such good music that nobody got killed.  You could then comment that "gosh, this book sounds rotten.  I wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole," and we could close the door on the whole matter.

There's just one thing, though.  I really liked it.  Despite its many flaws, if I had to pick my best book of the year so far, it's likely this one would take the cake ahead of several books that in writing and style are technically much better.  But, Oh My Stars, it just has a certain je ne sais quoi that I quickly embraced.  Maybe it's Landvik's conversational writing style that flows without interruption and makes the book hard to put down.  Maybe it's the foreshadow-y way she uses Violet's first person voice looking back on events interchangeably with a third person that gives the bigger picture as events unfold.  Maybe it's the characters who, when not wandering about in caricature-ville, are original, compelling and lovable.  I loved Kjel's optimism and his willingness to love even the most unlovable.  It was refreshing to read about a guy who was good but not perfect. I loved Austin whose expansive vocabulary is the exact opposite of what people would expect from a black man in the 30s.  I even loved Austin's prickly brother Dallas, who could be funny as often as he could be cruel.  Watching Violet blossom from the closed up, hopeless, angry person she started out as into the strong, funny girl who can negotiate contracts with club owners is also a pleasure.  The unlikely foursome's idyllic summer together seemed as enchanting to me as if I was there myself, and I was swallowed up by the lives of three passionate musicians on the road making a name for themselves.  I was so taken by Oh My Stars that I laughed and I cried, and I was sad that it was over even if my objective mind could recognize flaws popping up all over the place.

What's a good, objective book reviewer supposed to do with that?  I'm not sure if I would have recommended this to myself much less to other people.  Objectively, I would have to acknowledge this book is far from perfect, but my good old-fashioned subjective opinion in hindsight is that it's a fine read that I'm so glad I didn't miss.  I guess that leaves it up to you to decide!  ;-)

   

Reflection and Resolution

Happy New Year, all! I hope you all enjoyed some New Year's revelry, or at least some quality long weekend reading time. I know I've enjoyed a good deal of both. But now, here at Leafing Through Life, it's time to get back down to business. For me that means reflecting on the reading and blogging of 2011 and then scheming about how to make 2012 an even better reading and blogging year. I'll be honest, I don't usually write one of these posts. For one, true reflection on last year's reading requires me to divulge the paltry amount of books I manage to read in a year. This is in comparison to all the especially voracious readers of the book blogging world rather than the general public, of course. Hopefully. I also usually take a hard line against any but the most vague resolutions because, you know, who likes to fail at publicly stated goals?

But enough talk, I'm biting the bullet this year, and writing the recap and the resolutions. Go big or stay home, right?

Here it goes...

In 2011, I read a grand total of 44 books and 12,218 pages. While I'm busy making myself look bad, that books read number is actually higher than any one of the past 3 years. Which is good, but there's still some room for improvement.

Of those 44, I managed to review only 33 in the confines of 2011, though 2 more reviews are currently in the works.

Now for some wild disparities...

39 books read were fiction, only 5 were non-fiction. (Oh non-fiction, where have you gone? I miss you, but I find you kind of scary...)

A paltry 10 were plucked from my own shelves (10!!). (I will not tell you how many unread books are on my shelves. I want to retain some small bit of dignity by the end of this post.) The rest (34 books) of this year's reading were in some respect or another review copies (offered to and accepted by me from publishers/authors/publicists, requested from Shelf Awareness, or picked up at BEA). How did I not notice this happening??

And some less wild disparities...

This year the ladies ruled with 25 of my reads being authored by women and only 16 by men (3 more by both).

29 books written for "grown-ups," 15 for a younger audience - children's, middle grade, YA. (Finally, a breakdown that I find fairly acceptable!)

2011 was a fair reading year in terms of quality with a good balance between, 5, 4, and 3 star reads (But a few 2 star reads snuck in there, too. Yikes!). More importantly, though it was a big year for self (shelf?) discovery. I rarely truly crunch my numbers, so honestly, it's kind of shocking to see those huge disparities, and it's definitely something I intend to change up a bit. In other news, 2011 started off to be a good blogging year, but things kind of went seriously south in places, and I admit I was not feeling the joy of blogging so much as feeling the guilt of not being where I thought I should be. In the interests of a less disparate year and also a more guilt-free blogging year, I give you...resolutions!

I hereby declare that this year, I will attempt to...

Read more non-fiction. I like non-fiction. I will no longer let a few bad apples frighten me away from lots of non-fiction books I have the potential to really enjoy.

Read and/or get rid of more books from my own shelves. My shelves are long overdue for an overhaul. There are tons of great books that I haven't gotten around to reading yet for no especially good reason except for all the other shiny new books I've been reading. Additionally, there are tons of books that I'm probably ready to let go, but I can't seem to set them free without at least giving them a 50 page chance. This year I'd like to make at least every other book that I read be a book that I've had for more than, say, 6 months, and I'd like to use Random.org in conjunction with my LibraryThing library to make sure I'm picking up some of those books that I'm on the cusp of getting rid of.

