updating the TBR lists.

Posted on January 7, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Following up on Thursday’s post about reading intentions, I figured I would go ahead and take a look at my lists and shelves. Updating them here helps me to get this chore done, so here we are.

You may recall the very cool Britannica bookshelves that Husband built me, gosh, almost a year ago? (They were mentioned, and pictured, here and here.) They’re still serving as my TBR shelves, and I have done some cleanup and photographed them for you here.




And then there are the Hemingway shelves, most of which I’ve read (his own work) but a significant portion of which I want very badly to find time for (more of the books about him).


I don’t think I’ll bother listing titles & authors here, but you can click the photo to enlarge. And please feel free to ask questions!

I have also collected some audiobooks on my iPod, so these are waiting in line:

  • Saturnalia by Lindsey Davis
  • Claire DeWitt and the City of the Dead by Sara Gran
  • Lacuna by Barbara Kingsolver
  • Touch by Alexi Zentner
  • Juliet by Anne Fortier
  • The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
  • The Likeness by Tana French
  • War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells
  • The Moon is Down by John Steinbeck

…and the big one,

  • Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

which at 38.5 hours is rather intimidating (not to say terrifying). I should be able to get through it in under a month…? But I have been wanting to read it and maybe this is the way. We shall see.

And finally, I’ve edited my ongoing Books I Wish to Read list here at the blog. You will notice that some books on the list also appear in my audio backlog and/or on my shelves; that is a good thing. 🙂

I admire those signed up for the TBR Double Dare; you are stronger than I! As I said a few days ago, I’m not ready for that kind of commitment. But I am going to try to stay a little closer to my TBR lists than I did in 2011, and the first step is cleaning up those lists! Here we go!

Have you set any goals for 2012?

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Reading Intentions – for the new year, or in general

Posted on January 5, 2012 by pagesofjulia

A number of you lovely fellow book bloggers have been posting, alongside your year-end wrap-up posts, your intentions for your reading in 2012. I am interested to see what you intend. I applaud those of you with lists. I wonder at your resolve; will you really stick to them? I couldn’t! I mean, gosh knows I have lists – dream lists (see Books I Wish to Read) – but I don’t do a very good job of reading from those lists. Here, just for fun, let me see… of 139 books in 2011, it looks like 13 were on a list back in 2010. That’s from memory; call it an approximate 10% at best. Now of course I can blame my book review gig at Shelf Awareness for sending me pre-publication copies of lots of wonderful books that are not on any lists! (There’s a conceivable exception to this, if I were anticipating one still to come out, but that doesn’t seem to happen very often.) The other problem with clearing out my TBR lists/shelves is working in a library. New books come flooding through every day, and some – necessarily – tempt me. I also get to shop for and BUY new books for the library, and you can bet some of those tempt me! (If I’m not buying any tempting books I’m probably doing it wrong.) While these are good problems to have, and I read (or listen to) lots of wonderful books that come to me in these ways – from Shelf Awareness (SA), or through the library – I also wish I were making greater dents in my TBR list and shelves.

Does this form an Intention? I’m not sure. I’m not going to give up my SA gig; I enjoy it, and it brings me new and interesting books, which improves the library as well. And I can’t resist picking up new books that come through at work, either; this also improves the service I provide at the library, because it keeps me up to date and better able to answer questions about the newest releases. But those books on my list, and my shelves, are there because I want to read them, and I do regret seeing them languish there. I don’t see myself making significantly more time to read in 2012 than I did in 2011; discovering audiobooks has allowed me to “read” during my daily commute, while running errands, and while working out in the gym and walking, and I already read during enough of my free time that Husband has been known to complain. Also, 2011 was an epic year for injuries for me, finally culminating in knee surgery, and keeping me off the bike for an entirely undesirable amount of time; if my riding & racing career goes the way I’d like it to in 2012, I will actually be doing less reading, not more! (I know!)

