Ugh. I'm only finished two books now. Book number 2 for the year is Shakespeare's Wife by Germaine Greer. Yes, that Germaine Greer. Anyway, this book is exactly what it sounds like, it is a 'biography' of Shakespeare's wife, the much vilified Ann Hathaway. But the thing is, and this is the crux of Greer's entire book, it WHY is it popular in scholarly works about Shakespeare, to vilify his wife so? This ill-treatment of a woman who perhaps didn't deserve to be branded so is based pretty much on only three things; that Shakespeare didn't move his family to London when he was there, that we don't know how often he journeyed home to Stratford during his years in London and, finally (and supposedly the most damning evidence), he left Ann his second-best bed in his will.

There is little actual documented evidence left over about Shakespeare, and really even less about Ann. But over the years, it has been fairly widely 'accepted' that Shakespeare and Ann did not have a happy marriage, that she basically trapped him (she was older than he and she was pregnant when they married) and he resented her for this in all their years together, so basically abandoned his wife and children for his career in London.

But Greer does her best to offer plausible arguments to refute this. She painstakingly sifts through records of common lives of contemporaries of Shakespeares’, and she contends that back then there was nothing unusual in a baby’s being born six months after a marriage. She also demonstrates that an unmarried woman in her mid-20s would not have been considered exceptional or desperate. Ann Hathaway, Greer argues, was likely to be literate, and given the relative standing of their families in Warwickshire, she may very well have been considered a more desirable match than her husband. So there all you Ann haters. Greer also puts forth the idea that Shakespeare may not have supported his family financially, and so makes Ann very capable of many domestic tasks that would allow her to be financially independent, which was also not a stretch for the time, according to documents left from the era.

Of course, all this is pure speculation on Greer's part. She does her best to back it up by using all available documents she can find and read from the times, and sometimes this proof does get hard to slog through. The vast cast of characters Greer introduces from Stratford (and other places) gets to be difficult to keep track of, and sometimes, the detail is so overwhelming that I found myself forgetting what it was Greer was trying to use these anecdotes in defense of.

But overall, Greer paints a picture of a woman who is extremely capable, loyal and intelligent. Greer's Ann is much more interesting than anyone has ever given her credit for being in the past, and I found myself hoping that Ann was closer to Greer's thesis, because otherwise, it makes all of Shakespeare's beautiful writings on love seem a little more empty.*

*I've never bought into the idea that some of Shakespeare's sonnets were written to a man, given the way homosexuality was condemned in Elizabethan England. For Shakespeare to have written such blatant offerings to a man would have been incredibly ill-advised. Greer does touch on this in her book as well, and I found myself thinking her explanations made much more sense. Oh, and I also hated the movie Shakespeare in Love. Pure bunk.

And the first book of 2010 is The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill. This is the book that won Canada Reads in 2009. It tells the tale of
Aminata Diallo, an 11-year-old child, is taken from her village in West Africa and forced to walk for months to the sea and cross the Atlantic where she is sold as a slave in South Carolina. Her life is torn asunder and becomes a matter of survival, but she is bright and a trained mid-wife, and these skills serve her well. Years later, she finds freedom, serving the British in the American Revolutionary War and having her name entered in the historic "Book of Negroes." This book, an actual historical document, is an archive of freed Loyalist slaves who requested permission to leave the United States in order to resettle in Nova Scotia.

It's a tough book to read. Deservedly so though. The sheer amount of suffering and horror the slaves who were stolen from Africa went through is tough to imagine. Actually, I admit, I don't want to imagine it, but Hill spells it out in stark terms, you can't look away from what he's describing. it's hard to read about the filth and the sickness and the degredation and the rape and the children that Aminata had taken away from her. But that would've been par for the course, and even though this is a fictionalized account of a slave's life, you know it's not really fiction at all.

But there is a strange amount of hope in this book. As I said, Aminata is clever, she learns to read and this helps her raise her station in life, even though society makes it very difficult for her to do so.

The ending could be considered a little trite, but upon considering all the hardships and horror Aminata had to face during her life, it was nice there was a happy ending.

This book goes well with Bury the Chains, the account of the abolishionist movement in England that Aminata eventually gets herself mixed up in. They are both books that need to be read.