Embrace the DNF. This is especially important in light of the previous resolution. I don't give up on books that aren't doing it for me nearly as often as I ought. This year, as I read from my own overburdened shelves, must be different. Bad or "meh" books will be given no quarter, they'll be given away. So far, so good. 2 days into the year and I've already DNFed two "no longer my cup of tea" books from my shelves.

Show some restraint. With review copies (and book acquisition in general). I'm a long way from giving up review copies. I love the new and the shiny and the delectable feeling of having found a great book early in its "life." That said, the time has come to stop "giving a chance" to books that walk the fine line between something I think I'll like and something I worry that I won't. Discernment needs to be the name of my game this year.

Write reviews within a week of finishing the book. This is going to be my loftiest goal, I think. I've always benefited from a little bit of "marination" between reading a book and writing about it, but this year it got out of hand and turned into downright avoidance of writing reviews once the week long window had closed, until it became months between the reading of the book and the subsequent reviewing of it. I end up feeling like a jerk because I actually have some great books that are still waiting for me to review them because my reviewing mojo wandered off sometime in the middle of 2011. I think not waiting too long to write my reviews will do wonders for my relationship with my blog which was, unfortunately, plagued by guilt for much of this past year.

There, I've done it, forthrightly admitted the extent of my turtle-y reading pace and even publically stated some goals. Is there anything you're looking forward to changing/improving about the way you read and blog this year?

In the Land of (almost) No Bookstores

My town has no bookstores. Okay, so there is the one, but it's tiny and has a major focus on science fiction and fantasy which are two genres that I like to enjoy on occasion, but not usually the focus of my reading. I have purchased books there in the interest of keeping a bookstore around since all the others have been steadily dying off. I appreciate its presence even if it's not the bookstore I'd prefer. I also appreciate that it's a store that has a section dedicated exclusively to Vampires. I mean, that's just awesome, but I digress.

I'm sure you don't live under a rock, therefore you might have heard something about Borders and bankruptcy and a third of their stores closing. The two Borders stores that really mean anything to me personally, meaning the one I used to work at in my pre-blogging days and the one that is closest to my town (at a staggering 45 minutes away) survived the closings, and I'm pleased about that, but the whole situation plus that whole "45 minutes away" thing got me to reflecting on and generally being melancholy about the bookstore situation in my town.

I don't live very near a major city, but I also don't live in the backwoods middle of nowhere, either. Okay, relative to the surrounding area, I might, but in the grand scheme of things not so much. I don't live in the center of a barren, frozen tundra nor do I live out on the prairie or in the mountains or somewhere where you can drive for miles and miles without even seeing another town, let alone a bookstore. I live in central/northeastern Pennsylvania sandwiched almost equidistantly between Philadelphia and New York City. My town is host to a medium-sized state university, and they have their bookstore, but the bookstore scenario for the town at large is dismal.


Photo Credit

It's practically a weekly thing for me to bemoan the fact that my immediate surroundings seem to be a bookstore deadzone. It wasn't always like this here, and it saddens me to think that with the upcoming Borders closings, others might join my ranks of the nearly bookstore-less. Now, lest you feel too badly for me, we are are not totally book deprived here. We have several local library branches that serve our small towns well, and their high quality used book sales keep me in far more cost-effective reading than I can probably hope to devour in the decades that might well remain of my life span. Alas, I am of the segment of the population that is not really wildly in love with the whole library thing but for the sales. I like owning books.

I miss bookstores. I miss them so much. I envy all you book bloggers who even have the opportunity to somehow affiliate yourselves with a local bookstore for mutual benefit, who can wile away portions of your days sipping coffee and perusing novels in bookstore cafes, who can attend author readings and signings without driving the better part of an hour (or more!). I actively resent that sometimes I feel like my only option when I need to buy a book is to throw a few more dollars into Amazon's already fairly bursting coffers. I took it for granted when I had it, but now I long for the pleasure of wandering the aisles of a bookstore perusing books that I can hold in my hands. Getting books in the mail might be a total high but it can't replace the potential for actually interacting face to face with people who are looking for or can recommend a good book. It can't replace being able to go to a store where if you say something as vague as, "I'm thinking of a book with a white cover that I read about in the Saturday Review of Books a week and a half ago," and somebody will actually be able to find you that book. I'm already tired of the cold, utilitarian book buying options that the internet has to offer now that my alternatives are so limited.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, don't be like us, the book lovers in my town. Don't let the continued existence of your local bookstore be a forgone conclusion. Don't always buy your books on the internet when you can just as easily buy them from a store, because if you like bookstores at all, like I do, you'll miss them terribly when they're gone even though you were happily sending off your dollars to Amazon up until the moment the reality of it all caught up with you. I understand now more than ever that bookstores are a treasure, and one that I am loathe to go without.

How about you? What's the bookstore situation in your town? Do you have them? Would you miss them if you didn't or are you satisfied buying your books from online outlets?

Saying Goodbye, Turning Over a New Leaf, and Other Bookish Randomness

It's Sunday, and I've been stocking up on some bookish randomness all week long. A blogger who, you know, stays home once in a while and writes some posts would perhaps divide this all up and write lots of little posts, but you know me, and I'm going to combine it all into one big one. You get a lot of bang for your buck here at Leafing Through Life. It's okay, you can thank me later.