So will anything really change? I’d like to make some improvement in the backlog on my TBR list/shelves. Part of that improvement can come through weeding – as I’ve done before. If it’s been on my list for a few years and I’ve forgotten why I was interested, I can let it fade back off again. I’m also getting more and more comfortable with putting down a book I’m not enjoying. I like to tell my library patrons that there are too many amazing wonderful books in the world to waste our precious reading time on those that do not impress us! (I do try and stick with Nancy Pearl’s Rule of 50 in most cases.) And I’ll try to be a little more selective about the books I collect that then build up on my shelves at home…

I think I can expect to make some small improvement in 2012 at reading more books that I have intended and planned to read. It’s all about being selective. I have lists of books I’d like to find, and I have shelves of books that I’ve physically collected, and I have audiobooks downloaded onto my iPod awaiting my attention. I think I can make a vague commitment to choose from these as much as possible, where my schedule of reviews for SA allows. I can do that.

I have no resolutions to read more or less in various genres, in nonfiction, or in classics. I do aspire to read a respectable proportion of nonfiction, and of classics, but I don’t necessarily have a number or percentage goal, and I wasn’t too unhappy with my numbers last year. All I really want to do is read more books I meant to read – but I’m okay with the rest of them, too. New releases will continue to interest me and that’s okay; and it’s certainly more than okay for SA to continue to ship me galleys!

If it seems I’m lacking in significant resolutions, please don’t judge me. For one thing, I have made some non-bookish resolutions, regarding competitive mountain bike racing; saving money; and my home life with the loving Husband and two little dogs. It’s not that my reading life couldn’t be improved upon; it’s more that it’s not an area I want to go messing around with. I find my reading fairly satisfactory as it is, and I don’t want it to be a place of highly structured self-improvement. I want it to continue to be a place of recreation, fun, joy, learning, and relaxation. So that’s my reading intention for the new year: to enjoy reading, and to record it here.

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The Absolute #1 Best Book of 2011

Posted on January 2, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Ahem. Did I not make a point of choosing an overall favorite when I did that year-end post the other day? Shame on me. Sorry. I shall keep this brief. I just want to say that the best book I read in 2011 was…

Fire Season by Philip Connors.

If you’re interested, you can read my review; read my father’s review; or read about how Fire Season inspired my father and eventually me into some further reading.

It doesn’t hurt, of course, that this talented author whose book touched my life so much back in May, ended up contacting me and has been a pleasant correspondent ever since! But no, it’s not a popularity contest; Fire Season wins for what’s in between its pages, alone. Thanks Phil for writing, though. 🙂

Honorable mention goes to Dorothy Canfield’s The Home-Maker.

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2011: A Year in Review

Posted on January 1, 2012 by pagesofjulia

Well! I have tended to appreciate other bloggers’ wrap-up posts, so I thought I’d join in. This was my first full calendar year of blogging (I began in October 2010) and I definitely read more books this year than I have in a number of years, maybe ever. Although I’ve always been a big reader, this year was exceptional for several reasons: working in a library filled with tempting books; blogging about them; discovering audiobooks for my commute; and taking on a book review gig with Shelf Awareness, to name a few. (See some of my SA book reviews here.) I read 139 books this year.

Here are a few statistics…

  • 17% were nonfiction
  • 46% were by female authors
  • a whopping 63 of the 115 novels I read were mysteries; 10 were historical fiction and 11 were classics, the rest a smattering of short stories, drama, poetry, romance, fantasy, and “other.”
  • 38 were 100-300 pages; 80 were 300-500; 15 were over 500 pages, and 6 were under 100. Husband asked how many pages I read this year, so for his sake we’ll estimate, using the midpoint of the ranges (which may throw us way off but what the heck), and say I “read” some 50,580 pages this year! (keeping in mind that some were listened to and not read…)
  • 31 books, or 22%, were audiobooks – look what good use I made of my commute/driving/gym time!
  • 60% of the books I read came from the library! the vast majority came from the library where I work, with just a few coming from the Houston Public Library. another 24% came from publishers for review, leaving only a combined 22 books that came from my personal collection, books I was loaned, books I purchased, or (those treasured few) books I was given as gifts.