Here we are, January 1, 2010, so time to sum up another year's worth of reading. Despite thinking that I wasn't going to be able to read much once the baby arrived in July, it seems the opposite happened and I was able to read more books than I did last year. I'm still nowhere near the elusive 50 books in a year mark, but I did manage 33 all told, and I'm pretty happy with that number. Living very near a library has helped as I've been able to just grab things I've thought looked interesting in the past, but not enough that I'd spend the money on them. I've forgotten how much I like libraries.

So what did I read? The list is as follows:

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Will in the World by Stephen Greenblatt
Wicked by Gregory Maguire
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith
Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maughm
Speaks the Nightbird by Robert McCammon
Darkly Dreaming Dexter by Jeff Lindsay
The Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger
The Sound of No Hands Clapping by Toby Young
The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean
Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrel by Susannah Clarke
Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde
Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde
Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden
How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young
The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold
Mad Kestrel by Misty Massey
Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain
The Book of Mordred by Vivian Vende Velde
Firethorn by Sarah Micklen
The Nanny Diaries by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin
Twilight by Stephanie Meyers
The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold
Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen
Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett
Thank You for Smoking by Christopher Buckley
In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F. Cantor
The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret Macmillian
Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro
Peter and Max by Bill Willingham
Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by Harold Bloom

Looking back on this, I didn't read anywhere near as much new fantasy as I usually do, with really only a few counting towards that (Thief of Time, Mad Kestrel, Peter and Max, The Book of Mordred and Firethorn). However, one of them, Firethorn, was undoubtedly the worst book I read this year, with a boring plot and thoroughly unlikeable main characters.

I read a lot more 'popular' works than I usually do, such bestsellers as The Time Traveller's Wife, The Lovely Bones and yes, Twilight. Twilight was the worst written book of the year, it is such drivel that I can scarce understand why it is so popular.

Another trend of mine this year seemed to be industry tell all books, reading the likes of Toby Young's two 'memoirs', Anthony Bourdain's chef-tell-all and The Nanny Diaries.

My favourite book this year? I have to go back to the beginning and go with The Thirteenth Tale. An astounding piece of work that feels like a throwback to old Gothic-style ghost stories, as well as being a love letter to reading. I've been resoundingly recommending it.

So there we have it, my 2009 in books. I've already started my first book for 2010 and maybe this will be the year that I finally break 50 books. But as I'm going to be working hard on finally finishing writing a book of my own, well... maybe not.

And I was doing so well... then I ran into my last book of the year... Number 33 of this year is Jesus and Yahweh: The Names Divine by my favourite literary critic, Harold Bloom. As with all Bloom books, I had to think hard while reading this one, which is basically where he looks at Jesus and Yahweh as characters in the bible, and at their inconsistent portrayals throughout. It was very interesting, but since I don't have a very biblical background (in that I've never read the darn thing all the way through or anything), much of it was over my head and difficult to get through. The parts where Bloom compared Jesus to Hamlet though, those I understood.

I did take a bible course in university, as I thought it would be helpful for my English degree. And it was, it certaintly made some of the more well-used allegories easier to recognize, but we only looked at some of the bible, mainly the Old Testament, not much of the New, so the parts of the book dealing with Jesus were pretty much a mystery to me. Which I actually think was part of Bloom's point; because Jesus' personality (such as it is) is so different in the various gospels, we definitely don't get much of a sense of who he was. And Bloom finds this very fascinating especially given the predominance Jesus plays in American religion, where much of it is centered on 'knowing' Jesus and how he 'knows' them. Bloom thinks that is rather preposterous.

He also points out that Yahweh somehow morphed into the Christian's "Father" of the Holy Trinity, but do not seem to be the same God. Yahweh, Bloom posits, is not love, yet the Father is supposed to be love. Also, the Father seems to have been stripped of any personality or humanity, but when you read the older stuff, Yahweh is full of both.

It's a very interesting, but difficult read, but I do find purely literary approaches to the bible rather interesting.