First off, I was really saddened to hear of Brian Jacques' passing this week. Oftentimes when an author passes, their name is familiar to me, but their work is not, but I grew up with Jacques' Redwall series. They were among the first books I ever tried to get my parents to read because I was so taken with the stories of Redwall Abbey and it's characters. These books are brimful of action, adventure, love, valor, and a treasure trove of unforgettable animal characters not to mention epic feasts of the most delicious-sounding foods. Thankfully I fell behind in the series, so I've got a good many still left to read, but the world has lost a great storyteller in Brian Jacques. Matt London says it way better than I can in his Personal Reflection on Brian Jacques on Tor.com.


Consider yourself duly forewarned. I've done a goofy thing that I'm pretty sure I don't regret. I accepted a children's picture book for review. I wasn't going to. I didn't even mean to. I intended to politely refuse, but when I took a look at the cover photo of Peachtree Publishing's Three Hens and a Peacock I got all mushy inside and began whining to myself, "Aw, but I like picture books. I miss them, and it looks really pretty, and it will probably be all kinds of nostalgic fun even though people that read my blog will probably be all like wha??" So I took Emily from Peachtree up on her generous offer of a review copy and will (probably temporarily) be turning over a new leaf (a new leaf? Get it? LOL!) and reviewing it here. I'll post the review other places, too, so that it'll get more mileage than my likely limited children's book reading following here. But come on, look at it. Who could refuse a face like this?





Last but not least in my treasure chest of bookish randomness, are you using Edelweiss? If not and you're the kind of blogger/reader who's interested in finding out what's forthcoming from your favorite publishers, whyever not? A few weeks ago after a serendipitous moment on Twitter, I requested a demo of this online collection of publisher's catalogs. Joe Foster spent a half an hour or so showing me the ins and outs of using the site's many features to scope out forthcoming books, tag them for later reference, filtering the ones of interest, and so on (Thanks again, Joe!). Ever since, I've been gleefully perusing many publishers' spring/summer offerings, tagging books for Waiting on Wednesday posts, adding to my unwieldy wishlist, and using it as a reference point whenever I hear any stirrings of a new book by an author I like. I'm sure that's just the tip of the iceberg, though. If you're interested in what's upcoming, you should definitely be checking out Edelweiss. Need a little help figuring out how to use it? Check out Joe's excellent guest post at The Book Lady's Blog for the nuts and bolts and you'll be ogling exciting new books in no time.

That's all in bookish randomness for today. Hope your week is full of great books and many hours of great reading!

Sunday (Un)Salon: Bloggy McSlacker

This is the post where I warn you that I'll probably be indulging my inner (outer?) flaky, inconsistent blogger even more than usual for, well, probably the next month and some. I'm recovering from one of those weeks that I knew was going to be busy and was which was rapidly followed by one of those busy weeks that catches you totally by surprise. Which then segues into...Thanksgiving week? Thanksgiving already? Once I realized that, it dawned on me that my last non-busy week for the year had probably gone by without my even noticing.

The good news is, I'm still managing to read books at my same slow but steady pace resulting in my already reading the book that will make official my surpassing of last year's reading totals, which I am quite thrilled about last year's reading totals having been horribly (horribly!!) dismal. The bad news is that the time and energy for review writing has been considerably lacking and I've grown very behind again. I'm hoping that this week will offer up an opportunity or two to pick up the pieces, what with all the TV shows mostly going to reruns, but I promise nothing, given that the desire to sit down at the computer for any length of time after sitting at one all day is often absent. Plus, with the coming holiday, I'm sure this week is going to be busier than I'm expecting in my current optimistic view. Then come Christmas trees and shopping and assorted other holiday activities that will keep me (and you, too, I imagine) from having any of those delicious weekends where I can park myself in front of the laptop and churn out a few reviews at a time.

Now since I've regaled you with all my guilty excuses, how about the news in books? Last weekend I finished Gayle Forman's If I Stay, which, I was warned, would make me cry... a lot. I did cry, but not as much as I was expecting. I think all the warnings had me steeling myself a little for it, so my hardened heart wouldn't let me cry more than a time or two, thought I can see how there would have been many more opportunities for weeping had I not thus prepared myself. This week I'm reading, and hopefully finishing, Starting From Scratch by Susan Gilbert-Collins. I found it a little rough going at first, but it grew on me. I'm enjoying it, but I have the sense that it's only scratching the surface of things that could easily go much deeper. I feel like I end up saying that about a lot of the "family drama" set of books. I often think that maybe I should stop requesting or agreeing to review books that fall into that sort of niche, but then, when it's done well, I have the potential to like them so much.

In other news, my effort to stem the tide of incoming books is failing with flying colors. I'm not really buying books for myself (though I'm sure I'll be buying them as gifts!), but I haven't been able to resist requesting a few. Plus, now, of all times, I've gotten a few unsolicited copies to add to the burgeoning TBR pile. I've got it in my head now that I desperately need to finish off my backlog of LibraryThing Early Reviewer books that are none too early anymore, but that I am nonetheless obligated to read and review. I keep thinking that maybe if I get those done, everything won't seem so overwhelming. But who am I kidding?

