Posts for category ‘reading’

1. You may remember me posting before about Fictionist, a local band that defies all assumptions about local bands. (At least the ones I have, but maybe I’m an unhip snob? And also old? Very possible. After all, my last post was partly about Elton John and Simon and Garfunkel.) Well, they now have the chance to get on the cover of Rolling Stone, and onto Jimmy Kimmel Live. Whoah. And I think you should help. I’m not just saying this out of Utah pride – I’m not one to pimp things I don’t genuinely think are Good and Worthy. Having seen Fictionist live a couple of times, I can tell you that these guys are the real deal, in terms of musicianship, passion, devotion to craft. If you’re for this, just go to their home page and give ‘em a rating in that Rolling Stone box thing. (Five stars. Come on. You can trust your old pal Sara that they’re worthy of it. If you don’t have time to listen, do it for the band name alone!)

2. Do you like literary fiction about adults? Or do you want to like it, but tire of the 800-page tomes about male midlife crises? Do you wish the people in adult litfic at least vaguely resembled actual human beings that you’ve encountered so that you can, you know, care about them? I’ve got a book for you – Lan Samantha Chang’s All Is Forgotten, Nothing Is Lost. It’s around 200 precise, wise pages that totally escape self-indulgence and grandiosity (which is hard to do, I think, when writing about writing/writers, as Chang does here). Yes, there is a little bit of midlife crisis, but sort of being in the midst of one myself, I’m down. Chang’s prose is so incredibly exacting, the rhythms perfectly varied. The story is partly about art, and the making of art, and includes a lot of philosophical goodies for creative people. It never occurred to me to put this book down until I was done. Sadly, that is all too rare an experience for me. (And can I confess I picked this up on the title alone?)

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3. Speaking of reading, I am finally going to read The Hunger Games! Slightly behind the times, I know, but my book club is doing it and I’m in. DO NOT LET ME DOWN, COLLINS.

4. In another round of cultural catchup, I watched 3:10 to Yuma at long last. I thought it was a truly impressive work of filmmaking and storytelling, and it compelled me to read the Elmore Leonard short story on which it’s based. The short story is so…short! The movie is a great example of what a mighty oak can grow from a tiny seed. James Mangold is a fine director I’ve always admired, but this is an epic feat. (And I now have the 1957 version in my queue.)

5. I hate tax season.

Have a great weekend, and enjoy the holiday if you’ve got it!

Today we come to the end of the reading report. I thought there might be a few more posts, and that I’d be a little more organized, but my husband’s winter break starts in a few short hours, and that means it’s really the holidays around here. I’ll be doing only minimal internetty stuff until January 3, and no blogging. Hooray! (Have you taken a technology break lately? This is a good time to do it.)

So here is Everything Else in terms of memorable reads for the year, across a few categories. Though…”everything” is a lie, because the truth is there were a lot more good books than I’ve had time or space to mention here. Which is fantastic news for readers and writers everywhere. With this final post I’ll try to focus on books you may not have heard as much about.

The Unidentified by Rae Mariz (YA)

Imagine a world where companies like Facebook and Google run everything, which has resulted in the commodification of people and personalities. (Really a stretch, I know.) A Googlish/Facebooky company runs your high school. Your goal, if you want to be successful post-grad, is to be “branded” by a company before you graduate. You’re basically looking for a corporate sponsor for your life. This is the world of this book, in which our heroine must decide whether or not to fall in line and receive the mark of the corporate beast (as her mother is encouraging her to, because they have no money to pay for college otherwise), or join with a group of rebels in her high school who are resisting the branding of the soul. I found this scarily believable and fascinating.

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Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins (YA, also maybe older MG)

Two boys from warring ethnic factions in Burma cross paths in life-changing ways. This, to me, is an example of some of the best things reading has to offer: the chance to step into a world that is real, that exists right now, but is entirely unlike your own, the chance to walk in the shoes of the kind of people you’ll probably never meet, and come away with some compassion and understanding, not to mention gratitude for the relative ease of your own life. A really lovely (but also difficult) book.

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The Clockwork Three by Matthew Kirby (MG)

The adventures of Giuseppe, Frederick, and Hannah, all basically orphans in an unforgiving city. They come to depend on each other for survival, and also to solve a mystery involving a clockwork man. Kirby is a fine, fine writer (and yet another Utah success story!). The book gives us a little bit of Dickens, a little bit of steampunk, a little bit of old New York without it being actually old New York. Check out the author site for more, and a bit of the fascinating backstory.