Number 32 this year is Peter and Max by Bill Willingham. Willingham writes one of my very, very favourite comic books, Fables. It is a comic about fairy tale characters and their like living among the 'mundies' in the real world, after they'd been driven out of their worlds by the Adversary, a conqeror who took over all their worlds and enslaved them. Anyway, Peter and Max is a Fables novel and it concerns the lives of two brothers, Peter Piper and his older brother Max, the infamous Pied Piper of Hamlin.

I thought it a logical idea of Willingham's to max the two characters brothers (one of those logical thoughts that I never would have thought of myself :) ) and he wastes no time in making the relationship between the two brothers go very, very wrong when Peter inherits the magical flute Frost from their father. Max is convinced it should've gone to him, and his envy over this basically drives the boy mad. Things go from bad to worse for the Piper family when the Adversary attacks and they're all separated.

Willingham writes evil very well, and Max is definitely a character who goes down that route and he becomes increasingly power hungry and more and more dangerous. The narrative goes back and forth between modern times and when Peter and Max were children. It's a good narrative overall, and it's nice to see how the Pipers fit in with the rest of the Fable community.

I think my only critcism with this book is how it resolved. It made complete and utter sense (Willingham is very good at making clever resolves, but they almost seem too easy in a way) but yes, just seemed a tad too easy.

But still, overall this was a very worthy entry in the Fables universe.

I keep meaning to go back and flesh out my last post, but I'm trying to write some other stuff and get reading done, plus you know, baby, so yeah, I've not been able to do that, and I think this post is going to be just as brief for awhile.

Number 31 is Too Much Happiness by the Canadian queen of the short story, Alice Munro. I think the title is a bit of a misnomer, because there is never, ever too much happiness in Alice Munro stories. They are overwhelmingly kinda... not really depressing, but definitely uncomfortable. There is something always off kilter about her stories, which is probably why I like them so much.

Knocked off a few more; number 28 is Thank You For Smoking by Christopher Buckley and number 29 is In the Wake of the Plague by Norman F.Cantor and number 30 is The Uses and Abuses of History by Margaret Macmillian.

Number 27 is Thief of Time by Terry Pratchett. Time was I used to read everything Pratchett put out, but the sheer number of books he manages to write actually made that a daunting task, so I slowed down in my Pratchett consumption. Also, I discovered I liked some of his groups of characters more than others. My favourites are the Watch, and my second favourite is Death and his family. Thief of Time concerns Death and his granddaughter Susan.

Honestly, I didn't like this one as much, I didn't find it as... funny as I usually find his books. Discworld's version of Death is usually amusing, but he didn't have an awful lot to do in this book, other than to send his granddaughter Susan to look into the matter of time being stopped and the world ending, and then try and convince the other three, er, rather four, retired Horsemen of the Apocalypse to ride out with him.

I think I didn't like this one as much because there was too much chronobabble, as an impossible clock is built, time is collected and delved out by a group of enigmatic monks, and Time has a son, twice, who is both destroyer and savior. Something about it all just didn't work for me as much as it usually does in Pratchett's books.

Number 26 is Sick Puppy by Carl Hiaasen. I've previously only read Striptease by Hiaasen (and it is a much better book than movie, even with Burt Reynolds hilarious turn), which I enjoyed, so I decided to give another of his books a shot.

Sick Puppy tells the story of Twilly Spree, an independently wealthy eco-terrorist who one day spots political lobbyist Palmer Stoat chucking litter out of his Range Rover, and so decides to teach him a lesson. Stoat, however, isn't the type to get a lesson, he lives in his own world of wealth and political fixes and fixed big-game hunts. After Twilly abducts Stoat's dog and wife, the fun really begins.

It is a darkly funny novel, and even though what Twilly does is highly illegal for the most part, you definitely cheer for him over the slimy politicos who want to turn a pristine Florida island into yet another condo development with a golf course. Twilly is an angry young man, but with the means and smarts to make things happen. He 'abducts' Stoat's dog, Boodle (renamed McGuinn by Twilly), an affable black Labrador retriever, in order to get Stoat to stop the development on the island. Hiaasen's use of the dog is hilarious, he's obviously owned a Lab before and therefore understands that breed's mindset.