This afternoon, I'm excited to be going to see the new Harry Potter movie. Have you seen it yet? Is it good?

What are you up to this weekend? Are the upcoming holidays getting you frazzled yet? ;-)

Darnit, this isn't a book review!

Greetings regular readers and assorted strangers and people who have the potential to be regulars and people who stumbled by here looking for something totally unrelated to what is actually here! I have returned from vacation which was relaxing and delightful for the most part. Since the day of my return it has been stunningly beautiful weatherwise here, thus keeping me far from the computer. However, I have been diligently reading books and acquiring books and considering the possiblity of acquiring still other books.

For example, both times I ended up tooling about the Philadelphia airport waiting out my layover (which I really don't mind because I've got a serious airport people watching/airport addiction plus, you may have noticed, I like to read) on my way to and from Florida I seriously contemplated buying Garth Stein's The Art of Racing in the Rain which was looking out at me oh-so-tantalizingly from that airport Borders shelf. Aside from my possibly being one of the last five book bloggers on the earth that haven't read it, um, it looks really good, and if this Raven Stole the Moon is any indication, it's probably excellent, just like everybody says. Facing the prospect of eviction and put off by the thought of carrying yet one more thing about on my journeys, I dutifully resisted. Nonetheless, if had about 750 fewer books and/or countless hours of free time and/or a really really really big house, I would have bought it. What, pray tell, does this have to do with anything? Well, um, not much really - sorry. ;-)

What I'm trying to say is, I think, that I really really liked Raven Stole the Moon, and it made a horrible companion of me on vacation because I kept wandering off to read it and ignoring my hosts. Now here's the part where I was going to stop babbling on and actually write a review, but this post is getting awful long, and I'm not feeling very cerebral, so I think I am, instead, opting for yet more babbling.

Raven Stole the Moon is definitely part of an epic good reading streak for me. Everything I'm reading is totally taking me in and reminding me why I love this reading stuff. Trigger by Susan Vaught started it off. Then I read an excellent middle-grade-y/YA book called Leaving Gee's Bend by Irene Latham (review forthcoming). Precocious first person narrator with heart, a treacherous adventure, some good old fashioned coming of age - recipe for awesomeness. Then the aforementioned Raven Stole the Moon which was not what I was expecting which is actually a good thing, and it had just the right blend of mystery and suspense to go with its deeper themes to make it the ideal vacation read. I was entirely taken in and so oddly just satisified with the entire thing.

Then, at long last, I broke out that copy of Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life As We Knew It which I couldn't resist buying quite some time ago, but never quite got around to it despite (it seems like) everyone's heaping praise. Happily for me, it more than lived up to all the hype. When I got home on Saturday afternoon, I was only about 120 pages in. On Sunday I devoured the rest in a few hours, which is decidedly unlike me. I'm terribly distractable, but this book made me forget all about all the stuff I had to do, that I had to go back to work the next day (notorious ruiner of many a Sunday night!), that there were other people in the house, and pretty much everything else. In fact, I was so into it that the house could have been on fire and I might not have noticed. In fact, it was the perfect example of the "out of touch with reality" quote in my blog header, so much so that when I did manage to lay the book down for a minute or so that the happenings seemed so imminent in my mind that it felt like they might actually be happening which is, admittedly, a bit frightening since it's a book about the moon getting knocked closer to earth and totally decimating the planet and the struggle to survive that follows. Vivid, indeed.

I've just started The Many Deaths of the Firefly Brothers by Thomas Mullen which is notable for being the first time LibraryThing Early Reviewers has actually chosen the book out of the month's batch that I would have chosen for myself if I'd had to pick just one. I've been looking forward to reading it every since it graced my mailbox, so I hope it continues the great reading streak.

I had so hoped that this post would be a book review, but alas it is not to be. Then, I do miss doing this on occasion, this brainless gushing about books. Perhaps, just perhaps, it will clear my mind enough that actual thoughtful reviews might emerge in the near future now that the gushing is all over with.......or is it?

Thoughts on Stardust

Wow, that post title sounds really profound, doesn't it? Let me disabuse you of this notion of profundity. I intend merely to expound upon my reading experience of Neil Gaiman's Stardust (in unintentionally highfallutin' vocabulary) because it has been so long since I've read it, at this point, that a legitimate review seems near to impossible.

For one, I have the feeling that Stardust defies a plot synopsis. It's a fairytale. There are a lot of ins and outs that probably won't make sense until you peruse the pages. Boy has one night stand with girl in Faerie world which happens to be just across the way (or the wall if we want to be perfectly clear). Union results in son. Son, not knowing his true origins, sets out for the land of Faerie to retrieve a fallen star for his one true love, so that she will marry him or at least maybe give him the time of day. Hapless hero soon discovers, amid numerous action-packed side stories of brothers fighting to the death for their right to rule and witches trying to replenish their beauty and immortality, that, oh yeah, maybe his one true love is not his actual one true love, and his actual one true love is, well, someone rather unlikely. I think you get my drift. It's a fairy tale! To say too much would spoil its magic, so enough with this plot synopsis stuff!

