A Year In Review

It's that time again, time to look back an revel in all the books I got read and weep over the size of my TBR pile (which only seems to grow, never shrink).  Here are my favorite books I blogged about this year, one for every month.  Enjoy!

The Lost Ones

This book was not only a perfect winter read, but really rekindled my sense of adventure.  After reading this book, I wanted to pack my bag and try and find the unknown.

Sabriel

This is one of those books that got read at the exact perfect time, making what was already a great book awesome!

Wings of Fire

Dragons!  I love dragons!  This book was full of dragons and awesome stories and great authors and just all around magnificent.

Chrestomanci Volume 1

  Magic, alternate worlds, sibling rivalries, it's all so wonderful.  Set it in an alternate English manor and this is a perfect spring read.

More Than This

This book was equal parts disturbing, frustrating, thought provoking and ambiguous.  Read while in between calls, this twisty little number stayed in my head for a long time.

Court Duel

Court intrigue, intricate plots, a secret admirer and niceness actually having a positive affect, I keep coming back to this book.

Grave Mercy

This book drove me crazy AND was surprisingly good all at the same time.

Prospero's Children

This book is why I love reading.  It took me far away and yet felt familiar all at the same time, instant love my friends.

The Lives of Tao

Everything I want in a book is here, a plot that keeps pace and makes sense, characters that are actually true to themselves and an alien who rocks!

The Martian

I LOVE THIS BOOK!  It is one of my new favorites AND may be the best book I read this year...go read it right now.

Victoria's Book of Spells

An era I adore, a place I love, atmosphere perfection, great book.

The Stupidest Angel

In case anybody was wondering how my holidays went :-)  This was fun and irreverent and suited my mood this year exactly.

I read a ton of great books this year, and these are just a few of my faves.  What was your favorites of the year?  Happy Reading Everybody!

Opening Line

Hello all, during a conversation with one of my friends I was reminded how much I adore the opening line of Moby Dick "Call me Ishmael".  So simple, so effective, so perfect.  Here are some other opening lines that I personally find perfect for their books.

"There was a boy named Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it." C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

"When Mr. Bilbo Baggins of Bag End announced that he would shortly be celebrating his eleventy-first birthday with a party of special magnificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton." J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Mr. and Mrs. Dursley of number four, Privet Drive, were proud to say that they were perfectly normal, thank you very much.” J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Philosophers Stone

"This is my favorite book in all the world, though I have never read it."  William Golding The Princess Bride

"Marley was dead to begin with" Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

" It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

"Some people would say it's a bad idea to bring a fire-spider into a public library." Jim C. Hines, Libriomancer

"I am a coward" Elizabeth Wein, Code Name Verity

"Not every thirteen year old girl is accused of murder, brought to trial and found guilty."  Avi, The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle

"They murdered him."  Robert Cromier, The Chocolate War

"No live organism can continue for long to exist sanely under conditions of absolute reality; even larks and katydids are supposed, by some, to dream."  Shirley Jackson, The Haunting of Hill House

"There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife."  Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

"If you are interested in stories with happy endings, you would be better off reading some other book." Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning

"I was born with a light covering of fur" Justine Larbalestier, Liar

Openings like these, grab my attention and I feel set the perfect tone for the books.  There are many other awesome lines I am sure I don't have up here, but that will just mean another post :-)  What is your favorite opening line?  Happy Reading Everybody! 

Wordle Roundup

Hello, happy last day of the year to you all.  I always like to take today to look back over the year and reflect on everything that happened both big and small.  I also like to look back over my blog and see which books I rambled on about.  This year I have chosen my favorite one from each of the last twelve months and put it into wordle form, just for something a bit different.  Let me know what you think :-)

January

A Wizard of Earthsea

I loved this book because it hit all my happy spots and started me on a new series, which has not happened in a very long time.

February

Saga Vol 1

A family of fairies and badasses, showing that Mamma's are always gonna win...even when nursing.  We need more stories like this that combine family life and...well...having a life

March

A Different Girl

I liked this book because it made me look at normal, every day things from a completely different perspective.  It was different, just like it's title.