What fun.

Of these, I did of course have favorites… you can refer back to my premature Best of 2011 post of December 1, to which I’ve since added 11/22/63 and The Home-Maker, for an unwieldy list of 22 (!) books I loved this year. What can I say, I’m full of gushings. In honor of this Year in Review post, I have culled it down (painfully) to my Favorite 11 Books of 2011 (thanks Thomas for the idea, and for sending me two (!) of the books on the list*):

Whew! That’s a year! I see other bloggers discussing reading goals for 2012, and I don’t really have any to contribute… I think I’m going to pass on reading challenges this year. (You may recall that of the three I signed up for in 2011, I completed two and quit the third. I also participated in several readalongs: the Maisie Dobbs series, Gone With the Wind, and Their Eyes Were Watching God.) If anything, I’m most tempted by the TBR Double Dare (to read only books already on my TBR shelves from now til April 1…!), because my house is so full of books I want to read that I feel like I’ll never get to them all! But even if I didn’t encounter new books through my job that I want to read and probably should so I can talk with patrons about them, there’s my book review gig, which I love. So. No challenges. If anything, I’d like to make a dent in my TBR shelves at home; and part of that dent-making may come in the form of giving books away unread. Sigh.

My real reading goal in 2012 is to continue to read a diverse selection of new and old books; to continue blogging; and most importantly of all, to continue enjoying it. The day that reading feels like work will be a sad day, and the day I need to take a break; here’s to not finding that day in 2012!

Do you have reading goals this year? What challenges have you signed up for? (Don’t twist my arm…!) Did you do a year-end post that I may have missed? Please do share!

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The Versatile Blogger Award

Posted on December 17, 2011 by pagesofjulia

I would like to thank TBM, of The 50 Year Project, for thinking of me for the Versatile Blogger Award!

This is kind of a fun way to receive the award, since TBM would have been one of my top choices for it in return. I enjoy the travel photos combined with books and movies.

Here are the instructions:

  1. Nominate 10-15 fellow bloggers
  2. Inform the bloggers of their nomination
  3. Share 7 random things about yourself
  4. Thank the blogger who nominated you
  5. Add the Versatile Blogger Award Pic on your blog post

In nominating other bloggers, I’d like to be very low-pressure about the chain-letter-style requirement to keep passing it on; not all bloggers are interested in that, which is totally cool as far as I’m concerned. I will go ahead and name some other blogs that I feel are deserving – take the compliment! And pass it on if you like, but only if you like. No pressure.

So here are seven randoms facts about me:

  1. I am afraid of roller coasters and driving fast. But I do some things other people find frightening, like racing on the velodrome and mountain biking.
  2. I usually dress my pasta with salad dressing instead of red sauce. Weird, right?
  3. I like little dogs better than big ones.
  4. I never learned how to walk in high heels.
  5. I rode my bicycle to my wedding, as did Husband and my parents and the majority of our guests.
  6. I’m a morning person.
  7. And because it’s been the focus of my life lately: I recently had knee surgery and can’t wait to get better and get back on my bike!