We talk of the kings and queens of Faerie as we would speak of the kings and queens of England. But Faerie is bigger than England, as it is bigger than the world (for, since the dawn of tme, each land that has been forced off the map by explorers and the brave going out and proving it wasn't there has taken refuge in Faerie; so it is by now, by the time that we come to write of it, a most huge place indeed, containing every manner of landscape and terrain). Here, truly, there be Dragons.

This is a great story. So great in fact that somebody made a movie out of it, not that great stories are necessarily required for some dingbat to try to make a movie out of a book, but I digress. And the movie Stardust? Well, I saw it first, and I wish I hadn't. If I had read this book before seeing the movie I probably would have loved it. Having seen the movie, which is not completely true to the book but not too untrue to it either, kind of wrecked the book for me. It was like watching an episode of one of your favorite TV shows, but it's a re-run. I enjoyed it, but already having an idea of what was going to happen kind of took away from the experience. It seems like this feeling, also, exempts me from being able to write a legitimate review of Stardust as well.

There's no doubt that Gaiman really created a great story here, though, a story that works equally well, if you ask me, in the book and on screen. I loved the movie, and most of that can be chalked up to Gaiman's vivid and imaginative storytelling. And it's a fairy tale! That somebody wrote recently! For grown-ups! Even the thought of it is rather delightful!

Now for some really, utterly random thoughts that will only make sense to those who have read the book and/or seen the movie:

I liked how in the movie, the dead brothers were funny, but I also liked how, in the book, each time the dead brothers spoke, it was likened to some passing sound - the rustle of a curtain, the breeze blowing through the bushes, etc.

I missed the we'll say "more interesting" aspects of the Captain's character as played by Robert De Niro in the movie.

I also kind of enjoyed the juiced up movie ending, with the thing and the thing and the drama and the action, and the other thing that happened, all of which I can hardly even allude to for fear of the inevitable spoiler. Well, actually maybe it was a bit too Terminator, and the book's somewhat softer, gentler arrival is actually preferable. I can't decide.

I have, however, decided that I would like movie Stardust for Christmas, and that book Stardust can't unseat Neverwhere as my favorite Gaiman.

If you happen to be looking for an actual review, I might recommend...

Becky's Book Reviews
The Bluestocking Society
Trish's Reading Nook
Musings of a Bookish Kitty

And you? How about you? Have you read Stardust or watched it? Or both? What did you think? How does the movie compare for you, if you've seen it? Will you buy it for me for Christmas?

Weekly Geeks: On Reviews and Ratings

This week's Weekly Geeks asks us to consider this intriguing post from author Shannon Hale about reviewing and rating books and how much our own personal liking of a book should count for in that process. For the Weekly Geeks task, we have a choice of three options to respond to it. The last option is to answer the 6 questions that Hale poses at the end of her post in letter format, and that is the option that I've chosen.

Dear Ms. Hale (May I call you Shannon?),

I've read your post on reviewing and rating books and am admittedly intrigued. Before we even get to the questions, I'd like to say that I wholeheartedly agree with what you say here:

Even "bad" books, even books I just couldn't love, or even like, can be fascinating to me. They change the way I see the world too. Just like the old adage--what you dislike most in other people is what you dislike the most in yourself--I believe that what I dislike most in books highlights some of my own fears, insecurities, worries, and prejudices. (from her post of course)

On more than one occasion, I've found that I've finished a book and would never lay claim to having liked it. On a few of these occasions, I found that my motives for disliking said books were not that they were "bad" books. They weren't poorly written. They didn't fail to engage me as a reader. They didn't lack good characterization or interesting plot points, and even weeks and years later they stuck with me. These are books in which I found the characters and the situations and their actions so well-drawn and so frustrating to me that I could barely stand to keep reading them. Ultimately I kept coming back to them knowing they were good books about negative situations that prevented me from having a good feeling about them when I came to the end, but leaving an indelible impression on me nonetheless. Thanks for calling attention to this. It's definitely something I'm mindful of as a book reviewer now because of these books

Now, to the questions.

- Do you find that the anticipation of reviewing the book has changed your reading experience?

Absolutely. Knowing that I plan to review a book when I come to its end actually helps me to focus in on the book and really think about what's working and what isn't working for me. It makes me want to keep an eye out for particularly good passages that I can include that will illustrate the book's prose or its theme. The prospect of reviewing a book definitely has made me into a more thoughtful reader.

- Does knowing you'll be reviewing it (or rating it) publicly affect which books you pick up in the first place?

About 50% of the time. I accept and occasionally seek out ARCs and review copies to review for this blog. Given that I have them and have committed to reading them, it certainly makes me pick them up when I might have picked up something else otherwise. However, I've made a conscious effort of late to balance my ARCs/review books with books randomly chosen from my own collection or read for book club or some other such purpose. I try to have one ARC and one other book going at all times.

- Does the process of writing the review itself change how you felt about the book?