The climax of the story occurs at one of the faux-big game hunts that Stoat embarks on, where he basically 'hunts' poor old animals procured specifically by the owners of the game preserve. Stoat and his toady friends are there to hunt a rhinocerous, but the tables are wonderfully turned and it is a stangely happy ending.

Number 25 this year is The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. It seems to me that, after having read two of her novels, that Sebold excels at writing what should be gawd-awful depressing stuff, and yet somehow makes it not depressing.

The Almost Moon starts off with a rather shocking act; the main character, Helen Knightley, kills her elderly, dementia ridden mother. You quickly find out that Helen not only views this as a mercy killing for her mother, but also one for herself, as her relationship with her mother has been, shall we say, contentious.

The novel then slowly unfolds, almost like a murder mystery, Helen's family past as she works through what to do in the present. She has killed her mother, she knows the police will figure it out, and she has to decide what to do. Helen's family history is not easy, her contentious relationship with her mother stems from her mother's mental illness and leads to a very deep love/hate relationship.

The book is a fascinating look at a very damaged family. Sebold doesn't make you feel sorry for Helen though; she's much too unloveable for that (and not because she killed her infirm mother), but you do end up understanding why the way Helen is and why she relates (or doesn't relate) to the world around her.

A good, quick read overall.

Yup, I went and did it; number 24 of this year is Twilight by Stephanie Meyers. A good friend of mine had warned me not to read it, that it really wasn't very good, but as with most publishing 'phenomenons', my curiosity got the better of me and so, when finally seeing it at the library, I borrowed it.

No, it's not very good. It starts off fine, a nice teenaged, fish out of water type tale, but it kinda... devolved from there. The character of Edward is so very insufferable and condesending towards the main character it made me wonder why the hell she likes him so much, other than he's really good looking. Oh and a vampire. A nearly 100 year old vampire, masquerading as a high school student, and so I realized this is probably the most creepy May/December romance ever. Dude, a 17 year old girl is the best you can do? Ick...

And this 17 year old girl, Bella, wow is she passive. She's so awkward and not good at anything except being motherly to her parents, and so once again it's like, why does he like her? Because she's pretty and she smells good. Ok yeah... Most of the novel is about how Edward has to rescue her over and over again. He's more like her bodyguard than anything else. It would've been nice had she been able to rescue herself at some point, but no. Although, she does recognize this and so of course, wants to be turned into a vampire. I'm sure that'll happen in some other book.

I guess that's it, this all felt terribly shallow to me. And juvenille. But I guess I shouldn't be surprised really. As far as angsty vampires go, Edward's got nothing on Lestat.

Have actually managed to knock off a few more books, mainly due to reading during sleepless nights and when Laurel's feeding. So number 22 of the year is Firethorn by Sarah Micklen. Rather than sum this book up myself, I shall just reiterate what it says on the Chapters website: Before she was Firethorn, she was Luck, named for her red hair and favored by the goddess of Chance. A lowborn orphan, Luck is destined to a life of servitude. But when her mistress dies, Luck flees to the forest, where she discovers the sacred firethorn tree, whose berries bring her fevered dreams, a new name…and strange gifts. When she emerges from the woods, Firethorn is a new woman, with mysterious powers.

And soon, in the chaos of the UpsideDown Days, when the highborn and the low trade places, Firethorn couples with the warrior Sire Galan, whom she follows to camp with the king's army. There she learns that in her new role as a sheath, a warrior's bedservant, she is but one step above a whore. By day she uses her gifts as a healer to earn a place among the camp's women, and by night she shares Sire Galan's bed, her desire equal to his. But the passion they feel for each other has no place in a world ruled by caste and violence. When her lover makes an ill-considered wager that chances her heart, the consequences are disastrous-and Firethorn will learn how hard it can be to tell honor from dishonor, justice from vengeance.

Honestly, I'm not even sure why I finished this book. I did not like it at all. Rather than some grand romance, most of what she and Sir Galan do is fight and argue, and DAMN it is annoying. Nor does anything really HAPPEN in this book. The whole thing takes place at a camp while they're waiting to go to war, and it just gives them opportunity to do stupid things, talk about their (overly convoluted) pantheon and argue some more. I just wanted to smack both characters all too frequently. So yeah, did not enjoy this book much at all.

