Simona's 50-Book Challenge 2008
Here's how I think I did:
50 books in one year, hmmm? So much for that wild idea. In retrospect, it's kind of like that bit in Macbeth, you know, the part about ambition which overleaps itself and falls down upon the other. On one hand, I feel as though I hanged my hat a little bit too high, but on the other hand, I know that last year wasn't the easiest one for me and for a long time I really didn't have it in me even to do something as pleasurable as read.
Excuses aside, though, I can only come up with one verdict: Fail, Fail, Fail! 41 books! Out of 50! Not bad, but not good enough.
For 2009, it's make or break. I'm reading 50 books... if it kills me.
December 29
December 31
Book #41 is The Undomestic Goddess by Sophe Kinsella
And here I am, 5 hours before midnight, finishing up one of the more delightful books of the year. I was in half a mind whether to finish it tonight; after all, if I finished it tomorrow, I'd be able to chalk it up as Book #1 for '09...but that would be cheating. Besides, it was too delicious to put down.
I enjoyed it from the bottom of my heart. It was sweet and laugh-out-loud funny and jealousy-inspiring and I am fer sure gonna get another of Kinsella's books next year. Good on ya, girl!
Book #40 (and it looks like I'm pretty much stuck there as the year draws to a close. 50 books! What was I thinking?) is Tastes Like Chicken by Lolita Files
The biggest surprise about this book was that
Lolita Files actually was the name of the author. When I'd picked it up, I
figured it was the name of the series, as in "The Rockfod Files." Shows
what I know.
I can't say I enjoyed it. At first, I was annoyed by the repetitive phrases and words, as if her editor didn't go through it with a stern enough red pencil. The girl's mother's bone heels clickety-clacked, like, four times in the first few pages, you know, like Lolita fell in love with the phrase and couldn't let it die.
But mainly, I just didn't like the characters. They were wooden, first of all, vulgar, second of all, and just not very nice people. I realise this is the trend in erotic chick lit, if that's the genre it is, but I just wasn't amused by the enthusiastic screwing around by all and sundry, the gigantic body parts, the frenetic oral that seemed to go down whenever anyone got within ten inches of a member of the opposite sex. Some people might find it stimulating. I found it tiresome.
Maybe I'm just getting old.
December 22
Book #39 is Olivia Joules and the Overactive Imagination by Helen Fielding
Loved this one. It was heavily ironic, stylishly over-dramatic, and exaggerated in a Swiftian sort of way that almost had you believing that the outrageously improbable adventures of dear old Olivia might actually happen to a normal human being.
Fielding's got a great sense of irony and dry British humor. Great fun, except for the Saturday Morning adventure serial-type cliff-hanger endings that were a little too cheesy to take, you know the kind: "Next thing she knew, she was looking down the barrel of a gun." End of chapter.
I have to admit it worked on me, though. I kept telling myself...just one more chapter, then I'll go to bed...
December 16
Book # 38 (and I know that gunning for 50 books by year's end is gonna be a dead loss, so I'm not even gonna try) is Flush by Carl Hiaasen.
Maybe I'm just immature, but I love a good young adult novel. Not a silly, inane, American Pie-Band Camp scenario, but a genuine one in which really likeable teenagers struggle with their issues. I'm more Breakfast Club that Porky's, 'kay?
This one is wonderfully written with fantastic characters, and I enjoyed every minute of it. Nice job. I'll be looking for more of Hiaasen's work, probably his stuff for the older crew.
December 10
Book #37 is Love Once Again by Devon Vaughn Archer
As always, I love the opportunity that presents itself to delve into a man's mind, when I read romance written by men. It's interesting to learn how they view relationships, sex, and even how they characterise women.
This book was thoughtful, real, and emotionally satisfying. God job.
November 24
Book #36 is Thieves' Paradise by Eric Jerome Dickey
I always admire Dickey's work. His storytelling is engrossing, his characters lifelike, his attention to details is unparalleled. I have to say, though, that this book didn't make me happy. It was downright depressing, to be honest, and every time I had a read I always wound up feeling worse than I did when I started.
His climax and epilogue were brilliant, though, and wrapped it up nicely for me, but I can't even look at the cover without feeling sad.
November 18
Book #35 is Ten Minute Pilates for Health and Harmony by Joyce Gavin and Walter McKone
Okay, so I have to admit that all these exercises, demonstrated by fact, slender, blank faced models look pretty easy. But given my innate laziness and the fact that half these exercises come with warning labels exhorting people with painful injuries not to do them (and given the fact that I ache all over), does anybody really think I'm going to do any of them? Same document
Book #34 is One Gentle Knight by Wayne Jordan
As usual, I never really get to just sit back and enjoy a romance novel, since my brain is always frantically analysing the thing, trying to deconstruct the writer's thoughts, pick apart her (or, in his case, his) style, characters, plotting and every other damn thing.
Anyway, this was a little different from the last book I read from Wayne, as Embracing The Moonlight was all action, FBI stuff. This was very character-driven, and very personal. Shamelessly sentimental and with loads of sex (the hero is hung like a Texas longhorn and his dick just won't quit.) My only quibble is that I didn't feel a sense of intense conflict tearing them apart. They did have little spats from time to time, but I never had the sense that the relationship was every in jeopardy.
Interesting to see how a man does it, though!
November 4
Book #33 is Don't Sweat the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson
I've heard so much about this book, and I was dying to try it. Now that I have, my response is...eh, okay. It's all right, guess. There's enough for me to get out of it, if I'm willing to apply it. But it was a little repetitive, and little feel-goody -- although that's probably the objective. Overall, I could take it or leave it.
November 2
Book #32 is Fiddlers by Ed McBain
Wait...what? Ed McBain is dead? When? How? And why was I not notified of this? I just got to the end of Fiddlers and read the inside of the dust jacket...to discover that my favourite crime writer died in 2005. No more 87th Precinct stories! Augh!
That said, though, I have to confess that reading this means that I've broken my own rule about reading an author only once per year. I'd totally forgotten that until I'd already started. I guess it doesn't matter all that much, since I've already broken my own bloody rule about reading 10 books that are older than I am, too, so I guess I might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.
Anyway, my one-sentence review of the book is: Classic McBain, easy and fun, just the way I like him.
October 31
Book #31 is The 38 Most Common Fiction Writing Mistakes by Jack Bickham
Notice the date? Notice the date of the last book I read? Yeah, that's right. It's taken me 2 months to read this one book. Unfortunately, it says more about me than the author. It was a pretty good book, actually. Easy to read, everything nicely spelled out. As with most books on writing, there's stuff in there that a seasoned writer's heard a dozen times before, and stuff that was new to me.
The fact that I now have to read 20 books in nine weeks barely bothers me at all. What really worries me is that I've only read two books in the last three months. For someone who lives and breathes books, makes a living with books, that's truly, truly disturbing. I know my mind has been elsewhere; it's been many places. Whatever that is, I need to get over it. I need to get settled. I need to start doing Pilates. Maybe I need Jesus.
Read about the third group of 10 books here