Yes. Not always, but often. Sometimes writing the review reinforces my initial observations and feelings about a book. However, I've found that on a few occasions analyzing a book and what works and what doesn't for my review has helped me to hold my initial gut reaction to the book at arm's length and instead focus on the author, what they were trying to accomplish, and their success (or not) in that endeavor. I give you, for example, my review of Augusten Burroughs' A Wolf at the Table. It's not a likeable book in the traditional sense. Lots of dreadful things happen and you don't really leave the book on an enjoyable note. During the writing of the review, though, I discovered that despite my not exactly "liking" the book, I recognized that it had many merits and that the bad things hit so hard was a credit to Burroughs as a writer even if I didn't leave the book feeling warm and fuzzy.

- Are you rating the book even as you read? Or do you wait until the end to sum it all up?

I try to wait until the end, after I've reviewed it. Sometimes I really think I'm enjoying a book, but after it's sat a few days waiting for me to sit down and write the review, I find that it didn't really stick with me or I just don't have much to say about it, and I can trim off a half a star or even a whole one for that. On the other hand, sometimes with a few day's distance and a more objective viewpoint I can see more good in a book, as with A Wolf at the Table, and that might earn it at star.

- What is your motivation to assign a rating to a book and declare it to the world?
If you review a book but don't rate, why not? What do you feel is your role as reviewer?

I'm combining the last two questions. They seem to fit together so well that I hardly think I'd be able to answer them seperately. First of all, it's not my inclination to give a book a star rating. Admittedly, I do it on LibraryThing, mostly because I use the star rating as an indication of whether or not I've read a book in my collection, rather than using tags for this purpose. As I noted before, I do try to wait until I've thought over and reviewed a book before I commit to a star rating, so they're always subject to change between when I finish the book and when I write the review and even sometime thereafter if I found that the book stuck with me (or didn't) for whatever reason.

I don't carry over the star ratings to the reviews on my blog, however, and wouldn't consider doing so. I think there is more nuance and discussion involved in reviews and that a star rating just can't capture it. To be quite honest, I don't even think it particularly matters if I personally "like" or "don't like" the book. I think my job as a reviewer is to summarize the book in short so that people know what it's about and then to analyze how the book worked - whether the characters were well-drawn, whether the writing flowed, whether the plot was engaging, whether the descriptions were stunning or lacking, etc. and allow other people to make their own decision about whether they might like the book. Maybe they prefer a plot-driven novel or a character study. Maybe they enjoy lengthy descriptions that create atmosphere or maybe they find too much description to make a book drag. My job as a reviewer, I think, is to prepare people for what they may find in the book and base their decision to pick the book up on that, not on whether I thought it was super great (or not).

Some bloggers and reviewers that I trust and know I share a common taste in books with, I would pick up a book simply because they liked it. Heck, maybe some others feel that way about me and my reviews, but for those that don't know me or have any reason to trust me, I'd rather just lay out the finer points of the book, let them know what to expect, and let them decide for themselves if it's the kind of book they'd like to try. Certainly I'll say whether I ultimately liked or didn't like a book, but I won't do it without a good idea of why or why not because, hey, not everyone likes the same stuff I like for the same reasons.



Thanks again for writing this post and giving us reason to consider and discuss the thought processes behind what we're writing in our reviews. It's definitely been a rewarding experience for me, especially this year, when I personally find many of my own reviews to be a bit (and this is a technical term) blah. It helps to consider again what I believe to be a good review and re-center myself on those points.

Best Regards,

Megan

Christmas Redux

Greetings! Hope you and yours had a Merry Christmas!

We made lots of merry here at our house, and I'm wholeheartedly satisfied with my gift haul, and more importantly how much everybody else liked the gifts I bought them. Or, at least, how good of a job everybody did of acting like they really enjoyed the gifts I bought them.

I made a concentrated effort to buy at least as many books for gifts as I do most years and quite possibly more. For my mom, who loved Wally Lamb's previous two books, I grabbed a copy of the newest, The Hour I First Believed which she's already started to read. For my dad, we had the old standby, the yearly Odd Thomas release from Dean Koontz, Odd Hours, which he always enjoys. He's badly in need of a new author to love, so I'm trying to get him hooked on Neil Gaiman with a copy of Neverwhere, too. My grandmother, who almost never wants books, kept bringing up the good things she'd been hearing about Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Mineral, so naturally, I had to pick up a copy of that for her. Lastly, and my crowning achievement of the year, for my cousin who has just begun learning to read, I grabbed a copy of one of my very favorite childhood books, Animalia and made a severe annoyance of myself until my mom bought her a copy of Mo Willems' The Pigeon Wants a Puppy. It's so much fun picking out cool books for new readers. I hope she enjoys them as much as I do!

As for me, not too many books under the tree, but the quality was definitely there. The first gift I opened was a copy of Leif Enger's So Brave, Young, and Handsome which I've been dying to have since I knew it existed. I loved Peace Like a River, so I'm quite excited about this one. I also got a spiffy new copy of the new ESV Study Bible which the people at my church are simply rabid over, if indeed, it's quite correct to be rabid about a Bible.... Anyhow, it's full of awesome stuff, so I'm quite excited about that, too. My ever-thoughtful 10 year old cousin got me a book light. Now does that kid know me or what?