And here are some blogs I enjoy for their versatility:

  • My R and R is actually a tumblr so I don’t know if that counts precisely, but I’m making this award my own. 🙂
  • Coffee and a Book Chick blogs about books (what can I say, we lean that way here at pagesofjulia) but life & personal things as well, and I like the new “A Walk About Town” meme.
  • My Porch does some great book blogging, and social commentary, and I never get sick of seeing pictures of Lucy (Thomas’s dog).
  • TERRIBLEMINDS does some book blogging, more writer’s blogging, social commentary, plenty of curse words on all subjects, and lately blogs about his baby sometimes too – I don’t always get excited over reading about people’s babies, but he’s so delightfully irreverent about it all.
  • write meg! blogs about reading, writing, and life.
  • books i done read is too hilarious to miss, ’nuff said.
  • cakes, tea and dreams is a displaced Texan who blogs about books as well as life’s small but important details.
  • The Feminist Texican [Reads] focuses on books addressing feminism, gender issues, and Mexican-American/border/cultural topics, but also an interesting range of subjects beyond that; I’m always interested to see what book-I’ve-not-heard-of-before she’s going to cover next.
  • useless beauty is another hilarious blog, purportedly covering quilting/knitting/crafting stuff, but in actuality just a hilarious look at many aspects of life in Cambridge (which turns out to be surprisingly foreign to this Houston girl. or maybe that’s not surprising at all?).
  • So Far From Heaven is definitely well-described by the word “versatile” – go check him out.
  • Finally – not that she needs my accolades – who could forget The Bloggess? Also laugh-out-loud funny.

Thanks again, TBM! Keep up the good work, yourself!

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best of 2011: year’s end

Posted on December 1, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Yes, I know there’s some time left. Perhaps I will add to this if the final weeks change anything, but I wanted to get this up with some time to spare, and maybe inspire you to share YOUR best books of the year! In no particular order, I give you the best books I read in 2011.

Those published in 2011:

Those published previous to 2011:

I’m so glad to know such great recommenders!! Thomas sent me a copy of Some Tame Gazelle as a prize for having cute dogs, and Simon recommended Who Was Changed and Who Was Dead. My editor at Shelf Awareness, Marilyn, assigned me Hemingway’s Boat and The Barbarian Nurseries. Raych doesn’t know it but she inspired me to read Rebecca, and a series of blogs influenced me to finally get around to In Cold Blood and We Have Always Lived in the Castle (I’m sorry I can’t remember who you all are… but you made a difference!). And finally, Amy has recommended several great books to me this year, most notably Kushiel’s Dart. Thank you all so much; you make it all worthwhile!

So how about it? Please tell me you have a best-of post to come, hmmm? Post a link here so we can all share around. And thanks for the recommendations! 🙂

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the Sharon Kay Penman corpus

Posted on November 27, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Sharon Kay Penman is probably my very favorite author of historical fiction. Her books are generally quite long (the exception is the shorter books in her mystery series starring Justin de Quincy), and so effortlessly create whole worlds that I just love to fall into. I turn to her books when I’m looking for a comfortable, engrossing read that won’t be over in a day or two! I’m slowly working my way through all her work; I’ve only read a few so far but have collected most of them. In chronological order, they are…

Standalone:
The Sunne In Splendour (1982) – reading now

The Welsh Trilogy
Here Be Dragons (1985) – own it (edit: read it)
Falls The Shadow (1988) – own it
The Reckoning (1991) – this was my first Penman, and I reread it several times before branching out, I loved it so much. Now I guess it’s time to go back and read the first two in this trilogy!

The Henry II Trilogy
When Christ And His Saints Slept (1995) – loved it
Time And Chance (2002) – own it
Devil’s Brood (2008) – own it
Lionheart (2011) – have it in the library

The Justin de Quincy Mysteries
The Queen’s Man (1996) – enjoyed it
Cruel As The Grave (1998)
Dragon’s Lair (2003)
Prince of Darkness (2005)

The other aspect of Penman’s work (which I’ve discussed before) is that she does meticulous research. I consider her to be an excellent example of a responsible author of historical fiction; the author’s notes at the back of each of her books details where history ends and where fiction begins, so that the responsible reader can be careful about how much she takes away from these books as fact. I definitely recommend her work.

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what I love about living in Houston

Posted on November 3, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Just because I love lists and bragging on my underrated hometown, I’m riffing off Katie again. Thanks for the prompt Katie! (Go read what she loves about Boston too.)

what I love about living in Houston:

1. It’s such an international city. I love that there is such a diversity of languages spoken and cultures represented in my melting pot port city.