Number 23, following in the vein of Toby Young and Anthony Bourdain "industry tell-all books" is The Nanny Diaries by Nicola Kraus and Emma McLaughlin. Both authors were nannies for well-healed families in New York City. While this book isn't about a specific family, but rather a pastiche of the various families they worked for over the years. It's a funny book, but also rather heartbreaking story though as she tells of looking after 4 year old Grayer, a smart, loving kid who is basically ignored by his self obsessed parents. His mother does nothing but shop and attend events, whilst complaining that child-rearing is exhausting her. The husband is having an affair, and eventually, the mistress starts asking the Nanny to run errands for her when she's going to be in town for a tryst. The Nanny really wants nothing to do with all that, understandably. Eventually, everything comes to a head when she's on a two week vacation to Nantucket with the family. The husband does not want to be there, the wife desperately wants him to stay (she even goes so far as to invite her mother-in-law to stay with them for a week, without informing her husband first), and the mistress is calling them every hour or so because the husband was supposed to come home a week early and spend it with her. Nanny also finds out they've installed a 'nanny cam' back at the apartment in New York and feels absolutley betrayed (but she should hardly be surprised). But when Grayer falls down and hurts himself and would rather his Nanny's comfort than his mother's, the Nanny's time is up and she's unceremoniously fired and not even given an opportunity to say good bye to Grayer. It's a harsh, but probably rather realistic look at people who probably shouldn't have ever had children, even though they have more than enough money to be able to spend oodles of time with their kids.

Number 21 of the year may prove to be the last for a little bit as on July 6, our little girl was born, so I find I have time for not much other than staying awake most of the night, feeding a hungry new born. Which is just fine :) Anyway, number 21 is The Book of Mordred by Vivian Vende Velde. This book is aimed at teen readers, so I wasn't expecting too much from it, and it did prove a little frustrating to me. Basically, it centers around Mordred, and three women in his life, the young, magically adept Kiera, her mother, Alayna, and the sorceress Nimue. Now, the story is told from their point of views (kinda a Mists of Avalon-lite) and starts after Kiera is kidnapped, basically because she is magically gifted. Alayna journeys to Camelot for help, and it is Mordred who helps her, and goes with her to a known-wizard's castle.

The plot is ok, but the thing I had the hardest time with was basically the overall point of the book I guess. The author quotes, at the beginning, an excerpt from a letter written by Sir Thomas Mallory, where he basically says that Mordred is the bad guy in the Arthurian Legends, and beyond that, he doesn't need much depth or explanation. So I gathered that we were going to get a better look at Mordred and his motivations through his relationship with these three women. Except I didn't really get any of that. If anything, the three women found him to be just as much an enigma as everyone else does in every other tale. I was a little disappointed nothing was really different. Even at the end, when Mordred was attempting to usurp Arthur's throne (or rather in this case Arthur had agreed to divvy up his kingdom between the two of them in order to keep the peace), there didn't seem to be much motivation for it other than that's what Mordred does, he is a divisive force. Also, why did he take part in the plot to trap Lancelot and Guinevere? I never felt there was much reason given other than he wanted Arthur to be shamed, which is a pretty run of the mill reason as far as the tales go.

So yes, while the characters were all fine and dandy, but I just felt this book kinda missed it's own raison d'etre.

Number 20 is Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain. My husband is on a bit of a biography/industry tell-all kick right now, having read Toby Young's two offerings. After seeing Bourdain's show, No Reservations and enjoying it the couple of times we've caught it, I questioned who Bourdain was, so after a googling, we found out he was indeed a chef, and had penned a tell all book about the restaraunt business. So, off to the library to get it.

It's an interesting book, but not really a 'warts and all, look how ugly this business is' book. Or maybe it's just because I expected the book to go like it is. Or there are too many chef shows on tv these days with the chefs yelling and humilating all the underlings, so I kinda knew already what Bourdain's main idea is, that you have to actually love food and be willing to sacrifice pretty much everything else in your life if you become a lifer in a restaraunt, especially a high-end chef.