April

Midnight-Bluelight Special

The second book in the InCryptid series cemented my love for Verity and her entire family.  I love it when the second book lives up to the first

May

Isaac Asimov's Faeries

An old school collection of old school style fairy tales.  I loved the variety and the feel of the stories in this lovely collection

June

In the Serpent's Shadow

A book that successfully combines healing, magic, animals, fairy tales, and women's rights is a rare one and should be treasured...even more so when it's a series!

July

Ancillary Justice

I love a book that makes you think, and this book made me think about a huge number of things.  The plot was a bit convoluted, but it stayed in my brain for a long time after reading it.

August

The Bards of Bone Plain

This book was sheer and utter magic.  It was like reading a song, or a piece of art, or a wonderful piece of food...it was lovely.

September

Clockwork Fairy Tales

Fairy tales, steampunk, creativity, traditionalism, actual world building so much cool stuff, crammed into these amazing short stories, definitely worth the read.

October

The Girl Who Soared Over Fairyland and Cut the Moon in Two

While not as amazingly awesome as the first two, this third book in the series holds it's own and still kindles that feeling of being in a place full of magic and wonder.

November

The Paper Magician

I love a story that creates magic out of the ordinary.  This book does it twice, once with paper and once with an actual beating heart.

December

The Thirteen Days of Christmas

This was a doubly cool read as I had been searching for it so long, it's mere presence was like a present.  When it was as fun as I remembered I knew it had to make the list.

Well there it is folks, my list of monthly favorites.  I hope you have enjoyed this year as much as I have, and look forward to a new year with excitement.  Tomorrow I will drag my slightly hung over self out of bed and try and get up my book resolutions.  Until then, tell me what awesome new (or old) books you have read this year.  Happy Reading Everybody!

Velocipedes and A Wyverary

I am so excited people, I have found a new book to place on my shelf of favorites!!!!   I had high hopes for this book, but was a little nervous that it could not live up to my lofty expectations, but my faith was rewarded and my this little book soared into my heart.  What is this gem of which I speak?  It is a middle grade book called The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making by Catherynne M. Valente.  Just a quick heads up, this is gonna be even more rambley than usual 'cause this book makes me so happy/squealy.  I think it was the title that first caught my interest, I love big huge long title, they make me smile and of course fairyland being mentioned in the title put it smack dab in the middle of my radar.  This is a book I really wanted to buy in book form instead of electronic form, it is an example of why I hope book printing will never totally go away, this would have been fine to read electronically, but part of the appeal of it was it's sheer bookyness (yes that is to a word).  There are amazing illustrations at the beginning of each chapter that add a great ambiance to the book, they are very whimsical and my nephews loved looking at them asking me over and over to flip through the pages with them.

Ok on to the story itself.  The story is a very straightforward simple classic one, a girl from our world is whisked of to fairyland to defeat the evil queen and bring happiness back to the land.  This is pretty much standard for any run of the mill story, but it's the way in which this adventure is written that makes it so amazing!  To me the best part of the writing is the words, oh all of the amazing words the author manages to cram into this small book!  It is written for grades 4-8, but the author does not simplify at all, in fact one of my favorite quotes in this book sums it up nicely “... but as has been said, September read often, and liked it best when words did not pretend to be simple, but put on their full armor and rode out with colors flying."  I love love love love love love all of the amazing words in this book! The book actually has a little bit of The Phantom Tollbooth feel to it with all of the awesome wordage and the journey through crazy cool places. Another cool thing in the book is the names, our heroine's name is September (which while not quit as good as October is still a kick-ass name)  she meets a friend the blue Saturday, a dragon who is really a wyvern with a library for a father who is named A through L and the missing queen Mallow.