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Adios, Nirvana by Conrad Wesselhoeft (YA)

Oh, this narrator totally charmed me. His name is Jonathan. And I hesitate to tell you that his twin brother recently died, because you might think: oh no another dead sibling/friend/parent story. But Jonathan–a poet and gifted guitarist–is easy to be with, and has a strong and memorable voice. What I loved most about this book was the portrayal of friendship among guys. They are a sweet yet totally believable bunch. Ultimately a really joyful story, despite the grim circumstances at the beginning. Great gift for the creative teen boy in your life, as rock guitar geekery and poetry-writing play heavily in the story. Girls will like it, too. I mean, I am a girl and I did.

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Ah, and there were so many more: The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt, Star Crossed by Elizabeth Bunce, Please Ignore Vera Dietz by A.S. King, The Card Turner by Louis Sachar, Thirteen Days to Midnight by Patrick Carmen, Jumpstart the World by Catherine Ryan Hyde, Folly by Marthe Jocelyn, and of course the National Book Award finalists not already mentioned here, and also the 2010 books I blurbed – The Sky Is Everywhere by Jandy Nelson, The Absolute Value of -1 by Steve Brezenoff, This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas, Sorta Like a Rockstar by Matthew Quick.

And more, more, more good books. Not perfect books. None of the books I’ve written about here are perfect. But they connected with me in some memorable way, and that’s what reading is about.

People? The state of storytelling? Is good. I extend my congrats and admiration to all the authors who work so hard to do this thing that sometimes–okay, often–feels impossible.

Merry Christmas, or happy holiday of your choosing. I will see you back here in 2011.

Previously on the Reading Report:

Nonfiction

How’d They Do That? (feats of literary awesomeness)

Thrillers, Chillers, and Suspense (YA)

Graphic Novels (and other interesting uses of images with text)

Middle-Grade Sweet Reads

Before this year, I can’t say that I’ve read any nonfiction aimed at young readers – not since I was a young reader myself, anyway. Now that I have, I intend to keep doing it. Nonfiction aimed at a younger audience is a great, efficient way to expand your knowledge and experience of the world without the time and energy investment that it takes to read, say, a David McCullough or Shelby Foote tome. Obviously, in these books you’re getting a somewhat abbreviated version of the facts, but for those of us not writing theses, that’s plenty.

Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos

This is an absolutely fascinating look at the influence of the sugar trade on…everything. It covers the history of sugar from ancient Greece to the present. Sugar was political, it was emotional, the growing and harvesting of it was brutal, and the world got its cake on the backs of slaves.  The book includes a good number of pictures that interact nicely with the text. I know this has been on a lot of the year-end “best of” lists, and for good reason.

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The Brave Escape of Edith Wharton by Connie Nordhielm Wooldridge

The “brave escape” referred to in the title of this biography is the escape from the traditional roles and expectations placed on girls and women during author Edith Wharton’s time. For someone who has never read anything by Wharton, I sure connected with this book. Wharton came across as a kindred spirit to me for a number of personal reasons, and is just a great character to follow through a changing society and world.

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The Battle of Nashville by Benson Bobrick

Okay, so before this book I’m pretty sure I’ve never intentionally read anything about the Civil War other than in high school history classes. Clearly, I need to, because I was moved, horrified, and inspired, and my patriotism–normally somewhat subdued–was aroused in good ways. This book focuses on one particular general and one particular battle, but it certainly kindled my interest in American history. As a bonus, it includes the full text of both of Lincoln’s inaugural addresses, which should be required reading for everyone, especially at a time when our country is so politically divided.

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Previously on the Reading Report:

How’d They Do That? (feats of literary awesomeness)

Thrillers, Chillers, and Suspense (YA)

Graphic Novels (and other interesting uses of images with text)

Middle-Grade Sweet Reads

I’m back, with a list of books that inspired my admiration and awe as a writer, books that beyond being memorable reads, kindled my enthusiasm for craft on some level: language or structure or originality or feats of storytelling wonder and courage.

(Aspiring writers take note: with the probable exception of White Cat, if you took these manuscripts and pitches to a conference, you’d probably be told that you need to learn more about the market, you need to punch up your story, you need to rethink the basic premise, you need to make it more relateable…blah blah blah. Yes, none of these works are debuts, but still I hope you can take heart that if you write what you must write and do it to the highest level of craft you can possibly muster, good things will happen.)

Dark Water by Laura McNeal (a 2010 National Book Award Finalist)

A beautiful and difficult book. The prose is absolutely lovely throughout, and breathtaking in places. McNeal makes some choices with the story here that I don’t know if I could make, yet they feel true. You will argue with this narrator, perhaps aloud, in the end.

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The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan & illustrator Peter Sis

I think this book is best appreciated if you know very little about it. So I’m not going to tell you much, other than that it is gorgeous, and moving, and feels good to hold.