The book is entertaining, and Bourdain himself, while he admits to being a very big asshat at times in his life, and having numerous substance abuse problems, does sort of gloss over this (which is fine actually) to tell about influential people and moments during his long career. It is obvious that there are a lot of 'characters' in the food industry, some good and some bad. Bourdain also gives a lot of helpful hints about what you should and shouldn't do (mainly, opening up a restaraunt is don't do number one, but people are always doing so anyway).

I'm definitely not a foodie, a lot of times I eat strictly because I have to. While there are some foods I do love, I'm not an adventerous eater, but I still found this book interesting.

Number 19 is Mad Kestrel by Misty Massey. Basically, all I can say about this one is it has pirates, main character is female pirate captain, there's magic, and main character (Kestrel) has pre-requisite "I'm attracted to you but I hate you, I hate you, I don't trust you, I have to trust you, I hate you still, ok, you're trustworthy, I love you" relationship with other character who is sort of one of the main protagonists. Not a great book, but fun enough. I like pirates.

Numero 18 of the year is The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. This is another of those books that keeps getting recommended or I sort of keep meaning to read, but every time I pick it up and read what it's about, all I can think is 'how can this not be gawd-awful depressing?' Because really, what about a 14 year old being raped and killed isn't gawd-awful depressing?

And yet, it isn't. I don't know how Sebold managed to pull it off, but the book's not depressing. Yes it is sad in places as we watch main (dead) character Susie Salmon watch her family slowly disintigrate after her death, but because not every family member collapses completely, there is a sort of... triumph to this book. The grief is heavy, but not insurmountable for some. And of course, we see the different ways in which they all grieve.

And because we get the tale from Susie's POV, she is not a hole of loss in the book; she is still very much a going concern and is, dare I say it, alive to the reader.

I did have some problems with the book though; I admit, I really would've liked it had there been a little more justice for Susie. Also, I wasn't really sure about the ending, but I think it also ties into the wanting more justice for Susie.

Anyway, I did enjoy this book, and my main reason for finally picking it up; reading that Peter Jackson is doing a movie adaptation of it, means I will be checking out the film when it's released as well.

Hmm, not sure why the sudden increase in getting books read, but I've managed to polish off two more:

Number 16 is the Last King of Scotland by Giles Foden. This is a fictionalized account of a young, Scottish doctor who gets sucked in by Ugandan dictator Idi Amin's charisma during Amin's reign 1971-1979. The book does a very good job of making you understand why the doctor is simultaneously intreuged and repulsed by Amin, but I'm not entirely sure it does a good job of displaying how brutal Amin's regime was. Oh it is shown, but perhaps because the doctor himself seems so... dispassionate about it, it's hard for the reader to feel outrage either. In fact, it really isn't until the doctor is threatened with bodily harm and imprisonment himself that he realizes how bad the situation actually is and decides he needs to get out of Uganda. It's hard to feel bad for him because he doesn't seem to feel bad for those around him. But still, overall, this is a very interesting book and definitely makes Idi Amin a larger than life character; it doesn't glamourize or humanize him, I think it does try to show him for what he was. I would definitely like to check out the movie version now.

Number 17 is How to Lose Friends and Alienate People by Toby Young. I previously read Young's follow up to this memoir, so it was nice to actually read this book, his first 'take' on making it (or not) in the US. Toby gets a chance to work at fabled magazine Vanity Fair, but basically bollocks it up. He has a very entertaining view on the life of upper class New Yorkers and he desperately wants to be part of that elite, but at the same time, he detests it. I've also seen the movie version of this book, and was quite surprised at how... deep the book is compared to the movie. Toby is more interested in the class hierarchy of New York, something he didn't realize was there, and something that he feels is even more restrictive than the supposedly increadibly restrictive class system of Britain. HtLFaAP seems less a memoir and more a sociological thesis of a Brit living and working in New York. Very interesting from that point of view. And the funny thing is, Toby doesn't come across sounding like sour grapes in that he didn't make it as a writer there; I think he was greatful for the experience, and even more greatful to find out that in the long run, it really just wasn't for him.

Well, I'm remiss in posting again I see. Mainly due to a VERY busy May, and now June is all about getting ready for when the baby arrives...