Another gift I consider to be quite bookish that I'm wildly excited about is my hunter green SLANKET! This is a great gift for when I want to read in my arctic temperature bedroom. As a matter of fact, cozily tucked into my Slanket I devoured the end of How I Live Now by Meg Rosoff last night after the holiday merry making had come to an end (and a few re-runs of House had been watched). Believe it or not, I've actually already written the review, but I'm going to save it for sometime over the next few days because I predict that next week is going to be pretty harsh on the old blogging time because some folks at work are taking some vacation which means that I get pressed into service at all kinds of weird hours. After which, I'll definitely need to drink some of the !wine I won in their mystery holiday giveaway drawing! which is doubly cool because I'm going through a real wine phase right now, which sounds kind of bizarre because I'm not much of a drinker at all.

All in all, a very satisfying holiday. The planets aligned properly allowing everybody to be in a fairly good mood on the holiday. Children were relatively well-behaved. Great gifts were given and received, and a sense of humor prevailed. Can't ask for much more than that. It's about time for me to leave for the matinee of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which will be, hopefully, as good as it looks.

So, what good stuff did you get for Christmas?

Shades of Mediocrity

After one week of a relatively acceptable amount of activity, it seems that the blog is gathering dust again. You want to know why, you say? Well, you're probably not actually saying that. It's most likely that you care not at all, but if you thought that your lack of caring would be followed up by my own non-disclosure, you must not know me very well.

The first reason? Why, last week was Fair week. Yes, that's right, Fair with a capital F. My town has a rather ginormous fair (wait, I mean Fair) that traditionally takes place the last week of September. It traditionally rains for most of said Fair week, but not this year. So, I didn't stay home too much last week. As a matter of fact, by the end of the week I was hoping it would be possible to get a new pair of feet and maybe a new stomach to go with them. The Fair is about the biggest thing that ever happens in my town - I may have mentioned that it's huge and for one reason or another, my school district was one of a couple that actually had a whole week off for the Fair. I mean, now doesn't that seem pretty major? So yes, lots of Fairgoing and devouring of mercilessly deep fried food proved a major disruption to my reading and my blogging, which I don't regret in the least, which is not to say it wasn't somewhat of a relief to finally arrive at the weekend during which I got to cuddle up with a book or two and stay inside when the rain finally did arrive.

The other reason? Mediocrity. Everything that I've read lately has been uh...just okay for me. Not terrible. Not great. And certainly not inspiring of the lengthy contemplative reviews that have become my trademark. I feel like this happens to me all too often where I'm just stuck in a "nothing extraordinary" reading rut wherein nothing I read provokes a strong reaction one way or the other. The books are far from bad enough to put down without finishing but not good enough to feel especially rewarding when I finally flip the last page. The unfortunate thing is some of said books that I would describe as mediocre are pretty well-liked among readers and bloggers. So I guess I'm just the odd reader out with them. Anybody else get mired in this feeling of reading mediocrity? I'm starting to wonder if it's the books at all or if it's just me...

We interrupt this blogging for some reading...

Greetings fair readers who probably think I've disappeared. Well, I kinda did a little. So I woke up on Friday (or was it Thursday?) and it dawned on me that my deadline for Elle reading is strikingly sooner than I'd imagined (I thought I was doing so good! I thought I was ahead of the game! I should know better!). I've finished two of the three books but only started the third today amid all the Mother's Day festivating this weekend (Happy Mother's Day to you mothers by the way - I'm a big fan of mothers but not so much of Mother's Day where I'm lowered to the level of ill-equipped slave girl in the face of the mothers of my family not having to do anything to contribute to the execution of the festivating because it's like their day or something). That said, I really must finish this book by oh, mid Tuesday night so I can fulfill my bookish obligation. Since upstanding adults and employers seem to frown on people taking unexpected leisure time to finish their uh...how you say...recreational book reviews, the time will probably be extracted from what is usually reserved for blogging (because I really do much of that anyway) and blog-hopping (and I was doing so well with my feed reader!) and TV watching (because I'm sure you even care about this last one).

I am not ignoring your Weekly Geeks links, I promise I will get to them. The one day this week when I was about to attempt them Blogger was acting all flaky, so I didn't get to it. But later this coming week, I will!

In the meantime, I must read and contemplate the pitfalls of reviewing memoirs/travel writing which I will be doing a bit of when I return. I mean, how are you supposed to critique someone's life experiences and their reactions to them? The plot was kind of slow moving? The emotions seemed hollow? The self-reflection somewhat overwrought? The thought processes contradictory? The narrator bizarrely idiotic? Usually I don't seem to have a problem with this kind of thing and half a review magically appears in my head that doesn't question any of this, but these questions are gnawing at me a bit this time around. That's not to say I didn't enjoy the books thus far. I did. I just can't quite peg down what to say about them.

Alas, my blogging time is up and I must return to the book. Here's wishing you all happy reading that doesn't remind you of the rushed type of reading usually prevalent in finishing college homework assignments!