2. …and spinning off #1… ethnic food! Restaurants specialize in Mexican, Indian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese, Jamaican, Cuban, Greek, Moroccan, French, Spanish, German, Belgian, Brazilian, Turkish, Malaysian, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Thai, Korean, Mongolian, Peruvian… And if you want to cook, local grocery stores sell all the exotic ingredients necessary to cook ethnic foods, too. (Although you should make your own paneer fresh; it’s quite easy and delicious!)

3. This one’s qualified: when it’s not (ahem) summer, the weather’s pretty friendly. You can play outside (whatever that may mean to you!) year-round here. The summers will challenge your tolerance for heat & humidity, but during the winter you’ll be happy to wear shorts.

4. What we call “culture” is well represented: we have world-class symphony, ballet, and theatre companies; Broadway comes through regularly; and your band of choice is likely to play here if they’re on tour. (And if not here, definitely Austin, which is just 2 1/2 hrs away.)

5. Memorial Park! Almost double the size of New York’s Central Park at 1500 acres, Memorial Park offers tennis, golf, road cycling, running, swimming pool, fitness center, mountain bike trails, an arboretum with nature and birdwatching tours, sports fields and playgrounds – and it’s central. I feel incredibly lucky to have a park of this caliber right smack in the middle of my hometown – which is why I give money to the Conservancy and volunteer there doing trail maintenance.

6. Strangely, the cycling scene. Despite (or perhaps in part because of?) our notorious reputation for unfriendliness to bicycles, we have a great local community. In 2007, I was in the unique position of at least peripherally knowing many different cycling circles: I worked in a bike shop and so knew customers who were roadies, mountain bikers, charity riders, even spin-class-takers; I raced road, track, and cyclocross; I was a commuter and a former bike messenger. When I had my bad wreck that year, an amazing variety of cyclists contacted me to show support in various ways. I’ve been a member of several really awesome teams. It’s an inspiring local scene.

7. Proximity to Mexico and Central America! This gives us great access to vacation spots – and means we have plenty of Mexican food here at home, yum.

8. Low cost of living (and cheap gas), especially when compared with other big international cities. Win-win. Unemployment stays relatively low here, too. I certainly count myself very lucky (although hopefully it wasn’t all luck) and grateful to have gotten a great job right out of grad school in the fabulous economy of 2008.

9. There’s a beach nearby! I can’t imagine being one of those millions of people who live hours upon hours away from the nearest ocean – and they make up most of our country’s population. I like to be near the sea.

10. It’s in Texas. 🙂

What about you? What do you love about YOUR hometown?

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One Book…

Posted on October 28, 2011 by pagesofjulia

Hey Simon, look at you with your successful meme! 🙂 Thanks for doing this one again. I agree with you that is was great last time around (Simon’s post; my post) and I can’t resist playing along, again.

Simon from Stuck in a Book has posted another round of One Book, Two Book, Three Book, Four… and Five, in which he lists his current reading, with pictures. Go check him out. And, here’s mine:

The book I’m currently reading is Louise Erdrich’s Love Medicine. This was a recommendation from my aunt Laura several years ago. I bet she thought I forgot, but I didn’t! It’s been on my shelf and I have finally picked it up, prompted by the Where Are You Reading? Challenge. It’s set in North Dakota, and it’s about an extended family of Native Americans. I’m enjoying it.

And, on audio, I’m currently “reading” Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood. It’s fairly thought-provoking. I’m glad to be revisiting Atwood; she’s so talented and always makes me think. This one is a bit creepy but oh so delightful, too. It’s speculative fiction set in some unknown future, after the “waterless flood” which has wiped most of the population off the earth, it seems, combined with flashbacks into a dystopic world ruled by corporations.