So just a quick run-down of the last three books I've read:

Number 13 is Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norell by Susannah Clarke. Long gone are the days where I can polish off a 1000 page book in a matter of days. Now it takes me a couple of weeks at least. Anyway, this was a book I'd always been meaning to read, but never got around to. The size didn't deter me, but I'd heard a few times that it was really boring, and I guess that put me off. But I finally grabbed it from the library and found that I quite enjoyed it. Taking place during the Napoleonic Wars, it centers on two magicians, the older Mr. Norell and his young 'apprentice' Jonathan Strange. They want to bring back English magic, and put it to work for their country fighting Napoleon. But of course, they have wildly divergent personalities, which eventually clash. Overall, I really liked this book, Clarke's writing style did a nice pastiche of early 1800s novels, and she sets up a very nice internal consistency of how magic works (or doesn't work) in her world, and I very much like her mythology of Faerie and the Raven King.

Number 14 is Lost in a Good Book by Jasper Fforde. Ok, I honestly cannot remember if I'd read this puppy before, as a friend of mine had lent me the first Thursday Next book, The Eyre Affair , but I did enjoy that, and enjoyed this one too. Fforde's world is a strange mix of sci-fi, crime novels and a degree in English literature. Kinda reminds me of the comic book Fables, in that fictional characters have a life of their own outside of the works we see them in. Anyway, I like these books for their literariness, but I find Thursday to be a bit of a cypher herself; somehow I just don't find her that interesting of a main character.

Number 15 is The Well of Lost Plots by Jasper Fforde. The Wuthering Heights anger management self-help group was worth the entire price of admission of this book.

Number 12 is The Smartest Guys in the Room by Bethany McLean. This book details the rise and fall of Enron, which earned the dubious title as filing the largest single bankruptcy in US history. Way to go guys!

I work for a company that develops risk management software, and all I could think while reading this book, is how desperately Enron could've used some. Of course, they also probably wouldn't have USED it, they were rampant in their desire to run barely legal end-games around sound risk management and accounting procedures, but still... what they tried to get away with was just wow. And the thing is, working for the company I do, I actually understood some of what they were trying to get away with. I know what credit derivatives and zero return swaps and counterparties are. Makes me feel smart :) I mean, I don't understand everything; it's kinda like knowing enough of a foreign language to get the gist of the conversation, but knowing you're still missing nuances.

Anyway, it is a fascinating, maddening book reading about all these people who got pretty damn rich yet it never seemed to be enough. And that's the problem, no one ever said 'enough', not the banks, not their accounting firm, not their lawyers, becuase everyone was too busy making money off them, until finally, the house of cards couldn't be sustained and no one was making money anymore. Then they were cut loose.

Number 11 is The Sound of No Hands Clapping by Toby Young. This is the sequel memoir from Young, who gave us How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, which was his 'insider's report' when working at Vanity Fair. It was turned into an amusing movie starring Simon Pegg (yes, it seems we really will see him in anything), but I hadn't yet read the book. G tried to find a copy of the book in a used bookstore, but was only able to come up with this one.

SoNHC is about Young's attempt to be a screen-writer. He has no experience in doing so, but manages to land a couple of jobs that require him to crank one out. Of course one of these jobs is to adapt his own book, How to Loose Friends... so that some big-shot Hollywood producer (he never names said producer, nor really gives enough good clues as to his identity, but I took great delight in deciding that the producer was Robert Evans, because frankly, everything is better with Evans in it). But as Young embarks on this career, his family life becomes more complicated as his newly wedded wife becomes pregnant (twice, over the course of the book) and so now he must worry about actually making money from his writing efforts.

It's an interesting look at Hollywood from someone who really had no clue how to play the game, wasn't entirely sure he wanted to play the game (no, no he didn't) and eventually decided that yeah, his family was more important to him than becoming a BIG NAME SCREENWRITER (which really no one becomes anyway). He does become a bit of a playwrite, which makes him some money and makes him happy, so the book does end on a nice, happy note.

I still want to read How to Lose Friends and Alienate People though, because I'm definitely going to read VF editor Graydon Carter as being played by Jeff Bridges. He was a hoot in the movie.