Our intrepid September, travels to Fairyland where she encounters a city made entirely of cloth, rides a herd of wild velocipedes, stays in the most amazing land of Autumn and takes a ship of her own making out on the Perverse and Perilous Sea.  She meets all kinds of strange and wonderful creatures, including her own death a Gleam a lamp of 112 years.  She eventually succeeds in her quest after much angst and heartache and is rewarded by the promise she can return to Fairyland every year.
You have to read this book, I don't know what else to say about this wonderfully delightful book so I will leave you with a few more of my favorite quotes.

“She sounds like someone who spends a lot of time in libraries, which are the best sorts of people.”

“Stories have a way of changing faces. They are unruly things, undisciplined, given to delinquency and the throwing of erasers. This is why we must close them up into thick, solid books, so they cannot get out and cause trouble.” 

“I'm not lost, because I haven't any idea where to go that I might get lost on the way to. I'd like to get lost, because then I'd know where I was going, you see.” 

Do you love this book as much as I do?  Do you want to go buy and orange dress and a green coat?  Do you like when an author does not sugar coat and simplify things just because they are writing for the younger crowd?

Simply Enchanting

On a high school trip a long long long time ago I ran out of books to read, anybody who has been anywhere near me without some sort of reading material knows that this is just a disaster in the making.  So a huge search was sent out for a literary distraction resulting in a book that would become one of my all time favorites, Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. 

This book was my first full blown introduction to world of retold fairytales and it was wonderful! 

The story keeps all of the elements of the beloved Cinderella story, the dead beloved mother, fairy godmother, glass slippers, wicked stepmother, evil stepsisters, a midnight spell and of course the glass slippers.  While keeping all of the elements Ms. Levine completely recreates the world, situations, and characters in the book.  Ella (the main character) and Prince Char actually meet, know each other and fall in love through out the whole book, giving some actual plausibility to there happy ending which is always a sticking point in the old fairy tales (True lasting love at first sight...really?!?)  Ella's fairy godmother is also with her the whole time, making the reasoning behind the magical help also more realistic (at least as realistic as a magic fairy godmother gets).  This re-telling also involves ogres, giants, elves and an exceptionally bossy parrot.  The element that really ties it all together for me is the curse our heroine has been put under.  When she was born another fairy

heard her crying and gave her the "gift" of obedience and immediately ordered her to stop crying.  This "gift" had the effect of forcing Ella to obey any order or command given to her.  This leads to some very hilarious and tragic consequences and again goes a long way in making our feisty protagonist plausible (I'm using that word a lot, sorry to lazy to pull out my thesaurus)  I really like it when an author at least makes an attempt to explain some of the more bizarre aspects that are usually needed to get a story moving.  In the end Ella has her happily ever after, which is how it should be.  I really loved this book and have read it many many many times, in fact I've gone through about three copies of it :-)  If you like traditional fairytales, humor, retellings, or just a nice light read then go get this book!  There is a movie which I was very excited about 'cause I think this is a very filmable book and the cast was amazing (Hello Cary Elwes!) but I have to say I hated the movie, in fact if they hadn't called it Ella Enchanted I wouldn't have even known that is what it was supposed to be BLECH!  Anyways I give this book 10 out of 10 pieces of Godiva chocolate.

Do you think this book did a good job retelling Cinderella?  Was the movie as awful as I think it was?  Does my mixing of tenses mean I should go back to grade school English?

Favorite Books

To start with I thought I would list my favorite books.  Hmm this is harder then I thought, because I have ALOT of favortite books, it all depends on the season, mood, recent conversation.  So to narrow it down I have picked the
Books I would take with me if I got to colonize a planet and had only a backpack to take books with me:
Bible (NIV version)
The Chronicles of Narnia (First books I read growing up!)
Little House on the Prarie series (First memory of reading with Mamma!)
The Lord of the Rings (Hopefully I can find space to squeeze in the Hobbit)
Harry Potter series (Hey it's a really big backpack!)
Dragon Harper Trilogy (First books I discovered on my own)
Ella Enchanted  (Even though I pretty much have it memorized)

These are my pretty much can't live without books. I have many other "favorites", but they all come with qualifiers so I will talk about them later.  What would you pack in your "never return to Earth again backpack"?