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Borrowed Names: Poems about Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madame C.J. Walker, Marie Curie, and Their Daughters by Jeannine Atkins

This is a collection of linked poems in a book that utterly defies the elevator pitch, the three-point query letter, and the market. The three women of the title were all born in the same year – 1867. They were all pioneers in some ways; all made remarkable lives for themselves and for others. And they all had daughters who were coming of age around the turn of the century, in a rapidly changing world. This work unexpectedly deepened my experience of the world. A great gift for the amazing mother or daughter in your life.

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The Water Seeker by Kimberly Willis Holt

Cross-generational historical fiction. It’s difficult to categorize, and almost not a YA or MG book, but who cares? It’s the kind of book that, if ever I were to have so complex a story idea, I would never write because I’d quickly dismiss it as “too hard” or maybe “impossible.” I really admire Holt for taking it on, and pulling it off.

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White Cat by Holly Black

The first book in a new series from Black—the Curse Workers—this is a masterwork of disciplined prose, structure, and plotting. It’s a page-turner that always stayed just exactly the right amount of space ahead of me. Meaning: I could not predict what would happen next, but also I was not at all confused by this complicated world that looks a lot like ours but is full of powers and questionable loyalties and deceit. I can’t wait for the next installment!

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The Last Summer of the Death Warriors by Francisco X. Stork

From the author of Marcelo in the Real World, which you know I loved, comes “a novel about the big things we live and die for, and the people who make those things matter.” Now, I know there is a resistance to books you have to “work” at reading. I’ve found that both of Stork’s books challenged me, and the more attention I brought to my reading of them, the more rewarding that experience was. You could say that’s true of all books, but there’s a depth to Stork’s writing and thinking that requires a little more of the reader than your average YA novel. And I think this is a very good thing.

(And, holy smokes, Arthur A. Levine Books, do you make some unbelievably beautiful book covers for this man!)

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Previously on the Reading Report:

Thrillers, Chillers, and Suspense (YA)

Graphic Novels (and other interesting uses of images with text)

Middle-Grade Sweet Reads

The Marbury Lens by Andrew Smith

I’ve been dying to talk about this book. Dying. Now that I can, I’m not sure how to. I like this line from the cover blurb from Michael Grant: “You’ll want to put it down and walk away but that is not happening.” Andrew has never been noted for feel-good stories, but this hits a whole new level of disturbing. Our hero, Jack, goes through something pretty horrendous right off the bat, and you think, oh, god, where are we going from here? Well, I’ll let the cover copy tell you:

It’s a place worse than Hell. And Jack keeps going back to it. He can’t help himself. Nobody can. Jack has his reasons. He has his doubts, too. See for yourself. Just a peek.

This book only recently came out, and is bound to cause some controversy and lively discussion. Personally, I was thrilled to read something that totally lacked sweetness, that surprised me on every page, and that made me very, very grateful to be safe at home. And there is something pleasurable about being filled with dread. That’s why people like horror movies. Not me. But horror books I can take.

(If you are sweet grandmother looking for something to put under the tree for a young relative, please do not blindly buy this book and then come crying to me when it comes back to haunt you. Think horror and Stephen King-esque in terms of who you’d give this to.)

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The House of Dead Maids by Clare B. Dunkle, illustrated by Patrick Arrasmith

Speaking of horror, check out that cover! Holy smokes, that is enough to give me nightmares right there. This book is, and I quote, “A chilling prequel to Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights that blends Yorkshire love and Bronte family history.” Hello! I love you already. As I read this, I thought a lot about Henry James’ Turn of the Screw, too. It’s a gothic horror/ghost story in which a young teen (orphan? I can’t remember), Tabby, is whisked away to be the nursemaid of an awful little boy. Terror ensues. The writing is so, so, tight – not one wasted word (see also: Blank Confession) – and the book features appropriately creepy woodcut illustrations at the start of each chapter.

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Accomplice by Eireann Corrigan

So you and your best friend decide it would be a superfantastic idea to fake her kidnapping. You know, hide her for a couple of days, “find” her safe and sound, be heroes and media darlings, and have a great story to tell in your college applications that will give you an edge for acceptance and scholarships. I mean, really, what could go wrong? (I will give you a hint: everything.) For me, this was a well-constructed page-turner, that told a compelling story and also explored our obsession with celebrity and true crime, loyalty, and complicated friendships between girls.

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Blank Confession by Pete Hautman

Smarter readers than me have noted this is a retelling of the classic Western movie, Shane. I did not know that, but loved it anyway. There are some great characters here, terrific dialogue, and you could bounce a quarter off the plot. As in House of Dead Maids, the prose, too, is incredibly tight. If it were any tighter it would be a haiku. If you’re a writer and want to see “not one wasted word” in action, read this. (Also, check out the series of book trailers on the author’s site. That Hautman is ready for his Law & Order gig!)

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