The last book I finished was The Story of Beautiful Girl by Rachel Simon, and it was so beautiful. (My review should be up next week.) I highly recommend it.

The next book I want to read is definitely We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson. I’ve been hearing about this one for so long! And I finally got my hands on a copy! I don’t usually participate in the reading of spooky books for Halloween, but just by coincidence, I have this one packed in my bag for our weekend trip. (I’m very excited: we’re off to a 6-hour mountain bike race near Dallas, leaving tonight!)

And along the same lines, I’ve picked out a few audiobooks for the drive, including James Lee Burke’s Bitterroot (love Burke, haven’t read this one yet), Grisham’s The Appeal (why not, Grisham is solid if predictable), and Ken Follett’s Hornet Flight (have never read him, this will be a first try) but – back to the spooky theme – also including Stephen King’s Stationary Bike. There is a joke in there somewhere about the bike being the evil force in this story, and us driving towards a bike race. 🙂 This will be only my second Stephen King experience, the first being From a Buick 8, in which the car was the bad guy. Is this a coincidence? Or is Stephen King all about transportation-as-evil?

The last book I bought was, oh heck, I don’t buy books very often (working in a library is the best!). I think the last books I purchased were the four memoirs relating to Hemingway that I mentioned here. They were: Papa: A Personal Memoir by his son Gregory (Gigi), With Hemingway by Arnold Samuelson (“the Maestro”), Papa Hemingway by longtime friend A.E. Hotchner, and Running with the Bulls: My Years with the Hemingways by Valerie Hemingway, Gregory’s ex-wife (who was originally a secretary or assistant to Papa).

The last book I was given would also be a list of several, and as usual came from my good buddy Fil. (Fil, you’re a doll. They’re still on the shelf.) I’ll Gather My Geese by Hallie Crawford Stillwell is a memoir of a young woman in the early 1900’s who left home to travel west, into deep west Texas desert of Big Bend country, and had all kinds of adventures. Fil knows and shares my interest in and love of this area, which I’ve mentioned before.

He also brought my The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros (I should have read this already! but I haven’t) and The Road to Wellville by T.C. Boyle. And, he brought the Husband Spokesongs: Bicycle Adventures on Three Continents by Willie Weir, about bicycle touring. We’re interested in doing some touring – particularly, in Husband’s case, off-road touring, and self-supported. So far my experience is mostly supported, or just 2-3 days self-supported, but in fact next weekend we’ll be riding out to camp at a state park near the coast, so there you go. 🙂

Thanks, Fil! And thanks, Simon, for putting this together again!

EDIT: And oh heck, I just remembered, I have been gifted a book since those (but I’m leaving them up for your perusal!): my parents came home from France with some delicious delectable macaroons for us, and a copy of Hemingway on Paris for me. Yum, and yum. 🙂 Thanks, parents!

Filed under: book reviews | Tagged: , | 7 Comments »

a couple links for your Friday

Posted on October 7, 2011 by pagesofjulia

If you have a few minutes to kill today… more lists.

10 Poems Everyone Needs to Read from Flavorwire includes the actual text of each poem – no epics here, although I DO recommend the Odyssey. You can read all in just a minute or two with the exception of the Ginsberg. I am not particularly good with poetry, myself – loved Shel Silverstein as a child, and Homer a little later, and not much else. (Stein’s Tender Buttons tried to kill me.) But I try to keep an open mind. I like what little e.e. cummings and Silvia Plath I know, and Maya Angelou. (All three are represented here.) And I can say, as someone who finds poetry difficult, that this list is worthwhile.

Affairs in Literature: The 11 Most Unfaithful Protagonists in Books from Huffington Post (I love how Huff Post rebels against the classic “top ten”!) contains the two predictable ladies that came first to my mind: those of Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Madame Bovary. Go find out who the rest were, too. (Head’s up to the library patron who had JUST come in to discuss Rick Moody with me moments before I came across this list.)

Happy Friday!

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