On Oprah's Book Club

So, I was blog-hopping a bit this morning, and I didn't hop far before I came upon litchick's post about how we choose what to read. She mentioned Oprah's book club and it made me think again about what role Oprah and her book club played in shaping the reader I am today.

When I first found out about Oprah's book club (it could have been started at this time, too, I don't recall), I was in high school. I've always been a reader, and I'd welcomed the chance to make the jump from kids books to "adult" books. I've since made the jump back to young adult books, but that's a story for another day. As an "adult" reader, I was...a uh...popular fiction hound. I liked what everybody liked. Put me in a room with Stephen King's or John Grisham's latest, and I was a happy camper. To some extent, I still can be. Sometimes it's refreshing to read a book that you can quickly and mindlessly finish in a day.

The thing is, now that I'm older, I wonder if I wouldn't still be reading only those same things if it weren't for Oprah and subsequently my mother's phase of passionately loving all things Oprah. Of course, I couldn't be left out of this bookish trend in my own house, so I cast aside the latest Stephen King/Dean Koontz/John Grisham/Danielle Steel, and I started picking up some of these depressing contemporary fiction pretty trade paperback books and trying them on for size. To this day, I'm a shameless lover of contemporary fiction/literature. At this point in my life, I can safely say that not one of my Oprah reads ranks among my favorites, though I haven't read all that many of her picks. However, I did come to love the feel of a trade paperback in my hand, love the sensation of reading a book that I had to think about because the story had characters that were real multi-dimensional people and the plot had a few layers of meaning instead of just a slow build to a cheap thrill, and love to having my emotions tied up in the outcome of the book. So, at the end of the day, I have to give Oprah some credit. She had a hand in opening my eyes to a type of book that at that point, I had no idea existed. A type of book that I spend most of my time with today, and a type of book which many of my favorites are now. I still read some of that old stuff and I still find it satisfying to devour a horror novel or a thriller in a day (and I'll even go on the record to say that I think that Stephen King is a great writer - not just a great "genre" writer, but great writer in general - again this is a story for another day), but I have to say that Oprah helped at least a little bit in shaping my tastes and making me into the reader I am today.

How about you? Do you ever think about what has influenced your reading through the years? What makes you read what you read?

An Ode to Quotation Marks

Let's all heave a big sigh of relief. I've finished reading the books for Elle magazine, so it's back to business as usual here at the old blog, if, indeed an "old blog" so young as mine can indeed have a "business as usual." As for the books, one was not especially my cup of tea, one I strenuously disliked, and one...well, one I surprised myself by liking in spite of the nature of the topic covered and the rather unorthodox way in which the author chose to communicate dialogue.

I love quotation marks. Okay, there it is, the whole truth. I love how they set off what one character is saying and then what the other character is saying and so on and so forth. I like neat little lines of a dialogue - one character speaks? That's a paragraph. A second character speaks? Look, another paragraph! I think we could all agree that, in general, the teachers of basic writing across the world had a pretty good thing going with this system.

Now, on to my point. I don't know what it is about quotation marks, but a surprising amount of well-known and respected authors (not to mention some less well-known and respected authors) have felt the need to abandon our old friends, the quotation marks - signifiers of dialogue, markers of clarity, gloriously simple ways of shouting out to the world "Hey, somebody's talking here!" Maybe they replace them with little dashes to indicate speech. Maybe they forgo any punctuation to signify dialogue at all while still maintaining the new speaker, new paragraph rule. Either way, I have to admit that this blatant disregard for quotation marks distresses me to no end.

This is not say that dialogue without quotation marks cannot be "pulled off." A good writer writing a good story without quotation marks is still a good writer with a good story, but also a writer that has the vast potential to irritate me. A so-so writer pushing through a so-so story can be broken by their disuse of the standardized methods of quotation mark usage. I see no quotation marks, I see a book that stands at least twice the chance of my putting it down without ever drawing near to its stunning/poignant/brilliant conclusion. Frustrated by the ambiguity of when and which characters are talking (or wait, is this still narration?), I'm wildly tempted to heave a book across the room. However, quotation mark lover that I am, I can still be won over by a quality story such as the one I just read or maybe something like The Piano Tuner by Daniel Mason who I seem to recall, also doesn't share my enduring need for quotation marks.

So, you say, there are plenty of books in the world that have dispensed with the standard usage of quotation marks in dialogue. Why rant now? Why the trouble over this one book?

This book made use of no quotation marks, no dashes, and no, my friends, not even any paragraph breaks to signify speech on the part of the characters. The dialogue is weaved into the narration distressingly eliminating most of the sense of speech, not to mention eliminating any clarity that might have been drawn from say, some...any indication of when and which characters might have been speaking rather than a mere continuation of the first person narration. The hulking paragraphs full of the first person narrator's thoughts tossed about with his speech and the speech of several other characters in his presence at one time made my mind go numb with confusion.

Am I too traditional? Is it too much to hope for to have clearly marked dialogue in every book I read? Am I so "inside the box" that I can't appreciate originality in dialogue presentation? I don't know. What I do know is that I love quotation marks, so much so that I've used more of them in this post than the author whose book I am opaquely referring to used in his entire novel. Oh, quotation marks, how I love thee!

Thank you. Good night.